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Heighten   Listen
verb
Heighten  v. t.  (past & past part. heightened; pres. part. heightening)  (Written also highten)  
1.
To make high; to raise higher; to elevate.
2.
To carry forward; to advance; to increase; to augment; to aggravate; to intensify; to render more conspicuous; used of things, good or bad; as, to heighten beauty; to heighten a flavor or a tint. "To heighten our confusion." "An aspect of mystery which was easily heightened to the miraculous."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Heighten" Quotes from Famous Books



... account of Poll Doolin, for she felt now that the interviews she held with her were calculated to heighten her disgrace, when taken in connection with the occurrence of the night. Her brothers, however, who knew her truth and many virtues, joined their parents in comforting and supporting her, but without the success which they could have wished. The more she thought ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... sometimes creates and often increases joy, doth also, upon occasion, heighten sorrow: and so it fared now with our portly monk, who had no sooner explained away his portion of provender, than he began to ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... patron-saint—is it so pretty You can't discover if it means hope, fear, 210 Sorrow, or joy? Won't beauty go with these? Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue, Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash, And then add soul and heighten them three-fold? Or say there's beauty with no soul at all— 215 (I never saw it—put the case the same—) If you get simple beauty and naught else, You get about the best thing God invents: That's somewhat: and you'll find ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... penknife cut the paper along the lines A. Do not cut on the lines B. Fold back the two "doors," at B, as if they were hinged. It may be necessary to hold them back with thumb tacks or pins. To heighten the effect it is well to have placed a blackened sheet of paper beneath the top sheet, so as to produce the effect illustrated. Add "And Poison Kills!" ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold

... danger, sufficient to give a serious character to our conversation. The momentary view which had been had of the lake the day before, its great extent and rugged islands, dimly seen amidst the dark waters in the obscurity of the sudden storm, were calculated to heighten the idea of undefined danger with which the lake was ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... absent, she breakfasted with her first lady of honor and a few others. Madame de la Rochefoucauld, first lady of honor to the Empress, was a hunchback, and so small that it was necessary, when she was to have a place at the table, to heighten the seat of her chair by another very thick cushion made of violet satin. Madame de la Rochefoucauld knew well how to efface, by means of her bright and sparkling, though somewhat caustic wit, her striking elegance, and her exquisite court manners, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... other characters are accessory and subordinate,—perhaps we should rather say a ruling Idea, of which all the characters are fragmentary embodiments. They remind us of a symphony of Beethoven's, in which, though there be variety of parts, yet all are infused with the dominant motive, and heighten its impression by hints and far-away suggestions at the most unexpected moment. As in Rome the obelisks are placed at points toward which several streets converge, so in Mr. Hawthorne's stories the actors and incidents seem but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... the analysis of a topic shows that it possesses more than one of these appeals, the writer may heighten the attractiveness of his story by developing several of the possibilities, simultaneously or successively. The chance discovery by a prominent physician of a simple preventive of infantile paralysis, for instance, would combine at least ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... head with her gallantly, having now both hands free of the reins, like an Indian spearing the buffalo—it was buffalo courtship; and his shout of rallying astonishment at her resistance, 'What? What?' rang wildly to heighten the scene, she leaning constrained on one side and he bending half his body's length; a strange scene for me ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... when he stood on the door-mat beside his captor merely added mystery to mystery. Just within the luxuriously furnished hall, where the light of the softly shaded hall lantern served to heighten the artistic effect of her red house-gown, stood a woman—a lady, and evidently the mistress of the Georgian mansion. She was small and dark, with brown eyes that were almost childlike in their ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... Boots, and others of the same kidney, we doubt whether these immature character sketches, which all belong to the author's first and most Hogarthian manner, do not range below the legitimate boundaries of literature as a fine art, and whether they do not much rather harm than heighten his permanent reputation when they are placed on a line with his masterpieces by formal reproduction. It is impossible to take much interest in personages with an unbroken record of profligacy and baseness; and we are reminded ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... under the charm of her enigmatical and mocking smile, where her teeth had a cruel look between her red lips, and glistened as if they were ready to bite and to heighten the pleasure of the most delightful, the most voluptuous kiss, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... larger rivers boats were anchored, with mill wheels which the rapid current turned. But the stills were plentier than the mills, and as much corn was made into whisky as into bread. Men drank hard to soften their hard life, to lighten its heaviness, to drown its cares, to heighten its few pleasures. Drink was free and common not only at every shooting match, where men met alone, but at every log rolling or cabin raising, where the women met with them, to cook for them, and then to dance away the night ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... not gained by the Court made use of his pusillanimous temper, and represented to him the necessity he was under to provide for his own, or rather their, security. La Rochepot and myself endeavoured to heighten his fears as much as possible, in order to precipitate him into our measures. The term sounds odd, but it is the most expressive I could find of a character like the Duke's. He weighed everything, but fixed on nothing; and if by chance he was inclined to do one thing more than another, ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... apostasy could not but heighten the interest with which the nation looked forward to the day when the fate of the seven brave confessors of the English Church was to be decided. To pack a jury was now the great object of the King. The crown lawyers were ordered to make strict inquiry as to the sentiments of the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... deepen our confidence in the triumphs of Christ's Cross, and it may be used to heighten our own confidence as to our own poor selves. A chamber in the great Temple waits for each of us, and the question is, Shall we occupy it, or shall we not? The old Rabbis had a tradition which, like a great many of their apparently foolish sayings, covers in picturesque guise a very ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... glisten with a thousand varied colours. At sight of it the traveller paused, delighted and astonished. It reminded him of the prodigies with which the oriental poets had amused his childhood. On entering it, a nearer view served but to heighten his astonishment: he recognized the nobles by the manners, the habits, and the different languages of modern Europe; and by the rich and light elegance of their dress. He beheld, with surprise, the luxury and the Asiatic form of those of the merchants; the Grecian costumes of the common people, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... I am, I will here say this as to the errors of my youth. Not only from the danger of impairing my health (and yet I could not be so careful but that I had two light mischances), but moreover upon the account of contempt, I have seldom given myself up to common and mercenary embraces: I would heighten the pleasure by the difficulty, by desire, and a certain kind of glory, and was of Tiberius's mind, who in his amours was as much taken with modesty and birth as any other quality, and of the courtesan Flora's humour, who never lent herself to less than a dictator, a consul, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... the Coppermine, as it plunged over the broken stones of its bed in a series of cascades. A few trees, or rather a few burnt stumps, fringed the banks, but the trees which here and there remained unburned were so crooked and dwarfish as merely to heighten ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock

... might be called, if it were any earthly color—a queer, dull, bronzy green, with streaks here and there of the original red to heighten the ghastly effect. Never in all her life had Marilla seen anything so grotesque as Anne's hair ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... morbidly arouse all their senses. The voluptuous emotions, restrained during the rest of the day, break out with irresistible force; stimulated by the spectacle of each other's nakedness, some place their legs together and thus heighten the spasm by the illusion of contact with a man." In this way they reach mutual masturbation. "It is noteworthy, however," Niceforo points out, "that these couples for mutual masturbation are never Lesbian ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... deserved the high title and distinction conferred upon her than this fair girl. Lovelier maiden in the whole county, and however high her degree, than this rustic damsel, it was impossible to find; and though the becoming and fanciful costume in which she was decked could not heighten her natural charms, it certainly displayed them to advantage. Upon her smooth and beautiful brow sat a gilt crown, while her dark and luxuriant hair, covered behind with a scarlet coif, embroidered with gold; and tied with yellow, white, and crimson ribands, but otherwise ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... own. Most heroes require the contrast of the unheroic to set them off; and Elijah actually found himself devising means for strengthening the defensive and offensive character of the tribe, and was himself strengthened by it. Meanwhile the escaped packers did not fail to heighten the importance of their adventure by elevating the character and achievements of their deliverer; and it was presently announced throughout the frontier settlements that the hitherto insignificant and peaceful tribe of Minyos, who inhabited a large territory bordering on the Pacific ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte

... A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around me—while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... the words of a recent admirable statement of the psychologists' position: "When rhythm and melody and forms and colors give me pleasure, it is because the imitating impulses and movements that have arisen in me are such as suit, help, heighten my physical organization in general and in particular. . . . The basis, in short, of any aesthetic experience—poetry, music, painting and the rest—is beautiful through its harmony with the conditions offered by our senses, primarily ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes

... than good enough for his audience: wrote probably fluently but certainly negligently, sometimes only half saying what he meant, and sometimes saying the opposite, and now and then, when passion was required, lapsing into bombast because he knew he must heighten his style but would not take the trouble to inflame his imagination. It may truly be said that what injures such passages is not inspiration, but the want of it. But, as they are mostly passages where no poet could expect to be inspired, it is even more true to say ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... beauty. In vain, when the shades of evening fell, the softly breathed flute lamented in melancholy tones her cruelty. In vain, with tasteful hand, the sighing lover painted his face and person to heighten his attractions and draw attention. The insensible Leelinau relished not the venison or bear's meat, nor would she listen to the flute, or look often at ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... then, and by her childish intuitive reading of the lines it had drawn round the mouth and brow. It had no disagreeable bearing on his everyday life and manner; and the quiet fact probably served but to heighten the love and reverence in which his family ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... 299, and note under No. 517), with some butter and flour, till they are browned (and rubbed through a sieve), are excellent to heighten the colour and flavour of brown soups and sauces, and form the basis of most of the relishes furnished by the "Restaurateurs"—as we guess from the odour which ascends from their kitchens, and salutes ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... elder and the younger inmate looking so rosy and happy that doubts of their continued welfare seemed unreasonable. Charlotte, expecting them, was wearing a picturesque, if old and oft-rejuvenated, trailing frock of dull-rose silk, whose effect was to heighten the already splendid colour in her face. It gave her also a certain air of grand lady which seemed hers by right, whether in the dignified old drawing-room Ellen remembered in the Ruston house, or in this small apartment, illumined ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond

... together. It was a purple wine, so cool that the cup into which it was poured became covered with vapory dew; yet it seemed to warm the veins with strange fire. To Ming-Y, as he drank, all things became more luminous as by enchantment; the walls of the chamber appeared to recede, and the roof to heighten; the lamps glowed like stars in their chains, and the voice of Sie floated to the boy's ears like some far melody heard through the spaces of a drowsy night. His heart swelled; his tongue loosened; and words flitted from his lips that he had fancied he could never ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn

... national habits conformed to instinctive promptings in this regard, that the natives of hot countries have unconsciously sought to heighten the enjoyment of food by taking their principal repast after sunset[1]; and the European in the East will speedily discover for himself the prudence, not only of reducing the quantity, but in regard to the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... encouragement. He had probably been long meditating it, and gathering materials for it, and we may well suppose that the outbreak of the plague in 1348, by furnishing him with a sombre background to heighten the effect of his motley pageant, had far more to do with accelerating the composition than aught that ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... the Assistance of another Sense. Thus any continued Sound, as the Musick of Birds, or a Fall of Water, awakens every moment the Mind of the Beholder, and makes him more attentive to the several Beauties of the Place that lye before him. Thus if there arises a Fragrancy of Smells or Perfumes, they heighten the Pleasures of the Imagination, and make even the Colours and Verdure of the Landskip appear more agreeable; for the Ideas of both Senses recommend each other, and are pleasanter together than when they enter ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... liveth Immortal as the soul, And purer pleasure giveth As longer ages roll; And hope and joy and inward peace Forever heighten and increase! ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... wholly himself, Lamb had to hide himself under some disguise, a name, 'Elia,' taken literally as a pen name, or some more roundabout borrowing, as of an old fierce critic's, Joseph Ritson's, to heighten and soften the energy of marginal annotations on a pedant scholar. In the letter in which he announces the first essays of Elia, he writes to Barron Field: 'You shall soon have a tissue of truth and fiction, impossible to be extricated, the interleavings ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... Ghetto, the tenant of a sordid little shop in an East End by-street. Yet this appears actually to have been his condition at one time—but let me quote the entry in his own words, which need no comments of mine to heighten their strangeness. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... were about to take the fatal plunge, was irresistibly comic, and was the more remarkable for the spontaneousness of the whole thing and the admirable way in which the pair played into one another's hands. The deaf one even played his deafness, making it worse than it was so as to heighten the comedy. By and by we came to a stile which they pretended to have a delicacy in crossing, but the lady helped them over. We concluded that if these young men were average specimens of the Italian student—and I should say they were—the Italian character has ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... bears the impress of a matured mind and perfected style. The language of Miss Austen is, in all her pages, drawn from the "wells of English undefiled." Concise and clear, simple and vigorous, no word can be omitted that she puts down, and none can be added to heighten the effect of her sentences. In "Persuasion" there are passages whose depth and tenderness, welling up from deep fountains of feeling, impress us with the conviction that the angel of sorrow or suffering had troubled the waters, yet had left in them a healing influence, which is felt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... I made up my mind, come what would, to force myself upon Crossthwaite. He was the only man whom I knew who seemed able to help me; and his very reserve had invested him with a mystery, which served to heighten my imagination of his powers. I waylaid him one day coming out of the workroom to go home, and plunged at ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... old Collie stretched himself in a snug corner beside his master, it represented a scene of comfort almost as perfect as rustic human nature was capable of enjoying. And when the wind blew through the branches of the elm over the roof, it was like music, played on purpose to heighten the enjoyment. Comfort, thou art at the evening fireside of a farm-house, ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... powerfully vivid light evolved from the combustion of gas; and he noted that the pupils of the eyes of all actors or actresses, who had been two or three years on the stage, were much dilated; though this, he thought, might be attributable to the injurious pigments they employed to heighten their complexions; common rouge containing either red oxide of lead or the sulphuret of mercury, and white paint being often composed of carbonate of lead, all of which were capable of acting detrimentally upon ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... only ornament being a string of pearls about the full throat. Later in our talk I ventured to express my preference for creamy draperies instead of black, for the concert room; but the singer thought otherwise. "No," she said; "my gown must be absolutely unobtrusive—negative. I must not use it to heighten effect, or to attract the audience to me personally. People must be drawn to me by what I express, by my art, by what I have to ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... said quickly, "that you frightened me." This seemed to pacify the bird; and David, to heighten the good impression, ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd

... purely objective description. What colors predominate? Point out the similes in use. Do they heighten the picture? Does the author succeed in giving a clear picture ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... lived in a house on the side towards the Quai de l'Horloge, a house that dated from Henri IV and would still have preserved a not unhandsome appearance but for a mean tiled attic that had been added on to heighten the building under the last but one of the tyrants. To adapt the lodging of some erstwhile dignitary of the Parlement to the exigencies of the bourgeois and artisan households that formed its present denizens, ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... many qualities such as are sure to heighten their value in the eyes of employers and business men. On the whole, they are a contented race when fairly used. We can hardly think of them as becoming political agitators. They know too well where their ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike

... going on, for his attention had been drawn from the field by the wiles of Juno. That goddess had arrayed herself in all her charms, and to crown all had borrowed of Venus her girdle, called "Cestus," which had the effect to heighten the wearer's charms to such a degree that they were quite irresistible. So prepared, Juno went to join her husband, who sat on Olympus watching the battle. When he beheld her she looked so charming that the fondness of his early love revived, and, forgetting the contending armies and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... blab it. As for absent Persons, I either say nothing at all of them, or speak of them with Kindness and Civility. Great Part of the Quarrels that arise between Men, come from the Intemperance of the Tongue. I never breed Quarrels or heighten them; but where-ever Opportunity happens, I either moderate them, or put an End to them. By these Methods I have hitherto kept clear of Envy, and have maintained the Affections ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... own opinion they are as important and as educable for the good of the youth by means of biology as are knowledge, skill, and habit. In a sense these states of mind arise as by-products of the getting of information, skills, and habits; in turn they heighten their value. We have spoken above of the need of skill and habit in making use of the various steps in the scientific method in reaching conclusions in life. These are essential, but skill and habit alone are not enough to meet the ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... a block, on which they form and adjust the gallant trophy destined to heighten the loveliness of some ambitious fair who has set her heart on surpassing all her rivals at an approaching ball. Montesquieu observes, in his Persian letters, that "if a lady has taken it into her head to appear at an assembly in a particular ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... the universal melee, when the stones and arrows are raining on the combatants, and some furious hailstorm is the slightest illustration with which we should expect him to heighten the effect of the human tempest, so sure Homer is that he has painted the thing itself in its own intense reality, that his simile is the stillest phenomenon in all nature—a stillness of activity, infinitely expressive of the density of the shower ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... their treaties are always founded upon good sense, conveyed in a very ridiculous manner. Their language is guttural, harsh, and polysyllabical; and their speech consists of hyperbolical metaphors and similies, which invest it with an air of dignity and heighten the expression. They manage their conferences by means of wampum, a kind of bead formed of a hard shell, either in single strings, or sewed in broad belts of different dimensions, according to the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... and she slid it across the floor with her foot. Directly above the body and on the wall were a couple of flaming portraits, in stamped paper frames, of the Queen and the Prince of Wales. They looked down on the performance, and, to my thinking, seemed to heighten the grotesqueness of ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... airy flakes which a traveler—a Rouennais "pur sang"—once likened to a shower of cotton, had ceased to fall; a dirty gray light filtered through the heavy thick clouds which served to heighten the dazzling whiteness of the landscape, where now a long line of trees crusted with icicles would appear, now a cottage with a hood ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... well-coloured, and with no appearance or trace of water having been used to heighten it, which may be easily detected on a careful inspection, although the unwary have on several occasions been known to have purchased, and shipped home to Britain, quantities of the common firewood in place of it, as after being wetted, it ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... and with fish, Let each guest bring himself, and he brings a good dish: Our Dean shall be venison, just fresh from the plains; Our Burke shall be tongue, with a garnish of brains; Our Will shall be wild fowl, of excellent flavour; And Dick with his pepper shall heighten their savour; Our Cumberland's sweet-bread its place shall obtain, And Douglas is pudding, substantial and plain: Our Garrick a salad, for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree: To make out the dinner, full certain I am That Ridge is anchovy, and Reynolds is lamb; ...
— English Satires • Various

