"Infirmity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intensified by the ridicule of his fellows. He had even acquired a most ridiculous theory about the degrading effects of civilization, and wanted to go back to a state of barbarism. He said the wilderness was the only true home of man. My father, instead of bearing with what I believe was his infirmity, dryly offered him the means to try his experiment. He started for some place in Texas, saying we would never hear from him again. A month after he wrote for more money. My father replied rather ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... allowance, when reading them, for human fallibility and inaccuracy. At the same time, his admiration for the German critics was by no means unqualified. While fully admitting their extraordinary learning, industry, and ingenuity, he complained that their too common infirmity was 'a passion for making history without historical materials,' basing the most dogmatic and positive statements upon faint indications, or upon ingenious conjectures that could not legitimately go beyond a very low degree of probability. The assurance with which these writers undertook by internal ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... life of serfdom on the surrounding farm properties. They held it to be the duty of the parent serfs to hand over their children, as soon as they were fit, to the farmers who would work them out; and when age and infirmity had rendered them unfit for further service, they could be hustled back to the reserved pens, there to spend the evening of their lives in raising more young serfs for the rising white generation. ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... lords of the soil. The Spanish historians who have written upon the conquest of Mexico, all mention the knowledge which the Mexican physicians had of herbs. It was supposed by these last, that for every infirmity there was a remedy in the herbs of the field; and to apply them according to the nature of the malady, was the chief science of these primitive professors of medicine. Much which is now used in European pharmacy is due to the research of Mexican doctors; such ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the professor says: "The scholars proper have, in truth, lost all patience with the etymological objection. 'Save us from such champions!' says Professor Whitney: 'they may be allowed to speak for themselves, since they know best their own infirmity of back and need of braces: the rest of the guild, however, will thank them for nothing.'" Again: "In conclusion, it may be observed that it is mainly among half-taught dabblers in filology that etymological spelling has found its supporters. All true ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... then, that bald, gray old man, his hands trembling with constitutional infirmity and age, upon whose consecrated head the vials of tyrannic wrath had been outpoured. Among the crowd of slaveholders who filled the galleries he could seek no friends, and but a few among those immediately around him. Unexcited, he raised his voice, high-keyed, as was usual with him, but clear, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... now alone and she made her way to Bridgepoint where an older half brother was already settled. This brother was a heavy, lumbering, good natured german man, full of the infirmity that comes of excess ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... passes through it, makes it appear dim, and by its moisture or dryness changes it in colour. In like manner it may thus appear through the visual organ, that is, the eye, which on account of some infirmity, or because of fatigue, is changed into some degree of dimness or into some degree of weakness. So it happens very often, owing to the membrane of the pupil becoming suffused with blood, on account of some corruption produced by weakness, that things all appear of ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... a bell rang and then a spring released the door of the cage immediately over the hole which your ball had entered, so that it swung open. The little pig within, after watching the previous infirmity of your aim with dejection, if not contempt, had pricked up his ears on the sound of the bell, and now smiled a gratified smile, irresistible in infectiousness, and trotted out, and, with the smile dissolving into an expression of absolute beatitude, slid voluptuously down the plank: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... I have thus proceeded. Of any attention ever arrested by the pages forming the object of this reference that rigour of discrimination has wholly and consistently failed, I gather, to constitute a part. In which fact there is perhaps after all a rough justice—since the infirmity I speak of, for example, has been always but the direct and immediate fruit of a positive excess of foresight, the overdone desire to provide for future need and lay up heavenly treasure against the demands of my climax. If ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... was more than thirty years since Cyrus had taken the trouble to turn his unhappiness into philosophy—for, aided by time, he had become reconciled to his wife as a man becomes reconciled to a physical infirmity. Except for that one eventful hour in April, women had stood for so little in his existence, that he had never stopped to wonder if his domestic relations might have been pleasanter had he gone about the business of selection as carefully as he picked and chose the ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... and bandaged. It was impossible, however, to stop him gnawing at the dressings; the paw could not be cured, and the bones not having knitted, it hung limp like the sleeve of a man who has lost an arm. His infirmity, however, did not prevent his being jolly, lively, and full of fun, and he managed to race along quite fast on ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... see the individual form lost in the immensity of the objects with which he is surrounded; to see all ranks and ages blended in the exercise of common devotion; to see all distinction forgotten in the sense of common infirmity, suits the spirit of that religion which was addressed to the poor as well as to the rich, and fits the presence of that Being before whom ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. 20 For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness. 21 What fruit ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... that she was fond of a surreptitious pinch of snuff, and that, at the age of seventy- three, she wore flowers in her cap. There was a tradition in the house that she was not so deaf as she pretended; that she feigned this infirmity in order to possess herself of the secrets of her lodgers. But I never subscribed to this theory; I am convinced that Madame Beaurepas had outlived the period of indiscreet curiosity. She was a philosopher, on a matter-of-fact basis; she ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... complaints and humours have existed in all times; yet as all times have not been alike, true political sagacity manifests itself, in distinguishing that complaint which only characterises the general infirmity of human nature from those which are symptoms of the particular distemperature of our own ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... residence here, and could only account for it by our being so much taken up with the more obvious wonders of our novel situation. I have since learned, however, that this want of observation is a sad and very common infirmity of human nature, there being hundreds of persons before whose eyes the most wonderful things are passing every day who nevertheless, are totally ignorant of them. I therefore have to record my sympathy with such persons, and to recommend to them a course of conduct which I have ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... slaves, or their individual condition, you, Mr. Mendenhall, and your associates, who have been active in getting up this petition, call upon me forthwith to liberate the whole of them. Now let me tell you, that some half a dozen of them, from age, decrepitude, or infirmity, are wholly unable to gain a livelihood for themselves, and are a heavy charge upon me. Do you think that I should conform to the dictates of humanity by ridding myself of that charge, and sending them ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... to finish. Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Beethoven were not slaves to their own professionalism; no doubt they could laugh at it themselves. But there is always a danger that we shall be enslaved by it; and it is the business of criticism to free us from that slavery, to make us aware of this last infirmity of great artists. We are on our guard easily enough against a professionalism that is out of fashion. The Wagnerian of a generation ago could sneer at the professionalism of Mozart; but the professionalism of Wagner seemed to him to be inspiration made constant and certain by a new musical invention. ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... by no means a large class—the grave, dignified, self-possessed, well-mannered waiter; smooth-shaven, spotlessly clean, noiseless, smug and attentive. He generally walks with a slight limp, an infirmity due to his sedentary habits and his long acquaintance with his several employers' decanters. He is never under fifty, is round of form, short in the legs, broad of shoulder, and wears his gray hair cut close. He has had a long and ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... their apostrophe and simile were wonderful. Geography and history furnished great attractions, and they developed ability to master them. In mathematics they did not do so well, on account of the lack of training to think consecutively and methodically. It is a mistake to believe this a mental infirmity of the race; for a very large number of the students in college at the present time do as well in mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, mensuration, and conic sections as the white students of the same age; and some of ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... existed in both colonies; but Judge Pedder did not participate the political sympathies of Judge Forbes, and made no pretence to popular applause. To those who check the abuses of irresponsible power something is due; but when the balance of human infirmity is struck, it will not be always found in ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... first a shell-fish in appearance, and from that, sticking upon old wood, became in time a bird. After some consideration, they unanimously burst out into laughter, believing it altogether false; and, to say the truth, it was the only thing true he had discoursed with them: that was his infirmity, though otherwise a person of most excellent parts, and a very ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... and his family were domiciled in the home of Captain Jose de la Guerra, a friend of his, who met him at the landing to render all the assistance in his power. The captain's house was a large one, and Don Raimundo was led to this plan on account of the growing infirmity of his wife. ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... Merritt's about the trees. They had been repeated, because people thought such ideas queer and showing lack of common-sense. He had heard them unthinkingly, but now, standing on Squire Merritt's door-step, looking at his old tree pensioners, whom he would not desert in their infirmity, he remembered, and the great man's love for his trees gave him reason, with a sudden leap of faith, to believe in his kindness towards him. "I'm better than an old tree," reasoned Jerome, and raised the knocker again boldly and ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... which, though at the first it did much dash and abash my spirit, yet being still by them desired and entreated, I consented to their request, and did twice at two several assemblies (but in private), though with much weakness and infirmity, discover my gift amongst them; at which they not only seemed to be, but did solemnly protest, as in the sight of the great God, they were both affected and comforted; and gave thanks to the Father of mercies, for the grace ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... been struck by Madame de la Fayette's words, inspired by so much friendliness. I never let myself forget the fact that I am growing old; but I must confess that I was simply astonished at what she said, because I do not yet feel any infirmity to keep me in mind of my advancing years. I think of them, however, and find that life offers us hard conditions: here have I been led, in spite of myself, to the fatal period at which one must die—old age. I see it; old age has ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the good news told him; for first Artasyras, and, next to him, you assured him of the decease of Cyrus." Mithridates retired without complaint, though not without resentment. But the unfortunate Carian was fool enough to give way to a natural infirmity. For being ravished with the sight of the princely gifts that were before him, and being tempted thereupon to challenge and aspire to things above him, he deigned not to accept the king's present as a reward for good news, but indignantly crying out and appealing ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... article which stands by itself on the firm foundation of Faith, I shall render joyous praise for the finished work to Him from whom the invitation comes. But if human nature has failed to reach beyond its limits, whatever is lost through my infirmity must be made good by ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... continue to be easier for a time to strike the colored man than to strike off his shackles. There is a mean and low side of humanity, a sort of defiled infirmity, that runs into a disposition to strike the helpless. This is the bravery of ruffianism. There is apt to be a shrinking away from duty, when the contest involves a conflict with arrogant power. This is the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... "Miss Maitland, accept my compliments; you possess the key to a sex no fellow can unlock. And, now I have found an interpreter, I begin to be interested in this little comedy. The first act is just over. There will be half an hour's wait till the simulatrix of infirmity comes running back with the pilgrims of the Rhine. Are they 'the pilgrims of the Rhine' or 'the pilgrims of Love?' Time will show. Play to recommence with a verbal encounter; you will be one against three; for all that, I ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... such as have permission to retire from the service on a stated pension, on account of age or infirmity. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... and it has been eminently successful, and therefore I commend it to others, treating with pity the infirmity of those who ignorantly condemn it, as "They know not what ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... deceived, and this shows that our faith was in excess of our knowledge. Sometimes, indeed, it is quite independent of knowledge. We trust people because we like them, or because they like us. This infirmity is well known to sharpers and adventurers, who invariably cultivate a pleasing manner, and generally practise the arts of flattery. The same principle holds good in religion. It was sagaciously ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... sense are needed,—stern study, and logical generalization of scattered truths, and patient observation of the characters of men, and the wisdom that comes from sorrow and passion, and a sage's experience of things actual, embracing the dark secrets of human infirmity and crime. But despite all that has been said in disparagement or disbelief of "mute, inglorious Miltons," we maintain that there are natures in which the divinest element of poetry exists, the purer and more delicate for escaping from bodily form and evaporating ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it is, then it is certainly not worth coming to church for. Preaching, if it is of the right kind, is the voice of God. This we venture to say while well aware of its imperfections. In the best of preaching there is a large human element beset with infirmity; yet in all genuine preaching there is conveyed a message from Heaven. And, while it is good for people to go to church that they may speak to God, it is still better to go that He may speak to them. Nor, where God is authentically heard speaking ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... saw him was not only so decrepit that he hobbled along the stage, and so bent in the middle that his body formed an angle with his lower limbs, almost as acute as that of a mounted telescope, but was so encumbered by infirmity and high living that upon any violent exertion of the lungs he puffed very painfully; yet even in that state we have heard him speak the part of Rhadamistus in Zenobia, with all the fire, rapidity, and animation of youth, his fine person ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... times, sufferers were regarded with awe, as being possessed by a spirit. Witch doctors among savages, and founders and expounders of differing creeds among more civilized peoples, have taken advantage of this infirmity to claim divine inspiration, and the power of ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... Detraction to object the worst That may be told, and utter all it can; It cannot find a blemish to be enforced Against him, other than he was a man, And built of flesh and blood, and did live here, Within the region of infirmity; Where all perfections never did appear To meet in any one so really, But that his frailty ever did bewray Unto the world that he was ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... vain attempted to make me speak; a harsh guttural sound was all which I would utter to express pain or pleasure. At last, being convinced that I was dumb, he exchanged me with a slave-merchant for a beautiful Circassian girl. He did not state my supposed infirmity, but gave it as a reason for parting with me, that I was too young, and required to be taught. As soon as the bargain was struck, and the merchant had received the money which had been given by Ali to effect the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is all American, with the exception of a glass eye. The substitute optic is alien. Gary tried to enlist in the U. S. Marine Corps at their recruiting station in Louisville, Ky., but was rejected when his infirmity was discovered by Sergeant G. ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... fortunes in the realm, and the number of subjects removed from activity by even moderate affluence is remarkably small. Likewise, the number of persons reckoned in the non-producing class, through dissipation or infirmity, is insignificant. And, more potent than all these reasons uniting to assist in the expansion of Japanese industry and thrift, is the intense patriotism of the people, stimulated by glorious success in two wars against foreign nations of overwhelming populations, as ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... shrunken arm, and then, as though ashamed of this allusion to his own personal infirmity, he ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... front of him, rose the lengthy and fishy person with the cowhide boots and enormous hands. His name was Josiah Badger and he was, according to Trumet's estimate, "a little mite lackin' in his top riggin'." He stuttered, and this infirmity became more and more ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... fared far better, had it not been for his heart, which was soft and underdone. A kind word made a fool of him; and hence most of the scrapes he got into. Two or three wags, aware of his infirmity, used to "draw him out" in conversation whenever the most crabbed and choleric old ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... controverted, that there was an innate predilection in the mind of Lord Byron to mystify everything about himself: he was actuated by a passion to excite attention, and, like every other passion, it was often indulged at the expense of propriety. He had the infirmity of speaking, though vaguely, and in obscure hints and allusions, more of his personal concerns than is commonly deemed consistent with a correct estimate of the interest which mankind take in the cares of one another. But he lived to feel and to rue the consequences: to repent he could ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... monks were more innocent. The garden was always a great place of resort, and gardening a favourite pastime. We may be sure there was much lamentation and grumbling at St. Alban's when Abbot John de Maryns forbade any monk, who from infirmity could only be carried on a litter, from entering the garden at all. Poor old fellows! had their bearers been disorderly and trodden upon the flower-beds? Bowls was the favourite and a very common diversion among them; but in ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... this Home has been made a Christian Home, and its inmates taught to believe that only in coming to God in Christ as their infinite divine Saviour, and touching the hem of his garments, is there any hope of being cured of their infirmity, has its great ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... extreme leniency to me, unworthy, that the doctor was able to tolerate my own defection from the elder faith in medicine; and I could not feel his kindness less caressing because I knew it a concession to an infirmity. He said something like, After all a good physician was the great matter; and I eagerly turned his clemency to praise of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... other, still more sadly. "That I may be only the more unhap—unwilling to lose you?" And she turned away her head. Amelia began to give way to that natural infirmity of tears which, we have said, was one of the defects of this silly little thing. George Osborne looked at the two young women with a touched curiosity; and Joseph Sedley heaved something very like a sigh out of his big chest, as he cast ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Ivar never drank, and Alexandra thought at once that one of his spells had come upon him, and that he must be in a very bad way indeed. She ran downstairs and hurried out to meet him, to hide his infirmity from the eyes of her household. The old man fell in the road at her feet and caught her hand, over which he bowed his shaggy head. "Mistress, mistress," he sobbed, "it has fallen! Sin and death for the young ones! ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... attend the funeral of my poor old aunt, who died on Thursday. I own I am thankful that the good creature has ended all her days of suffering and infirmity. She was to me the "cherisher of infancy," and one must fall on these occasions into reflections which it would be commonplace to enumerate, concerning death, "of chance and change, and fate in human life." Good God, who could have foreseen all this but four months back! ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... of Athens then, which were found in very deed somewhat later to be the infirmity of Greece as a whole, when, though its versatile gifts of intellect might constitute it the teacher of its eventual masters, it was found too incoherent politically to hold its own against Rome:—those evils of Athens, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... infirmity Of childish questioning and discontent. Whate'er befalls us is divinely meant— Thou Truth the clearer for thy mystery! Make us to meet what is or is to be With fervid welcome, knowing it is sent To serve us in some way full excellent, Though we discern ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... organs must be deficient in true vital force and energy. It is often noticeable that a child apparently strong and vigorous, may have but little power to resist disease, or may even be strongly predisposed to some infirmity." The colored women in the section under discussion who become mothers, are usually multiporae long before ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... he could not be prevailed upon to charge. This was the more unfortunate for the insurgents, as the leading of a party of the Macphersons had been committed to MacGregor. This, it is said, was owing to the age and infirmity of the chief of that name, who, unable to lead his clan in person, objected to his heir-apparent, Macpherson of Nord, discharging his duty on that occasion; so that the tribe, or a part of them, were brigaded with their allies ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... following rather lengthy sentence:—"If the devil were in a laughing mood, what could seem more grimly humorous to him than the vision of a fair young spirit striving consciously after ethereal perfection, but overweighted unconsciously by the bonds and fetters of human infirmity and passion, and dragged at last headlong down the abysmal descent to perdition?" "Abysmal" is ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... were passing behind the silent and motionless couple looked at them compassionately. A whole legend of devotion was attached to them. He had married her in spite of her infirmity, touched by her affection for him, it ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... fellow, who had stood loitering till the hurricane whistled round his ears, making towards me, as rapidly as his apparently palsied limbs would permit. Upon his nearer approach, he appeared rather to have suffered from infirmity than years. He wore a brownish-black coat, or rather shell, which, from its dimensions, had never been intended for the wearer; and his inexpressibles were truly inexpressible. "So," said I, as he seated himself on the bench, and shook the rain ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... his chair quite still, as indeed he always was, but now it was a deathlike quietness, without the least sign of the wonderful mobility of feature and cheerfulness of voice and manner which made people so soon grow used to his infirmity—sat until his room was prepared. Then he suffered himself to be carried to his bed, which, for the first time in his life, he refused ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... infirmity to retire from the active discharge of his duties, he was succeeded by Thomas Brown (1778-1820). Brown had shown early precocity, and at the age of fifteen had attracted Stewart's notice by some remarks on a psychological point. He published at ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... My story early—not misled, I trust, By an infirmity of love for days Disowned by memory—ere the breath of spring 615 Planting my snowdrops among winter snows: [p] Nor will it seem to thee, O Friend! so prompt In sympathy, that I have lengthened out With fond and feeble tongue a tedious tale. Meanwhile, my hope has been, that ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... write these lines, you whom I do not know, though I know that you are still fighting or that you have returned broken from the trenches. I have met you in the street, wearing an almost shamefaced air, doing your best to conceal some infirmity; but in your eyes I have read the intensity of your inward agony. I know the terrible hours through which you have lived, and I know that those who have endured like trials end by having like souls.... I know your doubts; I share your uneasiness. I know how you are obsessed with the question, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... "nerves" is the only one in the household who will eat sparingly and chew his food slowly. But now and then I find an intelligent, sympathetic man who will do so because it is helpful to his wife. He sympathizes with her infirmity, and with fine self-denial eats as she does. And note this: he usually derives benefit from so doing. Time after time when I have put a nervous woman under this regimen, and then her husband elected to go along with her, I have had the man come to me and say: ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... emphatically denies the assertion that the poor must always be with us. The productive capacity of society is now so great that none need want, and all are able to earn their livelihood, and more, except where they are prevented from doing so by sickness, infirmity, or by the existence of laws and customs which the individual cannot himself, acting alone, remove."[196] "There is a demand for the labour of every man under any well-ordered social system. If there is a waste of men now, it is the fault of the wage ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... during the day, had retired to his own apartment, for there were some moments when, in the sadness of his thoughts, he sought that solitude which he so impatiently fled from at others)—each of the circle had some story to relate equally veracious and indisputable, of an infirmity cured, or a prayer accorded, or a sin atoned for at the foot of the holy tomb. One story peculiarly affected Lucille; the narrator, a venerable old man with gray locks, solemnly declared himself a witness of ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... experience, romance? Was this all there was to life and love? What was the sense, the end? Her dissatisfaction reproached the Cosmos, grew to that Weltschmerz which is merely low spirits and reduced vitality, not "an infirmity ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... inheritance of feverish passion, there was added another, and to him a heavy and life-long burden. A physical defect in a healthy nature may either pass without notice or be turned to a high purpose. No line of his work reveals the fact that Sir Walter Scott was lame. The infirmity failed to cast even a passing shade over that serene power. Milton's blindness is the occasion of the noblest prose and verse of resignation in the language. But to understand Pope, we must remember that ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... Felipe's master were immediately reported to Hideyoshi. They roused him to hot anger. He is reported to have cried: "What! my States are filled with traitors, and their numbers increase every day. I have proscribed the foreign doctors, but out of compassion for the age and infirmity of some among them, I have allowed their remaining in Japan. I shut my eyes to the presence of several others because I fancied them to be quiet and incapable of forming bad designs, and they are serpents I have been cherishing in my bosom. The traitors are entirely employed ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the moral courage of her son had developed. In her code of manhood there was no tolerance for infirmity of purpose, and mental fear was as degrading and as disintegrating as physical cowardice. He had been a man of the world in the miniature world that the miles of mountains had enclosed around him. He had ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... and my people might have kept the knowledge from me, out of consideration for my infirmity,' she said. 'I should be very angry if it were so. I should hate to be treated ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Evidently, these companions were all three on intimate terms, as was natural enough, since a great many childish impulses were softly creeping back on the simple-minded old man; insomuch that, if no worldly necessities nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his remnant of life might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the early playtime of the kitten and the child. Old Dr. Dolliver and his great-granddaughter (a ponderous title, which seemed ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... publication, I saw poor Janet was entirely thrown out, though, like a jaded hunter, panting, puffing, and short of wind, she endeavoured at least to keep up with the chase. Or, rather, her perplexity made her look all the while like a deaf person ashamed of his infirmity, who does not understand a word you are saying, yet desires you to believe that he does understand you, and who is extremely jealous that you suspect his incapacity. When she saw that some remark was necessary, she resembled exactly in her ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... rarest interval we do meet, an individual who is able to preserve his personality as Nature meant it to live, we feel an attraction towards him such as is irresistible. Now I would challenge those who knew him to say whether they ever knew any other man so free from this great human infirmity as Tennyson. The way in which his simplicity of nature would manifest itself was, in some instances, most remarkable. Though, of course, he had his share of that egoism of the artist without which imaginative genius may become ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... am right glad to hear that you are with child, although your infirmity is very grievous unto me. Consider and tell me those things that you deem will be to your healing, and I will seek and ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... much wrinkled, and with more than one Button missing. His Face, too full to be handsom, was likewise marred by the Effects of some scrofulous Disorder; and his Head was continually rolling about in a sort of convulsive way. Of this Infirmity, indeed, I had known before; having heard of it from Mr. Pope, who took the Trouble to make ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... it short—don't prose—don't hum and haw. "The author had doubtless no ambition to enter his name on the honorable and ancient roll of gentlemen prosers; probably he conceived himself not at all tainted with the asthmatic infirmity of humming and hawing; but, as to "cutting it short," how could he be sure of meeting his lordship's expectations in that point, unless by dismissing the limitations that might be requisite to fit the idea for use, or ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... any clergy, should show themselves vicious beyond the fair bounds allowed to human infirmity, and to those professional faults which can hardly be separated from professional virtues, though their vices never can countenance the exercise of oppression, I do admit that they would naturally have the effect of abating very much of our indignation against the tyrants ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... dear Father, as you do bear it all, how can we wish that God should spare you one trial or infirmity, which, we know, are, in His providence, making you daily riper and riper for Heaven? I ought not to write to you like this, but somehow the idea of our ever meeting anywhere else has so entirely passed from my mind, that I try to view things with reference ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... event of a tournament, which was the grand spectacle of that age, felt as much interested as the half-starved citizen of Madrid, who has not a real left to buy provisions for his family, feels in the issue of a bull-fight. Neither duty nor infirmity could keep youth or age from such exhibitions. The passage of arms, as it was called, which was to take place at Ashby, in the county of Leicester, as champions of the first renown were to take the field in the presence of Prince John himself, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... De Pais's Sword drawn, and ready to kill his Daughter, who lay all in Tears at his Feet. He with-held his Hand; and asking the Cause of his Rage, he was told all that Atlante had confess'd; which put Vernole quite beside all his Gravity, and made him discover the Infirmity of Anger, which he used to say ought to be dissembled by all wise Men: So that De Pais forgot his own to appease his, but 'twas in vain, for he went out of the House, vowing Revenge to Rinaldo: ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... symbols, on the ground that these were only schetically worshipped by them, the honor passing from them to the prototype. And since we live in bodies, and can scarcely, conceive of any thing without having some image or phantasm, we may therefore be indulged in this infirmity of human nature (at least in the vulgar) to worship God under a corporeal image, as a means of preventing men from ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... was promptly shot off at me in a brief tone of voice. I made with my head and my hand a courteous gesture, by which I seemed to sympathize gently with the infirmity that was thus revealed to me, after which I sat down, feeling more easy. I had drawn my adversary's fire. Honor seemed to ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... which arguments fall short of a tolerable standard of proof, though they cannot be exhibited as definite breaches of logical principles. Logicians, therefore, might be excused from discussing them; but out of the abundance of their pity for human infirmity they usually describe and label the chief classes of these 'extra-logical fallacies,' and exhibit a ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... criticism, to the memory, there to exercise the mind to the last of life, to be the amusement of our declining years, and, when all the other faculties for receiving pleasure are impaired by old age and infirmity, to cast the sunshine of delight over the last moments ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... other Night upon this Topick, and in made such a strong Impression upon me, that it produced a very odd Dream. As it is the Weakness of Women, and old Men, to be fond of telling their Dreams to their Friends, I hope my Readers will excuse me this Infirmity ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... May or early in June, rebuking backsliders, and denouncing the Queen's rumoured marriage with any infidel, "and all Papists are infidels." Papists and Protestants were both offended. There was a scene with Mary, in which she wept profusely, an infirmity of hers; we constantly hear of her weeping in public. She wished the Lords of the Articles to see whether Knox's "manner of speaking" was not punishable, but nothing could be done. Elizabeth would have found ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... passions, abandons itself[3] to indolence and sensuality, when it has indulged for a season in pernicious gratifications, and when bodily strength, time, and mental vigor, have been wasted in sloth, the infirmity of nature is accused, and those who are themselves in fault impute their delinquency ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... the rays of light is too great, as in over-convexity of the cornea, or the crystalline lens, or the vitreous humor, or all of them, the image is formed a little in front of the retina. Persons thus affected cannot see distinctly, except at a very short distance. This infirmity is called near, or short-sightedness. This defect is in a great measure obviated by the use of concave glasses, which scatter the luminous rays, and thus counterbalance the too strong refracting ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... boys who attended Salsette Academy mention that martinet, Major Pater. Although his infirmity—or injury—precluded his having anything to do with the drilling of the pupils of the academy, in the schoolroom he was the most stern of all the ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... defect of such a nature that all can recognize it as making certain precautions impossible, he will not be held answerable for not taking them. A blind man is not required to see at his peril; and although he is, no doubt, bound to consider his infirmity in regulating his actions, yet if he properly finds himself in a certain situation, the neglect of precautions requiring eyesight would not prevent his recovering for an injury to himself, and, it ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... them, and something of the mule, and something of a soul trying to wander out of the forest of misfortune; his little, tip-tilted nose that never grew on pure-blooded Frenchman; under a scant moustache his thick lips, disfigured by infirmity of speech, whence passed so continually a dribble of saliva—sick British workman was stamped on him. Yet he was passionately fond of washing himself; his teeth, his head, his clothes. Into the frigid winter he would go, and stand at ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... of old age every day of their lives, and sometimes hourly during the day. When this goes on for three, four, five or ten years, it is too much for the most of humanity. It is taken as an accepted fact that old age means infirmity, and the break comes, not really because the body is weak and worn out, but because the mental state has contributed too much to the idea that they are no longer young and cannot be youthful, and are getting too old to enjoy things that others ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... there is no foundation for any high or supernatural views of inspiration in either the Gospels or Epistles. There is no appearance in those writings that their authors had any extraordinary gift, or that they were free from error or infirmity; St. Paul hesitated in difficult cases, and more than once corrected himself; one of the gospel historians does not profess to have been an eye-witness of the events described by him; the evangelists do not agree as to the dwelling-place of Christ's parents, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... course of my life I have suffered, like many others, from nameless afflictions—nameless because they do not exist. No one can localize this strange infirmity or realize it. You only know you have a sensation of depression. In every other respect I was perfectly well, yet I thought it was necessary to see a doctor. So it was, if I wished ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... under the majesty of his spirit that might otherwise have grown into a revolting and self-sufficient pride. It is so vain to struggle against these fetters and restraints; God knows what we need, and it may be ever the mightiest souls that are curbed while on earth by some physical infirmity. ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... with furs, a tiger-skin over his knees, his pale hands clasping his wrappings together at the throat. He was considerate for my mother's comfort, as a host should be, and he betrayed an eager curiosity and interest concerning my infirmity; which showed his care for me, but which I resented as an intrusion. For I had reached the point when it was easy for me to endure the fact that I was unlike other men in my physical strength, but was not yet sufficiently ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... Joshua and Elizabeth to yield to infirmity, and retire from active life. The hard work of the new country told seriously upon even strong constitutions. Some of the members of their society older, and some even younger, than themselves ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... For we have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, BUT WAS IN ALL POINTS TEMPTED AS WE ARE, yet without sin; who can have compassion on the ignorant, as he also himself is compassed with infirmity, and though a Son, yet learned obedience by the ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... the crushed tigno. It is not easy to believe that others are more successful, but the popular renown of the specific survives in spite of all, probably thanks to a simple accident of identity between the name of the remedy and that of the infirmity: the Provencal for "chilblain" is tigno. From the moment when the chilblain and the nest of the Mantis were known by the same name were not the virtues of the latter ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... him.—Good God! a year ago he worshipped you! I believe there was something you told him—some pointer you gave him at one time about work, that made an immense impression on him.—You mean something to him. Me, he dislikes. He knew months ago that I—well, saw something of his infirmity. But, while I don't believe in him, this affair mustn't go on. The fellow could have learned to paint. He's killing himself now, not physically, but mentally and morally.—The whole city's waked up to him. His pace ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... found a sure refuge from themselves. The weakness that shrunk from the censure or the scorn of others, could be poured out to her as to one whose mission upon earth was to pity and to heal; for she knew the whole range of human infirmity, and that the wisest have the roots of those frailties that conquer the weak. But in restoring the fallen to their connexion with the honoured, she never held out a hope that they might parley with their temptations, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... Lady Landale, "(excuse me pray—it's becoming quite an infirmity) so that is settled. I hope it will storm to-night, that the wind will blow and howl—and then I snuggle in the feather bed in that queer old room and try and fancy I am happy Molly ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... darkness) that it bore the first gentleman's name. It was a mischance, sir, but so far as I can see one that might have happened to anybody. You say that even after apologising—for on reflection I am always willing to apologise for any conduct into which my infirmity of temper may have betrayed me—it is impossible for me to continue here as your assistant. I am glad, then, that prudence counselled me to provide two strings to my bow, and engage myself to Dr. Mathers of Bath, on the chance that you proved unsatisfactory; and I thank you for ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... listening to stories of sin and sorrow and misery. It is only the consciousness of the immense good he is doing that sustains the confessor in the sacred tribunal. He is one "who can have compassion on the ignorant and erring, because he himself is also encompassed with infirmity."(468) ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... children, may be powerful enough as motives to hold you always in the future above its enticements. But, trusting in these alone, you can never dwell in complete safety. You need a deeper work of cure than it is possible for you to obtain from any earthly physician. Only God can heal you of this infirmity. ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... boys, as he called him, tripped him up at school, and he fell on his hip. It kept him in bed for a year, and he's never been the same since; he will always be a cripple," grieved the mother. She wiped her eyes; she never could think of her boy's infirmity without weeping. "And what seemed the worst of all," she continued, "was that the boy who did it never expressed any regret for it, or acknowledged it by word or deed, though he must have known that Ben knew who hurt him. He's a man here, now; and sometimes Ben meets him. But Ben ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Miss Arnold is called for by friends to play on the piano at an evening entertainment. Mrs. Brown and I, being left alone, begin a conversation of the personal kind, which is the only resource among the poor. If she had had any infirmity—a wooden leg or a glass eye—she would naturally have begun by showing it to me, but as she had been spared intact ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... entertainment of his own time, Defoe took the surest way of writing for the entertainment of all time. Yet if he had never chanced to write Robinson Crusoe, he would now have a very obscure place in English literature. His "natural infirmity of homely plain writing," as he humorously described it, might have drawn students to his works, but they ran considerable risk of lying in utter oblivion. He was at war with the whole guild of respectable writers who have become classics; ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... his name in the roll of martyrs. The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a single and peculiar trial. The Apostle, though forewarned, denied his Master on the first alarm of danger; yet that Master, who knew his nature in its strength and its infirmity, chose him for the rock on which ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... as the King calleth him!" exclaimed Sir Thomas. "A man I have ever thought wore the motley rather from excess, than infirmity, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... which it is really of much consequence what the tribunal is, the proposition might probably be reversed; besides which, the cause of error, whether arising from the intricacy of the case or from some common prejudice or mental infirmity, if it acted upon one judge, would be extremely likely to affect all the others in the same manner, or at least a majority, and thus render a wrong instead of a right decision more probable the more ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... from literary labour, Smollett once went to revisit his family, and to embrace the mother he loved; but such was the irritation of his mind and the infirmity of his health, exhausted by the hard labours of authorship, that he never passed a more weary summer, nor ever found himself so incapable of indulging the warmest emotions of his heart. On his return, in a letter, he gave this melancholy narrative of himself:—"Between friends, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... conduct from the moment of his retirement from office, in consequence of his Free Trade vote and speech in '79, had been, with occasional exceptions, arising mostly from bodily infirmity, as energetic and consistent as that of Grattan himself, saw no sufficient constitutional guarantee in mere acts of Parliament repealing other acts. He demanded "express renunciation" of legislative supremacy on the part of England; while Grattan maintained the sufficiency of "simple repeal." It ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... gives rise to these objections, and at the same time renders it so difficult to give a satisfactory answer to them, is the natural infirmity and unsteadiness both of our imagination and senses, when employed on such minute objects. Put a spot of ink upon paper, and retire to such a distance, that the spot becomes altogether invisible; you will find, that upon your return and nearer approach the spot first becomes visible by ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... all his hearers than you have. This is what makes the matter hopeless. If a farmer talks to you about his pigs or his poultry, or a physician about his patients, or a lawyer about his briefs, or a merchant about stock, or an author about himself, you know how to account for this, it is a common infirmity, you have a laugh at his expense and there is no more to be said. But here is a man who goes out of his way to be absurd, and is troublesome by a romantic effort of generosity. You cannot say to him, 'All this may be interesting to you, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... in the Tertiary or some other period, some female monkeys were less hirsute than others, and that they naturally preferred males possessing similar characteristics. These divergencies were thus commenced, and, by continuous "sexual selection," the infirmity (for such he regards the loss of hair) was propagated until the race was almost entirely denuded or bereft of this covering. In the same way he accounts for nearly all the differentiations of the race, among the various tribes now or formerly inhabiting the ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... indeterminate; the features with their slight twist to the left; the complexion, once fair, and now reddened by years and ill-health; the hair, of a yellowish grey; the head and shoulders with their nervous infirmity. Only the eyes still possessed some purity of colour. Through all their timidity or wavering, they were still blue and sweet; perhaps they alone explained why a good many persons—including her ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity, unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness, unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... help it, you are in an abnormal condition, you have lost self-control,—it is a mild type of mental derangement. You must attack your bad habit of worrying as you would a disease. It is definitely something to be overcome, an infirmity that you are ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... not far from his heart to put him in minde of dilection and loue to the woman. Lastly, a bone from the left side, to put the woman in minde, that by reason of her frailty and infirmity she standeth in need of both the one and the other ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... employed here, signifies exalted to the right hand of God. "Perfection" (bringing unto the end) "was not by the Levitical priesthood." "The law perfected nothing, but it was the additional introduction of a better hope by which we draw near unto God." "The law maketh men high priests which have infirmity, which are not suffered to continue, by reason of death; but the word of the oath after the law maketh the Son perfect for evermore," bringeth him to the end, namely, an everlasting priesthood in the heavens. That Christian believers ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... truthful speech—the consummate tact of direct attention. Looking ever to the All-Wise Disposer of events, he relied on that Providence which helps men by giving them high hearts and hopes to help themselves with the means which their Creator has put at their service. There was no infirmity in his conduct over which charity must fling its veil; no taint of selfishness from which purity averts her gaze; no dark recess of intrigue that must be lit up with colored panegyric; no subterranean passage to be trod in trembling, lest there be stirred ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... frocks, invariably too large, hung round her as if they had nothing under them. Above a deformed and puny body she had a sweet little doll-like head, a tiny round face, pale and exquisitely delicate. Her infirmity almost became graceful. Her body swayed gently at every step with a ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... was near-sighted, and this infirmity had deterred him from an amusement which he would have enjoyed very much; but that day, however, he wished to make the attempt, and, having expressed this. wish, the Duke of Montebello handed him a gun, and M. de Beauterne had the honor of giving the Emperor his first lesson. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... it is a duty, that God hides Himself only in light and love, that He calls upon us to become spirits, to possess ourselves and to possess Him in the measure of our strength and that it is our incredulity, our spiritual cowardice, which is our infirmity ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cried the man; and entirely forgetful of his infirmity, he took three or four paces toward them, with his ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn |
