"Shortness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intimation from the Government of Great Britain that orders had been given for the protection of the fisheries upon the coasts of the British provinces in North America against the alleged encroachments of the fishing vessels of the United States and France. The shortness of this notice and the season of the year seemed to make it a matter of urgent importance. It was at first apprehended that an increased naval force had been ordered to the fishing grounds to carry into effect ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... sapphire or white topaz, or with rock crystal (quartz), the spectra will be less vivid—they will appear in pairs (due to the double refraction of these minerals), and the red and blue will be near together (i. e., the spectra will be short). This shortness in the latter cases is due to the small dispersive power of the three minerals mentioned. Paste (lead glass) gives fairly vivid spectra, and they are single like those from diamond, as glass is singly refracting. The dispersion of the heavy lead glass approaches that of diamond. The ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... long survey of the stranger with his best glass, one that was never exhibited but on state occasions, and then he pronounced him to be a French cruiser; most probably a privateer. That he was a Frenchman, Marble affirmed, was apparent by the height of his top-masts, and the shortness of his yards; the upper spars, in particular, being mere apologies for yards. Everybody who had any right to an opinion, was satisfied the brig was a French cruiser, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... I believe," said Mr. Scarrick, with a shortness that was entirely out of keeping with his ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... three acres the enormous amount of fourteen tons. These berries brought as high as fifteen cents and as low as four cents per pound, but netted an average of about eight cents per pound, or $2240. That would make an acre of berries produce a cash return of $746.66 2/3, which, considering the shortness of the berry season, from four to five months, is a pretty good income on the ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... perched upon the top of a very long neck, was too large, much too large for his body. His face was narrow, his complexion swarthy, his sallow cheeks high and sunken. A nose slightly turned up, gave an expression of boldness to his countenance, increased by the shortness of his upper lip, which exposed to view two large front teeth that were almost ferocious in their size. On either side of his high, narrow forehead, his hair, instead of being worn according to the ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... sped on like two tattered branches before a high wind; for, as they came nearer Eugene (of whom, in the tensity of their flight, they took no note), it was to be seen that both were so shabbily dressed as to be almost ragged. There was a brown patch upon the girl's faded skirt at the knee; the shortness of the garment indicating its age to be something over three years, as well as permitting the knowledge to become more general than befitting that her cotton stockings had been clumsily darned in several places. Her pursuer was in as evil case; ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... some of his cattle and ruined a good deal of corn that had not been gathered. He worked hard, even desperately, to save what he could and not let the children know. Then Tom himself was taken with a queer feeling in the chest, a feeling of tightness and dull pain and shortness of breath. Martha pleaded with him a long time to consult a doctor in Greenville before he consented to ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... the prime of life—to see our pure, happy, quiet, domestic life, which ALONE enabled me to bear my MUCH disliked position, CUT OFF at forty-two—when I HAD hoped with such instinctive certainty that God never WOULD part us, and would let us grow old together (though HE always talked of the shortness of life)—is TOO AWFUL, too cruel!" The tone of outraged Majesty seems to be discernible. Did she wonder in her heart of hearts how the Deity ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... ally. He chose the city of Mentz for his winter quarters, and the settlement of these state affairs, and showed a greater partiality for this town, than seemed consistent with the interests of the German princes, or the shortness of his visit to the Empire. Not content with strongly fortifying it, he erected at the opposite angle which the Maine forms with the Rhine, a new citadel, which was named Gustavusburg from its founder, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sung with great solemnity by the congregation, and then the good old man offered a prayer; after which he addressed the slaves on the shortness of human life and the certainty of death, and more than once hinted at the hardness of their lot, assuring, however, his fellow-slaves, that if they were good and faithful, all would be right hereafter. ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... exigencies of the situation, the cardinals, in January, offered the tiara to Adrian, who, alone among modern popes, kept his baptismal name while in office. The failure of Adrian VI to accomplish much was due largely to the shortness of his pontificate of only twenty months, and still more to the invincible corruption he found at Rome. His really high sense of duty awakened no response save fear and hatred among the courtiers of the Medicis. When he tried ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... hundred yards beneath, the trail led across a small glacier and down to Crater Lake. Other men packed across the glacier. All that day he dropped his packs at the glacier's upper edge, and, by virtue of the shortness of the pack, he put his straps on one hundred and fifty pounds each load. His astonishment at being able to do it never abated. For two dollars he bought from an Indian three leathery sea-biscuits, and out of these, and a huge quantity of raw bacon, ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... time," she answered, with a singular shortness, for she could not tell him that a letter from Mrs. Harrington to her mother- -the companion to that received by Luke at Valetta—had brought about this sudden decision. She could not tell him that, egged on by a transparent hint from Mrs. Harrington that Luke ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... Galley had reached my heart, but I dared not mention it, and the proposal could not reasonably come from her. On the way, we expressed our sorrow that the day was over, but far from complaining of the shortness of its duration, we were conscious of having prolonged it by ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... character of the questions—as if this balancing of one earthly condition or advantage with another, were but a solemn trifling compared with eternal things. And so here, he seems to turn away from the question before him, and speaks of the shortness of time. "The ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... her to think again of what had happened under the rays of the same month's moon, a little before its full, the ecstatic evening scene with Edward: the kiss, and the shortness of those happy moments—maiden imagination bringing about the apotheosis of a status quo which had had several unpleasantnesses in ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... revive the withering hopes of those, who, guided by more profound contemplations, have fathomed all the fallacies of the new observations and recognized their impossibility! I cannot resolve what to say in a chance so strange, so new, so unexpected. The shortness of time, the unexampled occurrence, the weakness of my intellect, the terror of being mistaken, have greatly ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... however, "brave" may pass; for, if they hustled her somewhat unceremoniously, they at least did speed her on her way. On two successive Thursdays their prevalence was interrupted by a tempest, which in each case surpassed for suddenness, violence, and shortness anything that I remember; for I have never met a tropical hurricane, nor the full power of a China typhoon. On the first occasion the sun came up yellow and wet, with a sulky expression like that of a child bathed against its ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... its farinaceous tendency it accords with the Primula Auricula, but is very unlike that plant as it is figured in its wild state by Prof. Jacquin, in the Fl. Austr. the leaves being much narrower, the flowers larger, and of a different colour; it differs from glutinosa in the shortness of its involucrum, from villosa (already figured) in having leaves much narrower, perfectly smooth in respect to villi, and in the colour of its blossoms, which approach that of the Lilac, but more especially in its disposition ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... the chosen hosts to victory. As he finally paused, his head bowed low, I stepped forward into the light, confident of welcome, utterly forgetful of the uniform I wore. At the first faint sound of my approach on the floor he was upon his feet fronting me, the shortness of his limbs yielding him a certain grotesque appearance, his deep-set eyes regarding me suspiciously. Before I could realize the man's intent he sprang between me and the outer door, his hand gripping ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... that you may receive the fruit of your tribulations, that you assume the armour of patience. And should it seem very hard to you to endure your many troubles, bear in memory three things, that you may endure more patiently. First, I want you to think of the shortness of your time, for on one day you are not certain of the morrow. We may truly say that we do not feel past trouble, nor that which is to come, but only the moment of time at which we are. Surely, then, we ought to endure patiently, since the time is so short. The second thing is, for ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... our time. There is room enough to crowd almost every art and science into it. If we pass 'no day without a line,' visit no place without the company of a book, we may with ease fill libraries or empty them of their contents. Those who complain of the shortness of life, let it slide by them without wishing to seize and make the most of its golden minutes. The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have. Mr. Brougham, among other means of strengthening and enlarging ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... old woman brought, and the boy fed the horses. In a short time the Countess reappeared, a graceful, slender youth in doublet, breeches, riding-boots of thin leather, cap, and gloves. Her undulating hair had been reduced by Mathilde, with a pair of shears, to a suitable shortness. Mathilde followed her, loth to part. We allowed little time for leave-taking with the poor girl, and were soon mounted and ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... say; for it is a tactful forgetfulness that makes for happiness. In the minor matter, for instance, of small money obligations, that shortness of memory which the school of Professors Panurge and Falstaff rashly praises, may often betray into some unfortunate allusion or reference to the subject which shall pain the delicate feelings of the obliger; or, if he be of coarser clay, shall lead ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... possible. He had been walking up and down the terrace with Fanny, smoking his pipe, and admiring the great beds of many-colored asters, when he saw Antony coming toward him. He waited for his son's approach, and met him with a smile. Antony did not notice his remark about the growing shortness of the days, but plunged at once into the ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... stretched out in the afternoon, his strength returned. A certain hero discovered the secret of Tukaitawa's strength and slew him at noon. The savage Besisis of the Malay Peninsula fear to bury their dead at noon, because they fancy that the shortness of their shadows at that hour would sympathetically ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... of the imperial house. The Goddess of Long Life, Iha-naga-hime (Rock-long-princess), was sent to him for wife; but he rejected her because of her ugliness; and that unwise proceeding brought about "the present shortness of the lives of men." Most mythologies ascribe vast duration to the lives of early patriarchs or rulers: the farther we go back into mythological history, the longer-lived are the sovereigns. To this general rule Japanese mythology presents no exception. ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... content with such blessings as we have, and not pine after those that are out of our reach. I feel much more uneasy about my sisters than myself just now. Emily's cold and cough are very obstinate. I fear she has pain in the chest, and I sometimes catch a shortness in her breathing, when she has moved at all quickly. She looks very, very thin and pale. Her reserved nature occasions me great uneasiness of mind. It is useless to question her—you get no answers. It is still more useless to recommend remedies—they ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... very interesting sight to watch a Mias making his way leisurely through the forest. He walks deliberately along some of the larger branches in the semi-erect attitude which the great length of his arms and the shortness of his legs cause him naturally to assume; and the disproportion between these limbs is increased by his walking on his knuckles, not on the palm of the hand, as we should do. He seems always to choose those branches which ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... motives by which he believed himself to be actuated. As he made his journey up to London he thought very much of her words. There had been nothing said between them about money. No allusion had been made to the salary of the office which would be offered to him, or to the terrible shortness of his own means of living. He knew well enough himself that he must take some final step in life, or very shortly return into absolute obscurity. This woman who had been so strongly advising him to take a certain course as to ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... my opening my Mouth much seldomer than other People, and by Consequence not so much lengthning the Fibres of my Visage, I am not at leisure to determine. However it be, I have been often put out of Countenance by the Shortness of my Face, and was formerly at great Pains in concealing it by wearing a Periwigg with an high Foretop, and letting my Beard grow. But now I have thoroughly got over this Delicacy, and could be contented it were much shorter, provided it might qualify me ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... have had, any proboscis whatsoever; nor have they acquired such a development as to allow them to rise on their hind limbs and graze on trees in a kangaroo-attitude, nor a power of climbing, nor, as far as known, any other modification tending to compensate for the comparative shortness of the neck. Again, it may perhaps be said that leaf-eating forms are exceptional, and that therefore the struggle to attain high branches would not affect many Ungulates. But surely, when these severe droughts necessary for the theory occur, the ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... very words he said, my daughter. He had a swiftness of tongue, for which I am myself famous, especially in fortune-telling; but he used the language of gentility, and a shortness of speech which you will observe among those who are accustomed to order what they want instead of asking for it. I had hard work to summon voice to reply to him, my daughter, and I cannot tell you, nor would ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... The shortness of the poem has been objected to it. But this, we think, shows the poet's good sense. The subject is too uniform and too gloomy for a long poem. "The Grave, in twelve books" would have been totally unreadable. It was far better to ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... you die of; and that deepening of ignorance which comes of the perpetual insisting that fountains of knowledge spring everywhere for those who choose to dispense it. "What science teaches is made useless by the shortness of human existence; it absorbs all our energy in building up a machine which we shall have no time to work. All direct truth comes to us from the poet: whether he be of the smaller kind who only see, or the greater, who can tell what they have seen, or the greatest ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... dactyl, which is the favourite number of hexameters, is more adapted to a pompous style. Ephorus, on the other hand, declares for the paeon and the dactyl; and rejects the spondee and the trochee (long short). For as the paeon has three short syllables, and the dactyl two, he thinks their shortness and celerity give a brisk and lively flow to our language; and that a different effect would be produced by the trochee and the spondee, the one consisting of short syllables, and the other of long ones;—so ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... our arms that night among the tombs at the Cemetery, so suggestive of the shortness of life and the nothingness of fame; but the men were little disposed to moralize on themes like these and were too much exhausted to think of ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... two hours. The number of killed, variously stated, was probably not less than a hundred and fifty, - one of the combatants calls it two hundred, *13 - a great number, considering the shortness of the time, and the small amount of forces engaged. No account is given of the wounded. Wounds were the portion of the cavalier. Pedro de Lerma is said to have received seventeen, and yet was taken alive from the field! The loss fell chiefly on the followers of Almagro ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... part from in this world with a light good-bye whom we never see again! Often do I think, in my meditations on this subject, that if we realised more fully the shortness of the fleeting intercourse that we have in this world with many of our fellow-men, we would try more earnestly to do them good, to give them a friendly smile, as it were, in passing (for the longest intercourse on earth is ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... as he personally needed to see it, not in its passion and mystery, but in its lighter moods of humor and sentiment. Paris frankly seemed to him at this time the most profitable place in the world. Two months after his arrival, he wrote airily, "You will excuse the shortness and hastiness of this letter, for which I can only plead as an excuse that I am a young man and in Paris." He had momentary fancies as to a possible direction for his talents. A sudden intimacy at Rome with Washington Allston made ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... whole of the remaining plates only three periods when it seems to have got longer. But doubtless the very ample cloak, which is so long that it even trails upon the ground, extenuated and in some degree justified its shortness. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... 1899 for a month's trip to Italy, and in his Journal he wrote many good descriptions of scenery and of the old towns; and the way in which he describes his last glimpse of Florence during a glorious sunset shows how greatly he appreciated its beauty. In his Journal in April he dwells on the shortness of life, and in the following solemn words he ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... on shore, however, or on special occasions such as this, that women played the sailor. A naval commander, accounting to the Admiralty for his shortness of complement, attributes it mainly to sickness, partly to desertion, and incidentally to the discharge of one of the ship's company, "who was discovered to be a woman." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... shares our fortunes "for better, for worse," clinging with heroic loyalty to his master when all other friends may have abandoned him. The power of memory is wonderfully exhibited, considering the shortness of life which Nature, by some mischance has accorded ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... occasioned was neither debilitating nor durable. My sanguine self-confidence, though sometimes apalled, has all my life prevented me from being subject to fits of permanent chagrin, or melancholy. The recollection of my mother's passionate promises, the shortness of the time, the suddenness of the change, the family into which she had married, and the instability of a woman that was my mother, drew a few sighs from me, and in these my gloom evaporated. I returned cheerfully to my books and determined to visit home no more, but while a student to make Oxford ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... already subsisting on half and quarter rations." Now we, in a paper on Casuistry, (long since published by this journal,) anticipated this shocking plea, contending that Napoleon's massacre of 4000 young Albanians at Jaffa, could draw no palliation from the alleged shortness of provisions, whether true or false; and on the ground that a civilized army, consciously under circumstances which will not allow it to take prisoners, has no right to proceed. Napoleon's condition had not changed from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... have become rather too uppish for my taste," she said to Dove when she got downstairs. "I took them a letter just now, and, my word! they had not eyes nor ears for me, though I toiled up all the weary stairs, which my shortness of breath don't agree to. It wasn't even 'Thank you very much, Mrs. Dove,' but all three of them, their eyes was fixed on the letter as if they'd eat it. It's my belief, Dove, that they're short of funds, ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... since the function of the Naturalists is to represent, as far as may be, the whole of nature, and the Purists to represent what is absolutely good for some special purpose or time, it is evident that both are liable to error from shortness of sight, and the last also from weakness of judgment. I say, in the first place, both may err from shortness of sight, from not seeing all that there is in nature; seeing only the outsides of things, or those points ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... conspicuous in this crowd was the shortness of stature. I, who am but of medium height, looked over the heads of nine out of ten. The natives were all short, as were the foreign sailors. There were only five or six in the crowd who could be called fairly tall, and they were Scandinavians and Americans. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... mean between fine wool and ordinary silk. The worm is very hardy, and can be reared in the open air both in this country and in Europe. The main drawback to its culture is the difficulty in unreeling the tough cocoon, and the shortness of the thread, the cocoon being open at ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... must be evident to the reader at a glance, that the real serviceableness of any of these grouped arrangements must depend upon the relative shortness of the shafts, and that, when the whole pier is so lofty that its minor members become mere reeds or rods of stone, those minor members can no longer be charged with any considerable weight. And the fact is, that in the most complicated Gothic arrangements, when the pier is tall ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Kanak, for I was informed, that Gorkha had no communication with the Bhotiyas, his country being narrowed there between Kaski and Nepal. It may, however, have happened, that the want of communication was owing to the impracticability of the mountains, and not to the shortness of the frontier. The chiefs of Kaski leagued with Lamjun, a collateral branch of their own family, but had as a follower in war their kinsman of Satahung. Although adjacent to the mountains covered with perpetual ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... Your remark on the shortness of my letters is flattering. This is the last you shall complain of. My spirits and nerves coincide in asking repose. Your daughter commands it. Our dear children join in the strongest assurances of honest ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... and servants and bade them put thee to the vilest of deaths they would slay thee forthright? Who shall deliver thee out of my hand?" When the Prince heard this speech of the King he answered, "Verily, I wonder at thee and at the shortness and denseness of thy wit! Say me, canst covet for thy daughter a mate comelier than myself, and hast ever seen a stouter hearted man or one better fitted for a Sultan or a more glorious in rank and dominion than I?" Rejoined the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... mind to trace the feeble beginnings of an infant colony, accompanying it through all its variations of hope and despondency, of good or ill success, until it is at length conducted to a state of greatness and prosperity quite unexampled, when the shortness of its duration is considered. And since that colony is our own, since Britain is, for several reasons, unusually concerned, both morally and politically, in the welfare of New South Wales, it cannot but be useful as well as interesting ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... closing sentences of his third prison book, "Christian Behaviour," published in 1663, the second year of his durance, clearly point to such an expectation. "Thus have I in few words written to you before I die, . . . not knowing the shortness of my life, nor the hindrances that hereafter I may have of serving my God and you." The ladder of his apprehensions was, as Mr. Froude has said, "an imaginary ladder," but it was very real to Bunyan. "Oft I was as if ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... The method of measuring deflection of large beams can be used for small sizes, but because of the shortness of the span and consequent slight deformation in the latter, it is hardly accurate enough for good work. The special deflectometer shown in Fig. 31 allows closer reading, as it magnifies the deflection ten times. It rests on two small nails driven in the beam on the neutral ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... The darkness and shortness of the days was intensified by the onslaught of a great storm; one of those giant overwhelmings when it seems that the canopy of heaven is being crushed down upon one's own little corner of this earth, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... liquorice root, powdered anise seed, and sulphur, of each one dram. Make into ordinary sized pills with a sufficient quantity of tar, and take three or four pills at night on going to bed. This is an admirable remedy for asthma and shortness ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... was her shortness of money. She had but a trifle left out of the guinea her brooch had fetched. In the old days she could have soon earned a shilling or two by singing outside and inside taverns. But what she had done as a beggar maid could ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... like the ordinary air in every respect. Since this air is necessarily required for the origination of fire, and makes up about the third part of our common air, I shall call it after this, for the sake of shortness, Fire-air; but the other air which is not in the least serviceable for the fiery phenomenon, and makes up about two-thirds of our air, I shall designate after this with the name already known, ...
— Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 • Carl Wilhelm Scheele
... quite distressing. Noble and beautiful works of art should not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world is indeed a most noble and beautiful work. And certainly marvelously near to being perfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time. There are too many stars in some places and not enough in others, but that can be remedied presently, no doubt. The moon got loose last night, and slid down and fell out of the scheme—a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... responsibility. The latter idea is conveyed by the word 'judgment,' which throughout the Old Testament stands for the irreconcilable antagonism between good and evil, and the certain overthrow of evil: the recognition of this makes action responsible. With this limitation, the author urges that the very shortness of life and youth is so much incentive to make joyful what days ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... Coelops (C. Frithi), from the Bengal Sanderbans, Java and Siam is distinguished by the peculiar form of its nose-leaf and the length of the metacarpal bone of the index finger, as well as by the shortness of the calcar and interfemoral membrane. Cloeeotis is represented by a single East African species, and Anthops by one from the Solomon Islands characterized by the nose-leaf covering the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... bend my prayers to thee for his assistance, the voice of whose bell hath called me to this devotion. Lay hold upon his soul, O God, till that soul have thoroughly considered his account; and how few minutes soever it have to remain in that body, let the power of thy Spirit recompense the shortness of time, and perfect his account before he pass away; present his sins so to him, as that he may know what thou forgivest, and not doubt of thy forgiveness, let him stop upon the infiniteness of those sins, but dwell upon the infiniteness of thy mercy; let him discern ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... presses heavily on many women is the shortness of the holidays. The work is always arduous, particularly in poor districts where one is brought face to face with poverty, disease, and suffering, and from two to three weeks is not sufficient for rest and recuperation, particularly as the years ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... a circuitous route, so as to elude the vigilance of the king, and frustrate his endeavours to recapture him. We were much pleased to find that Ufzul Khan had no suspicion of our not being free agents, and Sturt answered he regretted much that the shortness of the time we had yet at our disposal would prevent his complying with his request, which, indeed, considering all the circumstances of the case, it would have been an act of most culpable folly to have acceded to. At the conclusion of this interview ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... dangerously long, and its development was consequently checked, she would have continually reacted on her male progeny, and thus have prevented the peacock from acquiring his present magnificent train. We may therefore infer that the length of the tail in the peacock and its shortness in the peahen are the result of the requisite variations in the male having been from the first transmitted ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... threatens us daily from a thousand accidents, and which, by reason of the shortness of life, can never be far off, does not deter a wise man from making such provision for his country and his family as he hopes may last forever; and from regarding posterity, of which he can never have any real perception, as belonging to himself. Wherefore ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... on increasing in bitterness, until at length it became clear that either Baha-'ullah or Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel must for a time vanish from the scene. For Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel (or, for shortness, Ezel) to disappear would be suicidal; he knew how weak his personal claims to the pontificate really were. But Baha-'ullah's disappearance would be in the general interest; it would enable the Bābīs ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... that upon the slight view which the shortness of the time allowed me to take of the business in question here, I was persuaded that we probably might, in some degree, succeed in our expedition; because, if the course of things here could not be improved by our journey, yet I should ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... elfin errand boy (in the "Old Curiosity Shop"), enjoying the agonies of Sampson Brass as he essays to smoke a long churchwarden. Behold Quilp upon his back taunting the large fierce dog with hideous grimaces, triumphant in the consciousness that the shortness of his chain will not permit him to advance another inch. Look at Mrs. Jarley's wax-work brigand, "with the blackest possible head and the clearest possible complexion," going his rounds in the company of little Nell, his eyes fixed on the miniature ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... feldspathic nature, generally decomposed to an extraordinary degree; and when in this state, presenting a singular assemblage of alternating, red, purple, brown, yellow, and white, soft, argillaceous beds. From the shortness of our visit, I did not examine these beds with care; some of them, especially those of the white, yellow, and brown shades, originally existed as streams of lava, but the greater number were probably ejected in the form of scoriae and ashes: other beds of a purple tint, porphyritic ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... people of the Scandinavian and Iberian peninsulas, whom he finds marked "by a certain instability and fickleness of character," owing to the fact that in Norway and Sweden agricultural labor experiences long interruptions, due to the severity of the winter and the shortness of the days; in Spain and Portugal owing to the heat and drought of summer.[1440] The extreme continental climate of northern of Russia with its violent contrast of the seasons, its severe and protracted winters, enables Leroy-Beaulieu ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... Causes, and of all the Remedies wherewith Nature hath furnished us. Now having a designe to employ all my life in the enquiry of so necessary a Science; and having found a way, the following of which me thinks might infallibly lead us to it, unless we be hindred by the shortness of life, or by defect of experiments. I judg'd that there was no better Remedie against those two impediments, but faithfully to communicate to the publique, all that little I should discover, and to invite all good Wits to ...
