"Lessen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... month at Bon Repos. Then the two shook hands, and each went his own way. As one day passed after another without bringing any tidings of the lost MS., Platzoff's anxiety respecting it seemed to lessen, and by the time he left "The Golden Griffin" he had apparently ceased to trouble his mind any further in ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... difficult work, and those who support him, are better judges of the business than I can pretend to be, who have not set my foot in Ireland these sixteen years. I have been given to understand that I am not considered as a friend to that country; and I know that pains have been taken to lessen the credit that I might ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it, sir; and please clear your mind of the idea that you have ceased to be welcome. Your presence and that of Miss Fregelius will lessen, not increase, my trouble. I should be lonely in this great place with no company but that of ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... attempt at manufacturing any species of cloth in the North American provinces produced a resolution on the part of the House of Commons, [1710,] that "the erecting of manufactories in the colonies had a tendency to lessen their dependence on Great Britain." Soon afterward complaints were made to Parliament that the colonists were establishing manufactories for themselves, and the House of Commons ordered the Board of Trade ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... genial humanity is the great principle of compensation, and by this God's children glorify the Father in Heaven. May this volume serve his merciful will, and may the light shed from the stars of our literary firmament do something to lessen the night upon ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... O'Brien for some time, I took the liberty to ask her to favor us with a song; but she pleaded an awful cold, and asked to be excused. The apple-jack excused her. The Storeys are pleasant people, and I trust that, full as we were, we did nothing to lessen their respect ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... and an intermingled aristocracy? Your endeavours, my good young man, will lessen like those of the man who employed a spade to uproot a rock. It wants blasting. Your married clergy and merchandized aristocracy are coils: they are the ivy about your social tree: you would resemble Laocoon in the throes, if one could imagine you anything ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... modifications. An export duty may be laid in such way, and on such articles, that it will be paid wholly by the foreign consumer, without loss to the producing country, but it is only when the additional cost does not lessen the demand, or induce the foreigner to ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... of this revolt served to bring Germany to a more friendly attitude towards this country. Probably the resignation, or rather the dismissal, of Bismarck by the present Emperor, in March 1890, also tended to lessen the friction between England and Germany. The Prince while in retirement expressed strong disapproval of the East African policy of his ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... just here that Malthus failed to anticipate the future. Malthus believed that "moral restraint" would lessen the marriage rate, but would have no direct effect on the fecundity ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... Senator, who honestly supposed that the revision would be downward, privately remonstrated, the reply he heard was, "Where shall we get our campaign funds?" Finally, after some discussion between the House and the Senate—a discussion which did not lessen the enormities of the measure—the Payne-Aldrich Bill was passed by Congress and signed by President Taft, and it enjoyed the bad eminence of being worse than the McKinley and the Dingley tariffs which had ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... very nature of the case there can be no data outside those furnished by the government-owned railways of the British colonies, and such data negative these assertions; and the advocates of national ownership are justified in asserting that such ownership would materially lessen the cost, as any expert can readily point out many ways in which the enormous costs of corporate management would be lessened. With those familiar with present methods, and not interested in their perpetuation, this ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... motion—prevented any afterglow from illuminating and making tolerable the dark half. No achievement of her days—not even teaching the sextette to talk—had the power to give her, in her nights, a sense of progress, or to lessen the necessity for that sheer dumb endurance which was the only weapon she had. Because she was in the fetters of ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... toxemia given its circumstances, and it should be commended for these efforts regardless of how uncomfortable they might be to the person inhabiting the body. Symptoms of secondary elimination are actually a positive thing because they are the body's efforts to lessen a dangerously toxic condition. Secondary eliminations shouldn't be treated immediately with a drug to suppress the process. If you squelch the bodies best and least-life-threatening method to eliminate toxins, the body will ultimately have to resort ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... night bowled a carriage drawn by sturdy horses. The clouds broke and the vain fell. Thunder and lightning ran rampant in the skies, but nothing served to lessen the speed of that swift flight over the highways leading into the sleep-ridden country. Inside the cab, not the one in which Dorothy Garrison had begun her journey to the altar, but another and less pretentious, sat the grim desperado and a half-dead woman. Whither they flew no ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... her.... Well, and what if she did see it? It would signify nothing to her, the chances were that she would never even read the book.... As she ceased to be an element of fear in his calculations the distance between them seemed to lessen and he took her again, as it were, into the circle of his conjugal protection.... Yet a moment before he had almost hated her!... He laughed aloud at his senseless terrors.... He was off his ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... again to come on. Mr Talboys assured us that they were still in the neighbourhood, and that we must be prepared at any moment for an attack. The time went slowly by. I heard Caesar and Cato talking; and as the danger appeared to lessen, the courage of ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... of you," he continued, "would think of doing anything to lessen the glory of his country, and if there is one right that the Union may claim it is that of harbouring in its bosom the formidable cannon of the Gun Club. Now, ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... to this Narrative, take this Diagramme: F. is the water, C. B. a vessel, into which it runs. DG. EH. FI. are streams perpetually issuing from that vessel; D. E. F. three sives, the distance of whose wires at bottom lessen proportionably. G. the place, wherein the Earth, that pass'd through the sive D. is retained; from whence 'tis taken by the second man; and what passes through the sive E. is retained in H. and so of the rest. K. L. M. wast water, which is so much impregnated with Mercury, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... having no interest in me but by the father. And I hold it a good example, for the benefitt of the Commonwealth, that matters of discouragement should be put upon such marriages, being assured that their parents will not disinheritt or lessen them, especially if they have but one son, and that which Solomon saith is to be considered—an understanding servant shall have rule over a son that maketh ashamed, and both that[1], and his son, and his son in Scotland have both made ashamed, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... Gardens. At one o'clock the steam-launch from the 'Volage' came alongside and embarked the luggage and servants. Half an hour later it returned for us; then came many tearful farewells to the crew, and we set off. We knew the parting had to be made, but this did not lessen our grief: for although it is at all times hard to say good-bye for a long period to those nearest and dearest to you, it is especially so in a foreign land, with the prospect of a long voyage on both sides. Moreover, it is extremely uncertain when we shall hear of our boy's safe arrival; ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... but grief itself, by being indulged in, never becomes light. If thou feelest thy grief to be heavy, it should be counteracted by not indulging in it. Even this is the medicine for grief, viz., that one should not indulge in it. By dwelling on it, one cannot lessen it. On the other hand, it grows with indulgence. Upon the advent of evil or upon the bereavement of something that is dear, only they that are of little intelligence suffer their minds to be afflicted with grief. This is neither Profit, nor Religion, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to keep a window open for your accommodation, if the current of air thus produced annoy or endanger the health of another. There are a sufficient number of discomforts in traveling, at best, and it should be the aim of each passenger to lessen them as much as possible, and to cheerfully bear his own part. Life is a journey, and ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... Shawanoe was to lessen the distance between him and the horsemen while such a fine opportunity offered. Flinging the glass over his shoulder he set out to overtake the party in advance, doing his best to decide upon the right policy, now that the important information ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... of his aberrations of intellect, if there were any such, his ministrations in his parish were good. Had he not preached fervently and well,—preaching the true gospel? Had he not been very diligent among his people, striving with all his might to lessen the ignorance of the ignorant, and to gild with godliness the learning of the instructed? Had he not been patient, enduring, instant, and in all things amenable to the laws and regulations laid down by the Church for his guidance in his duties as a parish clergyman? ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... had a depressing effect on me, I answered sadly: "Every day I feel my deficiencies more keenly, and wish more ardently to lessen the great distance between us; but now—sweet mother, forgive me for saying it!—your ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... Errand for Clement. The will, the will! I think of nothing else. Is it safe where it is? No peace of mind till to-morrow. Clement better this afternoon. Says he must live till Carlos gets back; not to triumph over him, but to do what he can to lessen his ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... lessen or to annul the estimation in which a person is held by his fellow-men. This crime may be perpetrated in two different manners: by making known his secret faults, and this is simple detraction; and by ascribing to him faults of which he is innocent, and this is calumny or slander. Thus ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... nearer, Tom began to feel more and more impatient. Again and again he paced the intervening space between the boat and the water, and chafed and fretted because it did not lessen more rapidly. If the boat were once fairly afloat, he felt that the time would pass much more rapidly; for then he would be working at some definite task, and not standing ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... Truth severe, by fairy Fiction dress'd. In buskin'd measures move Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. A voice[24] as of the cherub-choir Gales from blooming Eden bear, And distant warblings[25] lessen on my ear, That lost in long futurity expire. Fond, impious man! think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, And warms ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... The encomenderos who, to avoid or lessen expense, neglect to employ in their encomiendas all the ministers needed to accomplish and fulfil what has been set down in the eighth conclusion are in mortal sin, and cannot be absolved. Moreover, it is not enough to say that their encomiendas already have ministers; they must employ as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... amount of silver and gold at this moment is eight per cent., so that the payment of the debt in silver would lessen the burden of the debt eight per cent., but under the funding operations, which would be entirely destroyed by anything that alarmed the market, we are enabled to save thirty-three per cent. Whatever may be our right to pay our bonds, either in greenbacks ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... every hour, it has been thought, after much consideration, that we ought so far to avail ourselves of it, as to try whether anything can be done in this way, but, at the same time, by no means to lessen or suspend our preparations. One of the difficulties on this subject was Eden's want of a competent knowledge of the points in dispute, to enable him to discuss them thoroughly, and to bring them to those short ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... about your troubadour. He will always have "his independence and his liberty" because he will always do as he has always done. He has left everything rather than submit to any obligation whatsoever, and then, with age, one's needs lessen. I suffer no longer from ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... thousand times to the orgies of the Regent and the Parc-aux-Cerfs. If purity and refined society be, indeed, incompatible—if the love of freedom and active enterprise necessarily exclude the grace and softness which lessen, or at least teach us to forget, the burden of existence, let us be what we are; and, indeed, it is the opinion of many, that the rant of social pleasure is the price we pay for the excellence of our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... but this I may venture to affirm, that the advantage accruing to the mother country will fall greatly short of the expectations of the ministry; for certain it is, that an whole substance does already in a manner flow to Great Britain, and that whatsoever contributes to lessen our importations must be hurtful to their manufacturers. And the eyes of our people, already beginning to open, will perceive, that many luxuries, which we lavish our substance in Great Britain for, can well be dispensed with, ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... learn their first lessons in the school of poverty; and the girl had been vaguely conscious of the degradation involved in this process at the age of five. How much more keenly did she feel the shame at the age of fifteen! Priscilla did her best to lessen the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... you need not deem me over cold, That I do not stop to think For all the pleasure this Life may hold Is on the Precipice brink. Thought could but lessen my soul's delight, And to-day she may not pine. For I shall lie in your arms to-night And close your ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... will strengthen and help me, but not to-day; to-day my wound must bleed and be allowed to bleed, for all the philosophy in the world cannot lessen the fact that yesterday she was and to-day ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... scene. A hundred or more prisoners were scattered about upon the stone floor, many of them wounded, and some evidently dying. The hale had gathered in silent, subdued groups round their stricken friends, and were doing what they could to lessen their sufferings. Some had even removed the greater part of their clothing in order to furnish head-rests and pallets for the wounded. Here and there in the shadows dark kneeling figures might be seen, and the measured ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in the mine, he began to recall the terrible accidents that had happened at their pit, and at those in the neighbourhood. It would be a grand thing, he thought, if Philip, with his fresh and earnest mind and his knowledge, could do something to lessen the dangers of the pitman's life; though he rather trembled for the result, knowing as he did how hard it is to get over ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... coperation was essential to success and that any form of competition among the men tended to lessen such coperation. Most of the men interviewed believed that competition when wisely handled is very ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... misgovernment, and the common people very much oppressed. He bravely set himself to reform matters, trying to relieve and protect the poor, and restrain and humble the rich and powerful. His most difficult labor was to lessen the power of the great nobles, who were in fact almost kings themselves, on their own estates, and fought against each other, and even against the king, upon the slightest provocation, and often without any. They rebelled against this as being a spiteful ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... imagination reconstructed a tragedy, a tragedy of life singularly close to the truth as he later came to learn it, a story not at all calculated to lessen his interest in ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... so much to lessen the tension before marriage and to prevent temporary discouragements or ungrounded fears after marriage that it is no wonder that it has been accepted rapidly by young people who have come to know its value. Soon it ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... first time she recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her earliest teens, and later as a young woman. The recognition did not lessen the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... will raise wages, increase the earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen crime, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify government, and carry civilisation to yet nobler heights, is to appropriate rent by taxation, and to abolish all taxation save that upon land values. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... after his fall, Austria acquired the right to stand between England and Russia, as their equal; and down to 1848 she was the superior of both France and Prussia. The events of 1848-49 did not essentially lessen her prestige, and she had a commanding place during the Russian war. Even her defeats in the Italian war did not lead to any serious loss of consideration, and against them was set the striking fact that the victorious French had halted before the Quadrilateral, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... Fortunately on the second occasion I came off victor, much to my surprise. How I managed to beat my opponent I never could understand. Anyhow the victory gave me a better standing in the school, though it did not lessen in the least my hatred of the battles that raged periodically with other schools. I never had to fight again except as an unwilling ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... that seemed inexhaustible. Then, as the girl's mirth began to lessen, he put his ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... countrymen of the Garrison of Morro Castle, Havana, whose gallantry in resisting the army and fleet of England, in 1762, commanded the respectful regard of their conquerors, and is a glorious chapter in the story of Spain. The Santiago events were most honorable to American arms, and it would lessen the splendor of the reputation of the American soldiers if one failed to do justice to the sturdy fighters they overcame. It is too early or too late for participation in the debates whether civil or acrimonious, as to the merits or faults of those engaged at Santiago, further ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... friends to go to the cemetery, and it is not thought unloving or slighting of the dead for no women at all to be at the graveside. If any women are to be present and the interment is to be in the ground, some one should order the grave lined with boughs and green branches—to lessen the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... to hear her defend his father. It was what he would have wished his wife to do. Suddenly there arose within him a huge reluctance to lessen or to weaken in any way her trust in ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... good enough to send me the manual published by the Institute of International Law, and you ask for my approval. In the first place, I fully recognize your humane endeavors to lessen the sufferings which war brings ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... wilful folly of childhood? Ah, my soul! Alas, my grown-up friends! Does the moral belong to childhood alone? Have manhood and womanhood no passionate, foolish longings, for which we blind ourselves to obvious truth, and of which the vanity does not lessen the disappointment? Do we not still toil after rosebuds, to ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... none of the ships had steerage-way. The enemy had evidently determined to fight; for before the sun rose red and glowing from beneath the horizon, sweeps were seen protruding from the sides of the two ships, and they gradually began to lessen the distance between them and the American frigate. Capt. Barry had no desire to avoid the conflict; though in a calm, the lighter vessels, being manageable with sweeps, had greatly the advantage of the "Alliance," ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... force the whole Aeroplane to assume a greater Angle of Incidence. And with greater Angle, the Lift will increase, though I'm sorry to say the Drift will increase also. Owing to the greater Drift, the Speed through the air will lessen, and I'm afraid that won't be helpful to the Lift; but I shall now be pointing upwards, and besides overcoming the Drift in a forward direction, I shall be doing my best to haul the Aeroplane skywards. At a certain angle ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... trouble. But when he suggested it to Bessie, she said "No" so decidedly that he gave it up and nerved himself to meet what he never could have met but for Flossie, who, as far as she could, managed everything, even to battling fiercely with the proprietor, whose bill she compelled him to lessen by several hundred francs, and when he demanded payment for four dozen towels which he said had been ruined, she insisted upon taking the towels, which she said were hers, if she paid for them. Never ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... volume of Letters and Early Spring in Massachusetts, have been given to the public since his death, which happened in 1862. No one has lived so close to nature, and written of it so intimately, as Thoreau. His life was a lesson in economy and a sermon on Emerson's text, "Lessen your denominator." He wished to reduce existence to ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... distance transportation our large harbors on the North and East seas can be utilized equally well for embarkation. Speed is the chief requisite. In order to lessen the distance of transporting, operations toward the west must be conducted from the North Sea ports and toward the east from our east sea ports. This does not preclude the possibility of towing the transports from the east sea through ...
— Operations Upon the Sea - A Study • Franz Edelsheim
... culprit Lamotte for her escape; but the charge is false. I interested myself, as was my duty, to shield the Queen from public reproach by having Lamotte sent to a place of penitence; but I never interfered, except to lessen her punishment, after the judicial proceedings. The diamonds, in the hands of her vile associates at Paris, procured her ample means to escape. I should have been the Queen's greatest enemy had I been the cause of giving liberty to one who acted, and might naturally have been expected ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... world will wonder what the devil you could see in me; and, if you should doubt your singularity, I pledge myself to you that I never yet was endured by woman; so that I should owe every thing to the effect of your bounty, and not by my own superfluous deserts make it a debt, and so lessen both the obligation and my gratitude. In short, every other woman follows her inclination, but you, above all things, should take me, if you do not like me. You will, besides, have the satisfaction of knowing that we ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... his hand on Krafft's cheek. If the blow had remained invisible, it might have been more easily forgotten; but he had seen it, as it were, taken shape before him.—Or, had it only been returned, it would have helped to lessen the weight of his present abasement—oh, he would have given all he had to have felt a return blow on his own face! Even the smallest loss of selfcontrol on the part of Krafft would have been enough. But the latter was too proud to give himself away gratuitously: he ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... taking one beside her, 'you must make some allowance for mortified pride and wounded feelings. Time has not in the least diminished the affection and respect I have ever felt for you, and which your present kindness is not at all likely to lessen. I should, however, be deeply concerned, if your condescension should draw down upon you the displeasure ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... unless you amend the Irish members out of voice and vote. They will still count. You cannot gag and muzzle them effectually, and if you could, they would still be there, and their presence would still make itself incessantly felt. Partly from a natural desire to lessen the common difficulties of government, and partly from a consciousness, due to the prevailing state of the modern political atmosphere, that there is something wrong in this total alienation of an Executive from the possessors of parliamentary power, the officials will ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... simple sabotage are occurring throughout Europe. An effort should be made to add to their efficiency, lessen their detectability, and increase their number. Acts of simple sabotage, multiplied by thousands of citizen-saboteurs, can be an effective weapon against the enemy. Slashing tires, draining fuel tanks, ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services
... To lessen this danger, as in the case of the women inebriates, all these children are brought up as vegetarians. Before me, as I write, is the bill of fare for the week, which I tore off a notice board in the house. The breakfast ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... neglected; on the contrary, its breeding has been studied like a science, and carried into execution with the most sedulous attention and dexterity for upwards of two hundred years. The object of the Devon breeder has been to lessen those parts of the animal frame which are least useful to man, such as the bone and offal, and at the same time to increase such other parts (flesh and fat) as furnish man with food. These ends have been accomplished by a judicious selection ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... did not turn round; that would have been fatal. I did as I always do now: I gained time to lessen the shock. Some day, when I have much leisure, I shall, doubtless, prepare tables specially adapted to every situation and to every temperament, which will show exactly the number of seconds, minutes, and hours which are necessary on an average to ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... back again in front of the Hermae, it would add, I think, to the beauty of the scene (6) if at this point they formed in companies of tribes, and giving their horses rein, swept forward at the gallop to the Eleusinion. Nor must I omit to note the right position of the lance, to lessen as far as possible the risk of mutual interference. (7) Each trooper should hold his lance straight between the ears of his charger, which in proportion to the distinctness given to the weapon will rouse terror, and at the same time create ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... these is the clearing of soup with albumen of meat instead of egg. The advantages of this method are that the soup is strengthened and the flavor improved, while clearing with whites of eggs in the usual way, though greatly improving the appearance, tends to lessen the ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... that even with two pastors the needs of the church could not be met. At a meeting of both congregations in October, these matters were frankly brought before the believers, and it was made plain that other helpers should be provided, and the two churches so united as to lessen ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... Indian occupation were everywhere visible. Where the path abruptly mounted a steep ascent, a mound of pebbles would be heaped in the ravine. Each passer-by had cast his tribute on the pile as an offering to good spirits that they might lessen his fatigue in the toilsome climb. At last they reached the broad Mississippi. By its waters the adventurous band remained until the sun had made a complete course. Then they took a southerly route through the Illinois country, where the ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... might not be he was here in this situation. He had married Marcia and promised to be true to her. He was doubly cut off from Kate by her own act and by his. That was his punishment,—and hers. He must not seek to lessen it even for her, for it was God-sent. Henceforth his path and hers must be apart. If she were to be helped in any way from whatsoever trouble was hers, it was not permitted him to be the instrument. He had shown his unfitness for it in his interview that morning, even if in the ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... laugh—she never made anybody laugh! But for a while she did "hold him"—because he was a gallant youngster, making the best of his bargain. That he had begun to know it was a bad bargain did not lessen his regret for his wife's childlessness, which he knew made her unhappy, nor his pity for her physical forlornness—which he blamed largely on himself: "She almost died that night on the mountain, to ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... then the stock must decrease, and this must needs end in great scarcity; and by these means, this your island, which seemed as to this particular the happiest in the world, will suffer much by the cursed avarice of a few persons: besides this, the rising of corn makes all people lessen their families as much as they can; and what can those who are dismissed by them do but either beg or rob? And to this last a man of a great mind is much sooner drawn than to the former. Luxury likewise breaks ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... which might fly at each other's throats; and that it was a matter for satisfaction that one of these forces should be very greatly inferior to the other in point of arms and equipment, so that considerations of prudence would lessen the chance of collision. This satisfaction was greatly heightened by the reflection that the armed force was thoroughly loyal to the Empire and could be trusted to assist troops in the case of any attack upon the Empire begun by the other—a ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... said you 'hoped if any poor hungry wretch strayed into this village of plenty he would get enough to eat for once.' That you 'had always regretted we had no really poor people in Marsden, where they could be cared for, and so lessen the number of starving persons elsewhere.' Mrs. Turner made a personal application of the remark, and suggested that if it had been your pies which had been purloined you ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... presumptuous for an "atechnic" to adventure himself. But to the outsider it would certainly seem as if the chief ground of complaint is that the new comers do not play the game according to the old rules, and that this (alleged) irregular mode of procedure tends to lessen the status of the engraver as an artist. False or true, this, it may fairly be advanced, has nothing whatever to do with the matter, as far, at least, as the public are concerned. For them the question ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... and two great wheels turning slowly, slowly, as if time and change and the rush of life were the vain words of tiresome fools. On the side of the bridge looking up-stream, each pier is built out in the form of a sharp angle This was intended to lessen the push of the current upon the masonry in time of flood. A great many old bridges in Guyenne show a ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... its small store lessen day by day, and counting the crumbs—this is the situation of all to try the soul. But a garrison is always buoyed up by the hope of succour; and Garth and Natalie could expect none. On the other hand there was no possibility of treachery within this garrison; ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... construction, or far-fetched interpretation," but were committed "by the firm's deliberately and systematically stating the cost of their goods below the purchase price for no conceivable reason but to lessen the duties to be paid to ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... to crop the hair, measures are taken to lessen the dangers which are supposed to attend the operation. The chief of Namosi in Fiji always ate a man by way of precaution when he had had his hair cut. "There was a certain clan that had to provide the victim, and they used to sit in solemn council among themselves to choose him. It was a sacrificial ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... delays caused by sickness made us expend all my stock, and all the goods my men procured by their own labor at Loanda, and we returned to the Makololo as poor as when we set out. Yet no distrust was shown, and my poverty did not lessen my influence. They saw that I had been exerting myself for their benefit alone, and even my men remarked, "Though we return as poor as we went, we have not gone in vain." They began immediately to collect tusks of hippopotami and other ivory ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... and boots for the boys, and a dress, or a shawl, or a cloak for the girls were brought back, besides news and adventure, and strange tidings of the distant world. The farmer was days in getting ready to start; food was prepared and put in a box to stand him on the journey, so as to lessen the hotel expenses, and oats were put up for the horses. The butter was loaded up overnight, and in the cold November morning, long before it was light, he was up and off. I seem to hear the wagon yet, its slow rattle over the frozen ground diminishing in the distance. ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... chief concern of the mercantilist was the framing of such governmental regulations of trade as would deter colonial commerce or industry from taking a turn which conceivably might lessen the prosperity of the British manufacturers or shippers, on whom Parliament depended for taxes. Of the colonial industries which were discouraged for this reason, two or three are particularly noteworthy. Thus the hat manufacturers in America, though they could make hats cheaply, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... time, and now things were going against him it got worse. Hope might have braced him, but the thought of failure was depressing. For all that, there were economies he must practise at the cost of extra labor, and bridging the creek would lessen the cost of transport and enable him to sell one of his teams. He was late for supper, but wanted to finish part of the work before he ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... his spirits. With walls fifteen feet thick, wide enough to allow a carriage to be driven upon them, they looked over a sheer drop of two thousand feet. Sinister and forbidding, even the sunlight could not lessen their grimness. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and former foes we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a ...
— Inaugural Presidential Address - Contributed Transcripts • Barack Hussein Obama
... tended to lessen the gulf which the engagement with Mr. Faulkner had made between Caroline and Marian. Caroline was very anxious about her brother, and knowing that Marian had his confidence, was continually coming to her for reports of his state of mind and spirits, ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... development of the book-printing press the chief object has been to lessen the cost of printing. Whether the direct purpose of an improvement has been to increase the working speed of the press, to lessen the necessary operating power, to simplify the mechanism, to strengthen the parts, to lighten the pressman's labor, or to better the quality ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... see the advantage the Creek Indians enjoyed by having British woollen manufactures wholly from your Majesty's subjects, and thereby be invited in a short time to enter into a treaty of commerce with us, which they have lately made some offers for, and which, if effected, will soon lessen the interest of the French with those Indians, and by degrees attach them ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... dancing and cutting all kinds of capers to the music of the ship's band. The boatswain looked on with a wistful eye, as if he would like to join in; but a glance at Scott and Ferguson showed that there was a struggle with his dignity, fearing to lessen himself in their eyes. At length one at his messmates came up, and seizing him by the arm, challenged him to a jig. The boatswain, continued Scott, after a little hesitation complied, made an awkward gambol or two, like our friend Maida, but soon gave it up. "It's of no use," said ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... the sun, that on its way, Across the cloudless distance of the skies Gives pleasure to us all—no rivalries Lessen'ng the love we bear it—as a day Of shower-glad April or the month of May, Thou that art cheerful—see yon youth that lies Weeping for want of sunshine from thine eyes, And hope that thou canst only give him—say: "Sweet youth, and art thou weeping ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... if they could help it; and flew with alacrity to their guns. The Dutch ensign was displayed in defiance, and the two Spanish vessels, again putting their heads towards the Dort, that they might lessen their distance, received some raking shot, which somewhat discomposed them; but they rounded to at a cable's length, and commenced the action with great spirit, the frigate lying on the beam, and the corvette on ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to lessen the moment they stopped at a red frame station exactly like the one they had just left at Gopher Prairie, and Kennicott yawned, "Right on time. Just in time for dinner at the Calibrees'. I 'phoned the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... we are to facilitate marriage, which must form, at any rate, the main solution of the problems of the near future to which I have alluded, if we are to prevent, or even lessen, the degradation of women, if we are to extinguish this pit of destruction in our midst, into which so many a fair and promising young life disappears, and which perpetually threatens the moral and physical welfare of ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... the hurricane was the lesser evil. I might have done something to avert, or, at least, lessen the greater one. To tell the truth, I meant to have gone out there this spring—had, indeed, almost fixed upon a day for starting, when—you ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... view of the whole military situation in the East, Palestine's position in the world war, the strategical and tactical problems to be faced, and, without making any exorbitant demands for troops which would lessen the Allies' powers in other theatres, set out the minimum necessities for the Palestine force. General Allenby gave the fullest consideration to this document, and after he had made as complete an examination of the front as any Commander-in-Chief ever undertook—the ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... consequently duty, require that I should detain you for a short time, sir; but you shall have a sailor's welcome to whatever we possess, to lessen the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Billy, he got a sticky bath of syrup and a shower of ginger in his own eyes. This was adding insult to injury, he thought, and this last mishap turned the laughter of the crowd into a scream of merriment which did not lessen his anger in the least. He grabbed a broom that stood near by and jumping over the counter went for Billy, who all this time had been standing still, doing nothing but looking at the man and waiting for him to give him a drink of ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... important element of distinctness in words like "minim." The dot, as Dr. Javal suggests, should be set on a level with the top of the l rather than on a level with the top of the t. A reduction of serifs would lessen the confusion of x and z ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... grasshoppers and frogs—the ticking, spasmodic call of the invisible beetles—all these things help to intensify the loneliness and magnitude of the wild surroundings. Nor does the smoldering camp-fire lessen the loneliness. Its very light deepens the surrounding dark, and its only use, after the evening meal is cooked, is merely to dispel the savage attack of the voracious mosquito and put the fear of man into the hearts of the prairie scavenger, the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... be sure that this did not lessen my contrition. We reached London late that night; and here Mr. Romaine took leave of us. Business waited for him at Amersham Place. After a few hours' sleep, Rowley woke me to choose between two post-boys in blue jackets and white hats, and two in buff jackets and black hats, who were competing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as formerly, words so gentle that they made her cry, nor passionate caresses that made her mad; so that their great love, which engrossed her life, seemed to lessen beneath her like the water of a stream absorbed into its channel, and she could see the bed of it. She would not believe it; she redoubled in tenderness, and Rodolphe concealed his indifference ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... can contract so as to lessen their length. It is in this way that the muscles perform ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... misery began to lessen. For the Indians, whose corn was now ripe, began to bring it to the fort to barter it for chisels, and beads, and other trifles. Wild fowl too, such as ducks and geese, swarmed in ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... contrary, all you have told me goes to lessen certain difficulties, make the crooked, in some degree, straight and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... pictured the reverberating shell-factory on the Clyde where girls had their scalps torn off by unappeasable machinery, and the filling-factory where five thousand girls stripped themselves naked in order to lessen the danger of being blown to bits.... After a climax of capering Queen fell full length on her stomach upon the carpet, her soft chin accurately adjusted to the edge of the plate. The music ceased. The gramophone gnashed on the ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... saw print. But as regards this battle, none of them are as bad as even such British historians as Alison; the exact reverse being the case in many other battles, notably Lake Erie. The devices each author adopts to lessen the seeming force of his side are generally of much the same character. For instance, Latour says that 800 of Jackson's men were employed on works at the rear, on guard duty, etc., and deducts them; James, for precisely ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... does not lessen fate, nor satisfy The grave, 'tis true, when friends together die; And yet they are ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... that, with boys and girls trained in the schools and by their contact with life itself to think, such an invitation to lay aside all reason and common sense can do other in the long run than to weaken confidence in the Bible, and so lessen the significance of many of ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... operatic stage or the speaker on the platform, without facial expression begotten of muscular activity, may lessen by half his power over an audience. To train the facial muscles is a complicated task. To do this, stand before a mirror and make all the faces ever thought of by a schoolboy to amuse his schoolmates. Raise each corner of the ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... far more aid and comfort to Vincent if we were in the North than we could be here. If he were taken prisoner and wounded, we could return him the kindness we have received here. In any event, we could lessen the hardships ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... fact, or lessen the risk. She is very beautiful, and now he is in love with her beautiful girlhood. But after a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... road in the first place, nor afterwards have incurred the expense of maintaining obstructives. In the name of Babytown, I come to propose to you, not to give up opposing each other all at once,—that would be to act upon a principle, and we despise principles as much as you do,—but to lessen somewhat the present obstacles, taking care to estimate equitably the respective sacrifices we make ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... like himself. No scruple lessen'd in the full weight of honour: He did command me (pardon my presumption), As his unworthy deputy, To kiss your ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... felt, too, that a loved friend was looking at me reproachfully, although I could not have put all this into words. The blood pressed about my thumping heart, and I could scarcely speak, except in monosyllables. Even the consciousness that it was only a dreadful mistake did not lessen my suffering, and when at last I was allowed to leave the room, I was dazed and did not notice my teacher's caresses, or the tender words of my friends, who said I was a brave little girl and they were proud ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... follows that we should go backward, and try to restrict the industrial sphere of woman. It has been well said that revolutions do not go backward; we have to go farther forward to keep the advantages which have been attained, and at the same time lessen the evils which the new order has brought ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... blockade-runners, El Dorado of adventurers, and paradise of wreckers and darkies—filthy Nassau. In making our way to this port we had a foretaste of some of the risks and dangers to be subsequently encountered. In order to economize coal and to lessen the risk of capture I determined to approach Nassau by the "Tongue of Ocean," a deep indentation in the sea bounded on the south by the Bahama Banks; and to reach the "Tongue" it was necessary to cross the whole extent of the "Banks" from Elbow Key light-house. ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... think, settle all that there is to be arranged between us. The Marquis, from certain reasons of humanity,—with which I for one hardly sympathize in this case,—is most unwilling to stop, or even to lessen, the ample pension which is paid ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... lead, I thought it no shame to dismount more than once. The rolling of a stone, or the parting of stirrup, girth, or crupper, would have involved the safety of one's neck. Nor did the very common sight of wooden crosses along the path, indicating sudden death by accident or crime, tend to lessen the sense of insecurity. The frequent casualties among these precipitous paths, together with the healthfulness of the climate, have made it a proverb, that it is a natural death, at St. Antonio, to be dashed to pieces on the rocks. ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... her sister in the darkness, the storm without continued to rage. It had shown no mercy to the hapless leaves, neither did it lessen any of its malignity now as it tore along the straight road leading to the penitentiary of St. Vincent de Paul, and overtook the sadly bedraggled figure clad in bridal robes. The heavy rain had wet her through and through, and she staggered from weakness and exposure. The road was deep ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... unavoidable and easily detected shams under all this glamour of color and form did not lessen the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... power; that they are taken up upon opinion, and are voluntary. This error, then, must be got rid of; this opinion must be removed: and, as with regard to imagined evils, we are to make them more supportable, so with respect to goods, we are to lessen the violent effects of those things which are called great and joyous. But one thing is to be observed, that equally relates both to good and evil: that, should it be difficult to persuade any one that none of those ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... Bills," without interference from the House of Lords, has been claimed and exercised by the House of Commons for several generations. The public was not slow to take the alarm. To be sure, several causes conspired to lessen somewhat the popular indignation. Among these were the inevitable expenses of the Chinese War, the certainty of an increased income tax, if the bill became a law, and the very small majority which the measure finally received in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various |
