We confess that these practices may seem to run counter with the fine-spun systems of morality; but this is our constant apology, human affairs can be no otherwise managed.

The line of division between the two classes is not a sharp one, and we need not trouble with fine-spun questions as to whether a particular commodity should in certain circumstances be included under the one head or the other.

Such a course cut across all his fine-spun theory about women having free choice of their mates.

" Donne does not always show so much fine-spun ingenuity, but this was the quality most imitated by a group of his successors.

So she was driven to busy herself with the house, keeping from Elspie's willing and eager hands all the harder tasks, and laying up stores of fine-spun linen and wool for future use in the family.

Myrtle warblers (yellow-rumps) were still here (the peninsula is alive with them in the winter), and a ruby-crowned kinglet mingled its lovely voice with the simple trills of pine warblers, while out of a dense low treetop some invisible singer was pouring a stream of fine-spun melody.

Pitiable, indeed, will seem to him in that hour the cowardice that dares to cloak its sinning with some fine-spun theory, that veils the gratification of its desires in some shrill evangel, and wrecks a woman's life in the names ofLiberty and Song!

Sir Walter has found out (oh, rare discovery) that facts are better than fiction; that there is no romance like the romance of real life; and that if we can but arrive at what men feel, do, and say in striking and singular situations, the result will be "more lively, audible, and full of vent," than the fine-spun cobwebs of the brain.

It is in a word, in this natural sentiment, rather than in fine-spun arguments, that we must look for the cause of that reluctance which every man would experience to do evil, even independently of the maxims of education.

There was, as a matter of fact, nothing fine-spun about them.

Jerry did not delude himself with any fine-spun sophistry.

We have not the fine-spun intelligence, nor legal acumen, to discover the technical distinctions drawn by gentlemen.

We have not the fine-spun intelligence, nor legal acumen, to discover the technical distinctions drawn by gentlemen.

But all these fine-spun reasonings vanished before the object that was now presented to me.

the excitement of those engaged in its pursuit, than scores of fine-spun theories cramped up with technicalities.

His initial purpose was to describe an elaborate and fine-spun intrigue, devised by mysterious agents of the Church of Rome, for the winning over of a Protestant German prince.

At the approach Of extreme peril, when a hollow image Is found a hollow image and no more, Then falls the power into the mighty hands Of Nature, of the spirit giant-born, Who listens only to himself, knows nothing Of stipulations, duties, reverences, And, like the emancipated force of fire, Unmaster'd scorches, ere it reaches them, Their fine-spun webs, their artificial policy.

There is less of that spirit which is born of clubs and cliques and clans and schoolswith their fine-spun theorizing, and their impudent assumption that they are divinely commissioned to sit in judgment.

And his wish is granted, for he "found himself held fast by the fine-spun robe...and then ensued a fearful struggle.

Has He made it vain thy toiling Fine-spun raiment to prepare? 'Twas to givethy labors spoiling Better robes than monarchs wear.

It needs no fine-spun theories to justify it.

It shows Richter at Hof exchanging fine-spun sentiments on God, immortality and soul-affinity with some half dozen young women to the perturbation of their spirits, in a transcendental atmosphere of sentiment, arousing but never fulfilling the expectation of a formal betrothal.

Novalis's aphoristic "seed-thoughts" reveal Fichte's transcendental idealistic philosophy as the fine-spun web of all his observations on life.

The natural effect of externalizing the commands of conscience followed; and the ethical aims which had been sought were well nigh lost in the routine of form and ceremony, and in the fine-spun distinctions of belief and conduct.

And indeed to listen was the wiser partto drink in deliciously the animation of those quick, illimitable, exquisitely articulated syllables, to surrender one's whole soul to the pure and penetrating precision of those phrases, to follow without a breath the happy swiftness of that fine-spun thread of thought.