— A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason - and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences • Rene Descartes
... blankets in a warm room; but this likewise is a practice by no means to be recommended, as it weakens the system by the excess of so general a stimulus, brings on a premature old age, and shortens the span of life; as may be further deduced from the quick maturity, and shortness of the lives, of the inhabitants of ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... whole life in the search after so necessary a science, and since I had fallen in with a path which seems to me such, that if any one follow it he must inevitably reach the end desired, unless he be hindered either by the shortness of life or the want of experiments, I judged that there could be no more effectual provision against these two impediments than if I were faithfully to communicate to the public all the little I might myself have found, and incite men of superior genius to strive ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... of the 11th a slight change in the Prince's breathing was perceptible and occasioned uneasiness. On the 12th it was too evident the fever and shortness of breathing had increased, and on the 13th Dr. Jenner had to tell the Queen the symptom was serious, and that there was a probability of congestion of the lungs. When the sick man was wheeled into ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... was fast and furious and by comparison reducing to insignificance all that had gone before. Here indeed were two magnificent swordsmen, and here was to be a battle that bade fair to make up for whatever the people felt they had been defrauded of by the shortness of the game. Nor had it continued long before many there were who would have prophesied that they were witnessing a duel that was to become historic in the annals of jetan at Manator. Every trick, every subterfuge, ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... herself with the allusion to the shortness of his time with them. Her aunt's coarse hint, and the thought of his loss, and the banishment it would be to her all the way to Steignton, checked a sharp retort she could have uttered, but made it necessary ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... suffered from shortness of sight and a high parsonic manner. He paused on the threshold to wipe his eyeglasses, adjusted them on his nose, and gazing around the room, cleared his throat as if ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Magilus himself, who had arrived from the valley of the Po, to address the army through an interpreter, meanwhile continued his march to the passes of the Alps without obstruction. Which of these passes he should choose, could not be at once determined either by the shortness of the route or by the disposition of the inhabitants, although he had no time to lose either in circuitous routes or in combat. He had necessarily to select a route which should be practicable for ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... breathing hard (although he was only twenty-six he was fat, heavy, and suffered from shortness of breath). ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... begin by considering the whole nature of excess and defect, and then we shall have a rational ground on which we may praise or blame too much length or too much shortness in discussions of ...
— Statesman • Plato
... edges and corners of the blanket, he confines the smoke, and is in this way able to retain it for several moments. By rapidly displacing the blanket, the operator is enabled to cause a dense volume of smoke to rise, the length or shortness of which, as well as the number and frequency of the columns, he can regulate perfectly, simply by a proper use of the blanket. (Custer's My life on the Plains, loc. ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... a beautiful animal. He is distinguished from the fox-hound by the apparent broadness and shortness of his head, his longer cheek, his straighter hock, his wider thigh and deeper chest, and better feathered and more beautifully arched tail. His appearance indicates strength and stoutness, in which indeed he is unequalled, and he has sufficient speed to render it difficult for the best horses long ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... surface, and spend a prolonged subterranean larval existence feeding upon the roots of vegetation. After many years the larva is transformed into the pupa or nymph, which is distinguishable principally by the shortness of its antennae and the presence of wing pads. After a brief existence the pupa emerges from the ground, and, holding on to a plant stem by means of its powerful front legs, sets free the perfect insect through a slit along the median dorsal line of the thorax. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... great debaters of the House of Commons. It is true that he has almost every physical disadvantage with which an orator could be cursed. His voice is hoarse, muffled, raucous, with some reminiscences of the Teutonic fatherland from which he remotely comes. His shortness of sight amounts almost to a disability. Whenever he has anything to read he has to place the paper under his eyes, and even then he finds it very difficult to read it. His action is like that of a distracted wind-mill. He beats the air with his whirling arms; he ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... been busy all day and am so tired I can scarcely hold a pen. Amidst the beating of eggs, the pounding of spices, the furious rolling of pastry of all degrees of shortness, the filling of pies with pumpkins, mince-meat, apples, and the like, the stoning of raisins and washing of currants, the beating and baking of cake, and all the other ings, (in all of which I have had my share) thoughts ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... of Mr. Royal Oakes of Bluffs, Ill., is unique in the shortness of the blossoming period, both of individual varieties and as a whole. Blossoming began April 29 and ended (estimated) May 13, a period of only 14 days. The reason may partly lie in the weather and partly because the planting is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... theories. We should eat less meat and more grain. We should not bolt the best food elements out of wheat; we should not bleach rice and take out its nutritious element. Certainly, our lives are very unscientific. Most men live merely by accident. The shortness of life is not surprising to one who understands how ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... necessary. We do not, indeed, find verses in six groups, because there is not room for six in the ten syllables; and we do not find verses of two, because one of the main distinctions of verse from prose resides in the comparative shortness of the group; but it is even common to find verses of three. Five is the one forbidden number; because five is the number of the feet; and if five were chosen, the two patterns would coincide, and that opposition which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... each other for ever? As nobody knows what they would have done, you can assert that they would have been faithful or not, according to your taste, humour or personal intentions. Then you can talk about the husband, whose very hasty conduct contributed so materially to the shortness of the story. If you wish to be thought jealous, you say he was quite right; if you desire to seem generous, you say with equal conviction that he was quite wrong. And so forth. Get to generalities as soon as possible in order to apply them to your ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... gentleman on the front seat with the pug nose? Well, his character is equally undeveloped, as his friends will tell you. The shortness of the organ from root to tip signifies a distressing ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... tumbles over rocks of grit and granite. On the left bank, denoted by a luxuriant growth of rushes, is an influent called Sha'b el-Kzi, or "the Judge's Pass."[EN108] Ascending it for a few paces, we struck up the broad and open Fiumara, which I shall call for shortness "Wady Majr." The main trunk of many branches, it is a smooth incline, perfectly practicable to camels; with banks and buttresses of green-yellow chloritic sands, and longitudinal spines outcropping from the under surface. It carries off ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... till 7, when they retire to their much needed rest on their hard straw mattresses. Perpetual silence is prescribed, unless in case of necessity, so that the Trappist's whole life is one of extraordinary austerity and of incessant recollection, reminding him at every turn of the shortness of life and the tremendous rigor of judgment. The time-table for summer varies in some minor practices and observances, while, according to that of Sundays and holidays, those religious in the latter case rise at midnight, ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... Secretary, at the Castle. They found it as easy to satisfy the committee, or its majority, as the Secretary found it to satisfy themselves. They advised there should be no opposition given to Mr. Shiel on these two grounds: First, because success was then impossible, owing to the shortness of the time for preparation. And secondly, because a failure then would endanger the cause at the general election which was to take place in a few months. The sincerity of these reasons was tested by the facts, that, at the ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... general conformation of the parrots, as well as the arrangement and strength of their toes, they climb very easily, assisting themselves greatly with their hooked bill, but walk rather awkwardly on the ground, from the shortness and wide separation of their legs. The bill of the parrot is moveable in both mandibles, the upper being joined to the skull by a membrane which acts like a hinge; while in other birds the upper beak forms part of the skull. By this ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... made of 2 by 2 inch stuff, halved at the corners. Cut out the top and bottom of the two sides; lay them on the floor so as to form a perfect rectangle, and nail them together. The strut is then prepared, care being taken to get a good fit, as any shortness of strut will sooner or later mean sagging of the door. Cut the angles as squarely as possible, to ensure the strut being of the same length both inside ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... for their weaknesses and their fears; compensation for the shortness of their existence. Their spirits mount upon the sunbeam above the eagle; and they have more enjoyment in their one summer than the elephant ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... medium height, she was so perfectly built as to escape any appearance of shortness, and carried herself so well, she sometimes appeared ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... cannot expect much more than now, but from the internal heat everywhere available, tradewinds, and falling water, as at Niagara, and from tides, you can obtain power almost without limit. Were this all, however, your progress would be slow; but the Eternal, realizing the shortness of your lives, has given you power with which to rend the globe. You have the action of all uncombined chemicals, atmospheric electricity, the excess or froth of which you now see in thunderstorms, and the electricity and magnetism of your own bodies. There is also molecular and sympathetic ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... out more, before the day is done. Dombey projected this morning a ride to Warwick Castle, and to Kenilworth, to-morrow, to be preceded by a breakfast with us. I undertook the delivery of this invitation. Will you honour us so far, Ma'am?' said the Major, swelling with shortness of breath and slyness, as he produced a note, addressed to the Honourable Mrs Skewton, by favour of Major Bagstock, wherein hers ever faithfully, Paul Dombey, besought her and her amiable and accomplished daughter to consent to the proposed ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... contrary: that is to say, that thou shalt live longer than thy prayer is in doing. And, therefore, thou mayst think it safely, and I counsel thee to do it. For, if thou do it, thou shalt see that, what for the general sight that thou hast of thy wretchedness, and this special sight of the shortness of time of amendment, it shall bring in to thine heart a ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... don' give no tick at the Telegraft Orfis, Sir," observed Private Billings, who, as quondam "trained observer" of his troop, had noted the length of the telegram and the shortness of the allowance therefor. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... involuntarily, caused her mother irritation, and that to reduce their intercourse as far as could be without marked estrangement was the best way to make it endurable to both. But the evening hours she invariably devoted to her father; the shortness of the time that she was able to give him was a reason for losing no moment of this communion. She knew that the forecast of the evening's happiness sustained him through the long day, and even so slight a pleasure as that she bestowed in opening the door at ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... the best locomotive engine, to be tested on the portion of the railway then completed. Ericsson was not aware that any such prize had been offered, until within seven weeks of the day fixed for the trial. He was not deterred by the shortness of the time, but, applying all his energies to the task, planned an engine, executed the working-drawings, and had the whole machine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... as the week was over, my father and I parted exactly as we had met. When I took leave of Clara, she refrained from making any allusion to the shortness of my stay; and merely said that we should soon meet again in London. She evidently saw that my visit had weighed a little on my spirits, and was determined to give to our short farewell as happy and hopeful a character as possible. We now thoroughly ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... preparation, which contains hemlock and aconite, would produce mental confusion, impaired movement, irregular action of the heart, dizziness and shortness of breath. ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... merino breed of sheep, and it thus arose. In the year 1828, one of the ewes of the flock of merinos in the farm of Mauchamp, produced a male lamb, which, as it grew up, became remarkable for the long, smooth, straight, and silky character of the fibre of the wool, and for the shortness of its horns. It was of small size, and presented certain defects in its conformation which have disappeared in its descendants. In 1829, M. Graux employed this ram with a view to obtain other rams, having the same quality of wool. The produce of 1830 only included one ram and one ewe, having ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... been cut off and witchcraft medicine inserted; and some mirth was excited by my proposing to raise a similar objection to all the oxen we still had in our possession. The remaining four soon presented a singular shortness of their caudal extremities, and though no one ever asked whether they had medicine in the stumps or no, we were no more troubled by the demand for an ox! We now slaughtered another ox, that the spectacle might not be seen of the owners ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... of breath by nature, my mother had to keep me as a little child almost sitting upright in bed. After I had outgrown that and as a big girl could run around and play well enough, I still had much trouble with shortness of breath in the beginning of my singing lessons. For years I practised breathing exercises every day without singing, and still do so with especial pleasure, now that everything that relates to the breath and the voice has become clear to me. Soon I had ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... young ladies get talking together of an evening, sleep "comes slowly up that way," and the shortness of their candles alone warned them that it was time they sought the pillow. But the short candles were unheeded, for Gertrude was relating reminiscences of a former visit, and the fun and frolic that prevailed ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... a nautical jiffy may be we know not, but, in a remarkably brief space of time, considering the shortness and thickness of his sea-legs, the Captain was alongside, blowing, as he said, "like ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... tripped past him, and Gavin would not let his eyes follow her. It was not the mud on his face that distressed him, nor even the hand that had flung the divit. It was the word "little." Though, even Margaret was not aware of it, Gavin's shortness had grieved him all his life. There had been times when he tried to keep the secret from himself. In his boyhood he had sought a remedy by getting his larger comrades to stretch him. In the company of ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... said Fergus, 'weakness on women and boys, nor on any one who was outside the country of the Ulstermen, nor on Cuchulainn and his father. And so no one dared to shed their blood; for the suffering springs on him who wounds them. [Gloss incorporated in text: 'or their decay, or their shortness of life.'] ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... the ostrog, where they arrived safely. One of them, who indulged too much in eating at first, died a short time after; the other two survived; but Spiridon said he had ever since been afflicted with a complaint in his breast and shortness of breath." ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... this and receive honour—the greatest honour, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies; but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness of ...
— The Republic • Plato
... repentance, and again raise up the broken-hearted youth; but would often say: "Oh, how nearly hadst thou reached thy last trial, and gained the victory, and looked on Verena's countenance, and atoned for all! Now thou hast thrown thyself back for years. Think, my son, on the shortness of man's life; if thou art always falling back anew, how wilt thou ever gain the summit ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... by the bulwark, shifting uneasily from foot to foot, with the feeling of the extreme shortness of his garments stronger ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... thrift and becomes a taxpayer, his moral life improves. The influence of home surroundings, of the school, the church and public sentiment will be more marked and have a more potent effect in causing him to withstand temptations. But, notwithstanding the shortness of the time which the Negro has had in which to get schooled to his new life, any one who has visited the large cities of Europe will readily testify that the visible signs of immorality in those cities are far greater than among the colored ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... with:—"Th' young child could never have been there above a minute, all told, before the engine come along, and might have took no warning at twice his age for the vairy sudden coming of it." He dwells upon the shortness of the time Dave had been on the spot as though this minimised the evil. "I shouldn't care to fix the blame, for my own part," says he, shaking his head in venerable refusal of judicial functions not assigned to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... him due precedence. When the power of promotion is abused in the grand passages of life whether by People, Legislature, or Executive, the unjust decision recoils on the judge at once. That is not only a gross, but a willful shortness of sight, that cannot discover the deserving. If one will look hard, long, and honestly, he will not fail to discern merit, genius, and qualification; and the eyes and voice of the Press and Public should condemn and denounce injustice wherever ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the same time. As long as I keep my health I do not care where we go or what we do. The doctor has just come in and put me off the sick list. It is getting very near eleven o'clock, and the captain will be off directly, so that I must conclude my letter, hoping you will, for this reason, excuse its shortness; and with best love, &c., to all at home, believe me ever ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... my absence, a pair of rude crutches for his use; and, so soon as Eloise had more becomingly clothed herself, we departed, bearing such provisions as we could conveniently carry. With the gun in my possession, I expected no great shortness in the food supply. Madame carried it at first, however, as we made swifter progress by my taking the father on my shoulder. He was no great burden, his weight scarcely more ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the number of wholesome laws enacted in 1649, as well as the shortness of their session—for it did not include twenty-five days—it would seem, the assemblymen of this year were certainly not very fond of talking or speechmaking. It appears, also, that some of them, like our Saxon forefathers, could neither read nor ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... him of the shortness of the time, and urge him to finish the undertaking—but in vain; Mozart was nowhere to be found. At length he was discovered in a billiard-room, half intoxicated, earnestly engaged in a critical part of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... not persist in delaying my course; but in everything that concerns your Highnesses' service, I trust in Him who made me, and I hope also that my health will be re-established. I think your Highnesses will remember that I had intended to build some ships in a new manner, but the shortness of the time did not permit it. I had certainly foreseen how things would be. I think more of this opening for commerce, and of the lordship over such extensive mines, than of all that has been done in the Indies.[415-1] This is not ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... stem-form of the originally crossed species. Nor can we oppose to these facts the consideration that the period of time during which mankind has observed the organisms is too short. For the permanence of very many {103} species can be traced through thousands of years, and the shortness of the period of our observations is amply counterbalanced on the one hand by the multitude of species from all parts of the organic systems which come under our notice, on the other by the immense alterations in the conditions of existence to which man submits plants and animals. How great, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... fetcheth him, as fetcheth the banco skin The innocent rustic. For my part, I pray That Badarjewska maid may wait for aye Ere sits she with a lover, as did we Once sit together, Amabel! Can it be That all that arduous wooing not atones For Saturday shortness of trade dollars three? Behold the deeds that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the Osage, in the Indian Territory, in January, 1883, he learned of the existence of a secret society of seven degrees, in which, it was alleged, the traditions of the people have been preserved to the present time. Owing to the shortness of his visit, one month and eleven days, he was unable to gain more than fragmentary accounts of the society, including parts of two traditions, from several Osage ...
— Osage Traditions • J. Owen Dorsey
... suspended from their girdles by red ribands, or among the more opulent and showy classes by brass, and even silver, chains, indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives and industrious spinsters. I cannot say much in vindication of the shortness of the petticoats; it doubtless was introduced for the purpose of giving the stockings a chance to be seen, which were generally of blue worsted, with magnificent red clocks; or perhaps to display a well-turned ankle, and a neat though serviceable foot, set off by a high-heeled leathern ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... privateering Chevalier de Malte for a hero and its Turkish heroine who coolly remarks "L'infidelite a des charmes," might have been better if the author had known how to make it so. Both these books have, as has been said, the merit of shortness. Puget de la Serre's La Clytie de la Cour (2 vols., Paris, 1635) cannot plead even this; for it fills two fat volumes of some 1500 pages. I have sometimes been accused, both in France and in ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... excuse, yet I will reserve it till I think I have greater need, and ask no grains of allowance for the faults of this my present work, but those which are given of course to human frailty. I will not trouble my reader with the shortness of time in which I writ it, or the several intervals of sickness. They who think too well of their own performances are apt to boast in their prefaces how little time their works have cost them, and what other business of more importance interfere'd; but the reader will be as apt ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... unwisdom of youth, his mind full of responsibility, his heart of courage, but his tongue letting fall, every now and then, simple half-foolish sayings which betrayed the approach of dotage. He is very short, and exhibits a childish vanity in constantly referring to his shortness. 'As short my body, short shall be my stay.' 'My mind's a giant, though my bulk be small.' By such quaint speeches does he excite our smiles. And yet, by a very human touch, he is represented as ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... In conclusion, he proposed to move three resolutions, for the purpose of providing, first, that a list of all the proprietors of Bank stock should be printed, with a separate entry of the names of all those persons not entitled to vote from the smallness of their stock, or from the shortness of time during which they held it; secondly, that a copy of the charter of the Bank, with the rules, orders, and bye-laws passed for the good government of their corporation, should be printed for the use of the shareholders; and thirdly, that ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... home-ward march the three of us literally stole minutes and seconds from each day in order to add to our marches, but it was a fight for life: The rarified air made our breathing more difficult, and we suffered from shortness of breath whenever the inequalities of the surface became severe, and sudden jerks conveyed themselves to our tired bodies through the medium of ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... daily life harmonious and acceptable. In respect of quantity the problem was more complex. Plautus had disregarded it in numerous instances (e.g. dari), and in others had been content to recognize the natural length or shortness of a vowel (e.g. senex ipse), neglecting the subordinate laws of position, &c. This custom had, as far as we know, guided Ennius himself in his dramatic poems; but for the epos he adopted a different principle. Taking advantage of the tendency to shorten final vowels, he fixed almost ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... But if these steps are infinitely short, a finite time will suffice for them; and in point of fact they do rapidly converge, whatever be the original interval or the contrasted speeds, toward infinitesimal shortness. This proportionality of the shortness of the times to that of the spaces required frees us, it is claimed, from the sophism which ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... had been unusually wet and cold, both at home and abroad, and the harvest had, in consequence, been so deficient as to cause a very general apprehension of scarcity, while rumors were spread that the high prices which the shortness of the crops could not fail to produce were artificially raised by the selfish covetousness of some of the principal corn-dealers, who were buying up all the grain which came into the market, and storing it, with the object of making an exorbitant profit out of the necessities ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... thick crowd, avoiding disaster with marvellous dexterity; and sometimes they revolved slowly and sometimes quickly and sometimes spun giddily round for a moment like gyroscopic tops. Then they too would be seized with a kind of trance, or it may be with sheer shortness of breath, and hung motionless for a little in the centre of the room, while the mad throng jostled and flowed about them like the leaves in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... production to the place of consumption, and he hits on a railroad. Every master has found his material collected, and his power lay in his sympathy with his people, and in his love of the materials he wrought in. What an economy of power! and what a compensation for the shortness of life! All is done to his hand. The world has brought him thus far on his way. The human race has gone out before him, sunk the hills, filled the hollows, and bridged the rivers. Men, nations, poets, artisans, women, all ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... and Connecticut; but the governor never tried to enforce his authority in Connecticut. In 1701 and 1706, bills aiming at this proposed consolidation were introduced into Parliament. That of 1701 failed of consideration from "shortness of time and multiplicity of issues." In 1704 an attempt was made to secure the appointment of a royal governor over Connecticut through an Order in Council, but that body preferred to leave the matter to Parliament,—hence the bill of 1706 favoring consolidation which failed of passage in ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D. |
