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Contract   Listen
verb
Contract  v. t.  (past & past part. contracted; pres. part. contracting)  
1.
To draw together or nearer; to reduce to a less compass; to shorten, narrow, or lessen; as, to contract one's sphere of action. "In all things desuetude doth contract and narrow our faculties."
2.
To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit. "Thou didst contract and purse thy brow."
3.
To bring on; to incur; to acquire; as, to contract a habit; to contract a debt; to contract a disease. "Each from each contract new strength and light." "Such behavior we contract by having much conversed with persons of high station."
4.
To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for. "We have contracted an inviolable amity, peace, and lague with the aforesaid queen." "Many persons... had contracted marriage within the degrees of consanguinity... prohibited by law."
5.
To betroth; to affiance. "The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure, that nothing can dissolve us."
6.
(Gram.) To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one.
Synonyms: To shorten; abridge; epitomize; narrow; lessen; condense; reduce; confine; incur; assume.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contract" Quotes from Famous Books



... interpreted, it means that the government is merely an inferior clerk or servant.[1101] We, the people, have established the government; and ever since, as well as before its organization, we are its masters. Between it and us no infinite or long lasting "contract". "None which cannot be done away with by mutual consent or through the unfaithfulness of one of the two parties." Whatever it may be, or provide for, we are nowise bound by it; it depends wholly on us. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... will do it; so draw up an agreement to that effect at once. But mind you, draw it payable to my wife, for I may be too weak to attend to business after the ten weeks are up, and if I perform my part of the contract, I want her to get the $500 ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... probably occupy another two or three months, for the family lawyers had disagreed as to the number of times that Angela should be allowed to take the carriage out every day, and this had to be stipulated in the marriage contract, besides the number of dishes there were to be at luncheon and dinner and the question whether, if Angela took coffee after her meals, it should be charged to her husband, who took none, or against the income arising ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford

... I had had an accident, Madame Laroque came up late to-night to see me. Old Laroque has had a stroke of paralysis, she tells me, and she wishes to get the marriage contract between her daughter and Bevallan signed to-morrow. Laubepin is bringing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... was the daughter of Nikodemon ben Gorion. "What has become of thy father's riches?" said he, "and what has become of thy dowry?" "Dost thou not remember," said she, "that charity is the salt of riches?" (Her father had not been noted for this virtue.) "Dost thou not remember signing my marriage contract?" said the woman. "Yes," said the Rabbi, "I well remember it. It stipulated for a million gold denarii from thy father, besides the allowance from ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... Twice we detected the black, ugly face of a Dyak peering from out the jungle. The men were for hunting them down for the price on their heads, but the captain said he never killed a human being except in self-defence, and that if the Rajah wanted to get rid of the savages he had better give the contract to a Mississippi slave-trader. Secretly, I was longing for some kind of excitement, and was hoping that the men's clamorous talk would have some effect. I never doubted our ability to raid a Dyak village and kill the ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... folk. Their daily routine is the height of discomfort; they are always ailing in health, often from that disease of which they plaintively declare that "whoever has not had it, cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven," and which, unlike ourselves, they contract by their patriarchal habit of eating and drinking out of a common dish. They die like flies. Naturally enough; for it is not too much to say, of the poorer classes, that they eat dirt, and that only once a day. A fresh shirt in the year is their whole tailor's bill; two or three sous ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... into sects, run through all the labyrinths of disputation, calling themselves Stoics, Academics, Epicureans, Peripatetics, and a hundred other names still more ridiculous; then wrapping themselves up in the sacred veil of virtue, they contract their brows and let down their beards, under a specious appearance hiding the most abandoned profligacy; like one of the players on the stage, if you strip him of his fine habits wrought with gold, all that remains behind is a ridiculous spectacle of a little contemptible fellow, ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian

... Bangkok and Mauritius, leaving 85,719 remaining in Singapore, of whom 76,601 are classed as 'paid passengers,' and 9,118 as "unpaid passengers received into depots." With the former class the Chinese Protectorate has nothing more to do, unless they come to the Protector to sign a Government labour contract with planters or other employers of labor, but with the 'unpaid passengers' the case is very different. These men are brought to the Straits to the number of about 15,000 a year, under what is spoken of in the Report as "the ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... would yield pardon before it was asked, and for the thousandth time that would give without a bribe! In strict propriety, as my reader knows, the classical Latin word for a prayer is votum; it was a case of contract; of mercantile contract; of that contract which the Roman law expressed by the formula—Do ut des. Vainly you came before the altars with empty hands. "But my hands are pure." Pure, indeed! would reply the scoffing god, let me see what they contain. It was exactly what you daily read ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... price on piece-work is subject to arbitration between a Union committee of the workers and the firm, the committee is not always able to obtain a fair price for labor. One of the largest factories made a verbal agreement to observe Union conditions, but it signed no written contract, and has since broken its word. It discriminates against Union members, and it insists on Sunday work and on night work for more than two nights a week. Further, during the seventeen weeks of the strike many shirt-waist ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... the forward end of the current, or that part of it which is under the negative electrode, is to relax, expand and weaken; while that of the rear end, under the positive electrode, is to contract and strengthen. A moving ship disperses the waters at its bow, but draws them in at its stern. The bullet shot from a gun, in passing through a plank, leaves the perforation closed where it enters ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark

... house as his daughter-in-law. He could not prevent the marriage. The law would be on his son's side. The law of the Christian kingdom in which he lived allowed such marriages, and Anton, if he executed the contract which would make the marriage valid, would in truth be the girl's husband. But—and Trendellsohn, as he remembered the power which was still in his hands, almost regretted that he held it—if this thing were done, his son must go out from his house, ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... good, it had just substituted a Concordat that was worse. This new alliance, concluded by it with the Church in 1802, is not a religious marriage, the solemn sacrament by which, at Rheims, she and the King promised to live together and in harmony in the same faith, but a simple civil contract, more precisely the legal regulation of a lasting and deliberate divorce.—In a paroxysm of despotism the State has stripped the Church of its possessions and turned it out of doors, without clothes or bread, to beg on the highways; next, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... England he sought justice; but, finding himself baffled, he first published his travels in Trinidad, to expose Picton; then ferreted out charges against the War Office, and at last, through Colonel Wardle, brought forward the notorious great-coat contract. This being negatived by a Ministerial majority, he then traced Mrs. Clark, and arranged the whole of the exposure for Wardle and others. To effect this in the teeth of power, though destitute of resources, he wrought night and day for months. He lodged in a garret in Hungerford ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... was employed at Florence, a countryman came and engaged him to paint a picture of St. Christopher for his parish church; the contract was, that the figure should be twelve braccia in length,[B] and the price eight florins. But when the painter proceeded to look at the church for which the picture was ordered, he found it but nine braccia high, and the same in length; therefore, as he was unable to paint the saint in an upright ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... catch of one of the windows in the dining-room (as per contract with William Smith), turned out the electric light, and went to ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... her, 'on the eve of going secretly away for a long time. He wrote to me, after leaving here; told me what his condition and prospects really were; and offered me his hand. He told me he had seen I was not happy in the prospect of Alfred's return. I believe he thought my heart had no part in that contract; perhaps thought I might have loved him once, and did not then; perhaps thought that when I tried to seem indifferent, I tried to hide indifference - I cannot tell. But I wished that you should feel ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens

... then Army Surgeon Leonard Wood. He was a surgeon. Not having an income, he had to earn his own living. He had gone through the Harvard Medical School, and had then joined the army in the Southwest as a contract doctor. He had every physical, moral, and mental quality which fitted him for a soldier's life and for the exercise of command. In the inconceivably wearing and harassing campaigns against the Apaches he had served ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... the love o' Heaven, don't forget canteens! Get every canteen in town. Cayn't have my men runnin' around with their tongues hangin' out. Better bring out a bunch of broncs to pack supplies around. It's goin' to be one man-sized contract runnin' the commissary." ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... lines on your face which contract quite unconsciously to yourself. I can stop that dreary suffering at once for you, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... faltered Alice, but it was quite credible that not a word had passed. The marriage was a business contract between the houses of Wark and Raby, and a grand speculation for Sir Richard Nevil, that was all; but gentle Alice had no reluctance beyond mere maidenly shyness, and unwillingness to enter on an unknown future under a new lord. She even whispered to her dear Clairette that she ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... laudable ends, implanted such a regard in the sexes towards each other, that both man and woman who hoped to be innocent, could not be too circumspect in relation to the friendships they were so ready to contract with each other. He thought he had gone a great way, in recommending an intimacy between her and his sisters, considering her views, her spirit, her perseverance, and the free avowal of her regard for him, and her menaces ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... the equitable price of a thing. It will be the object of every honest man to render, in all cases, an equivalent for what he receives. Where the market price cannot be known, each of the parties to an honest contract will endeavor to come as near it as possible; keeping in mind the rule of doing to others as they would desire others to do to them in similar circumstances. Every bargain not formed on these principles is, in its results, unjust; ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... is this. If any man have a daughter who dies before marriage, and another man have had a son also die before marriage, the parents of the two arrange a grand wedding between the dead lad and lass. And marry them they do, making a regular contract! And when the contract papers are made out they put them in the fire, in order (as they will have it) that the parties in the other world may know the fact, and so look on each other as man and wife. And the parents thenceforward consider themselves sib to each other, just as if their children ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... you felt unable to see me again. Forgive me for all the grief I have caused, and am causing, you. I shall go abroad as soon as may be; but am obliged to remain in town until I have completed work which I am under contract with my publishers to finish. It will take a month, ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... from forming any union again. For this purpose not only were all general assemblies forbidden, but, in order to keep the cities completely isolated, the citizens of one town could not marry or make a legal contract of bargain or sale with another.[24] Tibur and Praeneste, the two most powerful cities of the League, which had taken the most active part in the war, were deprived of a portion of their land, but were allowed to retain a nominal independence, preserving their own laws, and ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... her parts, and so making her ready for cruising, I had no doubts whatever. That piece of work was directly in the line of my training and I felt entirely secure about it; but even on that score I quaked a good deal at the size of the contract to be taken by a single pair of hands, and at thought of the long, long while that would be required to carry it through. Yet the hope that came with finding this boat put such heart into me that my spirits did not go down far. Working on her—aside from ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... his leafy concealment, where, unseen himself, he had seen and watched from the first, with keen interest, all the movements of the other, whom, at length, he seemed to recognize, with recollections which caused him to recoil, and his whole countenance to contract and darken with angry and disquieting emotions. He was not allowed much time, however, for indulging his disturbed feelings; for scarcely had the object of his annoyance disappeared, before his attention was attracted by a slight rustling sound somewhere within the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... left knee—the one that held the stick in place in the buck when he was sawing) and together they went into the barn—and talked it all over—and Pete said it was harder wood than last year's and more knots in it and ought to be worth two shillings more than contract price—and grandfather finally allowed the excess—and Old Pete came in and got his money (in gold and silver) and a bowl of coffee and some bread—and went his way to the Jonesses or ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright

... has been very surprising to us to see in these our times that some people, who really at heart have the interest of women upon their minds, have been so short-sighted and reckless as to clamor for an easy dissolution of the marriage-contract, as a means of righting their wrongs. Is it possible that they do not see that this is a liberty which, once granted, would always tell against the weaker sex? If the woman who finds that she has made a mistake, and married a man unkind ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... millions of people down there on earth that are promising themselves the same thing. As many as sixty thousand people arrive here every single day, that want to run straight to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and hug them and weep on them. Now mind you, sixty thousand a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old people. If they were a mind to allow it, they wouldn't ever have anything to do, year in and year out, but stand up and be hugged and wept on thirty-two hours in the twenty-four. They would be tired out and as wet as muskrats ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain

... promoting sound economies. But a barefaced system of secret commissions, which he honestly records in the faithful pages of his Diary, was universally practised, and the only admitted scruple was that such commissions should not be allowed to operate so as to permit a flagrantly dishonest contract. Subject to this, he evidently thought himself neglectful of his rightful interests if he did not make the most out of every transaction, and he piously invokes the blessing of Heaven upon the unsavoury business, as, with unctuous complacency, he counts up his gains. But, however ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... this proceeding moves disgust. But that is only because one has not thought the matter out. In the performance there was nothing coarse or nasty. These good folk had made a contract at so much a head—so many fowls, so many pounds of beef, &c., to be supplied; and what they had fairly bought, they clearly had a right to. No one, so far as I could notice, tried to take more than his proper ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... up promptly to their support in the form of little vein-construction switches, which bud out from the wounded blood-vessels. The clot is transformed into what we term granulation tissue and begins to organize. A few days later this granulation tissue begins to contract and pull the lips of the wound together. If the gap has not been too wide the wound will be completely closed, its lips and deeper parts drawn together in nearly perfect line, separated only by a thin scar on the surface with a vertical keel of scar tissue descending from it. If ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... never read the terms of the treaty but to whom it has become the symbol of a friendship on which they can draw in case of need. The magistrate may write the marriage lines, but the marriage becomes what the husband and wife make it—a thing far deeper and more binding than any legal contract. ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... his wrath in the fact that a busybody had carried to him all manner of slander about Mozart and, likewise, slander about Constanze. He writes reminding Wolfgang of his mistake about Aloysia, and mentions a rumour that Wolfgang had been decoyed into signing a written contract of marriage with Constanze. To this Mozart writes very frankly and in a manner that shows Constanze ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... should not talk about her. Gratian sat on alone, waiting for her husband! It was nearly midnight when he came, and she did not tell him the family news till next morning. He received it with a curious little grunt. Gratian saw his eyes contract, as they might have, perhaps, looking at some bad and complicated wound, and then stare steadily at the ceiling. Though they had been married over a year, she did not yet know what he thought about many things, and she waited with a queer sinking at her heart. This skeleton in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Russia. The number of its inhabitants is uncertain, probably about 75,000, and includes a very large proportion of Jews, who monopolise the trade and banking business of the place.[51] It stands upon three eminences, and its principal streets have been paved by contract with a London firm at a cost of 200,000L.[52] It is lighted with petroleum lamps, and is badly drained and sewered, but possesses some important buildings, and contains many fine residences belonging to the landed gentry. Besides a university where there are some men of considerable attainments, ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... road when completed will form with the old route, the Saguenay and St. Lawrence, one side of an equilateral triangle. A railroad was projected a few years ago over nearly the same ground, and the contract to build it given to an enterprising Yankee, who pocketed a part of the money and has never been heard of since. The road runs for one hundred miles through an unbroken wilderness, and opens up scores of streams and lakes abounding with trout, into which, until the ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... to drop one or two of them at every turn, as they hang about and impede his progress, and make his own game single-handed. I speak of Englishmen, whose religion and government inspire rather a spirit of public benevolence, than contract the social affections to a point; and co-operate, besides, to prompt that genius for adventure, and taste of general knowledge, which has small chance to spring up in the inhabitants of a feudal state; where each considers his family as himself, and having derived all ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... one point," Harry said. "It can't be half and half in terms of actual bisection. Look, Rosalie, in this matter of running the home we're making a contract between two parties and—don't forget I'm a lawyer—it has to be an equable and just contract, and to be that it has to be based for each party's liability—Do you like me to use the ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... scintillate witchingly; a handsome, pouting, ruddy mouth; while her neck, white and statuesque, crowns the full bosom of a goddess. She said that she came out evenings occasionally to make money, not for the purpose of subsistence, but to meet debts that her extravagance had caused her to contract. She said in substance: "You see my appetite is fastidious, and I like good eating and drinking. I have the most expensive suppers sometimes. I am engaged to be married to a young fellow who works on a daily newspaper ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... and made a fine record, both as to the character of his work, his speed, and his expenses. Upon his return a rival firm, hearing of his work, made him a proposition at a thousand dollars a year and expenses, with two months' holiday each year, and he signed a contract. His first year's tramp took him through nearly all the towns of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado. He returned in August, with nine hundred dollars in cash credited to his account in the bank and demanded ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... had undertaken a big contract, but he went about it as though he meant business, and in less than a week succeeded in convincing some of the members of his company that he was just a trifle too particular to be of any use. The strict discipline in vogue at Barrington was promptly introduced at Camp Randolph, ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... and by virtue of his own proper rights that Henry IV. had ascended the throne; and M. Poirson says quite correctly, in his learned Histoire du Regne d'Henri IV. [t. i. p. 29, second edition, 1862], "The manifesto of Henry IV., as its very name indicates, was not a contract settled between the noblesse in camp at St. Cloud and the claimant; it was a solemn and reciprocal acknowledgment by the noblesse of Henry's rights to the crown, and by Henry of the nation's political, civil, and religious rights. The engagements entered into by Henry were ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... he was, as he considered himself to be, virtually married, though not admissible to all the rights of the married life. Hence we have the Duke assuring Mariana that there would be no crime in her meeting with Angelo, because he was her "husband on a pre-contract." And it is well known that in ancient times the ceremony of betrothment conferred the marriage tie, though not the nuptials, so that the union of the parties was thenceforth firm in the eye of the law itself. So again Hallam, speaking of Isabella: ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... wharf, where you landed just now, are mine; but I was the first settler on Harcourt's land, and built the next cabin after him. I helped to clear out them tules and dredged the channels yonder. I took the contract with Harcourt to build the last fifteen miles o' railroad, and put up that depot for the company. Perhaps you were here ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... The 'Social Contract' was soon printed. This was not the case with 'Emilius', for the publication of which I waited to go into the retirement I meditated. Duchesne, from time to time, sent me specimens of impression to choose from; when I had made my choice, instead of beginning he sent ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... own, which seems no logic at all to the interests. Ludlow's world found it altogether fit and intelligible that he should give up trying to paint Charmian if he had failed to get his picture of her, and thought he could not get it. Mrs. Maybough's world regarded it as a breach of contract for him not to do what he had undertaken. She had more trouble to reconcile her friends to his behavior than she had in justifying it to herself. Through Charmian she had at least a second-hand appreciation of motives and principles that were instantly ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things; for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; No occupation; all men idle, all: And women too, but innocent and ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... the other day, by a play of Etheridge's, that we have had a sort of Carnival even since the Reformation; Ytis in "She would if She could," they talk of going a-mumming in Shrove-tide.(179)-After talking so much of diversions, I fear you will attribute to them the fondness I own I contract for Florence; but it has so many other charms, that I shall not want excuses for my taste. The freedom of the Carnival has given me opportunities to make several acquaintances.; and if I have no ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... no more danger than I am. See here, Sam, and you too, Schmitt, I am in love with that girl in the boat. Do you suppose I would ever have her come on this deck, if I believed she might contract cholera? You do as I say, and you are perfectly safe. Now Schmitt remain at the wheel, and you Sam come with me. There will be a dead nigger aboard unless you jump when ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... play; he would cry that he had lost his head, that he could not think, could not write a line. The horror that some women feel for premeditation does honor to their delicacy; they would rather surrender upon the impulse of passion, than in fulfilment of a contract. In general, prescribed happiness is not the kind ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... eater of the world. Many a time I have seen him at my grandfather's table, and the viands and battercakes vanished "like the baseless fabric of a vision,"—he left not "a wreck behind." But one day, in the voracity of his shark-like appetite, he unfortunately undertook too large a contract for the retirement of an immense slice of ham. It scraped its way down his rebellious esophagus for about two inches, and lodged as tightly as a bullet in a rusty gun. His prodigious Adam's apple suddenly ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... before the proper officers of the marine. Their story was listened to with sympathy, and for a few days every thing went on to their satisfaction. Soto had succeeded so well as to conclude the sale of the wreck with a broker, for the sum of one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars; the contract was signed, but fortunately the money was not yet paid, when suspicion arose, from some inconsistencies in the pirates' account of themselves, and six of them were arrested by the authorities. Soto and one of his crew instantly disappeared ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... your pardon!" he apologized, "but I was a bit staggered for a moment. I am not used to doing business on such a large scale. In order to be legal," he gravely explained, "the paper will have to be signed by all the parties to the contract. If there is not enough room, you might ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... Isabella and Ferdinand were respectively recognised as the heirs of Castile and Aragon. In spite of her brother, Isabella made contract of marriage with the heir of Aragon, the instrument securing her own sovereign rights in Castile, though Henry thereupon nominated another successor in her place. The marriage was effected under romantic conditions in October 1469, one circumstance being that the bull of dispensation permitting ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... his coming and the occasion, came forth to meet him. The meeting took place at Rouen. The proposals were well received by the French king. The negotiations were continued for eight or ten days, and at last every thing was arranged. For the final closing of the contract, it was necessary that a messenger from the King of France should proceed to London. The king appointed an archbishop and some other dignitaries to perform the service. The earl then returned to England, and was soon ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... ballroom dancers, have decided that they require a different sphere for the exhibition of their talents. They do not demand a drama. They commission somebody to write them a musical comedy. Some poor, misguided creature is wheedled into signing a contract: and, from ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... had best be plain with you," said she. "I have fulfilled my part of the bargain that we made. I intend to do no more. I promised that if you spared my brother, I would go to the altar with you to-day. I have carried out my contract to the letter. It is ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... a Stromer or Tucher. He had imbibed in Padua mistaken ideas which, unhappily, are held in high esteem by many from whom we should expect more discernment. So it chanced that when he returned home he ventured to contract a formal betrothal with an honourable maiden of noble lineage, against the explicit desire of her distinguished parents. The rebellious youth was therefore summoned before a court of justice, and, on account of his reckless ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... so absurd as she seemed. The contractors' crime was not catalogued with an ugly name. It was fraud or breach of contract, and that of course ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... the contract system of labor had been introduced, and the contracts were regarded as binding both ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... Hawtry said, with a serenity in her rich voice and manner, "I will have to tell you as Mr. Vandeford's partner in 'The Purple Slipper' that I am entirely dissatisfied with the way the play proves up at dress rehearsal and refuse to open in it. As I am under no contract to him since Saturday night, I am motoring back to New York to-night to begin rehearsals to-morrow in 'The Rosie Posie Girl' for Mr. Weiner. Good-night!" With a stately curtsy to the assembled principals of "The Purple Slipper," very dramatic ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... French company had the contract to cross this part of New Granada with a railroad, but they didn't do anything, and at the beginning of this year an American company got the right. The company is formed by William Henry Aspenwall, John Lloyd Stevens, ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... four-in-hand team at Rome that was held at four hundred thousand. The fourth consideration is of the legal precautions to be observed in buying live stock, for in order that title may pass from one to another certain formalities must intervene, since neither a contract nor even the payment of the purchase money suffices in all cases to transfer a title: thus in buying you some times stipulate that the animal is in good health, some times that it comes out of a healthy flock or herd, and some times no ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... the drawing-room, but Sylvia ran up stairs for the Berlin wools, which in spite of heat and the sure staining of fingers were to be wound that night according to contract, for she kept a small promise as sacredly as she would ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... the marriage contract should be signed within a week, and this formality was complied with in the presence of many of the young Viscount's relatives, of Monte-Cristo, Mercedes, M. and Mme. Albert de Morcerf, Esperance and M. and Mme. Morrel, Mercedes and the ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... notified as to the first task which we were to rush through on "contract" time. A big fence was required to enclose a certain area of the camp, and this was to be erected, together with the necessary gates and other details within fourteen days. If we could complete it within a shorter time no complaint would be raised. But he would ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... an implacable foe of debts; she would not make them. But after all, the people could not starve, and so she had to contract debts now. Bitter humiliations were unavoidable; she looked into the future with untempered dread. She racked her brain trying to devise plans, deplored her weakness and the gaps in her training, bemoaned ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... explains how a fibrous tumour can be made to disappear. The unconscious having accepted the idea "It is to go" the brain orders the arteries which nourish it, to contract. They do so, refusing their services, and ceasing to nourish the tumour which, deprived of nourishment, dies, dries up, ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue

... getting ready for this emergency; he had prepared a scenario of his new book, setting forth the ideas it would contain and the form which it would take. This he sent to his publisher, with a letter saying that he wanted the same contract and the ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... affianced to Vincenzo Gonzaga, heir of the Duchy of Mantua. But suspicions, arising out of the circumstances of his divorce from a former wife, obliged him to prove his marital capacity before the completion of the contract. This he did at Venice, before a witness, upon the person of a virgin selected for the experiment.[223] Maria de'Medici, the only child of Duke Francesco, became ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... the Contract betwixt James Maxwel of Imnorweeke, and Mr. John Macghie, concerning the augmentation of the Ministers Provision at Dirletoun, and of the Acts of ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... the middle of the hut lose itself in the shadows of the roof, and listening in the hope of hearing some voice of the spirits whom Marufa was to invoke on her behalf. Save for the occasional bleating of a goat and once the harsh scream of the Baroto bird, which made her heart contract, for it is a bad omen, the night was still. However, at the hour of the monkey Bakuma arose to replenish the fire. As the western star was melting in the warm green she left the compound. On the outskirts of the village the tall figure of MYalu appeared from the shadows ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... said that it was good as far as it went, but that it didn't go far enough. He proposed to work its circulation up into hundreds of thousands, to buy it at Billy's figure, and to pay him a handsome salary,—six thousand was hinted, I believe,—as editor, under a five-year contract! Billy asked if the policy of the paper was to be dictated, and he said, no, no, everything left to him! Billy came home dazed, my dear, and I confess I was dazed too. Mr. Wallace had said that he wanted ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... which should have been heeded. In the year 1894, being faced with the necessity of finding immediately a large sum of specie for purpose of war, the native bankers proclaimed their total inability to do so, and the first great foreign loan contract was signed.[4] Little attention was attracted to what is a turning-point in Chinese history. There cannot be the slightest doubt that in 1894 the Manchus wrote the first sentences of an abdication which was only ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... is a certain preparedness for death, a certain fitness to die that we ought all to aim at. Any man can at least think solemnly of the Inheritance Tax, and reflect whether by a contract inter vivos drawn in blank he may not obtain redemption; any man if he thinks death is near may at least divest himself of his purely speculative securities and trust himself entirely to those gold bearing bonds of the great industrial corporations whose value ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock

... you,' said Sir George gently. 'We'll both sign a pledge, agreeing to abstain from alcohol in any form. That pledge will mutually bind us for a term of years, and there could be no more sacred contract.' ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne

... traits in his character which will serve to paint the man he had fallen in love with a beautiful girl in the neighborhood, and, after a year of devotion to her, had secured her parents' consent to their union. She was as poor as he. The contract was ready to be signed, the preparations for the wedding were complete, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Greek race that inhabits the great island of Cyprus has been subject to British government since 1878, when the provisional occupation of the island by Great Britain under a contract similar to that of Lausanne was negotiated in a secret agreement between Great Britain and Turkey on the eve of the Conference at Berlin. The condition of evacuation was in this case the withdrawal of Russia from Kars, and here likewise it never became operative till it was ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... from a real friend, or a business communication of importance from some picture company possibly, prepared to offer her two thousand dollars per week, instead of one thousand, at the expiration of her present contract. So the mail had to be carefully opened, at least, even if the bulk of ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks

... meagreness of his subject cramped his imagination, he used, according to general custom, the license of the Poet, and introduced the twin stars of Leda,[37] citing them as an example of similar honours. He finished the Poem according to contract, but received {only} a third part of the sum agreed upon. On his demanding the rest: "They," said he, "will give it you whose praises occupy {the other} two-thirds; but, that I may feel convinced that you have not departed in anger, promise ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... Fabius Maximus, to contract the strangers into four tribes, might be reasonable where the affairs of a whole empire were transacted by magistrates chosen in one city, yet the same policy may not hold good in England; foreigners cannot influence elections here by being dispersed about in the several counties of the ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty

... exceedingly common for men to contract their love to their country into an attachment to its petty subdivisions; and they sometimes even cling to their provincial abuses, as if they were franchises and local privileges. Accordingly, in places where ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... power enough for the job. It will be a biggish contract. There's all Harpenden Brook to be considered and Batten's Ponds as well, and Witches' Fountain, and the ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... it was desirable to avoid. There was a good deal of merry talk between Jean and the hosts, enemies though she regarded them. The Duke of York was evidently much struck with her beauty and liveliness, and he asked Sir Patrick in private whether there were any betrothal or contract in consequence of which he was taking her ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... from duties collected at the several ports in California. He consented to this, and Captain Folsom bought an oyster-can full at ten dollars the ounce, which was the rate of value at which it was then received at the custom house. Folsom was instructed further to contract with some vessel to carry the messenger to South America, where he could take the English steamers as far east as Jamaica, with a conditional charter giving increased payment if the vessel could catch the October steamer. Folsom chartered the bark La ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... Peasley's, but officers Birdsall and Larkin and Brokaw rebelled against this unwarranted assumption of authority, and released me—whereupon I was about to punish Jack Perry severely, when he offered me six bits to hand him down to posterity through the medium of this Biography, and I closed the contract. But after all, I never ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... newspaper wishes to contract with a steady man (who can find and uphold his own horse) to deliver it to the subscribers once a week during the winter, on the route between York and ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... Contract and agreement have been made to build another ship in Sasima [i.e., Satsuma?] a province of Japon near here. I am assured that it can be built there very well, and it will be strong and of good timber, and very well-proportioned and suitable as is needed for this line and trade ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair

... omissions next day. I cut a clerical meeting; I flouted the True Romance in the shape of the Pageant's second performance; I also missed the bazaar of St. Uriel's Native Church that was held on the Pageant ground. St. Uriel's structure had been put out to European contract; it was a very didactic building, so the Pageant-Master told us. We passed it on our way out to ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps

... his breast now, and crawled in what seemed to be greater darkness, consequent upon the light he had burned having made his eyes contract, and worked himself so close that his hand was over the edge, a short distance to the left of where he had broken it away with his weight. Here he gathered up a handful of the frozen snow, threw it from him, and listened till a ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... the most virtuous and intelligent at the bottom. During the late war we suddenly saw men hurled up into the highest social positions. Had they suddenly reformed from evil habits? or graduated in a science? or achieved some good work for society? No! They simply had obtained a government contract! ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... was speeding eastward to the Crescent City, the freshest of my memories a struggle at Houston with one of those breakfasts which so atrociously distinguish the reign of the magnate who is said to supply under contract all the meals of the Southern railway-restaurants, and who, "if ever fondest prayer for others' woe avail on high," will certainly be booked, with the vote of some of his victims, for a post-mundane ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... earthly bond in Marriage, the seeking in it of a spiritual unity, or the regarding it as merely a physical union. The one is the religious idea of Marriage as a Sacrament; the other the materialistic idea of it as an ordinary terminable contract. The student of the Lesser Mysteries must ever see ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... circumstances which formerly so eminently conduced to the maintenance of piety, the cultivation of intellect, and the exercise of benevolence, no longer exist. Solitary and selfish from position, men of naturally generous temper and good disposition, feel their hearts contract and shrivel within them. Surrounded by a sordid and selfish crew, they find no objects for sympathy, no inducements for the increase or the preservation of knowledge, no animating impulse to lead them forward in a good cause. Struggling for a time ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... Stars in an early stage of their life history may be regarded as diffuse gaseous masses, enormously larger than our sun, and at a much lower temperature. Their density must be very low, and their state that of a perfect gas. These are the "giants." In the slow process of time they contract through constant loss of heat by radiation. But, despite this loss, the heat produced by contraction and from other sources (see p. 82) causes their temperature to rise, while their color changes from red to bluish white. The process of shrinkage and rise of temperature ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale

... because he had been caught sliding on the ice with the Gentile boys of the town. But for that again, the whole town made a fine business of the flogging afterwards. When the scandal reached the ears of Eli's betrothed, she cried so much until the marriage contract was sent back to the bridegroom-elect, to Eli, that is. And through grief and shame, he would have thrown himself into the river, but that the ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich

... which first gave a clew to the existence of the absolute zero, that a gas at ordinary temperatures and at uniform pressure contracts by 1-27 2d of its own bulk with each successive degree of lowered temperature. If this law held true for all temperatures, the gas would apparently contract to nothingness when the last degree of temperature was reached, or at least to a bulk so insignificant that it would be inappreciable by standards of sense. But it was soon found by the low-temperature experimenters that the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams

... property in the article vests wholly in the laborer, while the capitalist, if he claims a share of the product, is nothing less than a robber. No just system, he avers, can properly exist so long as the rate of wages is fixed by free contract between the employer and laborer; therefore the only remedy is the nationalization of all the elements of production, land, tools, materials, and all existing appliances, which involves, of course, the destruction of the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... grit enough to get me cured if only you'll take the trouble to do it. I'm too weak to take on the job myself; and, even if I was sound, I reckon it would be beyond my weight. I tell you it's a mighty big contract. But then, as I've seen for myself, you're a ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... Judge James Lefkowitz of the New York Supreme Court ruled today that the International Truckers' Brotherhood had no grounds for their suit against the United Transport Corp. and its officers. The action, a bitterly fought contest, involved a complaint by the Brotherhood that UTC had violated their contract with the Brotherhood by hiring "unqualified drivers" ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... of France in the New World." Hbert's cottage seems to have stood between Ste.-Famille and Couillard Streets, as appears by a contract of 1634, cited by M. ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... woman, or rather a girl and boy, understand—what we understand by marriage. They always saw men and women exchanging husbands and wives when they pleased, and grew up in the midst of such ideas and practices, so that there never was a regular contract, nor a regularly well- conceived and clearly-understood notion of living together till "death us do part" in their minds. You will say, "And yet they were baptized." Yes, but I did not know so much about heathen ways then, and, besides, read St. Paul ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the sides, and screw them on to the centre at the four corners, taking care that the grain runs the same way in all three pieces, so that they may all expand or contract in the same direction. Plane off the edges of the ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... to us ennyhow after the suckin it has experienced for 12 years; it needs 4 years uv rest.' We elected Poke, and here it wuz that Sin got a complete hold uv us. Anshent compacts made with the devil wuz alluz ritten in blud. We made a contract with Calhoonism, and that wuz ritten in blud wich wuz shed in Mexico. Here we sold ourselves out, boots and britches, to the cotton Democricy, and don't our history ever sence prove the trooth uv the text, 'The wages uv sin is deth?' O, my ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... contracts wid de niggers dat stuck wid 'em, an' dey was sure strict 'bout dat too. De white folks at first didn't want to make the contracts an' say dey wasn't gwine to. So de gov'ment filled de jail with 'em, an' after that every one make the contract. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... He disposed himself for catechism, and received baptism amid great solemnity. In that conversion he performed the necessary duty, as a proof [of his sincerity], of sending all the concubines from his house, and marrying the first wife and confirming by the sacraments the natural contract in faciae ecclesiae. [67] He freed all his slaves, who exceeded two thousand. He issued edicts ordering that all persons who thought themselves aggrieved should come for satisfaction, without any fear; and he made the religious ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... approbation, evincing how little the loudest advocates for reforms of this nature really care about them. The 'Morning Chronicle' seemed to regret that Peel's Bill should give satisfaction more than it rejoiced that the Dissenters were to obtain it. Marriage is made a civil contract for the Dissenters, and a slight civil form is substituted for the religious ceremony of the Church of England. This relieves them from all their grievance; but it is now said that they lie under a degradation, because it is not also ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... kindly to the idea, and I could see it would be quite a task for him to arrange the matter. However, it was necessary, and he undertook the contract. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... think," says the Marquis, "be very fairly argued, that the State having imposed the terms of a contract on landlord and tenant, that contract should not be interfered ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... Victory Plant at Squantum, that miraculous marsh which was drained with such expedition that just twelve months from the day ground was broken for its foundation, it launched its first ship, and less than two years after completed its entire contract. Surely never in the history of shipbuilding have brain and brawn worked so ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... supply of timber. Rough-hewn posts for the two-foot piles and verandah supports could be had for the cutting, and therefore did not give out; but the man used joists and uprights with such reckless extravagance, that by the time the skeleton of the building was up, the completion of the contract was impossible. With philosophical indifference, however, he finished one room completely; left a second a mere outline of uprights and tye-beams; apparently forgot all about the bathroom and office; covered the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... came to talk about," she returned quickly. "I tried to have it different when I made the arrangements with them, but the terms of payment in the contract are the very best I could get; and so I have planned a little plan whereby you—that is, we—won't need to wait for your freedom until the date of settlement with ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... our iced drinks through a straw? We are quite unconscious of the fact that the weight of the superincumbent air does it all, that breathing is only to a very limited extent a voluntary act. It is controlled by muscular machinery, but that machinery would not act in a vacuum. We contract the diaphragm, or the diaphragm contracts under stimuli received through the medulla oblongata from those parts of the body which constantly demand oxygen, and a vacuum tends to form in the chest, which ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... JIMMY gives his views of Lazarus, Dives, Dirt, Mother Church, Slum-Freeholders and "Freedom of Contract."] ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 20, 1892 • Various

... planed and hammered, and got a large contract on a building estate near a great town, busy as busy, where it was necessary to have a tramway and a locomotive, or 'dirt-engine,' to drag the trucks with the earth from the excavations. This engine was a source of never-failing amusement to the steady, quiet farmers whose domains were being invaded; ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... commend a high-raised mind that could both bend and discharge itself; that wherever her fortune might transport her, she might continue constant.... I envy those which can be familiar with the meanest of their followers, and vouchsafe to contract friendship and frame discourse with ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... a virtue. But there was one, to omit the mention of whom would be, on my part, the height of ingratitude, and, as concerns the public, something very like approaching to a fraud; for by the implied contract between it and me, I am, in this my autobiography, bound to supply them with the very best materials, served up to them in my very best manner. The gentleman whom I am going to introduce to the notice of my readers was the purest personation of benevolence that perhaps ever existed. His countenance ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... Yale the students were restricted in expending money at the Buttery, being allowed at the former "to contract a debt" of five dollars a quarter; at the latter, of one dollar and ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... shouldn't have been able to get the job done for another year, at least. If that big Cronin contract goes through—well, you know what that would mean in the shipyards—nobody would get even a look-in. And McLeod is willing, in the meantime, to give us a price to keep his men busy. So you see I had to close at once. You can see what a ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... furniture waggons stood before the garden gate; the servants were busy dismantling the house upon all sides; and some of them had already donned their great-coats and were preparing to depart. It was like the end of a country ball, where everything has been supplied by contract. Brackenbury had indeed some matter for reflection. First, the guests, who were no real guests after all, had been dismissed; and now the servants, who could hardly be genuine servants, were ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the builder and contractor who had grown up under and succeeded to the business of his father, and the man readily agreed to engage him, provided he would be willing to go to Cincinnati, where he had managed to obtain a very large contract, and, for a lad of Wallace's age, he offered ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... Rosendo, catching the insinuation, "we must not speak ill of the Bishop, lest he be a Saint to-morrow! But, Padre," he went on, changing the topic, "I came to tell you that Don Luis has given me a contract to cut wood for him on the island. A quantity, too. Hombre! I shall earn much money by its terms. I set out ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... ruled that a lender of stock, by notifying the borrower of his willingness to take the stock back, could stop the interest charge on the contract, a considerable demand arose for new stock loans to replace those in which this privilege had been exercised. The matter of facilitating these new stock loans was taken up by the Stock Exchange Clearing ...
— The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble

... church, and no human government' ground, as, for instance, in his Providence speech. Now, in his prospectus, he engaged to give his subscribers an anti-slavery paper, and his subscribers made their contract with him on that ground. If he fills his paper with Grahamism and no governmentism, he defrauds his subscribers. However, I know that brother Garrison does not look at it in ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... Victor and a Philadelphia gentleman had competed for a contract to supply the British Government with Harveyised steel struts, bolts, and girders; he had come over to London to press the business; he had interviewed men in brass hats, slow moving men who had turned him over ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... casks of biscuit, and other things, not omitting two favorite dogs, of which faithful animal all the Cholos are very fond, Hunilla and her companions were safely landed at their chosen place; the Frenchman, according to the contract made ere sailing, engaged to take them off upon returning from a four months' cruise in the westward seas; which interval the three adventurers deemed ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... exhibition on the Judge's Bench gave this part of the testimony a rather sarcastic tinge. In continuing, he got Kelly to say he did not think he had hurt Smith seriously, but simply that he had fulfilled his contract. It came out that, while living in Marlboro, Kelly was a barkeeper, and was seen drinking with others in a hotel. There is apparently a good opportunity for missionary service of the sort Mr. Smith delights in in Vermont. He was asked to go into lengthy details as to ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith

... present regard women as creatures hoodwinked for them by nature—or at all events by society. When they can no longer act on that assumption, interest and, let us hope, an expanding sense of honour will lead them to see the marriage contract, and all connected with it, ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... Aunt Augusta wanted Uncle Peter to introduce a bill in the City Council forcing all of the property owners on the Square to put down the pavement in front of their houses, at small payments per annum, the town assuming the contract at six per cent. Uncle Peter refused, because he said that he felt a smooth walk around the Square would call out what he called "a ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... "This is my marriage contract. Read it, and you will see that I have had, from the head of my family, three hundred and fifteen thousand livres income. I do not say this to you in order to contrast my riches with your ruin, but only to prove to you that I was perfectly well able to marry your sister even had ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa

... desires to see wedded to a man who can give her an illustrious name; the other possesses a nephew whom he can ennoble by the highest title that a man may bear who is not a prince of the blood,—and borne indeed by few who are not,—and whom he desires to see contract an alliance that will bring him enough of riches to enable him to bear his title with becoming dignity." I glanced at Mademoiselle, whose cheeks were growing an ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... is a union. As it is in the eye of the law a civil contract, either party to it should be at liberty to originate the matter. If a woman is not free to think of a man in all ways, how is she to judge of the suitability of their union? And if she is free in theory, why not ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... up to the cannon that was to blow him to pieces. But three weeks, when he reappeared to me, had elapsed since then, yet (to vary my metaphor) the burden he was to carry for the rest of his days was firmly lashed to his back. I don't mean by this that Flora had been persuaded to contract her scope; I mean that he had been treated to the unconditional snub which, as the event was to show, couldn't have been bettered as a means of securing him. She hadn't calculated, but she had said "Never!" and that word had made a bed big enough for his long-legged patience. ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... Uncle Hughie Cameron to take the youngest orphan under his care during the wedding, and had wrung from the twins a solemn promise that they would neither be seen nor heard until after the dinner had been served. Faithful to their contract, the two had lain concealed beneath the lilacs, watching Arabella's home, and talking in breathless whispers while the guests were arriving. But when every one had disappeared indoors, and silence settled upon the village, time hung heavily ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... come upon me yet. I have been so long in the habit of pursuing any train of thought, however wild, that presents itself to my mind, that I cannot easily break it, even in your presence. All studious men—the twilight Eremites of books and closets, contract this ungraceful custom of soliloquy. You know our abstraction is a common jest and proverb: you must laugh me out of it. But stay, dearest!—there is a rare herb at your feet, let me gather it. So, do you note its leaves—this bending and silver flower? Let us rest on this bank, and I will tell ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... with a close and steady settlement of the western plains. The Government's first plan of building the road out of the proceeds of the sale of a hundred million acres of prairie lands proved a flat failure. Then in 1880 a contract for its construction and operation was made with the famous Canadian Pacific Syndicate, in which the leading figures were a group of Canadians who {59} had just reaped a fortune out of the reconstruction of a bankrupt Minnesota railway—George Stephen, Richard B. Angus, James ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... respective borders. The fact that an increasing proportion of trust business was interstate in character stimulated interest in Federal anti-trust legislation, and in 1890 the Sherman Anti-trust Act was passed. This Act declared illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... of high treason on account of sedition had been brought against Schroder- Devrient by reason of her conduct in regard to this matter. She had to prove her innocence in a court of law, so as to establish beyond dispute her claim to the pension which she had been promised by contract for her many years' service in Dresden as ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... upon all branches into which the Babylonian literature was in the course of time differentiated. In a certain sense all the literature of Babylonia is religious. Even the legal formulas, as embodied in the so-called contract tablets, have a religious tinge. The priests being the scribes, a contract of any kind between two or more parties was a religious compact. The oath which accompanied the compact involved an invocation of the gods. The decree of the judges ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... a most difficult time of it throughout. For this reason everybody pitied them no less than the sufferers, not because they were threatened by the pestilence in going near it (for neither physicians nor other persons were found to contract this malady through contact with the sick or with the dead, for many who were constantly engaged either in burying or in attending those in no way connected with them held out in the performance of this service beyond all expectation, while with many others the disease came on without ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... the fittest person, from his courage, quality, and conduct, to become the ruler of these realms. It is remarked that he who has the worst title will make the best King. There is a story current of the existence of a black box in which is deposited the marriage-contract between the King and the Duke's mother, but some doubt, not without reason, whether such a black box exists, much more the contents spoken of. Be that as it may, many persons speak boldly of the Duke of Monmouth some ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston

... between cosmopolitanism and patriotism. The "Enthusiasm of Humanity" is a noble sentiment; but the action of our fellow-members of the human family may be such as to render it, at least for the moment, impossible of realization. Under the pressure of injury from without, cosmopolitanism must contract itself into patriotism. We may wish devoutly that the whole human family were one in heart and mind—that all the citizens of the kingdom of God obeyed one law of right and wrong; but when some members of the family, some citizens of ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... made the contract with Mike Dermott, the good fellow said he should take Nora and her box for the love of County Cork. "Indade, indade, I don't take money from ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... inventions and enterprises beyond most other boys, and his undertakings came to the same end of nothingness that awaits all boyish endeavor. He intended to make fireworks and sell them; he meant to raise silk-worms; he prepared to take the contract of clearing the new cemetery grounds of stumps by blasting them out with gunpowder. Besides this, he had a plan with another big boy for making money, by getting slabs from the saw-mill, and sawing them up ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... eyes fixed pathetically on her, Gillian followed the train of her own troubled thoughts. For eighteen months she had been Barry Craven's wife, for eighteen months she had endeavoured to fulfill her share of the contract they had made—and to herself she ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... he is full of humour and robust talk, a genial, merry, shrewd-eyed old gentleman; at the next—at the mention of real sin—his brows contract, his eyes flash, and his tongue hisses out such hatred and contempt and detestation as no sybarite could find on the tip of his tongue for anything superlatively ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... as we reached the top and had blocked it temporarily, Quick, weary as he was, was sent off on horseback, accompanied by Maqueda, Shadrach, now under the terms of his contract once more a free man, and two Mountaineers, to gallop to the palace of Mur, and fetch a supply of explosives. The rest of us, for Higgs declined to leave, and we had no means of carrying Joshua, remained watching the place, or rather the Abati watched while ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... I answered, "that you admired her, and that she had a very pretty little income of her own. You coupled those two facts together in such a way as to make me think you were ready to contract a mercenary marriage." ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... Poitou. These he retained to aid him to discover the secret of the philosopher's stone by a bolder method. The Poitousan had persuaded him that the devil was the great depository of that and all other secrets, and that he would raise him before Gilles, who might enter into any contract he pleased with him. Gilles expressed his readiness, and promised to give the devil any thing but his soul, or do any deed that the arch-enemy might impose upon him. Attended solely by the physician, he proceeded ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... little squirt of a local doctor gave me some dope to ease that pain, but I've got my doubts—I don't want any morphine habit in mine. No, daughter Virginny, it's mighty white of you to offer, but you don't know what you're up against when you contract ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... Having performed our contract at Raratonga, landing the missionaries and their goods, we sailed for our fishing ground in the south, where we were tolerably successful. Whale catching is very hard work, and at length it became necessary to return north, to obtain fresh provisions ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... the islands was responsible for grave abuses. This has now been changed. Natives from the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique now enter freely into contracts ranging from one to five years, two years being the time generally chosen. At the end of their term of work they either re-contract or return to their native land with their savings, with which they generally buy a wife. The readiness with which the natives volunteer for the work on the islands is proof both of the soundness of the system of contract and of the good treatment they ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp

... cried, "you talk of marriage as though it were a contract between two shop-keepers to be argle-bargled over. It's an affair of the heart, not of the head. Ye've never loved me," he said bitterly, "or ye'd ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... of Linkoeping has sold my soul to Satan for the term of my life—for farther than that his power does not reach—and he has done so because I bade the people seek their Lord when they had been prohibited from doing so! Here is the contract! As the Church, by that contract, has bound me to hell, so I set myself free from it (he tears the letter to pieces)—and from the ban of the Church, too! ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg

... by reservations you will renew them incessantly." Josephine said, "I can never tell all; it is impossible. Do me the service to keep secret what I say to you. I owe, I believe, about 1,200,000 francs, but I wish to confess only 600,000; I will contract no more debts, and will pay the rest little by little out of my savings."—"Here, Madame, my first observations recur. As I do not believe he estimates your debts at so high a sum as 600,000 francs, I can warrant that you will not experience more displeasure for acknowledging ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... recovered. About this time I met an official of the government railway at Ilo, who desired me to return and accept a position as engineer on the road. I told him of my troubles in that town with the officials. He met me soon afterwards, with a contract duly drawn up for eighteen months' service and a guarantee that I should not be molested by ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... than a set of swindlers, took leg-bail, and made that very night a moonlight flitting; and Johnny Hammer, honest man, that had wrought from sunrise to sunset for two days, fitting up their place by contract, instead of being well paid for his trouble as he deserved, got nothing left him but a ruckle of his own good deals, all ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir



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