"Relaxation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so long that not only were afternoon drills escaped, but dress parade as well. It was not, in fact, much before supper time that the rain stopped and the sun came out briefly. But the brief period of relaxation had been appreciated hugely throughout camp. Three quarters of the cadets under canvas had found time for at least ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... newspaper men, but a serene satisfaction fell upon us when Allison's reflections appeared. They were "right!" And while "resting" (definition from the private dictionary of Cornelius McAuliff) from the more or less arduous and routine and yet interest-holding duties of newspaper-man, Allison's relaxation and refreshment come in studies of human nature in all its mystifying aspects, whether in war or in peace; or in the sports—prize-fighting and baseball; or in the sciences; in politics; in the streets ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... a bright day, and the Martian is aware of a head-ache brought on by the effort to understand the ways of earthlings, and therefore decides to drive through the city streets. Yet this drive affords him no relaxation, for on every side two diametrically opposed sights meet his keen eyes—luxury and poverty. Poverty and starvation, yet the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father which art in Heaven, give us this day our daily bread!" No Martian father would allow his children to starve; if he did, the law would fine ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... watch than ever was maintained, for the least relaxation of precautions might have involved results for which a lifetime of regrets would not have atoned. Though of such a low type of the human race, the North Queensland aboriginal possesses certain admirable characteristics. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the various objects, which decorated the artist's room. He had a party of several Senecas with him, who, adopting the horizontal position, in different parts of the room, regaled themselves with the fumes of tobacco, to their utmost gratification. Red Jacket occasionally united in this relaxation; but was so deeply absorbed in attention to the work of the painter, as to think, perhaps, of no other subject. At times he manifested extreme pleasure, as the outlines of the picture were filled up. The drawing of his costume, which he seemed to prize, as peculiarly appropriate, ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... sense of rest, of relaxation took possession of him. "This is the best of all," he sighed, "but I'll get ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... cliff among the flowers, with blue sky above and blue sea beneath, poor Mr. Carson allowed himself a temporary relaxation. He smoked his pipe and read his paper, and for a little while at least the hard lines round his mouth softened, and his anxious eyes grew easy. He finished his Italian journal, lay idly watching the scenery, ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... herein specified the existing blockade remains in full force and effect as hitherto established and maintained, nor is it relaxed by this proclamation except in regard to the port to which relaxation is or has ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... the affairs of his ranch or of the town. Few city men were so busy. His everlasting talk was incidental, like the babbling of a brook which, however, keeps steadily flowing on; and the stored scholarship of his mind was supplemented by long evenings with no other relaxation but reading. Now as he went down the path he broke into song; and when the Doge sang it was something awful, excusable only by the sheer happiness that brought on ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... bland, supple, and always genial, went away too by a night train. Little Mildred and another man saw him off, for he was the guest of the mess, and even had he smitten the colonel with the open hand, the law of that mess allowed no relaxation of hospitality. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... to inquire into the measure of his art, any more than we inquire into that of Alexandre Dumas, we only realize that here is a benefactor of tired men and women seeking relaxation.—The Independent, New York. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... imaginings and of studious hours; he either craves, like God, the seventh day of rest, or with Satan, the pleasures of hell; so that his senses may have free play in opposition to the employment of his faculties. Byron could never have taken for his relaxation to the independent gentleman's delights of boston and gossip, for he was a poet, and so must needs ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... everything. Both may convey a false impression. The cold or heat by the thermometer is no test of sensation; days, however warm, are exceedingly agreeable, except the hot-wind days, which are absolutely indescribable, yet I have seen some men work out all day in the worst of them. They cause great relaxation in the system, and produce dysentery, especially among children. Compared with other hot countries, this appears ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... who have worked toward the same end. We may differ in methods, but the outcome is, in most instances, the same. I have written from the standpoint of the amateur, for other amateurs who would make the improvement of the home-grounds a pleasure and a means of relaxation rather than a source of profit in a financial sense, believing that what I have to say will commend itself to the non-professional gardener as sensible, practical, and helpful, and strictly in line with the things he needs to know when he ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... who ministered to his needs with the ease and certainty of long practice, rousing him now and then to give him nourishment, and redressing his frozen members when necessary. As for Balt, he slept like an Eskimo dog, wrapped in the senseless trance of complete physical