"Defect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... way of laying the foundation in the individual as by the more tedious process of evolution she laid it in the race. The mental development of the normal infant is indicated by the increasing accuracy and delicacy of muscular coordination. The feeble-minded child very early shows its mental defect in the clumsy use of its muscles. Because of the functional relation of the voluntary muscles and the mentality, physical training is in a large degree mental training. When by such training we give dexterity to muscles of the growing person we are making possible better ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... and the common Ministry of Austria-Hungary is responsible to the Delegations. This is true; but these exceptions are precisely of the class which prove the rule which they are cited to invalidate. The Cabinet system of the Dominion is a defect in the Canadian Constitution, and could not work were not Canada, by its position as a dependency, under the guidance of a power beyond the reach of the Dominion Parliament. What may be the real responsibility ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... inventor. "We'll, we'll have to wait and see." He was busy now, going over every detail of the Humming-Bird. Mr. Damon helped him, and they discovered the defect in the equilibrium weights, ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... readily explaining the method used in this species of experiment, which was first conceived by Mr de la Place. It would be difficult to procure such spheres of ices and inconvenient to make use of them when got; but, by means of the following apparatus, we have remedied that defect. I acknowledge the name of Calorimeter, which I have given it, as derived partly from Greek and partly from Latin, is in some degree open to criticism; but, in matters of science, a slight deviation from strict etymology, for the sake of giving distinctness of idea, is excusable; ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... cause of miscarriage consists in abnormalities in the lining of the uterus. Through inherent defect or acquired disease this tissue may become unsuited for anchoring or nourishing an ovum. In either event, a surgical procedure, known as curettage, affords the most likely means of restoring it to a healthful state. The operation removes the ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... Plates. If one cell of a battery has an internal short circuit, or some other defect which causes it to lose its charge, the cell will be discharged before the others which are in series with it, and when this cell is completely discharged, the other cells will send a current through ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... which Comedy possesses from liberty of invention, and correcting thereby the inequalities of life; and having also the additional fault of laying its scenes for the most part in a foreign country. The characters of Tragedy are always selected from high life; here is a great defect, for it is by no means a true observation, that men are inclined greatly to pity the misfortunes of their superiors; on the contrary, they are secretly rejoiced at seeing them fall from a situation so much above their own; whereas they sympathize more with their equals, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... women), if they happened to be walking behind her. When they quickened their steps, and, passing on, looked back at her face, they lost all interest in Fanny from that moment. Painters would have described the defect in her face as "want of colour." She was one of the whitest of fair female human beings. Light flaxen hair, faint blue eyes with no expression in them, and a complexion which looked as if it had never been stirred by a circulation of ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... sent, but had not time? If such there be, I promise, by long love And perfect friendship, by all trust that comes Of understanding, that I will not fail, No, nor delay to find it. O, my heart Will often pain me as for some strange fault,— Some grave defect in nature,—when I think How I, delighted, 'neath those olive-trees, Moved to the music of the tideless main, While, with sore weeping, in an island home They laid that much-loved head beneath the sod, And ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... contain four times as many students as the total membership of St. George's Hall. Instinctively he searched his mind for an explanation of this lack of growth in an institution that numbered nearly one hundred years of life. What was the defect? Where was the remedy? He jumped at once to the conclusion that both were discoverable, and dimly foresaw that the discovery might ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... affairs. I rather guess, the intellect of the Nineteenth Century, so full of miracle to Heavyside and others, is itself a mechanical or beaver intellect rather than a high or eminently human one. A dim and mean though authentic kind of intellect, this; venerable only in defect of better. This kind will avail but little in the higher enterprises of human intellect, especially in that highest enterprise of guiding men Heavenward, which, after all, is the one real "governing" of them on this God's-Earth:—an enterprise ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... writers on the Hebrew worship and ritual tells us that it was the custom for the priest to whom the service pertained, having selected a lamb from the flock, to inspect it with the most minute scrutiny, in order to discover if it was without physical defect, and then to seal it with the temple seal, thus certifying that it was fit for sacrifice and for food. Behold the Lamb of God presenting himself for inspection at the Jordan! Under the Father's omniscient scrutiny he is found to be "a lamb without blemish and without spot." From the opening ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... acted in that belief, however much he may have been deceived by appearances. He found, as all students in astrology find, that every horoscope enabled him to foretel with precision a certain number of events; and, if his prognostics failed in some cases, he ascribed the failure to no defect of his celestial intelligencers, but to the errors or short-sightedness of his art. Good, and even wise men have, in all ages, been deceived by the same appearances. They found that the planets foretold some events; they thence inferred ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... by Christians: But in the North are sauages altogether harmelesse. Touching the commodities of this countrie, seruing either for sustentation of inhabitants, or for maintenance of traffique, there are and may be made diuers: so that it seemeth Nature hath recompenced that only defect and incommodities of some sharpe cold, by many benefits: [Sidenote: Fish of sea and fresh water.] viz. With incredible quantitie, and no lesse varietie of kindes of fish in the sea and fresh waters, as Trouts, Salmons, and other fish to vs vnknowen: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... low voice. "I have thought sometimes that you, and my mother, and men like my father and Mr. Pascal, felt but little of the inward strength of sin. Your lives stand out so clear and true. If there is a stain upon them it is so slight, so plainly a defect of the physical nature, that it often seems to me you do ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... the hollowed trunks of trees, are not only liable to be driven ashore by the slightest storm, but are so small that there is but little stowage-room in them for carrying supplies. The sailors, aware of this defect, fear to venture anywhere except on certain friendly beats, and therefore their boats were quite unfitted ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... inhabitants of those other countries. They fill up, in some measure, a very important void; and supply the place of the merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, whom the inhabitants of those countries ought to find at home, but whom, from some defect in their policy, they do not find ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... these four numbers a beauty and grace of language and sentiment, and not seldom a vigour of conception, altogether above the common run. Want of purpose may be easily charged against them as a fault, and with some justice, but it is a very common defect of youthful poetry, which is sure to disappear with time if there be anything real and manly in the poet. The best pieces are too long to extracted in entire, and are not to be judged of fairly except ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... in women, is present in three or four percent of men. It is not a disease, not curable, not corrected by training, and not associated with any other defect of the eye, or of the brain. It is simply a native peculiarity of the color sense. Careful study shows that the only color sensations of the red-green blind person are blue and yellow, along with white, black and ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... thrown upon the world. The eldest, who had been educated for the Church, first came to Canada in the hope of getting some professorship in the college, or of opening a classical school. He was a handsome, gentlemanly, well-educated young man, but constitutionally indolent—a natural defect which seemed common to all the males of the family, and which was sufficiently indicated by their soft, silky, fair hair and milky complexions. R—- had the good sense to perceive that Canada was not the country ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... animal economy. He had a good knowledge of obstetric operations. His ideas in relation to pathology did not proceed much further than the belief that disease was due to corruption of the humors. He was more scientific and accurate when he taught that paralysis results from a defect in ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... BRIDEGROOM): I require and charge both of you, as ye will answer in the dreadful hour of autopsy, when the secrets of all lives shall be disclosed, that if either of you know of any lesion, infection, malaise, congenital defect, hereditary taint or other impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in eugenic matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured that if any persons are joined together otherwise than ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... those single liquid ones that are applied to domestic lighting, all present the grave defect of consuming almost as much zinc in open as in closed circuit, and of becoming rapidly exhausted if care be not taken to remove the zinc from the liquid when the battery is not in use. This operation, which is a purely mechanical one, has ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... at first sight seemed promising. But in Lincoln's eyes it had this great defect: during the time McClellan was moving round by water and disembarking his troops—and this, so few were the transports, would take at least a month—Johnston might make a dash at Washington. The city had been fortified. A cordon of detached ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Nevertheless, I had scarce began to frame the Oven of the Mine, when those within the Town desir'd to capitulate. This being all we could aim at, under the Miscarriage of our Powder at St. Jago (none being yet arriv'd to supply that Defect) Articles were readily granted them; pursuant to which, that Part of the Garrison, which was compos'd of Castilian Gentry, had Liberty to go wherever they thought best, and the rest were made Prisoners of War. Requina being thus reduc'd to the Obedience of Charles ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... the absence in the tropic forests of such grand masses of colour as are supplied by a heather moor, a furze or broom-croft, a field of yellow charlock, blue bugloss, or scarlet poppy. Tropic landscape gardening will supply that defect; and a hundred plants of yellow Allamanda, or purple Dolichos, or blue Clitoria, or crimson Norantea, set side by side, as we might use a hundred Calceolarias or Geraniums, will carry up the forest walls, and over the tree-tops, not square yards, but I had almost said square acres ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... had now been attained, there was still an important defect to be remedied, namely, the impediment to speed and to evolution under sail presented by the dragging propeller; which was accomplished by the invention of the "trunk" or "well," into which the propeller ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... before the great white men of Ohio began to be born here, but in the meanwhile there were those born elsewhere who, like General Harrison, became Ohioans, and so did what they could to repair the defect of birth. There is no reason to think that such men were shaped by Ohio influences, but it is the habit of our generous Ohio state patriotism to claim as Ohioans not only those who were born here, and those who came to live here, but those ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... touch. This form of hernia is named congenital, since it occurs in the same condition of the parts as is found in congenital hydrocele—viz., the inguinal ring remaining unclosed. It may occur at any period of life, so long as the original congenital defect remains. It may be distinguished from hydrocele by its want of transparency and fluctuation. The impulse which is communicated to the hand applied to the scrotum of a person affected with scrotal hernia, when he is made to cough, is also felt in the case of congenital hydrocele. ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... simply, is that the quarter-deck training does not prepare one sufficiently for the reception of literary criticism. Only that, and no more. But this defect is not without gravity. If it be permissible to twist, invert, adapt (and spoil) Mr. Anatole France's definition of a good critic, then let us say that the good author is he who contemplates without marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul among ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... between the body and the front of the general mass of the building. The outer enclosure was now too large for the earlier pylons, and did not properly accord with the later ones. Amenhotep III. corrected this defect. He erected a sixth and yet more massive pylon, which was, therefore, better suited for the facade. As it now stood (fig. 84), the temple surpassed even the boldest architectural enterprises hitherto attempted; but the Pharaohs of the Nineteenth Dynasty succeeded in ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... of a different kind of snobbishness—the middle-class professional snobbishness, which pays an undue regard to success, and gravitates to effective and distinguished people. As the friendship matured, each became unpleasantly conscious of the other's defect, while remaining unconscious of his own. The result was a perpetual little friction on the point. If both could have been perfectly sincere, and could have confessed their weakness frankly, no harm would have been done. But each was so sincerely anxious to present an ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... legal mind is not a bad fault at the worst, and the quality in which this defect inheres is of the greatest moment in any project of constructive engineering on the legal and political plane. But it is less to the purpose, indeed it is at cross purposes, in such a conjuncture as the present; when the nations are held up in their quest of peace chiefly ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... the well-preserved veteran. Unfortunately, it betrays also the tendency to tediousness which belongs to a revered epoch, much of it, being devoted to persons and things seen only from a distance and without the powers of vision requisite for penetrating their true character. But, in spite of this defect, the book is exceedingly readable and enjoyable, and we trust to have a continuation of it which may show a restraining influence exercised with kindness and tact, such as were so often exerted by the author for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... indigenous in this region, and old stone fences could be had for the asking, I should like to use them, but they are not. It is also evident that she did not penetrate far into the interior of the house or she would have discovered an unpardonable defect—the absence of 'back' stairs. I do not think it very serious in such a plan, where the one flight is near the centre of the house and is not very conspicuous, but Aunt Melville would lie awake nights if she knew there were no back stairs ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... usually see what they want to see, what they are predisposed to see. Witnesses in court, testifying upon oath concerning an accident, usually produce as many different versions as there are pairs of eyes. Books upon psychology report many enlightening and amusing cases of this defect of accurate observation ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... magic, and all whose windows were set in precious stones, but there was one window that remained unadorned, and that spoiled all for the owner. His palace was full of treasures, but an enemy looked on all the wealth and suggested a previously unnoticed defect by saying, 'You have not a roc's egg.' He had never thought about getting a roc's egg, and did not know what it was. But the consciousness of something lacking had been roused, and it marred his enjoyment of what he had and drove him to set out on his travels to secure the missing thing. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... be just what you were before. Do you still say, as you said to Robbie in your answer, that I "attribute unworthy motives" to you? Ah! you had no motives in life. You had appetites merely. A motive is an intellectual aim. That you were "very young" when our friendship began? Your defect was not that you knew so little about life, but that you knew so much. The morning dawn of boyhood with its delicate bloom, its clear pure light, its joy of innocence and expectation, you had left far behind you. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... buildings annexed from time to time, so plain that they are no disfigurement, the College stands as it stood three centuries ago. Mr Andrew Lang has remarked that it is "the only College in Oxford which has not been fiddled with"; this is high praise, and gratefully accepted. One defect the College has: the resources of the Founders sufficed to build only one quadrangle; they had not counted the cost of the stately Chapel and Hall, and little was left for College rooms. When will our benefactor come? But it would be ungracious in Wadham men ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... deceived by a child, but there were others on which everyone valued his opinion. His father certainly deferred to him in anything connected with the live stock, and when Peter had discovered a grave defect in the colt he did not dream of disputing it. So Lilac's feeling of pity began to change into something like respect, and she was sure too that Peter was anxious to show her kindness, though the expression of it was difficult to him. Since the day when he had ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... of civilization and the mechanical arts, the Egyptians had attained high perfection. Their machinery and tools appear to have been defective, but the defect was supplied by skill of hand, traditional and acquired, as it is among the Chinese. They were cunning workmen in metals, in jewelry, in engravings, in enamel, in glass, in porcelain, and in pottery. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... him on farther and farther from man to God, from human defect to the Eternal Perfectness. Never once during those hours did Elsmere's hand fail to perform its needed service to the faint sleeper beside him, and yet that night was one long dream and strangeness to him, nothing real anywhere but consciousness, and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is charming," exclaimed Paganel, "a thousand times too charming, and if I must tell you all, she would please me better if she were less so. I wish she had a defect!" ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... alone are able to form men to think always consistently. He never had time to learn them of himself, because he was prevented from his youth, by the great affairs that fell unexpectedly to his share, and by the continual success he met with. This defect in him was the cause, that with the soul in the world the least inclined to evil, he has committed injuries; that with the heart of an Alexander, he has, like him, had his failings; that with a wonderful understanding, he has acted imprudently; that ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Historians where he says, "One may cover over secret actions, but to be silent on what all the world knows, and things which have had effects which are public and of so much consequence is an inexcusable defect." ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... a vote in the Assembly February 11 and passed. A defect was then discovered in the title and it was voted on again February 19, receiving 46 ayes, 29 noes. In the Senate it met with many vicissitudes which need not be recounted, as it eventually failed ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... special customers who could say what they wanted, and forgot all about the 95 per cent. who just bought without making any fuss. No business can improve unless it pays the closest possible attention to complaints and suggestions. If there is any defect in service then that must be instantly and rigorously investigated, but when the suggestion is only as to style, one has to make sure whether it is not merely a personal whim that is being voiced. Salesmen always want to cater to whims instead of acquiring ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... dwelt on the burden which Britain bore alone and the urgent need that Canada should take a more adequate part in naval defence. He opposed strongly the policy of a fixed annual contribution. The certainty of constant friction over the amount, the smack of tribute, the radical defect that it meant hiring somebody else to do what Canadians themselves ought to do, the failure of such a plan to strike any roots, were fatal objections. A Canadian Naval Service was the only possible solution, though for himself he would agree to vote a Dreadnought as {306} ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... once he sat like a lump, with everyone staring at him, when the chairman of the architects' convention asked if Mr. Medcroft had anything to say on the subject under discussion. He was forced, in some confusion, to attribute his heedlessness to a life-long defect in hearing. Thereafter it was his punishment to have his name and fragments of conversation hurled about in tones so stentorian that he blushed for very shame. In the Bristol, in the Kaerntner-Ring, in the Lichtenstein ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... surgeon, I'll admit, but my face is no more repellent than my cowardly nature. Miss Beth, I hate myself for my cowardice far more than I detest my ghastly countenance. Yet I am powerless to remedy either defect." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... small. Believe me, the tourist looked much smaller. There is indeed another type of traveller, who is not at all small in the moral mental sense, who will confess such disappointments quite honestly, as a piece of realism about his own sensations. In that case he generally suffers from the defect of most realists; that of not being realistic enough. He does not really think out his own impressions thoroughly; or he would generally find they are not so disappointing after all. A humorous soldier told me that he came from Derbyshire, ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... supply of milk, although at first abundant, yet in the course of a few weeks undergoes so considerable a diminution as to become altogether insufficient for the child's support; while in other cases, although its quantity continues undiminished, yet from some defect in its quality it does not furnish the infant with proper nutriment. Cases of the former kind are not unusual in young, tolerably healthy, but not robust women; while instances of the latter are met ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... foreign historiographers alone, but now that the materials have been brought to light there is no insuperable difficulty in making them available for purposes of joint interpretation. That is all I have attempted to do in these pages, and I beg to solicit pardon for any defect they ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... reckoning. He played, she thought, more by the touch than the eye, often feeling the head of a piece to satisfy himself whether it had the king's crown or the queen's round head, the bishop's mitre or the knight's ears, but he was so quick and ready that it was impossible to tell how far the defect of sight went, and she could not bear to ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... entering," said she. "Do not blame the men; they did not want to use force against a woman." She had not a good voice and she knew it; but she covered up this defect by a choice of intonations that carried her lightest speech to the heart. Hard-visaged Amos Fenton gave a grunt, which was as near an expression of approval as ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... predecessors, nor was William asked, by the Bill of Rights, to recognize any of the existing titles. This anomalous state of things was met in degree by the statute of prescriptions, but even this did not entirely cure the defect in the titles to the principal estates in the Kingdom. The English tenants in decapitating one landlord and expelling another, appear to have destroyed their titles, and then endeavored to renew them by prescriptive right; ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... serrated wheel F, of hardened steel, driving the second sweep hand, is cut on the edge with 120 serrations; stopping of this hand therefore is only to the nearest half second regardless of how minutely the escapement is dividing time. This is rather a serious defect as, if timing a horse race as an example, the time of the fastest horse is taken on this hand which registers a lesser degree of accuracy than the time recorded on the second and less important horse. ...
— The Auburndale Watch Company - First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch • Edwin A. Battison
... peril of American life. It is the gory horn of the snapdragon. Added to our genius for boastfulness and impiety, it is a crowning defect. Ye would think that our chief aim was the cuspidor. Showers of expectoration and thunder claps o' profanity and braggart gales o' Yankee dialect!—that's the moral weather report that she sends back to England. We have faults enough, God knows, ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... a small defect in the copies, which describe the wild beasts which were hunted in a certain country by Herod, without naming any such ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... you have in your study a picture by Raphael that you consider perfect. Let us say that upon a close examination you discover in one of the figures a gross defect of design, a limb distorted, or a muscle that belies nature, such as has been discovered, they say, in one of the arms of an antique gladiator. You would experience a feeling of displeasure, but you would not throw that picture in the fire; you would merely say that it is not perfect, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... intended as a jest, and got myself exiled for my pains. But I saw my error. I overcame my vanity, and I obtained my recall, by making the amende honorable, and by promising myself to overcome this defect; and the consequence is, that I am so thoroughly cured, that I now laugh at the very thing which, three or four days ago, would have almost broken my heart. But Raoul is in love, and is loved in return; he cannot laugh ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her owne censure damn'd to cruell death, And in her sight bereft of vitall breath. When she awak't, as long she had not slept, She wept amaine, yet knew not why she wept: For as before her heart was whole and sound, And no defect about her could be found, She dreamt she hurt, no hurt could she discouer, Wherefore she went to seeke her ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... at him out of the corner of her eye; she did not notice this defect in him, for her he was a splendid male, with a delightful quality of savagery in love which she had found in no other man except Verisschenzko—Verisschenzko! Her thoughts hesitated when they came to him—Verisschenzko was adorable, but he was a man to be feared—much ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... together the few fragments of teeth which still remained, or to speak a whole sentence in an intelligible voice. Eating and talking, occupations to which he was always much addicted, were becoming daily more arduous in consequence of this original defect; which now seemed hardly human, but ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... never seeks his own disgrace; He knows the compass, sail, and oar, Or never launches from the shore; Before he builds, computes the cost; And in no proud pursuit is lost: 10 He learns the bounds of human sense, And safely walks within the fence. Thus, conscious of his own defect, Are pride and self-importance check'd. If then, self-knowledge to pursue, Direct our life in every view, Of all the fools that pride can boast, A coxcomb claims distinction most. Coxcombs are of ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... answered gravely. "The details, though kept down as accessories to the whole, should yet be worked out so carefully as to possess individual merit of their own. I see, though; I see how to remedy the defect you have suggested. I can easily bring him out by darkening the shadows of the background. Then, this fairy at his elbow is paltry, and too near him besides. I shall paint her out altogether. She takes the eye off my principal figures, and ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... pronunciation, which was that of a stammerer, but also in the expression of his ideas, his thought and language—produced on the mind of the hearer the impression of a man who, in familiar phraseology, comes and goes, feels his way, tries everything, breaks off his gestures, and finishes nothing. This defect was purely superficial, and in contrast with the decisiveness of a firmly-set mouth, and the strongly-marked character of his physiognomy. His rather jerky gait matched his mode of speech. These peculiarities helped to affirm his supposed insanity. In spite of ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... unquestionable, and whose understanding is just and enlightened, allowed himself in conversation, to go too great lengths in blaming the first consul, before he could be at all certain of overthrowing him. It is a defect very natural to a generous mind to express its opinion, even inconsiderately; but General Moreau attracted too much the notice of Bonaparte, not to make such conduct the cause of his destruction. A pretext was wanting to justify the arrest of a man who had gained so many battles, and this pretext ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... published another defect in my knight, till I feared that it must be only my partial gaze that discerned a knight ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... fragments of teeth which still remained, or to speak a whole sentence in an intelligible voice. Eating and talking, occupations to which he was always much addicted, were becoming daily more arduous, in consequence of this original defect, which now seemed hardly human, but ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 7. The other defect, however, is of so grave a nature as, in the opinion of some, to more than outweigh their advantages; and this is, the terribly destructive effect upon them of the enemy's artillery fire, or of that of his sharpshooters; ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... this time acquired, enabled me to take vast pleasure in their society. Granted their sociological premises, based on Proudhon, they are too logical. The lack of imaginative power to break away from convention, their convention, is a serious defect in their character. They take their gospel of tuum est meum too seriously. I do not inordinately sympathise with people who get themselves hanged for a principle. And that is what my friend Mysdrizin did. An old lady of Prague, obstinate as the old sometimes are, on whom he called professionally, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... a mechanical defect of the calibration of the time-power carried the Ceres off its course, light years beyond the segment of the ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox
... a bridge, the poor little poet was overturned into the river, and he would have been drowned, had not the postilion broken the coach window and dragged the tiny body through the aperture. We mark, however, that he generally contrives to hide this defect, as he would fain have hidden every other, from the lynx eyes of Lady Mary, who knows him, however, thoroughly, and reads every line of that poor little heart of his, enamoured ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... from over-praising it," protested the shopman, "I was about to call your attention to a defect. It is useless as a ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... a form of jaundice caused by a defect in the development of the bile or gall tubes. These infants develop jaundice a day or two after birth and become intensely jaundiced within a very brief time. They lose flesh and strength to a marked degree and die in a few weeks. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... moulding carved, and every straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical subjects in relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and animals, with a variety of other things. The great exuberance of ornament is considered a defect, although when applied to some structures it is exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars architecture had a character of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in all the leading public buildings, columns generally forming ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... mental faculties; to daunt is to subject to a certain degree of fear. Embarrass is a strong word, signifying primarily hamper, hinder, impede. A solitary thinker may be confused by some difficulty in a subject, or some mental defect; one is embarrassed in the presence of others, and because of their presence. Confusion is of the intellect, embarrassment of the feelings. A witness may be embarrassed by annoying personalities, so as to become confused in statements. To mortify a person is to bring upon him a painful sense ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... addition to the regular squad or class work instructors should, when they notice a physical defect in any man, recommend some exercise which will tend to ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... obstinately persisted in to excite only ridicule. It was deplorable, upon the very verge of war, and incredible too, after all the warnings that had been had, that there should be among Englishmen such an utter absence of any desire to get accurate knowledge. In 1773 Franklin wrote: "The great defect here is, in all sorts of people, a want of attention to what passes in such remote countries as America; an unwillingness to read anything about them, if it appears a little lengthy; and a disposition to postpone a consideration even of the things which they know they must at last consider." ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... of him, when she came up to him and said, "Indeed the place is honoured and illumined by thy presence, O Sherkan! How didst thou pass the night, O hero, after we went away and left thee? Verily lying is a defect and a reproach in kings, especially in great kings; and thou art Sherkan, son of King Omar ben Ennuman; so henceforth tell me nought but truth and strive not to keep the secret of thy condition, for falsehood engenders hatred and enmity. The arrow of destiny hath fallen on thee, and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... husband's state of mind. She felt painfully the change in his manner, but failed in reaching the true cause. Sometimes she attributed his coldness to resentment; sometimes to defect of love; and sometimes to a settled determination on his part to inflict punishment. Sometimes she spent hours alone, weeping over these sad ruins of her peace, and sometimes, in a spirit of revolt, she laid down for herself a line of conduct intended to react against ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... feeleth alteration, motion, or change; but all things immutable, unsubject to passion, blest with eternal continuance in a life of the highest perfection, and of that complete abundant sufficiency within itself which no possibility of want, maim, or defect, can touch." ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... months he had made a special butt of a young cornet, who had recently joined the depot of the Dragoons. He was a pleasant lad, with plenty of spirit and pluck, but he had a slight impediment in his speech, although when giving the word of command he never hesitated. It was this defect that was the object of Captain Marshall's ill-natured remarks. The lad tried to laugh them off and to ignore the offensiveness of the tone, but he felt them deeply, and confided to Frank—to whom he had specially taken—that he could not ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... right any way you take it," laughed Dick. "Yes, George, your horse has no defect. You can always lead the charge on ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the brightness of flame, and took shape as a god of ripe age, of muscular form, of serious countenance, but lame. Why lame? Why this physical defect as a drawback to so much physical beauty and strength? A Frenchman, Emerie, suggests—"attendu la marche inegale et vacillante de la flamme." Certainly fire, as compared with water and air, is dependent on sustenance, as Heracleitus ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... also noteworthy that the expenditure of materials and labour is greater in proportion to the effect attained than in any other style. The pyramids are the most conspicuous example of this prodigality. Before condemning this as a defect in the style, it must be remembered that a stability which should defy enemies, earthquakes, and the tooth of time, was far more aimed at than architectural character; and that, had any mode of construction less lavish of material, and less perfect in workmanship, been adopted, ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... penall lawes looke to matters of fact and are made to punish for the present, and preuent in future, some wicked actions already committed. And therefore Solon the Athenian making statutes for the setling of that Common-wealth, when a defect was found, that he omitted to prouide a cautelous restraint, and appoint[gg] answerable punishm[e]t for such who had killed their parents, answered, He neuer suspected there were or would be any such. Wherefore to confirme the position set downe, God doth not ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... think it over, my lad," O'Connor said seriously. "This is a serious defect in your character; and as your commanding officer I consider it my bounden duty, both for your sake and that of the regiment, to take it into serious consideration and see what is to be done. You may never have such a chance again ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... beauties, certainly; but we danced with them all the evening, changing every now and then for variety, though I had to look hard to make out which was my original partner, as I only knew them apart by the defect in their eyes. Dicky asked me if I didn't think them as pretty as Alice Marlow, at which I very nearly knocked him down in the ball-room. But he appeased me by assuring me with the greatest gravity, that he admired ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... in some particular," said Miss Du Prel. "She will not correspond exactly to anybody's theory or standard, not even her own. It is a defect which gives her character a quality of the unexpected, that has ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... in Holmes' armour as an enemy of society was a dangerous tendency to loquacity, the defect no doubt of his qualities of plausible and insinuating address ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... that will and made another. No change had occurred in his circumstances or in his intentions. The provisions of the new will were believed by him to be identical with those of the old one. The new will differed from the old one only in having a defect in the drafting from which the first will was free, and of which he must have been unaware. Now why did he revoke the first will and replace it with another which he believed to be identical in its provisions? There is no answer to that question. It is an abnormal feature in ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... comfortable proverb. Which would appear to be but another manner of declaring that the law of compensation works permanently in human affairs. All quantities, material and immaterial alike, are, of necessity, stable; therefore the loss or defect of one participant must—indirectly, no doubt, yet very surely—make for the gain of some other. As of old, so now, the blood of the martyrs is the seed ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... indeed, is part of this affection for the rational. It resulted in his failure to perceive how complex is the mass of motives imbedded in the political act. The significance of herd instinct and the vast primitive deeps of the unconscious were alike hidden from him. All this is of defect; and yet excusably. For it needed the demonstration by Darwin of the kinship of man and beast for us to see the real substance of Aristotle's vision that man is embedded ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... of a word when the pronunciation will permit on the vowel at the end of the syllable. It has the defect of making no provision for syllables that end in consonants. Moreover, if rigorously applied it would give us such divisions as ca-pa-ci-ty, cata-stro-phe, lexi-co-gra-pher, ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... the defect of my plan, or rather absence of plan. By attacking as I do, one by one, so many incoherent Sophisms, which clash, and then again often mingle with each other, I am conscious that I condemn myself to a disorderly and capricious struggle, and ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... may have been familiar to Christ's hearers. But His use of it is deeper and more searching than the rabbis' was. He has just been speaking of blind guides and their blind followers. That 'parable,' as Luke calls it, naturally images another defect which may attach to the eye. A man may be partly blind because some foreign body has got in. If we might suppose a tacit reference to the Pharisees in the blind guides, their self-complacent censoriousness would be in view here; but the application ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... defective points in your cows with a view to correct them. As far as possible—pedigree being right—you ought to purchase the bull that is strong upon the points where your females are faulty. If this is not duly attended to, the defect or malformation may be aggravated. But although the bull selected possesses the excellence wanting in the cows, he ought, of course, not to be very deficient in other points, else the cure may be worse ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... has been the study of Arabian writers in the modern time, particularly by specialists, the clearer has it become that they lacked nearly all originality. Especially were they faulty in their observations; besides, they had a definite tendency to replace observation by theory, a fatal defect in medicine. The fine development of surgery that came at the end of the Arabian period of medicine in Europe could never have come from the Arabs themselves. Gurlt has brought this out particularly, but it will not be difficult ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... were hung with an exceedingly pretty gothic paper, in green, but over each window was a chasm in the upper border; and as this border supplied the arches, the unity of the entire design was broken in no less than four places, that being the precise number of the windows. The defect soon attracted the eye of Eve, and she was not ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... and never harbouring malice, he used also to support his parents and others that depended upon him. One day, searching for animals even with perseverance and care, he found none. At last he saw a beast of prey whose sense of smell supplied the defect of his eyes, employed in drinking water. Although he had never seen such an animal before, still he slew it immediately. After the slaughter of that blind beast, a floral shower fell from the skies (upon the head of the hunter). A celestial car also, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to this complaint seems to be, that the defect is unavoidable. The history of the masses cannot be written, while they have no history; and none will they have, as long as they remain a mass; ere their history begins, individuals, few at first, and more and more numerous as they progress, must ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... repeat, Islam has no salvation, no scheme of grace, no great Physician. In visiting any Mohammedan country one is impressed with this one defect, the want of a Mediator. I once stood in the central hall of an imposing mansion in Damascus, around the frieze of which were described, in Arabic letters of gold, "The Hundred Names of Allah." They were ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... however, is in many cases an advantage rather than a defect, and Falieri was young in vigor and character, and still full of life and strength. He was married a second time to presumably a beautiful wife much younger than himself, though the chroniclers are not agreed even on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... prevention is better than cure—piety from childhood is better than reformation in manhood. The judgment of the Apostle upon him "who neglects to provide for his own house," even in temporal matters, is well known; and must there not be a radical defect and wrong in any religious organization which loses the great majority of its own youth, and depends largely on infusions from without for the recruit of its numbers? Such an organization may do much good, and widely extend in many places for ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Malcolm Sage, "there was the car. It was a large car, a defect in one of the tyres enabled me to determine that by a steel rule. It was obviously heavily laden and the near back-wheel was out of track. This fact, of course, was of no help on the high-road, where other cars would blot out ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... General Government is the more urged to similar undertakings, requiring a national jurisdiction and national means, by the prospect of thus systematically completing so inestimable a work; and it is a happy reflection that any defect of constitutional authority which may be encountered can be supplied in a mode which the Constitution ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison
... the Orient are not rich in this imaginative material which appeals to one fond of history or art; but this defect is compensated for by an extraordinary picturesqueness of life and a wonderful luxuriance of nature. The Oriental trip also makes less demand on one's reading than even a hasty journey through Europe. ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... gave him pleasure to be thus prayed to. The employer of labour is not as a rule troubled with a lively imagination; a pity, for it would surely gratify him to feel in its fulness at times his power of life and death. Native defect and force of habit render it a matter of course that a small population should eat or starve at his pleasure; possibly his resolution in seasons of strike is now and then attributable to awakening of insight and pleasure in prolonging his role of ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... towers. Advancing farther, he found himself before a vast iron gate, rusty and closed; here he paused a moment, looking through the bars. The chateau was near the road; this was at once its merit and its defect; but its aspect was extremely impressive. Newman learned afterwards, from a guide-book of the province, that it dated from the time of Henry IV. It presented to the wide, paved area which preceded it and which was edged with shabby farm-buildings an immense ...
— The American • Henry James
... thinking, and the substance of his thoughts was that this little girl, who bore his name, had her seamy side. Up to now, if he noticed a defect, he instantly and chivalrously put it out of his mind, but now certain doubts had knocked so long that by sheer persistence they forced an entrance. Lena, who began by being a sweet, innocent, much-enduring little thing, now that he knew her ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... bank director with his poem! He had mistaken the throbbing of an abscess for the beating of the heart. What he called "a wonderful piece of mechanism" was an imperfect device to remedy an unnecessary defect, the clumsy crutch of a ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... carefully studied. The inventor, or some one for him, must assume the position of a pirate, and set his wits to work to contrive an organization realizing the invention but escaping the terms of the proposed claim. When such an escaping device is schemed out, then the defect in the claim is developed and the claim must be redrawn. In this way every possible escape must be studied so as to secure to the inventor adequate protection for his invention. Solicitors find it difficult to get inventors ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... in abatement, was the defeating or quashing of a particular action by some matter of fact, such as a defect in form or the personal incompetency of the parties suing, pleaded by the defendant. It did not involve the merits of the cause, but left the right of action subsisting. In criminal proceedings a plea in abatement ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... (in my judgment) a defect in what may be called the Brewsterian theory of other worlds, a defect not altogether dissimilar has characterised the opposite or Whewellite theory. Very useful service was rendered to astronomy by Whewell's treatise upon, or rather against, the plurality ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... from Siskyou over there appreciates that 'pate' which he cannot name as well as I do. Rushbrook himself is the only exception, yet I fancy that even HIS simplicity and regularity in feeding is as much a matter of business with him as any defect in his earlier education. In his eyes, his chef's greatest qualification is his promptness and fertility. Have you noticed that ornament before you?" pointing to an elaborate confection. "It bears your initials, you see. It was conceived and executed since you arrived—rather, I should say, since ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... vagary of religious sentiment, which, whatever may be its merits, whatever its satisfaction for a spiritually illuminated chosen few, is, nevertheless, beyond the present ken and comprehension and spiritual compass of most mortals, and may be called the Religion of the Future. The fatal defect of all these theories is that they serve no purpose of utility. Considered as creations of ideal beauty, they may charm the fancy and quicken the imagination, and even exalt the mental habitudes, of a few devotees. Or, allowing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... none of the Children (for all the hardship we put them to) were ever sick; so that wanting now nothing but Cloathes, nor them much neither, other [68]than for decency, the warmth of the Countrey and Custome supplying that Defect, we were now well satissied with our condition, our Family beginning to grow large, there being nothing to hurt us, we many times lay abroad on Mossey Banks, under the shelter of some Trees, or such like (for having nothing else ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... castle, of which we had a tolerable view, was long and narrow in shape, consisting of two towers connected by walls, The nearer tower, through which lay the entrance, was roofless, and in every way seemed to be more ruinous than the inner one, which appeared to be perfect in both its stories. This defect notwithstanding, the place was so strong that my heart sank lower the longer I looked; and a glance at Maignan's face assured me that his experience was also at fault. For M. d'Agen, I clearly saw, when I turned to him, that he had never until this ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... him that there might be some defect in the materials for the enamel—perhaps something wanting in the flux; so he set to work to pound and compound fresh materials for a new experiment. Thus two or three more weeks passed. But how to buy ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... he intended was not a history, nor a homily, but a picture; that the name was added for convenience' sake, as he might name his son, John, without meaning any comparisons with the Evangelist. It is no defect, but a merit, that it requires nothing else than itself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... of research which, if unusual to romance, I cannot consider superfluous when illustrating an age so remote, and events unparalleled in their influence over the destinies of England. Nor am I without the hope, that what the romance-reader at first regards as a defect, he may ultimately acknowledge as a merit;—forgiving me that strain on his attention by which alone I could leave distinct in his memory the action and the actors in that solemn tragedy which closed on the field of Hastings, over the corpse ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his origin) By their ore-grow'th of some complextion[10] Oft breaking downe the pales and forts of reason Or by[11] some habit, that too much ore-leauens The forme of plausiue[12] manners, that[13] these men Carrying I say the stamp of one defect Being Natures liuery, or Fortunes starre,[14] His[15] vertues els[16] be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may vndergoe,[17] Shall in the generall censure[18] take corruption From that particuler fault:[19] ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... in the reading of literature, and the appreciation of the arts of expression generally. We usually approach an author with a predisposition to read our own habits of thought and sentiment into his words. It is probably a characteristic defect of a good deal of current criticism of remote writers to attribute to them too much of our modern conceptions and aims. Similarly, we often import our own special feelings into the utterances of the poet and ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... historian of the romantic school might produce his magnum opus without disturbance; the only objection being that there was no place whither the eminently Christian sojourner could go to worship according to his faith, he being a communicant in the Greek Church. This defect Baron Bangletop immediately remedied by erecting and endowing the chapel; and his youngest son, having been found too delicate morally for the army, was appointed to the living and placed in charge of the chapel, having first ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... peasants felt of the cows, went away, returned, sorely perplexed, always afraid of being cheated, never daring to make up their minds, watching the vendor's eye, striving incessantly to detect the tricks of the man and the defect in the beast. ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... women who are insanely jealous of their husbands, and, more rarely, men who are jealous of their wives. Jealousy may be explained as innate vanity and selfishness or as a defect in temperament, but at any rate, it is a condition which is ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... were soon educated to the office, and it was then that character-divers of marvellous powers sprang up, whose knowledge of the human mind, and skill in diving into the hidden currents of character, became so great that no incipient quality, or defect however minute, could ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... and his army face to face with death. Her husband could no longer restrain himself from questioning her. Then she told him that his vizier, bribed by the enemy, had poisoned the food and water in order to destroy him and his army, and that his son had a constitutional defect which would have prevented him from living three days if she had not put him in the fire. The she-bear, who was no other than a trusty old nurse, brought back his daughter at her call; but the queen herself disappeared, and he saw her no more. The Nereid in the Cretan tale referred to in Chapter ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... after his return from Congress, when he had long been acknowledged one of the foremost lawyers of the State, that he made up his mind he lacked the power of close and sustained reasoning, and set himself like a schoolboy to study works of logic and mathematics to remedy the defect. At this time he committed to memory six books of the propositions of Euclid; and, as always, he was an eager reader on many subjects, striving in this way to make up for the lack of education he had had as a boy. He was ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay |
