Word: imperfect
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1880-1889
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Last in place, but first in importance, remember that, as the purpose of words is to conceal thought, so the purpose of manners is to conceal feeling. Vulgar people will call this dissimulation; you know that it is only good breeding. I am conscious that this is but an imperfect chart for those who set out on the sea of college life. But the principles are here. The elaboration...
...unintelligible or fragmentary - as to vitiate the spontaneous operation of memory, I mean, make the reciter fancy that something is remembered which has really been suggested. He ought to note any explanations offered by reciters, and to record those bits of narrative with which they may eke out an imperfect remembrance of the verse. The copy that has been taken should be read carefully to the reciter, to secure correctness, and it may happen, in this process, that something will recur to recollection which has been forgotten before...
...what I did in my papers, and then you can judge for yourself whether I ought to be astonished or not. First came the Latin at sight. I had only read, in addition to the common authors, Ennius, Varro, Quintilian, Lucilius, Martial, Juvenal, and some twenty others. With this imperfect preparation I soon saw that I could do nothing, and was about to leave the room in despair, when it came into my head that the examiners were said to admire above all things originality. Now I am original or nothing. I determined to go over the text carefully...