relaxation. Being a creature of no imagination, he had taxed nothing beyond his body, which was capable of tremendous resistance, wherefore he escaped the nerve-racking torment and mental ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... of a man whose testicle was elevated every time the east wind blew, which caused him a sense of languor and relaxation; the same author describes a man whose testicles ascended into the inguinal canal every time he was ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... from the grittiness of the soap; as he worked he looked down, without thinking, on rows of cots where the blankets were all folded the same way, on some of which men were sprawled in attitudes of utter relaxation. He kept remarking to himself how strange it was that he was not thinking of anything. In the last few days his mind seemed to have become a ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... really appalling prevalence of the superstition that the sexual instinct in men is utterly promiscuous, and that the least relaxation of law and custom must produce a wild outbreak of licentiousness. As far as our moralists can grasp the proposition that we should deal with the sexual relation as impersonal, it seems to them to mean ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... exciting. There has been no sense of monotony whatever. Indeed, the conditions are such that, were it not obligatory for portions of every crew to take rest, all of them would be continually on the alert. We may be certain that arrangements have been made for ensuring that the crews obtain periods of relaxation from the constant strain; but the only real change comes in the big ships when they have of ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... suppose we have been too long familiar with the unprofitableness of speculation, have surrendered too definitely to action—to the material side of things, retaining for what relaxation our spirits may require, a habit of sentimental aspiration, carefully divorced from things as they are. We seem to have decided that things are not, or, if they are, ought not to be—and what is the good of thinking of things like that? In fact, our national ideal has ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... The Empire To Didius Julianus By The Praetorian Guards—Clodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius Niger In Syria, And Septimius Severus In Pannonia, Declare Against The Murderers Of Pertinax—Civil Wars And Victory Of Severus Over His Three Rivals—Relaxation Of Discipline—New Maxims ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... retained no larger portion for himself than was allotted to the others. The catalogue of those whom he had despatched into the other world was already too long for him to have repeated it: many names had slipped his memory, but his greatest pleasure in his hour of relaxation was to relate such of these murderous anecdotes as he still remembered, in the benevolent intention of inspiring his hearers with a desire to follow his example. His weapons were kept separate from the rest, and occupied a whole apartment. Here were ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... mature consideration, and said, "he would take the papers home, to peruse more attentively." It will be recollected, that in the cause, respecting Lord Byron's poem of Cain, his Lordship stated, that during the vacation he had, by way of relaxation from business, perused that work and Paradise Lost, in order to form a just estimate of their comparative merits; and who knows but during the present vacation, his Lordship may compare the blacking ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... rain means relaxation; the tension in Nature and in all her creatures is lessened. The trees drop their leaves, or let go their ripened fruit. The tree itself will fall in a still, damp day, when but yesterday it withstood a gale of wind. A moist ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... no present intention of engaging in the vexed question of the illogical and often absurd orthography of English. Members of the Society would perhaps desire some relaxation of these bonds, but we think it better to concentrate on other profounder modifications of the language which, though of first importance, are receiving no special attention. We are aware that proposals for violent change often defeat their own end, and make all reform impossible. ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 1 (Oct 1919) • Society for Pure English
... distinguishing feature was that unremitting perseverance in the pursuit of his object, which was not only superior to the opposition of dangers, and the pressure of hardships, but even exempt from the want of ordinary relaxation. During the long and tedious voyages in which he was engaged, his eagerness and activity were never in the least abated. No incidental temptation could detain him for a moment: even those intervals of recreation, which sometimes unavoidably occurred, and were looked for by us with ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... conjunction these two events were to influence the destinies of Europe. In themselves they were trivial enough, since it was as much a commonplace that an old gentleman should die as that Henry of Bearn should fall in love. Love had been the main relaxation of his otherwise strenuous life, and neither the advancing years—he was fifty-six at this date—nor the recriminations of Maria de' Medici, his long-suffering Florentine wife, sufficed ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... although the full marital power was associated as necessarily with a true civil as with a true religious marriage, yet the permission of a connection instead of marriage,(8) formed without that power, constituted a first step towards relaxation of the full power of the husband. The first step towards a legal enforcement of married life was the tax on old bachelors (-aes uxorium-) with the introduction of which Camillus began his public career as ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... more to say, and it seeming only natural and right to obey the commands of this great, blustering attorney, I submitted, and lounged back against the soft, upholstered seat with a great sigh of relaxation. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... that the very worst way of getting hold of ideas is to go hunting expressly after them. The way to get them is to study something of which one is fond, and to note down whatever crosses one's mind in reference to it, either during study or relaxation, in a little note-book kept always in the waistcoat pocket. Ernest has come to know all about this now, but it took him a long time to find it out, for this is not the kind of thing that is taught ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... accomplishments do you hope to recommend yourselves to the thinking part of the world, and to answer the expectations of your friends and your country? Amusements youth requires: it were vain, it were cruel, to prohibit them. But, though allowable as the relaxation, they are most culpable as the business, of the young, for they then become the gulf of time and the poison of the mind; they weaken the manly powers; they sink the native vigour of ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... The leeway to be made up after the destructive action of the penal laws was so enormous that Catholic philanthropists had no time or will for high politics, and devoted their whole energy to the further relaxation of those laws, to the education of their backward co-religionists, and to the mitigation of poverty. For relief they instinctively looked towards the only legal source of relief, though the source of secular oppression, Parliament. ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... smiled very slightly; that is to say, his lips parted, but there was no relaxation of ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... one of the windows, and in a moment had settled down upon the comfortable mattress and had pulled the covers up to his chin. He said to himself that he would sleep a little while and early in the morning hurry up to the school. A pleasant feeling of relaxation stole over him, his thoughts merged into drowsy half-dreams and almost immediately he sank into a slumber deeper than any he had ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... months she strove very hard to be in love, and sometimes she thought that she had succeeded. In her little way she studied the man's character, and did all she could to ingratiate herself with him. Walking seemed to be his chief relaxation, and she was always ready to walk with him. She tried to make herself believe that he was profoundly wise. And then, when she failed in other things, she fell back upon his beauty. Certainly she had never seen a handsomer face, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... North-West Territories occupied the end in front of Agatha. It was not a very good map and the natural features of the country were sketchily indicated, for belts of the northern wilderness had not been thoroughly surveyed, but she had opened it for half an hour's relaxation. After that, ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... hymen as a proof of virginity. The hymen tightly closed, barely admitting the tip of a small index-finger, is positive evidence of virginity. But the hymen may lose its tone by a local catarrhal condition or by a general muscular relaxation; it may then become so relaxed that the only positive evidence rendered by the intact hymen is that the woman has not borne ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... birds sing and sing with them. And if we work hard at times, it will be only so that we'll have more time to play. And when you go swimming I 'm going with you. And we'll play so hard that we'll be glad to work for relaxation." ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... to be frustrated, and all most like to turn to what it was, and worse? And this contrary to engagements, explicit covenants with those who ventured their lives upon those covenants and engagements, without whom, perhaps in equity, relaxation ought not to be? Thirdly, Whether this army be not a lawful power, called by God to oppose and fight against the king upon some stated grounds; and being in power to such ends, may not oppose one name of authority, for those ends, as well as another name—since it was not the outward authority ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... have accordingly been led to order an appropriate naval force to Japan, under the command of a discreet and intelligent officer of the highest rank known to our service. He is instructed to endeavor to obtain from the Government of that country some relaxation of the inhospitable and antisocial system which it has pursued for about two centuries. He has been directed particularly to remonstrate in the strongest language against the cruel treatment to which our shipwrecked mariners have often been subjected and to insist that they ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... despised play. His unique wish was to work. It struck him as curious and delightful that he really enjoyed work. Work had indeed become play. He could not do enough work to satisfy his appetite. And after the work of the day, scorning all silly notions about exercise and relaxation, he would spend the evening in his beautiful new attic, copying designs, which he would sometimes rise early to finish. He thought he had conquered the gross body, and that it was of no account. Even the desolating failures which his copies invariably proved did not much discourage him; ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... began to fill the house at Clavering Park, the Chevalier Strong, who, as his patron said, was never in the way or out of it, seldom intruded himself upon its society, but went elsewhere to seek his relaxation. "I've seen plenty of grand dinners in my time," he said, "and dined, by Jove, in a company where there was a king and royal duke at top and bottom, and every man along the table had six stars on his coat; but dammy, Glanders, this finery don't suit me; ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... admirable pride and spirit. Our officers, on the other hand, dressed in the homely khaki, often the worse for wear, had generally an air of war-weariness. No doubt most of our men had come almost straight from the battle-field and were enjoying only a few hours' relaxation in this fine city. Still it made one reflect that the French are indeed a nation of soldiers which we are not. We obviously have not the same pride in the paraphernalia of war, and that shows which way the wind blows. I ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... front of us. 'The men of old would seem to have spent all their days in piling stones upon stones. And yet we read of tough battles and shrewd blows struck, showing that they had some time for soldierly relaxation, and were not ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... family life. His family consisted of his commonplace wife, his sister-in-law, whose fortune he had appropriated by selling her estate and putting the money to his account, and his meek, frightened, plain daughter, who lived a lonely, weary life, from which she had lately begun to look for relaxation in evangelicism, attending meetings at Aline's, and the Countess Katerina Ivanovna. Wolf's son, who had grown a beard at the age of 15, and had at that age begun to drink and lead a depraved life, which he continued ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... things had been of such long continuance that scarcely the hope of a change could be indulged. It produced, unavoidably, some relaxation of discipline; and the murmurs, occasionally escaping the officers, sometimes heard by the soldiers, were not ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... brisk, obliging landlady, invited a stay. Dr. Johnson, perhaps the wittiest if the completest John Bull who ever lived, was not far wrong when he glorified the inn. "Nothing contrived by man," he said, "has produced so much happiness (relaxation were surely the better word?) as a good tavern." Do we not all, to quote Falstaff, "take our ease at our inn," under its roof throwing off daily cares, assuming ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... even for clews, was vain. The little banking establishment had not been disturbed. Jean Thompson had told the searchers certain facts about it, and about its gentle proprietor as well, that persuaded them to make no move against the concern, if the same relations did not even induce a relaxation of their efforts for his ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... own pig-sty. In recent times, however, the government, wishing to correct the rudeness of these peasants, appointed an "enlightened" man as a magistrate, who at once abolished the original penalty above mentioned. But this relaxation of punishment was so far from being welcome to the villagers that they presented a petition praying that a more energetic man might be given them as a magistrate, who would have the courage to punish according ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... were they to contrive themes of complaint against her, that when she visited them in the simple attire in which she so much delighted, 'sans ceremonie', unaccompanied by a troop of horse and a squadron of footguards, they complained to their father, who hinted to Marie Antoinette that such a relaxation of the royal dignity would be attended with considerable injury to French manufactures, to trade, and to the respect due to her rank. 'My State and Court dresses,' replied she, 'shall not be less brilliant than those ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... sharpness, ruggedness, or quaintness in the dealings or conversations of men; precisely that relative degree of advantage or harm there is in them as elements of pictorial composition. What power is in liberty or relaxation to strengthen or relieve human souls; that power, precisely in the same relative degree, play and laxity of line have to strengthen or refresh the expression of a picture. And what goodness or greatness we can conceive to arise in companies of men, from chastity of thought, regularity of life, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... do; what to eat, drink, avoid. Such decisions ab extra, are sometimes a wonderful relief to those whose habit it has been to decide, not only for themselves, but for every one else; and occasionally the relaxation of the strain which a character for infallible wisdom brings with it, does much to restore health. Mrs. Kirkpatrick thought in her secret soul that she had never found it so easy to get on with Lady Cumnor; and Bradley and she ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and Smyrna. Despotism itself is obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such obedience as he can. He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at all; and the whole of the force and vigor of his authority in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is perhaps not so well obeyed as you are in yours. She complies, too; she submits; she watches times. This is the immutable condition, the eternal law, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it forth, more in sorrow than in anger, invite Brusa to refresh himself after his fatiguing chase of the sheep. The struggle between a guilty conscience and a sharp appetite would now become painfully perceptible on the countenance of Brusa as well as in the relaxation of his tail. As he approached the tempting morsel nothing could be more abject than his manner—stealing furtive glances at the eyes of his master, and trying to conciliate him by wagging the downcast tail between his legs. Alas, poor Brusa! I suspected ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... youth, in spite of himself, felt his mind occasionally wander, and his recollections go in quest of the beautiful vision who had shared their meal at noon. On such occasions, the astrologer looked grave, and shook his head at this relaxation of attention; yet, on the whole, he was pleased with the youth's replies. At sunset the young man was made to take the bath; and, having done so, he was directed to attire himself in a robe, somewhat like that worn by Armenians, having his long hair combed down ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... San Pasqual's limited social and civic center—the railroad hotel and eating-house. Here, between the arrival and departure of all through trains, the San Pasqualians met on neutral ground, experiencing mild mental relaxation watching the waitresses ministering to the gastronomic necessities of the day-coach tourists from the Middle West. At the period in which the action of this story takes place, however, most people preferred to find relief from the aching desolation of San Pasqual ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... calculated to blind us to the operation among them of deep-seated and active influences. Hardly till 1815 can we discover in England any fervor, much less efficiency, in the demand for an extension of popular rights and relaxation of the grasp of privilege. Irish manufactures continued to be distinctly and rigidly repelled from competition with English by formal statute; Jewish and Catholic disqualification was maintained; the game-laws and the rotten-borough system, which conferred on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... she giggled and grinned. Amory was content to sit and watch the by-play, thinking what a light touch Kerry had, and how he could transform the barest incident into a thing of curve and contour. They all seemed to have the spirit of it more or less, and it was a relaxation to be with them. Amory usually liked men individually, yet feared them in crowds unless the crowd was around him. He wondered how much each one contributed to the party, for there was somewhat of a spiritual tax levied. Alec ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... humanitarian methods in the treatment of redeemable criminals, and he strove towards it with completely untiring devotion. He was of those who never insist beyond the limits of their own understanding, clear-sighted in discipline, frank in relaxation, an altruist in ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... that irresistible return of humanity to nature and to seeing things as they are, which in art, in literature, and in physics, produced such splendid fruits, had, like the anterior Hellenism of the pagan world, a side of moral weakness and of relaxation or insensibility of the moral fibre, which in Italy showed itself with the most startling plainness, but which in France, England, and other countries was very apparent, too. Again this loss of ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... the establishment, was waiter, chambermaid, firewood-chopper, butcher, baker, drawer-of-water, trader, fur-packer, and interpreter. These offices he held professionally. When "off duty," and luxuriating in tobacco and relaxation, he occupied himself as an amateur shoemaker, tailor, musician, and stick-whittler, to the no small advantage of himself and his fellow-outcasts, of whom there were five or six, besides the ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... went on, for a relaxation in the pleasant hold on her arm, but this did not come. When she had said ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... was not to be considered without solicitude when, in a war which peculiarly appealed to patriotism, compulsion must be used to bring involuntary recruits to maintain the contest. Yet the relaxation of the patriotic temper was really not so great as this fact might seem to indicate. Besides many partial and obvious explanations, one which is less obvious should also be noted. During two years of war the people, notoriously of a temperament readily to accept new ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... hand?" "A bow," replied the hunter. "Why then is it unstrung?" said John. "Because," was the answer, "were I to keep it always strung it would lose its spring and become useless." "Even so," replied the Apostle, "be not offended at my brief relaxation, which prevents my ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... into the Buttes' side, where the grass grew long because of deep snow in winter time, the big Buffalo stopped, prospected the ground with his nose, flipped a sharp stone from the couch with nimble lip, and knelt down gingerly, for rheumatism had crept into his old bones; then with a tired grunt of relaxation he rolled on his side, and blew a great breath of sweet content ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... hypocritical, for of all things I detest that most; but in good faith I said, being conquered by the Major's relaxation of ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... heart. In the same way, when the brutal right (and in many circumstances the brutal duty) of inflicting death upon prisoners taken in battle, had exchanged itself for the profits of ransom or slavery, this relaxation of ferocity (though commencing in selfishness) gradually exalted itself into a habit of mildness, and some dim perception of a sanctity in human life. The very vice of avarice ministered to the purification of barbarism; and the very evil of slavery in its earliest ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... pair of post-horses will be attached in a couple of days—and then, for upwards of three hundred miles of journey—towards STRASBOURG! No schoolboy ever longed for a holiday more ardently than I do for the relaxation which this journey will afford me. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the left bank of the Saone at the moment when the rear-guard of the Helvetians was embarking to rejoin the main body which had already pitched its camp on the right bank. Caesar cut to pieces this rear-guard, crossed the river, in his turn, with his legions, pursued the emigrants without relaxation, came in contact with them on several occasions, at one time attacking them or repelling their attacks, at another receiving and giving audience to their envoys without ever consenting to treat with them, and before the end of the year ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... matters of this kind Nana was always full of good advice, and when Muffat abandoned all his usual self-control under the influence of mental and physical relaxation and once more launched out into his former plaints, she remembered the promise she ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... one observes a notable lowering of the mental level, a real psycholepsy. It is very likely that studies of this kind will produce some day the key of the epilepsy problem, for vertigos and certain epileptic fits are certainly phenomena of relaxation, the meaning of which we do not comprehend because we do not study sufficiently the state of psychological tension before ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... prevent my boat from going back. For half an hour I was in this pitiful state, and I felt my strength failing without daring to say a word. I was out of breath, but could not rest a moment, since the least relaxation would have let the boat slip a far way back, and this would have been a distance hard to recover. M—— M—— lay still and silent, for she perceived I had no breath wherewith to answer her. I began to give ourselves up ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... slightest impression upon the Chevalier; nay, somehow, in a way inexplicable to himself, his aversion to play took deeper root, so that on the following morning when he awoke and felt the consequences of his exertion during the night, through which he had been awake, in a general relaxation both mental and physical, he took a most earnest resolve never again under any ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... scene of the foregoing evening came into my mind, and I began to understand this singular—case of monomania. It must be that having lived so many years in almost solitary confinement, one might say, her mind had slightly given away, and she found her only excitement and relaxation in posing before the glass in that extraordinary manner. I hardly knew whether it would be an act of kindness to remove the hat; she talked quite rationally and cheerfully, and remembering the innate vanity of the French as a nation, I concluded to let the matter rest ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... no more parties for Henrietta that winter, but Mrs. Batty's house was always open to her, and Mrs. Batty, like her son Charles, could be relied upon for welcome and for relaxation. In her presence Henrietta had a pleasant sense of superiority; she was applauded and not criticized and she knew she could give comfort as well as get it. Mrs. Batty liked to talk to her and Henrietta ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... and I believe truly, reckoned the principal causes of the bad state of the productive industry of Spain. Any partial improvement in her condition, or increase of her prosperity, has been, in all cases, the result of relaxation, and the abolition of what was intended for favor ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... Cinq-Mars lacked the caution necessary for a conspirator. His purposes became evident to the king, who had no thought of exchanging his great minister for a frivolous boy who was only fitted to amuse his hours of relaxation. The outcome of the affair appears in a piece of news published in the Gazette de France on ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... simple alternate contraction and relaxation in the muscles, which, acting through joints, tendons, and levers, does work of ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... reaction, after eating too quickly—and I should like to meet the healthy man who would not eat quickly under those circumstances—and also the relaxation from the inconceivable strain of so ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... not wish for anything—it must not be. I must not even consider a partial relaxation. I assure you that the effort for endurance is less painful than certain times of intensive preparation that we have passed through. Only we can each moment brace ourselves in a kind of resistance against what is evil in us, and leave every door open to the ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... September sky seen through the wide-east limbs of pine and spruce. The little rill, scarce a finger thickness of water, crawled out lazily between the roots and trickled away. The girl was in empty-minded enjoyment of the luxury of complete relaxation of every muscle of her strong young body. The spring was noiseless, no leaf was astir in all the forest around them. The girl lay still, a part of the ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... consisted, with a single exception, of my household, and as this person—a Monsieur de Vilain, a young gentleman, the cousin of one of my wife's maids-of-honour—showed himself possessed of modesty as well as wit, I thought that the time excused a little relaxation. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... lender, to foresee the coming wants of trade in a growing State, to invest in its banks, railroads and manufactures, and to render all these investments profitable. With his increase in wealth there was in Mr. Otis no increase of display, and no relaxation of the economy of early life, but an increasing liberality in public charities, particularly those connected with religion. When compared with the briskness of modern traffic he was slow and cautious; but having ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... slaves laden with amphorae of wine and oil and honey; the smell of roasting meats, the clash of pots and kettles. Here, behind the scenes, were the ropes and pulleys which set the stage that the actors might strut through their lordly parts; here was no relaxation and luxurious ease, but labor stern and unremitting, since always pleasure must be paid for ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... a swift and mobile relaxation, and suddenly she was weeping in strangely mingled ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... in a glass darkly,' two of the most renowned and refined spirits that have adorned these our latter days. But now I will only express a hope that the time may come when, in these pages, you may find some relaxation from the cares, and some distraction from the sorrows, of existence, and that you will then receive this dedication as a record of my respect and ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... an half-pause and dropping the voice as hinted by the relaxation of the metre—'Nor shall you,' &c.).—I mention this because it is one of the lines for which Mr. Gifford (whose in the Quarterly Rev. drove M. L. mad with a severer fit than she had ever had before) declared me at Murray's shop fit to be whipt as an idle Schoolboy—and, alas, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... occasion, to the delight of Aunt Mary and the wonder of the children. "Oh, he's starv-ved to death," whispered one of the little boys to his sister. They had begun to warm to this stranger uncle. Jean had no chance to talk, even had he been able to, for the meal-time showed a relaxation of restraint and they all tried to tell him things at once. In the bright lamplight his father looked easier and happier as he ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... of many observations that the introduction of alcohol specially deranges the vaso-motor system; this derangement showing itself alike in disturbance of the heart's action, and in relaxation of the capillary vessels, which become filled with blood, especially in the nervous system and in the skin. This causes one to feel that warmth and exhilaration which is the first effect of the introduction of these disturbing agencies, and which are appealed ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... unbends a bit, if only as a relief from the strain of a fixed purpose, and so, throwing off her customary inhibitions, she, indulges in the luxury of a more or less forced and mawkish sentiment. It is, however, almost unheard of for her to permit herself this relaxation before the sentimental intoxication of the man is assured. To do otherwise—that is, to confess, even post facto, to an anterior descent,—would expose her, as I have said, to the scorn of all other ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... lesser degree. These representations of the priests would, however, have greater influence with our government, if the temporal advantage they derive from these rovers, undisciplined as they are, did not oblige them to wink at their relaxation in spirituals. ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... let me die in peace.' It was answered, that he might die in true peace, being reconciled to the Lord and to His kirk."—"We returned to the commission, and did show unto them what had passed amongst us. They, seeing that for the present he was not desiring relaxation from his censure of excommunication, did appoint Mr. Mungo Law and me to attend on the morrow on the scaffold, at the time of his execution, that, in case he should desire to be relaxed from his excommunication, we ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... Christmas, during which one can reduce the work to the very minimum, and feed with 'Rastfutter' hay, maize, malt—dried brewer's—molasses, even potatoes; and also, after reaching the highest points of the training for galloping, there must be a certain relaxation of the strain to give the ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... and the guards piled out, the latter with the stretcher. The orderly-driver got out his tablet pistol and checked the chamber, then settled into a posture of watchful relaxation. Major Slater was waiting for them by one of ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... The girl was giving all her attention to her thoughts. What was left over was devoted to the insistent mouth of Lethe, who ever and anon tested the grip on her bridle-rein; ascertaining whether or not there were any symptoms of relaxation or abstraction. ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... two," said I. "It strikes me that my health demands a little relaxation of labor, and a short visit to ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that is more congenial than our work is to be taken with caution. So long as a man enjoys his work more than his amusement, the latter is for him comparatively safe. It is a relaxation and refreshment, and he goes from it all the better for it; but if a man likes his pleasure better than the duties to which God has called him in the world, it is a sign that he has not realized, as he ought to realize, the object for which life was ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... millions of acres of very beautiful and fertile land in the same district. The climate of South Australia is healthy, though very warm;[155] and the usual disorders of Australia, complaints of the eye and relaxation of the bowels, were the ailments least uncommon among the new settlers. In March 1841, the population of the colony was estimated at about 14,000, and the amount of land under tillage about 2000 acres. But since that time there has been a ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... the Disorder continued till it broke down the Crasis of the Blood, and brought on a general Relaxation of the Fibres; and the Patients became cachectic, and fell into Dropsies, or were seized with Diarrhoeas, of which they died. Some had Obstructions formed in the Liver or Spleen, or other viscera, and fell into the Jaundice ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... feeling of ease among them, too, of the indefeasibly won, which the event is apt to bring even when the surgeon-lieutenant-colonelcy is most strikingly deserved. With no strain imaginable one could see the relaxation. ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... be remembered that in the picture Macaulay has drawn of Claverhouse the soldiers under his command, and by implication Claverhouse himself, figure as relieving their sterner duties by a curious form of relaxation. They would call each other, he says, by the names of devils and damned souls, mocking in their revels the torments of hell. The authority for this surprising statement is Robert Wodrow, who was not born when Claverhouse ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... indulge, however, freely in the chase of the wild ass still to this day a habitant of the Mesopotamian region; and he would hunt the stag, the hind, and the ibex or wild goat. In these tamer kinds of sport he seems, however, to have indulged only occasionally—as a light relaxation scarcely ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... fatigue, and consequently can be kept up for only a comparatively short time. The balance required for holding the body more or less erect, as in walking, standing and sitting, is, on the contrary, preserved by the alternate contraction and relaxation of a large number of muscles, the work of which, being intermittent and more or less evenly distributed, can be maintained for a long period without fatigue. It is therefore evident that a lady should ride as much as possible by balance, and that she should use grip only when its aid is demanded ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... own, she told with simple truth and directness the narrative of her childhood's days —her life on Briar Farm—how she had been trained by Priscilla to bake, and brew, and wash and sew,—and how she had found her chief joy and relaxation from household duties in the reading of the old books she had found stowed away in the dower-chests belonging to the ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... council, and persuaded the savages to relinquish Butler to him. He took the unfortunate man home, fed, and clothed him, and Butler began to recruit from his wounds and torture. But the relenting of the savages was only transient and momentary. After five days they repented of their relaxation in his favor, reclaimed him, and marched him to Lower Sandusky to be burned there, according to their original purpose. By a fortunate coincidence, he there met the Indian agent from Detroit, who, from motives of humanity, exerted his influence ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... it had been, to judge by his appearance, a strenuous two years. He had lost weight and there were dark smudges of fatigue under his eyes. At the moment, however, his face appeared relaxed. It might have been the relaxation a man feels who has been emptied out by a hard stint of work, but knows he has accomplished everything that could ...
— Oneness • James H. Schmitz
... natural and civil justice, and are sensible, that they arise merely from human conventions, and from the interest, which we have in the preservation of peace and order. For otherwise the diminution of the interest would never produce a relaxation of the morality, and reconcile us more easily to any transgression of justice among princes and republics, than in the private commerce ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... of their own kindred to form their settlement within the territories then under their jurisdiction, the love of their country predominated over every influence save that of conscience alone, and they preferred the precarious chance of relaxation from the bigoted rigor of the English government to the certain liberality and alluring offers of the Hollanders. Observe, my countrymen, the generous patriotism, the cordial union of soul, the conscious yet unaffected ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... room were the shuffling of the feet of the two wrestlers and the oaths of the enraged Bluffy. Keith had not uttered a word. He fought like a bulldog, without noise. His effort was, while he still gripped the pistol, to bring his two hands together behind his opponent's back. A sudden relaxation of the latter's grip as he made another desperate effort to release his pistol favored Keith, and, bringing his hands together, he lifted his antagonist from his feet, and by a dexterous twist whirled him over his shoulder ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... excess, sinks under the benevolence of its dispenser. This private benevolence, expanding itself into patriotism, renders his whole being the estate of the public, in which he has not reserved a peculium for himself of profit, diversion, or relaxation. During the session the first in and the last out of the House of Commons, he passes from the senate to the camp; and seldom seeing the seat of his ancestors, he is always in Parliament to serve his country or in the field to defend it. But in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... below it, the breast being thereby more heated, thence sleep arises, but if everything that is airy in the breast forsakes the veins, then death succeeds. Plato and the Stoics, that sleep ariseth from the relaxation of the sensitive spirit, it not receiving such total relaxing as if it fell to the earth, but so that that spirit is carried about the intestine, parts of the eyebrows, in which the principal part has its residence; ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... ten o'clock, with a clean-swept morning of empty, secluded hours before them. They were to keep their eyes fast upon the paper, and nothing was to tempt them to speech, save at the stroke of the hour when ten minutes for relaxation were to be allowed them. If these rules were observed for a year, she made out on a sheet of paper that the completion of the book was certain, and she laid her scheme before her mother with a feeling that much of the task ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... his effort to drown his sorrow in the whirlpool of this strenuous life of pleasure interfere with his care of his little son; in truth, Tinker's society was his chief relaxation from the laborious and exacting round. Wherever he might be, in London, Paris, Vienna, Monte Carlo, or a country-house, Tinker was at hand, in his hotel, or lodged in the neighbourhood under the ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... my skirt and sweep majestically out of the room, jump into taxicab and proceed to hunt pleasure and relaxation. What do you know ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey |
