"Lighten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and great desire; a girl-child whose very name was a compromise between the parents. For they called her Billy for sake of the boy her father wanted, and Louise for the girl her mother had longed for to lighten that terrible loneliness which the far frontier brings to the women who ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... the first time, cattle should be put for awhile into a larger court, or on a road well fenced with enclosures, and guarded by men, to romp about. Two or three such allowances of liberty will render them quiet; and, in the mean time, to lighten their weight of carcass, they should have hay for a large proportion of their food. These precautions are absolutely necessary for cattle which have been confined in barns; otherwise, accidents may befall them on the road, where ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... go there, willing to bear the unmerited punishment, the lifelong disgrace. Why? Pickles, think hard as he would, could get no answer to solve this difficulty. True, she had said she had something in her mind which would lighten the prison fare and the prison life. What was it? Pickles could stand it no longer; he must go and consult his mother. He ran downstairs. Mrs. Price had not yet gone to bed. Pickles sat down beside her by the fire, and laid his curly ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... improve clay soils is by using coarse vegetable manures, large quantities of stable, manures, ashes, chips, sawdust, sand, or any similar materials, which will tend to break up and lighten the soil mechanically. Lime and land plaster are also valuable, as they cause chemical changes which tend ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... and it was all to be desolate again. She repeated whatever wise things one can say to oneself; she even anticipated, as people so often do, the wretched comfort that time would come at last to her relief; and then she cursed the time which would have to pass before it could lighten her sufferings—she cursed the dead, cold time when they would be lightened. At last she burst into tears; they were the more welcome, since tears with her were rare. She flung herself on the sofa, and gave herself up unreservedly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... shine: we have our own happiness to rejoice in, our own sorrows to bear, the suffering that is near to us to grapple with. For the rest, for this blackness of evil which surrounds us, and which we can do nothing to lighten, it will soon, thank God, become vague and far off to you as it is to others: your feeling of it will be dulled, and, except at moments, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... generals" and their smart escorts and busy staffs: Saw the various columns impeding each other, taking wrong ways and losing priceless hours while thousands of inexperienced boys, footsore, drenched and shivering yet keen for the fight, ate their five-days' food in one, or threw it away to lighten the march, and toiled on in hunger, mud, cold and rain, without the note of a horn or drum or the distant eye of one blue scout ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... Corps in front of Gaza, had been given the task of attracting enemy reserves to that neighbourhood, thus to lighten the task of the troops on the right of the line, in the capture of Beersheba. On October 27th, a bombardment of the elaborate Gaza defences had been commenced, assisted by the Navy, and on the night of November 1st-2nd, "Umbrella Hill" was captured, ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... to the N.E., and best bower to the S.W.; the entrance of the bay bearing S. by E., and S. 3/4 E.; and the ostrog N., 1/4 E., distant one mile and a half. The next morning the casks and cables were got upon the quarter-deck, in order to lighten the ship forward; and the carpenters were set to work to stop the leak, which had given us so much trouble daring our last run. It was found to have been occasioned by the falling of some sheathing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... had put his name there. It was to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city set on a hill, which could not be hid. From Jerusalem was to go forth to all nations the knowledge of the one true God, as a light to lighten the Gentiles, as well as a glory ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... of no other crime than this accidental one, which fate, and not my own will and trespass, imposes on me. Love allows itself neither to be given nor taken, and when it cannot command fortune, it can at least lighten misfortune. More I cannot tell you, my brother, and what is the use of words? Only depend on what I assure you, I will never be faithless to my honor nor my love. You may think," continued she, proudly and ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... nation. But a strange tribe has come among them—men whose skin is white as the folds of the cloud, and whose hair shines like the great star of day. They do not fight as we fight, with bows and arrows and with war-axes, but with spears which thunder and lighten, and send unseen death. The Shawanos fall before it as the berries and acorns fall when the forest is shaken by the wind in the beaver-moon. Look at the arm nearest my heart. It was stricken by a bolt from the strangers' thunder; but he fell by the hands of the Head Buffalo, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... message has reached me safely here in this accursed Holy House, where we lighten heretics of their sins to the benefit of their souls, and of their goods to the ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... beauty of his character, or the depths of his sympathy for the erring, or the tremendous efforts that he has made, and is still making, for the laboring poor. You can't know this, or else I'd tell you, Miss Brooke, what you would be doing! You would be working heart and soul to lighten his burdens and relieve him of the incessant drudgery that interferes with his higher work, instead of sitting here day after day reading yellow-backed novels in ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... as always, from the tendency that makes the wish the father to the thought; or, in other words, we not infrequently shovel the unpalatable overboard, that we may lighten the ship, and ride out this or that squall without quite so much strain upon the sheet-anchor aforesaid. The majority of mankind believe, and will continue to believe, most staunchly in what they wish to believe. Yet this tendency on our part—visible ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... work began, when such a practice has not prevailed in a large portion, probably in the largest portion, of the world's work fields. As civilization has made its progress, it has been the duty and delight, as it has also been the interest of the men at the top of affairs, not to lighten the work of the men below, but so to teach them that they should recognize the necessity of working without coercion. Emancipation of serfs and thrals, of bondsmen and slaves, has always meant this—that men having been so taught, should ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... Even the carrying of heavy burdens on the head cannot be given up; woe to any one who suggests substituting the carrying of a basket! A laughable incident is told of a European gentleman who employed a number of men to carry sand; thinking to lighten their labor, he purchased wheelbarrows, but on visiting the scene of action a week later, he found the men with the barrows on their heads! No doubt, the reply to his protest was, ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... sky was just beginning to lighten a little when the boys got up and dressed, collected what cold food they could find, and, leaving a note where the captain could not fail to find it, stole down to the canoe ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to lighten as she progressed, and had entirely cleared when he learned why he had been sent for. He had been afraid, when he received her note, that it had been about the mortgage. Cobb was chairman of the Loan Committee at the bank, had personally called attention to Richard's ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... help her,' quoth good-natured Andy, whose native gallantry would not permit him to witness a woman's toil without trying to lighten it. 'Of all the ould lazy-boots I ever see, ye're the biggest,' apostrophizing the silent stoical Indians as he passed where they lounged; 'ye've a good right to be ashamed of yerselves, so ye have, for a set of ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... hills like eggs from a nest." But when they were dug up, they had to be carried to the beach; and to this part of the business the lazy adventurers had a special dislike, although Zeke kindly provided them, to lighten their toil, with what he called the barrel machine—a sort of rural sedan, in which the servants carried their loads with comparative ease, whilst their employers sweated under shouldered hampers. But no alleviation could reconcile ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... shall my darling read it; Now she cannot understand All the noble thoughts, that lighten Through the genius of the land. I am proud to be his brother, Proud to think that hope was true; Though I longed and strove so vainly, What I failed in, ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... amount of time is spent in preparing food! The brothers who take turns in that work have not even time to pray"—and desiring to lighten the work of those who should succeed him in the kitchen, he determined to cook such plentiful dishes that the community might dine on them ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... rebellious States, and to devote the proceeds of their sale to actual settlers to the payment of the national debt, is worth consideration. Texas alone, on whose public lands our assumption of her indebtedness gives us an equitable claim, would suffice to secure our liabilities and to lighten our taxation, and in all cases of land granted to freedmen no title should vest till a fair price had been paid,—a principle no less essential to their true interests than our own. That these people, who are to be the peasantry of the future Southern States, should be made landholders, is the ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... be more attractive to our hearts if He did not forgive our sins fully and freely, or if forgiveness was not offered through such Divine self-sacrifice? Would it be a relief to our moral being to be freed from the privilege or duty of supremely loving Jesus Christ? Would it lighten our hearts to be freed from the burden of having communion with Him in prayer? Would we have more security for light, life, strength, holiness, peace, or comfort, if there was no such Person revealed as the Spirit of God, who freely imparts His ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... here, lies in the nature of the trade. In the first place, Preston is almost purely a cotton town. There are two or three flax mills, and two or three ironworks, of no great extent; but, upon the whole, there is hardly any variety of employment there to lighten the disaster which has befallen its one absorbing occupation. There is comparatively little weaving in Preston; it is a town mostly engaged in spinning. The cotton used there is nearly all what is called "Middling American," the very kind which is now most scarce ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... law Of Egypt, where the men keep house and weave Sitting within doors, while the wives abroad Provide with ceaseless toil the means of life. So in your case, my daughters, they who should Have ta'en this burden on them, bide at home Like maidens, while ye take their place, and lighten My miseries by your toil. Antigone, E'er since her childhood ended, and her frame Was firmly knit, with ceaseless ministry Still tends upon the old man's wandering, Oft in the forest ranging up and down Fasting and barefoot through ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... join'd the treasures sweet and gay In garden or in wild-wood grown, To blooming beauty all her own. 'I hoped,' he cried, 'Before your eyes I should have died; But, ah! too deeply I have won your hate; Nor should it be surprising news To me, that you should now refuse To lighten thus my cruel fate. My sire, when I shall be no more, Is charged to lay your feet before The heritage your heart neglected. With this my pasturage shall be connected, My trusty dog, and all that he protected; And, of my goods which then remain, My mourning ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... the cavalry. Horse and foot mingled together in the desperate struggle across the Xenil, and many were trampled down and perished beneath the waves. Don Alonso and his band continued to harass them until they crossed the frontier, and every blow struck home to the Moors seemed to lighten the load of humiliation and sorrow which had ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... was slow to cool: and with wistful eyes we watched the sun by day, and Venus and the moon by night, sink down into the gulf, to lighten lands which we should never see. A few days more, and we were steaming out to the Bocas—which we had begun to love as the gates of a new home—heaped with presents to the last minute, some of them from persons we hardly knew. Behind us ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... restricted space which it offered for the full expansion of the theme. Mr. Asquith excels in swift and rapid flights, but even for him the Victorian Age is too broad a province to be explored within one hour. He endeavoured to lighten his task by excluding theology and politics, and indeed but for such self-denial he could scarcely have moved at all in so dense an air. He was able, however, having thrown out so much formidable ballast, to rise above his subject, and ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the dreary heath, I gave vent to countless tears, which seemed to lighten my bosom of its intolerable weight. But I saw no bounds, no outlet, no term to my terrible misery, and with wild impatience I sucked in the poison which the mysterious being had poured into my wounds. When I recalled the image of Mina, her soft ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... conversation during those hours of elemental strife, though the thoughts of each were busy enough. At last the thunder ceased, or, rather, retired as if in growling defiance of the world which it had failed to destroy. Then the sky began to lighten a little, and although the wind did not materially abate in force it became more steady and equal. Before noon, however, it had subsided so much that Moses suggested the propriety of continuing the ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... cross with all their armament, which could with difficulty keep its order through so long a voyage, and would be easy for us to attack as it came on slowly and in small detachments. On the other hand, if they were to lighten their vessels, and draw together their fast sailers and with these attack us, we could either fall upon them when they were wearied with rowing, or if we did not choose to do so, we could retire to Tarentum; while they, having crossed ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... 1582 Shakespeare, when little more than eighteen and a half years old, took a step which was little calculated to lighten his father's anxieties. He married. His wife, according to the inscription on her tombstone, was his senior by eight years. Rowe states that she 'was the daughter of one Hathaway, said to have been a substantial yeoman ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... morning lighten the sky, the men hurry and sling the camp kettles across the pack horses, tie the littlest children to the horses backs and get on the move farther into the mountains. They kept moving fast as they could, but the wagons made it mighty slow in the brush and the lowland swamps, ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... captive spirit began to feel its burden lighten under such discourse. God a God of love! Piety a life of love! Salvation by loving trust in a God already reconciled in Christ! This was a new revelation. It brought the sorrowing young Luther to the study of the Scriptures with a new object of search. He read ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... I shall have a dedication; I am going to dedicate 'em to Cummy; it will please her, and lighten a little my burthen of ingratitude. A low affair ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... great natural trade advantages. We should withdraw the support which is given to the railroads and steamship lines of Canada by a traffic that properly belongs to us and no longer furnish the earnings which lighten the otherwise crushing weight of the enormous public subsidies that have been given to them. The subject of the power of the Treasury to deal with this matter without further legislation has been under consideration, but circumstances have postponed a conclusion. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... thing for Carson Chalmers to play the Caliph. But on that night he felt the inefficacy of conventional antidotes to melancholy. Something wanton and egregious, something high-flavored and Arabian, he must have to lighten his mood. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... so terrible! Also. one could not see where danger might be coming from! You might be torn in pieces, carried off, or swallowed up, without even seeing where to strike a blow! Every possible excuse he caught at, eager as a self-lover to lighten his self-contempt. That day he astonished the huntsmen—terrified them with his reckless darings—all to prove to himself he was no coward. But nothing eased his shame. One thing only had hope in it—the resolve to encounter the dark in solemn earnest, now ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... thereof. All this glorious earth, with its trees and its flowers, its sunbeams and its storms, is MINE. I made it—I can do what I will with it. All the mysterious laws by which the light and the heat flow out for ever from God's throne, to lighten the sun, and the moon, and the stars of heaven—they are mine. I am the light of the world—the light of men's bodies as well of their souls; and here is my proof of it. Look at Me. I am He that "decketh Himself with light ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... friends on the Uhlenhorst did not tend to lighten his spirit. In their home he breathed a pure and wholesome atmosphere, which, it seemed to him, he must contaminate by the heavy, noxious perfume which still clung to him, and which he could not get rid of. Their life was as transparent as crystal, every ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... fear for their loved ones is added the dread of hunger. Tens of thousands of wounded and mutilated warriors will soon be added to these. We consider it our most compelling duty to help them, to lighten their burdens and relieve their distress.[77] ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... long time the east began to lighten; a deepening glow rimmed West Hill, picking out in silver the trees along its edge. If she meant to come she must come soon, he thought, but the rising moon distinctly showed the bare stile. She had written a long time ago. She was notoriously ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... his path—God alone knows how many haversacks and how many sets of equipment have been swallowed up by the mud on the plain of Flanders, part of the equipment of the wounded that has been thrown aside to lighten the burden—and when he scrambles to his feet again he is a mass of mud, his rifle barrel is choked with it, it is in his hair, down his neck, everywhere. He staggers on, thankful only that he did not fall into a shell hole, ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... at his side. Perhaps she would not go, after all. He was borrowing, and borrowing supposition. The thought seemed to lighten his ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... face burned and his eyes smoldered with a fever only half sane. At times cold sweat stood on his temples and he trembled, with every muscle lax and inert. As dawn began to lighten the eastern sky-line no man could say—and least of all himself—which counsel would in the ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... present from a commercial traveller in the way of business. Not liking whiskey myself, it was no sacrifice for me to reserve it for the occasional comfort of Mrs. Peedles, when, breathless, with her hands to her side, she would sink upon the chair nearest to my door. Her poor, washed-out face would lighten at the suggestion. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... censorship unchecked? That again was simple. My letters were those which a friend in freedom in England would write to his friend who was a captive in Holland. They were personal, sympathetic, no more. The books and magazines were just those which such a man as my friend would desire to have to lighten the burden of idleness. Between the lines of my letters, and on the white margins of the books and papers, I wrote the vital information which my country desired to have, and I desired to give. The ink which I used for this purpose left no trace and could not be made visible by any ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... determined to arrange his affairs with all possible promptitude, and then to hasten up, and entreat her to share his diminished fortunes. But he would not go without whispering hope, without leaving some soft thought to lighten her lonely hours. He caught her in his arms; he covered her sweet small mouth with kisses, and whispered, in the ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... other good fairies consulted amongst themselves how they could lighten this great sorrow, so they turned to the Queen and said: 'Madam, it is not possible to undo the evil that the fairy Magotine has put upon your child, but we will wish for her something that will help to balance that evil.' And then they told the ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... not merely one of contrast, but on their parts one of witness and example. The metaphor of light needs no explanation. We need only note that the word, 'are seen' or 'appear,' is indicative, a statement of fact, not imperative, a command. As the stars lighten the darkness with their myriad lucid points, so in the divine ideal Christian men are to be as twinkling lights in the abyss of darkness. Their light rays forth without effort, being an involuntary efflux. Possibly ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... deprived of all his pensions and appointments, including the Laureateship, in which he was succeeded by his old enemy Shadwell. His latter years were passed in comparative poverty, although the Earl of Dorset and other old friends contributed by their liberality to lighten his cares. In these circumstances he turned again to the drama, which, however, was no longer what it had been as a source of income. To this period belong Don Sebastian, and his last play, Love Triumphant. A new mine, however, was beginning to be opened up in the demand for translations which ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... from without, and pressing them earthwards. She had learned but not yet sufficiently learned that, until a man has begun to throw off the weights that hold him down, it is a wrong done him to attempt to lighten those weights. Why seek a better situation for the man whose increase of wages will only go into the pocket of the brewer or distiller? While the tree is evil, its fruit ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... upon the reef, but to get off was another matter, especially with a falling tide. The motor churned the water, but at first seemed to make no impression. Even when all the boys went aft, so as to lighten the bow, there ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... is poor, when a light ploughing in September will do. Either let the land lie fallow every other year or else let spelt follow pulse, vetches or lupine. Repetition of one crop exhausts the ground; rotation will lighten the strain, only the exhausted soil must be copiously dressed with manure or ashes. It often does good to burn the stubble on the ground. Harrow down the clods, level the ridges by cross ploughing, work the land thoroughly. Irrigation benefits a sandy soil, draining a marshy soil. It is well ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... as if the little craft must fall a prey to her huge pursuer, which had come up within a mile, and was firing great shot at the scudding sloop-of-war. Overboard went cables, guns, spars, shot, every thing that would lighten the "Hornet." The sails were wet down, and every thing that would draw was set. By consummate skill Biddle at last succeeded in evading his pursuer; and on the 9th of June the "Hornet" entered New York Bay, without a boat or anchor, and with but one gun left. But she brought the report that ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... author of infinite woe! For this was the fantastic fact. At bottom her money had been a burden, had been on her mind, which was filled with the desire to transfer the weight of it to some other conscience, to some more prepared receptacle. What would lighten her own conscience more effectually than to make it over to the man with the best taste in the world? Unless she should have given it to a hospital there would have been nothing better she could do with it; and there was no charitable institution in which she had been as much interested as ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... matter whatever I happen to have, I have it; and what I have not Seems all that is good of the good things of earth To lighten the lack of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... all blessing This changing world bestows, That soul in truth possessing Pity for others' woes; Ready to move and lighten The load affliction bears— Want's face with joy to brighten, In deed, ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... true food-current is not difficult if one will adopt it The trouble is in making the bold plunge. If anything is eaten that is afterwards deemed to have been imprudent, let it disagree. Take the full consequences and bear them like a man, with whatever remedies are found to lighten the painful result. Having made sure through bitter experience that a particular food disagrees, simply do not take it again, and think nothing about it. It does not exist for you. A nervous resistance to any sort of indigestion prolongs the attack and leaves, a brain-impression ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... unsparingly to all animals and living beings. Another cell, called the principal one, from below, is also inhabited, and so dark that, let the sun be as brilliant as possible, six lights will not suffice to lighten it, being twenty steps below the surface of the ground. Such, sir, has been the habitations of your prisoners, not for the space of a few days, but for eighteen, twenty, and twenty-three months; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... imagined that it was but a month's journey; while at sight of every town or castle the children exclaimed, "Is that Jerusalem? Is that the city?"[3] Parties of knights and nobles might be seen travelling eastward, and amusing themselves as they went with the knightly diversion of hawking, to lighten ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the conviction of the relative insignificance of all that can change. That will not spoil nor shade any real joy; rather it will add to it poignancy that prevents it from cloying or from becoming the enemy of our souls. But the thought will wondrously lighten the burden that we have to carry, and the tasks which we have to perform. 'But for a moment,' makes all light. There was an old rabbi, long ago, whose real name was all but lost, because everybody nick-named him 'Rabbi Thisalso.' The reason was because he had perpetually on his ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... that would, Mogue, but you see, as I'm out for a while, an' so near my poor mother's, throth I'll slip over and see how she is, the crature; only for that, Mogue, I'd lighten you of the shootin' things wid ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... so sunken. Of course there is the loss of our mother, but that is not the only trouble. I think he has another, and I think also, Polly, that he had this other trouble before mother died, and that she helped him to bear it, and made plans to lighten it for him. You remember what one of her plans was, and how we weren't any of us too well pleased. But I have been thinking lately, since I began to guess father's trouble, that we ought to carry it out just the same as if our mother ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... not such as to lighten the heavy heart, yet will I sing if it pleases thee,' she answered; and she rose and went a few paces to a table whereon lay an instrument not unlike a zither, and struck ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... tend in no small degree to lighten any present evil if a man turn his mind to the evils to come. These are so many, so diverse, and so great, that out of them has arisen one of the strongest emotions of the soul; namely, fear. For fear has been defined ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... is the resumption of our onward, normal way. Reconstruction, readjustment, restoration all these must follow. I would like to hasten them. If it will lighten the spirit and add to the resolution with which we take up the task, let me repeat for our Nation, we shall give no people just cause to make war upon us; we hold no national prejudices; we entertain no spirit of revenge; we do not hate; we do not covet; we dream of no conquest, ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... deck, with a crash on a sunken rock. Soundings taken all round showed her to be on the very edge of a coral reef. Making but little water, an attempt was made to warp her off, but unsuccessfully. Steps were then taken to lighten her; decayed stores, oil jars, staves, casks, ballast, and her six quarter-deck guns were thrown overboard, some forty to fifty tons, but with no effect. The tide now rising, the leaks increased rapidly, two pumps being kept constantly ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... following the incidents I here related, in company with Edmonds and Scoggins, I left the settlement for Fort Towson—about one hundred and fifty miles east. Our object was to play cards with the officers at the fort, and lighten them of some of their change. We also expected to fall in with some of the half-bred Choctaws, who are not inexpert in the shuffle. Edmonds and Scoggins were ordinary players, and depended on my ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... her trembling hands in his own, as though he would lighten the blow by the warmth and touch ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... Diana said to Emma; who answered: 'A metaphor is the Deus ex machine, of an argument'; and Whitmonby, to lighten a shadow of heaviness, related allusively an anecdote of the Law Courts. Sullivan Smith begged permission to 'black cap' it with Judge FitzGerald's sentence upon a convicted criminal: 'Your plot was perfect but for One above.' Dacier cited an execrable impromptu line of the Chief of the Opposition ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... catch in his voice. "Oh, my luck! ... I'll wait, Lucy, every day—hopin' an' prayin' that this trouble will lighten. An' I'll wait at ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... that jewel which proudly shines, and quote from his splendid sonnets (I know maybe twenty lines); but when I am home John Milton is left on the bookcase shelf; he's rather too dull for reading—you know how it is yourself; to lighten the weight of sorrow that over my spirit hangs, I dig up the works of Irwin or ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... and the anguish thereafter. Here as I sit alone I'd give the life I have left me to lighten some load of care: (The bitterest part of the bitter is being denied to atone; Lips that have mocked at Heaven lend ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... there when Mr. Carmyle swung round with a frown on his dark face which seemed to say that he had not found the janitor's conversation entertaining. The sight of Ginger plainly did nothing to lighten ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... some instruments of his own manufacture, Drebbel could make it rain, lighten, and thunder at every time of the year, so that you would have sworn it came in ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... about in pursuance of the arrangement, and in accomplishment of the deep-laid designs of Zeus. For Zeus, remarking with pain the immoderate numbers of the then existing heroic race, pitied the earth for the overwhelming burden which she was compelled to bear, and determined to lighten it by exciting a destructive and long-continued war. Paris awarded the palm of beauty to Aphrodite, who promised him in recompense the possession of Helen, wife of the Spartan Menelaus,—the daughter of Zeus and the fairest of living women. At the instance of Aphrodite, ships were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... not too great to be overcome by a really extravagant woman, who jumps with joy at a basket of strawberries at a guinea an ounce, and who would not give a straw for green peas later in the year than January; while such a dame would lighten the bags of a loan-monger, or shorten the rent-roll of half-a-dozen peerages amalgamated into one possession, she would, with very little study and application of her talent, send a nobleman of ordinary estate to the poor-house or the pension list, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... the fish-hooks and other things out of the boat to lighten her or we might have perished; but we managed with the hooks to catch an abundance of fish to supply our wants. We had to eat them raw, but that was nothing. Why, once upon a time, I paid a visit to one of the South Sea Islands, where the king, queen, and all the court devour live fish; ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... composition. In this version it is divided into two portions, the first dealing with the birth of Apollo, and the foundation of his shrine in the isle of Delos; the second concerned with the establishment of his Oracle and fane at Delphi. The division is made merely to lighten the considerable strain on the attention of the English reader. I have no pretensions to decide whether the second portion was by the author of the first, or is an imitation by another hand, or is contemporary, or a later addition, or a mere compilation ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... patiently and so long—you are almost called upon to say you are ready. It would simplify matters very much, if you were to walk up to church wi' her one of these mornings, get the thing done, and go on liven here as we are. If you don't I must get a house all the sooner. It would lighten my mind, too, about the two little freeholds over the hill—not a morsel a-piece, divided as they were between her mother and me, but a tidy bit tied together again. Just think about it, ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... you, first of all, to indulge in the warm Beverage; for indeed it will dry the hideous flow of moisture Which oppresses your limbs, and sends forth streams of perspiration from your whole body. And in a short time, the swelling of your fat belly will Gradually begin to decrease, and it will lighten your members, now oppressed by their ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... what seemeth, the image of living, the shadow of life; Praise him who made what is, and hath made it eternal for ever and ever, Who made the days and nights, and created the darkness to follow the light, Who made the day of life, that should rise up and lighten ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... spare little man, to all appearance most disinterested and humble, but in reality consumed by all the thirst of ambition. At the outset he kept in his place, serving the parish priest of Lourdes like a faithful subordinate, attending to matters of all kinds in order to lighten the other's work, and acquiring information on every possible subject in his desire to render himself indispensable. He must soon have realised what a rich farm the Grotto was destined to become, and what a colossal revenue might be derived from it, if only a little ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... counterpart—for all the types of Fairy-land life are of an epicene nature, admitting of a feminine as well as a masculine development—the heroine who in the Skazkas, as well as in other folk-tales, braves the wrath of female demons in quest of means whereby to lighten the darkness of her home, or rescues her bewitched brothers from the thraldom of an enchantress, or liberates her captive husband ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... they were at the top of the mountain, there was nothing to be seen. But soon the sky in the east began to lighten and grow pink, then the fog that lay below them began to melt away, and, as the sun rose, they saw the full ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... either religious or humanitarian or both, obtained leave to visit prisons, talk with the inmates, give them religious exhortations, supply them with some forms of entertainment, and in other ways try to lighten the burden of their penal slavery. These persons deserve great credit. It was not so much the exhortations or entertainments that did good, as the idea thereby aroused in convicts that somebody cared for them. Between, them and the community there was ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... young lady visitor is stopping at So-and-so's. The district incontinently throws itself at her feet, and worships Beauty in her person. Each of the few married ladies round invites the stranger to come and stop with her, after a bit, and to lighten her heavy load of solitude, and her craving for a companion of her own sex. And Miss Ada finds it impossible to refuse these invitations; and so the district entraps her, and keeps ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... now singing to beguile the hours and lighten her task; and although not accompanied by any music, her silvery voice sounded sweet ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... oppresses me, like a heavy robe thrown round weakened limbs: it is even an additional misfortune, for if I were poor, I should be obliged to think of other things beside myself and my woes; sand the very mental exertion necessary to sustain my position would lighten my miseries. I have seen my daughter wasting year by year and day by day, under the warm sky of the south—under the warm care of love! Neither climate nor affection could save her: every effort was made—the best advice procured—the latest panacea adopted; but to no effect. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... that Elfreda is going to lighten our labors and make our tasks merry," smiled Mrs. Gray. "What a joy and a diversion you ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... pour in, and she often says to the younger workers, "If I might but transfer them to you, how much good you could accomplish." Every mail brings also loving and appreciative letters which illuminate the whole day, take the sting out of the unkind ones and lighten the burdens never entirely lifted. The women who have come into the work in late years continually ask, "How have you borne it so long?" Sometimes when their own endurance ceases they write her that they will have to ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... for some means of recreation; for I saw no company, and was very lonesome. So I wrote on to New York, and through the agency of a kind friend, had my harp sent out to me here, the rest of my poor furniture being presented to that friend. Then did the divine charm of music lighten the burden of my sorrows. One circumstance rather discouraged me: I found that with the utmost industry I could not earn more than sufficient to pay my rent and other necessary expenses, although I lived ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... day's life in the laagers, there were multitudes of interesting incidents as only such a war produces, and although Sherman's saying that "War is hell" is as true now as it ever was, there was always a plenitude of amusing spectacles and events to lighten the burdens of the fighting burghers. There were the sad sides of warfare, as naturally there would be, but to these the men in the armies soon became hardened, and only the amusing scenes made any lasting impression upon their minds. It was strange that when a burgher during ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... throne. I said, "What nonsense! Here I am only a few miles from relatives. All the farmers on this road must know the Harris family. If I tell them who I am, they will certainly feel that I have the claim of a neighbor upon them."—But these deductions, admirable as they were, did not lighten my sky ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... very solemn service," said Miss Bradshaw; "I had no idea it was so solemn. Mr Benson seemed to speak as if he had a weight of care on his heart that God alone could relieve or lighten." ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... purple sea. The day was one of shadow and sunshine mingled, and from time to time, through passages of grey that lowered the glory of Estelle's sea garden, a sunburst came to set all glittering once more, to flash upon the river, lighten the masses of distant elm, and throw up the red roofs and grey church tower of ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... has now become mere matter of history, and where Bourrienne merely quotes the documents well enough known at this day, his possession of which forms part of the charges of his opponents, advantage has been taken to lighten the mass of the Memoirs. This has been done especially where they deal with what the writer did not himself see or hear, the part of the Memoirs which are of least valve and of which Marmont's opinion has just been ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... mother's hand I marvell'd at, And questioned her of each. And she lies there, My mother! ay, my mother now; O hair That once I play'd with in these halls! O eyes That for a moment knew me as I came, And lighten'd up, and trembled into love; The next were darkened by my hand! Ah me! Ye will not look upon me in that world. Yet thou, perchance, art happier, if thou go'st Into some land of wind and drifting leaves, To ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... preach and it is the truth. Now the gold has turned to a flaming red—thrilling almost to the point of pain. One must believe—and then face the chill grey of the coming night with the memory of it to lighten and interpret it. ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... the sacrifice of the aged may be found in a Breton custom of applying a heavy club to the head of old persons to lighten their death agonies, the clubs having been formerly used to kill them. They are kept in chapels, and are ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... shall we accompany them? Yes. The strange scenes and wild adventures through which we must pass, may lighten the toils, and perhaps repay us for the perils of the journey. Think not of the toils. Roses grow only upon thorns. From toil we learn to enjoy leisure. Regard not the perils. "From the nettle danger we pluck the flower safety." Security often ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... information he unbuttoned his great coat, and I observed a quantity of long feathers projected from an inside pocket. He thrust in his hand, and with great difficulty extricated a great fat capon. He then proceeded to lighten the other side of him, by dragging out just such another, and begged my acceptance of both. I sent them to a tavern, where they were dressed, and I with two or three friends, whom I invited to the feast, found them incomparably better than ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... on the flagship "San Luis." In the almiranta embarked another father, from Valencia, named father Fray Vicente Lidon. These vessels left the port of Cavite on August 4. They put back to the same port to lighten, and set sail again as heavily laden as before. They experienced no better voyage than the last ones had; for, besides putting back, they did not lack misfortunes. The flagship cut down its mast on the high sea, and was all but lost. The other vessel ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... responsibility are good for a child's own development; but every care, every toil, every atom of labor that is laid upon children beyond what is solely the best for their own character is intolerable and inexcusable oppression. Parents have no right to lighten their own burdens by imposing them upon the children. The poor things had nothing to do with being born. They came into the world without any volition of their own. Their existence began only to serve the pleasure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... the dim-leaved wilderness without, Full plainly he perceived it hemmed about With waves, an island of the middle sea, In watery barriers bound insuperably; And human habitation saw he none, Nor heard one bird a-singing in the sun To lighten the intolerable ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... Serpent to the Sandy Lake, it is again confined in a narrow space by the approach of its winding banks, and on the 26th we were some hours employed in traversing a series of shallow rapids, where it was necessary to lighten the canoes. Having missed the path through the woods, we walked two miles in the water upon sharp stones, from which some of us were incessantly slipping into deep holes, and floundering in vain for footing ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... resolves she ran down stairs, looking so blithe and bright that Phil cheered at the sight of her, and lost the long morning face he had got up with, while even Mrs. Watson caught the contagion, and became fairly hopeful and content. A little leaven of good-will and good heart in one often avails to lighten the ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... she had reached the house, and then, taking up his rifle, he noiselessly slipped through the bushes, down the knoll, and on under the dark trees to the edge of the grove. The sky was now turning from gray to blue; stars had begun to lighten the earlier blackness; and from the wide flat sweep before him blew a cool wind, fragrant with the breath of sage. Keeping close to the edge of the cottonwoods, he went swiftly and silently westward. The grove was long, and he had not reached the end when he heard something ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... bags, and in the greatest danger of being spoiled by the wet. They were obliged to throw some rope and the spare sails overboard, as well as all the clothes but what they wore, to lighten the boat; then the carpenter's tool-chest was cleared and the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... flood and ebb of the tide; but if once we could get her on an even keel, as soon as the water left her with the ebb of the tide, all we had to do was to pump her out, and then she would float again. To effect this, we had to lighten her as much as possible, by taking out of her her guns and stores of every description; then to get purchases on her from the shore, and assist the purchases with rafts under her bilge, so as to raise her again upon an even keel. On the second day after she filled, when the tide had run out, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... to incite by stretching forth her forefinger, when my bright-hued beautiful one is pleased to jest in manner light as (perchance) a solace for her heart ache, thus methinks she allays love's pressing heats! Would that in manner like, I were able with thee to sport and sad cares of mind to lighten! ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... in the cold gray light of the window, with a child in her lap, rose listlessly, and came toward him. Ah Fe instantly recognized Mrs. Tretherick; but not a muscle of his immobile face changed, nor did his slant eyes lighten as he met her own placidly. She evidently did not recognize him as she began to count the clothes. But the child, curiously examining him, suddenly ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... been reared in the country, knew that the Little People liked best to live in the hills and mountains. So to the mountains he went, making songs to lighten the long way. He made a song of running water, and of the wind in the trees, and of moonlight upon a grassy slope, and these he liked better than any songs he had ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... than that of any herdsman's wife upon the mountains. Here was neither music nor cards, scandal nor love-making; no news of the fashions, no visits from silk-mercers or jewellers, no Monsu to curl her hair and tempt her with new lotions, or so much as a strolling soothsayer or juggler to lighten the dullness of the long afternoons. The only visitors to the castle were the mendicant friars drawn thither by the Marchioness's pious repute; and though Donna Laura disdained not to call these to her chamber and question them ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... are wearing a yoke, will you slip from under it, instead of struggling with them to lighten it? There is hunger and misery in our streets, yet you say, 'I care not; I have my own sorrows; I will go away, if peradventure I can ease them.' The servants of God are struggling after a law of justice, peace and charity, that the hundred thousand citizens among whom you ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... so on, which were indispensable, she thought, to a girl who wanted to make herself respected on the continent, a girl alone, especially. And she loved to snub those damned parley-voos who dared to accost ladies. It seemed to lighten those days of visits to the agents, the very prospect of which gave her a headache in advance, because one had to think of everything, lithos, photographs, programs; and, if the agent wasn't in, ruin one's self in correspondence; and puff one's self in every way, rub ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... Duchess a kindness by intimating that she is not sufficient for any undertaking she puts her hand to, makes a mistake; and if I did not know it before, I know now that there are surer ways of pleasing her than by trying to lighten her labor when that labor consists in wearing herself out for the sake ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the remnants of our friendship I implore, confess," ordered Democrates, "and then Themistocles and I will strive to lighten if ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... such a press of sail, young Master," said the stubborn old mariner, who still kept a pace or two in his rear, "that I had to set every thing to hold way with you; but you now seem to be getting reasonable, and we may as well lighten the passage by a little profitable talk. You had nearly made the oldish lady believe the good ship 'Royal Caroline' was ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... grew apace in the lawyer's mind a singularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity to behold the features of the real Mr. Hyde. If he could but once set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... of a July sun, flitted restlessly in and out of the bungalow; and since Desmond would admit no one but the doctor to his wife's room, she found some measure of comfort in futile attempts to lighten Paul Wyndham's anxiety, and distract his thoughts; while the newly joined husband and wife, so strangely isolated in their moment of reunion, waited and hoped through the interminable hours, and snatched fugitive gleams of contentment from ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver |
