Thou wilt now be able to reprehend the malice or obtuseness of thy deputy, and to do me right in my contention with these impure dogs.

I am aware that this latter is an invidious office, which naturally exposes one to an imputation, from some quarters, of obtuseness, and, from others, of presumption; none the less I have expressed myself with the frankness which, according to my own view, belongs to the essence of such a task as is here undertaken.

" Only in a house of habitually inattentive men could any one talk such nonsense without reproof, but I look in vain through Hansard's record of this debate for a single contemptuous reference to Mr. Chamberlain's obtuseness.

he asked, anxiously, and with all a man's obtuseness.

" "But ain't that exactly what the Marysville bank could 'a' done if it wanted?" demanded Racey, aghast at the Dale obtuseness.

Subtlety, she had discovered, was thrown away upon the obtuseness of Rust.

All dominant types have been more or less specialized, if none so much as this, and this specialization has caused, as I understand it, that obtuseness of perception which has been their ruin when the environment which favored them has changed.

Physical Insensibility N. insensibility, physical insensibility; obtuseness &c adj.; palsy, paralysis, paraesthesia [Med.], anaesthesia; sleep &c 823; hemiplegia^, motor paralysis; vegetable state; coma.

Suffice that we are introduced to some quite charming people, as well as two extremely unpleasant ones, and if the web of mystery is held together in places by a somewhat generous share of obtuseness on the part of the persons concerned it is not for us to complain, since we become aware of the defect only after the affair is over.

That very month she had reached twenty-three, the age of omniscience, when the fallacies and general obtuseness of older people become dishearteningly apparent.

I saw the gentlemen exchange glances, and the young ladies screw up their mouths to hide their merriment, while Mrs. Le Fevre, with all her obtuseness, seemed to comprehend the blunder, and she said, 'Child, you must excuse me, for my poor old eyes are getting so good for nothing I can hardly tell one person from the other.'

Our senses lose their obtuseness, our capacity both for experience and expression is enlarged, and we not only live deeper, but nearer the surface.

There is a lamentable obtuseness of intellect manifested in both collector and contributor; and there is no systematic arrangementno analytical process, and, in fact, no correctness of detail.

In her happiness and sincere desire to please she succeeded remarkably well in making herself superficially at least very much like Ted's own "kind of girl" and though with true masculine obtuseness he was entirely unaware of the conscious effort she was putting into the performance nevertheless he enjoyed the results in full and played up to her undeniable charms with his usual debonair and heedless grace and gallantry.

Obtuseness was not a defect with which Adelaide had much patience.

He was one of those pompous loud talkers, whose every word and work bespoke vulgarity in its most obnoxious form, and whose obtuseness in matters of manners was so great that nothing short of the point of your shoe could have made him understand how offensive he was.

As elegance of utterance depends much upon the preservation of this sound from such obtuseness, perhaps Walker and others have done well to mark it as e in me; though some suppose it to be peculiar, and others identify it with the short i in fit.

It is a just demand that art should keep clear of such specialties as would make it a puzzle for the larger part of its public; still, one is not bound to respect the lazy obtuseness or snobbish ignorance of people who do not care to know more of their native tongue than the vocabulary of the drawing-room and the newspaper.

But I find that this version retains most of the coarseness of the original, and I see no reason for seeking any other explanation of Goethe's attitude than his own indelicacy and obtuseness which, as I noted on page 208, made him go into ecstacies of admiration over a servant whom lust prompted to attempt rape and commit murder.

Whether this national indifference originate in a physical or a moral cause, from an obtuseness in their corporeal formation or a perfection in their intellectual one, I do not pretend to decide; but whatever be the cause, the effect is enjoyed with great modesty.

Whether this national indifference originate in a physical or a moral cause, from an obtuseness in their corporeal formation or a perfection in their intellectual one, I do not pretend to decide; but whatever be the cause, the effect is enjoyed with great modesty.

It is the direct outcome of a certain obtuseness, a curious want of delicacy, which in his later work results at times in passages of offensively bad taste.

A mind hitherto dark seemed suddenly to grow clear, and it remained clear and bright enough so long as passion was in me; but as it died, so the mind clouded, and recoiled to its original obtuseness.

" The Master answered, with a weariness of their obtuseness that we can feel in the curt reply, "It is enough."

His weakness was that he was inpenetrably stupid, and it was quite impossible to make him understand anything that was not immediately in line with his own experiencesunusual obtuseness in a Russian.