... bland was he in his mode of conferring his favors, as to greatly augment the value of them, and at the same time heighten the esteem of the recipients for the donor." Outside of her alumni Dartmouth had few ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... They differ from many other great modern engineering achievements in the fact that, instead of spoiling the lovely mountain scenery into whose midst they have been thrown, they actually harmonize with it and heighten its natural beauty. Both works, however, are splendid feats, regarded merely as efforts of practical skill; and the larger one is particularly memorable for the peculiarity that the trough for the water and ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen

... enough," said he, "for pure water, there are innocent infusions to strengthen the stomach against the nausea of aqueous quaffings. Sage, for example, has a very pretty flavor; and if you wish to heighten it into a debauch, it is only mixing rosemary, wild poppy, and other simples ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... trance to enable them to return radiant with love and joy—all these conspire to kindle emotions deeply religious in hearts that are breaking under blows of bereavement, and of such, as I have said, the majority of the audiences are composed. Every effort is made by the Mediums to heighten the effect. Before entering the Cabinet to undergo her mysterious trance, the Medium generally makes a short address, reminding the circle that this is a solemn hour, that here is the forecourt of the world beyond, thronged with living Spirits, eager to return, bearing visible, ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... essay on the influence of custom and fashion on manners, dress, and in Fine Art generally. The second chapter makes the application to our moral sentiments. Although custom will never reconcile us to the conduct of a Nero or a Claudius, it will heighten or blunt the delicacy of our sentiments on right and wrong. The fashion of the times of Charles II. made dissoluteness reputable, and discountenanced regularity of conduct. There is a customary behaviour ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... To heighten the illusion he had himself called regularly with the four-o'clock watch, in order not to miss the mornings. The points along the river were nearly all new to him, everything had changed, but during high-water this mattered little. He was a pilot again—a young fellow in his twenties, speculating ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine

... As though to heighten its beauty, the Potala is separated from the city by a park of grass and trees about a mile wide, making the stately edifice look like a huge diamond encircled with emeralds. Nothing but a blind religious zeal could have brought to completion such ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... contingencies as the "Memnon." [5] Batta was withheld from the few officers who obtained leave, and the life of weary labour on board ship was systematically made monotonous and uncomfortable:—in local phrase it was described as "many stripes and no stars." Few measures were omitted to heighten the shock of contrast. No notice was taken of papers forwarded to Government, and the man who attempted to distinguish himself by higher views than quarter-deck duties, found himself marked out for the angry Commodore's red-hot displeasure. No place was allowed ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... dress; and this he could see from the position of the bed where he lay. The chat among themselves and with Mrs. Finnerty was not, as is the case in romances, either mysterious or awful. On the contrary, it was light and pleasant, and by no means calculated to heighten McCarthy's fears; who, to say truth, however, although resolute and full of courage, would as lief been spending the evening with his ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... their ingrained prejudices regarding the nature of the female character, and also by the cramped position of woman. The object must not be to develop still further the sentimental and imaginative side of woman, which would only tend to heighten her natural inclination to nervousness; neither should her education be limited to etiquette and polite literature. The object, with regard to her as to man, should be to develop their intellectual activity and acquaint them with the phenomena of practical ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... people; hates whatever can interfere with total blending of parties; whilst it values all peculiarities as in the highest degree refreshing, which can consist with good fellowship. And besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society as the costliest addition to ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Marquis de Mores six months previous had served greatly to heighten Maunders's personal prestige and to strengthen the lawless elements. For the Marquis was attracted by Jake's evident power, and, while he drew the crafty schemer into his inner counsels, was himself drawn into a subtle net that was yet to ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... those who attended the host observing, pulled him from his box, and compelled him to kneel: this violence to the domestic of a public minister, was highly resented by all the protestant deputies; and still more to heighten these differences, the protestants presented to the deputies three additional ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... returned home, when he falls in love with Anael, a Druse girl, whose devotion to her tribe is a religion, and who is determined to marry none but the man who will deliver it; and he is then seized by an impulse to heighten the act of deliverance by a semblance of more than human power. He declares himself Hakeem, the Divine founder of the sect, again present in human form, and who will again be transformed, or "exalted," so soon as by the slaughter of their tyrant he ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... Cecilia have been willingly dispensed with, since to her their names were as new as their persons, and since knowing nothing of their histories, parties or connections, she could to nothing allude: it therefore served but to heighten her colour ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... approaching me, he said, "Ah, madame! so you too can mystify your friends, I see! Have a care; the sight of charms like yours is sufficient to strike terror into any adversaries, without having recourse to any expedient to heighten their effect." Saying this he passed on without giving me the opportunity of replying, as I could have wished to have done. The marechale de Mirepoix, to whom I had confided my secret, and of whose fidelity I was assured, was present at the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... the dissociated hypnotic state can be made to accept almost any suggestion. We found in the last chapter how open to suggestion is a person in normal sleep. Of the dissociation of hysteria we shall have occasion to speak in later chapters. Although all these special states heighten suggestibility, we must not forget how susceptible each of us is ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... seemed to be regarding me quite steadily. I wondered uneasily if I were not looking well. The rooms seemed rather over-warm. The presence of so many people in such a small space is apt to make the air oppressive. Also I remembered that the effect of pale-gray is not to heighten one's colouring. ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... for and which the natives are as much at a loss to explain as myself. Sometimes a strange sound is heard, like the clang of an iron bar against a hard, hollow tree; or a piercing cry rends the air. These are not repeated, and the succeeding stillness only tends to heighten the unpleasant impression which ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... No one can form an adequate idea of the heartburnings, feuds, parties, and tumults, by which that great measure was preceded, and followed, without looking into the contemporary writers, whose aim it ever is to heighten the picture of passing events; whereas the calm historian subdues it into one ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... natural conditions of life, and which will still by natural law work to their own proper triumphs in so far as these conditions survive, and within such limits, and in such sense, as they permit; or, on the contrary, does it tend to heighten respect for civic law, for pledged word, for the habit of self-surrender to the public good, and for all those other ideas and sentiments and usages which have been painfully gained from the sterile sands of egotism ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley

... commerce of the West Branch Valley were strictly confined to its own locale. Mountain barriers, limited transportation facilities, and insufficient contact with the settled areas of the Province only served to heighten the essential self-sufficiency of the Fair Play settlers. The result was an economic independence which doubtless had its ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf

... her wretchedness. This it was that enervated his heart and threw him into agonies, which all that profusion of heroic tenderness that the most excellent of women intended for his comfort served only to heighten and aggravate: as the more she rose in his admiration, the more she quickened the sense ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... morning sun. The yellow and white birch waved their spicy branches soothingly above the songful streams, like emerald sprays of art. The vireo's cheery strain sounded from many points in the vast wilderness of foliage. This song coming from afar, only served to heighten the vast and lonely grandeur of the forest solitudes. From the wooded hills of southeastern Ohio to the Green Mountains of Vermont we heard his cheery notes. Whether in the morning when the pine needles glistened in the bright ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... with this difference, that the marriage will not be as sacred, as indissoluble.[6134]... They will engage themselves for three, six, or nine years, and not resign without giving notice a certain number of years beforehand." To heighten the resemblance, "the principle of celibacy must be established, in this sense, that a man consecrated to teaching shall not marry until after having passed through the first stages of his career; "for example, "the schoolmasters shall not marry before the age ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... heighten the effect of her reception by these small discourtesies she did not succeed. Rather, Marcella's self-possession returned under them. She looked round simply for a chair, brought one forward within speaking distance of her companion, moving once ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... sabotage it. Their people could not afford to allow another world to beat them to the punch. Who controlled this weapon controlled the universe. Stalling the aliens was more important than ever now. He couldn't heighten the danger to his own life. It wasn't worth a lead nickel anyway. If it had been, Thompson wouldn't have consented to ...
— The Observers • G. L. Vandenburg

... doubtless tended to heighten devotional feeling among the worshipers, and possibly a similar popular effect was produced by the festivals that were common in the ancient world. Here the whole population took part, there were religious ceremonies, and the consciousness of the presence of ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... who am mad, and you prove to me that passion blinds the most well-meaning. I appreciate your calm reasoning. It is then understood that to-morrow you will be irrevocably promised to M. Franz d'Epinay, not only by that theatrical formality invented to heighten the effect of a comedy called the signature of the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... embroidered silk coats and breeches. By the old-fashioned magnificence of this procession, it might worthily have included his Holiness in person, with a suite of attendant Cardinals, if those sacred dignitaries would kindly have lent their aid to heighten the frolic of the Carnival. But, for all its show of a martial escort, and its antique splendor of costume, it was but a train of the municipal authorities of Rome,—illusive shadows, every one, and among them ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... will not have been brought over the sea for nothing, however, if his bad behavior serves to heighten our appreciation of our own native songsters, with their "perfect virtues" and "manners ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... Gawayne, King Arthur's nephew, who in many ways overshadows his more illustrious uncle. It is remarkable that the King Arthur of the mediaeval romances is either a mere ordinary conqueror or a secondary figure set in the background to heighten the achievements of his more warlike followers. The latter is the conception of Arthur which we find in this legend of the gentle and ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... cannot understand, and walk them into a cloud of steam as if going overboard in a fog, and you have a passable reproduction of the scene. A bright fire should be burning on shore to throw its contrast of light and shadow over the surroundings and heighten the picturesque effect. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... 8: The Navajo will not use real blue coloring in their sand painting, but adhere strictly to the instructions of the gods. They do, however, use a bit of vermilion, when it can be obtained, to heighten the ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various

... sculpture, painting and gold. At one end is a gallery for the orchestra, supported by six columns of variegated marble, above which are six dancing nymphs, painted so beautifully that they appear like living creatures. Every decoration which could be devised has been used to heighten its splendor, and the artists appear to have made free use of the Arabian ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... choose to connect with the passion; whereas, in the other, the metre obeys certain laws, to which the Poet and Reader both willingly submit because they are certain, and because no interference is made by them with the passion, but such as the concurring testimony of ages has shown to heighten and improve the pleasure which ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... hairs impart, And fill her place in his indulgent heart: As where fruits fall, quick rising blossoms smile, And the bless'd Indian of his care beguile, In vain these various reasons jointly press, To blacken death, and heighten her distress; She, thro' th' encircling terrors darts her sight To the bless'd regions of eternal light, And fills her soul with peace: to weeping friends Her father, and her lord, she recommends; ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... of Buddhist philosophy in the Pali literature, this difficulty is greatly felt. There are some technical terms here which are still very elastic and their repetition in different places in more or less different senses heighten the difficulty of understanding the real meaning ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... of life and intelligence, and enjoyed the excitement of crossing the river, and the beauties it revealed to us, with a keen appreciation of the scene, which would have been incomprehensible to some of the wonder-seekers we had met the day before. All nature contributed to heighten our enjoyment. The heavens were so blue and cloudless, the air so clear and transparent, the changing tints on the autumnal foliage so rich, the sun so bright and warm, that we seemed surrounded by an enchanted atmosphere, and the very consciousness of existence was delightful; but, with ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... humor. The most calamitous events, either to themselves or others, can bring no new affliction; the world is to them a theater, in which only comedies are acted. All the bustle of heroism, or the aspirations of ambition, seem only to heighten the absurdity of the scene, and make the humor more poignant. They feel, in short, as little anguish at their own distress, or the complaints of others, as the undertaker, though dressed in black, feels sorrow at a funeral. Of all the men I ever read ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... triumph of his skill is to select such parts as may produce the effect of the whole, to bring out strongly all the characteristic features, and to throw the light and shade in such a manner as may heighten the effect. This skill, as far as we can judge from the unfinished work now before us, Sir James Mackintosh ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... one but Newton, who was employed to carry his farewell message. His secret was faithfully kept by both. Isabel Revel was not one of those young ladies who would make use of such an unworthy advantage to heighten her consequence in the eyes of others. But there was another reason, not exactly known to Isabel herself at the time, which prevented her from listening to the proposals of Captain Carrington. Had she questioned her own heart, she would have discovered that she was prepossessed in favour of ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... believe it, the large majority will swallow almost anything with what theologians call "simple faith." The "if" is an important one—the key to the situation. We believe readily when it is agreeable to do so, and all pilgrims have ever sought to heighten the attractions of the objects of their interest. It adds to their own enjoyment of them, and, after all, is it not a reflex compliment to ourselves? If "there is but one such pig in the world," ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... comrades while a student. There are likewise narratives of his persuasive eloquence and of his influence as a patriot, but these sound mythical. In short, an organized effort of sycophantic admirers, who would, if possible, illuminate the whole family in order to heighten Napoleon's renown, has invented fables and distorted facts to such a degree that the entire truth as to Charles's character is hard to discern. Certain undisputed facts, however, throw a strong light ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... Salt upon it, and all about in it, to season it. For then it will imbibe it into it self presently; whereas if you Salt it not, till it grow cold in the air, it will not take it in. Mean while prepare your sauce of melted well thickened butter (which you may heighten with shreded Onions or Syves, or what well tasted herbs you please) and if you will, you may first strew upon the fish some very small shreded young Onions, or Sibbouls, or Syves, or Parsley. Then upon that pour the melted butter to cover the ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... expression of such lofty aloofness, an air of such aristocratic disdain, that though she stood without motion, movement, or gesture; though, too, there was no draught, the skirt of her admirable frock seemed to lift and avert itself. It was the triumph of civilised life. Yet that triumph she contrived to heighten. Raising the glasses which she did not need, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... decisively. So far as the letter of Scripture is concerned, there are no data to give an indubitable solution to the problem. It is true the word "everlasting" is repeated; but, when impartially weighed, it seems a sudden rhetorical expression, of indefinite force, used to heighten the impressiveness of a sublime dramatic representation, rather than a cautious philosophical term employed to convey an abstract conception. There is no reason whatever for supposing that Christ's mind was particularly directed to the metaphysical idea of endlessness, or to the much ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... only gives significancy to music, but contributes greatly to heighten its agreeable effect. We have heard it performed, some time or other, in an agreeable place, perhaps, or by an agreeable person, or accompanied with words that describe agreeable ideas; or we have heard it in our early years—a period of life which ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball

... The candles must be close together and arranged on little brackets around the whole front of the "cave" (see small cut), and should have little pieces of bright tin behind them, to throw the light toward the audience. The whole function of these candles is to dazzle the eyes of the spectators, heighten the illusion, and prevent them seeing very far into the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... speed our earthly King Triumphant on his way Unto his solemn Sacreing Before Thy throne to-day; His royal robes were wrought, prepared His sceptre, orb and crown, And all earth's Princes here repaired To heighten his renown; When, hurtling out of bluest Heaven, Thy bolt upon us fell; Our head is pierced, our heart is riven, Struck dumb the Minster bell. Yet flags still flutter far and wide; The league-long garlands glow, Still London wears her gala pride Above a breast of woe. Lord shall these laughing leaves ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... own inspiration, so that a new mixed form of comedy came into existence in some places. The plays given in Venice by Burchiello, and afterwards by the company of Armonio, Val. Zuccato, Lod. Dolce, and others, were perhaps of this character. Of Burchiello we know expressly that he used to heighten the comic effect by mixing Greek and Slavonic words with the Venetian dialect. A complete 'Commedia dell' Arte,' or very nearly so, was represented by Angelo Beolco, known as 'Il Ruzzante' (1502-42), whose customary masks were Paduan peasants, with ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... walks and drives and views. Many of the old families who have given the town its prestige still live in their ancestral manors, and many of the families who have moved there in recent years are of such sort as will heighten the fame of the famous town. As the stranger passes through Milton he is captivated by glimpses of ancient homesteads, settling behind their white Colonial fences topped with white Colonial urns, half hidden by their ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... not how or why Fletcher revives, but that he er'e could dye: Safe Mirth, full Language, flow in ev'ry Page, At once he doth both heighten and aswage; All Innocence and Wit, pleasant and cleare, Nor Church nor Lawes were ever Libel'd here; But faire deductions drawn from his great Braine, Enough to conquer all that's False or Vaine; He scatters Wit, ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher

... requires. Even where he presents you with some famous city, or celebrated scene from mountain or other nature, it must be taken from some particular point of view, and with such light, and shade, and distance, &c. as serve not only to heighten its beauties, but to shadow its deformities. The poetry of nature alone, exactly as she appears, is not sufficient to bear him out. The very sky of his painting is not the portrait of the sky of nature; it is a composition of different skies, observed at different times, and not the whole ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... in which the rescue of Alcestis is effected by Apollo. The French librettist did not treat the episode cleverly, and indeed all the last scene is terribly prosaic, and lacking in poetical atmosphere. To see how the appearance of the lusty hero in the halls of woe can heighten the tragic interest by the sheer force of contrast, we must turn to the 'Alcestis' of Euripides, where the death of Alcestis and the strange conflict of Hercules with Death is treated with just that touch of ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... excitement, and a thousand different and exaggerated stories passing from mouth to mouth. The witnesses of the event had told it over so many time that they had worked it up into a most dramatic scene, and embellished it with whatever could heighten its awfulness. Outsiders had taken up invention also. The Colonel's wife had gone insane, they said. The children had rushed into the parlor and rolled themselves in their father's blood. The hotel ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... unhampered by more than the ordinary fault-finding on the part of the representations of careless amusement seekers in the public press, and the grumbling in the boxes because the musical director and stage manager persisted in darkening the audience room in order to heighten the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... that have been robb'd that year; So now whatever Fate or their own will Scor'd up in life, Cupid must pay the bill. Their servant's falsehood, jealousy, disdain, And all the plagues that abus'd maids can feign, Are laid on him, and then to heighten spleen, Their own deaths crown the sum. Press'd thus between His fair accusers, 'tis at last decreed He by those weapons, that they died, should bleed. One grasps an airy sword, a second holds Illusive fire, and in vain wanton folds Belies a flame; others, less kind, appear To let him blood, ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... application of every sort; it makes us thoughtful and nervous; and our cheerfulness depends upon the uncertain event of our nightly occupation. How anyone can play who is not in want of money I cannot comprehend; surely his mind must be strangely framed who requires the stimulus of gambling to heighten his pleasures. Some indeed may have become attached to gaming from habit, and may not wish to throw off the habit from the difficulty of finding fresh employment for the mind at an advanced period of life. Some may be ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... consent to write anything except actual scenes from border life. As a sop to the Cerberus of sensationalism, he did occasionally condescend to heighten his effects by exaggeration. In sending one story to the publisher ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... after they have thus purified their circle of an offender. Doctors confess to the same of their physic. The expelling agency has next to be expelled, and it is a subtle poison, affecting our spirits. Duchess Susan had now the incense of a victim to heighten her charms; like the treasure-laden Spanish galleon for whom, on her voyage home from South American waters, our enterprising light-craft privateers lay in wait, she had the double attraction of being desirable and an enemy. To ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... never shall remove Affections purely given; And e'en that mortal grief shall prove The immortality of love, And heighten ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... After those visits of charity, they sometimes prolonged their way by the Sloping Mountain, till they reached my dwelling, where I had prepared dinner for them upon the banks of the little river which glides near my cottage. I produced on those occasions some bottles of old wine, in order to heighten the gaiety of our Indian repast by the cordial productions of Europe. Sometimes we met upon the seashore, at the mouth of little rivers, which are here scarcely larger than brooks. We brought from the plantation our vegetable provisions, to which we added such as the sea furnished in great variety. ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... begun in the Autumn of 1910, and it was hoped that it would be finished before the Summer of 1911, but this was found impossible. The underlying foundation of peat was so deep that all hope of digging it up was abandoned. It was instead decided to heighten the general level of the ground by six feet, and to do so by filling in with earth and stone. The work was very laborious owing to the blasting operations that had to be carried out, but the ground has been enlarged ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell

... now took the alarm, and he gave an eager attention to his child. Adelheid returned his evident solicitude by a smile of love, but its painful expression was so unequivocal as to heighten ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... of French morals, most of all in relation to marriage! But it is undeniable that unions formed in the maturity of thought and feeling, grounded only on inherent fitness and mutual attraction, tended to bring women into more intelligent sympathy with men, and to heighten and complicate their share in the political drama. The quiescence and security of the conjugal relation are, doubtless, favorable to the manifestation of the highest qualities by persons who have already attained a high standard of culture, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... anatomical precision in order to accentuate artistic effect. The splendour of curve, the beauty of unbroken contour, the rhythm and balance of composition is attained at a cost of academic correctness; but the long-drawn horizontal lines heighten the sense of repose, and the eye is soothed by the sinuous undulations of landscape and figure. The artistic effect is further enhanced by the relief of exquisite flesh tones against the rich crimson drapery, and although the atmospheric glow has been sadly destroyed ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... blindness must be wilfully designed as a burlesque effect and again finds its echo in low comedy types of today. The breadth and depth of the Roman stage alone will not account for this either; indeed, its very size could be utilized to heighten the humor, as the actor peers hither and yon in every direction but the right one. So Curculio (front) may pass directly by Phaedromus (rear) without seeing him, to the huge delight of the audience, and turn back again, while saying ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... reelected; that another man that may be said to be kindred to Wise, Mr. Breckinridge, the Vice-President, and of your own State, was also agreeing with the antislavery men in the North that Douglas ought to be reelected. Still to heighten the wonder, a senator from Kentucky, whom I have always loved with an affection as tender and endearing as I have ever loved any man, who was opposed to the antislavery men for reasons which seemed sufficient to him, and equally opposed to Wise and Breckinridge, ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... Mr. Wyllard's strong points are merely to heighten Gregory's credit, I've nothing more to say. Anyway, I'll reserve my homage until I've seen him. Perfection among ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... is this. Strauss and those who agree with him will perhaps maintain that the Apostles were in truth wholly devoted to Christ before the Crucifixion, but that the Evangelists have represented them as being only half-hearted, in order to heighten the effect of their subsequent intense devotion. But this looks like falling into the very error which Rationalists condemn most loudly when it comes from so-called orthodox writers. They complain, and with too much justice, that our apologists have made "anything out of anything." ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... one evening imparted to his friends a plan which he had conceived for fortifying the corral. It appeared prudent to him to heighten the palisade and to flank it with a sort of blockhouse, which, if necessary, the settlers could hold against the enemy. Granite House might, by its very position, be considered impregnable; therefore the corral with its buildings, its stores, and the animals it contained, would always be the object ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... "to heighten the effect of my turn ... for reasons which I'll explain to you ... perhaps it would be better to have a woman ... better for the success of the attraction!" he hastened to add, at an ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... circle of fir-trees round the Hermitage there was room for the growing moonlight to enter in at the windows. Their steps were noiseless on the thick carpet of fir-needles, and the outward stillness seemed to heighten their inward consciousness, as Arthur took the key out of his pocket and placed it in Adam's hand, for him to open the door. Adam had not known before that Arthur had furnished the old Hermitage and made it a retreat for himself, and it was a surprise to him when he opened the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... its contrast to their own. Something of mystery there was in the commencement of the deep and eventful love which took place between this person and Isabel, which I have never been able to learn whatever it was, it seemed to expedite and heighten the ordinary progress of love; and when in the dim twilight, beneath the first melancholy smile of the earliest star, their hearts opened audibly to each other, that confession had been made silently long since and registered in the inmost ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... then grown so cheap, just to be made A common stake, a prize for love in jest? Was not Castalio very loth to yield it? Or was it Polydore's unruly passion, That heighten'd the debate? ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway

... taken place in the opposite direction. As Homer's chief substance becomes a device in later epic, so a device of Homer's becomes in later epic the chief substance. Homer's supernatural machinery may be reckoned as a device—a device to heighten the general style and action of his poems; the significance of Homer must be found among his heroes, not among his gods. But with Milton, it has become necessary to entrust to the supernatural action the whole aim ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie

... her a helping hand; "and with this, setting his shoulders to the shattered machine, at one effort he restored it to its proper position, and made a discovery of Peg Pimpleface, with her ruby features close to a bunch of turnips, the whiteness of which served to heighten in no small degree their effect: the fall, however, had not left her in the most delicate situation for public inspection; the latter part of her person presenting itself bare, save and except that ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... scene in persistent endeavor, The mighty impression to grasp and measure,— Dame's hell, India's myth-panorama, Shakespeare's earth-overarching drama, Aeschylus' thunders that purge and free, Beethoven's powerful symphony,— They widen and heighten, they cloud and brighten —Like small ants scrambling and soft-cooing doves, They tumble backward and flee affrighted;— As if a dandy in dress-coat and gloves The mountains approached and to dance invited. No, tempt them not! Their retainer be! ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... complete change in his appearance would be sufficient to prevent recognition; although it was evident, by the gaze fixed on him, that the gentleman had an idea that his face was familiar. To move now would heighten suspicion, if any existed; and he therefore sat quiet, watching the people who passed in front of him, and revolving in his mind the best course to be taken, should Raoul address him. The latter had just spoken to his cousin, who was sitting next ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... Moore and Mrs. Jem, he having told me the reason of his melancholy was some unkindness from her after so great expressions of love, and how he had spoke to her friends and had their consent, and that he would desire me to take an occasion of speaking with her, but by no means not to heighten her discontent or distaste whatever it be, but to make it up if I can. But he being out of doors, I went away and went to see Mrs. Jem, who was now very well again, and after a game or two at cards, I left her. So I went to the Coffee Club, and heard very good discourse; ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... of Parliament. Here is what he has substituted for Provincial Councils. Here is what he has substituted in the room of the whole regular order of the service, which he totally subverted. Can we add anything to this picture? Can we heighten it? Can we do anything more than to recommend it to your Lordships' ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... leapes On Atlas shoulders, and from thence lookes downe, Viewing how farre off other high ones creepe; Rich, poore of reason, wander; all pale looking, And trembling but to thinke of their sure deaths, 270 Their lives so base are, and so rancke their breaths. Which I teach Guise to heighten, and make sweet With lifes deare odors, a good minde and name; For which hee onely loves me, and deserves My love and life, which through all deaths I vow: 275 Resolving this (what ever change can be) Thou hast created, thou hast ruinde ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... forget his woe; 'Twill heighten all his joy; 'Twill make the widow's heart to sing, Tho' the tear ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... method a system of bewitching flattery, everywhere pervasive, yet, too, so transitory and intangible, that, as in the case of the poet Wordsworth and the Wandering Voice, though she felt it present, she could never find it. As a foil to heighten its effect, he occasionally spoke philosophically of the evanescence of female beauty—the worthlessness of mere appearance. 'Handsome is that handsome does' he considered a proverb which should be written on the looking-glass ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... the mercurial Americans. Though far from the most finished of Irving's productions, "Knickerbocker" manifests the most original power and is the most genuinely national in its quaintness and drollery. The very tardiness and prolixity of the story are skilfully made to heighten the humorous effect. The next few years were unproductive. Upon the death of his father, Irving had become a sleeping partner in his brother's commercial house, a branch of which was established at Liverpool. This, combined with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... up, as to shrines of refinement and good taste; and then in due time the country goes back again home, enriched with a portion of the social accomplishments, which those very visits serve to call out and heighten in the gracious dispensers of them. We are unable to conceive how the "gentlemanlike" can otherwise be maintained; and maintained in this ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... congratulate you on being of the same taste, Willis. And I dare say you tried to heighten the absurdity, and add to ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells

... rigid, and therefore distorted, it is not likely that we can secure a free and flexible musical elocution. We do occasionally meet singers whose diction is delightful to hear because of its absolute freedom and complete naturalness, but these only serve to heighten by their excellence ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt

... some dignity, by the light of waxen candles, we ate what they call a council-hare, which had run into his kitchen as a perquisite of his place, and, with many jokes in the manner of Behrisch, were pleased to season the meat and heighten the spirit of the wine. That this excellent man, who is still constantly laboring in his respectable office, rendered me the most faithful assistance during a disease, of which there was indeed a foreboding, but which had not been foreseen ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... demanded by the pampered palate of the epicure. Another yet may have admitted that the honored guest had not successfully grappled with the great question of how to make hens lay every working-day of the year, and he may have done this in order to heighten his grand climax that the man who teaches a hen to lay an egg with two yolks where she laid eggs of but one yolk before is a greater benefactor to the human race than all the inventors of all the missiles ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... killed the inoffensive Allen, was withdrawn from justice and could never be found, so that though his two associates Donald Maclaine and Donald Maclaury, with their commanding officer Alexander Murray, were proceeded against for the murder, the prosecution came to nothing and only contributed to heighten the general discontent." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... this proceeding he rather irritated than intimidated his violent temper: so much the more vigorously did he oppose the law, annoyed the commons, and persecuted the tribunes, as it were by a regular war. The prosecutor suffered the accused to rush on headlong, and to heighten the charges against him by the flame and material of the popular odium thus incurred: in the mean time he proceeded with the law, not so much in the hope of carrying it through, as to provoke the temerity of Caeso. There many inconsiderate expressions and actions passing among the ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... he said. "The figure has considerable majesty, and the countenance wears a fine, open expression. The forehead, however, strikes me as not sufficiently intellectual. In a statue of Culture, you know, that should be the great point. The eye should instinctively seek the forehead. Could n't you heighten it up a little?" ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... that place, on which the blessed Saviour of the world was pleased to humble himself, and to take our nature upon him, and to converse with men: to see Mount Sion, Jerusalem, and the very sepulchre of our Lord Jesus! How may it beget and heighten the zeal of a Christian, to see the devotions that are daily paid to him at that place! Gentlemen, lest I forget myself, I will stop here, and remember you, that but for my element of water, the inhabitants of this poor ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... better. I shall the sooner retire to the sweet Enjoyment of domestick Life. This, you can witness, I have often wishd for; and I trust that all gracious Providence has spared your precious Life through a dangerous Illness, to heighten the Pleasures of my Retirement. If my Enemies are governd by Malice or Envy, I could not wish them a severer Punishment than their own Feelings. But, my Dear, I thank God, I have many Friends. You know them. Remember me to them all as you have opportunity. I could say many more things ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams



Words linked to "Heighten" :   enhance, hot up, sharpen, raise, elevate, screw up, potentiate, amplify, compound, fan, increase, subtilize, intensify, deepen



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