"Shorten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... waves, so that she could look into the cabin; but the ship got more and more way on, sail after sail was filled by the wind, the waves grew stronger, great clouds gathered, and it lightened in the distance. Oh, there was going to be a fearful storm! and soon the sailors had to shorten sail. The great ship rocked and rolled as she dashed over the angry sea, the black waves rose like mountains, high enough to overwhelm her, but she dived like a swan through them and rose again and again on their towering crests. ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Those who suffered most from it had their whole bodies covered with a white eruption: their eyes were red and inflamed, they trembled much, and could scarcely hold up their heads. This beverage does not shorten the lives of all who use it too freely, as Teraiopu, Kau, and several other chiefs addicted to it, were old men; but it brings on premature and diseased old age. Fortunately, this luxury is the exclusive privilege ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... a bit of a fool over this book. It catches me at every tender corner of my nature. It has aroused all the old ardent dreams of youth and springtime puissance. I cannot lay it down, and I cannot shorten it, for story, character, soul and reflection, imagination, observation are dragging me along after them. . . . This novel will make me or break me—prove me human and an artist, or an affected literary bore. If you want it you must take the risk. But, my dear Alden, you will be investing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... be able to see you before I go, but if I return, I hope to find you here well and happy. You must take good care of your mother and do everything she wants. You must not shorten your trip on account of our departure. Custis will be with her every day, and Mary is with her still. The servants seem attractive. Good-bye, my dear child. Remember me to all friends, ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... the marriage he had a violent quarrel with the baron and baroness and they decided to shorten their visit at Les Peuples. Jeanne was sorry but she did not grieve as before when her parents went away, for now all her hopes and thoughts ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... more. But they tell the tale That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef, The mackerel fishers shorten sail— For the signal they know will bring relief; For the voices of children, still at play In a phantom hulk that drifts alway Through channels ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... the physical conditions surrounding them. If they are kept in water or in proximity to water and in a moist atmosphere they have a tendency to lay their eggs earlier and a comparatively high temperature enhances the tendency to shorten the period of gestation. If the salamanders are kept in comparative dryness they show a tendency to lay their eggs rather late and a ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... know the source of our sorrows and feel the guilt of our sins, this does not make our burden lighter or shorten the path of our pilgrimage. We are confronted by the problem of labor and suffering as soon as we enter the world. No one is entirely exempted; and, strange as it is, we see that it frequently happens, that ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... from the earth. Will they learn all the ways of all the stars in their little time? It took Enoch two hundred years to learn to interpret the will of the Voice. When he was a mere child of eighty, his babyish attempts to understand the Voice were more dangerous than the wrath of Cain. If they shorten their lives, they will dig and fight and kill and die; and their baby Enochs will tell them that it is the will of the Voice that they should dig and fight and kill and ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... which I was unwilling to give up. 'Why, Sir, (said he,) there is no doubt that not to drink wine is a great deduction from life; but it may be necessary.' He however owned, that in his opinion a free use of wine did not shorten life[477]; and said, he would not give less for the life of a certain Scotch Lord[478] (whom he named) celebrated for hard drinking, than for that of a sober man. 'But stay, (said he, with his usual intelligence, and accuracy of enquiry,) does it take much wine ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Frederick, and Napoleon, have all thought well of books, and have even composed them. Nor is this extraordinary, since they are but the depositories of maxims which genius has suggested, and experience confirmed; since they both enlighten and shorten the road of the traveller, and render the labor and genius of past ages tributary to our own. These teach most emphatically, that the secret of successful war is not to be found in mere legs and arms, but in the head that shall direct them. If this be either ungifted by nature, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... taken Berber. Dongola was at their mercy. I thought the best chance would be to go down with them, as far as they went, and then to slip away. In this way I should shorten the journey I should have to traverse alone; and, being on the river bank, could at least always obtain water. Besides, I might possibly secure some small native boat, and with the help of the current get down to Assouan before the Dervishes ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... contraction; shortening &c. 201; compression &c. 195. V. abridge, abstract, epitomize, summarize; make an abstract, prepare an abstract, draw an abstract, compile an abstract &c. n. recapitulate, review, skim, run over, sum up. abbreviate &c. (shorten) 201; condense &c. (compress) 195; compile &c. (collect) 72. Adj. compendious, synoptic, analectic[obs3]; abrege[Fr], abridged &c. v.; variorum[obs3]. Adv. in short, in epitome, in substance, in few words. Phr. it lies in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... coorse; but widout extravagance; as asy an' light on a poor man as you can. You could shorten it, sure, an' lave out a grate dale that 'ud be of no use; nu' half the paper 'ud do; for you might make the clerks write close—why, very little 'ud be wanted if you ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... obliged to relinquish, a long repining expectant being eager, by entering it, to bequeath to another the anxiety and suspense he had suffered himself; though probably without much impatience to shorten their duration in favour of the next successor; but the house of Mrs Charlton, her benevolent friend, was open for her reception, and the alleviating tenderness of her conversation took from her all wish ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... or is there—if I deceive myself, tell me so, and shorten my pain—is there not, or is there, hope that, finding himself in this new position, and becoming sensitively alive to the awkward burden of explanation, in this quarter, and that, and the other, with which it would load him, he avoided the ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... such refuges as the ship's architecture afforded, or submitted to be pushed and twirled about by the surging throng when they got in its way. She pitied these in their affliction, which she perceived that they could not lighten or shorten, but she had no patience with the young girls, who broke into shrieks of nervous laughter at the coming of certain young men, and kept laughing and beckoning till they made the young men see them; and then ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... through the iron bar A. They pass more easily through iron than through air; and will choose iron by preference. The attraction exercised by a magnet on iron may be due to the effort of the lines of force to shorten their paths. It is evident that the closer A comes to the poles of the magnet the less will be the distance to be travelled from one pole to the bar, along it, and back to ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... a sort of delicious agony we do not need to shorten it. Good-bye, Prue," he cried, catching one of Prue's curls in his fingers as he passed. "You will be a school-girl with a shawl strap of books, by and by, and you will put on airs and think ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... in two modes: 1. Physically; since they diminish the number of births, and shorten the term of the life of all. 2. Intellectually; since, in a moral, and particularly in a religious community, they postpone marriage, by causing individuals to decline its responsibilities until they feel that they are competent to meet the charges and cares of a ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... during this year (1877-78), which was characterized by many changes regarded then as radical, though they do not strike one so nowadays. A still more revolutionary step was taken by throwing open more than half the courses to free election, permitting some students to shorten their time in college, and enabling others to enrich their course with other than the prescribed studies, heretofore compulsory and admitting ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... horribly scared. That last word or two had really expressed my terror. I desired nothing but to get the whole thing over. My hand shook so as I turned to load the first musket that I had twice to shorten my grasp of the ramrod before I could insert it ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... of the Ministry has not been impaired, and its self-conceit perilously tickled, by the long exercise of absolute power in face of a Parliament of poltroons. And, lastly, I will abandon my old argument that the discussion of peace terms might shorten the war, without any risk of prolonging it. And still I very strongly hold that peace ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... idea of seeing William Allen, I was about to go to the wharf-boat and wait there for the five o'clock boat. But she urged me to take dinner with them, as I would have plenty of time. After dinner they directed me across a pasture-field that would shorten the half-mile. Just out of sight of the house I met William Allen, with his wife and little girl of ten years. As they were so well described by John—or Felix, as he was here known—I recognized them, and gave the message from their ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... where the joke comes in. I read that same article, which was mighty interesting too. It went on to state that some smarties are not content with getting the regular bounty. They grow a gray cat that looks on the order of the wild article—shorten the tail, draw out the claws, and then send in the skin, claiming the six dollars that is paid for each bobcat actually slain within the ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... machine; and we hear the humanitarians telling us, indignant and grieving, that he actually must stand in that nice, warm, dry room every day, safe from storms and wild beasts, and with nothing to do but fill cans; and at once we groan: "How deadly! What montonous toil! Shorten his hours!" His work would seem blissful to super-spiders,—but to us it's intolerable. "Grind and confinement?" That's the strong ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... which filled him when, a little while after, he sprang right across the snowdrift to shorten the way, and knocked at Barbara's door. He must have some one to tell it to—that Mrs. Holman had acquiesced in Silla's having in this way promised herself ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... speak for you and shorten our mutual distress. First, however, I must make my own position plain. I—love your daughter, Mr. Parker." The declaration came at great cost, the speaker turned away to hide his emotion. "I think—I hope she is not indifferent to me. I would give my life to marry her and, God ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... know something of the remedy;—having sure information as to the ringleaders, we are enabled at once to read their motives in the past, to anticipate their policy in the future;—having the persons indicated, those who first incited or encouraged the felonious agents, we can shorten the course of public vengeance; and in so vast a field of action can give a true direction from the first to the pursuit headed by our Indian police. For that should never be laid out of sight—that against rebels whose least offence is their rebellion, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... line roughly coinciding with that of the Caledonian Railway from Carlisle by Carstairs to Glasgow. Their failure or omission to hold the south-west weakened the left flank and rear of their position on the Wall of Pius and helped materially to shorten their dominion in Scotland ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield
... on board, we made sail down to Amsterdam. The people of this isle were so little afraid of us, that some met us in three canoes about midway between the two isles. They used their utmost efforts to get on board, but without effect, as we did not shorten sail for them, and the rope which we gave them broke. They then attempted to board the Adventure, and met with the same disappointment. We ran along the S.W. coast of Amsterdam at half a mile from ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... then, in the first place, that the mind will tend to shorten any period of future time, and so to antedate, so to speak, a given event, in so far as the imagination is able clearly and easily to run over its probable experiences. From this it follows that repeated forecastings of series of events, by facilitating the imaginative process, tend to beget ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... molested by the ships-of-the-line, so long as they minded their own business,—an immunity which of course ceased if they became aggressive. Saumarez was urged to return her fire. "No," he replied, "let her alone; she will get bolder and come nearer. Shorten sail." She did draw nearer, and then the Orion, swinging sharply towards her, let drive her broadside of double-shotted guns. All the masts of the unlucky frigate went overboard, and she shortly sank, nothing but her ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... progress. O Lord! from the depths of my heart I would implore Thee to aid me in all good intentions. My heart overflows with its fulness of gratitude for what Thou hast done for me, and I know Thou wilt not shorten Thy hand. Thy beauty, Thy loveliness, O God! is beyond our finite vision, far above our expression. Lord, all I can utter is, Help ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... between stations, the movement of the engine would impart an added resistance against the pull of the solenoid by the tension spring, which would shorten up the arc and dim ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... from Taiyueanfu to Hwochow is accomplished in five stages, and nothing will induce the carter to shorten or change them, though hours may have been wasted in some narrow gully where, spite his warning yells, his cart met another at a point where advance or retreat on either side were alike impossible. After fierce recriminations the two men ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... hands in both his, as he answered, 'There is nothing to be anxious about, my darling, at present. I shall need care and nursing, perhaps. They give me hope that time will outgrow the mischief, but perhaps it may shorten my life. I tell you this because I want you to see what is before us. I have no right to expect you to link your life with mine under these circumstances, and your guardian is very doubtful as to the wisdom ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... violence from without. The sacerdotal money-changers and sellers of doves in the Temple were not the "oppressors of Israel." Israel was called on to suffer under Roman rule, and the righteous to endure violence at the hands of the wicked, for that was the will of God, who in his own good time would shorten the evil days. But the manipulation of the sacrificial system as a means of plundering the pious was a sin of Israel itself, against which, protest and force were justified. What the heathen and the ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... was of those who do not give up until the struggle is over. Besides, he had his faithful revolver. He could end his life at any moment and shorten the torture. He had found sufficient ham to last for two meals, and when that had been eaten and the last drop of water drunk he began to suffer the tortures of hunger and thirst. And now, like a caged beast, he paced up and down his prison. His mind went back to stories he ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... said, 'I DO like him.' Moreover, I privately made Martyn understand that if he told her what had been said about the white-satin lady, he would never be forgiven; the others would be sure to find it out, and it might shorten ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we're going to have a rough spell of it, Jonathan," said Davy, as he moved away from his companion in obedience to the skipper's order, "All hands shorten sail!" and stationed himself at his post by ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... one of these points again 20 minutes 23-1/4 seconds before it has really completed a revolution, i.e. before the true year is fairly over. This slow movement forward of the goal-post is called precession—the precession of the equinoxes. (One result of it is to shorten our years by about 20 minutes each; for the shortened period has to be called a year, because it is on the position of the sun with respect to the earth's axis that our seasons depend.) Copernicus perceived that, assuming the motion of the earth, a clearer ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... this point the second episode, telling the descent of the Entailed Hat from Raleigh to Anne Hutchinson, is omitted, to shorten ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... Prefacing, next it added; "he, of whom Thy kindred appellation comes, and who, These hundred years and more, on its first ledge Hath circuited the mountain, was my son And thy great grandsire. Well befits, his long Endurance should he shorten'd by thy deeds. "Florence, within her ancient limit-mark, Which calls her still to matin prayers and noon, Was chaste and sober, and abode in peace. She had no armlets and no head-tires then, No purfled ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... is exterminated or left behind in the race for life. Now, I ask, Did this process take place when Darwinism supplanted the traditional theory of the fixity of species? Surely it is clear that it is only in the rarest cases that false or inadequate ideas on such subjects have any tendency to shorten life or weaken health. Bishop Wilberforce was killed by a fall from his horse, not by the triumphant dialectic of Professor Huxley. Sir Richard Owen lived to a patriarchal old age, and did not disappear ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... is not our wonder excited rather by the points of resemblance than of difference that are to be found between them? Take the skeleton of a man; bend forward the bones in the region of the pelvis, shorten the thigh bones, and those of the leg and arm, lengthen those of the feet and hands, run the joints together, lengthen the jaws, and shorten the frontal bone, finally, lengthen the spine, and the skeleton will now be that of a man no longer, but will have become that of ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... scope of Medical Jurisprudence is much wider than that of Medical Law. It embraces many subjects of which human laws take no cognizance, and in particular such vicious actions as do not violate the rights of others, but are injurious to those only who practise them. They undermine the health and shorten the lives of the guilty parties, and bring in their train diseases the most destructive and often the most incurable. It is the physician's beneficent task to lessen the weaknesses and sufferings of the body, and to ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... has travelled in Guyenne must be familiar with the article of household furniture just described. Every young wife piously provides herself with one, together with a warming-pan; for the old domestic ideas are religiously handed down here from mother to daughter. But I must shorten this 'journey round my room,' so little in the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... two Frenchmen were asleep in the cabin. 'I went softly aft into the cabin, and put my back against the bulkhead, and took the iron crow and held it with both my hands in the middle of it, and put my legs to shorten myself, because the cabin was very low. But he that being nighest to me, hearing me, opened his eyes, and perceiving my intent and upon what account I was coming, he endeavoured to rise to make resistance against me, but ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... usual preparations for departure, the brushing of hats, the changing of coats, went on in all the ministerial offices. That precious thirty minutes thus employed served to shorten by just so much the day's labor. At this hour the over-heated rooms cool off; the peculiar odor that hangs about the bureaus evaporates; silence is restored. By four o'clock none but a few clerks ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... ta think 'at tha could shorten 'em a bit? It luks to me as if it 'll do if them gets shortened, Sally! get up! Are ta baan to sit thear all th' day? Go an' borrow yond butcher's saig, an' then ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... grinned, with a wink at the surveyor, as the engineer decided, after trying, that he had better shorten the straps a hole. Abe silently assisted him in adjusting them. Then—swinging into his saddle—the surveyor said to his employer as the horses moved ahead: "Good-by, sir. Wire ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... had traversed the valley, and to avoid a dangerous morass stretching across its lower extremity, and shorten the distance—for the ordinary road would have led them too much to the right—they began to climb one of the ridges of Pendle Hill, which lay between them and the vale they wished to gain. On obtaining the top of this eminence, an extensive view on either ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that was quite enough to satisfy my most ardent longings. Moreover I seemed able to step on it, to lengthen or shorten it, to make it assume strange grotesque shapes; in a word I could play with it. This I could not do with such objects as trees, house, barn and fences; or rather there was no such response from them ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... Shorten the bridle (the bit should be a thick plain snaffle) so that the reins, when laid loose on his withers, come nearly straight. This is best done by twisting the reins twice round two fore-fingers and passing the ends through in a loop, because this knot ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... the father, smoothing, with his trembling hands, the soft hair that lay on either side of her forehead. "May God reward thee, and in His infinite mercy shorten ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... allow this base newspaper slander to shorten your stay here, Mr. Winkle?' said Mrs. Pott, smiling through the traces ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... fine run down Channel. On her passage a sudden squall struck her; the watch on deck flew aloft to shorten sail. Peter, who was aft, lay out on the mizen top-gallant-sail yard, and taking the weather earring, succeeded, with Owen Bell and two others, in handling the fluttering sail. As he reached the deck the captain called ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... four feet, to bear the girthing of a roller, to be led, &c." But if all this useful preliminary education, in which climbing through gaps after an old hunter, and taking little jumps, be omitted, then the Rarey system comes in to shorten your ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... risk attached to the operation. For that very reason, and although his opinion had not been asked, he agreed with Sergeant Stimson that the whisky-runners would attempt the passage. They were men who took the risks as they came, and that route would considerably shorten the journey it was especially desirable for them to make at night, while it would, Shannon fancied, appear probable to them that if the police had word of their intentions they would watch the bridge. Between it and the frozen ford the stream ran faster, and the ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... the afternoon to blow harder and harder; and by nightfall—you know it gets dark as soon as the sun goes down in those latitudes—we had to shorten sail so much that the Cranky Jane was staggering along at the rate of nearly fourteen knots an hour with reefed top-sails and jib and ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... part of the mother. At present the only act for which men are held irresponsible—for our practice amounts to that—is the act for which, above all others, they should be held responsible. A large amount of the money now spent by men on alcohol and tobacco, and other things which shorten their lives, and are needed only because they create a need for themselves, is really required for the interests of the race. Such is the double destruction worked by the alcoholic form of this waste that if the average ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... then jump by. Still the horse was not running fast. He wasted the value of his legs by jumping high in the air like a goat, instead of running with his belly against the earth like every other sensible horse whose business is to shorten distance. ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... of the lifeless posture varies greatly on the same day, under the same atmospheric conditions and with the same subject, though I cannot fathom the causes which shorten or lengthen it. How to investigate the external influences, so numerous and often so slight, which intervene in such a case; above all, how to scrutinize the insect's private impressions: these are impenetrable mysteries. Let us confine ourselves ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it doubted that it would restore the national authority and national prosperity, and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here—Congress and Executive—can ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... of you are asking, 'Live? Die? What does all this mean? When we die we shall die, good or bad; and in the meantime we shall live till we die. And you do not mean to tell us that we shall shorten our lives by our own tempers, or our tale- bearing, though we might, ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... wonderful manner. My father, Lejoillie, Tim Flanagan, and two or three others, made preparations, under the superintendence of the second mate, for lowering a boat, every man of the crew being required to shorten sail. The helm was put down, the yards braced up, and the ship quickly brought to the wind. I was going to assist in lowering the boat, when the captain called me aft, and told me to keep an eye on Mr. Rochford ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... curse. They have their tales to compare together; their unhallowed secrets to disclose. The masters and the mistresses pass by them in review, and little deem they how oft the malignant glance or the malicious whisper follow their airy steps. To shorten such tedious hours, the servants familiarise themselves with every vicious indulgence, for even the occupation of such domestics is little more than a dissolute idleness. A cell in Newgate does not always contain more corruptors than a herd of servants ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... from the mutable, happy days of love. Still, when the hour of departure came they had garnered enough to sweeten all the after-straits and stress of time. September had then perceptibly begun to add to the nights and shorten the days, and her tender touch had been laid on everything. With a smile and a sigh the Rawdons turned their faces to their pleasant home in the Land of the West. It was to be but a short farewell. They had promised the Squire to return the following ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... off the road to ride straight across the country. It would be rough going for the aviator, but it would shorten the journey ten or twelve miles, which meant a good deal to Johnny's ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... good service I had done in the convict ship would count for something, and probably induce the governor to shorten my term of probation, I began now to think of applying for the indulgence. This idea I shortly after acted upon, and drew up a memorial to the personage just alluded to; saying nothing, however, of my innocence of the crime for which I had been transported, knowing that, as such an assertion would ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... the fluid extract or tincture of aconite, or veratrum to moderate the pulse by controlling the accelerated and unequal circulation of the blood. It is a simple treatment, but if judiciously followed, it will often abort a fever, or materially modify its intensity and shorten ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... from Grimm it has been the aim to simplify, to shorten, and to eliminate all objectionable qualities; as, for instance, the cruel step-mother element to be found ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... in the extreme, and every man on board knew that prudence required sail to be taken in and preparations made for the reception of the tornado. The captain was on deck, but the boatswain unfortunately remarked, "That squall looks like an ugly customer, sir, and it will soon be necessary to shorten sail." ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... request of Elizabeth a safe-conduct. The English princess promptly replied, that the queen had only to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh, and she should obtain not merely a safe-conduct but free permission to shorten the fatigues of her voyage by passing through England, where she should be received with all the marks of affection due to a beloved sister. By this answer Mary chose to regard herself as insulted; and declaring to the English ambassador in great heat that nothing vexed her so much as ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... lunatics under the guardianship of the Lord Chancellor has yet to be attained," and he quoted Master Barlow's evidence before the Dillwyn Committee of 1877: "I am a great advocate for a great reform in lunacy (Chancery) proceedings; I would facilitate the business of the procedure in the office and shorten it in such a way as to reduce the costs." Various important suggestions will be found in the evidence given before the above Committee by the present Visitors and an ex-Visitor, Dr. Bucknill, who has also, in his brochure on "The Care of the Insane, and their Legal Control," ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... so blind is the capitalist class that it does nothing to lengthen its lease of life, while it does everything to shorten it. The capitalist class offers nothing that is clean, noble, and alive. The revolutionists offer everything that is clean, noble, and alive. They offer service, unselfishness, sacrifice, martyrdom—the things ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... destroys the body, but finds itself precisely as much alive mentally as before. It had an appointed life-term determined by an intricate web of prior causes, which its own wilful sudden act cannot shorten. That term must run out its appointed sands. You may smash the lower half of the hand hour-glass, so that the impalpable sand shooting from the upper bell is dissipated by the passing aerial currents as it issues; ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... Cossinius stopped, and, while he was waiting for criticism of what he had said, Vitulus' freedman, coming into town from the gardens [of his master] turned to us and said, "I was on my way to your house to invite you to come early so as not to shorten the holiday." ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... motionless on the glassy sea. I observed with some satisfaction that the squall was bearing down on the larboard bow, so that it would strike the vessel in the position in which she would be best able to stand the shock. Having done my best to shorten sail, I returned aft, and took ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... project was, to shorten discourse, by cutting polysyllables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles, because, in reality, all things imaginable are ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... compelled to suffer his sentence, but memorials, signed by 11,000 persons, asking for his release, were sent to the Home Secretary from every part of the country, and a crowded meeting in St. James' Hall, London, demanded his liberation with only six dissentients. The whole agitation did not shorten Mr. Truelove's sentence by a single day, and he was not released from Coldbath Fields' Prison until September 5th. On the 12th of the same month the Hall of Science was crowded with enthusiastic friends, who assembled to do him honor, and he was presented with a beautifully-illuminated ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... excitement as the race went on. The long main boom of the Royal James skipped through the spray and her mainsail was wet to the second line of reef points, but Herriot held her square on the course and Bonnet smiled grimly ahead, with a look that meant he would run her under before he would shorten sail. Hand over hand they overhauled their rival, until once more the tiny figures of men were visible over her rail. A little knot of them were gathered aft, busy at something. Bonnet seized his glass and ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... height should be given to the heel only, and not to the sole of the foot also. The modern high-heeled boot is, in fact, merely the clog of the time of Henry VI., with the front prop left out, and its inevitable effect is to throw the body forward, to shorten the steps, and consequently to produce that want of grace which always follows ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... you shorten your line. Six seconds later your flies fall skilfully just upstream from where last ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... was compelled to tell them that she was not coming to get me, and even pretended to be afraid of her approach, which pleased them much, as they appeared determined I should never leave them. At dusk she was so near the land, that I saw them shorten sail, and fondly anticipated the hour of my ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... the four strengthen the resolution; while yet there is a danger, on the other hand, that the encouraged and morbid feeling may weaken or bias the understanding, or that the over shrewd and keen understanding may shorten the imagination, or that the understanding and imagination together may take place of, or undermine, the resolution, as in Hamlet. So in the mere bodily frame there is a delightful perfection of the senses, consistent with the utmost health of the muscular system, as ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... depths the glittering city and green pastures lie like Atlantis, between the white paths of winding rivers; the flakes of light falling every moment faster and broader among the starry spires, as the wreathed surges break and vanish above them, and the confused crests and ridges of the dark hills shorten their grey shadows upon the plain. Wait a little longer, and you shall see those scattered mists rallying in the ravines, and floating up towards you, along the winding valleys, till they crouch in quiet masses, iridescent with the morning light, upon the broad ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... more time and a higher toll than any of us wanted. Unemployment is far too high. Projected Federal spending—if government refuses to tighten its own belt—will also be far too high and could weaken and shorten the economic ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... not be thrown away upon me. I the rather would press this, as I am uneasy for your uneasiness; for Mrs. Jewkes acquaints me, that you take your restraint very heavily; and neither eat, drink, nor rest well; and I have too great interest in your health, not to wish to shorten the time of this trial; which will be the consequence of my coming down to you. John, too, has intimated to me your concern, with a grief that hardly gave him leave for utterance; a grief that a little alarmed my tenderness for you. Not that I fear any thing, but ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... that open and those that close the glottis; (2) those which regulate the tension of the vocal bands. The latter include the (a) crico-thyroids, which tense and elongate them, (b) thyro-arytenoids, which relax and shorten them. The crico-thyroid may be considered the most important muscle of phonation, because it is so much used and so effective. By its action the cricoid is pulled up in front and down behind, so that the arytenoids are drawn back, and thus the vocal bands ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... and of grace Are put beneath thy power; Then shorten these delaying days, And bring the ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... it. The electric fluid could not have seemed more tireless or iron more insensate. But now, when the hardship was somewhat relaxed, he was forced back on the perception that he was faint and hungry His speed slackened; his shoulders sagged; the long second wind, which had lasted so well, began to shorten. For the first time it occurred to him to wonder how long ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... gaol him now, and settle up ovens and spits and all sorts in the cell, wouldn't he, to shorten the day, be ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... would shorten the war, perpetuate peace, insure this increase of population, and proportionately the wealth of the country. With these we should pay all the emancipation would cost, together with our other debt, easier than we should pay our other debt without it. If we had allowed ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... never will try it. I am quite sure that Mary does not expect any such thing, and that she is willing to wait. If I can shorten the term of waiting by hard work, I will do so." The decision to which Phineas had come on this matter was probably made known to Mrs. Flood Jones after some mild fashion by old Mrs. Finn. Nothing more was said to Phineas ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... even my mother, wishes me forth. I took in my wallet five hundred thalers, and fared like the peasant I seemed to be, down the Rhine, now on one side, now on the other, until I came to the ancient town of Castra Bonnensia of the Romans, which name the inhabitants now shorten to Bonn. There I found the Archbishop in residence, and not at Cologne, as I had supposed. The town being thronged with soldiers and inquisitive people of Cologne's court, I returned up the Rhine again, remembering I had gone rather far afield, and although you may not believe it, I ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... often, while not ready to go further; and that, much as he was in love—proportionately, that is, to his faculty for loving—he dare not do. But for the unconventionality of the Raymounts he would have reached the point long before. He began, therefore, to lessen the number, and shorten the length of his appearances in ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... made to work. From that time there were but two businesses aboard—from the pump to the helm. The gale lasted two days and a night, the brig running under close-reefed topsails, we being afraid to shorten sail lest we might be overtaken by some pursuing vessel, so strong was the terror of ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... to go wi' me. But he was ahind with his farm work, an' I wasna needin' him. Twa folk may shorten a lang day to ane anither, but it's no ay done to edification. But the warst o' a' was coming hame ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Lady Madeleine made little objection to Violet joining the party, as after the exertion that Miss Fane had been making, a drive in an open carriage might be dangerous: and yet the walk was too long, but all agreed that it would be impossible to shorten it; and, as Violet declared that she was not in the least fatigued, the lesser evil was therefore chosen. The carriages rolled off; at about halfway from Ems, the two empty ones were to wait for the walking ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... only for death to relieve their sufferings, confessed to anything and everything that would satisfy the inquisitors and judges. All that was needed was that the inquisitors should ask leading questions(251) and suggest satisfactory answers: the prisoners, to shorten the torture, were sure sooner or later to give the answer required, even though they knew that this would send them to the stake or scaffold. Under the doctrine of "excepted cases," there was no limit to torture for persons accused of heresy or witchcraft; ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... bands and seams. People were still spinning and weaving, though the mills that were to lead the revolution in industries had come in. The Embargo was taxing the ingenuity of brains as well as hands, and as more of everything was needed for the increase of population, new methods were invented to shorten processes that were to make New England the manufacturing center of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... stalks of the gramina, for we had been obliged to pull off our boots, the soles having become too slippery. On declivities devoid of shrubs or ligneous herbs, which may be grasped by the hand, the danger of the descent is diminished by walking barefoot. In order to shorten the way, our guides conducted us from the Puerta de la Silla to the farm of Gallegos by a path leading to a reservoir of water, called el Tanque. They missed their way, however; and this last descent, the steepest of all, brought us near the ravine of Chacaito. The noise of the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... sometimes necessary to shorten a rope temporarily and not desirable to cut it, and the sheep-shank knot solves the problem. It is used by the sailors, who do not believe in cutting ropes. It will stand a tremendous strain without slipping, but will loosen when held slack, ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... sister, I have to think. In that case, her wish is to be present. Your lordship will shorten the number of minutes for the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not far away where, by George's consent, the mail-carrier left letters when bad weather made it desirable to shorten his round. ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... under another name; he has caused himself to be elected consul for ten years! Ah, he will know how to shorten these ten years, just as he knew how ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... effort to move away, or, indeed, to pretend not to have seen her, but stood looking at her as though he had the right to do so, and as though she must know he had that right. As she came towards him the Princess Aline did not stop, nor even shorten her steps; but as she passed opposite to him she bowed her thanks with a sweet impersonal smile and a dropping of the eyes, and continued ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... the other,' said Anne; 'if she does not whine, he will not teaze. But had I not better finish my letter to him, and tell him he must shorten his ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them, "There, you are on your paws once more; may you walk long in this valley of tears!" When he saw a poor man dying of hunger, he gave him all the pence he had about him, growling out, "Live on, you wretch! eat! last a long time! It is not I who would shorten your penal servitude." After which, he would rub his hands and say, "I do men all ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... attending a Farewell Reading. As they entered the room, each person received a printed slip of paper, on which was read, "The audience are respectfully informed that carriages have been ordered tonight at half-past nine. Without altering his Reading in the least, Mr. Dickens will shorten his usual pauses between the Parts, in order that he may leave York by train a few minutes after that time. He has been summoned," it was added, "to London, in connection with a late sad occurrence within the general ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... rather less than the sum I had made out to be the single fare to Shaphambury. Still deliberate, I went back to the Public Library to find out whether it was possible, by walking for ten or twelve miles anywhere, to shorten the journey. My boots were in a dreadful state, the sole of the left one also was now peeling off, and I could not help perceiving that all my plans might be wrecked if at this crisis I went on shoe leather in which I could only shuffle. So long as I went ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... will keep to my matter. But, gentlemen, having now shown you, as I think, enough of this first meeting between the murdered person and the prisoner, I will shorten my tale so far as to say that from then on there were frequent meetings of the two: for the young woman was greatly tickled with having got hold (as she conceived it) of so likely a sweetheart, and ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... All the celestials parted mourning then, Pierc'd with our human miseries more than men: Ah, nothing doth the world with mischief fill, But want of feeling one another's ill! With their descent the day grew something fair, And cast a brighter robe upon the air. Hero, to shorten time with merriment, For young Alcmane and bright Mya sent, Two lovers that had long crav'd marriage-dues At Hero's hands: but she did still refuse; For lovely Mya was her consort vow'd In her maid state, and therefore not allow'd To amorous nuptials: yet fair Hero now Intended ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... corner, and sometimes Frank consented to go all the way around, chatting breathlessly as he trotted along behind. At other times he was prevailed upon to bring to me a cookie and a glass of milk, a deed which helped to shorten the forenoon. And yet, notwithstanding all these ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... where she devoutly kissed the stigmata; then, leaving her slippers at the foot of the scaffold, she nimbly ascended the ladder, and instructed beforehand, promptly lay down on the plank, without exposing her naked shoulders. But her precautions to shorten the bitterness of death were of no avail, for the pope, knowing her impetuous disposition, and fearing lest she might be led into the commission of some sin between absolution and death, had given orders that the moment Beatrice was extended on the scaffold ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pass through Ruwe, which is an important center of gold production in the Katanga, and connect up with the Katanga Railway just north of Kambove. It is really a link in the Cape-to-Cairo system and when completed will shorten the freight haul from the copper fields to London by three thousand miles, as compared with ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... tradition among them, which had been altered from age to age according to the fancies of the reciters. They said that there came anciently from the north, a man who had no bones or joints, and who was able to shorten or lengthen the way before him as he thought fit, and to elevate or depress the mountains at his pleasure. By this man the ancient Indians were created; and as those of the plain had given him some cause of displeasure, he rendered their country sterile and sandy as it now is, and commanded ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... cases do occur when warning given by a friendly and neutral Power—by a Power which is well known to have no interest of its own to serve, by a Power desiring nothing more than the restoration of peace, and that that peace shall be permanent—may do something to shorten the duration and limit the extent of a war that might otherwise spread over the greater part of Europe. As to the state of affairs at the present moment—for that, I apprehend, is the practical question on which the House wishes an answer from me, I wish ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... qualification, and into England's mood of ceaseless effort and anxiety there has come a sudden relaxation, a breath of something canning and sustaining. What your action may be—whether it will shorten the war, and how much, no one here yet knows. But when in some great strain a friend steps to your side, you don't begin with questions. He is there. Your cause, your effort, are his. Details will come. Discussion will come. But there is a breathing space first, in which feeling ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the wire rigging and trimming the cargo, the shifting of which had nearly sent her to the bottom. I went with the boat to lend a hand, and the second mate of the brigantine told me that the young captain had refused to listen to the mate's suggestion to shorten sail, when the officer told him that the wind would certainly come away suddenly from the N.E. The consequence was that a furious squall took her aback, and had not the jibboom—and then the upper spars—carried away ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... and patrons of humanity. There are to whom the garden, grove, and field Perpetual lessons of forbearance yield; Who would not lightly violate the grace The lowliest flower possesses in its place; Nor shorten the sweet life, too fugitive, Which nothing less ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... plunge into the calyx until after a protracted course of circuitous buzzing and much prefatory waste of time: and this with all the insect's credit for industry. So over-perverse a traveller, so ultra-dilatory a bee as the author of Modern Painters, must shorten his journey, must leave much honey unfilched. He is as the army which commences in orderly retreat and ends in rabble-like riot and demoralization, gaining a place of safety at last, with the sacrifice of much baggage and treasure. So, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Fred's more correct eye, for instance, would be invaluable to Jack Bedford, the ex-sign-painter, who was struggling with the profile of the Gladiator; or Margaret, who could detect at a glance the faintest departure from the lines of the original, would shorten a curve on Oliver's drawing, or he in turn would advise her about the depth of a shadow or the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... And presently, against the white lather of the lake, I thought I caught sight of a black nose pushed out beyond the land. Another moment, and the tug itself was bobbing in the open. Barely had she reached the deep water beyond the sands when her length began to shorten, and the dense cloud of smoke that rose made it plain that she was firing. At the sight I reflected that I had been a fool indeed. A scant flue miles of water lay between us and her, and if they really meant business back there, and they gave every sign of it, we ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... carry out his instructions to the letter. I won't say, however," continued Mr. Girdlestone, "that circumstances might not arise which might induce me to shorten this probationary period. If my further acquaintance with you confirms the high impression which I now have of your commercial ability, that, of course, would have weight with me; and, again, if I find Miss Harston's mind is made up upon the point, that also ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... corruption makes this waye, And with no tarde pace. Where shall I hyde mee! Whether shall I fly to Palestra back And with this sadd relation kill her quite That's scarce recovered! rather, you hy powers, Then to prolonge our griefes, shorten our ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... has said, to shorten the proceedings as much as possible," began Inglewood, "I will not read the first part of the letter sent to us. It is only fair to the prosecution to admit the account given by the second clergyman fully ratifies, as far as facts are concerned, that given ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... were near where a lot of the Boers were making for their mounts to get them away. One big fellow was leading his pony, and as poor Roby was straggling blindly about, this Boer ran at him, holding his rein in one hand, his rifle in the other, and I saw him shorten it with his right to turn it into a club to bring it ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... Cyrus Garst has a general admiration. He has always agreed with them famously—save on one point; and he has never had to shorten his wanderings for fear of lengthening their fees. For Cyrus has a millionnaire father in the Back Bay of Boston, who is disposed ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... the new machine had been tried. Everything had succeeded to his heart's desire. The worthy man was triumphant. It seemed to him that he had paid a debt, by giving the house of Fromont the benefit of a new machine, which would lessen the labor, shorten the hours of the workmen, and at the same time double the profits and the reputation of the factory. He indulged in beautiful dreams as he plodded along. His footsteps rang out proudly, emphasized by the resolute and happy trend of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Sakr-el-Bahr. "He'll not swim far in any case. But we will shorten his road for him." He snatched a cross-bow from the rack about the mainmast, fitted a shaft to it ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... he approaches along the interminable road, that now rises over a hill and now descends into a valley, observes it from afar, his view uninterrupted by wood, but the vastness of the plain seems to shorten his step, so that he barely gains on the receding roofs. The hedges by the road are cropped—cut down mercilessly—and do not afford the slightest protection against wind, or rain, or sleet. If he would pause awhile to rest his weary ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... spring, and give them the advantage of a fallow, by throwing up the ground in a ridge. Scatter over it a very little rotten dung from a melon bed, and afterwards turn it twice during the winter. Examine the flowering shrubs, and prune them. Cut away all the dead wood, shorten luxuriant branches, and if any cross each other, take away one. Leave them so that the air may have a free passage between them. Sift a quarter of an inch of good fresh mould over the roots of perennial flowers, whose ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... properly speaking, recognizes himself only in his defects: and the public interests itself sooner for a faulty individuality than for that which is produced or amended according to a universal law of taste. Rhythm lay yet in the cradle, and no one knew of a method to shorten its childhood. Poetical prose came into the ascendant. Gessner and Klopstock excited many imitators: others, again, still demanded an intelligible metre, and translated this prose into rhythm. But even these gave nobody satisfaction, for they were obliged to omit and add; and the prose original ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... entirely banished, seems only fallen from their heads upon their lower parts. What they have lost in height they make up in breadth, and, contrary to all rules of architecture, widen the foundations at the same time that they shorten the superstructure. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there! hark! hark!— [CAL., STEPH. and TRIN. are driven out. Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them Than pard ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... chases. Why should rain to-day Bring rain to-morrow? Python's foe Is pleased sometimes his lyre to play, Nor bends his bow. Be brave in trouble; meet distress With dauntless front; but when the gale Too prosperous blows, be wise no less, And shorten sail. ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... quite abreast of their landing and within a league of it; and yet she showed no signs of an intention to abate her speed, nor did any one appear at the gangway to speak to them. At length a hoarse call was heard on deck, and the ship began to shorten sail. Her fore-course was hauled up, and the spanker was brailed; then the royals were clewed up and furled; the topgallant-sails followed; and presently the Proserpine was reduced to her three topsails and jib. All this, finished just ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... an inch thick, is held at the centre between the finger and thumb. On sweeping a wet woollen rag over one of its halves, you hear an acute sound due to the vibrations of the glass. What is the condition of the glass while the sound is heard? This: its two halves lengthen and shorten in quick succession. Its two ends, therefore, are in a state of quick vibration; but at the centre the pulses from the two ends alternately meet and retreat from each other. Between their opposing actions, the glass at the centre is kept motionless: but, on the other hand, it is alternately ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... Galors is galloping after Isoult, let us turn to that unconscious lady who hides her limbs in a pair of ragged breeches, and her bloom under the grime of coal-dust. Her cloud of hair, long now and lustrous, out of all measure to her pretence, she was accustomed to shorten by doubling it under her cap. An odd fancy had taken her which prevented a second shearing. If Prosper loved her she dared not go unlovely any more. Her hair curtained her when she bathed in the brook and the sun. Beyond doubt it was beautiful; it was Prosper's; ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... chilly as we ascend, and more than once we sigh half dubiously for the bright parlor left behind at Luz. We move leisurely, almost reluctantly, on, not in haste to reach the climax of this unhospitable avenue; but the four miles shorten themselves unexpectedly, and it seems but a short walk before we are in sight of the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... nearer, and have done with it, in the words which He addressed to the betrayer, 'That thou doest, do quickly,' as if He were making a last appeal to the man's humanity, and in effect saying to him, 'If you have a heart at all, shorten these painful hours, and let ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... essential point. The door was lofty and opened upon the farmyard, through which there was a kind of thoroughfare, very seldom used, it is true, and at each end of it there was a gate by which wayfarers occasionally passed to shorten the way. There we sat without speaking a word, shivering with cold and fear, listening to the clock which went slowly, tick, tick, and occasionally starting as the door creaked on its hinges, or a half-burnt billet fell upon the hearth. My sister was ghastly white, ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... started, to tell the whole tale of the Angelic Maid and all the things which she accomplished, and all that we who companied with her did and saw, both of success and of failure. But now my brain and my pen alike refuse the task. I must needs shorten it. I think my heart would well nigh break a second time, if I were to seek to tell all that terrible tale which the world ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... twenty or thirty miles between Newcastle and London, is now thought to be a matter of so much importance as to justify one or more independent lines, which, despising intermediate cities and their traffic, still hold their even course as the crow flies, from point to point, and thereby shorten the transit from the south to the north of England by—it may be—the matter of an hour. We did not use to be quite so chary of our minutes: nor, though fully aware of the value of time, did we ever bestow the same regard upon the fractional portions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... condition of affairs when forty-nine long days had crept by. As to the brightness of the immediate future no misgivings existed. The days would soon shorten to their normal duration, and be all the happier for the antecedent gloom. Relief could not in the nature of things be very far away. Ah, no; it never was; that was the pity of it—the irritant destined to deepen our disgust—to nourish our discontent. At Mafeking they ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... fleet were, and Captain Cox, and Mr. Pierce the Surgeon; the last of whom hath been in the House, and declared that he heard Brouncker advise and give arguments to Cox: for the safety of the Duke of York's person to shorten sail, that they might not be in the middle of the enemy in the morning alone; and Cox denying to observe his advice, having received the Duke of York's commands over night to keep within gun-shot (as they then were) of the enemy, Brouncker ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... in my walk, and I found that it was later than I had imagined when I paused to turn back. I fancied I could make a round; I had enough notion of the direction in which I was, to see that by turning up a narrow straight lane to my left I should shorten my way back to Tours. And so I believe I should have done, could I have found an outlet at the right place, but field-paths are almost unknown in that part of France, and my lane, stiff and straight as any street, and marked into terribly vanishing perspective by the regular row of poplars on each ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... for their happiness following them, loving words ringing after them. Relatives, friends, and servants had crowded round them; and Lillian's courage gave way at last. She turned to Lionel, as though praying him to shorten ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... at it rapturously. It had been a straight, long gown, and all Phyllis had needed to do was to drape it with the net ripped from the other dress and shorten and cut it into fashionableness. It was charming—springlike and becoming, and, best of all, strictly up ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... my body. I spent a month very much out of spirits and very much tired of myself. During the last eight or ten days I have felt much better. My visit to our friends the Beaumonts did me a great deal of good, and I owe a grudge to the Academy for forcing me to shorten it. ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... from Avignon to l'Isle. They covered the nine miles between the two places in an hour. During this hour Roland, as he resolved to shorten the time for his travelling companion, was witty and animated, and their approach to the duelling ground only served to redouble his gayety. To one unacquainted with the object of this drive, the menace of dire peril impending ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... will certainly suffer, Mrs. Truax, if you let the hot sun glare upon them so mercilessly." And, turning, we saw madame's smiling face looking from her casement with a meaning that struck us both dumb and led me to shorten our walk lest my interest in the romance then going on should be suspected and ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... hands, that the distresses of our author helped to shorten his days, and indeed, when his extraordinary merit is considered, he had the hardest measure of any of our poets. It appears from different accounts, that he was of an amiable sweet disposition, humane and generous in his nature. Besides the Fairy Queen, we find he had written several ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber |
