"Detract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seated by his humble "ingle nook" have endeavoured to adhere to his own words and mode of narration—hence the somewhat rambling and discursive style of these "Recollections"—a style which does not, in the opinion of many, by any means detract from their ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... with well-developed muscles in the calves, presenting a rather bowed outline, but the bones of the legs must be straight, large, and not bandy or curved. They should be rather short in proportion to the hind-legs, but not so short as to make the back appear long or detract from the dog's activity ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... error and should be unreservedly condemned. Jane Eyre is a woman's autobiography, by a woman it is professedly written. If it is written as no woman would write, condemn it with spirit and decision—say it is bad, but do not eulogise and then detract. I am reminded of the Economist. The literary critic of that paper praised the book if written by a man, and pronounced it "odious" if the work of ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... the period, which Spontini, situated as he was in Berlin, was well able to witness. The surprising fact that he saw his chief merit in unessential details showed plainly that his judgment had become childish; in my opinion this did not detract from the great value of his works, however much he might exaggerate their value. In a sense I could justify his boundless self-confidence, which was principally the outcome of the comparison between himself and the great composers who were now replacing ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Bondog; it is but one of the many typographical errors which detract from the value of Buzeta and Bravo's Diccionario. Bangsa apparently means the present Bangon; Bulsnan, Bulusan; Tigbi, Tiui or Tivi; Lognoy, Lagonoy. We have corrected in the text ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... accomplishment of the observer. The beginner will at first be confused by a mass of details, but he must note only the outline of the features sketched. First draw the sky line and crests, then fill in the other details with fewest lines possible. Unnecessary shading tends to detract from the clearness of the sketch. There will be great difficulty in getting the perspective, note the size of objects, the further away they are the smaller they seem. Make them so. In making the sketch, ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... a happier lot, are less prone to detract from it through envy; and are much disposed by compassion to give the credit he deserves, and perhaps even ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... rarely quotes their words, and gives no descriptions as to what they were or how he gained access to them.[11-*] In fact, the whole of Senor Perez's information was derived from these "Books of Chilan Balam;" and, without wishing at all to detract from his reputation as an antiquary and a Maya scholar, I am obliged to say that he has dealt with them as scholars so often do with their authorities; that is, having framed his theories, he quoted what he found in their favor and neglected to refer to what ...
— The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan • Daniel G. Brinton
... manners for the more part, but the wild Scots and Irish account great worship to follow their forefathers in clothing, in tongue, and in living, and in other manner doing. And despise somedeal the usages of other men in comparison to their own usage. And so each laboureth to be above, they detract and blame all other, and envy all other: they deride all other, and blame all other men's manners; they be not ashamed to lie, and they repute no man, of what nation, blood, or puissance so-ever he be, ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... of water in which they were boiled, stir until the consistency of thick cream, or like clam chowder. Should there be a few, small lumps of the browned flour not dissolved in the chowder, they will not detract from the taste of it; in fact, some are very fond of them. Perhaps some folks would prefer this, more like a soup; then add more hot water and thin it, but be careful to add more seasoning, as otherwise it would taste flat and ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... and its existence is that which the boldest need not defy, the most profound need not attempt to explain with clarity, the most brilliantly sophistical to argue away. Its forms of beauty, triviality, magnificence, imbecility, loveliness, stupidity, holiness, purity and bestiality neither detract from nor add to its unalterable power. As the earth revolves upon its axis and reveals night and day, Spring, Summer and Winter, so it reveals this ceaselessly working Force. Men who were as gods have been uplifted or broken by it, fools have trifled with it, brutes have sullied it, saints ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... should be some delicate color other than white, so as not to detract from the bride, and should be subdued in comparison. It may be, and usually is, more elegant in quality than that of ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... not," he says in a speech delivered before the Girls' Friendly Society of Laurel Hill, "I would not for one minute detract from the glory of those who have brought this country to its present state of financial prominence among the nations of the world, and yet as I think back on those dark days, I am impelled to voice the protest of millions of ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... failure and disappointment on your own part, and to seeing other men preferred before you. When these tilings come, there are two ways of meeting them. One is, to hate and vilify those who surpass you, either in merit or in success: to detract from their merit and under-rate their success: or, if you must admit some merit, to bestow upon it very faint praise. Now, all this is natural enough; but assuredly it is neither a right nor a happy course ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... least of dissension is got rid of, by reducing the minds of women to such a nullity, that they have no opinions but those of Mrs. Grundy, or those which the husband tells them to have. When there is no difference of opinion, differences merely of taste may be sufficient to detract greatly from the happiness of married life. And though it may stimulate the amatory propensities of men, it does not conduce to married happiness, to exaggerate by differences of education whatever may be the ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... higher than the lower half of the pedestal. In other words the statue will neither be dwarfed nor magnified by the contiguity of any discordant objects. It will stand alone. The abstract idea, as has been said, is noble. The plan of utilizing the statue as a lighthouse at night does not detract from its worth in this respect; it may be said to even emphasize the allegorial sense of the work. "Liberty enlightening the world," lights the way of the sailor in the crowded harbor of the second commercial city of the world. The very magnitude of the work typifies, after a manner, the vast extent ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... is the medium of protection and the conveyer of nutrition in relation to the former, so it falls to the male to protect and in some degree to provide for the woman as child-bearer. It would not, of course, be impossible for woman to provide for herself, but it would detract so considerably from social efficiency that any group in which it was done would soon disappear. It is the nature and supreme function of woman that makes her dependent upon man. And even though the dreams of some were realised, and society as a whole cared for woman ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... with officers present agree with Parker's version of the affair, and whether the afterthought that further recognition of his decisive action would detract from the reputation for vigilance which they were expected to observe is a ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... of several fine buildings in the county of Kent, was under cross-examination at Maidstone, by Serjeant (afterwards Baron) Garrow, who wished to detract from the weight of his testimony. "You are a builder, I believe?"—"No, sir: I am not a builder; I am an architect!"—"Ah, well! architect or builder, builder or architect, they are much the same, I suppose?"—"I beg your pardon, sir; I cannot admit that: ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... unlike wheat, and is used more extensively than wheat in many parts of Europe. It has 2 per cent. less protein than wheat and its gluten is darker in colour and less elastic and so does not make as light a loaf; but this does not detract from its nutritive value at all. Being more easily cultivated than wheat, especially in cold countries, it is cheaper and therefore more of ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... pale and distorted at the feet of her royal mistress; but Iras, tottering and half stupefied by the poison, was adjusting the diadem, which had slipped from its place. To keep from her beloved Queen everything that could detract from her beauty ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... combinations of those qualities, and consequently cannot subsist by themselves. Thus far it is agreed on all hand. So that in denying the things perceived by sense an existence independent of a substance of support wherein they may exist, we detract nothing from the received opinion of their reality, and are guilty of no innovation in that respect. All the difference is that, according to us, the unthinking beings perceived by sense have no existence distinct from being perceived, and cannot therefore exist in any ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... ferreting lasts for months. So that the forest is not altogether useless from the point of view of work. But in so many hundred acres of trees these labourers are lost to sight, and do not in the least detract from its wild appearance. Indeed, the occasional ring of the axe or the smoke rising from the woodman's fire accentuates the fact that it is a forest. The oaks keep a circle round their base and stand at a majestic distance from each other, so ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... even now, after all those ages, it shone as the moonbeams danced upon it, and its height was, I should say, a trifle over twenty feet. It was the winged figure of a woman of such marvellous loveliness and delicacy of form that the size seemed rather to add to than to detract from its so human and yet more spiritual beauty. She was bending forward and poising herself upon her half-spread wings as though to preserve her balance as she leant. Her arms were outstretched like those of some woman about to embrace ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... without puzzling the reader with too many technical terms. The study of the larynx was made possible by the invention of the laryngoscope in 1855 by Manuel Garcia, a celebrated singing-master. It is a simple apparatus—which, however, does not detract from but rather adds to its value as an invention—and has been a boon to the physician in locating and curing affections of the throat. Its essentials are a small mirror fixed at an obtuse angle to a slender handle. Introduced into the mouth it can be placed in such position that the larynx ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... cup for the quarter and the non-challenge cup for the hundred yards, both silver, but the third was a valueless flask, and the general voice of the School was loud in condemning the business abilities of one who could select his swag in so haphazard a manner. It was felt to detract from the merit of the performance. The knowing ones, however, gave it as their opinion that the man must have been frightened by something, and so was unable to give the matter his best attention and do himself justice ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... Philip, following her into the house, thought that she was charming; nor, being a Caresfoot, and therefore having a considerable eye to the main chance, did the fact of her being the heiress to fifteen hundred a year in land detract from her charms. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... was not rebuilt, but the heavy looking battlement and solid pinnacles which still remain, and detract considerably from the beauty of the tower, were added as a finish to it in the year 1608. It is curious that the churchwardens' books, in which many entries occur detailing repairs and other work connected with the spire, make no mention of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... his valuables—articles of sterling bullion that will at any time command their price in the market—as to worn-out and threadbare personalities, the sooner they are got rid of the better. Far be it from us, however, to depreciate or detract from the merit of any of Goethe's productions. Few men have written so voluminously, and still fewer have written so well. But the curse of a most fluent pen, and of a numerous auditory, to whom his words were oracles, was upon him; and seventy volumes, more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... him, Tom would come back, sleepless, to the day's work. Crailey was called "peculiar" and he explained, with a kind of jovial helplessness, that he was always prepared for the unexpected in himself, nor did such a view detract from his picturesqueness to his own perusal of himself; though it was not only to himself that he was interesting. To the vision of the lookers-on in Rouen, quiet souls who hovered along the walls at merry-makings and cheerfully counted themselves spectators at the play, Crailey Gray held ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... part in most of the leading events in her history, both savage and civilized, I propose to treat the various subjects that compose her history in a narrative and colloquial manner that may not rise to the dignity of history, but which, I think, while giving facts, will not detract from the interest or pleasure of the reader. If I should in the course of my narrative so far forget myself as to indulge in a joke, or relate an illustrative anecdote, the reader must put ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... been a most gallant officer and in the battle before Santiago showed superb soldierly qualities. I would rather add to, than detract from, the honors you have so fairly won, and I wish you all good things. In a moment of aggravation under great stress of feeling, first because I thought you spoke in a disparaging manner of the volunteers (probably without intent, but because of your ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... St. John in Ghent. This work, generally known as the "Mystic Lamb," is composed of ten smaller pictures, but the partitions separating the various divisions of the wings and the wings from the central piece scarcely detract from the majesty of the ensemble. The composition is well known: Above, God the Father, as Christ, enthroned, His hand raised in benediction, between St. John Baptist and the Virgin, with angels on both sides singing and playing on ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... raking the lawn after each mowing. Others advise leaving the clippings to act as a sort of mulch. If the clippings are allowed to remain, they wilt, and this will detract from the appearance of the sward for a short time, but by the next day they will not be noticeable. Raking as soon as mowed makes the lawn more immediately presentable. I have never been able to see any great deal ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... that of the writer himself. It is a book to be read by piecemeal, and it may be laid down at any time. Indeed, one is not surprised, nor much distressed, when the author fails to grasp again his fallen pen after the eleventh part. I would not in any way detract from the literary value of a work which, as even critical La Harpe declares, "assures him one of the first places among French novelists;"[88] but the interest inspired by Marianne is of much the same sort as that inspired by the Spectateur. The thread of the story ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... case, if you will allow me to say what I think.... Your picture is so fine that my observation cannot detract from it, and, besides, it is only my personal opinion. With you it is different. Your very motive is different. But let us take Ivanov. I imagine that if Christ is brought down to the level of an historical character, it would have been better for Ivanov to select some ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the greatest poets, like Pindar and Simonides, composing their odes for set occasions like the public games, in honour of persons with whom they were but little acquainted, and (most significant fact of all) in the expectation of receiving liberal rewards. We need not say that such considerations detract nothing from the genius of these great poets; but they prove very conclusively that poetry is not what Wordsworth's definition asserts, and what in these days it is too often assumed to be, the mere gush of unconscious inspiration. The definition of Wordsworth may perhaps suit short lyrics, ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... years pass by and an enlightened humanity studies and comprehends the real greatness and simplicity of Abraham Lincoln, he comes nearer and becomes dearer to all. No weak compliment of words can add to his renown, nor will any petty criticism detract from the glory which has crowned his memory. The passing of time has only added brightness to his character; the antagonisms of bitter war have left no shade upon his name; and the hatred which, for ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... the wind and weather that this semi-circle just described affords, being an average distance of four miles from the edge of the plateau upon which the town is spread, do not detract from its openness or free exposure to the sun. The Peak lying to the west robs it of the direct effect of the last beams in setting but gives a longer twilight than is usual on this continent. The value of this semi-circle as a protection from storms is especially in ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... waited almost as eagerly as the patient himself for the day when his bandaged eyes should be released. Only in Polly's heart there was not a little regret mingled with her anticipated joy, for that would herald Mr. Westwood's going away. Still she would not let the disturbing thought detract from her present pleasure, and she ran in and out of the young man's room in a happy, ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... the pretensions of Spanish officials in the last century. This area he expressly refused to submit to arbitration. The language of the Salisbury note was diplomatically correct, a fact which did not detract from the effect of the patronizing ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... Margiotta the question of Lucifer has received a most important witness; he is the most recent, the most illustrious, and Masonically the most decorated of all. If I add that he is in one respect to be included among the most virulent, I do not necessarily detract from his value. So far as one can possibly be aware, he is a man of unimpeachable integrity, who gives us every opportunity to identify him, heraldically by his arms and emblazonments, historically by an account of his family, personally by extracts ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... inclined to detract in any way from the merit of Mr. Mitchell Henry's project for Imperial reclamation any more than from his scheme for draining and for improving the internal navigation of Ireland. Although born in Lancashire he is a thorough-bred Irishman, and naturally hopeful of his country. But, although ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... with the responsible director of foreign policy in the complete recognition of the high political importance which the Japanese people have achieved by their political strength and military ability. German policy does not regard it as its task to detract from the enjoyment and development of what Japan ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... found what I call an idea in any speech or writing of ——'s. Those enormously prolix harangues are a proof of weakness in the higher intellectual grasp. Canning had a sense of the beautiful and the good; —- rarely speaks but to abuse, detract, and degrade. I confine myself to institutions, of course, and do not mean personal detraction. In my judgment, no man can rightly apprehend an abuse till he has first mastered the idea of the use of an institution. How fine, for example, is the idea of the unhired ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... enjoying wakes and fairs, only worked half time. The physical-force majority in the House, and their aiders and abettors, were they to see this, would perhaps laugh at the petty details, but their doing so would not in the least detract from their truth, or render questionable for a moment the deductions I make from them,—that poverty is so wide spread and bitter that the poor are compelled to make a stern sacrifice of innocent amusements; that the parent cannot exercise the holiest affections of his nature, by ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... Protestant nobility and gentry to rally round him in defence of their lives and their creed. Coligni long delayed joining him, and evinced a hesitation and a reluctance to embark in civil war, which emphatically attest the goodness while they in no degree detract from the greatness of his character. His wife, who naturally thought that anxiety on her account aided in restraining him, exhorted him in words of more than Roman magnanimity to arm in defence of the thousand ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... however, seldom necessary to test so far, for an examination under the microscope, even with low power, is usually sufficient to detect in the glass the air-bubbles which are almost inseparable from glass-mixtures, though they do not detract from the physical properties of the glass. The higher powers of the same instrument will almost always define the junction and the layer or layers of cement, no matter how delicate a film may have been used. Any one of these tests is sufficient ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... policy in this course," said Piatt, "than kind feeling. To assert the contrary is to detract from Lincoln's force of character, as well as intellect. Our War President was not lost in his high admiration of brigadiers and major-generals, and had a positive dislike for their methods and the despotism upon which an army is based. He knew that ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... twentieth century. That its authorities should have been so violently perturbed by a proposal to teach SHAKSPEARE histrionically, or by the spectacle of boys enjoying modern poetry, surely supposes conditions almost incredibly archaic. This, however, does nothing to detract from the admirably-drawn figure of Quirk himself, bursting with energy, enthusiasm and intolerance, overcoming passive resistance on the part of the boys, only to be shipwrecked upon the cast-iron prejudice of the staff. That his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... violate the unity, and a story containing them is usually faulty otherwise; but such stories have been written by good writers and so must be recognized here. The preliminary climaxes must be sufficiently few, sufficiently subordinate and sufficiently distant not to detract from the force of the chief climax. The main point is to see that one of the preliminary climaxes is not really the climax, for inexperienced writers sometimes allow their stories to run on longer than they should; or they ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... George W. Cable, who is better known as a novelist, but who has no mean abilities as an historian. His familiarity with the Creole element in New Orleans past and present, together with a very happy style of writing, have made for him more than a national reputation, from which this sketch will not detract. Originally his work was intended to occupy some ninety pages of the report, but later, unfortunately, it had to be condensed into fifty. Luckily it will not be found necessary to omit a number of interesting maps that ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... sweetly, tenderly and earnestly on her old companion, she said to him, slowly, gently, but impressively "Colley, at threescore years and ten this was ill done of us! You and I are here now—for what? to cheer the young up the hill we mounted years ago. And, old friend, if we detract from them we discourage them. A great ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... perused the papers, declared his opinion that the verses were tolerably good; but at the same time observed that the author had reviled as ignorant dunces several persons who had writ with reputation, and were generally allowed to have genius; a circumstance that would detract more from his candour than could be allowed ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... with all great men. After holding a consultation with me, he said he always remembered the motto: "Great is the man who humbles himself." Being satisfied then that it would not lessen his dignity, nor, indeed, in any way detract from the character of a military politician, who had need enough to look to his laurels, he agreed that Alderman Dan Dooley should ride old Battle. And with this resolve he at once repaired to the carriage, in which he took a seat with the three gentlemen ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... depend on truth. There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in them, and how this Ghost is better than that. You must shew how terrour is impressed on the human heart. In the description of night in Macbeth[272], the beetle and the bat detract from the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the constitution of the heavenly bodies, though it is incompatible with what we know now. It was simply a matter on which more evidence was to be accumulated, and the holding of such a view does not, and did not, detract from the scientific status of Sir ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... simple expedients which I shall try to show are based on the wood fire's way of working. While there are those who would not for worlds give up the pleasure of tinkering with the tongs and poker while the fire burns, it will perhaps not detract from this enjoyment if the tinkering is not actually the result of necessity to keep the logs burning. Fire-mending is a delightful recreation only when it is not imposed upon us by becoming an alternative to having the glowing embers become discouraged ...
— Making a Fireplace • Henry H. Saylor
... the universe. It must be admitted that Zacuto's work is a drama with a purpose. The poet wished to fortify his exiled, harassed people with the inspiration and hope that flow from the contemplation of a strong, bold personality. But the admission does not detract from the genuine merits of the poem. On the other hand, this first dramatic effort naturally is crude, lacking in the poetic forms supplied by highly developed art. Dialogues, prayers, and choruses follow each other without regularity, and in varying metres, not destitute, however, of poetic sentiment ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... detract but little from our admiration for Mr. Darwin's achievement. Any one can make people see a thing if he puts it in the right way, but Mr. Darwin made us see evolution, in spite of his having put it, in what seems to not a few, an exceedingly mistaken way. Yet his triumph is complete, ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... of Columbus and his contemporaries all these doings were held to detract from the glory of his own achievements, and were the subject of endless affidavits, depositions, quarrels, arguments, proofs and claims in the great lawsuit that was in after years carried on between the Crown of Spain and the heirs of Columbus concerning his titles ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... tea and breakfast services, which might once have been uniform, but, as most of the various pieces had gone the way of all crockery, others of every description of size and shape had taken their places, till scarcely two were alike; but that didn't detract from our happiness or the pleasure of our guests, who, probably from their own services being in the same condition, scarcely ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... the child should also be considered. If possible, the character of his pursuits should not conflict with those social elements in which he has been reared up. It should not detract from his standing in society, nor disrupt his associations in life. Many parents, for the sake of money, will refuse to educate and fit their children for sustaining the position they hold in society. They bring them up in ignorance, and devote them exclusively to Mammon; ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... misunderstood. I would detract nothing from the glory of other sections of the country. I would minimize nothing of any State's accomplishment. Some of them have a record that is almost a synonym for patriotism. Their tradition is our inheritance; their achievement is our gain. Wisconsin cannot become ...
— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis
... very entertaining writer, and, while she entertains, at the same time instructs. Her plots are well arranged, and her characters are clearly and strongly drawn. The present volume will not detract from the reputation ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... after the elderly celibate with a certain pity. One always feels more inclined to take the simple view of any matter—to stand up for injured innocence, and to right the wronged—when one feels one's self better off than one's neighbours. A reverse position is apt to detract from the simplicity of one's conceptions, and to suggest two sides to the picture. When Mr Proctor was gone, the Rector addressed himself with great devotion to Elsworthy and his evidence. It could not be doubted, at least, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... defended me in my absence. He had even said to me with his own lips: "Thou art going to be given the rank of bishop," though I was not worthy of it. How, then, did it happen to him that afterwards, before all persons, good and bad, he should detract me publicly, when he had before this freely and gladly praised me? And the Lord, who is greater than all? I have said enough. Still, I ought not to hide the gift of God which he gave me in the land of my captivity, for I sought him earnestly then, and found him there, and He preserved ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... the frill around the neck breaks apart the mushroom is fit to gather; keeping it longer may add to its size a little, but surely will detract from its tenderness. The gills of the mushrooms will retain their pink tinge for a day after the frill breaks open, but they soon grow browner and blacker, until in a few days they are unfit for food. In gathering, the mushrooms should be pulled and never cut, and kept in this ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... be traced between the charms in MACBETH, and the incantations in this play, (The Witch of Middleton) which is supposed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from the originality of Shakspeare. His Witches are distinguished from the Witches of Middleton by essential differences. These are creatures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief might resort for occasional consultation. Those originate deeds of blood, and begin ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Christian names, and the way that he would catalogue emperors, statesmen, and noblemen known to him, with familiar indifference, as things below the musical Art, gave a distinguishing tone to Brookfield, from which his French accentuation of our tongue did not detract. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... can get some well-known Ceylon sportsman to pilot him through the apparently pathless forests, and in fact to 'show him sport.' This is not easily effected. Men who understand the sport are not over fond of acting 'chaperon' to a young hand, as a novice must always detract from the sport in some degree. In addition to this, many persons do not exactly know themselves; and, although the idea of shooting elephants appears very attractive at a distance, the pleasure somewhat abates when the sportsman is forced to seek for safety ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... metal. The marble enrichments of the attic have also disappeared, and their place has been taken by common and tawdry decorations more adapted to the stage of a theatre. But notwithstanding everything that has been done to detract from the imposing effect of the building by the alteration of its details, there is still, taking it as a whole, a simple grandeur in the design, a magnificence in the material employed, and a quiet harmony in the illumination, that impart to the interior a character of sublimity ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... of the word 'Cosmos' in its signification of 'universe, order of the world', and 'adornment' of this universal order. May the immeasurable diversity of phenomena which crowd into the picture of nature in no way detract from that harmonious impression of rest and unity which is the ultimate object of every literary ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... that I am possess'd With more than half the Gallian territories, And therein reverenced for their lawful king: Shall I, for lucre of the rest unvanquish'd, Detract so much from that prerogative, As to be call'd but viceroy of the whole? No, lord ambassador, I 'll rather keep That which I have than, coveting for more, Be cast from possibility ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... concerned, Wilbur Wright's own statements are the clearest and best available. Apparently Wilbur was, from the beginning, the historian of the pair, though he himself would have been the last to attempt to detract in any way from the fame that his brother's work also deserves. Throughout all their experiments the two were inseparable, and their work is one indivisible whole; in fact, in every department ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... compelling power of great art upon those who know it when they see it than the unbounded praise with which Dryden at once saluted Milton. The fact that his admiration at first took the absurd form of turning Milton's epic into a "heroic opera" in rhyme does not detract from the significance of his writing publicly within a year of Milton's death that the blind old regicide's poem was "one of the greatest, most noble and sublime which either this age or nation has produced," and to this he was to add, thirteen years later, the still bolder tribute of the well-known ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... after they perceiued we would haue skinnes and furres, that they would go into the countrey and come againe the next day with such things as they had: but this night the winde comming faire, the captaine and the master would by no meanes detract the purpose of our discouery. And so the last of this moneth about foure of the clocke in the morning in God's name we set saile, and were all that day ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... in the latter part of the book is the heroine's miserable end. But although the sentiments of the characters are reported in concealed blank verse that smacks of theatrical rant, though the absurd Oriental digressions, the disguises, the frequent poisonings, and fortunate accidents all detract from the naturalness and plausibility of the tale, yet one cannot deny the piece occasional merits, which if smothered in extravagances, are hopeful signs of a coming change. The very excess of strained and unnatural incidents ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... rain did not detract in the least from an immense attendance at the Capitol, although no one was admitted without a ticket. Notwithstanding the precautions taken, over three hundred tickets were issued beyond the utmost capacity of the House galleries, which were ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... appear to be arbitrary. There is a hectic flush of romanticism in this play, not discernible in any other of Ibsen's social dramas, a perfervidness, an artificiality, which may not interfere with the interest of the story but which must detract from its plausibility at least ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... have undergone so many changes. "As it is, the church of Exeter is a remarkable case of one general design being carried out through more than a hundred years." The church is Quivil's design, and the variations, though important, do not seriously detract from it. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... not seem to detract in any way from the heroism of those who faced the last plunge of the Titanic so courageously when all the boats had gone,—if it does, it is the difficulty of expressing an idea in adequate words,—to say that their quiet heroism was largely unconscious, temperamental, ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... on Both Sides, another Chief Weasel Fat, another Chief One Spot, another Chief Many White Horses. They had a dignity and an unyielding calm, and if some of them wore befeathered bowler hats, instead of the sunray feathered headdress, it did not detract from their high austerity. Chief One Spot—"he whose voice can be heard three miles"—was a splendid and upright old warrior of eighty; he had not only been present at the historic treaty of '77, but had been one ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... Introduction to Canto IV just a year after he had begun the poem, and between that time and the middle of February 1808 the work was finished. There is no rashness in saying that rapidity of production did not detract from excellence of result. Indeed, it is admiration rather than criticism that is challenged by the reflection that, in these short months, the poet should have turned out so much verse of ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... The reader doubtless knows that each of these objects is flying through space on its own course with a speed comparable with that of the earth around the sun. These speeds range from the smallest limit up to more than one hundred miles a second. Such diversity might seem to detract from the unity of the whole; but when we seek to learn something definite by taking their average, we find this average to be, so far as can yet be determined, much the same in opposite regions of the universe. Quite recently it has become probable that a certain ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... inventor of the inductive method, "which," he says with truth, "has been practiced ever since the beginning of the world by every human being."[91] Nor was he the "first person who correctly analyzed that method and explained its uses," as Aristotle had done so long before. But these facts do not detract from the glory of Bacon any more than the discovery of America by the Norsemen five hundred years before the time of Columbus detracts from his glory. The same process of reasoning would take all credit ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... vast fund of remarkable and valuable information, I have felt that it will add nothing to the interest of Captain Carter's story or to the sum total of human knowledge to maintain a strict adherence to the original manuscript in these matters, while it might readily confuse the reader and detract from the interest of the history. For those who may be interested, however, I will explain that the Martian day is a trifle over 24 hours 37 minutes duration (Earth time). This the Martians divide into ten equal parts, commencing the day at about 6 A.M. Earth ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... female who swore like a dock hand, and who wounded Honora to the quick by remarking, as she departed in durance, that she had always lived with ladies and gentlemen and people who were somebody. The incident had tended further to detract from the romance ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... wonder whether you will let me draw it when I have done confessing." And so his own head got confused, and he forgot a crime or two. However, he did not lower the bolstering this time, nor was he so uncandid as to detract from the pagan character ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... circumstance, and he broke in a moment through the cobwebs which entangled lesser natures for years. His eye saw a final result, and disregarded the detail. He robbed his man without chicanery; and took his purse by applying for it rather than scheming. If his enemies wish to detract from his merit,—a merit great, dazzling, and yet solid,—they may, perhaps, say that his genius fitted him better to continue exploits than to devise them; and thus that, besides the renown which he may justly claim, he often wholly engrossed that fame which should ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I believe, that a child, or even a man, is likely to be most sincere while persevering in that religion in whose belief he was born and educated; we frequently detract from, seldom make any additions to it: dogmatical faith is the effect of education. In addition to this general principle which attached me to the religion of my forefathers, I had that particular aversion our city entertains for Catholicism, which is represented there as the most monstrous idolatry, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... all that makes Life, and whatever goes to diminish the living quality of Life reproduces, in its degree, the distinctive quality of this supreme exhibition of the Negative. Everything that tends to detract from the fulness of life has ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... betray the emotion of the great leader who knows that he has been well and loyally served. There is even a certain jealousy of the tanks, I notice, among the men who form the High Command of the Army, lest they should in any way detract from the credit of the men. "Oh, the tanks—yes—very useful, of course—but the men!—it was the quality of ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... You'd be doing wrong. You've been to me so high and holy that I don't like to think you haven't the strength to go on to the end. I've got it, because you've given it me. Don't detract from your own gift by holding me back from using it. You found me a prisoner—or an escaped one—and I've been a prisoner all these years, the prisoner of something worse than chains. Now I'm going free. Look!" he cried, with sudden inspiration. "I'll show you how it's done. ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... antiquity. Founded upon fraud and treason, it had yet established the security of law more firmly than it had ever existed under the system of legitimacy, of prolonged inheritance, and of religious sanction. It flourished on the unaccustomed belief that theological dissensions need not detract from the power of the State, while political dissensions are the very secret of its prosperity. The men of questionable character who accomplished the change and had governed for the better part of sixty years, had successfully maintained public order, in spite of conspiracy and rebellion; they ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Marcus Aurelius was philosophy enthroned. Without any desire to contest or detract from that compliment, let it be added that he was conscientiousness enthroned. It is his grand and original characteristic that he governed the Roman empire and himself with a constant moral solicitude, ever ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... is greater reason for my leave-taking at present. I am an utter stranger to the bride, and feel that my presence would seem an intrusion to her, at least. Nothing at this time should detract from ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... us with (what is called) the magic of poetry; but he has seldom drawn a tear, and millions of radiant eyes have been witnesses for Otway, by those drops of pity which they have shed. Otway might be no scholar, but that, methinks, does not detract from the merit of a dramatist, nor much assist him in succeeding. For the truth of this we may appeal to experience. No poets in our language, who were what we call scholars, have ever written ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... increased prodigiously, and is now carried on to an extent beyond that of any former period: but it is submitted to your consideration whether it is not accompanied by some disadvantageous circumstances which detract vastly from the great value it might be made to produce, and to leave in the Province; and for which I have no doubt, you will adopt prudent remedies that will render this branch of industry more staple, as well ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... is easy to understand, does not in any way detract from her great talents as a parasite, but it is a serious matter for the future larva. The Osmia, in fact, in view of her small dimensions, collects but a very scanty store of food: a little loaf of pollen and honey, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... Minchumina. There the two mountains rise side by side, sheer, precipitous, pointed rocks, utterly inaccessible, savage, and superb. The rounded shoulders, the receding slopes and ridges of the other faces detract from the uplift and from the dignity, but the northwestern ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... determined at one time in their caucus to exclude him from all committee service on account of his offensive opinions in regard to slavery, but upon sober second thought they concluded that a persecution of that kind would add to Mr. Sumner's strength rather than detract from it. He was therefore given the ordinary assignment of a new member by the Southern men in control and was thence regularly advanced until he became a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, under the chairmanship of James M. Mason, with ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... two voyces; a most delicate Monster: his forward voyce now is to speake well of his friend; his backward voice, is to vtter foule speeches, and to detract: if all the wine in my bottle will recouer him, I will helpe his Ague: Come: Amen, I will poure some ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... banks where trout were breaking on the surface. It took a long cast for me, but about every tenth attempt I would get a fly over the right place and raise a fish. They were small, but that did not detract from my gratification. The light on the water was just right for me to see the trout rise, and that was a beautiful sight as well as a distinct advantage. I had caught four when a shout from R.C. called me quickly down stream. I found him standing in the middle of a swift chute with his rod ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the specialist. New suggestions came up like bubbles through a stream of frothing meditation, and burst one after another in the little bright spot of his consciousness. He could not help noticing and admiring Haddon's swift dexterity, in spite of his envious quality and his disposition to detract. I saw my liver exposed. I was puzzled at my own condition. I did not feel that I was dead, but I was different in some way from my living self. The grey depression, that had weighed on me for a year or more and coloured all my thoughts, was gone. I perceived ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... appears. His mind no art can well express, That by his writings you may guess. It was not pride, nor yet vainglory, (Though others do it commonly) Made him do this: if you must know, The Printer would needs have it so. Then do not frown or scoff at it, Deride not, or detract a whit. For surely as thou dost by him, He will do the same again. Then look upon't, behold and see, As thou lik'st it, so it likes thee. And I for it will stand in view, Thine to ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... have been in longer use and have a wider range than the word awful. From the loftiest and most awe-inspiring themes to the commonest trifle, this much-abused word has been employed. A correct speaker or writer almost fears to use the word lest he should suggest the idea of slang, and thus detract from the subject to which the word might ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... it is admitted, have been felt; but allowing to these their greatest extent, they detract but little from the force of the remarks already made. In forming a just estimate of our present situation it is proper to look at the whole in the outline as well as in the detail. A free, virtuous, and enlightened people know well the great principles ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... effective as a person of an ordinary mind might think. No matter how revolutionary and anarchist in inception, there would be fools enough to give such an outrage the character of a religious manifestation. And that would detract from the especial alarming significance we wish to give to the act. A murderous attempt on a restaurant or a theatre would suffer in the same way from the suggestion of non-political passion: the exasperation of a hungry man, an act of social revenge. All this is used ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Mission Los Angeles. He pictured her with some ancient missal in her slender hands, and flanked on one side by her sympathetic duenna of a mother. The certainty that her American father would be safe at home did not detract from ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... do not mean to detract in the slightest degree from others. There are some of those whom I admire at something of a greater distance, with whom I have had the happiness also perfectly to agree, in almost all the particulars in which I have differed with some successive administrations; and they are such ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... applauded for his military courage and energy, was known to all who had opportunities of becoming personally acquainted with him to be a bad man. He was unprincipled, hard-hearted, and reckless. This, however, did not detract from his military fame. Indeed, depravity of private character seldom diminishes much the applause which a nation bestows upon those who acquire military renown in their service. It is not to be expected that it should. Military exploits have been, in fact, generally, in the history of the ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... fruits of laziness and ignorance; which was probably the reason that in the heathen mythology Momus is said to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... speed and in bottom; but if not in speed, in bottom at least I hope it will be allowed. To what shall we impute this perfection in him? Shall we impute it to his blood, or to that elegance of form in which is found no unnecessary weight to oppress the muscles, or detract from his ability of perseverance? if to blood, from whence shall we deduce it? or from what origin is it derived? Surely no man means more, when he talks of the blood of foxhounds, than to intimate that they are descended from such, whose ancestors have been eminent for their ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer
... theme the tone is that of a full organ. This is, I think, apart from those exquisite beauties of detail which are for those only who have been initiated in the Virgilian mysteries, what chiefly moves the modern reader of Virgil. There are drawbacks which, for us moderns at least, detract from the general effect: the intervention of gods and goddesses after the Homeric manner, but without the charm of Homer; the seeming want of warm human blood in the hero; the stern decrees of Fate overruling human passions ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... of one of the professions. It would bring out the difference between the late eighteenth and the middle nineteenth centuries, as well as that between a great novelist, Balzac, and a great English writer, Goldsmith, who yet is not a novelist at all. It should detract no whit from one's delight in such a work as "The Vicar of Wakefield" to acknowledge that its aim is not to depict society as it then existed, but to give a pleasurable abstract of human nature for the purpose ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... submit his editing for approval, but here again the bigger the personality back of the material, the more willing the author was to have his manuscript "blue pencilled," if he were convinced that the deletions or condensations improved or at least did not detract from his arguments. It was the small author who ever resented the touch of the editorial pencil upon ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... England trusted to her aristocracy (to put the matter in a nutshell) all would be well with her in the future even as it had been in the past, but any attempt to curtail their splendours must inevitably detract from the prestige and magnificence of the Empire. . . . And he responded suitably to the obsequious salute of the professional, and remembered that the entire golf links were his property, and that the Club paid a merely nominal rental to him, just the tribute ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... four other usual constituents which in no way increase the value of gas, but which rather detract from it. They are consequently as far as possible removed as impurities in the process of gas-making. These are nitrogen, carbonic acid gas, and the destructive sulphur compounds, sulphuretted hydrogen and carbon bisulphide vapour. It is to the last two to which are to be attributed the injurious ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... even get so far as a conjecture as to the solution, and this seemed one of them. I am usually of too practical a turn to waste time on such conundrums; but the difficulty of a riddle embodied in a beautiful young girl does not detract from its fascination. In general, no doubt, maidens' blushes may be safely assumed to tell the same tale to young men in all ages and races, but to give that interpretation to Edith's crimson cheeks would, considering my position and the length of time I had known her, and still more the fact that ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... any way detract from the interest of a transcript of his record on the spot; and though many circumstances recorded in Hawkesworth, from Banks or others, will not be found, it is probable that an exact copy of the great navigator's own impressions, and the disentanglement of them ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... extraordinary convention at Ostend; which said convention, being principally composed of very respectable foreign gentlemen, would especially take into consideration the Cuba question, as also the deciding the point as to whether the Spanish spirit of the people of that island would detract from the national purity of Americanism. In the event of Cuba forming an integral part of the federal compact, a grave question would here be involved. Assuring them they were not wrong in their conjectures, Smooth was invited to sit down, in a very honorary ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... gazed on this extraordinary old man, whose dignity was such that even the bizarre melange of colors could not detract from it, that he was beholding a very different type of Arab from any he yet had come in ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... composure: "As to whether a soft-hearted child ought to be exposed to the temptation to save the friend she absolutely worships by giving evidence before the judges, be it what it may, only her grandparents can decide. Her tender years would at any rate detract from the validity of her evidence, and I am averse to involving a child of this house in this dubious affair. With regard to Katharina, it is, on the contrary, the duty of this court to request her presence, and I offer myself to go ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... interesting monuments to members of former local families, including sixteenth century memorials of the Cowper-Coles. Here is buried Lord Grey, who was connected with the Rye House Plot. Notice the embroidery in the reredos, an unusual style; also the fine wooden roof and shorn pillars; the latter detract from the general effect of the interior and have been noticed in other Downland churches on our route. Quite close to the church are the old village stocks, undoubtedly placed in this position for the sake of convenience, the "court" in more remote districts having ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... that our Lord replied: "Yea, rather (or yea, likewise), blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it." It would be an unwarrantable perversion of the sacred text to infer from this reply that Jesus intended to detract from the praise bestowed on His Mother. His words may be thus correctly paraphrased: She is blessed indeed in being the chosen instrument of My incarnation, but more blessed in keeping My word. Let others be comforted in knowing that though they cannot share with My Mother in ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... in the form of potatoes, onions, and butter. A band of these animals is always a pretty sight, and you can imagine that the solemn fact of our having been destitute of the above-mentioned edibles since the middle of February did not detract from the pleasure with which we saw them winding cautiously down the hill, stepping daintily here and there with those absurd little feet of theirs, and appearing so extremely anxious for the safe conveyance of their loads. They belonged to a Spanish packer, were ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... school. Fig. 42. After all have discovered the face of the boy, do not return the sheet to the drawing board, but lay it on the floor or elsewhere out of sight, as it has served its purpose and should not be allowed to detract from the attention needed for the remainder of ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... conception, and splendidly executed; but the so-called critics shrugged their shoulders, now pointing out that the hills were too blue, the trees too green, the figures now too long, now too broad, finding fault everywhere where there was no fault to be found, and seeking to detract from his hard-earned reputation in all the ways they could think of. Especially bitter in their persecution of him were the Academicians of St. Luke, who could not forget how he took them in about the surgeon; they even went beyond the limits of their own profession, and decried the clever stanzas ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... memorandum book, from which I transcribed the preceding essay, and they had then attracted my notice by the name of the illustrious chemist mentioned in the last illustration. Exasperated by the base and cowardly attempt that had been made to detract from the honours due to his astonishing genius, I had slightly altered the concluding sentences, substituting the more recent for his earlier discoveries; and without the most distant intention of publishing what I then wrote, I had expressed ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... all postulated, and the existing local bodies in the counties. This policy did not lack advocates. But the County Councillors were solid against it: evidently their private meeting discussed and decided against an expedient which they held would detract from the dignity of the central Parliament and from the dignity of the County Councils. Those who defended it as a plan which might meet Ulster's difficulty got no backing from Ulster; that group said neither for nor against it. In the rest of the ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... of the States, or in the concurrent instructions to the orders. Some usages have been abolished on just grounds; but they were such, that, if they had stood as they were to all eternity, they would little detract from the happiness and prosperity of any state. The improvements of the National Assembly ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... place), the elliptical motion might be changed into a motion in some other conic section; and the complex law, that the planetary motions take place in ellipses, would be deprived of its universality, though the discovery would not at all detract from the universality of the simpler laws into which that complex law is resolved. The law, in short, of each of the concurrent causes remains the same, however their collocations may vary; but the law of their joint effect varies ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... not meant to be liked by the many, but to be dearly loved and cherished by the few.... His occasional lawlessness in technical construction, his somewhat fantastic expressions, his enigmatic obscurities hardly detract from the pleasant surprise his verses so often bring with them.... The poetic license which we allow in the verse of Emerson is more than excused by the noble spirit which makes us forget its occasional blemishes, sometimes ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... day before; they had 17 guns, including 6 modern rifles, on the islands guarding the entrance; they had plenty of gunboats that might have been fitted out as torpedo launches for night attack. It does not detract from the American officer's accomplishment that he drew no false picture of the obstacles with which he ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... Captain Hollinger was busy with his cables and letters, for after leaving Honolulu he would not be in touch with business or friends for three weeks or a month, except by wireless. So the two boys were seeing the sights by themselves, more or less, which did not detract from their enjoyment ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... 'mountain roe,' which of course may be brought in as poetically illustrative, has not been seen on these hills for generations, and I scarcely think even the 'fawn at play' for more than a hundred years. These misapplications, it is almost unnecessary to say, do not detract from the beauty of the poetry. Some of the touches are graphically true to the neighbourhood, as, for instance, 'the wide moor,' the 'many a hill,' the 'steep hill's edge,' the 'long stone wall,' and the hint of the general loneliness of the region ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... to a gallop as he came up Hunter's Spinney, to quench the voice that spoke within him, saying things he would not hear, that spoke of love, and the tenderness and humility of love, and of how these did not detract from the splendour of manhood, the fine rage of passion, but rather glorified them. Something in his feeling for Hazel answered that voice, and it worried him. By heredity and upbringing he had been taught to dislike and mistrust everything that savoured of emotion ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... Prester John, And all for want of this sine qua non; Whereas, with a horn that never offends, You may join the genteelest party that is, And enjoy all the scandal, and gossip, and quiz, And be certain to hear of your absent friends;— Not that elegant ladies, in fact, In genteel society ever detract, Or lend a brush when a friend is black'd,— At least as a mere malicious act,— But only talk scandal for fear some fool Should think they were bred at charity school. Or, maybe, you like a little flirtation, Which even the most Don Juanish rake Would surely object to undertake At the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... these princely fortunes have the burdens, the wearinesses of royal lives. This poor mother, in her dazzling surroundings, was very like a real queen: familiar with long exiles, cruel separations, and the trials which detract from greatness; one of her sons forever stupefied, the other far away, seldom writing, absorbed in his business, saying, "I will come," and never coming. She had only seen him once in twelve years, and then in the whirl of a visit of the Bey to Saint-Romans—a rush of horses ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... black hair growing fine and freely, like tendrils, and his limbs like smooth plant-stems. He was so healthy and well-made, why did he make one ashamed, why did one feel repelled? Why should Gerald even dislike it, why did it seem to him to detract from his own dignity. Was that all a human being amounted to? So uninspired! ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... only made after Mr. Randolph's death, but hath in it the very vein and strain of Mr. Cleveland's Writing, walking from one height to another, in a constant Level of continued Elevation. And indeed so elaborate are all his other pieces of Poetry, as to praise one were to detract from the rest, and are not to be the less valued by the Reader, because most studyed by the Writer: Take but a taste of the Loftiness of his stile, in those verses of his ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... have profoundly affected the character of its people and their social polity; so that her account of it, as well as her account of the Crimea, must be read with the necessary allowances. These, however, will not detract from Madame de Hell's unquestioned merit as a close and exact observer, endowed with no ordinary faculty of polished and incisive expression, and a fine capacity for appreciating and describing the picturesque aspects of nature. She wields a skilful brush with force ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... Chardin further mentions a kind of centipede, the bite of which, according to him, is fatal. To the sufferings which these creatures cause, must be added a constant annoyance from those more vulgar forms of insect life which detract from the delights of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... essay on the fundamentals of religious truth, a number of short essays by Firmin Abauzit, Francis Blackburne's discussion of the value of confessions of faith, and several essays by Bishop Hoadley. That these writings have now no significance, even to intelligent readers, does not detract from the value of their publication; for they had a living meaning and power. Other writers, drawn upon in the succeeding volumes were Isaac Newton, Jeremy Taylor, John Locke, Isaac Watts, William Penn, and Mrs. Barbauld. The catholicity of the editor was shown in the wide range ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... careful as to the amount of clothes she sends to the laundry. She should of course keep herself and the patient scrupulously clean; but she must reflect that private families do not have an unlimited store of towels and sheets, and if she is extravagant in this matter it will seriously detract from her acceptability. ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... munificent offer, it need hardly be said, was gratefully accepted, and a general appeal was made for funds to properly endow the "Jaffray Suburban Hospital," so that its maintenance and administration shall not detract from the extending usefulness of the parent institution. The site chosen by Mr. Jaffray is at Gravelly Hill, and it is estimated the new branch hospital, of which the first stone was laid June 4, 1884, will cost at least ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... of this kind, however offensive, is not enough to detract materially from the value of so much that is meritorious; nor again will that outspoken treatment of delicate topics (less observable in The Cathedral than in En Route), which makes the book undesirable for many classes of readers, prevent its due appreciation on the part ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... payment of annuities for their support and so that they might purchase horses and cattle and implements of husbandry, and thus enter gradually upon the pursuits of peace. That the plan was not feasible does not detract from the fairness and benevolence of the proposer. He was but following the uniform custom which the government had at that time adopted and which the best minds of that age endorsed. He could not foresee, in the light of that ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... man of less than medium size; but with a sweet expression of features, from which his sunburnt complexion did not detract. Even at that terrible moment his ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... itself, perfect in kind and right, and that those who exercise sovereignty ought not to act so as to compel the Church to become subservient or inferior to themselves, or suffer her to be less free to transact her own affairs or detract aught from the other rights which have been conferred upon her by Jesus Christ. But in matters however in complex jurisdiction, it is in the highest degree in accordance with nature and also with the counsels ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various |
