"Diminish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... generations, whenever necessity and the safety of the whole shall require it, the exertion of those inherent (though latent) powers of society, which no climate, no time, no constitution, no contract, can ever destroy or diminish. ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... went in flashes and spurts. That light could not come from the headlight of a steamer. Shawn went quietly to the door and called Burney. Burney came to the door of the boat, rubbing his eyes. "Must be a house burning, from the looks of it." They stood on the shanty-boat until the light began to diminish and then went to bed. Burney was unable to sleep. Presently he got up and turned up the wick of the lamp. Coaly went over and nestled by his feet. Suddenly Burney heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Coaly began ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... Inca would be upon them. Their movements would be anticipated by a foe far better acquainted with the intricacies of the sierra than themselves; the passes would be occupied, and they would be hemmed in on all sides; while the mere fact of this retrograde movement would diminish the confidence and with it the effective strength of his own men, while it doubled that of ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... the bleeding. The physician will direct that the woman be put to bed, in a quiet, darkened room. He will instruct the nurse to sterilize the external genital region: a sterile gauze dressing is then left in place. Some form of prescription will be given to diminish the patient's nervous fear and to allay any tendency on the part of the womb to contract. It is always essential and very important to save everything that passes from the womb during the course of a threatened miscarriage in order that the physician may know exactly just what the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... left behind one carbine, a spade, some horse hobbles, and a few small articles, to diminish as much as possible the weight we had to carry. For eight miles we traced round the beach to the most north-westerly angle of the Bight, and for two miles down its south-west shore, but were then compelled by the rocks to travel to the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... judge, the Notting Hill than the Kensington end of the avenue. It was a truly fine house, not only with regard to size but to architecture. Even in the dim grey light of the morning, which tends to diminish the size of ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... as if the fortune of his father would not allow him to remain idle. He was not among such as imagine that riches exempt men from work—he was one of those noble characters, resolute and just, who believe that nothing should diminish our natural obligation in this respect if we wish to be worthy of the ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... or less than that which is recognised in the public accounts. The actual rent which the landholder receives may increase with improvements, and he may conceal the improvement from the local authorities, or bribe them to conceal it from Government; or it may diminish from lands falling out of tillage, or becoming impoverished by over-cropping, or from a diminution of demand for land produce; and the landholder may be unable to satisfy the local authorities of the fact, or to ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... forty miles of their journey lay over a well-beaten road, and through a succession of clearings, which soon began to diminish until they reached a dense forest, which rose in solemn stillness around them and cast across their path a shadow which seemed to the imagination of Mrs. Dalton ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... his wind; he must have observed the tracks of animals—how, when they crossed his path of the preceding day, the beast that made the tracks has stopped, scrutinised, and shunned it—before he can believe what a Yahoo he is among the brute creation. No cleanliness of the individual seems to diminish this remarkable odour: indeed, the more civilised the man, the more subtle does it appear to be; the touch of a game-keeper scares less than that of the master, and the touch of a negro or bushman less than that ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... would be a great contentment to the people of the island to pay the same after the rate or value at which they had received it; but as the commissioners considered that it was a prerogative of the Crown to diminish, alter, or advance any moneys current among his own subjects, they ordered that the relative value of the moneys should continue as regulated by the States, 'until his Majesty's pleasure be known what other course and order in times to come shall be held and kept therein.' ...
— The Coinages of the Channel Islands • B. Lowsley
... polar caps if they are not snow? Frozen carbon dioxide, it has been suggested; but this is hardly satisfactory, for it offers no explanation of the fact that when the polar caps diminish, and in proportion as they diminish, the "seas" and the canals darken and expand, whereas a reasonable explanation of the correlation of these phenomena is offered if we accept the view that the polar caps consist ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... end the princess had in this request was, that the prince of Persia, by a longer stay, might become insensibly more passionately enamoured of her charms; hoping thereby that his ardent desire of returning would diminish, and then he might be brought to appear in public, and pay a visit to the Rajah of Bengal. The prince of Persia could not well refuse her the favour she asked, after the kind reception she had given ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... silent waters, awakening the slumbering echoes with many a shot at the numerous swans or ducks. At length another change took place in the general course of the river which from west turned to east-south-east. The height of the banks appeared to diminish rapidly and a very numerous flock of the small sea-swallow or tern indicated our vicinity to the sea. The slow-flying pelican also with its huge bill pursued, regardless of strangers its straight-forward course ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... them from the Greek orators and historians, with such effect that in reading Mitford my sympathies were always on the contrary side to those of the author, and I could, to some extent, have argued the point against him: yet this did not diminish the ever new pleasure with which I read the book. Roman history, both in my old favourite, Hooke, and in Ferguson, continued to delight me. A book which, in spite of what is called the dryness of its style, I took great pleasure in, was the Ancient Universal History, through ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... famine Be merciful, so that (all) be not upon it, and cut off from it destroyed! Have patience, so man and beast; though these that (all) be not (cut off)! three men, Noah, Daniel, and Instead of causing a flood, Job, were in it, they should Let lions(1) come and diminish deliver but their own souls by mankind! their righteousness, saith the Instead of causing a flood, Lord God. Let leopards(1) come and If I cause noisome beasts to diminish mankind! pass through the land, and Instead of causing a flood, they spoil it, so that it be Let famine ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... enough to feel such a proceeding dubious, and to dread her father's face when he heard of it. Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an opinion of her such as she could not bear to diminish. No! Mary Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to Scotland. More at ease now she packed, avoided her aunt, and took a bus to Chiswick. She was too early, and went on to Kew Gardens. She found no peace among its flower-beds, labelled trees, and broad green spaces, and having ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... unwilling by disputing about a trifle to diminish his satisfaction in her assistance. She wrote, therefore, another note to Mrs Delvile, desiring she would not expect her till near ten o'clock, and promising to account and apologize for these seeming caprices when she had ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... if I wore dresses and ornaments, that my ugliness and deformity would render absurd? I wonder, if I were now plunged into the most cruel distress, whether I should suffer as much as I do, on hearing of Agricola's intended marriage? Would hunger, cold, or misery diminish this dreadful dolor?—or is it the dread pain that would make me forget ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... month London is to be placed on the same footing, with respect to letters, as the rest of the country—that is, they must either be stamped before being posted, or sent unpaid. This is a measure which will materially diminish the labour of keeping accounts at the central office; and the more that labour is saved, the more will there be left to facilitate postal communication. Books and periodicals can now be sent to most of our colonies at the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... natural basis, promote elimination, teach correct breathing and wholesome exercise, correct the mechanical lesions of the spine, establish the right mental and emotional attitude and, in so far as they succeed in doing this, they build health and diminish the possibility of disease. The successful doctor of the future will have to fall in line with the procession and do more ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... such a craft would take off from the earth and land on the moon three hours later. There are two things which would interfere with that. One is the fact that the propelling force, the gravity of the earth, would diminish as the square of the distance from the center of the earth, and the other is that when the band of neutral attraction, or rather repulsion, between the earth and the moon had been reached, it would be necessary to decelerate so as to avoid a smash on landing. I have been over the whole thing ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... this possibility, it is practicable to diminish the weight of the front attack, it follows, again, that less depth—i.e., fewer successive reinforcements—will require to be provided; but these can only be suppressed altogether when the object aimed at does not imply the actual maintenance of the position ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... successively led the way, produced upon the public mind the usual effect of satiety. The first writer of a new class is, as it were, placed on a pinnacle of excellence, to which, at the earliest glance of a surprised admirer, his ascent seems little less than miraculous. Time and imitation speedily diminish the wonder, and each successive attempt establishes a kind of progressive scale of ascent between the lately deified author, and the reader, who had deemed his excellence inaccessible. The stupidity, the mediocrity, the merit of his imitators, are alike fatal to the first ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Mr. Mallet knows that. I admire her—yes, profoundly. But that 's no one's business but my own, and though I have, as you say, neither a princely title nor a princely fortune, I mean to suffer neither those advantages nor those who possess them to diminish my right." ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... Britain to subjugate us was too deep and inveterate ever to be altered by us; for everything we could do was misrepresented, and nothing we could say was credited." This statement is abundantly confirmed by contemporary facts. Nothing that the Patriots could say availed to diminish the alarm which was felt by the British aristocracy at the obvious tendency of the democratic principle. The progress of events but revealed new grandeur in the ideas of freedom and equality that had been here so intelligently ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... not push their ill opinion of mankind to the most outrageous and unwarrantable length; but though the weight of such asseverations be in all cases great, it will not be in all equal. It is material therefore to consider, first, what are the circumstances which may tend in particular cases to diminish their credit; and next, how far such circumstances appear to have existed in the case before us. The case where this species of evidence would be the least convincing, would be where hope of pardon is entertained; ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... souls every year, an estimate is made at long intervals—say ten or twenty years—and the landowner is compelled to pay accordingly till the period expires, whether the number of his serfs increase or diminish. It is therefore self-evident, that if the former occur—that if his serfs propagate their species with due rapidity—the serf-owner is a clear gainer during the interval between the soul-censuses, as he will be paying tax for a given number, while he is actually reaping the profit ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... of party candidates. It is merely one of the many means generated by American political practice for cheapening the ballot. The way to make votes important and effective is not to increase but to diminish their number. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... proportions existing between the duties on French wines thus reduced and the general rates of the tariff which went into operation the 1st January, 1829, shall be maintained in case the Government of the United States should think proper to diminish those general ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... emerge one by one, in order to give it a name and a form that our imagination may understand. And as man's vision grows clearer, as he shows less desire for image and symbol, so will the number of these names, the number of these forms, tend to diminish. He will slowly arrive at the stage when there shall be one only that he will proclaim, or reserve; when it shall be revealed to him that this last form, this last name, is truly no more than the last image of a power whose throne was ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... they waited on. Mike and Nat had thrown themselves down at full length. Owen, unwilling to succumb, still sat upright, occasionally getting on his feet to look about, but as the fever in his veins increased he felt his strength diminish. Langton sat near him with his arms folded, resigned to his fate; he had done his utmost, he felt he could do no more. The day wore on. Owen cast his eyes around the horizon in the hopes that some help would come. Even a Malay proa, manned by pirates, would have been welcomed. Savage as they ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... pamphlet seems rather to increase than diminish, but Seor Gutierrez has many devoted friends, and the place of his retreat is secure. There is little doubt that he will be ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... of personal management of every hen and every detail would grow proportionately smaller, and it was this personal touch which counted. Next, the sovereign advantages of grass range and table scraps must diminish with each additional hen; and if she had paid herself an adequate salary the profit would have been wiped out. Last, and perhaps the most important to her, she was absolutely tied to the farm. She could not be away one week without suffering loss. It was with ill-concealed ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and pleasing, and they are modest in behaviour. M. Denon has underrated the Nubians, but it must not be forgotten that their physique varies in different districts. Where there is much land to cultivate, they are well developed; but in districts where arable land is a mere strip, the people diminish in vigour, and are ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... The Institute of France was led by keen men of science, one of whom, the Comte de Fleurieu, had prepared the instructions for the two previous voyages. They had found a warm friend to research in Louis XVI, and the fall of the monarchy did not diminish their anxiety that France should win honour from pursuing the enquiry. They represented to Napoleon, then First Consul, the utility of undertaking another voyage, and his authorisation was secured in May. A passport was granted by Earl Spencer when Otto made the application, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... is better than no interest at all. I continue, therefore, to save and capitalise, despite the fact that my savings cannot be used productively as capital; nay, the above-mentioned diminution of the rate of interest impels me, under certain circumstances, to save yet more carefully, that is, to diminish my consumption in proportion as my savings become less remunerative. It is evident that my surplus produce cannot find any productive employment at all, yet there is no way out of this circle of over production. Luxury cannot come in as a relief, because the absence of any profitable employment ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... become a British subject, and had been elected to the English Parliament. He was under the protection of Mr. Disraeli, had every prospect of a brilliant political career as a Commoner, and he had too much good sense—in view of the very large fortune settled upon the Archduchess—to diminish it by any imprudent insistence on a claim which, extremely valuable as a ground for some advantageous compromise, could only prove ruinous if pressed to any exact recognition. The Government's advisers, therefore, approved most highly of the marriage between M. de ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... standing on that staircase for two hours, does brave Bouille, long a shadow, dawn on us visibly out of the dimness, and become a person. For the rest, since Salm has not shot him at the first instant, and since in himself there is no variableness, the danger will diminish. The Mayor, 'a man infinitely respectable,' with his Municipals and tricolor sashes, finally gains entrance; remonstrates, perorates, promises; gets Salm persuaded home to its barracks. Next day, our respectable Mayor lending the money, the officers pay down the half of the demand in ready cash. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... of the sea. Then the Merced overflows its banks, flooding the meadows, sometimes almost from wall to wall in some places, beginning to rise towards sundown just when the streams on the fountains are beginning to diminish, the difference in time of the daily rise and fall being caused by the distance the upper flood streams have to travel before reaching the Valley. In the warmest weather they seem fairly to shout for joy and clash their upleaping waters together ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... not Creed. The provincial period of Judaism is over though even its Dark Ages are still lingering on in England. It must become cosmic, universal. Judaism is too timid, too apologetic, too deferential. Doubtless this is the result of persecution, but it does not tend to diminish persecution. We may as well try the other attitude. It is the world the Jewish preacher should address, not a Kensington congregation. Perhaps, when the Kensington congregation sees the world is listening, it will listen, too," he said, with a ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... in that time," said Sneak, now winding through the bushes with much caution, as if it were truly in his power to diminish the weight of his body by a ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... being similarly bent in a vertical plane. Soon after this, the line reaches a broad, sandy tract, and, though the thickness of the sand is probably not much more than 40 feet in any place, the disturbances diminish almost at once, and, for a distance of more than two miles, there was little damage done to the line. At Mount Holly Station (18 miles), the intensity was so slight that the houses suffered no injury more serious than the loss of chimneys. Half-a-mile farther, the ground becomes less sandy, and the ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... the river, while the more appalling grounds of alarm were so evident, that no one thought of such a source of danger. Nor was there much, in truth, to apprehend from that cause. The thaw had not lasted long enough materially to diminish either the thickness or the tenacity of the common river ice; though it was found unequal to resisting the enormous pressure that bore upon it from above. It is probable that a cake of an acre's size would ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... chemical character of the mixture of substances which we call protoplasm.... The greatest happiness in life can be obtained only if all instincts, that of workmanship included, can be maintained at a certain optimal intensity. But while it is certain that the individual can ruin or diminish the value of its life by a onesided development of its instincts, e.g., dissipation, it is at the same time true that the economic and social conditions can ruin or diminish the value of life for a great number of individuals. It is no doubt true that in our present social and economic ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... sir, to add that I do not know whether the complete compliance with my wishes could increase my love and gratitude, but that I am very sure no refusal could diminish those sentiments with which I shall always remain, dear sir, your most dutiful and ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... mentioned that Tinah had a place in my cabin to keep those things which I gave him as being more secure on board than on shore. I had remarked lately that his hoard seemed to diminish the more I endeavoured to increase it: at length I discovered that Iddeah kept another hoard in the master's cabin, which she regularly enriched from her husband's whenever I made him a present, apprehending that I should cease giving when I saw Tinah's ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... conceives things which diminish or hinder the body's power of activity, it endeavours, as far as possible, to remember things which exclude the existence ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... head for days and weeks against its current—which glides everlastingly past the dahabiya, in little hurrying waves—without seeing this warm, fecundating river, compared with which our rivers of France are mere negligible streams, either diminish or increase or hasten. And on the right and left of us as we pass are unfolded indefinitely the two parallel chains of barren limestone, which imprison so narrowly the Egypt of the harvests: on the west that of the Libyan desert, which every morning ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... line, were kept on the go, following a general round in successive relief, but together amounting to five or six battle ships—to use the modern term—with proportionate cruisers. It was not possible to diminish this total by concentrating them, for the essence of the scheme, and the necessity which dictated it, was to cover a wide sweep of ocean, and to protect several maritime strategic points through which the streams of commerce, controlled by well-known conditions, passed, intersected, or converged. ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... hardly tell you how much I deprecate any steps which may tend to diminish the authority of the native office; how entirely I dissent from any plans of further assimilation to the foreign English Church. Indeed, the consequences of such schemes at this moment would in my opinion be ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... lost in an adverse season, all they had before gained. Also, that strong families were the only ones on which I could depend for protection against the moth. This induced the effort to ascertain causes tending to diminish the size of families, and the application of remedies. Whether success has attended my efforts or not, the reader can judge, after ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... being weak at first, and having foreign enemies to fear, the chiefs found it their interest not to oppress their subjects; for, by lessening the confidence of the citizens in their government, they would diminish their means of resistance—they would facilitate foreign invasion, and by exercising arbitrary power, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... old favourite of Europe might not have been as much a theatrical gesture as the sentimentality of Sterne? The great authors of the Port-Royal Logic have raised severe objections to prove that MONTAIGNE was not quite so open in respect to those simple details which he imagined might diminish his personal importance with his readers. He pretends that he reveals all his infirmities and weaknesses, while he is perpetually passing himself off for something more than he is. He carefully informs us that he has "a page," ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... confidence of Madame des Aigues (as Mademoiselle was then called) to repress the depredations of the peasantry; fearing, and not without reason, that the revenues would suffer too severely, and that his private bonus from the buyers of the timber would sensibly diminish. But in those days the sovereign people felt the soil was their own everywhere; Madame was afraid of the surrounding kings and told her Richelieu that the first desire of her soul was to die in peace. The revenues of the late singer were so far in excess of her expenses that ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... INTERCOURSE.—The right relation of a newly-married couple will rather increase than diminish love. To thus offer up the maiden on the altar of love and affection only swells her flood of joy and bliss; whereas, on the other hand, sensuality humbles, debases, pollutes, and never elevates. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... Rebecca, "I will trust thee;" and she descended from the verge of the battlement, but remained standing close by one of the embrasures. "Here," she said, "I take my stand. If thou shalt attempt to diminish by one step the distance now between us, thou shalt see that the Jewish maiden will rather trust her soul with God than her ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... days Emily was occupied in preparations to attend him; and he, by endeavours to diminish his expences at home during the journey—a purpose which determined him at length to dismiss his domestics. Emily seldom opposed her father's wishes by questions or remonstrances, or she would now have asked why ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... must all deplore the untimely death of the young woman who was to have appeared before them, and sympathise with the brother for the loss of his sister—but that his misfortune in this respect, could not lighten his guilt if he were guilty, or diminish the sacredness of the duty which each ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... guilt it is to mourn When such a sovereign reigns), Your guilt diminish; peace pursue; ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... a forward movement, and then, owing to the elasticity and inertia of the air, a backward movement is set up, with the result that a series of waves are set in motion from the bell on every side, which gradually diminish in intensity the farther they recede from the generating body. According to the wave theory, therefore, we have to picture all heated and luminous bodies in a state of vibration, and the atoms of such luminous bodies imparting the vibrations to the atoms of the Aether, in the ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... of justice would diminish and nearly extinguish another great evil, that of malicious civil suits It is an old saying, that "multi litigant in foro, non ut aliquid lucentur, sed ut vexant alios." (Many litigate in court, ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... would do well to pray that their flight be not forced upon them in winter time; nor on the Sabbath, lest regard for the restrictions as to Sabbath-day travel, or the usual closing of the city gates on that day, should diminish the chances of escape. The tribulations of the time then foreshadowed would prove to be unprecedented in horror and would never be paralleled in all their awful details in Israel's history; but in mercy God had decreed that the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... Bramante in this work, and he gave it a very great beginning, which, even if he had begun on a smaller scale, neither San Gallo nor the others, nor even Buonarroti, would have had enough power of design to increase, although they were able to diminish it; so immense, stupendous, and magnificent was this edifice, and yet Bramante had conceived something ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... of the sanctity with which, according to Indian beliefs, all kingship is invested. All the more grateful was the response elicited by the assurance which Lord Hardinge hastened to convey from his sick-bed that what had happened could and would in no way diminish his affection and devotion to the people of India or modify the policy of goodwill and progress for which he stood. Neither he nor ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... and at last only two numbers remained. The excitement was now intense, and it did not diminish when the conductor of the lottery announced that the last two numbers would draw the two great prizes of the evening, namely: An order on a Turin tailor for a suit of clothes, and an order on a jeweller for a gold watch and chain. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... the rest of Egypt by the inundation of Lake Mareotis, and that to regain the city an army would have to force its way along the narrow neck of land between the lakes Mareotis and Aboukir, seemed to diminish still further their hope ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... things, reduced now to its real terms, becomes nothing more than the connexion established between the various individual phenomena and certain general facts, the number of which the progress of science tends continually to diminish. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... but held some provinces in Asia which gave him control of the eastern shore of the Euxine. Greece was liberated, and Servia became virtually independent of the Sultan. Thus the result of the contest was greatly to diminish the strength and influence of Turkey, and correspondingly to increase the power and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... truth that the Roman Empire with its institutions and its spirit was the sole origin of European civilization; to forget or to diminish the truth that the Empire accepted in its maturity a certain religion; to conceal the fact that this religion was not a vague mood, but a determinate and highly organized corporation; to present in the first centuries some non-existant "Christianity" in place of ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... dog in Mr. Briton Riviere's "Requiescat," but how did the relations of the dead knight in plate armour acquire the embroidery, at least three centuries later, on which he is laid to his last repose? This destroys the illusion, but does not diminish the pathos in the attitude of the faithful hound. Mr. Long's large picture appears to exhibit an Oriental girl being tried by a jury of matrons—at least, not having my Diodorus Scriblerus by me, I can arrive at no other conclusion. From the number of ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... shattering and smashing everything in their career. These constantly recurring storms, and the establishment of other ports, have resulted in driving many people away from the place, and the abolition of the coolie traffic has also tended to diminish the number of traders. Now the town has a desolate, deserted appearance, and the principal revenue of the government is ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... a few months the ambassador was called home, and he set out, accompanied by his Oriental treasure, to travel to France by land. To diminish as far as possible the fatigue of the long journey, they proceeded by short stages, and having passed through European Turkey, they arrived at Kaminieck in Podolia, which is the first fortress belonging to Russia. Here the Marquess determined ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... by a feeling which I now think rather ridiculous: I feared, lest by conversing with him, I should diminish the effect his romantic and picturesque figure ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... which it is the offspring. You feel power and invention in it with a touch of quaintness and fancy. Walls of enormous grandeur are developed or expanded without the few windows in them happening to impair their massiveness or diminish their strength. There are no flying buttresses; they are self-sustaining. Marble panels, alternately yellow and black, cover them with a glittering marquetry, and curves of arches let into their masses seem to be the bones of a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... resources of some of those Territories ought to be developed as rapidly as possible. Every step in that direction would have a tendency to improve the revenues of the Government and diminish the burdens of the people. It is worthy of your serious consideration whether some extraordinary measures to promote that end can not be adopted. The means which suggests itself as most likely to be effective is a scientific exploration of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... which led Alfred Nobel, who was a most pacific and humane man, endowed with the kindliness and sympathy of a great mind, to make the provisions he did in his will. He devoted all his fortune to the encouragement of scientific discovery and the reward of endeavors to diminish standing armies and the chances of war, to promote fraternity among nations, and the settlement of international disputes by peace congresses. His will, in its very conciseness and unsophisticated simplicity, is characteristic of the man. It is dated Nov. 27, 1895, ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... things I would never have got down South—things which were felt so much that their impression increases rather than diminishes. It is difficult at times to realise what is happening. Somehow other things keep one from realisation at the moment, but afterwards these other things diminish in importance and the real ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... endowment, the sum of $50,000 in addition to the advances which I have already made; and, trusting that the name which you have given to the Observatory may not be regarded as an undeserved compliment, and that it will not diminish the public regard by giving to the ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... the weather more anxiously than we did. Our lives, as far as we could see, depended on the winds. Already the stock of provisions and water was getting low, and it was necessary to diminish the allowance of both. Still the crew of the Hawk would only receive the same quantity that we did. The sun rose and set, and again rose, and we sailed on. Mr Hill met us each morning at breakfast, his honest countenance beaming with kindness, and jocularly apologised for the scantiness of ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... order is universal, and no change will touch the everlasting distinctions between right and wrong, or diminish the obligation to choose the right and ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... be balanced by rest. If this equilibrium between expenditure and income is disturbed, exhaustion ensues. If long continued, it results in permanent impairment of health. The organism poisoned by its own toxic products is incapable of productive effort and the output will steadily diminish as the fatigue increases. The present long working day causes a progressive diminution in the vitality of the worker, defeats its own end, and leaves the girl weak in the face ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... essentially from prerogatives. In fact, in order to maintain the legality of their privileges, the students often committed crimes. The guilty were dealt with tenderly, because the interest of the city demanded that severity should not diminish the great influx of scholars who flocked to that renowned university from every part of Europe. The practice of the Venetian government was to secure at a high salary the most celebrated professors, and to grant the utmost freedom to the young men attending their lessons. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... The facts of her parentage must have been imprudently confided to her when young, and an imaginative temperament had done the rest. The secresy with which she guarded these ideas served to strengthen them. He could only hope that the life she was now leading would diminish their influence, or perhaps totally destroy her singular belief. Maurice thought it would be easy to wait for time to effect this change, but he had not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... tears on Sir John's part. But he, finding it is known that he has a keeper, whenever he is saluted with congratulations for liberty, doth answer, "No, I am still the Queen of England's poor captive." I wished him to conceal it, because here it doth diminish his credit, which I do vow to you before God is greater among the mariners than I thought for. I do grace him as much as I may, for I find him marvellous greedy to do anything to recover the conceit of ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... open session of the full conference; but it is clear that what we are sent here for is, above all, to devise some scheme of arbitration, and that anything which comes in the way of this, by provoking ill-feeling or prolonging discussion on other points, will diminish our chances of obtaining what the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... 9), which is free to move sidewise, but is prevented from turning, by suitable lugs. This packing is a close running fit on the hubs of the wheel and is provided with grooves (plainly shown in Fig. 9) which break up and diminish the leakage of steam around each hub from one stage to the next lower. Each diaphragm, with the exception of the top one, carries the expanding nozzles for the wheel ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... to expand and intensify political and military cooperation throughout Europe, increase stability, diminish threats to peace, and build relationships by promoting the spirit of practical cooperation and commitment to democratic principles that underpin NATO; program ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the combination which enjoyed a monopoly of power and place in the community, and among the members whereof there seemed to be a perfect, if unexpressed, understanding, that they were to make common cause against any and all persons who might attempt to diminish or destroy their influence. ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... an insight and so thoughtless are the plain painstaking principles, how thoughtful they are and how they show the interest. How they do diminish friction. How they do entertain royalty. How they do not stay in the deep down. How they do not. So then the origin is told. ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... the 'Golden Canon,' 'to diminish in any way the dignity of the bishop and the dean and chapter, since reverence for the established order of the State ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... somewhere on the roof!" he said, and setting down the pail he had brought, he got on his hands and knees, first to escape the wind in his ears, and next to diminish its hold on his person. Over roof after roof he crept like a cat, stopping to listen every time a new gush of the sound came, then starting afresh in the search for its source. Upon a great gathering of roofs like these, erected at various times on various levels, and with ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... appears from this table that the effect of correlation between Ability and Environment is to increase, and not to diminish, the closeness of association between Success and Ability. Indeed, if the correlation were perfect, Success would become an equal measure both of Ability and of Favourableness ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster
... he could come in without my seeing him—I was wandering about the saloons and terraces—and it had not occurred to me to knock at his door. I had half a mind to do so now—I was so anxious as to how I should find him; but I checked myself, for evidently he had wanted to dodge me. This didn't diminish my curiosity, and I slept even less than I had expected. His so markedly shirking our encounter—for if he hadn't perceived me downstairs he might have looked for me in my room—was a sign that Mrs. Pallant's interview with him would really have come off. What had she ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... number of tranquil men with monogamous instincts and not fond of change. Lastly, we must not forget that super-abundant feeding and idleness exalt the sexual appetite and tend to polygamy, while hard work, especially physical, and frugal diet diminish it. ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... a single case of puerperal fever in his practice, the physician is bound to consider the next female he attends in labor, unless some weeks at least have elapsed, as in danger of being infected by him, and it is his duty to take every precaution to diminish her ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... once acted on, and a considerable part of that bright day was spent by Sam and Robin in calculating how much pork should go to a biscuit, so that they should diminish in an equal ratio, and how much of both it would be safe to allow to each man per diem, seeing that they might be many days, perhaps even weeks, at sea. While the "officers" were thus engaged, Slagg and his ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... too equestrian a notion—he is mounted on a rough-coated, quiet, old, white shooting-pony; the saddle strangely girded on with many bands about the belly, the stirrups astonishingly short, and straps never called upon to diminish that long whity-brown interval between shoe and trowser: Mr. Jennings sits his steed with nose aloft, and a high perch in the general, somewhat loosely, and, had the pony been a Bucephalus rather than a Rozinante, not a little perilously. Simon is jogging ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... prison and was again convicted, and the chance of his reformation would be lessened by each subsequent experience of this kind. The great object of the indeterminate sentence, so far as the security of society is concerned, is to diminish the number of the criminal class, and this will be done when it is seen that the first felony a man commits is likely to be his last, and that for a young criminal contemplating this career there is in this direction: ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... situation of which the tension in Europe has already become almost intolerable. It is the situation which cannot fail to result from the system of private property and inheritance established throughout the Western world. Opportunities diminish, classes segregate. There arises a caste of wage-earners never to be anything but wage-earners; a caste of property-owners, handing on their property to their descendants; and substantially, after all deductions have been made for exaggeration and simplification, a division of society into ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... been the dominant quality in Schiller's character, this practice would undoubtedly have been abandoned, or rather never taken up. It was an error so to waste his strength; but one of those which increase rather than diminish our respect; originating, as it did, in generous ardour for what was best and grandest, they must be cold censurers that can condemn it harshly. For ourselves, we but lament and honour this excess of zeal; its effects were mournful, but its origin was noble. Who can picture Schiller's feelings in ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... also operated powerfully to diminish the attractiveness of agricultural employments. This cause, very happily, grows less powerful from year to year. The purse is seen to have an intimate sympathy with intelligent farming. Were we to say that God had so constituted the human mind that routine will tire and disgust it, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Honey. Then take Sweet-bryar, Bays, Rosemary, Thyme, Marjoram, Savoury, of each a good handfull, which you must tye up all together in a bundle. This Proportion of Herbs will be sufficient for twelve Gallons of Metheglin; and according to the quantity of Metheglin you make, you must add or diminish your Herbs. When you have put these things together, set it over a quick fire, and let it boil as fast as you can for half an hour or better, skiming of it very clean and clarifying it with the whites of two or three Eggs. Then take it from the fire, and ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... historical knowledge, and the unique example of provident and exhaustive equipment which she cited, reduced me to silence, but did not diminish my anxiety. The delay made ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... purpose, and only one, for which the use of force by a government is beneficent, and that is to diminish the total amount of force used m the world. It is clear, for example, that the legal prohibition of murder diminishes the total amount of violence in the world. And no one would maintain that parents should have unlimited freedom to ill-treat their children. So long as some men ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... obstacle, even though unenhanced by the presence of an active and vigilant enemy. At the same time, there devolved upon them the duties and the responsibilities of regular troops. A due consideration of these circumstances tends to diminish the surprise which a comparison of their achievements with those recorded in our later military annals ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... was, served rather to increase than to diminish my nervousness; but upon my entering the assembly hall, where my young friends were gathered together awaiting my coming, all sense of trepidation vanished, so spontaneous and uproarious was their greeting. The chorus of lusty young voices raised ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... as in the gorse, when grown in dry, gravelly situations, we see many leaves and twigs modified into thorns to diminish the loss of water through evaporation by exposing too much leaf surface to the sun and air. That such spines protect the plants which bear them from the ravages of grazing cattle is, of course, an additional motive ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... inside the respiration chamber. While there is the same temperature, there is a material difference in the water-vapor present, and hence the moisture content as expressed in terms of tension of aqueous vapor must be considered. This obviously tends to diminish the true volume ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict
... its entangling branches rose gradually from the panther, who, feeling the encumbering weight diminish, quickly crawled from beneath. Tarzan let the tree fall back to earth, and the two beasts turned to look ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... twenty-eight feet by a hundred and two, with a height of sixty-six feet to the top of the pediment, were sufficiently great to give an impression of grandeur and sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of parts, such as is found to diminish the effects of some larger modern buildings, where the same singleness of design is not observed. In the Parthenon, whether viewed at a small or at a great distance, there was nothing to divert the spectator's contemplation from the simplicity and majesty of mass ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... still, viewed as a whole, it was massive and imposing; and as Mr. Sponge looked down upon it, he thought far more of Jawleyford and Co. than he did as the mere occupants of a modest, white-stuccoed, green-verandahed house, at Laverick Wells. Nor did his admiration diminish as he advanced, and, crossing by a battlemented bridge over the moat, he viewed the massive character of the buildings rising grandly from their rocky foundation. An imposing, solemn-toned old clock began striking four, as the horsemen rode under ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... then all his calmness of exterior returned. In the mean time the signals were made and answered. The latter circumstance was reported to Sir Gervaise, who cast his eyes down the line astern, and saw that the different ships were already bracing in, and easing off their sheets, in order to diminish the spaces between the different vessels. As soon as it was apparent that the Carnatic was drawing ahead, Captain Greenly was told to lay his main and fore-yards nearly square, to light up all his stay-sail sheets, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... con[15] meaning with, and centrum, a center, "with a center," or "to come to a center." If you hold a magnifying-glass between your hand and the sun you will find that at a certain distance the sunlight is in a circle. By changing the distance with delicacy you can diminish the circle to almost a point,—you make the light come to a center. When the circle of light is large, no particular effect is noted by the hand. When, however, the circle is as small as it can be made you feel a sensation of ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... tone so unusually serious, that I looked up from the cradle in surprise, which her solemn aspect, and pale, tearful face, did not tend to diminish. Before I could ask the cause of her ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Have a care lest you should share the opinion of certain folk to whom it seems hard that they should not pray much oftener for themselves. Believe me that no prayer is better or more profitable than that of which I am speaking. Perhaps you fear that it will not go to diminish the pains which you will suffer in purgatory: I answer that such prayer is too holy and too pleasing to God to be useless. Even if the time of your expiation should be a little longer—well, let it ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... cloud, though it may disperse, leaves in those souls a trace of its passage. Either love gains a stronger life, as the earth after rain, or the shock still echoes like distant thunder through a cloudless sky. It is impossible to recover absolutely the former life; love will either increase or diminish. ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... the elections General Weaver announced that the Populists had succeeded far beyond their expectations. "The Republican party," he asserted, "is as dead as the Whig party was after the Scott campaign of 1852, and from this time forward will diminish in every State of the Union and cannot make another campaign.... The Populist will now commence a vigorous campaign and will push the work of organization and education in every county in the Union." There were those, however, who believed that the new party had made a great mistake ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... a man as to 'his intentions' was peculiarly unpleasant to him; nor did his own anomalous position diminish this unpleasantness. It was so like his family, so like all the people they knew and mixed with, to enforce what they called their rights over a man, to bring him up to the mark; so like them to carry their business principles into ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... microscope, from the same protoplasm when living; and living protoplasm, again, may be either animal or vegetable. Both are in every respect (externally) absolutely identical. Yet the one will only develop into a plant, the other only into an animal. Nor does it diminish the significance of the fact to say that the differentiation is now fixed by heredity. If we suppose protoplasm to be only a fortuitous combination of elements, what secondary or common natural cause will account for its acquisition of the fixed difference? It is true that some forms of plants ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... old self into a better self, she would duly appreciate and love her long-suffering niece. But he was well aware that the old self would not surrender its throne without a severe struggle, and he was therefore not surprised to find the old lady's bitterness rather increase than diminish as through their conversations she was learning to become more and ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... some cases only when propagated by buds, in other cases by seed. These cases have been produced suddenly by accident in early growth, but it is part of law of growth that when any organ is not used it tends to diminish (duck's wing{170}?) muscles of dog's ears, rabbits, muscles wither, arteries grow up. When eye born defective, optic nerve (Tuco Tuco) is atrophied. As every part whether useful or not (diseases, double flowers) tends to be transmitted to offspring, the origin of abortive organs whether ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... he has made the discovery, I should imagine that he would diminish his honour and regard for them, and would become more devoted to the flatterers; their influence over him would greatly increase; he would now live after their ways, and openly associate with them, and, unless he ...
— The Republic • Plato |
