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Little by little   /lˈɪtəl baɪ lˈɪtəl/   Listen
Little by little

adverb
1.
A little bit at a time.  Synonyms: bit by bit, in stages, piecemeal.
2.
By a short distance.  Synonyms: by inches, by small degrees.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Little by little" Quotes from Famous Books



... themselves care nothing for their own real lives—men who hate life though they fear death. Go back and be the happier for having seen us, for having added a little hope to your struggle. Go on living while you may, striving, with whatsoever pain and labour needs must be, to build up little by little the new day of fellowship, and rest, ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... worn or burnt seats. The sketch explains itself. Such a tool is readily made; even the cutter could be turned and filed up to shape and then hardened at home. By lightly tapping in the taper cotter pin little by little, sufficient pressure is put on the cutter to make it an easy matter to completely re-face an old seat or form a new one. A T-wrench or "tommy" can be used to work the cutter spindle. The lower part of the latter ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman

... will be long before any houses will need to be built; the puzzle will be how to fill those that are left empty. I fear me he will find things hard for a while. But if he has a home with you, my children, and if we all give what help we can, I doubt not that little by little he may recover a part of what he has lost. He will be wise not to try so many different callings. If he had not had so many ventures afloat in these troubled times, he would not now ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... with which they perfumed their baths and sprinkled their clothes were in his nostrils; suffocatingly, as his Counsel went on pleading. The intention of his trenchant cross-questioning of Bough, who had lied from the beginning, like a true son of the Devil, his father, showed plainly now. Little by little the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... a curious though very natural circumstance that, the farther they advanced, Tartlet, perceiving no enemy, little by little lost his terror, and began to speak with scorn of "those cannibal laughing-stocks." Godfrey, on the contrary, became more anxious, and it was with greater precaution than ever that he crossed the open space and regained the shadow of the trees. Another hour led them to the ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... King William I. of Prussia, whose conservative, not to say retrograde sentiments made it difficult to picture him at the head of what was really a great revolutionary movement, in spite of the militarism that surrounded it. With consummate art, Count Bismarck little by little concentrated all his master's ideas about royal divinity in general into one overwhelming belief in his own divine right to be German Emperor, and so transformed an obstacle into the corner-stone of the edifice he wished to build. But this could hardly be foreseen. At the New Year's Day ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... and he thought and he thought and he thought, and little by little a plan worked out in his little black head. Then he chuckled. He chuckled right out loud, then hurriedly looked around to see if any one had heard him. No one had, so he chuckled again. He cocked his ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess

... reminding one of Jonathan's saying, "I have eaten a little honey, and therefore shall I die." But this death is serviceable, a dying away of pain. The "bittersweet" should have been the first experiment of that bold homoeopathy which rose, little by little, up to the most dangerous poisons. The slight irritation and the tingling which it causes might point it out as a remedy for the prevalent diseases of that time, those, namely, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... to fall, and several times he stopped long enough to take a refreshing dip in the pond; but he always hurried back, and pitched in again harder than ever. In fact, he sometimes went at it so impetuously that he slipped and rolled over on his back. Little by little he dug away the tree's flesh until there was nothing left but its heart, and at last it began to crack and rend. The Beaver jumped aside to get out of the way, and hundreds and hundreds of small, tender branches, and delicious little twigs and buds came crashing down ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert

... that brought cries of admiration even from her foes St. Eustace struggled gloriously to recover her lost water. Little by little the nose of her boat crept up and up, until it was almost abreast with Number Three's oar, while cries of encouragement from bridge and shore urged her on. But now Green, the Hillton coxswain, turned his head slightly, studied the position of the rival eight, glanced ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... the straggling houses outside the stockade, and so into the fields; and little by little he told me what was ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler

... overwhelmed. He causes commotions that threaten to engulf him, and must pause or retreat until they have calmed. You may have to watch him long before you discover that, where other strugglers have been aimless, he aims and resolves. And little by little he gains, makes progress toward his goal—and once in a long while one such reaches that ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... I let the reflectors remain stationary, first, for a minute, then twice for fifteen seconds each. This—a long, and two short arrestations—spelled the letter H. So, little by little, I wrote out with the lighthouse flash against the dark ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various

... threatened to be like the first. Chip sat by the window and smoked; but, little by little, the smoke took form and substance until, when he turned his eyes to the easel, a picture looked back at him—even though to other eyes the canvas ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... bright-colored kimona on the floor around her, and she has in her hand a blue and white china bottle placed in a tiny lacquer coaster, and you know the feast is really under way. She is followed by the older girls, and little by little one at a time and quite gradually the dancing girls come in and bow to the floor while they pour out the sake. They laugh at the ways of the foreigners who always forget it is the part of the guest to hold out his tiny cup for the poison. Everybody drinks to the health of everybody else ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... view and shot away. Dallas chose a tree that grew close to the steep bank. Here, in the narrow space between trunk and rooty wall, she ordered Charley to get down on all fours. Then, taking Marylyn upon her shoulders as before, and steadying herself with both hands, she stood on The Squaw's back. Little by little, bracing with legs and arms, he raised his load. Marylyn was now below a thick branch. By reaching up, and summoning the remnant of her strength, she was able to clasp it, to put a foot ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... disquieting arguments, he turns him loose in his library, begging him to use it as his own. The clergyman accepts the invitation. He soon is absorbed in the works of such writers as Strauss and Renan; and little by little their spirit becomes his own. Their eyes become his. Everything which orthodoxy demands in the way of the supernatural disappears. The sacraments become mummeries. Even Christ, in the ordinary sense, no longer lives. The clergyman is left in desolation. How, he asks, can the Church (by which ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... continued to love her, but little by little he grew to despise her also. When he made his first plunge, he had prided himself on indulging an heroic impulse. He was not going to deliver a good woman to dishonour because she seemed to be an obstacle ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... was thus distinctively an evolution. As the first Negroes were taken by pirates, the rights of ownership could not legally be given to those who purchased them; hence slavery by custom preceded slavery by statute. Little by little the colonies drifted into the sterner system. The transition was marked by such an act as that in Rhode Island, which in 1652 permitted a Negro to be bound for ten years. We have already referred to the Act of Assembly in Virginia in 1661 to the effect that ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... time for the natives' feeding, the men gathered about. Little by little the feeding had become a ritual, and they would often go out to watch it. It was always the same. Renner would step forward away from the others a little way, the load of food in his hands. The natives would come to ...
— Shepherd of the Planets • Alan Mattox

... rainfall. Occasionally the river will shorten itself a score of miles at a single leap. The shortening invariably takes place at one of its long sinuous curves for which it is so remarkable. At a season when the volume of water begins to increase, the narrow neck of the loop gives way little by little under the continuous impact of the strengthening current. Narrower and narrower it grows as the water ceaselessly cuts away the bank. Finally the barrier is broken; there is a tumultuous meeting of waters; the next steamboat that comes along goes through a new cut; and a moat or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... their conversation had been held by means of a thread. Indeed, they had come to talk so every night. At first it had been a few words only, and Silvia's unconsciousness and her sincerity in her intention to follow her mother's will had imposed silence on the young man. But little by little he had ventured, and she had understood; and within the last week there had been no concealments between them, though Silvia still resisted all his prayers to change her resolution and brave ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... with its padlock hanging on the hasp. Lazily he attempted to decipher the monogram on the cart's shining sides, but without success. Five minutes more passed, and still up and down drove the groom. Was its owner never coming? he thought. Surely it must be a woman to keep it waiting such a time. Little by little he became more interested in the vehicle, and incidentally in its mistress, and he found himself conjecturing as to what manner of person this was. Was she tall or short, fat or lean, good figure or bad. On the whole, he thought she must be "horsy." That probably expressed ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... forerunner of others, and by little and little I steadily went on, earning a few shillings now and a few shillings then, but, best of all, becoming known little by little here and there. ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... that the child shall little by little receive impressions so clearly that he will recognize them when they appear again, and that he shall, after a time, know these impressions by their names. It is nothing but play after all, but it is in this childish ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... social reformers. I shall be most careful not to alarm them with hints that I mean more than I say. Here arc certain interesting English books; let us see what they are about, who wrote them, and why they are deemed excellent. That is our position. These men must get on a friendly footing with me. Little by little I shall talk with them more familiarly, try to understand each one. Success depends upon my personal influence. I may find that it is inadequate, yet I have hope. Naturally, I have points of contact with the working ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... But little by little there came a change. The hood was left behind at Fort O'Glory, where it provoked the derision of the Methodist missionary who followed him; the sermon-case stayed at Fort O'Battle; and at last the surplice itself was put by at the Company's post ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... space, with no law-abiding talents or skills, I just wandered into one thing and another. In this age of technology I was completely out of place. Oh, I suppose I could have done well in some army, but I'm not so good at taking orders. Whenever I gambled I did well, so little by little I just drifted into it. People are the same everywhere, so I manage to make out well ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison

... of his cousin at her villa of Schifanoja, Andrea returned to life again in sight of the sea. The convalescent drew his breath in harmony with the deep, calm breath of the ocean; his mind was tranquillised by the serenity of the horizon. Little by little, in these hours of enforced idleness and retirement, his spirit expanded, bloomed out, erected itself slowly, like the grass trodden under foot on the pathway, and he returned to truth and simple faith, became natural and free of heart, open to the knowledge ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... in all directions, and the dignitaries of the sect held the ante-rooms and corridors, "in full fig," to receive the expected guest. But the evening passed, then midnight came, then morning, but alas! no Shiloh; and, little by little, the disappointed throngs dispersed! Poor Joanna, however, kept her bed, and finally, after many fresh paroxysms and prophecies, on the 27th of December, 1814, gave up the ghost—the indefatigable Sharp still declaring ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... Little by little this first dash relaxed, and presently he had resumed his sober gait and begun to piece together, out of the confused report of his senses, some theory of the occurrence. But the occasion of the sounds and stench that had so suddenly assailed him, and the strange conjunction of fugitives ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... answered their questions as well as she could. But as the time went on they grew to speak less of him. Bobbie had felt almost from the first that for some strange miserable reason these questions hurt Mother and made her sad. And little by little the others came to have this feeling, too, though they could not have ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit

... give Lady Morville the history of the manner in which the way had been opened up little by little, and the bag found at last. He then drew from his pocket a neatly-folded packet, and handed it to her ladyship, who, having opened ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... of the pole in the pit of his stomach, and lifted as hard as ever he could with both hands. His face grew red, his ears rang, but, after a first immovable resistance, to his great joy the tip of the bending, wriggling pole began to give. Slowly, little by little, he pulled up the fish, until he could make out the flash of its body darting to and fro far down in ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... everywhere; they have made the laws little by little, as gaps are repaired in a wall. Here eldest sons have taken all they could from younger sons, there younger sons share equally. Sometimes the Church has commanded the duel, sometimes she has anathematized it. The partisans and the ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... suspect that anyone else would take an interest in her. As the husband was often away and the daughter out giving music lessons Mr. Duffy had many opportunities of enjoying the lady's society. Neither he nor she had had any such adventure before and neither was conscious of any incongruity. Little by little he entangled his thoughts with hers. He lent her books, provided her with ideas, shared his intellectual life with ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... many games of chance. The streets are very narrow, changing their direction, it seemed to me, at every tenth step; and whatever landmark one may select at the start is soon shut from view by the high, dark houses. At first, I was quite astray, but little by little I regained the lost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... forces by which they are sustained and the uses to which they were put and the dangers against which they were designed have passed away. A state of gradual decline was what the average Englishman had come to associate with the House of Lords. Little by little, we might have expected, it would have ceased to take a controversial part in practical politics. Year by year it would have faded more completely into the past to which it belongs until, like Jack-in-the-Green or Punch-and-Judy, only a picturesque and ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... of the mneme revealed by Hering and Semon explain the apparent contradictions which have hitherto impaired the theories of heredity. Mnemic engraphy explains, by its infinitesimal and repeated action through numerous generations, how the external world may little by little transmit to the germinal cells the characters which it impresses on organisms. The eight hundred generations during which the prepuce of the Jews has been cut off have not yet sufficed for the ecphoria ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... been sold away little by little, until all that remained of it was garden and orchard. The house, a square brick structure, stood in the midst of a great garden which sloped toward the river, ending in a grassy bank which fell some forty feet to the water's edge. The garden was now little ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... Little by little the story was untangled, while the monkey still tenaciously clung to Peace's neck and wide-eyed Glen hung onto ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... had originally been administered returned with more or less severity, and under the idea that they indicated a relapse instead of being one of the characteristic actions of the drug itself, he resumed the dose. It gradually lost its power; little by little he was compelled to increase it; and having begun with 1/3 grain powders of which he took three per diem, he is now taking 18 grains of morphia per diem at the end of five ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... not make sure; sound is twisted around amazingly in fog, and little by little the calls grew fainter. I was tired out already, and my useless right arm ached with the hard usage it had lately received. In the next few minutes, while my chin sank lower and lower in the water, I thought of about ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... and the expression of his genuine astonishment at this conception was very gratifying to me. In later years, however, I found that he had spoken somewhat scoffingly about me; but I did not stop to reflect as to the truth of this information, or as to the real character of the man, for little by little I had had to accustom myself to the most inconceivable things. At Vienna the first thing I did was to call on Professor Fischhof, as I knew that he had in his keeping important manuscripts, chiefly by Beethoven, among which the original of the C minor Sonata, opus 111, I was particularly ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... to immensities still more profound, there to dream and hope and wait. For years I had done this,—for years I had worked and prayed, watching the pageant of poor human pride and vanity drift past me like shadows on the shore of a dead sea,— succeeding little by little in threading my way through the closest labyrinths of life, and finding out the beautiful reasons of living;—and every now and then,—as to-night,—I had felt myself on the verge of a discovery which in its divine simplicity should make all problems ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... Prolonged taciturnity had made her dumb; the darkness of her dwelling and the continual sight of the same objects had dulled her glance and given her eyes the limpidity of spring water. Absolute renunciation, slow physical and moral death, had little by little converted this crazy amorosa into a grave matron. When, as often happened, a blank stare came into her eyes, and she gazed before her without seeing anything, one could detect utter, internal void through those deep ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... glimpse of Kate's face, if by any chance she should be at her window, that this grain of gray matter, or lively red corpuscle—or whatever it might have been—forced itself through. The breaking away was slow—little by little—as an underground tunnel seeks an opening—but the light increased with every thought-stroke, its blinding intensity becoming so fierce at last that he came to a halt, his eyes on the ground, his whole body tense, his ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... In such a social whole, manners and customs are fixed. The newcomer is often fresh, ingenuous, and sometimes intrusive. Little by little he becomes socialized. Ways of action are fixed for him, and a range of performance comes to be his. In harmony with this range, suggestion is very fertile; but one learns after a time that there is ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson

... was a terrible shock to Sydney. For a time his remorse for his own conduct was very great, and it bore good fruit in a perceptible softening of his over-confident manner and a more distinct show of consideration for his mother and sister. Little by little he drew from Lettice the story of her past anxieties, of his father's efforts and privations, of his mother's suffering at the loss of luxuries to which she had always been accustomed—suffering silently borne because it was borne for Sydney. Lettice spared him as far ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... friend had laid on him in those last moments a heavy charge and had expressed herself almost as handsomely as if she had listened complacently to an assurance of his love. It was neither easy nor delightful thoroughly to understand her; but little by little her perfect meaning sank into his mind and soothed it with a sense of opportunity which somehow stifled his sense of loss. For, to begin with, she meant that she could love him in no degree or contingency, in no imaginable future. This was absolute—he knew he could no more alter ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James

... cold, and I am not sorry, but glad; for in my roots I feel warmth and life, and I know that a store of greenness and beauty is shut up safe in my small brown buds. Day and night go again and again; little by little the snow melts all away; the ground grows soft; the sky is blue; the little birds fly over, crying, "It is spring! it is spring!" Ah! then through all my twigs I ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant

... consent to the change of plan, Scott Brenton felt no doubt. Little by little, with his growth towards manhood, Scott had come to dominate his mother more than either of them realized. His very repression, his subordination in all his other relationships, helped towards this end. It was but a natural reaction from his servile position when away from home that, once ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... a physical release from tension that was like a new birth. She looked at her husband as she had not looked at him for years. And yet she knew every line and hollow of that rugged face. What she seemed not to have seen before, was what had grown up little by little, the expression of his face, the expression which gave his presence its significance, the expression which he had not inherited like his features, but which his life had ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... Betty tried to lead up gradually to the subject of rooms by telling about the two strange girls she had met in the hall. But it was no use; Helen preserved the same gentle, obtuse silence that had kept Betty from opening the subject before. Little by little her courage oozed out, and with the ringing of the ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... to be the bed of death. Little by little the shadow lifted from over the cottage—the shadow of the wings of the Angel of Death—and sunshine fell where the shadow had been, and a soft zephyr made music, that was like the music of the voice of "Ligeia," in the trees which dropped their sheath of ice. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... the same time, it was also evident that the balloon was again slowly descending with a regular movement. It appeared as if it were, little by little, collapsing, and that its case was lengthening and extending, passing from a spherical to an oval form. Towards midday the balloon was hovering above the sea at a height of only 2,000 feet. It contained ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... course, only little by little that the American people and their spokesmen have come to realise their own case under this late-modern situation, and hitherto only in an imperfect degree. Their first response to the stimulus has been a display of patriotic self-sufficiency ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... does not interest himself in the regulation of bridges, roads, the maintenance of the children at school, etc., nothing useful is done. In this interest and zeal, the father must not relax one instant, for the very moment in which the vigilance of the father rests, little by little all the good that he has done in the village disappears. The greater number of the Ilocan plains are crossed by irrigation canals, brought to completion by the initiative of the fathers, and preserved until now by the watchfulness ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various

... Time slipped by, and little by little his dead wife grew to be a tender, vague memory in the bookbinder's mind. One night he tried in vain to recall Clotilde's features; after this experience, he told himself that perhaps he might be able to discover the mother's lineaments in the child's face, and he was ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... ideal of behaviour by observing the conduct of the best of their class, and in proportion as this ideal gains acceptance, find themselves driven to adopt it for fear of the social ostracism which is the modern equivalent of excommunication. Little by little what was at first a rarely attained ideal becomes a part of good manners. It established itself as custom and finally becomes ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson

... across the back. After much wriggling, the Shrimp appears in a new soft skin. While the skin is still soft the Shrimp grows very quickly. Crustaceans have a funny way of growing, have they not? Instead of growing evenly, little by little, they grow by "fits and starts," a great deal in a few hours ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith

... OF WOMEN.—Furthermore, the moral relations existing between the married couple undergo unfortunate changes; this affection, founded upon reciprocal esteem, is little by little effaced by the repetition of an act which pollutes the marriage bed. If the good harmony of families and the reciprocal relations are seriously menaced by the invasion of these detestable practices, the health of women, as we have already ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... went by, thirty, a full hour. Little by little Seal Island sank behind them and the familiar outlines of Tarpaulin loomed clearer and higher. The increasing breeze, blowing against the ocean current, kicked up a lively chop, on which the dory danced skittishly. It took all Spurling's ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... furnishing an Empire room, the decorators have, little by little, led themselves to believe that what is known as Empire green is a distinct shade of green. On the contrary, green was used in the period of the Empire simply because it was in pleasing contrast with the mahogany and brass so much used. If the mahogany is dark, a dark ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford

... For, not to mince matters, I can tell that you are a stranger, and must come from a place very unlike England. But also it is clear that it won't do to overdose you with information about this place, and that you had best suck it in little by little. Further, I should take it as very kind in you if you would allow me to be the showman of our new world to you, since you have stumbled on me first. Though indeed it will be a mere kindness on your part, for almost anybody would ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... without having seen anything but sky and water, when one day we saw the rugged crest of a high mountain rising above a pile of thick gray clouds. It was the high hill of the island of St. Anthony, the most westerly of the Cape de Verd group. Little by little the low-lying clouds ascend like a drawn up curtain, and the whole island lay spread out, a living panorama, to our view. But alas! we passengers were not permitted to leave the ship, and as soon as we had taken in provisions and water, the anchor was lifted and ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... up, and fell into discourse with me. Something that fell from him made me distrust him from the first, and I acted with great caution. After sounding me for some time, he inquired if I had any berth. I told him, no. He then went on, little by little, until he got such answers as gave him confidence, when he let me into the secret of his real object. He said he belonged to the frigate, and had liberty until next morning—that he and four of his shipmates who were ashore, had determined ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it. Taxes upon such consumable goods as are articles of luxury are all finally paid by the consumer, and generally in a manner that is very convenient to him. He pays them little by little, as he has occasion to buy the goods. As he is at liberty, too, either to buy or not to buy, as he pleases, it must be his own fault if he ever suffers any considerable inconvenience from ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... Then, little by little, they carried their claim further. They were not only home. They were the setting of a dream, long forgotten but now vivid in his mind, and a refuge from the dreary present. That dream had seen Elizabeth enshrined ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... existence when he had money. For a time he stared without attraction; the weather-worn colours conveying no meaning to comprehension at a huge canvas poster depicting the chief his torpid eye. Then, little by little, the poster became more vivid to his consciousness. There was a greenish-tinted person in the tent, it seemed, who thrived ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... intention was well known is proved by the group that little by little gathered on the opposite side of the street. It is a matter of record that a small boy passing by was commandeered and sent with a message for Peter Wrightman, a deputy sheriff. Pete, out of breath, soon joined ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... certain hours of the day. Of this the people complained to the Rais, who sent me word to be careful. I replied, I was an utter stranger, and did not know what I was about; in fact, the Rais excused me to the people saying, "A little by little, The Christian will know to do all which is right. We must teach him." Indeed, I found the conduct of Mustapha from the first very kind, and he was determined no improper prejudices should get into the heads of the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... but the stabbing of a red-hot iron boring through his chest and cutting off his breathing. Some one would come every now and then and pour port wine and naphtha into his mouth; and morning and evening he was washed carefully with warm water by gentle hands. But little by little the room grew lighter, and his gruel began to have some taste. And at last he began to distinguish the people in the beds near by, ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... extemporized, yet follows the outlines of a written plan, placarded behind the scenes. It is something like the charades acted in society, the development of which depends on the talent contributed by the actors. It was with these that we began, but little by little the word of the charade disappeared. We acted wild saynetes, afterwards comedies of plot and intrigue, finally dramas ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... delicious. One might say that they seem to talk together; but they do not think as we think or dream as we dream—not even symbolically. It will be long ere you appreciate more than their fresh joy of existence. But, little by little one herb and flower after the other becomes individualized—they are artists living themselves out into hues and lines and parts of a tableau; the vine draws itself in an arabesque which is perfect because ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... regained consciousness. The first dim impression borne to his awakening mind was a confusion of savage sounds which gradually resolved themselves into the growling of lions, and then, little by little, there came back to him the recollections of what had preceded the blow that had ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... revealed to me, too, almost at once, the great inspiring fact that there is such a thing as beauty of thought—that there is poetry and art and literature. This, too, of course, came little by little, but do you wonder I loved a man who showed me a new world and who taught me I was not bad? He put good books into my hands, and to my grateful joy I found I liked these books better than the trash I ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, Germinie became profoundly religious and cared for nothing but the church. She abandoned herself little by little to the sweet delight of confession, to the priest's smooth, tranquil bass voice that came to her from the darkness, to the conversations which resembled the touch of soothing words, and from which she went forth refreshed, light of heart, free from care, and happy with a delightful ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... thousand dollars in gold! Her delight and her fright were unbounded; and, being a prudent old lady, she determined, in the first place, to leave the house, and next to bring in her treasure, poquito a poquito (little by little), to a room in Mexico, keeping the old house as a sort of bank. She did so; took a nice room, and instead of sleeping on a petate (mat), as she had hitherto done, bought herself a little bedstead, and even ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... forest with great labour, I made a spade to dig with. Then I wanted a pick-axe, but for long I could not think how I was to get one. At length I made use of crowbars from the wreck. These I heated in the fire, and, little by little, shaped them till I made a pick-axe, proper ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... instrument, when proximity will no longer be a hindrance to its performance, when, in fact, one will hear a man who is in the next block just as easily and comfortably as he would if that man were in San Francisco."] Mrs. Clemens, before I went there, took care of his desk, but little by little I began to look after it when she was busy at other things. Finally I took care of it altogether, but he didn't know it for a long time. One morning he caught me at it. "What are you doing ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... theatre the Federals made their way, little by little and at a heavy cost, to the Weldon railway, and beyond it to the westward. Lee's lines were becoming dangerously extended, but he could not allow the enemy to cut him off from the west. On the 25th of August there was a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... grasp. She is occupied with material things, and she is jealous of the ideal. The soul of man wanders through the uttermost regions of the universe, and she seeks to imprison it in the circle of her account-book. Do you remember my wife? I saw Blanche little by little trying all her tricks. With infinite patience she prepared to snare me and bind me. She wanted to bring me down to her level; she cared nothing for me, she only wanted me to be hers. She was willing to do everything in the world for me except ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... Little by little in the long-thinking nights, and the slow early mornings when light began to creep back through the papered windows of the studio, Tiki-pu's soul became too much for him. He who could strain paper, and grind colours, ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman

... of another, and that other Lucy Atherstone. Not for worlds would Maddy have wronged the gentle creature who wrote to her so confidingly of Guy, envying her in that she could so often see his face and hear his voice, while his betrothed was separated from him by many thousand miles. Little by little it had come out that Lucy's mother was averse to the match, that she had in her mind the case of an English lord, who would make her daughter "My Lady;" and this was the secret of her deferring so long her daughter's marriage. In her last letter to Maddy, ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... coming when Lafayette could begin to move the British army before him little by little down the York River toward Yorktown, a method of procedure that now became, as the British reports described it, the "constant and good policy of the enemy." On the 24th of September, 1781, Cornwallis proceeded to occupy Yorktown and to ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow

... alleged friend. But the fact was, that as people began to drop in about midnight, coming from receptions or the theatre, the play began to be very heavy, and one saw the gleam of gold in plenty. Then came bank-bills and notes of hand. Little by little I was carried away by the feverish and seductive passion, and lost all the money I had. I even went away missing a second sum, for which I had left my note behind me. In short, I ruined myself completely; and but for ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... busy with a work too great for her; till gradually the lovely country through which she was passing ceased to be lovely; it might have been a wilderness, for all its cheer or promise to her. Dolly had talked at first, in simple, gleeful, girlish pleasure; little by little her words grew fewer, her eye lost its glad life; until she sat back, withdrawn into herself, and spoke no ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... the room, whence, while he pretended to be looking over a few of my books and pictures, I was aware he was eyeing me closely, and gradually compelling me by sheer force of will to do a thing which I abhorred. And I—I struggled weakly against the temptation, but gradually, little by little, I yielded, and finally succumbed altogether. Springing to my feet, I rushed to the table, seized my pen, and signed my name ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... Hutten was scarcely less vivid. Little by little he began to see in the Pope of Rome a criminal greater that Professor Loetz, greater than Duke Ulrich, one who could devour not one cousin only, but the whole German people and nation. "For three hundred years," said he, "the Pope and the schoolmen have been covering the ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... it at that and Minnie prayed and Joseph watched; and the woman triumphed over her husband a good bit as time went on, for Teddy Pegram never looked back so far as could be seen, until, little by little, even Joseph felt that his spell in the jug had changed Teddy to a member of society a good bit out ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... great pioneer home with him; but Boone himself was given by Hamilton a horse and trappings, with silver trinkets to give to the Indians. At Little Chillicothe, Boone was kindly treated by Black Fish, and little by little his liberty was extended. June 16, while the family were making salt on the Scioto, preparatory to another expedition against Boonesborough, Boone escaped on the horse given him by Hamilton. After many curious adventures, in the course of which he swam the Ohio, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... gentle woman, and though she did not like Karl much at first, she took him in hand, and, little by little, obtained a great influence over the wild creature. As his fine poetic nature gradually revealed itself, she began to mother him. They were often seen walking out together, and as soon as the snow was firm, they ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... to Vassilissa. He was completely happy. His soul was aglow with bliss. Little by little he carried all his belongings, at any rate all his pipes, to Praskovia Ivanovna's, and for whole days together he sat in her back room. Praskovia Ivanovna charged him something for his dinner and drank his tea, consequently ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... endued with an infinite range of vision, and placed in that unknown center around which the entire world revolves, might have beheld myriads of atoms filling all space during the chaotic epoch of the universe. Little by little, as ages went on, a change took place; a general law of attraction manifested itself, to which the hitherto errant atoms became obedient: these atoms combined together chemically according to their affinities, formed themselves into molecules, and ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... in the rising sun but a series of tiny pink-tipped heights (the foremost portion of the Fukai islands). Soon, however, appeared all along the horizon, like a thick cloud, a dark veil over the waters, Japan itself; and little by little out of the dense shadow arose the sharp opaque outlines ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... remained the staple, but malted milk, chocolate, rice, and tea had come in, and little by little various things were added by which our menage quite resembled a hotel. The wounded were still being taken away by ambulance and wagon, assorted and picked over like fruit. Those who would bear transportation were taken away, the ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... of the strange bird-trap rose from the waters of the lake in a series of circular arches, formed of elastic branches bent to the needed shape, and covered with folds of fine network, making the roof. Little by little diminishing in size, the arches and their net-work followed the secret windings of the creek inland to its end. Built back round the arches, on their landward side, ran a wooden paling, high enough to hide a man kneeling behind it from the view of the birds on the lake. At certain intervals ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... me little by little. I came to like the life here, with its ease and its leisure, and the people, with their good-nature and their happy smiling faces. I began to think. I'd never had time to do that before. I ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... was the custom of the brethren of a certain house of his Order to go chanting in procession at midnight once in the year to his resting-place. But the way was long and dark; the weather often bleak and stormy. Little by little devotion cooled, and the friars fell away, till there remained but one old monk willing to go on this pilgrimage. As he went into the dark and the storm, the road among the woods and rocks grew luminous, ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... from the office, this moon, the favourite companion of my exile, will already have drifted a little farther from me, doubting whether she had been wise to lay her heart so completely bare last evening, and so covering it up again little by little. ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... began to set behind Corsica, whose mountains appeared against the sky, showing their rugged peaks in bold relief; this mass of rock, like the giant Adamastor, rose dead ahead, a formidable barrier, and intercepting the light that gilded its massive peaks so that the voyagers were in shadow. Little by little the shadow rose higher and seemed to drive before it the last rays of the expiring day; at last the reflection rested on the summit of the mountain, where it paused an instant, like the fiery crest of a volcano, then gloom gradually covered the summit as it had ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... little by little, we got into a long talk: in the course of which, I told who I was, and where I was from. I found these rustics a good-natured, jolly set; and I have no doubt they found me quite a sociable youth. They treated me to ale; and I treated them to ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... trimmed up a little. A dash of the same brine will help keep the ballast right, then a skysail-yard breakfast must be carefully stowed away, in order to give a firmness to the timbers, and on the strength of these two blocks for shoring up the hull, you must begin little by little, and keep on brightening up until you have got the craft all right again. And when you have got her right you must keep her right. I say, Tom!—it won't do. You must reef down, or the devil 'll seize the helm in one of these blows, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... the day every shade of blue could be distinguished. A thin, white cloud would appear towards evening, stretch like a skein of white silk across the sky, to gather as the day declined into one white cloud, which would disappear, little by little, into the sunset. As Owen rode at the head of his cavalcade he watched this cloud, growing smaller, and its diminishing often inspired the thought of a ship entering into a harbour, sail dropping ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... her sorrow needed mystery and solitude to make it increase, Maria Clara, on seeing herself observed, little by little stopped sighing and dried her eyes without saying anything or answering her aunt, who continued the reading. Since the wails of her audience had ceased, however, she lost her enthusiasm, and the last commandments made her so sleepy that she began to yawn, with great ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... it but to accept the challenge. Very delicately, with many preparatory words, to which the other listened in unbroken silence, Mr. Brock came little by little nearer and nearer to the point. Long before he had really reached it—long before a man of no more than ordinary sensibility would have felt what was coming—Ozias Midwinter stood still in the lane, and told the rector that he need say ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... By and by, little by little, she got strong and well again; her checks grew plump and rosy; her hair came out in little black, curls all over her head, and she was just the happiest little girl—as happy as you are when you climb on your ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... drew them away from his head, and he shivered. The tongue of flame leaping out of the night, the thunderous report, the deluge of fire that had filled his brain, all bore their meaning for him now. It had been a close call, so close that shivering chills ran up and down his spine as he struggled little by little to lift himself to his knees. His enemy's shot had grazed his head. A quarter of an inch more, an eighth of an inch even, and there would have been no awakening. He closed his eyes for a few moments, and when he opened them his vision had gained ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood

... submit to absence without complaint. Our former vows prolong themselves: here are still the same words; but they are dead. Soul is wanting in them. I love you is merely an expression of habit, a necessary form, the I have the honor to be of the love letter. Little by little the style freezes where it inflamed. The post day, no longer eagerly anticipated, is rather dreaded; writing has become a fatigue. We blush to think of the madnesses we have trusted to paper, and wish we could recall our letters and burn them. What has happened? Is it a new attachment which ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... flesh and blood of men, and they saw Shudendoji, a huge monster with the face of a little child. The six men offered him the wine which they had received from the mountain god, and he, laughing in his heart, drank and made merry, so that little by little the fumes of the wine got into his head, and he fell asleep. The heroes, themselves feigning sleep, watched for a moment when the devils were all off their guard to put on their armour and steal one by one into the demon's chamber. Then Yorimitsu, seeing ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... family very nearly without any theory whatever. She did it very much on the taking-for-granted system. She took for granted that her children were born with the same natural perceptions as herself; that they could recognize, little by little, as they grew into it, the principles of the moral world,—reason, right, propriety,—as they recognized, growing into them, the conditions of their outward living. She made her own life a consistent recognition of these, and ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... Little by little the steel lines crept over Jim's face again. "I shall not forget, little Pen. How sweet you are! How good! How less than a lump of dough I'd be if I didn't put up ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... could bind him. For amusement he would lie on his belly and allow several men to get on his back; with this human load he would rise to the erect position. One of Lapiada's great feats was to get under a cart loaded with hay and, forming an arch with his body, raise it from the ground, then little by little he would mount to his haunches, still holding the cart and hay. Lapiada terminated his Herculean existence in attempting a mighty effort. Having charged himself alone with the task of placing a heavy ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... and one-half pints beef stock; two tablespoonfuls cream; one egg; butter size of an egg. Put butter and flour in a saucepan, stir until smooth; add stock little by little; just before taking from the fire add the cream and egg well beaten together. Salt and pepper ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... their shoon again, and with the carle laid their hands to the bed whereon the old man lay, and lifted him up, and bore him forth on to the grass, turning their faces toward the flowery wood aforesaid; and they went a little way and then laid him down again and rested; and so on little by little, till they had brought him to the edge of the wood, and still he seemed to be asleep. Then the damsel who had spoken before, she with the dark hair, said to Hallblithe, "Although we have gazed on thee ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... after the two departed; but then the seven strangers who were left seated themselves in various attitudes, filled their pipes—or lit the stubs of half-smoked cigars, produced from their pockets; and after that, little by little, conversation was indulged in. ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter

... self-denial for Christ's sake and for His cross's sake will lay the foundation of a habit of self-denial; ere ever you are aware of what you are doing the habit will consolidate into a character; and what you begin little by little in the body will be made perfect in the soul; till what you did, almost against His command and altogether without His example, yet because you did it for His sake and in His service, will have placed you far up among those who have forsaken all, and themselves also, to follow Jesus Christ, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... Perrine made an effort to eat her dinner. Her mother continued to talk to her. Little by little she stopped crying and ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... Naples through six leagues of dust to visit them. In 1813 there were exactly four hundred and seventy-six laborers employed at Pompeii. The Bourbons returned and commenced by re-selling the ground that had been purchased under Murat; then, little by little, the work continued, at first with some activity, then fell off and slackened more and more until, from being neglected, they were altogether abandoned, and were resumed only once in a while in the presence ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... conduct the examination with order, beginning by that of objects the most simple, and therefore the easiest to be known, and ascending little by little up to knowledge of ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... said to be buried. It spread north and south in the course of time, and several large cities claimed to possess one or other of the limbs of his body. The various episodes in the life of the god were made the subject of solemn representations in the temple, and little by little the performance of the obligatory and non-obligatory services in connection with them occupied, in certain temples, the greater part of the time of the priests. The original ideas concerning the god were forgotten and ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... sees his trade united into a co-operative body in which all are equal; the gradualist, in whose mind lingers the leaven of doubt, frames for himself a hazy vision of a prolonged preparation for the future, of socialism achieved little by little, the citizens being trained as it goes on till they are to reach somehow or somewhere in cloud land the nirvana of the elimination of self; like indeed, they are, to the horse in the ancient fable that was being trained to live without food but died, ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... everything in this country was for some time strange to him. In addition to being his wife's right hand he took a leading part in all movements which might help to improve the education and conditions of life of the people. His fine training and sympathetic nature enabled him, little by little, to be the means of helping on important reforms. In addition to this, both he and his wife found time to work at drawing and music, which they studied together under the best masters. Throughout ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne

... out, and bade meat to be made ready. This she carried in, giving to each a little, and to each a little drink. When they had eaten, they had yet greater hunger than before. In this manner she fed them, little by little, ten times a day, for she deemed that should they eat to their desire, they would die of repletion. For this reason she caused them to break their fast temperately. Thus the good lady dealt with them for the first ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France

... weaving back and forth and from side to side and little by little, inch by inch, she could feel something giving way; she was not sure, yet, whether it was the tub, the paint or herself; but something was giving way. And at last, with one agonizing jerk, she broke away and arose to her feet. And then she ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... a little by little, some this year and others the next, in nearly every commune of the valleys there rose up commodious edifices, duly furnished with all the requisites of teaching. The change was immense from the narrow, confined, ill-ventilated, ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold

... from his excitement, and if we make him think we're asleep he's likely to relax his vigilance," mused Tad, as the two boys gradually leaned closer together, soon to all appearances being wrapped in sleep. Little by little ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin

... season is over, the birds travel sometimes in family groups and sometimes in large flocks, moving southward little by little, according to season and food-supply, some journeying as far as Mexico, others lingering through the middle and southern states. The Bluebirds that live in our orchards in summer are very unlikely to ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... hangings and dresses are all fading into one dull, heavy, uniform colour in the decline of the day, lights begin flashing, here and there: in the windows, on the housetops, in the balconies, in the carriages, in the hands of the foot-passengers: little by little: gradually, gradually: more and more: until the whole long street is one great glare and blaze of fire. Then, everybody present has but one engrossing object; that is, to extinguish other people's candles, and to keep his own alight; and everybody: man, woman, or child, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... dark; and then, if the painter is skilful enough in the management of the remaining lesser lights and darks, the eye will run through the gradations to the end, rebounding once more to the greater light and dark, exactly in the order intended by the painter; thus unfolding to the spectator little by little, quite as a plot of a novel is made clear, the story which the painter had in his own mind to tell. This is effected purely and entirely by the correct accentuations of the explanatory lights and darks. One mistake in the management—that ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith

... pitch our night-tent, and wait for me. Herndon assented, and we parted. The low fields around us changed, as I went on, to firm, hard, rising ground, that gradually became sandy and arid. The luxuriant vegetation that clung around the banks of the river seemed to be dried up little by little, until only a few dusty bushes and thorn-acacias studded in clumps a great, sandy, and rocky tract of country, which rolled monotonously back from the river border with a steadily increasing elevation. A sandy plain never gives me a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... statutory faith, by which the attainment of the goal of religious development is hindered and the laity are brought into dangerous dependence upon the clergy. Priestcraft, hypocrisy, and fanaticism enter in the train of fetich service. The church-faith is destined little by little to make itself superfluous. It has been necessary as a vehicle, as a means for the introduction and extension of the pure religion of morality, and it still remains useful for a time, until humanity shall become of age; with man's entrance on the ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... the woods an owl raised its soft, regular cry, while from a pond on the right ascended a faint croaking of frogs, so far away that it sounded like the vibration of crystal. And from the other side, the side of Paris, there came a growing rumble which, little by little, rose above all the other sounds of the night. She heard it, and at last lent ear to nothing else. It was the train, for whose familiar roar she waited every evening. As soon as it left Monval station on its way to Janville, it gave token of its coming, but so faintly that only a practised ear ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... watched, and listened, and laid to heart, and become like them,—oh, then I should have died of your look when at last you came! But I 'dreamed;' and in that long dream you, though you were overseas, you showed me, little by little, that the spirit is not bond, but free,—that it can walk the waves, and climb to the sunset and the stars. And I found that the woods were fair, that the earth was fair and kind as when I was a little child. And I grew to love and long for goodness. And, day by day, I have had a ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... young Empusae wait, in a state of torpor, for the return of the hot weather. Notwithstanding the shelter of a heap of stones, there must be painful moments when the frost is prolonged and the snow penetrates little by little into the best-protected crevices. No matter: hardier than they look, the refugees escape the dangers of the winter season. Sometimes, when the sun is strong, they venture out of their hiding-place and come to see if spring ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... end. When the pioneer invited his slave-holding neighbor to a "raising," it grated on his sense of the fitness of things to have the guest appear with gloves, directing the gang of slaves which he contributed to the function. [Footnote: Smedes, A Southern Planter, 67.] Little by little, therefore, the old pioneer life tended to retreat to the less desirable lands, leaving the slave-holder in possession of the rich "buck-shot" soils that spread over central Alabama and Mississippi and ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... Father, by all you said to me that great, great day; but I was not conscious of yielding to you; nor afterwards. Then, one night, I went to sleep in one mind; I woke up in another. The "grace of God," you think?—or the natural welling back of the river, little by little, to its natural bed? After all I never wilfully hurt or defied anybody before—that I can remember. But what are "grace" and "nature" more than words? There is a Life,—which our life perpetually touches and guesses at—like a child fingering ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... again. The mother gazed into his face in a rapture. But the priest's brow, at first jolly, little by little contracted with a ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of peroxide insoluble in nitric acid, but retaining a small quantity of ferric oxide. Suppose that we have a sample of steel or manganiferous cast-iron containing less than 7 per cent of manganese. Three grammes are treated in a small flask with 40 c. c. of nitric acid, of sp. gr. 1.20, added little by little. The liquid is stirred, and ultimately heated to complete solution. It is withdrawn from the fire, and 15 grammes potassium chlorate are added, and then 20 c. c. of nitric acid at sp. gr. 1.40. It is boiled for about fifteen minutes, until the escape of chlorine ceases; all the manganese ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various



Words linked to "Little by little" :   piecemeal



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