vacuity

• “The operation of budding requires a good deal of nicety: first, to avoid wounding the wood of the stock in slitting the bark; and, secondly, to make the bark of the scion fit quite closely to the wood of the stock, as, if the least vacuity is left between them, the bud will wither instead of beginning to grow.”

  The Lady's Country Companion: or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally

• “The length should be that of the bandaging; the breadth, three or four fingers; thickness, three or fourfold; number so as to encircle the limb, neither more nor less; those applied for the purpose of rectifying a deformity, should be of such a length as to encircle it; the breadth and thickness being determined by the vacuity, which is not to be filled up at once.”

  On The Surgery

• “It is in fact a negation, which must prësuppose a matter once in being and possible to be denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there be somewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to that of fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived without the previous idea of _a_ tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, _ex vi termini_, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity, prësupposes Something.”

  The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper

• “It was a kind of vacuity, in which he wished for nothing and took no interest in anything, but only staggered along mechanically at the back of the bar.”

  Pelle the Conqueror — Volume 01

• “I suspect Kagan will tell any senator who asks that her comments 15 years ago were written in an academic vein, from the perspective of a curious legal scholar frustrated at having to endure the "vacuity" of confirmation hearings following the meltdown over the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in 1986.”

  Politics Daily

• “Will she be true to her 1995 self and candidly cut through the "vacuity" that rains down at these hearings?”

  Politics Daily

• “Whatever the balance between denominational separatism and ecumenical togetherness, between theological rigor and theological vacuity, America was clearly a very religious place in the 1950s.”

  Simon & Schuster: American Grace

• “The utter vacuity of this pompous pretence of philosophy leaves us breathless.”

  Archive 2009-08-01

• “I don't expect you to print this but maybe you will think about the vacuity of your "reporting.”

  Poll of Polls: President's approval ratings slip

• “Ask yourself this could you look at George Osborne's face filled with its smarmy arrogance and utter vacuity and not be filled with rage?”

  The Guardian: My hero: the BBC World Service by Jeremy Paxman

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