"Infirm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when their time had expired, sleeping unsuspected beneath his roof, until they could get employment in the country.' So testified his son concerning him in Halifax. When too old to do any regular work, he often visited the houses of the poor and infirm in the city and beyond Dartmouth, filling his pockets at a grocer's with packages of tea and sugar before setting out on ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... man from the discharge of such offices, and could be bought for from L15 to L25. There were also two thousand watchmen receiving from 8-1/2d. up to 2s. a night. These were the true successors of Dogberry; often infirm or aged persons appointed to keep them out of the workhouse. The management of this distracted force thus depended upon a miscellaneous set of bodies; the paid magistrates, the officials of the city, the justices of the peace for Middlesex, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... security in the knowledge of human nature. Parents ordinarily consider little the passion of their children and their present gratification. Don't fear the power of a father: it is kind to passion to give it time to cool. But their censures sometimes make me smile,—sometimes, for I am very infirm, make me angry: ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... last year of Robert the Bruce's reign, he became extremely sickly and infirm, chiefly owing to a disorder called the leprosy, which he had caught during the hardships and misfortunes of his youth, when he was so frequently obliged to hide himself in woods and morasses, without a roof ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... length to dismiss his domestics. Emily seldom opposed her father's wishes by questions or remonstrances, or she would now have asked why he did not take a servant, and have represented that his infirm health made one almost necessary. But when, on the eve of their departure, she found that he had dismissed Jacques, Francis, and Mary, and detained only Theresa the old housekeeper, she was extremely surprised, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... labor, but, as a corollary, it would impose the duty of labor upon every competent person. The Pauline injunction, "If any man will not work, neither shall he eat," would be applied in the Socialist state to all except the incompetent to labor. The immature child, the aged, the sick and infirm members of society, would alone be exempted from labor. The result of this would be that instead of a large unemployed army, vainly seeking the right to work, on the one hand, accompanied by the excessive overwork of the great mass of the workers fortunate enough to be employed, a ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... charming man, an ideal lodger. To begin with, he is infirm, almost paralysed in both legs. I believe he never goes out of an evening. And then he never has any visitors except two young fellows who are serving their ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... merchant-service. With all this it should be remembered that the ordinary slave-rations far exceed, both in quantity and quality, the Sunday meal of an English west-country laborer; and that the comforts of all the aged and infirm, whom the master is, of course, obliged to maintain, are infinitely superior to those enjoyed by the like inmates of our ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... you on Mr. De Courcy's arrival, and I advise you by all means to marry him; his father's estate is, we know, considerable, and I believe certainly entailed. Sir Reginald is very infirm, and not likely to stand in your way long. I hear the young man well spoken of; and though no one can really deserve you, my dearest Susan, Mr. De Courcy may be worth having. Mainwaring will storm of course, but you easily pacify him; besides, the most scrupulous point of honour could not ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... worst. I saw an instance lately however of a precocious young villain of twelve, who was footboy in a gentleman's family, and his young sister, not fourteen, under-housemaid. His mother, a widow in infirm health, recently imported from Dublin, had brought up her children well, as far as reading and writing went, but had indulged them too much, and beat them so much, that they neither loved nor feared her. The little boy, only twelve, got into bad company, and ran away from ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... convents, read and replied to letters, directed the affairs of the house, received information and letters from her spies, and returned to Versailles just as the King was ready to enter her rooms. When older and more infirm, she would lie down in bed on arriving between seven and eight o'clock in the morning at Saint-Cyr, or take ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... This did not affect him one jot, since he held precisely the same opinion of his neighbours—with whom, moreover, he continued on excellent terms. He kept six saddle horses in a stable large enough for a regiment of cavalry; a brace of setters and an infirm spaniel in kennels which had sometime held twenty couples of hounds; and himself and his household in a wing of his great mansion, locking off the rest, with its portraits and tapestries, cases of books, and stands of antique arms, to be a barrack for the mice. This household consisted of his brother-in-law, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... infirm as Opechancanough was, the wound was not instantly mortal. He lingered for a few days in agonizing pain. Yet to the last moment of his life his dignity of demeanor was preserved. It was especially shown when a crowd of idlers gathered in the room to sate their unfeeling curiosity on ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... was out with a party upon the mountains. Among his few immediate attendants was Lysimachus, one of his former teachers, who always loved to accompany him at such times. Lysimachus was advanced in life, and somewhat infirm, and consequently could not keep up with the rest in the march. Alexander remained with Lysimachus, and ordered the rest to go on. The road at length became so rugged that they had to dismount from ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... may be turned up, and when this is done the projection of the miserere is sufficient, without actually forming a seat, to afford very considerable rest to any one leaning upon it. They were allowed as a relief to the infirm during the long services that were required to be performed by ecclesiastics in a standing posture. They are always more or less ornamented with carvings of leaves, small figures, animals, etc., which are generally very boldly ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... and the fiery wine which he had again enjoyed in abundance at dinner had increased the pain from which he was now never free, day or night, and it was some time ere Adrian could succeed in propping his infirm body comfortably. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fruit of this return, being born ten months after, in a very weakly and infirm state; my birth cost my mother her life, and was the first of my misfortunes. I am ignorant how my father supported her loss at that time, but I know he was ever after inconsolable. In me he still thought he saw ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... gentlemen, that Mr. Burnham's wife and child are now with him; but, partially because of her, his wife's, infirm health, and partially because of a most distressing and unfortunate experience in his past, our kinsman begs that no one will attempt to call at the ranch. He appreciates all the courtesy the gentlemen and ladies at the fort would ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... volunteered services of his zealous coadjutors, and, led by his faithful Johnnie, Mr. Ferrers penetrated into the winding alleys, and carried comfort to many a sick and dying bed. And as Mr. Brabazon grew more infirm, it became a rule to Mr. Ferrers to occupy his pulpit on Sunday evenings, and it was always remarked that on these occasions the church was crowded; people would come ten or twelve miles to hear the blind clergyman from Sandycliffe. It was even mooted by the bishop whether, after Mr. Brabazon's ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... devotion cannot be called a reasonable self-sacrifice; it is rather an abnegation of the trust imposed on man to use his best judgment, and to act in the way he thinks the wisest. Trust in authority is a trait of the character of children, of weakly women, and of the sick and infirm, but it is out of place among members of a thriving resolute community during the fifty or more years of their middle life. Those who have been born in a free country feel the atmosphere of a paternal government ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... The great d'Esgrignon, with a following of all the less infirm noblesse from the Collection of Antiquities, went to wait upon Charles X. at Nonancourt; he paid his respects to his sovereign, and swelled the meagre train of the fallen king. It was an act of courage which seems simple enough ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... once under laws originally devised for a white population. The new laws must meet many needs; family life, morals, and conduct must be regulated; the former slave must be given a status in court in order that he might be protected in person and property; the old, the infirm, and the orphans must be cared for; the white race must be protected from lawless blacks and the blacks from unscrupulous and violent whites; the Negro must have an opportunity for education; and the roving blacks must be forced to get homes, settle ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... demons, or when he afflicts us with the troubles, or wears us out with the persecutions of this world, he seems, as it were, a hard and angry master. And happy is he who becomes valiant in this his anger, now resisting, now fighting, now flying, so as to be found neither infirm through consenting, nor weak through despairing. Therefore, brethren, whoever is not found valiant in his anger cannot exult in his glory. If we have passed through fire and water, so that neither did the fire consume us, nor the water drown us, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... fond of me, and in spite of the fact that I had been robbed of my rightful heritage, he was proud that he had a Pennington for a grandson. Thus I am sure that it was his will that I should have the Barton for my own. But during the last few years he had been very feeble and infirm, and thus in the hands of a clever lawyer he could easily be deceived as to what ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... once wrote that, in common with the great masters, Carriere, on his canvas, gives a sense of volume and weight. Whatever he sacrificed, it was not actuality. His draughtsmanship never falters, his touch is never infirm. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... licentiousness of the most debased and debasing character, burying their infirm and aged parents alive, desertion of the sick, revolting cruelties to the unfortunate maniac, cannibalism and drunkenness, form a list of some of the traits in social life among ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... cotton which they wove and manufactured into cloth with which to clothe the family. The old people not over active and strong, like your grandmother," she would add with a smile, "together with the infirm and invalids, braided the straw with which we manufactured our hats; so that you see, petiots, we had no drones, no useless loungers in our villages, and every one ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... of Osimo, in close confinement, in order that his aerial voyages "should not be disturbed by the concourse of the vulgar." And here he expired, in his sixty-first year, on the 18th September, 1663. He had been suffering and infirm for some little time previous to that event, but managed to take a short flight on the ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... that you have returned. What happiness for me! and how I long to see you! You are my good angel, whom I should like to see every day of my life, and the time has seemed so long to me without you. When you enter the garret of the poor, infirm old woman, it seems to her as though there were three suns in the heavens; when you abandon her, the blackness of midnight surrounds her. Mme. de Lorcy has been very good to me. As my angel requested her, she ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... extraordinary to James I, and he remained in close professional relations to the royal family until the close of the Civil War, being present at the battle of Edgehill. By mandate of Charles I, he was, for a short time, Warden of Merton College, Oxford (1645-6), and, when he was too infirm to undertake the duties, he was offered the Presidency of the College of Physicians. He died on ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... Dander, to saunter. Danders, cinders. Daurna, dare not. Deave, to deafen. Denty, dainty. Dirdum, vigour. Disjaskit, worn out, disreputable-looking. Doer, law agent. Dour, hard. Drumlie, dark. Dunting, knocking. Dwaibly, infirm, rickety. Dule-tree, the tree of lamentation, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in vain. The vicar was firm at his post, and often successfully pleaded the cause of his parishioners, who were most of them tenants of the admiral. He was unassisted in his parochial duties by the curate, a worthy, but infirm and elderly man, fast sinking into his grave, and whom, out of Christian charity, he would not remove from his situation, as it would have deprived him of the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Oh, rebel worm! If, when immortal, I was slain, For daring to impugn his reign, How shall I, thus infirm? ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... Sept., 1780, Lord Cornwallis, elated with his victory at Camden, entered Charlotte, with the confident expectation of soon restoring North Carolina to the British Crown. Patrick Jack was then an old and infirm man, having given up the chief control of his public house to his son, Captain James Jack; but neither age nor infirmity could enlist the sympathies of the British soldiery. The patriotic character of the house had become extensively known through ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... neighbor. On the other hand, in the case of faith, both these things are subject to the free-will so that in both respects the act of faith can be meritorious: whereas in the case of opinion, there is no firm assent, since it is weak and infirm, as the Philosopher observes (Poster. i, 33), so that it does not seem to proceed from a perfect act of the will: and for this reason, as regards the assent, it does not appear to be very meritorious, though it can be ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... duty upon this occasion there has not been wanting a just sensibility to the merits of the American Army during the late war; but the obvious policy and design in fixing an efficient military peace establishment did not afford an opportunity to distinguish the aged and infirm on account of their past services nor the wounded and disabled on account of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison
... time in my hearing; and at night, when the muster-roll of names was called over, and mine (as usual) was called first, I stepped forward, and passing the head-master, who was standing by, I bowed to him, and looked earnestly in his face, thinking to myself, "He is old and infirm, and in this world I shall not see him again." I was right; I never did see him again, nor ever shall. He looked at me complacently, smiled good-naturedly, returned my salutation (or rather my valediction), and we parted (though he knew it not) for ever. I could not reverence ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... writers, he was the equal in conversation of any of the great men with whom he was brought in contact, without being great himself, thereby resembling Louis XIV. He had handsome features, a musical voice, pleasing manners, and singular urbanity, without being condescending. He was infirm in his legs, which prevented him from taking exercise, except in his long daily drives, drawn in his magnificent carriage by eight horses, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... Dumbello is coming to us, who I know is a favourite of yours. Or is it the other way, and are you a favourite of hers? I did ask Lady Hartletop, but she cannot get away from the poor marquis, who is, you know, so very infirm. The duke isn't at Gatherum at present, but, of course, I don't mean that that has anything to do with dear Lady Hartletop coming to us. I believe we shall have the house full, and shall not want for nymphs either, though I fear they will not be of the ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... i. 125. nature and objects of those belonging to society, i. 125. a control over them necessary to the existence of society, iv. 52. strong ones awaken the faculties, v. 287. vehement passion not always indicative of an infirm judgment, v. 407. mere general truths interfere very little with them, vi. 326. passions which interest men in the characters ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... masts and spars was laid on each side of her, near to the forts and castles, so as to render the entrance impassable; within this breakwater were the five zabras, moored, their treasure also taken out; all the women and children and infirm people were moved to the interior, and those only left in the town who were able to aid in its defense. A heavy fire was opened on the English ships, but the adventurers persisted in their desperate attempt, until they had lost, by their own account, some forty or fifty ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... II: Persons mentally infirm—that is, persons who, through mental infirmity arising from age or decay of their faculties, are incapable of managing ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... material, a moral as well as a physical existence, and is subjected to internal as well as external conditions of health and virtue, greatness and grandeur, which it must in some measure understand and observe, or become weak and infirm, stunted in its growth, and end ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... tract of polar land was furthermore assumed to have been the nursery of many of our animal and plant forms, whence they had found their way to lower latitudes. These conjectures now appear to rest on a somewhat infirm basis. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... is infirm. Some attribute his weakness to a fall from a horse, others declare him to have been poisoned by one of his wives. [30] I judged him consumptive. Shortly after my departure he was upon the point of death, and he afterwards sent for a physician to Aden. He has four wives. No. 1. is ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... by their mother's skirts, followed, smiled on and chidden as they impeded her work, and babbled questions about this or that. Beside the fire, in the chair that had once belonged to the master of the house, sat Micah Ward. He looked very old now and infirm. The months in a prison hulk in Belfast Lough and the long weariness of his confinement in bleak Fort George had set their mark upon him. On his knees lay a Greek lexicon, but he was pursuing no word through its pages. It was open ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... who was passing by. As soon as the Corso was cleared, the gendarmes went into the different cafes along the street, and ordered all persons, who were found in them, to go home at once. In one case an infirm old man, who could not make off fast enough, had his face cut open by a sabre-blow; while the backs of the gendarmes' swords were used plentifully to expedite the departure of the cafe frequenters. The exact number of wounded it is of course impossible to ascertain. ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... school for teachers (1878) and a school of industrial art (1879). Amsterdam is also remarkable for the number and high character of its benevolent institutions, which are to a large extent supported by voluntary contributions. Among others may be mentioned hospitals for the sick, the aged, the infirm, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the insane, and homes for widows, orphans, foundlings and sailors. The costumes of the children educated at the different orphanages are varied and picturesque, those of the municipal orphanage being dressed ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... clawed hold of some peas which were twined round poles stuck into the ground, and ate, or rather browsed upon them, shells and all: and Planchet was busily engaged trying to wake up an old and infirm peasant, who was fast asleep in a shed, lying on a bed of moss, and dressed in an old stable suit of clothes. The peasant, recognizing Planchet, called him "the master," to the grocer's great satisfaction. "Stable the horses well, old fellow, and you shall have ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that the place reeked with stale cigar smoke, and that the infirm table propped for security against the wall, groaned under a collection of juvenile "properties," the heterogeneity of which, defies my pen and memory. But, bestow a wild boy in such lodgings as he might find in a low tavern, and he will treat them accordingly. He is ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... wild, free life of the forest was what exactly suited David's own youth and vigour, he felt that his parents were too infirm to bear it, and with characteristic thoughtfulness, he went at once to the King of Moab and begged him to give a home to the old people until he should have a safer place of shelter for them. David's grand-mother was Ruth the Moabitess, which ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... A Lion, infirm with age, lay sick in his den, and all the beasts of the forest came to inquire after his health with the exception of the Fox. The Wolf thought this was a good opportunity for paying off old scores against the Fox, ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... throne. The malignity of Lord Macaulay has reproduced the charges, but reversed, most unjustly, the acquittals. His record occupies a large space in American history, and he is reverenced for having established a great colony on the basis of brotherly love. Poor and infirm, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... early period, but only among the great, till, in the reign of Richard II., his queen, Anne, introduced side-saddles, when the whirlicote fell out of fashion, but might be found at different hostelries on the main roads for the accommodation of the infirm or aged.] standing in the yard of the hostelry; and seizing upon it, vi et armis, in spite of all the cries and protestations of the unhappy landlord, he ordered his captives to enter, and ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... philosopher had advertised his lectures or lecture on mythology, I could not resist, and went to Berlin in 1844. I must say at once that Professor Bopp, though he was extremely kind to me, was at that time, if not old—he was only fifty-three—very infirm. In his lectures he simply read his Comparative Grammar with a magnifying glass, and added very little that was new. He lent me some manuscripts which he had copied in Latin in his younger days, but I could not get much help from him when I came to really difficult passages. ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... so old and infirm that one day they sent for Abe to come and put an end to his misery. Every man on the farm loved the old dog and not one of them would raise a hand to kill him. Hope and I heard what Abe was coming ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... fallen even thus far into the snare of this Moabitish woman?—hast thou bartered thy name, thy allegiance, thy knightly oath, thy duty to thy parents, thy country, and thy God, for a feigned tear, or a sickly smile, from lips which flattered the infirm Francis—lured to death the idiot Darnley—read luscious poetry with the minion Chastelar—mingled in the lays of love which were sung by the beggar Rizzio—and which were joined in rapture to those of the foul and ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... January, 1791, finding it impossible to get any of the remaining stores out, which were under the lower and orlop decks of the wreck, I determined to attempt getting the guns out, which, until then, I did not incline to try; the gun deck being in so infirm a state, I was suspicious, that by moving the guns, which had hitherto (being housed) hung chiefly by the bolts in the side, it might cause the deck to fall in, as the beams, from the opening of the ship's sides, did but barely keep hold of ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... site of a Hospital, founded, in the time of Richard I., who endowed it, by Bishop Glanville of Rochester. This place must have been known to Chaucer and his pilgrims. It was dedicated in honour of Our Lady and cared for "the poor, weak, infirm and impotent as well as neighbouring inhabitants or travellers from distant places, until they die or depart healed." Those who served it followed the Benedictine Rule. A singular example of the hatred of these for the monks ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... all-controlling. They do nothing but compel and drive. They exhibit no mercy, but perpetual reproach, censure, condemnation, blame and bluster. They can endure no imperfection. But among Christians many are sinners, many infirm. In fact, Christians associate only with these; not with saints. Christians reject none, but bear with all. Indeed, they are as sincerely interested for sinners as they would be for themselves were they the infirm. They pray for the sinners, teach, admonish, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... fault is its slothful unwillingness to seek renewal. But humanity must seek renewal and growth. For centuries it has condemned itself to use no more than a modicum of its spiritual resources. It is like a half-paralysed colossus. It allows some of its organs to atrophy. Are we not weary of these infirm nations, of these scattered members of a great body, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... signifies the whole coercive power of a county called out in the case of a riot, and embraces all males over 15 except peers, ecclesiastics, and infirm persons. These may be summoned by the sheriff to assist in maintaining the public peace, enforcing a writ, or capturing a felon; but usually the constabulary is ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... and very often the LIFE of invalids, and those who have weak and infirm STOMACHS, depend upon the care and skill of the COOK. Our forefathers were so sensible of this, that in days of yore no man of consequence thought of making a day's journey without taking ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... her fingers, and related how that she and Master Gammon had one day, six years distant, talked on a lonely evening over the mischances which befel poor people when they grew infirm, or met with accident, and what "useless clays" they were; and yet they had their feelings. It was a long and confidential talk on a summer evening; and, at the end of it, Master Gammon walked into Wrexby, and paid a visit to Mr. Hammond, the carpenter, who produced two strong saving-boxes ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... absurd, Kitty," he said. "I simply won't allow that poor, infirm, old man to be got out of his bed for such a ridiculous reason. Who cares whether the gates are locked, or ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... foolishly claimed as a glory by the English race, in spite of his disgusting political opinions; but from the fact that the seats in the immediate neighbourhood are often thronged by children, errand-boys, unfortunate young ladies of the poorer class and infirm old men—all classes making a direct appeal to public pity, and therefore suitable with our designs. As M'Guire drew near his heart was inflamed by the most noble sentiment of triumph. Never had he seen the garden so crowded; children, still stumbling in the impotence of youth, ran ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... Further, this sacrament, like the others, is a spiritual medicine. But medicine is given to the sick for their recovery, according to Matt. 9:12: "They that are in health need not a physician." Now they that are spiritually sick or infirm are sinners. Therefore this sacrament can be received by them ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... we see in distress; it is this pity which, in a state of nature, stands for laws, for manners, for virtue, with this advantage, that no one is tempted to disobey her sweet and gentle voice: it is this pity which will always hinder a robust savage from plundering a feeble child, or infirm old man, of the subsistence they have acquired with pain and difficulty, if he has but the least prospect of providing for himself by any other means: it is this pity which, instead of that sublime maxim of argumentative justice, ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... citizens began to go about asking alms for the poor who were ashamed to beg, and to succour them in all their necessities, in the year of the plague of 1348. The fraternity acquired a great reputation, acquired by means of the efforts of these good men, in helping the poor and infirm, burying the dead, and performing other kindred acts of charity, so that the bequests, donations and inheritances left to them became so considerable that they amounted to one-third of the entire wealth of Arezzo. The same ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... three years later he was promoted to the see of Salisbury, over which he presided for twelve years, prosecuting his benevolent designs with unwearied industry. As at St David's, so at Salisbury, he founded a Church Union Society for the assistance of infirm and distressed clergymen. He strenuously opposed both Unitarianism and Catholic emancipation. He died on the 19th of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the solid earth of Newfoundland for his bed, but danger often lurks where least expected. Oliver Trench was not an architect either by nature or training. His bower had been erected on several false principles. The bouncing of a big man inside was too much for its infirm constitution. Its weak points were discovered by the captain. A bounce into one of its salient supports proved fatal, and the structure finally collapsed, burying its family in a compost ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... of this being true, in many cases the directly opposite course is the best; while, in all instances, much good judgement is required, in order to decide when to notice faults, and when to let them pass unnoticed. There are some minds, very sensitive, easily discouraged, and infirm of purpose. Such persons, when they have formed habits of negligence, haste, and awkwardness, often need expressions of sympathy and encouragement, rather than reproof. They have usually been found fault with, so much, that they have become either hardened or desponding; and it ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... de Malo, the Walloons on the left were under the Duke of Albuquerque, while in the centre were the veteran Spanish infantry under the command of General Fuentes, who had often led them to victory. He was too old and infirm to mount a horse, but lay in a litter in the midst of ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... exhausted; fields became deserts and farms were changed into forests. The fiscal agents measured the land by the clod; trees, vinestalks, were all counted. The cattle were marked; the people registered. Old age or sickness was no excuse; the sick and the infirm were brought up; every one's age was put down; a few years were added on to the children's, and taken off from the old men's. Meanwhile the cattle decreased, the people died, and there was no deduction made for ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a certain man at Lystra, infirm in his feet, lame from his birth, who had never walked. [14:9]This man heard Paul speaking, who, looking steadily at him and seeing that he had faith to be cured, [14:10]said with a loud voice, Stand up erect on your feet. And he leaped, and walked. [14:11]And the ...
— The New Testament • Various
... keep the appointment with his master—for such he felt that Catiline now was indeed—however he might strive to conceal the fact; endeavor to learn what were his real objects; and then determine what should be his own course of action. Doubtful, and weak of principle, and most infirm of purpose, he shrunk alike from breaking the oath he had been entrapped into taking, and from committing ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... missionaries to instruct him in the true faith. He would conduct them to the kingdom of this unknown potentate. Then he goes on to deplore his own hard case; "surrounded by cruel and hostile savages; isolated, infirm, expecting each day will be my last; severed from the holy sacraments of the Church, so that my soul, if parted here from my body, must be for ever forgotten....If it should please God to deliver me ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... me, I am rapt with admiration, To think a man of thy exterior presence Should (in the constitution of the mind) Be so degenerate, infirm, and base. Art thou a man? and sham'st thou not to beg? To practise such a servile kind of life? Why, were thy education ne'er so mean, Having thy limbs: a thousand fairer courses Offer themselves to thy election. Nay, there the wars might still ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... circumstances such tidings as those might, to a certain extent, have brought their own consolation with them. Harry would now be Mr. Norman of Normansgrove, and Linda would become Mrs. Norman of Normansgrove; Harry's mother had long been dead, and his father was an infirm old man, who would be too glad to give up to his son the full management of the estate, now that the eldest son was a man to whom that estate could be trusted. All those circumstances had, of course, been talked over between Harry and Linda, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... Modeste's society. Modeste—who, by the way, had never been ill, and who suffered from nothing but old age—was delighted to receive her dear young lady in her little room far up under the roof, where, though quite infirm, she lived comfortably, on her savings. Jacqueline, sitting beside her as she sewed, was soothed by her old nursery tales, or by anecdotes of former days. Her own relatives were often the old woman's theme. She knew the history of Jacqueline's family from beginning to ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... a pattern will what was bought for sixpence up to Mr. Marsh's in town," said Jenny loftily. "It do begin, 'I, M.N., bein' o' sound mind though infirm in body'—Abel, d'ye see, weren't infirm in body; he were as well as ever he were in his life, poor chap, when ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... temple, as even a foreign war, that should come upon them [suddenly], before it was denounced, could not have heaped together. And he added, that it was the foresight his father had of that his barbarity which made him never give him any hopes of the kingdom, but when his mind was more infirm than his body, and he was not able to reason soundly, and did not well know what was the character of that son, whom in his second testament he made his successor; and this was done by him at a time when he had ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... of bearing arms in the villages and in the open country to repair to the nearest large city or fortress, there to be enrolled and equipped for service. The consequence was that the Monguls found in many places, as they advanced through the country, nobody but infirm old men, and women and children in the hamlets and villages. A great many of these, especially such as seemed to be of most consequence, the handsomest and best of the women, and the oldest children, they seized and took with them in continuing their march, intending to make slaves of them. ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... name Had been enroll'd in such a list of heroes! If I was too infirm to serve my country, I might have prov'd my love by ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... have returned from Patmos rather at the death of Nero than at that of Domitian; because between the death of Domitian and that of John there were but two years and an half; and John in his old age was [6] so infirm as to be carried to Church, dying above 90 years old, and therefore could not be then suppos'd able to ride ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... insolent menacing air, so that the old fellow was forced to scuttle out of the room, and retire behind a dung-cart. He called to Nic., "Thou insolent jackanapes, time was when thou durst not have used me so; thou now takest me unprovided; but, old and infirm as I am, I shall find a weapon ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... francs, here are his wages reduced more than one-half. And you will remember that the wife and the brats eat at home; also, that it is necessary to clothe yourself and to clothe the little ones, that it is necessary to pay the rent, that, sometimes, there is an old infirm mother at home, that an illness is readily contracted.... In fact, the workman, at Paris, who labors at a distance is obliged to eat away from his own house, and he expends for himself alone as much as would be required to support the whole family. ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... appearance. Brevity, and breadth, and bluntness were her chief characteristics, which applied equally to her figure, her face, and her extremities, and, not unfrequently, to her speech too. Her health was really infirm, but she never could attain the object of many an invalid's harmless ambition—looking interesting. Illness made her cheeks look pasty, but not pale; it could not fine down the coarsely moulded features, or purify their ignoble outline. Her voice was against her, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... inheritance. Priests shall be bound, in regard to their wills, by the same law as other people. (16) If a man has sexual intercourse with a woman to whom he is engaged, he shall not be punished, since they are already married in the eye of God. (17) No person who is infirm shall be compelled by priests to make a will. (18) The sacrament shall not be withheld from any one for debt or other reason. The church or priest has a remedy in court. (19) Fines for adultery and fornication ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... that it would not be right. Though he was old, and weak in body, and infirm in purpose, his judgment had not altogether left him. He was well aware that he would offend all social laws if he were to do that which he contemplated, and ask the world around him to respect as Lady Orme—as his wife, the woman who had so deeply ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... that place, agreeably to an ancient and respected custom, which has ever been religiously conformed to, and tenaciously held by the Lagos people. But Adooley displayed at the same time another beautiful trait of piety and filial tenderness. At the period of his defeat, he had an aged and infirm mother living, and her he determined to take with him, let the consequences be what they might. With his accustomed foresight, he had previously made a kind of cage or box, in case there should be a necessity for removing her. His father's ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... be in himself a poor indigent creature. Should you see a child attended with so many engines to make him go, as the child of God is attended with mercies to make him stand, you would say, "What an infirm, decrepid, helpless thing is this!" Would you not say, "Such a one is not worth the keeping, and his father cannot look for any thing from him, but that he should live upon high charge and expense, as long as he liveth?" Why, this is the ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... soon be well. He must cheer up and come and see his papa. Give my love to Mrs. Cocke, Miss Mary, etc., etc. Tell Agnes, if she thinks Sallie is IN EXTREMIS, to go to her. I do not want her to pass away, but it is a great disappointment to me not to have her with me. I am getting very old and infirm now, and she had better come to her papa and ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... and Small Pox, nothing need be given but a plenty of this Tea; drank warm at Night it promotes refreshing rest, and, as such, is a regular afternoon's beverage with many aged and infirm Persons. Being of peculiar service to children, and such who are weakly, many Parents, and others, having the care and education of Females, exclude the use of any ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... severely cold, and the journey might have been accomplished with little distress but for the forced pace. As it was, the cattle suffered greatly, the sheep died in multitudes, milk began to fail, and only the great number of camels saved the children and the infirm. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... will not knowingly cause pain or suffering to any person. I will extend my protection and kindness to all animals and every dumb and helpless thing, remembering that pain is pain wherever felt, in a worm as well as in a man. Especially will I show my best courtesy to aged and infirm persons, and to all such as may need help. It will be my high privilege to render service to any who are unfortunate, crippled, or in distress, I will do unto others what I would ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... another thing I'd do," said Mrs. Grimes. "If we kept a carriage I would never ride up alone from the station or for pleasure. I would always find some poor or infirm person to go with me. How people can be so mean about their horses and carriages as some rich people are ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... his race, with much reverence for, and some faith in, a Scotch God, whose nature was summed up in a series of words beginning with omni. Partly that the living was a poor one, and her father old and infirm, Miss Marchar, herself middle-aged, had undertaken the instruction of the little heiress, never doubting herself mistress of all it was necessary a lady should know. By nature she was romantic, but her romance had faded a good deal. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... was dangerously wounded at the battle of Auerstadt, arrived on the 29th of October at Altona.—[This Prince was in the seventy-second year of his age, and extremely infirm.]—His entrance into that city afforded a striking example of the vicissitudes of fortune. That Prince entered Altona on a wretched litter, borne by ten men, without officers, without domestics, followed by a troop of vagabonds ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... a sad distraction from the sorrow for the dead. The three old people, who now formed the household in the Chapel-house, went about slowly and dreamily, each with a dull wonder at their hearts why they, the infirm and worn-out, were left, while she was ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... beds, which are taken to pieces every morning, entirely free from vermin. The grounds are well laid off, and are in admirable order. In short, the whole place is a model of neatness and careful administration. None but the aged and infirm, who are destitute, are admitted. Each newcomer is bathed immediately upon his or her arrival, and clad in the plain but comfortable garments provided by the establishment. He is then taken to the Warden's office, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... ministers, and returned emigrants, trembling and in dismay, retired to Lille, on the northern frontiers of France. The inhabitants of the departments through which he passed gazed silently and compassionately upon the infirm old man, and uttered no word of reproach; but as soon as the cortege had passed, the tri-colored banner was run up on steeple and turret, and the air resounded with shouts ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... price, I still believed thy end was just and free; And yet, even yet believe it—spite of thee. Even though thy mouth impure has dared disclaim, Urged by the wretched impotence of shame, Whatever filial cares thy zeal had paid To laws infirm, and liberty decayed; Has begged Ambition to forgive the show; Has told Corruption thou wert ne'er her foe; Has boasted in thy country's awful ear, Her gross delusion when she held thee dear; How tame she followed ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... sent him? The poor people are in sad anxiety for their son, of whom they have not heard for four months, and that from an old letter. Henry will thus have a part of all the blessings which were solemnly invoked on me by poor old Abdool, who is getting very infirm, but toddled up and cracked his old fingers over my head, and invoked the protection of Allah with all form; besides that Betsy sent me twelve dozen oranges and lemons. Abdool Rachman is about twenty-six, a Malay of Capetown, ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... Roman camp; as during the campaigns of Lucullus his most trusted officers Diodes, Phoenix, and even the most notable of the Roman emigrants had passed over to the enemy; so now, when his star grew pale and the old, infirm, embittered sultan was accessible to no one else save his eunuchs, desertion followed still more rapidly on desertion. Castor, the commandant of the fortress Phanagoria (on the Asiatic coast opposite Kertch), first raised the standard of revolt; he proclaimed the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the facts. But I think, members of the Boule, that you clearly know what sort of men are apt to be insolent and what not. 16. For it is not likely that the poor and needy should be insolent, but those who have much more than they need; nor those who are infirm in body, but those who rely on their own strength; nor those well advanced in years, but those who are yet young and have youthful minds. 17. For the rich buy off dangers with their wealth, but the poor are forced to prudence by their lack of resources; ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... science. He is often seen wandering over the grass-grown hills, or sauntering through the streets of the new city, not with the absent brow and incurious air of students, but with observant piercing eyes that seem to dive into the hearts of the passers-by. An old man, but not infirm,—erect and stately, as if in his prime. None know whether he be rich or poor. He asks no charity, and he gives none,—he does no evil, and seems to confer no good. He is a man who appears to have no world beyond himself; but appearances are ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... causing them the acutest misery when not reciprocated. In so far as profligates are selfish brutal natures, as they often are, it is true; but that is not the case with half of them. They are not unfrequently people of infirm will, strong affections, and a violent animal nature. It is selfishness, regard to personal comfort at all hazards, which is the hopeless nature, and can not be raised ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... except the infirm, stayed indoors to shiver by a fire. Eagle and the girls in their warm capotes breasted with me the coldest winter days. She was as happy as they were; her cheeks tingled as pink as theirs. Sometimes I thought her eyes must answer me with her old self-command; their bright ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the daughter came out, followed by her aged and infirm mother. The sight of me naturally brought to recollection the grave at which we had before met. Tears of affection mingled with the smile of satisfaction with which I was received by these worthy cottagers. I dismounted and was conducted through ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... although some may think to be not very equal, because many parishes are very rich, and have few poor among them, and others the contrary; yet, I think, may be justly defended: For as to remote country parishes in the desert part of the kingdom, the necessaries of life are there so cheap, that the infirm poor may be provided for with little burden to the inhabitants. But in what I am going to say, I shall confine myself only to this city, where we are overrun not only with our own poor, but with a far greater number from every part ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... infirm old woman, a worthy object of the compassion of charitable people," continued M. Moriaz, heedless of this last interruption. "Mlle. Moriaz allows her a pension, with which I find no fault; but Mlle. Galet—I mistake, Mlle. Galard—has retained from her ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... election, Chief-Justice Chipman, who had been in infirm health, resigned his office, and a vacancy was thus left on the bench of the supreme court of the province. In the natural course, this office ought to have gone to the attorney-general, Mr. L. A. Wilmot, but this appointment was not made. The council were unable to ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... in quickly over the last hundred yards that lay between them and the stairs, Marjorie listened to the priest as he described something of what the "supreme state" signified. He spoke of the long lines of carriages, filled with the ladies and the infirm, preceded by the pikemen, and the gentlemen pensioners carrying wands, and the knights followed by the heralds. Behind these, he said, came the officers of State immediately before the Queen's carriage, and after her the ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... wrought by Declan we wish to conclude our discourse. The number of miracles he wrought, but which are not written here, you are to judge and gather from what we have written. And we wish moreover that you would understand that he healed the infirm, that he gave sight to the eyes of the blind, cleansed lepers, and gave "their walk" to cripples; that he obtained hearing for the deaf, and that he healed many and various diseases in many different places throughout Ireland—(things) which are not written ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... white hair and his saintly look and his feeble, tottering steps softened every heart. Even the very legate of Antichrist, the Archbishop himself, my grandfather said, was evidently moved, and for a season looked at the poor infirm old man as he would have spared him, and a murmur of universal commiseration ran ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... "low" Mr. Mavis had been. At this period the girl's silence struck me as still more conscious, partly perhaps because she deprecated her mother's free flow—she was enough of an "improvement" to measure that—and partly because she was too distressed by the idea of leaving her infirm, her perhaps dying father. It wasn't indistinguishable that they were poor and that she would take out a very small purse for her trousseau. For Mr. Porterfield to make up the sum his own case would have had moreover greatly to change. If ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... had not sworn brotherhood with Sigurd. He was Guttorm, Gunnar's and Hoegni's half-brother. Brynhild went to Guttorm. He would not slay Sigurd, but Brynhild found that he was infirm of will and unsteady of thought. With Guttorm, then, she would work for the slaying of Sigurd. Her mind was fixed that he and she would no longer be in the ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... "you are infirm, and are in a tremour at this moment. My head is steadier—let me go to the verge of the hill, and learn what ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... must give up everything of his own—the future, and the great world, and all, and devote his days to making the old man's life happy. He must go back to Stone Farm! He forgot that he was only a child who could just earn his own keep. To protect the infirm old man at every point and make his life easy—that was just what he wanted. And Pelle was by no means disposed to doubt that he could do it. In the midst of his childish collapse he took upon himself all the duties ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... sundrys delivered to aged and infirm people, viz. Magdalen Katpat, Magdalen La Porte, Marie Barishe & ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... But Mistress Alison was not to be dismayed by poverty; she was a tranquil and loving woman, who had never married; but who, as if to compensate her for the absence of nearer ties, had a simple and wholesome love of all created things. She was infirm now, but was quite content, when it was fine, to sit for long hours idle for very love, and look about her with a peaceful and smiling air; she prayed much, or rather held a sweet converse in her heart with God; she thought little of her latter end, which she knew could not be long delayed, ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman, somewhat infirm, but of a fine presence, and with a well-filled face. He lies upon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit shadow of himself. His voice was rich and mellow and he had so long been thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... others upon her. They made her stand upright a long time upon a small rock, threatening her with insults and affronts; but the more they insisted, the stronger they found her. The others, being weak and infirm, were not tortured so long, because the tyrant did not intend to kill them, but only to conquer them; and for this reason they had, during the whole time, a physician upon the mountain to cure ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... removed to the neighboring farm-houses, in the momentary expectation of seeing their abandoned dwellings in flames. It was a night of inexpressible anguish to many a widow and orphan, to many aged and infirm, whose little pittance they were now apparently to lose forever. But Providence directed otherwise. This compact little village of 100 buildings had been for four hours covered with flames of fire and bomb shells, and not a single building was ...
— The Defence of Stonington (Connecticut) Against a British Squadron, August 9th to 12th, 1814 • J. Hammond Trumbull
... of farmers, presided over by the legal agent of the lord of the manor. The tenants of the manor attend to pay their quit rent for the preceding years, and it often happens that if the cottager has been ill, or is weak and infirm, the farmers composing the court subscribe and pay the ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... surrender of their capital. The late events seemed to have no other effect than to harden them in error; and the Spanish government saw with alarm the pernicious influence of their example and persuasion, in shaking the infirm faith ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... beasts of prey always hang about the herds of wild creatures in their migrations from feeding ground to feeding ground; the lions to treat the strong as their larder when on their way to water; the hyaenas and jackals to pick up the infirm and tender young. Then the boy's eyes were directed to the distant figure of his brother, and his first thought was to shout to him ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... not to be forgotten. To the Hospital of San Michele Cardinal Tosti has given a new life and vigor, and set an example worthy of his elevated position in the Church. This foundation was formerly an asylum for poor children and infirm and aged persons; but of late years an industrial and educational system has been ingrafted upon it, until it has become one of the most enlarged and liberal institutions that can anywhere be found. It now embraces not only an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... missionary, "like only processions in the open air. When I last celebrated the festival of San Antonio, the patron of my village, the Indians of Inirida were present at mass. 'Your God,' said they to me, 'keeps himself shut up in a house, as if he were old and infirm; ours is in the forest, in the fields, and on the mountains of Sipapu, whence the rains come.'" Among the more numerous, and on this account less barbarous tribes, religious societies of a singular kind are formed. Some old Indians pretend ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Life moves among these, handling and considering each of the unredeemable multitude; and when morning light strikes the dark chimneys again and they rush forth, some that entered young have matured; some of the old have become infirm; many of which have dropped in singly issue as companies; and young broods flutter forth, unaccountable nestlings of a night, which were not in yesterday's blue at all. Then there are the missing—those that went in ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... evidently full of cheerful, charitable thoughts, and on good deeds intent, kissing the little children, giving a rosy apple to one, and a playful tap to another; offering a sly word of hope to the young girls, and a few kind ones to the aged and infirm,—all the village is elated; and the old maids fail not to present him with a fat fowl, or some such substantial expression of their respect. But if, alas! the good cure should appear walking ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... at his house in London, where I first met Browning, and had a long conversation with him. I saw him afterwards at Mrs. Proctor's. This was the wife of Barry Cornwall, whom I also saw. He was very old and infirm. I can remember when the "Cornlaw Rhymes" ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Church, and that the King will take any thing (and so he holds up his head a little longer), and then break in pieces. But Sir W. Coventry did to- day mightily magnify my late Lord Treasurer for a wise and solid, though infirm man: and among other things, that when he hath said it was impossible in nature to find this or that sum of money, and my Lord Chancellor hath made sport of it, and told the King that when my Lord hath said it was impossible, yet he hath made shift to find it, and that ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... can't get rid of her. Old Cissie nursed my mother, and she says she'll nurse me till she dies. The idea! She never lets me alone. She thinks I'm delicate. She has grown infirm in her understanding, you know. Mad—quite mad, ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... Peary on his discovery of the North Pole, a year or two ago informed me that the Eskimo is short lived. That he becomes at 50 years very old and useless and at 55 infirm and helpless, and rarely lives to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Ben. "When I get to be old and infirm, I'm goin' into some light, genteel employment, such as keepin' a ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... forward and trust in the Lord, who would surely protect them. Savage declared that they should trust, also, to such common sense as the Lord had given them. From his certain knowledge, the company, containing as it did so large a number of the aged and infirm, of women and children, could not cross the mountains thus late in the season without much suffering, sickness, and death. He was overruled and rebuked for want of faith. "Brethren and sisters," he replied, "what I have said I know to be true; but seeing you are going forward, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... buffalo-skins covered the ground, and thousands of Indians—men, women, and children—moved about the busy scene. Some were sitting in their lodges, lazily smoking their pipes. But these were chiefly old and infirm veterans, for all the young men had gone to the hunt which we have just described. The women were stooping over their fires, busily preparing maize and meat for their husbands and brothers; while myriads ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... respect of man's nobility! I never shall account it marvelous, That our infirm affection here below Thou mov'st to boasting, when I could not choose, E'en in that region of unwarp'd desire, In heav'n itself, but make my vaunt in thee! Yet cloak thou art soon shorten'd, for that time, Unless thou be eked out from day to day, Goes round thee ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... accelerate. acemila beast of burden. acento accent. aceptar to accept. acercar to bring near; vr. to approach. acero steel. acertado fit, proper. acertar to hit the mark, succeed, happen. acetre m. small bucket. achacoso infirm, sickly. achicar to diminish. aciago unlucky. acometer to attack. acomodar to accommodate, suit, fit. acompanar to accompany. aconsejar to counsel, advise. acordar vr. to remember. acostar to put ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... white roses clambered in all directions over the wall, and the little lawn in front was tastefully laid out, and the turf and shrubs kept in perfect order. Along the gravel walks of this little lawn, walked slowly, as if in infirm health, a middle-aged lady, leaning for support on the arm of a tall and graceful girl; and ever and anon she turned on her companion's suffering face a look of such love and sweetness—it was sure to create a smile even on the wan lips of the invalid. That girl's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Excellency. I have a decrepit old uncle who owns three hundred souls and two thousand roubles-worth of other property. Also, except for myself, he possesses not a single heir. Now, although his infirm state of health will not permit of his managing his property in person, he will not allow me either to manage it. And the reason for his conduct—his very strange conduct—he states as follows: 'I do not know my nephew, and very likely ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and the flesh of the face had yet been coloured by the artist. Of figure he was broad and upright, without a symptom of decrepitude unless it might be the stout cane he used in walking. The Emir looked fragile and infirm beside him, pale with the trace of illness, and ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... no party to meet her. She is middle-sized, very thin, and looks infirm ; she has a sensible and penetrating countenance, and the air and manner of a woman accustomed to being distinguished, and of great parts. Dr. Johnson, who agrees in this, told us that a Mrs. Hervey, of his acquaintance, says she can remember Mrs. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... health has suffered so much from the anxious state I have been in, and the fatigue I have undergone, that I shall be unfit for service. The severe gales which immediately followed the day of victory ruined our prospect of prizes; our own infirm ships could scarce keep off the shore; the prizes were left to their fate, and as they were driven very near the port, I ordered them to be destroyed by burning and sinking, that there might be no risk of their falling again into the hands of the ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... figures shows that the reduction is almost entirely due to the Old-age Pensions Act. There is little or no reduction in children, lunatics, or mothers, while there are the following reductions in aged and infirm paupers:— ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... May 14th, issued his instructions to Colonel Elias Dayton, who was to proceed to Johnstown, "and give notice to the Highlanders, who live in the vicinity of the town, to repair to it; and when any number are collected there, you will send off their baggage, infirm women and children, in wagons." Sir John was to be taken prisoner, carefully guarded and brought to Albany, but "he is by no means to experience the least ill-treatment in his own person, or those of his family."[118] General ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... there had been clearly foreseen the coming of an event which would raise new and great issues. This was the failure of the direct royal line in that branch of the House of Austria which was then on the Spanish throne; and the issues to be determined when the present king, infirm both in body and mind, should die, were whether the new monarch was to be taken from the House of Bourbon or from the Austrian family in Germany; and whether, in either event, the sovereign thus raised to the throne should succeed to the entire inheritance, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... surrender unconditionally, even in this sore strait: "And yet if any," he goes on, "think me enemy to the person, or yet to the regiment, of her whom God hath now promoted, they are utterly deceived in me, for the miraculous work of God, comforting His afflicted by means of an infirm vessel, I do acknowledge, and the power of his most potent hand I will obey. More plainly to speak, if Queen Elizabeth shall confess, that the extraordinary dispensation of God's great mercy maketh that lawful unto her which both nature and God's law do ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in long strides. This, then, was the outcome of his first morning's work as curate here. Things had gone fairly well with him. He had been ordained; he was in a comfortable parish, where he would exercise almost sole supervision, the rector being infirm. He had made a deep impression at starting, and the absence of a hood seemed to have done him no harm. Moreover, by considerable persuasion and payment, his father and the dark woman had been shipped off to Canada, ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... liked ease; they liked their own way; they disliked to make war against the natural impulses and leanings of their own minds; they disliked to attend to the state of their souls, to have to treat themselves as spiritually sick and infirm, to watch, and rule, and chasten, and refrain, and change themselves; and so do we. They disliked to think of God, and to observe and attend His ordinances, and to reverence Him; they called it a weariness to frequent His courts; and they found this or that false worship more pleasant, ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of sticks, and wearing a black cap of liberty, as if in honour of his nearness to the grave, directed me to the road for St. Germain de Calberte. There was something solemn in the isolation of this infirm and ancient creature. Where he dwelt, how he got upon this high ridge, or how he proposed to get down again, were more than I could fancy. Not far off upon my right was the famous Plan de Font Morte, where Poul with his Armenian sabre slashed down ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... danger, have profited me nothing; and at this day I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own. If I wish to eat or sleep, I have no where to go but to the inn or the tavern, and I seldom have wherewith to pay the bill. I have not a hair upon my head that is not grey; my body is infirm, and all that was left me, as well as to my brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great dishonor. I implore your highness to forgive my complaints. I am indeed ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... cruel comparison becomes betwixt our own subjection, and the freedom, or even dominion of another." But, at best, the comforts of slaves must be precarious. Here it is not uncommon to give a slave his freedom, when he is too old or too infirm to work; that is, to turn him out of doors to beg or starve. A few days ago, as a party of gentlemen were returning from a pic nic, they found a poor negro woman lying in a dying state, by the side of the road. The English gentlemen applied to their Portuguese companions to ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham |
