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Drake's reputation was now sufficiently advanced to incite detraction and opposition; and it is easy to imagine, that a man by nature superiour to mean artifices, and bred, from his earliest years, to the labour and hardships of a sea-life, was very little acquainted with policy and intrigue, very little versed in the methods of application to the powerful and great, and unable to obviate the practices of those whom his merit had made his enemies.
But I soon observed, to my inexpressible concern, that while Gratitude and Admiration were busy in exciting the various ranks of the vast assembly, to accomplish this favourite design, they were followed by two earthy fiends of a dark and malignant influence: these were Detraction and Indifference, who shed such a chill and depressive mist around them, that all the ardour of the Assembly seemed to sink.
Men who are well traduced and hotly denounced are usually pretty good quality. No better encomium is needed than the detraction of some people. And men who are well hated also have friends who love them well. Thus does the law of compensation ever live.
Let it be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that in Mr Dombey's eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the light, they only achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the understanding of their own position, who showed a fitting reverence for his. It was not so much their merit that they knew themselves, as that they knew him, and bowed low before him.
Regard this great principle, and you will grow in the gift of conversation, and you will also keep your soul unpolluted by guilt. Adhere sacredly to the truth. Avoid exaggeration, the sin of the young and the ardent. Rather understate than exceed the facts of a case. This rule will save you from the two great vices of social intercourse, flattery, and detraction.
If he thinks it is his censors, he clings to his opinions with an abiding constance, while ridicule, obloquy, caricature, burlesque, critical refutation and personal detraction follow unsparingly upon every expression, for instance, of his belief that romantic fiction is the highest form of fiction, and that the base, sordid, photographic, commonplace school of Tolstoy, Tourguenief, Zola, Hardy, and James, are unworthy a moment's comparison with the school of Rider Haggard.
I shall never close my eyes again comfortably on board of her, I know." "I would say that you had purified her of all stains of her past but there may be one that remains. And that in most people's eyes would be no detraction. You look puzzled, Miss Nott but I am coming to the explanation and the end of my story.
Their object, however, may perhaps vary; for, in the former, it may be for the sake of detraction, invidious cavil, or malice; in the latter, it is a sweet homage paid by the human heart to the memory of departed genius. It has been repeatedly observed that the life of a scholar affords few materials for biography.
"It is evident from a variety of circumstances, and especially from the change in your honour's conduct towards me, that some person, as well inclined to detract, but better skilled in the art of detraction than the author of the above stupid scandal, has made free with my character.
And the etymology here, as in this whole region, is most instructive and most impressive. In detraction you draw away something from your neighbour that is most precious and most dear to him. In detraction you are a thief, and a thief of the falsest and wickedest kind. For your neighbour's purse is trash, while his good name is far more precious to him than all his gold.
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