"Wearing away" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... site in the lower part of the canyon. It occurs at the point marked 8 on the map, and is now quite difficult of approach, owing to the wearing away or weathering of a long line of foot-holes in the sloping rock, but formerly access was easy enough. It is now marked by a cluster of Navaho burial cists. Figure 66 shows an example that occurs in De Chelly, about 8 miles above the ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... came, I saw with proprietary alarm the point wearing away. That which coloured the Lake was fine rose-clay and it was mine, bought by the foot-front.... A man may build ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... for conveying a lump of tempered clay before the point of the tuiron plate, to guard the wall from wearing away as it would otherwise do in that part, there being the greatest ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... convulsions of nature by which the whole substrata were upheaved above the ocean. I am disposed to think that such islands and ranges of the sandstone were formed before the deposit of the basalt, and that the form of the surface is now returning to what it then was, by the gradual decomposition and wearing away of the latter rock. Much, however, may be said on both sides of this, as of every other question. After descending from the sandstone of the Vindhya[3] range into Bundelkhand, we pass over basalt and basaltic soil, reposing immediately on syenitic ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... I suppose, found it agreeable, or you would not have stayed in it.' 'Yes,' said I, 'that was before I knew you; but having lived with you here, I should be very loth to live here without you.' 'Indeed,' said Belle, 'I did not know that I was of so much consequence to you. Well, the day is wearing away—I must go and harness Traveller to the cart.' 'I will do that,' said I, 'or anything else you may wish me. Go and prepare yourself; I will see after Traveller and the cart.' Belle departed to her tent, and I set about performing the task I had ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... imperfections in the existing plan further experience may have unfolded. The subject is of so much moment in my estimation as to excite a constant solicitude that the consideration of it may be renewed until the greatest attainable perfection shall be accomplished. Time is wearing away some advantages for forwarding the object, while none better deserves the persevering attention of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... hostility, I am happy to say, shows some signs of wearing away. The desire for more of home-rule is bringing these two great races together in conventions, with a view to the discovery of some method of cooperation between them. Parliamentary government in China and Japan has had its ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... deep problem was weighing upon her heart, wearing away her reason and her life alike. She had almost been ready to ask advice of the artist, although she by no means knew him well enough to render so intimate a conversation other ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... fossils; and its general appearance and mineral constituents are the only evidence of its origin, which is no doubt due to a retiring ocean that washed the base of the Sikkim Himalaya, received the contents of its rivers, and, wearing away its bluff spurs, spread a talus upwards of 1000 feet thick along its shores. It is not at first sight evident whether the terracing is due to periodic retirements of the ocean, or to the levelling effects of rivers that have cut channels through the deposit. In many places, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... cursed his companion's devoted friendship internally, as they walked silently along, side by side, for some minutes, each immersed in his own meditations! The morning was wearing away; ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... safe. But, unlike these, it knew no beginning, and shall know no end. Emblems of permanence as they are, though Olivet looks down on Jerusalem as it did when Melchizedek was its king, and Tabor and Hermon stand as they did before human lips had named them, they are wearing away by winter storms and summer heats. But, as Isaiah has taught us, when the earth is old, God's might and mercy are young; for 'the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from thee.' 'The earth shall wax ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... moderately hard rocks, and mark the {283} process of degradation. The tides in most cases reach the cliffs only for a short time twice a day, and the waves eat into them only when they are charged with sand or pebbles; for there is good evidence that pure water can effect little or nothing in wearing away rock. At last the base of the cliff is undermined, huge fragments fall down, and these remaining fixed, have to be worn away, atom by atom, until reduced in size they can be rolled about by the waves, and then are more ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... a hard one at the dictionary place. She told herself it was because the novelty of it was wearing away, because her fingers ached, because it tired her back to sit in that horrid chair. She did not admit of any connection between her flagging interest and the fact that the place at ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... of the spot where the Splash sank had been carefully noted, after my capture, by the principal and his men, and without much difficulty I found the place. The bed of this part of the lake was composed of gravel, washed down by the continual wearing away of the bluff; and as the water was clear, I could see the bottom. The Splash lay in about twenty-five feet of water—as I found by measuring with a fish-line. She sat nearly upright on her keel, and the tops of her masts were not more than a foot ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... and, as might have been foreseen, they became very uneven after a short use, and had no recommendation except their cheapness and their exemption from noise. The fibre was vertical, and at first no grooves were introduced; they, of course, became rounded by wearing away at the edge, and as slippery as the ancient granite. The Metropolitan Company took warning from the defects of their predecessor, and adopted the patent of a scientific French gentleman of the name of De Lisle. The combination of the blocks is as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... this process has been nearly checked by the protective works. The second was the desurfacing and subsequent eating away of the walls by beating rains and frost, and this is still in progress at a moderate rate. The least serious process was the wearing away of the crests of the walls by rain and winds, and this is still going on at a perceptible rate. It is impossible to determine, and difficult even to approximate, the rate of destruction quantitatively, ...
— The Repair Of Casa Grande Ruin, Arizona, in 1891 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... French inhabitants; from whom I heard much the same, though all agreed that Cagots were to be found in different parts of the mountains, and that they were still shunned as a race apart, though the prejudice against them was certainly wearing away. ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... moved by the serenity of her face, and the trouble, which he knew it concealed, seemed, to his mind, to be wearing away. Carefully securing the doors, they walked over the fields together, pausing on the hilltop to listen to the caw of the gathering crows, or to watch the ruby disc of the beamless sun stooping to touch the western rim of the valley. Many ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... are getting scarce. They are the most class is wearing away, and it is right for them ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... which flowed into them as the ice was melted out of them. The formation and extension of fiords in this manner is still going on, and may be witnessed in many places in Glacier Bay, Yakutat Bay, and adjacent regions. That the domain of the sea is being extended over the land by the wearing away of its shores, is well known, but in these icy regions of Alaska, and even as far south as Vancouver Island, the coast rocks have been so short a time exposed to wave-action they are but little wasted as yet. In these ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... serves for secreting or excreting purposes, as in the salivary glands or the kidneys, it is usually simple; when it serves the mechanical purpose of protecting a part, as over the tongue or skin, it is invariably multiple and stratified, the surface wearing away while new ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... amounts to a thousand crowns, and there he stops in his arrondissement, wearing away time like the rung of a chair. I say nothing of the pleasure of going to the theatre without paying for your seat, for that is a delight which quickly palls; but you can go behind the scenes in four theatres. Be hard and sarcastic for a month or two, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... accommodating, we talk of rowing to Dawlish, which is about ten miles off. We have had a few cases of cholera, at least suspicious cases: one a fortnight before we arrived, and five since, in the course of a month. All dead except one. I confess a little nervousness; but it is wearing away. The disease does not seem to make any progress; and for the last six days there have been no ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... this book to take a general view of the nature of the modern battle. According to our conception of it, the order of battle is only a disposition of the forces suitable to the convenient use of them, and the course of the battle a mutual slow wearing away of these forces upon one another, to see which will have soonest exhausted ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... valuable mine. At Eureka we were kindly led through the treasure chambers of the Richmond and Eureka Consolidated, our guides leisurely leading the way from level to level, calling attention to the precious ore masses which the workmen were slowly breaking to pieces with their picks, like navvies wearing away the day in a railroad cutting; while down at the smelting works the bars of bullion were handled with less eager haste than the farmer shows in ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... gout and harassed by want of money, a yet greater distress was now fast closing on Fielding in the prolonged illness of his wife. "To see her daily languishing and wearing away before his eyes," says Murphy, "was too much for a man of his strong sensations; the fortitude with which he met all other calamities of life [now] deserted him." In the autumn of 1744 Mrs Fielding was at Bath, doubtless in the hope of benefit ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... She was wearing away her second and last cycle at St. Philip's. As the months went she ticked them off, first October, then November, December, January. She was careful always to subtract a month from the remainder, for the summer holidays. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... I saw Herbert had been of course, whether all was well down the river? As he replied in the affirmative, with perfect confidence and cheerfulness, we did not resume the subject until the day was wearing away. But then, as Herbert changed the bandages, more by the light of the fire than by the outer light, he ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Gothic columns, converted into a servants' hall. Here Joe looked forward to rule the roast at the head of the servants' table, and to make the Gothic arches ring with those hunting and hard-drinking ditties which were the horror of the discreet Nanny Smith. Time, however, was fast wearing away with him, and his great fear was that the hall would not be completed in his day. In his eagerness to hasten the repairs, he used to get up early in the morning, and ring up the workmen. Notwithstanding his great age, also, he would turn out half-dressed in cold weather to cut sticks ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... anxious to hear, yet far from rest. Dark, uneasy eye. Asked me, 'What is it to believe?' Spoke to her on 'God, who made light shine out of darkness.' She seemed to take up nothing. Lord, help! 17th—Still worse; wearing away. No smile; no sign of inward peace. Spoke of 'Remember me.' Went over the whole gospel in the form of personal address. She drowsy. 18th—Quieter. 'My Lord and my God.' She spoke at intervals. More cheerful; anxious that I should not go without prayer. Has much knowledge; ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... meeting is amusingly given in Miss Brightwell's memoirs. It was at an evening party. Some of those present were eagerly expecting the arrival of Miss Alderson, but the evening was wearing away and still she did not appear; 'at length the door was flung open, and she entered bright and smiling, dressed in a robe of blue, her neck and arms bare, and on her head a small bonnet placed in somewhat coquettish style sideways and ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... at a Trading Post, were far happier, than the wretched-looking group around me. The duty devolved upon me, to seek to meliorate their sad condition, as degraded and emaciated, wandering in ignorance, and wearing away a short existence in one continued succession of hardships in procuring food. I was told of difficulties, and some spoke of impossibilities in the way of teaching them Christianity or the first rudiments of settled and civilized life; but with a combination of opposing ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... temperature becomes sufficient to soften the glass of the rods, G, G, so that they bend as shown at O (Fig. 3), and allow the carbons to move onward until the heat has sufficiently diminished to prevent any further softening of the glass. In measure as the wearing away progresses, the preceding effects are reproduced; and, as these are produced in an imperceptible and continuous manner, there is perceived no jumping nor inconstancy in the light of the arc. Under such conditions, then, the regulation of the arc is effected under ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... King of Portugal, had invaded the Territories of Muly Moluc, Emperor of Morocco, in order to dethrone him, and set his Crown upon the Head of his Nephew, Moluc was wearing away with a Distemper which he himself knew was incurable. However, he prepared for the Reception of so formidable an Enemy. He was indeed so far spent with his Sickness, that he did not expect to live out the whole Day, when the last decisive ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... saying that Dora was getting cross, and did not love her as formerly. In this the good woman saw signs less fearful than those of moral disease, but no less true; saw that this exposure and excitement were rapidly wearing away the frail foundations of health; and all that she feared was frankly expressed to the mother: but Mrs. Lindsay having once more allowed the film of vanity to blind the maternal eye, saw not the danger. ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... qualitative studies that have hitherto been made on this illusion have brought to light this significant wearing away ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... would take the twenty dollars that Col. Bent had given him for me, and as the morning was wearing away, I bid them good bye and left them and started on my journey to Taos, New Mexico, and my much-looked-forward-to visit to Uncle Kit, and that was the last time I ever saw any of these people. But a year ago ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... victim, it was only physical suffering by which the Cardinal was prostrated, for never had his mental powers appeared more clear or more acute, or his iron will more indomitable, than at this period, when a slow but painful disease was gradually wearing away his existence; while superadded to this marvellous strength and freshness of intellect—marvellous inasmuch as it triumphantly resisted both physical agony and the conception of all those rapidly-recurring and ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... an endeavor to hold the home and the welfare of children from slipping over the cliff by a knowledge which will bring courage to combat the destructive tendencies. Is not one of the distinctive features of our age a forcible overcoming of the natural trend of things? If a river is by natural law wearing away its bank in a place we wish to keep, do we sit down and moan and say it is sad, but we cannot help it? No, that attitude belonged to the Middle Ages. We say, Hold fast, we cannot have that; and we cement the sides and ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards
... It was, indeed, an unexampled circumstance, that a small squadron should be sent to the station which had been long occupied by a large fleet, commanded by the darling of the navy, and the glory of the British empire, to the station where this fleet had for years been wearing away in the most barren, repulsive, and spirit-trying service, in which the navy can be employed! and that this minor squadron should be sent independently of, and without any communication with the commander of the former fleet, for the express and solitary purpose ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... terror. A year ago, a straightforward blow from the shoulder would have settled the business in a shorter time, and worked a strange alteration in good Giuseppe's handsome sunburnt face. But the old hardness of heart was wearing away. I had another proof of this some ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... deeply under straight, sulky-looking brows. The lower part of his face was small and pointed for the breadth across forehead and cheek bones, and, with his outstanding ears, combined to give him something the look of a piskie's changeling. Already the first innocence of childhood was wearing away, and the deliberate cleanliness of mind achieved, if at all, in the malleable years between fifteen and twenty was as yet far ahead. Nevertheless, Parson Boase was not wrong in scenting the idealist in Ishmael, and he wondered how far the determined but ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... half an hour we waited in the impatient expectation of the arrival of our servants with the rifles. The afternoon was wearing away, and they did not appear. We could wait no longer, but determined to take a stroll and examine the country. We therefore left our horses ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... condition as when the three editions were taken from it. The material of which it is made is a maguey paper of grayish tinge, and not a yellowish brown as would be inferred from the 1887 edition. This is noteworthy, as the wearing away of the coating with which the paper was surfaced for the writing, does not leave a brownish place which, as in the 1887 edition, might be mistaken for traces of applied color. This coating is indeed better preserved ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... in the joint are characteristic of the dry form of the disease, and affect chiefly the cartilage and bone. The atrophy and wearing away of the articular surfaces are accompanied by new formation of cartilage and bone around their margins. The head of the femur may acquire the shape of a helmet, a mushroom, or a limpet shell, and from absorption ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... Temiscouata, on the other hand, the country has the aspect of having once been a table-land, elevated on the average about 1,700 feet above the level of the sea, and of having been washed by some mighty flood, which, wearing away the softer rocks, had cut it into valleys, forming a complex system incapable of being described in words and only to be understood by inspection of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... voyage. We were interested in the numerous islands, hundreds of them. When we looked at some of them from below, the fresh foliage seemed to form a regular flight of steps. The pilot explained this appearance. The rapid current was continually wearing away the upstream end of the island, and depositing its soil on the other end, in which every year new trees sprang up; and each step denoted a period in ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... where I measured it, but the clay is generally much steeper. No cow nor hen ever gets down it. Half a mile farther south the bank is fifteen or twenty-five feet higher, and that appeared to be the highest land in North Truro. Even this vast clay-bank is fast wearing away. Small streams of water trickling down it at intervals of two or three rods have left the intermediate clay in the form of steep Gothic roofs fifty feet high or more, the ridges as sharp and rugged-looking as rocks; and in one place the bank is curiously ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... character are never the original mouths of caverns; they are due to the roof falling in at a point where it has become thin by wearing away from below. ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... person diving to the bottom may hear literally thousands of stones knocking against each other. This attrition, being carried on for hundreds of miles in different rivers, must have an effect greater than if all the pestles and mortars and mills of the world were grinding and wearing away the rocks. The pounding to which I refer may be heard most distinctly in the Vaal River, when that is slightly in flood. It was there I first heard it. In the Leeambye, in the middle of the country, where there is no discoloration, and ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... wearing away fast, and I would like to carry to General Grant at Huntsville, Alabama, every man of his military division, as early in April as possible, for I am sure we ought to move from the base of the Tennessee River to the south before ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... planned, full of imaginative variety; at innumerable points it anticipates what the later more accomplished Gothic sculptors were to achieve, and I suspect, indeed, that much of its apparent lack of executive skill is due to wearing away of the rather soft stone the sculptors used. In the capitals of the cloisters—certainly much later—a peculiarly hard stone has been chosen, and, notwithstanding, the precision and expressive vigour of these artists is clearly shown. But the great portal, a stupendous work of art, as we still ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... the wise kept silence, and Gunnar heeded him nought: On the daughter of his people was set the Niblung's thought, So sore he longed to behold her; for his life seemed wearing away, And the wealth and the fame he had gathered seemed nought by the earlier day, The day of love departed, and ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... dancing to begin. At one side of the village of tents a space had been roped off. Acetylene lamps, hung round it on posts, cast a piercing white light. In one corner sat the band, and, obedient to its scraping and blowing, two or three hundred dancers trampled across the dry ground, wearing away the grass with their booted feet. Round this patch of all but daylight, alive with motion and noise, the night seemed preternaturally dark. Bars of light reached out into it, and every now and then a lonely figure or a couple of lovers, interlaced, would cross the bright shaft, flashing ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... only saving Catholic faith. Far, far from all that was dear to them, in a strange locality, among hostile people, exposed to unutterable hardships and rigorous discipline, these unfortunate beings dragged out their wretched existence. Fully half of their number died of exposure, wearing away their poor lives in a vain longing for home and friends, while the remainder survived, only to forget their kind and kin, and to furnish the raw material for future Nihilists. Many Jewish communities had already ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... depth of the thickness of the plates. He proposes to force into this trough very tightly pieces of teak, and to the teak, thus embedded, he nails a sheathing of zinc. The zinc is kept clean by slowly wearing away of its surface from action by contact with ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... two men, who were seated in conversation; and as they approached softly, one of them said to the other, "I tell you, Coja, that happy is the man who can always command a hard crust like this, which is now wearing away my teeth." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of Artois conceived a strong aversion to the Earl of Salisbury, and treated Longsword with the utmost insolence. And, though the Earl only retaliated by glances of cold contempt, it was known that his patience was wearing away, and it was feared that there would ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... Hector begins to resume his hope of success, and his warlike spirit is roused again, as he approaches the field of action. The depressing effect of his sad interview is wearing away from his mind, and he is already prepared for the battle ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... others, it would have been before this; it's too late to begin now. I came here because I have failed in all I undertook; because I am beginning to hate the one for whom I have toiled, until I grew gray with the wearing away of mind and body; because the soul of life is gone. I do it out of revenge against that person. There is no remorse; no conscience; but it's revenge. Look at me; that person has blasted me. Do I not ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... they had fallen from its face and drowned their brilliancy in the water, on which they seemed to float. The red disc set slowly, robbing the sky of the pink tinge it had diffused over it, and while both the sun and the delicate color were wearing away, the pale blue shades of night crept over the heavens. Soon the sun touched the ocean and sank into it to the middle. For a moment it appeared cut in two by the horizon; the upper half remained firm, while the under one vacillated and lengthened; then it finally disappeared; and ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... only powerful backing upon which McClellan could still rely was that of the President, and he was surely wearing away the patience of his only friend by the irritating attrition of promises ever reiterated and never redeemed. No man ever kept his own counsel more closely than did Mr. Lincoln, and the indications ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... probably been there from the beginning of time, or it might be the result of numberless years of the slow wearing away of a softer vein of rock, but some man at some time had lighted on it, and followed it up, and with much labour had smoothed its natural asperities and used it for his own purposes. And he was keen to ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... wood with the same ease that a Southern Negro's teeth lacerate watermelon. Leave a pair of shoes on the ground over night and you will find them riddled in the morning. These ants eat away floors and sometimes cause the collapse of houses by wearing away the wooden supports. Another frequent guest is the driver ant, which travels in armies and frequently takes complete possession of a house. It destroys all the vermin but the human inmates must beat a retreat ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... ablatus, carried away), the process of removing anything; a term used technically in geology of the wearing away of a rock or glacier, and in surgery for ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... growing worse and worse, worse and worse, all the time; she will die, I think to myself; she must die. Believe me, I would sooner have gone to the grave myself; and here were her mother and sisters watching me, looking into my eyes ... and their faith in me was wearing away. "Well? how is she?" "Oh, all right, all right!" All right, indeed! My mind was failing me. Well, I was sitting one night alone again by my patient. The maid was sitting there too, and snoring away in full swing; I can't find ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... a measure that passed through the Legislature by, he might say, the unanimous vote of both Houses of Parliament, which entitled Mr Montefiore to occupy the position he then held. He was happy to say that the ancient prejudices, founded on difference of religious belief, were fast wearing away, and he only hoped the time was at hand when objections on such grounds would altogether cease to operate. It was the desire of Her Majesty's Government to promote such a state of things by all the means in their power; and for his ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... communications were slow and land transit difficult. You had to foot it. The European fauna and flora moved but gradually and tentatively north-westward, and before any large part of it could settle in England our island was finally cut off from the mainland by the long and gradual wearing away of the cliffs at Dover and Calais. That accounts for the comparative poverty of animal and vegetable life in England, and still more for its extreme paucity and meagreness in Ireland and the Highlands. It has been erroneously asserted, for example, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... day passed that did not see Hal Hutchings at Mrs. Robertson's door, to lend his strong arm and willing feet to do for her some little kindness, a true labor of love. When the Sabbath was wearing away, Hal might be seen moving his coarse finger slowly along the sacred page, reading holy words, to which Mrs. Robertson from time to time added her voice of ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... woods, for my body will be shining like the lake water after you have been hurried away. You and the old race of men, and the race of the beasts, and the race of the fish, and the winged race, are wearing away like a candle that has been burned out. But I laugh out loud, because I am in ...
— Stories of Red Hanrahan • W. B. Yeats
... slopes fell quickly to the sea, the snow would lie for a few days at the very most, but, lower down, where the glacier ran almost level for a short distance to the harbour ice, the drifts would lie for months at the mercy of the wind, furrowed and cut into miniature canyons; wearing away in fragments until the blue ice showed once ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... and assimilated with others on the basis of a common sentiment. This threw her in contact with many from whom she would have shrunk with instinctive aversion had she known their true quality. Still, the evil to her was a gradual wearing away, by the power of steady attrition, of old, true, conservative ideas in regard to the binding force of marriage. There was always a great deal said on this subject, in a light way, by persons for whose opinions on other subjects she had the highest respect, and this had its influence. ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... because, for the first time since first the hills were hung with moonlight, there was a lover in the world. And always there was the sound of the rushing water underneath, the sound which, more than anything else, meant death; the wearing away of things under the impact of physical forces which men could direct but never circumvent or diminish. Then, in the exaltation of love, more than ever it seemed to him to mean death, the only other thing as strong as love. Under the moon, under the cold, splendid stars, ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... not wearing away the shining boards with their feet half so much as they wore away the thin ice above ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... allows the upper half to open whilst the lower remains shut, such as is used in stables in England. The flooring is made of cow-dung, into which peach stones are trodden at the threshold, in order to prevent its wearing away. The furniture consists of a deal table and some chairs, rather nearly made of strips of hide fastened to a wooden frame. There is no ceiling, but only beams, to which are fastened strips of "biltong," or ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... Times in the numbering of its days, is in its 64th year, but has not really reached its grand climacteric, for its three years of infancy passed under the name of The Universal Register, it having only received its present appellation in the opening of 1788. The Morning Advertiser is wearing away ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... torrents in each valley would deposit, if they were checked in their course by any cause, such as entering a lake or arm of the sea; but the torrents, instead of depositing matter, are now steadily at work wearing away both the solid rock and these alluvial deposits, along the whole line of every main valley and side valley. It is impossible here to give the reasons, but I am convinced that the shingle terraces were accumulated, during the gradual elevation of the Cordillera, by the ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... invalid; has been an invalid for years—that's why so little is known about him. He's dying of consumption. The doctors hold out no hope for him, and now, with the fear preying upon him of leaving his wife and children penniless, he is wearing away so fast that any hour may see his end. And I have to meet his eyes—such pitiful eyes—and the look in them is killing me. Yet, I was not to blame. I could not help—Oh, Miss Strange," she suddenly broke in with the inconsequence of extreme feeling, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... blacker night on the slopes beneath, he heard the clinking hoofs of the posse; the quiet was so perfect, the air so clear, that he even caught the chorus of straining saddle leather and then voices of men. All this time the effects of the whisky had been wearing away by imperceptible degrees and at that sound all his old self rushed back on Vic Gregg. Why, they were his friends, his partners, these voices in the night, and that clear laughter floated up from Harry Fisher who had been his bunkie at the Circle V Bar ranch three years ago. He felt an insane ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... which was not altogether unwarranted by the circumstances of the two trying interviews, the particulars of which I have just detailed. The unpleasant impression which these conferences were calculated to leave upon my mind was fast wearing away, when there occurred a circumstance, slight indeed in itself, but calculated irrepressibly to awaken all my worst suspicions, and to overwhelm me again ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... relief. No more of this secrecy, making her innocence seem guilt; no more painful dreams of punishment for some intangible crime; no starting if she heard a sudden footstep; no more hurried walk through the streets, looking neither to right nor to left; no more inward struggles wearing away her life. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... leaving my brain, filled me with an agony, the depth and blackness of which I should vainly attempt to portray. I threw myself on my bed, with the excited blood still roaring wildly in my ears, my heart throbbing with a force that seemed to be rapidly wearing away my life, my throat dry as a pot-sherd, and my stiffened tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth—resisting no longer, but awaiting my fate with the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... asked me before going back to my work. Irma smiled at me, being well pleased. For it seemed to her that Louis's ill-temper was wearing away. Now my grandmother and Aunt Jen were inveterate tea-lovers, which was then not so common a drink in the country as it is now. Irma sometimes took a cup with them for company, and, because it also refreshed me in my labours, I also joined them. But with me it was done chiefly for the sake ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett |
