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At fault   /æt fɔlt/   Listen
At fault

adjective
1.
Deserving blame.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"At fault" Quotes from Famous Books



... there, makes that part of the womb grow hard, and distends the vessels, and from that, pains in the womb arise. In the instrument, from the narrowness of the passage. Lastly, it may be the matter of the blood which is at fault, and which may be in too great quantities; or the quality may be bad, so that it is thick and gross and cannot flow out as it ought to do, but only in drops. The signs will best be ascertained by the patient's own account, but there will be pains in the head, stomach and back, with inflammation, ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... them. The real reason of Mr Kipling's false fame as a politician is, not that he is an Imperial pamphleteer, but that, writing of the Army and the Empire, he fails to be a pamphleteer on the other side. His detachment, not his partiality, is at fault. ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer

... sticks. The succinctest oven ever heard of; for your operation done, and your tiles flung out again, it is capable of all folding flat like a book." [Retzow, ii. 82 n.] Never till now had Wobersnow's oven been at fault: but in these Polish Villages, all of mere thatched hovels, there was not a tile to be found; and the Bakery, with astonishment, saw itself ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... head, for shame and confusion before the Khalif; then said, 'By Allah, O Commander of the Faithful, it is not that I am at fault, but that I am ashamed, though, indeed, the answer is on the tip of my tongue.' 'Speak, O damsel,' said the Khalif; whereupon quoth she, 'Copulation hath in it many and exceeding virtues and praiseworthy ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... developed that General Halleck had been equally at fault in disregarding the wishes of the government with respect to the mustering in of the loyal Indians. He had neglected to send on to Kansas the instructions which he himself had received from Washington.[257] It was incumbent, therefore, upon Blunt to ask for new. He had found the enlisted ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... before the dawn rendered it dangerous. Moving away slowly until he was out of earshot, he then walked as quickly as he could back through the forest. But he was not a mariner, and even a mariner would have been at fault in tracking his course by compass through dense forest. He judged his general direction accurately, but he swerved a little too far to the right, and suddenly found himself on the brink of the cliff. He dared not go back into the forest, ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... you came," she repeated, and broke off, her mind suddenly at fault. Automatically he began to sway the daisy-chain afresh. "We were on board a ship . . . a funny ship . . . with a great ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... going they soon overtook a carriage, as they would have overtaken any thing less rapid than a locomotive or a whirlwind. It was lucky that Leslie had taken the precaution to note the number on the hack, as otherwise they would have been at fault after all. As they dashed by the carriage, which was going at good speed, that cosmopolitan saw that the number on the lamps was a wrong one; and so they kept on. Another carriage was passed at the same speed, their horses by this time dripping as if they had been ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... is more than this in the question. We do not know as yet what is the cost in expended material of mental acts as compared with motor manifestations, and here, therefore, are at fault; because, although it seems so much slighter a thing to think a little than to hit out with the power of an athlete, it may prove that the expenditure of nerve material is in the former case greater than in ...
— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell

... and Snowball had been able to explain the action of the fish, they were both at fault about the behaviour of the bird. In all their sea experience neither had ever witnessed the like conduct before,—either on the part of a frigate-bird, or any other bird of ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... recommend a man in Massachusetts may discredit him in Louisiana. The very countenance is often a sure indication of character and of capacity, when it is one of a class and a region whose peculiarities we thoroughly understand; but coming to us from other classes and regions, we are often at fault,—more especially in these latter days, when all strong-mindedness is presumed to be foreshadowed in a stiff beard. Time was when something could be inferred from a lip, a mouth, a chin,—when character could be found in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... Buckner was forced to hide out in the woods for many months because he had met slave Frank Buckner and had tried to kill him. Frank returned to Greensburg, forgave his master and procurred a paper stating that he was at fault, after which Stanton returned to active service. "Yes, the road has been long. Memory brings back those days and the love of my mother is still real to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... St. Claire tried to question her further with regard to herself and her home, but his phraseology was probably at fault, for no satisfactory result was reached beyond the fact that her mother was dead, that her name was Jerry, or Derree, as she called it, and that she had been on a ship with Mah-nee, who did so—and she imitated perfectly the motions and contortions ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... its nature on examination. It is so disguised that one fails to recognise it, so subtle that it deceives the scientific, so elusive that it escapes the doctor's eye: experiments seem to be at fault with this poison, rules useless, aphorisms ridiculous. The surest experiments are made by the use of the elements or upon animals. In water, ordinary poison falls by its own weight. The water is superior, the poison obeys, falls downwards, and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... as I fell asleep—"yes, and it's our education that's at fault, sir. In our towns, the whole education and bringing up of women in its essence tends to develop her into the human beast —that is, to make her attractive to the male and able to vanquish him. Yes, ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... following words, "they do not supply it or try to supply it as they are bound to do, and as they should, although there is a sufficient number of the said ministers." Therefore, when there is not a good supply, but a lack of ministers, the encomendero is not at fault, and has no reason for not collecting his tribute. Should the encomenderos be deprived of this, your Majesty, as the party most interested, could not support here a soldier, nor the bishop, nor me, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... constantly hearing the word Britisher used seriously and in good faith, and remarks expressly on an odd pronunciation of Europe with the accent on the last syllable, which be noticed in Mr. Seward among others. Mr. Russell's memory is at fault. What he heard was European; and Britisher is not, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... the greater part of the contents of a large willow-bound bottle of old St. Croix rum, which I had just received from a friend who had imported it direct. Then, in boarding-house communities, one's magnetism is as much at fault as that of a ship sailing up a river whose rock-bound shores are impregnated with iron elements. I knew a man who was over-magnetized to the extent of matrimony by the lady of the house,—a widow, and a shrew. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... was equal to so great a responsibility, although she had been engaged to sing the part of Isolde after Mme. Klafsky's death and the failure of negotiations between Mr. Grau and Mme. Nordica. The manager's judgment was never at fault in these negotiations; he wanted to secure the services of Mme. Nordica, for he well knew their value, but the unhappy contract with Melba stood in his way, and Mme. Nordica was beyond his reach when the failure of Melba's voice and her departure for France ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... half-resemblance—it was the thing itself; and I had observed it a hundred and a hundred times when sailing my little schooner in the shallows left by the ebb. But what had become of the waves that had thus fretted the solid rock, or of what element had they been composed? I felt as completely at fault as Robinson Crusoe did on his discovering the print of the man's foot on the sand. The evening furnished me with still further cause of wonder. We raised another block in a different part of the quarry, and found that the area of a circular depression in the stratum below ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... Hansa League. His utter failure was due, partly to the vices of an undisciplined temperament, and partly to the extraordinary difficulties of the most inscrutable period of European history, when the shrewdest heads were at fault and irreparable blunders belonged to the order of the day. That period was the period of the Reformation, which profoundly affected the politics of Scandinavia. Christian II. had always subordinated religion to politics, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... possessions of his Aunt Lois; would lull the suspicions concerning its mother, and conciliate the gossips; and might win him back from hiding, if only to expose the fraud and take shame from the Endicotts. What a clever and daring criminal was this woman! With a cleverness always at fault because of her rare unscrupulousness. Even wickedness has its delicacy, its modesty, its propriety, which a criminal respects in proportion to his genius for crime. Sonia offended all in her daring, and lost at every turn. This trap would catch her own feet. A child! A son! He shuddered at ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... love which, having no end, seemed also to have had no beginning. They quarreled sometimes—this was playing too. She put, now herself, now him, in the wrong. And either reconciliation was sweet. But it was she who was oftenest at fault, his forgiveness was so dear to her. And still, this was but playing at it. When all these adventures and pretenses were done, they stood heart to heart, and out of their only meeting in life built up eternal truth and told each other. They told ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... themselves; and it perhaps served them to have within their ken neighbours whose morality was lower even than their own. But to such a one as Harry Heathcote the Brownbies were utterly abominable. He was for the law and justice at any cost. To his thinking, the Colonial Government was grossly at fault, because it did not weed out and extirpate not only the identical Brownbies, but all Brownbieism wherever it might be found. A dishonest workman was a great evil, but, to his thinking, a dishonest man in the position of master was the incarnation of evil. As to the difficulties of evidence, ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope

... uncomfortable at the prospect of the apology which he felt bound to make to him. On the other hand, this feeling was more than equalled by his relief at finding that his faith in the virtue of the genus School-prefect, though at fault in the matter of Plunkett, was not altogether misplaced. It made up for a good deal. Then his thoughts drifted to Sir Alfred Venner. Struggle with his feelings as he might, the Head could not endure that local ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... The seamanship at fault: but this ex- pression may be glossed by supposing the boatswain to have sounded that call on ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... her hands. Oh! but Polly must have explained, must have convinced him that owing to a prig's self-confidence they were all equally foolish, equally misled. Unless Hubert—? But then, how is she at fault? In imagination she says it all through Polly's lips. The words glow hot and piteous, carrying her soul with them. But that face in the oak chair ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... during pregnancy it is a consequence of neglect, or injury, for which the woman herself is responsible,—it is not a natural accompaniment of, or a physiological sequence to pregnancy. Find out, therefore, wherein you are at fault, rectify it, and it will ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.

... that they have found out the ultimate, causes of these; while yet they have only to speak of a 'plague' and they implicitly avouch the very truth which they have set themselves to deny; for a 'plague,' what is it but a stroke; so called, because that universal conscience of men which is never at fault, has felt and in this way confessed it to be such? For here, as in so many other cases, that proverb stands fast, 'Vox populi, vox Dei'; and may be admitted to the full; that is, if only we keep in mind that this 'people' is not the populace either in high place ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... forefathers and the safeguard of the Messiah, on whom is our reliance, and follow after the faith of the Vagrants,[FN543] to wit, the faith of Al-Islam, the which arose with the sword against the Cross and the Images?" Replied Miriam, "I am not at fault, I went out by night to the church, to visit the Lady Mary and seek a blessing of her, when there fell upon me unawares a band of Moslem robbers, who gagged me and bound me fast and carrying me on board the barque, set sail with me for their own country. However, I beguiled ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... vivacities of their pupils. The only wonder is that it should be usually so easy to assign conjectural dates within twenty or thirty years; but, at Pisa, the currents of tradition and invention run with such cross eddies, that I often find myself utterly at fault. In this lintel, for instance, there are two pieces separated by a narrower one, on which there has been an inscription, of which in my enlarged plate you may trace, though, I fear, not decipher, the few letters that remain. The uppermost of these stones is ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin

... to Gladstonopolis, I did think of it, and for a moment or two my mind wavered. He had convinced me that there was something wrong in the details of my system; but not,—when I came to argue the matter with myself,—that the system itself was at fault. But now at the present moment I had hardly time for meditation. I had been surprised at Crasweller's earnestness, and also at his eloquence, and I was in truth more full of his words than of his reasons. But ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope

... Vincent Farley, the real man, Ardea's appraisal of him was not greatly at fault. He was tall, like his father, but there the resemblance paused. The promoter's shifty blue eyes were always at the point of lighting up with enthusiasm; the son's, of precisely the same hue, were cold and calmly calculating. The human polyhedron ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... You have accused me, Mrs. Ebbsmith, of narrowness of outlook. In the present instance, dear lady, it is your judgement which is at fault. ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero

... and troubling an old man like him. This is all you, Mr. Chia Jui, who is to blame; for in the absence of Mr. Chia Tai-ju, you, sir, are the head in this school, and every one looks to you to take action. Had all the pupils been at fault, those who deserved a beating should have been beaten, and those who merited punishment should have been punished! and why did you wait until things came to such a pass, and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... keen and grim old huntsman On a horse as white as snow; Sometimes he is very swift And sometimes he is slow. But he never is at fault, For he always hunts at view And he rides without a ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle

... agitation proceeded in all cases from young men who were studying, or had recently studied, in the universities, the seminaries, or the technical schools, such as the Medical Academy and the Agricultural Institute. Plainly, therefore, the system of education was at fault. The semi-military system of the time of Nicholas had been supplanted by one in which discipline was reduced to a minimum and the study of natural science formed a prominent element. Here it was ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... pursuing Texans are at fault, as foxhounds by a fence, over which Reynard has doubled back to mislead them. They have halted at the bifurcation of the trails, and sit in their saddles, considering which of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... of teeth, I was surprised to find how different, in fact, the anatomy of the two great families was. Scarcely in any great natural family do we find Cuvier's favourite theory of anatomical and physiological co-relations so entirely at fault as in the Cetacea. The teeth or whalebone, as natural-history characters, lead to no results; the whole structure of the interior defies all a-priori reasoning. The brain in whalebone-whales does not fill the interior of the ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various

... forfeit the favour of God, if I ever was false to thy love! Abandonment punish my crime, if I've broken the vows that I swore! But no, I've committed no crime, that calleth for rigour from thee; Or, if in good sooth I'm at fault, I bring thee repentance therefor. Of the marvels of Fortune it is that thou shouldst abandon me thus; But Fortune to bring to the light fresh ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... eleven, while the two armies thus faced each other, resting for an interval from the rush of conflict, there came to Lord Cardigan that fatal order which caused him to hurl his men into "the jaws of death." How it came to be given, how the misapprehension occurred, who was at fault in the error, has never been made clear. Captain Nolan, who brought the order, was one of the first to fall, and his story of the event died with him. All we know is that he handed Lord Lucan a written command to advance, and when asked, "Where are we to advance to?" he pointed to the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... completeness. Plato entertained the idea that lovers each sought a likeness in the other, and that love was only the divorced half of the original human being entering into union with its counterpart. But philosophy would here seem to be at fault, for affection quite as often springs from unlikeness as from likeness ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... know," said Masters after one or two more questions had been asked, "how it happened that the sheep got lost and if it was its own fault or the fault of someone who should have been looking after it. That isn't a bad question to come from the old fellow. His theology isn't half so much at fault as that of some theological seminary professors I know, who teach that sin is nothing but a disease and that nobody in particular is to blame for it. If he had to live out here awhile instead of in his little upholstered study at the seminary, he ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... Paris directed the armies of the Republic: in 1793 he did well, and saved France; in 1794 his action was at first very unfortunate, but he repaired his faults afterward by chance; in 1796 he was completely at fault. It is to be observed, however, that both Louvois and Carnot individually controlled the armies, and that there was no council of war. The Aulic council, sitting in Vienna, was often intrusted with the duty of directing the operations of the armies; and there has never been but one ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... However much at fault I may be in recollection of our arrival at Sydney, my memories of our first night at Livorno Bay (so my father christened the derelict's resting-place) could hardly be more vivid and distinct. That night marks for me the beginning of ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... older errors, the whole civilized world was at fault, Protestant as well as Catholic. It was not the fault of religion; it was the fault of that short-sighted linking of theological dogmas to scriptural texts which, in utter defiance of the words and works of the Blessed Founder of Christianity, narrow-minded, loud-voiced men are ever prone ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... his shoulders Lone obeyed, following the dog as it trotted through the brush on the trail of a man's footprints which Swan had shown it. A man might have had some trouble in keeping to the trail, but Jack trotted easily along and never once seemed at fault. In a very few minutes he stopped in a rocky depression where a horse had been tied, and waited for Swan, wagging his tail and showing his teeth in a panting smile. The man he had trailed had mounted and ridden toward the ridge to the west. Swan examined ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... of Parliament, delivered speeches upon the burning question of the day all over England. At Hawarden he pleaded that it was the wretched Turkish system that was at fault, and not the Turks themselves, and hoped for a remedy. To the electors of Frome he spoke of the tremendous responsibility of the Ministers. In a speech at the Taunton Railway Station, he said, in reference to the injunction for himself and friends to mind their ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... capable of being struck by splinters or shot, and all its parts of such materials and character as to receive the smallest amount of injury if so struck. In every one of these aspects Herr Gruson's mounting is at fault. With parts and movements far more ingeniously adapted than those of the crude and unskillfully designed muzzle-pivoting carriages of Captain Heathorn, also exhibited at Paris, and much exhibited and exposed since, the Gruson mounting is even more complicated, expensive, ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... its limits. Accurately as Captain Wragge had seen his way hitherto, even his sharp insight was now at fault. He finished his cigar with the mortifying conviction that he was totally unprepared for Mrs. Lecount's next proceeding. In this emergency, his experience warned him that there was one safe course, and one only, which he ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... in unison with the hoarse moaning of the pudamengro, and ere the song is finished, the iron is again hot and malleable. Behold, I place it once more on the covantza, and recommence hammering; and now I am somewhat at fault; I am in want of assistance; I want you, brother, or some one else, to take the bar out of my hand and support it upon the covantza, whilst I, applying a chinomescro, or kind of chisel, to the heated iron, cut off with ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... the events of the night he could find none. He racked his imagination in vain to find some means, however vague, of endeavouring to account for what occurred, and still he was at fault. All was to him wrapped in the gloom of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... distances upon tiptoe; had scrambled along walls; had walked backwards, crawled, doubled, leaped; but all in vain! Calebar's blood was up; his reputation was at stake; to fail now would be an indelible disgrace. If now and then he found himself at fault, he as often recovered the trail, until the bank of a water-course was reached, to which the flying criminal had taken. The trail was lost; the soldiers would have turned back; but Calebar had no such thought. He patiently followed the course of the acequia for a few rods, and suddenly halting, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... useful confederate," her companion continued equably. "You warned Immelan that it was in my mind to refuse his terms and to open my heart to the Englishwoman, and you seduced Sen Lu to carry your message. Yet your judgment was at fault. The hand of Immelan was stretched out against me, and me alone. But for my knowledge of these things, I might have sat in the place of Sen Lu, who rightly died in my stead. What have ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... series of hotel robberies in London, so cleverly conceived and carried out that Scotland Yard was altogether at fault. I had had nothing to do with this investigation, being engaged on other cases, but one Friday morning my chief told me I must lend my colleagues a hand. Within an hour of our interview I was making myself conversant with what had been done, and on Friday afternoon and during the whole ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... happiness. People are, after all, hopelessly at variance in ideals, and we must be content to let others live in their own way and according to their own inner light, as we live by ours. Probably neither is the light of perfect day. Parents are particularly at fault in this respect; rare is the father or mother who is willing that son and daughter should leave the parental paths and follow their own ideals. Incalculable is the amount of needless suffering caused by the conscientious attempt to make others over ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... a party of which he was a member. At my house he has received increased encouragement. I marked them with a jealous eye, for I could not believe his attentions sanctioned either by you or Mr. Hamilton; but even my vigilance was at fault, for she had consented to sever every tie which bound her to her too indulgent parents, and fly with him to Scotland. This night would have seen the accomplishment of their design. Had one of my children behaved ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... autograph of the Apostle?... We have already, as I think, obtained a satisfactory answer to this question. It has been shewn, as conclusively as in inquiries of this nature is possible, that in respect of the reading of Ephesians i. 1, Codd. B and {HEBREW LETTER ALEF} are even most conspicuously at fault. ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... project, I dropped mine, and he went forward with his. In a few days an opportunity was given him for actually trying it. The result, though rather doubtful, seemed to be that the ball was located where the surgeons supposed it to be. When the autopsy showed that their judgment had been at fault, Mr. Bell admitted his error to Dr. Woodward, adding some suggestion as to its cause. "Expectant ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... such a tangle in the writings of any philosopher, I ask him to believe that it is not the human reason that is at fault—at least, let him not assume that it is. The fault probably ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... in her character. She was not wholly free from a certain egotism and intellectual vanity, without the imagination to comprehend fully an individuality quite remote from all her preconceived ideas. She was slow to accept the fact that her system of education was at fault, and her failure to mold her daughter after her own models was long a source of grief and disappointment. She was ambitious too, and had not won her position without many secret wounds. When misfortunes ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... demonstrations of delight. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood, rejoicing in this occurrence, ever after called that place Borgo Allegri,"—the name it bears to this day. However reluctant we may be to find Vasari, that divine gossip, at fault, it might seem that Cimabue's Triumph is a fable, or if, indeed, it happened, was stolen, for the Rucellai Madonna is apparently the work of Duccio the Sienese.[103] Of the works of Cimabue not one remains to us; we do not know, we have certainly no means of knowing, whether he was, as Ghiberti ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... The law would hold me at fault if I should allow the bank to close to-day with that loan unsecured. I have no right ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... to say, that even in the ordinary affairs of life we are governed far more by what we believe than by what we know; by FAITH and ANALOGY, than by REASON. The "Age of Reason" of the French Revolution taught, we know, what a folly it is to enthrone Reason by itself as supreme. Reason is at fault when it deals with the Infinite. There we must revere and believe. Notwithstanding the calamities of the virtuous, the miseries of the deserving, the prosperity of tyrants and the murder of martyrs, we must believe there is a wise, just, merciful, and loving God, an Intelligence and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... How could his father ask forgiveness of his God when he would not forgive his son? Why were these two different from his mother and his Uncle George, and even old Alec—who had nothing but sympathy for him? Perhaps his education and training had been at fault. Perhaps, as Richard Horn had said, his standards of living ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... "artistes" of fashion and good taste, and avoiding giving offence to their patronesses. It is the public who are to blame. When some one remonstrated with Braham for his florid and vulgar style of singing, he replied, it was the people and not he who was at fault. It was alike his duty and interest to please the public, and not to instruct it. He sang to be listened to and encored, not to be hissed and snubbed. It does not answer for any tradesman not to be able to supply what his ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... on a brazen pillar in the Oresteum; and they made it law, that the education of their children should begin with committing to memory all that is inscribed thereon. More easily shall a child forget his own father's name than be at fault in the achievements of Orestes and Pylades. Again, in the temple corridor are pictures by the artists of old, illustrating the story set forth on the pillar. Orestes is first shown on shipboard, with his friend at his ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... same circumstances at home he would have been left without a qualm. The unusual circumstances had created an unusual restlessness not to be anticipated. Even at that bitter moment Joan realised that if it was a question of blame, she herself was at fault in having allowed the child to take part in the tableau against her husband's better judgment. A smaller nature might have found relief in scattering blame wholesale, but there was a generosity in Irish Esmeralda's nature which lifted her above the temptation. In the midst of her anguish ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... points on which the Misses Ponsonby grew even eloquent. How, they said, are girls to learn to carry themselves properly if they march in couples? They will not do it when they leave the Limes, and will be utterly at fault. There is no day in the week on which more general notice is taken than on Sunday; there is no day on which differences are more apparent. The pupils therefore walked irregularly, the irregularity being prescribed. ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... may help him," said the Countess briskly, "run and get thy phoenix, boy, and she will show thee where even that wondrous bird is at fault." ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... charades, as interesting in a social way as these innocent amusements may be. The fact that one will go to this extreme in keeping late hours to attend the dance, and will not keep such late hours for any other form of amusement, proves that the dance, as an institution, is at fault in producing such irregularities. And then who ever heard of one having to dress in a certain way to attend a purely social gathering. But let a young lady attend a fashionable ball or a regular round dance of any note, whatever, and if she wears ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... frequented. There was a green table in it, and four or five deal chairs; a green garden seat also was there, which however had been removed into the innermost back corner of the excavation, as its hinder legs were somewhat at fault. A wall about two feet high ran along the face of it, guarding its occupants from the precipice. In fact it was no grotto, but a little chasm in the rock, such as we often see up above our heads in rocky valleys, and which by means of these steep steps had ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope

... and then some gay, defiant rebel, like Mr. Saintsbury, flaunts the old flag, hums a bar of "Blue Bonnets over the Border," and ruffles the quiet waters of our souls by hinting that this age of Apollinaris and of lectures is at fault, and that it has produced nothing which can vie as literature with the products of the ages of ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... prickly and yet a tree-like look. Strong art thou, and ugly, but if my wisdom be not at fault, honest at the core, and a staff to lean on. Also one who thinks. But stay, oh Holly, stand not there, enter with me and be seated by me. I would not see thee crawl before me like those slaves. I am aweary of their worship and their terror; sometimes when ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... twice, with a singing in my ears and a whirling of my brain, before I could realize the meaning. Then I refused to believe it. No one knows better than a doctor how the most skilful head among us may be at fault. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... stir within the quiet girl. It was almost as if she would have liked to express her sympathy had she known how. And when the light suddenly died out of the sparkling eyes and even the shadows of the dimples disappeared, she felt almost at fault. ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... went; there, it will ring upon the granite in half a breath; no, down—into the water, a little more than halfway! "Has my arm lost its cunning?" I said, and tried again and again, but with like result. The eye was completely at fault. There was a new standard of size before it to which it failed to adjust itself. The rock is so enormous and towers so above you that you get the impression it is much nearer than it actually is. When the eye is full it says, "Here we are," and the ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... with the thunderbolt, and, with the other giants, amazing the gods with his hugeness; and Nimrod, standing confounded at the foot of Babel; and Niobe, with her despairing eyes, turned into stone amidst her children; and Saul, dead on his own sword in Gilboa; and Arachne, now half spider, at fault on her own broken web; and Rehoboam, for all his insolence, flying in terror in his chariot; and Alcmaeon, who made his mother pay with her life for the ornament she received to betray his father; and Sennacherib, left dead by his son in the temple; ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... world. Long ago we learned that the pituitary gland influenced growth and development. For instance if the pituitary gland over-functioned we had Giantism. If it under-functioned the opposite was the result—a dwarf. If the thyroid gland was at fault we would have either the low mentality commonly spoken of as cretinism, or myxedema. We found that by feeding children the fresh gland substance a marked improvement would be obtained and sometimes a cure. Some years ago there was a surgical craze which called for the removal of the women's ...
— The Goat-gland Transplantation • Sydney B. Flower

... Fox, our strained relations must come to an end. If you can show any just cause why I'm at fault, I shall do all in my power to rectify it. I do not know the slightest reason for your ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... in the chase after truth, runs a question down, worries and kills it, then quits it like vermin, and starts some new game, to lead him a new dance, and give him a fresh breathing through bog and brake, with the rabble yelping at his heels and the leaders perpetually at fault."[101] ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... again and very urgently, obtaining at last a pledge from him that he would at least await the verdict on my case. But when he had fired at me he had considered himself as a man in any event doomed to death. We are strangely at fault in our forecasts of fate. He was uninjured; I, who had been confident of escaping unhurt, lay on the edge between life and death. My ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... belly in acknowledgment that his apprehension had been at fault during some late encounter, slunk across the camp and took ...
— The Cursed Patois - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... played the part of the flux in a furnace; she was the happy accommodating medium through which all the others came into best play and found their full relations to one another. Lois's brightness and spirit were never dulled; her sympathies were never wearied; her intelligence was never at fault. And her work was never neglected. Nobody had ever to remind Lois that it was time for her to attend to this or that thing which it was her charge to do. Instead of which, she was very often ready to help somebody else not quite so "forehanded." ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... for him, at the cost of 70,000 florins, the hand of a foreign Princess? Beside this, Henry showed throughout that while he had no mercy for Constance, he was on the best possible terms with Kent. Modern writers are altogether at fault on the subject, most of them alleging that Constance's daughter Alianora was born before her marriage with Thomas Le Despenser; whereas it is shown by the Register that when Le Despenser and Constance were married, the latter was only four ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... all ideas in a concrete shape, and formed itself a conception of how they would actually work: and her knowledge of the existing feelings and conduct of mankind was so seldom at fault, that the weak point in any unworkable suggestion seldom ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... of Rothamsted. If not, your kindergarten teacher is at fault. A four-year rotation of crops has been followed on Agdell field for more than sixty years. An average of the crop yields of the last twenty ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... at fault. While waiting to find a revenge which would be worthy of her, Mlle. Blanche armed herself with a weapon of which jealousy and hatred so often ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... made the welkin ring with cries of indignation. The sensible American of to-day reads this same book and wonders how his countrymen lashed themselves into such a violent rage. In her comments upon America Mrs. Trollope is certainly frequently at fault, but unintentionally. She firmly believed all that she wrote, and did not romance, as Americans were wont to declare. When she finds fault with the disgusting practice of tobacco-chewing, assails the too common custom of dram-drinking, and complains ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... the weather, does woman's dress protect her from the cold? The fact that a large number of persons daily suffer from colds arouses the suspicion that their dress is at fault. The body is neither equally nor evenly covered, the upper portion being as a rule nearly bare, or very thinly clad, so that the slightest exposure to a draught, or a sudden change of temperature, subjects the wearer to the unpleasant experience of catching cold, unless she is so physically ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... was news to shatter Sir Walter's last illusion. Yet desperately he clung to the fragments of it. The envoy's secretary must be at fault. ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... also teacher of English and German, and Mr. Aiken, the teacher in the public schools for voice and the movable "do" system. Was ever such a windfall of good fortune as this proved to me? I had tried to recall the name of the dear old professor to use it in my narrative, but my memory was at fault. We all loved him so well. He was a thorough musician and thoroughly appreciated by all who had the advantage of his knowledge, either in languages or in instrumental music. The Musician contains a complete detail of these two men who were instrumental in promoting the best music ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... my part, for my readers will see we were the best of friends the whole time we were together. On this little excursion it was very amusing to watch old Jimmy on horseback, and to notice the look of blank amazement on his face when he found himself at fault amongst the sandhills; the way he excused himself for not going straight to this little spot was also very ingenuous. In the first place he said, "Not mine young fellow now; not mine like em pony"—the name for all horses at Fowler's Bay—"not mine see 'em Paring long time, only when ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... was only for a moment that we were at fault. At one corner, the corner nearest the room which we had left, there was a second door. Holmes sprang to it and pulled it open. A coat and waistcoat were lying on the floor, and from a hook behind the door, with his own braces round his neck, was hanging the managing director ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... distance to him once and for all. Gradually the wheels of her nature ceased to go round so madly, and she sat in passive expectation, a quiet, solitary figure in the midst of the grey moss. I have said she was no hypocrite, but here I am at fault. She never admitted to herself that she had come up the hill to look for Archie. And perhaps after all she did not know, perhaps came as a stone falls. For the steps of love in the young, and especially in girls, are instinctive ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... agreed to understand those passages in the most holy writings which speak of the final destruction of all things by fire, as having reference to the orb of the earth alone. But in regard to the immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault from that epoch in astronomical knowledge in which the comets were divested of the terrors of flame. The very moderate density of these bodies had been well established. They had been observed to pass among the satellites of Jupiter without bringing about any sensible alteration either ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... same way, lived in an hotel garni, had always plenty of money, and paid for everything regularly; he talked of events and persons connected with history, both ancient and modern, with entire familiarity and a correctness which never was at fault, and always of the people as if he had lived with them and known them; as Talleyrand exemplified it, he would say, 'Un jour que je dinais chez Cesar.'[5] He was supposed to be the Wandering Jew, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... girl, her white dress marble-white against the dark wine of the portiere, an edge of which one hand clutched convulsively. Was it Medusa's beauty or her magic that turned men into stone? My recollection is at fault. At any rate, so long as she remained motionless, neither man had the power to stir. She held herself perfectly erect; every fiber in her young body was tense. Her beauty became weirdly powerful, masked as it was with horror, doubt, shame, and reproach. She ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... the daytime you find that you have quite lost your way, set systematically to work to find it. At all event, do not make the matter doubly perplexing by wandering further. Mark the place very distinctly where you discover yourself at fault, that it may be the centre of your search. Be careful to ride in such places as will preserve your tracks. Break twigs if you are lost in a woodland: if in the open country, drag a stick to make a clear trail. Marks scratched on the ground ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... a country!" cries the grocer, standing high in his stirrups, and bending over the neck of his chestnut as though he were meditating a plunge over his head; "how they stick to him! vot a pack! by Jove they are at fault again. Yooi, Pilgrim! Yooi, Warbler, ma load! (lad). Tom, try down the hedge-row." "Hold your jaw, Mr. J——," cries Tom, "you are always throwing that red rag of yours. I wish you would keep your potato-trap shut. See! ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... lyngdohs. The duties of lyngdohs with reference to private persons may now be mentioned. When it is found that any two people have made an incestuous marriage, that is to say a marriage within the exogamous group of the kur, or clan, the parties at fault are taken before the lyngdoh by their clansmen, who request him to sacrifice in order to ward off the injurious effects of the sang, or taboo, of such a connection from the kinsfolk. On this occasion a pig is sacrificed to u'lei lyngdoh and a goat to ka lei long ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... misdemeanor, misfeasance, misprision; malefaction, malfeasance, malversation; crime, felony. enormity, atrocity, outrage; deadly sin, mortal sin; deed without a name [Macbeth]. corpus delicti. Adj. guilty, to blame, culpable, peccable^, in fault, at fault, censurable, reprehensible, blameworthy, uncommendable, illaudable^; weighed in the balance and found wanting; exceptionable. Adv. in flagrante delicto [Lat.]; red-handed, in the very act, with one's hand in the cookie jar. Phr. cui prodest scelus in fecit [Lat.] [Seneca]; culpam ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... and Andre Biely's St. Petersburg, but the first of these he found pretentious, the second dull, and the third quite impossibly obscure. He did not confess to himself that it might perhaps be his ignorance of the Russian language that was at fault. He went to the Hermitage and the Alexander Galleries, and purchased coloured post-cards of the works of Somov, Benois, Douboginsky, Lanceray, and Ostroymova—all the quite obvious people. He wrote home to his mother "that from what he could see of Russian Art it seemed to ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... although I spent the earlier part of that time trekking after big game, lately I am bound to confess that every thought and energy I possess have been centered upon money-making. For that reason, perhaps, my observations may have been at fault. I shall claim the privilege of coming to one of your first meetings, Duke, and of trying to ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... twelve soon after. Maria tried to imagine another woman in the house in her mother's place; she thought of every eligible woman in Edgham whom her father might select to fill that place, but her little-girl ideas of eligibility were at fault. She thought only of women of her mother's age and staidness, who wore bonnets. She could think of only two, one a widow, one a spinster. She shuddered at the idea of either. She felt that she would much rather have had her father marry Aunt Maria than ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... faults of administration and of policy, has nevertheless had a distinctly wholesome influence on Irish life. In relation to the Co-operative Movement the judgment of Mr Dillon was once again signally at fault. He gave it vehement opposition at every point and threw the whole weight of his personal following into the effort to arrest its growth and expansion. Happily, however, the practical good sense of the people saved them from becoming the dupes of parties who had ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... the Editor, "the purpose of the paper is to portray a drama of life, not to emulate an opera bouffe. I shall explain more fully. Please figure to yourself that you are a young girl in an unhappy home. Let us suppose that a stepmother is at fault. You feel that you can submit to her oppression no longer—you resolve to be free, or to end your troubles in the Seine. Weeping, you pack your modest handbag; you cast a last, lingering look at the oil painting of your ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... Von Schwerin continued, "is at war with mine because it seemed to her rulers that her interests lay with the Allies rather than with Germany. I will admit that my country was at fault. We did not recognise to its full extent the value of friendship with Japan. We did not bid high enough for your favours. Asia concerned us very little. We looked upon the destruction of our interests there in the same spirit as that with which we contemplated ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... went on, and to the astonishment of their neighbours—perhaps they were a little sorry—there was no sign that Esther had a lover. Mrs. Horrocks's eyes were feline, but she was obliged to admit she was at fault. Jim married, and an agreeable opportunity was presented for the expression of amazement that his wife's father and mother felt safe in allowing their child to enter such a family—but then she came from Norwich. The majority of the poor in Blackdeep Fen ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... is now in a terrible muddle, The deputy deities all are at fault They splutter and splash like a pig in a puddle And dickens a one of 'em's earning his salt. For Thespis as Jove is a terrible blunder, Too nervous and timid—too easy and weak— Whenever he's called on to lighten or thunder, The thought of it keeps ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... philosophers, but practical statesmen. In truth, it is the question of questions; the one thing needful to be understood both by the leaders of thought and the rulers of men. Unless correct and rational views are entertained on this subject, internal legislation will be perpetually at fault, external policy in a false direction. Reform will degenerate into revolution, conquest into desolation. The greatest calamities, both social and foreign, recorded in the history of the last half century, have arisen from a neglect of the maxims of Montesquieu, as to the indelible ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... world is a globe, or, to speak more accurately, an oblate spheroid, the attempt to make an oblong square its symbol would seem, at first view, to present insuperable difficulties. But the system of masonic symbolism has stood the test of too long an experience to be easily found at fault; and therefore this very symbol furnishes a striking evidence of the antiquity of the order. At the Solomonic era—the era of the building of the temple at Jerusalem—the world, it must be remembered, was supposed to have that ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... mischievous pupils should be the mark for frequent questions. If it comes to be known that any inattention is sure to bring questions to the pupil at fault, the battle for attention is half won. There is a strong tendency on the part of the teacher to ask for the answer to a question from those whose eyes show that they are attentive and ready with an answer. While this readiness and attention should be ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts

... the workmen, must have been at fault in giving the priest admittance. But in truth the house was in great confusion. The wreaths of flowers and green boughs were being suspended, last daubs of heavy gilding were being given to the wooden capitals of mock pilasters, incense was being burned ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... and kind and affectionate our little ones are to each other. The harmony between themselves and the adults at LA RUCHE is highly encouraging. We should feel at fault if the children were to fear or honor us merely because we are their elders. We leave nothing undone to gain their confidence and love; that accomplished, understanding will replace duty; confidence, fear; ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... Mohammed was apparently quiet and Shere Ali had not left Calcutta. The Resident at Kohara admitted the danger. Every despatch he sent to Peshawur pointed to the likelihood of trouble. But he too was at fault. Unrest was evident, the cause of it quite obscure. But what was hidden from Government House in Peshawur and the Old Mission House at Kohara was already whispered in the bazaars. There among the thatched booths which have ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... at fault, or you would know that purity is an inconceivable quality. This is what the shepherds of Arcady did, so they say, who named pure gods the gods they knew ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... possibly be at fault as to what he was to do when he arrived at his destination. His was, no doubt, a significant appointment. He was a statesman of some experience; he had held a subordinate but important position in the administration of our foreign affairs; he had been a Minister at a northern ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... end, which is only a few feet above the ground. I estimate the greatest length of it to be about two hundred yards, and the greatest width one hundred and fifty yards, but accurate measurements might show these figures to be considerably at fault. I have spoken of the hill as a rock, and such it is—a great mass of hard limestone, whose irregular surface, almost devoid of soil, still shows where patches of it were dressed down, perhaps for ancient altars or ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes

... having written to you so long; the Hungarian troubles, caused by my Mass, were at fault. Let me know soon whether you are back at Zurich, and whether my coming to you about the end of August or the middle of September will suit you. You will receive more definite news before long. You have probably seen ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... Majesty King George the Third. But in the main object of our pursuit we were disappointed. The flotilla, which had been stationed opposite to Nottingham, retired, on our approach, higher up the stream; and we were consequently in the situation of a huntsman who sees his hounds at fault, and has every reason to apprehend that ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... inextricably confused that it will require a very exhaustive re-examination of all the evidence in the light of modern discoveries, documentary and pictorial, coupled, I am afraid, with the recognition of the fact that much modern criticism on this point has been curiously at fault. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss the question of Titian's early work, but I feel sure that this chapter of art history has yet to be correctly written.[65] One of the determining factors in the discussion will be the authorship of the Pitti "Concert," for our estimate ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... correspondence between that and the maximum real utility. This consideration, however, does not affect the general validity of the conclusion that the laws of supply and demand represent what is socially desirable now or under any system. For what is at fault here is the distribution of wealth; and it is that which should be changed, in so far as it is possible to do so. Now it is important to realize that whenever it is possible to supply a commodity to poor people ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson

... spouse by her side who would fold his arms and give her his countenance without looking ridiculous. Certainly, with all her perspicacity, and all the reading which seemed to her mamma dangerously instructive, her judgment was consciously a little at fault before Grandcourt. He was adorably quiet and free from absurdities—he would be a husband to suit with the best appearance a woman could make. But what else was he? He had been everywhere, and seen everything. That was desirable, and ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... sign of Pete, and having failed to take any bearings, or to remember by marks on the shore whereabouts he had gone down, we were quite at fault, so that when the wind failed again and the boat drifted back, it was impossible to say where we had seen the last ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn

... admired and approved this course, but Pauline would have been wretched. She does not dream that in this early stage another lover would have comforted Pauline. She is so simple, so absolutely truthful, that her youthful discernment is quite at fault. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Science Monthly, May, 1904), dealing with the sexual invalidism of American women and the severe strain of motherhood upon them, the author, though she is by no means hostile to education, which is not, she declares, at fault, pleads for rest for the pubertal girl. "If the brain claims her whole vitality, how can there be any proper development? Just as very young children should give all their strength for some years solely to physical growth before the brain ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... merely that he deserted, but that he sometimes imitated his model, and when he did so, failed. Macaulay's judgment, that "personal taste led him to the eighteenth century, thirst for praise to the nineteenth," is quite at fault. There can be no doubt that Byron loved praise as much as he affected to despise it. His note, on reading the Quarterly on his dramas, "I am the most unpopular man in England," is like the cry of a child under chastisement; but he had little affinity, moral or artistic, ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... direction pointed out, but felt certain that it was not correct. At the same time, though, he fully realised that he was quite at fault, for at least a dozen of the low tunnels opened upon this rugged, pillared hall, so exactly alike, and they had wandered about so much since they entered, and began to thread their way in and out among the pillars, that he stared blankly at Joe ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... "I've been at fault there, I own," he interrupted, soothingly, nodding his head respectfully up and down. "To tell the truth, I've been so immensely interested in you,—in Carlisle the woman,—that I haven't seemed able to make proper allowance for your—your ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... a man with a message to Confucius. Confucius gave him a seat, and among other inquiries he asked, "How is your master managing?" "My master," he replied, "has a great wish to be seldom at fault, and as yet he cannot ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... composition was not always conclusive or well devised. The one quality was that irreproachable throughout all the years was the drawing, which was always masterly. From the days of the early "Bodegones" down to the "Meninas" nobody could find a picture in which his drawing is obviously at fault; although in speaking of Velazquez it is of course difficult to separate drawing from painting. As he grew up the sense of composition and colour harmony became stronger and stronger, and the faults passed. At the same time, Velazquez was ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan

... over Lovey Mary and patted her nervously on the back. "Don't, my dear, don't cry so. It's very sad—dear me, yes, very sad. You aren't alone to blame, though; I have been at fault, too. I— ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice

... divinity with me. I take some interest in him, though he's in an unsatisfactory condition just now; intellectual savagery, I should call it. I take it, his training has been at fault. Seems to have no social nor affectionate instincts. It would be a good thing to make him feel their value, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... food in the country as in the city, and the danger from disease is no less menacing. The farmer loses vitality through long hours of labor, and is susceptible to disease scarcely less than is the working man in town. And he is more at fault if he suffers, for there is room to build the home in a healthful location, where drainage is easy and pure air and sunshine are abundant; there is water without price for cleansing purposes, and sanitation is possible without excessive ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... antiquity-hunter on a doubtful chase; here and there he would be completely thrown out, and then there would be a few words so plainly written as to put him on the scent again. In this way he had been led on for a whole day, until he had found himself completely at fault. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... excited, was easily flushed by the new turn of events, and shouted in unison "No!" Isolated voices called out "Cheat!" "Liar!" Dr. Chapman, as tactless as he was kindly, declared to those about him that Fillet's judgment was at fault, and thus helped to increase the uproar. The disaffection spread to the Erasmus men, who said openly: "We don't want the beastly cup. Bramhall ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... is, has not been altogether at fault," he said; "I have hit the truth in your case. That is so?" I nodded, gloomily enough, I dare say, to signify assent. "What I propose, my dear Fyffe, is this: I cannot read my daughter's mind at all, and so far as I ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... training of Noel McAllister was at fault somewhere. You grounded him thoroughly in Latin and the classics, but you taught him little of the study of human character, that most profoundly interesting of all studies. Had your teaching been different, Noel McAllister might have had a different estimation of the depths of a nature like Marie ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy

... inability of some women to make a home happy, that I have resolved if my child lives to years of maturity, all accomplishments shall give way, if need be, to this one thing, a thorough knowledge of domestic affairs. Society is so at fault in these matters, and women generally have such false ideas of them, that I despair of reforming any one. If I can educate my daughter to live, or rather approximate in some degree, to my ideal of a true woman's life, it is all I can expect. Are you fond of domestic ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... that, gradually growing louder and louder, rings at last triumphant through the house. The lady sees herself that she has been to blame, and wonders why it did not occur to her before—is grateful for the revelation, and asks to be forgiven. If, on the other hand, it was the husband who was at fault, then it is the lady who will be found eventually occupying the centre of the stage; the miserable husband who, morally speaking, will be trying to get under ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... but who can say that he was not a weapon of God, and that I have not done incalculable mischief by depriving him of that weapon? There is only one consolation which I have with regard to him; unless my diagnosis was entirely at fault, he would have had that attack of erysipelas anyway. I hardly think I deceive myself with regard to that, and there is a very probable chance that the attack would have been fatal. He had nearly lost his life twice before with the same disease. That I know, and I do not think that unless the ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... 587. Your memory is at fault here. The charge against Horatio Lloyd was of a normal kind. It was for exposing himself to nursemaids in the gardens of ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... which jars So roughly in life's song; 'Tis we ourselves who are at fault When others ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... am at a loss what to do. I have discovered the fact that I was mistaught in regard to the reality of evil, and now I fear that all the rest of my teachings may be at fault and I cannot conscientiously preach what is false, as God knows I would not wilfully mislead my fellow-man. I am afraid I will be compelled to give up my position at once, and feel I am not fitted to do anything else." He then glanced at the ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter

... then that men and women are equally at fault. It seems that a profound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow-creatures is utterly unknown. Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old. In any case life ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... or the aggressiveness and violence of some young white men, was much discussed throughout the state, and, indeed, the country at large. Chamberlain took frankly and strongly the ground that the whites were at fault." Such a statement we believe simply does not do justice to the facts. The account given herewith is based upon the report of the matter in a letter published in a Washington paper and submitted in connection with the debate in the United States ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... come to rather sharp words. Their views of many things were too far apart for that to have been the case, but there had never before been any great or lasting trouble by reason of their difference of opinion. Ruth, gentle and yielding, was ever most timidly fearful of being at fault; William, hard and unyielding, was always perfectly certain of being in the right. It was therefore to be expected that his opinions should generally rule, and that he should construe her readiness to yield and her self-distrust, as proofs that he was not mistaken. Rock-ribbed ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... fancy, the white feet of the Muses brushed the dew from the anemones in the morning, and at evening came Apollo to sing to the shepherds in the vale. But in this we are merely lending to other ages what we desire, or think we desire, for our own. Our historical sense is at fault. Every century that produces poetry is, so far, an artificial century, and the work that seems to us to be the most natural and simple product of its time is always the result of the most self-conscious effort. Believe me, Ernest, there is no fine art without self-consciousness, ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde

... give importance to trifles; and yet he received the reports of the police agents as if he thought them of consequence. This was because he thought Fouche badly informed, and he was glad to find him at fault; but when he sent for the Minister of Police the latter told him that all the reports he had received were not worth a moment's attention. He told the First Consul all, and even a great deal more than had been revealed to him, mentioning at the same time ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... thought I, "these Christian people have none of this feeling against color. They, at least, have renounced this unholy feeling." Judge, then, dear reader, of my astonishment and mortification, when I found, as soon I did find, all my charitable assumptions at fault. ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... have been hard to find any sentence in it which in the days of Fox and Penn, with their interpretation, would have brought upon a conscientious person a heavier burden of inconvenience. Not only did it make the Quakers guilty of contempt of court and thus initially at fault in all legal business, but it exposed them to a natural suspicion of disloyalty to the government. It was a time of political change, first the Commonwealth, then Charles, then James, then William; and every change signified the supremacy of a new idea in religion, ...
— William Penn • George Hodges

... away, best of all. Why should I disrupt your circle? We were both at fault. I'll go away. Don't bother about the bill. I've already paid Simeon, when I was going ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... to describe the surprise created by this announcement, in every quarter of the Union. Speculation was at fault. Would he accept or reject such a nomination? By a large class it was deemed impossible that one who had occupied positions so elevated—who had received the highest honors the nation could bestow upon him—would consent to serve ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... is not at fault," remarked Charley, with an outstretched hand. "My dear Brown! Still preaching ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... his desire in that respect, though he still had an interest in all that is published about the game and the ball-players." Mr. Selee at once attempted to show the gentleman where his opinion was at fault, and an interesting conversation was carried on until the train reached Boston, the gentleman severely criticising the players and the ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick

... feel at fault. She knew that she had been unjust, but De Launay's casual ways and his very indifferent deference angered her. Yet it could not last much longer since they were to take a train for Le Havre that evening and sail upon the following day. De Launay had called ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... been a little at fault," he admitted. "In fact, I quite expected that we would be down again by this time. It is now well on in the afternoon, and, as we have probably covered about two-thirds of the distance, it would not be advisable to go back as we ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... do," said Nick. "I believe it's my physiognomy that's at fault. What can any one expect from a fellow with a face like an Egyptian mummy? Why, I've been mistaken for the devil himself before now." He spoke with a semi-whimsical ruefulness, and, having spoken, he went to the window and stood there with his ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... good of man's appetite, but the good of those things themselves: wherefore art does not presuppose rectitude of the appetite. The consequence is that more praise is given to a craftsman who is at fault willingly, than to one who is unwillingly; whereas it is more contrary to prudence to sin willingly than unwillingly, since rectitude of the will is essential to prudence, but not to art. Accordingly it is evident that prudence is a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... face as he approached the window, and though it continued to show abstraction, it equally displayed serenity and a complete satisfaction with the present if not with the future. Had he mistaken his man after all? Was his instinct, for the first time in his active career, wholly at fault? ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... of knowing the rules of the game, so to speak, dashed madly forward, drunk with passion and kava, and gave one lunge with his spear full tilt at the breast of the startled and unprepared white man. His aim, though frantic, was not at fault. The spear struck Felix high up on the left side. He felt a dull thud of pain; a faint gurgle of blood. Even in the pale moonlight his eye told him at once a red stream was trickling—out over his flannel shirt. He was pricked, at least. The great ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... Federation, he had come to take the oath like the rest of the people. Bailly asks why he had come armed. M. de Bussy remarks that "having been in the service, the sword was inseparable from the uniform," and had they come there without that badge they would have been at fault; besides, they must have observed that they had no other arms. Bailly, still in a rage, and, moreover, exasperated by such good reasons, turns round with his gun in his hand towards the leader of the squad and asks him three times in succession, "Commander, must I fire?" The commander ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine



Words linked to "At fault" :   guilty



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