"Shortening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... believed, for I only write by spasms, and these ever more rare,—and daemons that have no ears. Meantime the publication day was announced, and the printer at the door. Then came your letter in the shortening days. When I drudged to keep ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... anything approaching to heavy pruning is regarded as an abomination, and the general opinion is now in favour of shortening back long drooping primaries, removing cross shoots and wood that is not likely to bear anything more, and thinning out overgrowths of new wood. The most luxuriantly wooded part of the plantation should be pruned first, ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... each way on her.' The Wicked Stockbroker took a second helping of salad, and ate on unheeding, whilst the Gentle Lady at the head of the table anxiously watched the Family Egotist, who looked apoplectic and was toying truculently with a wineglass with evident danger of shortening its career ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... no reply, only, resting his long sword on the threshold, he leant upon its hilt, and fixed his clear grey eyes upon Clavering's face. What Sir John saw in those eyes he never told, but it was something which scared him. At least that shortening of the breath of which he had spoken seemed to take a hold of him, for he swayed upon his horse as though he were about to fall, then, recovering, turned and rode ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... 26,000 projectiles of various patterns were manufactured in Johannesburg. Both at that place and at Pretoria an immense amount of manufacturing and repairing of war material was effected, including the making of a new 120 m/m Howitzer and the shortening of ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... the night the enemy made no attempt to renew the assault. With the dawn the worst of the task of shortening the line was accomplished, and the jaded men threw themselves down to rest, until every available position immune from rifle fire was covered with khaki and black figures sleeping the sleep of ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... in her lap, full of little dolls, which she was dressing. Every day since his accident she had been allowed to make him two visits,—one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. They helped wonderfully in shortening the long, tedious days for Jules. True, Madame Greville came often with broths and jellies, Cousin Kate made flying visits to leave rare hothouse grapes and big bunches of violets; Clotilde hung over him with motherly tenderness, ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... miles,' said Davis. 'High time we were shortening sail, then. If it is an island, we don't want to be butting our head against it in the dark; and if it isn't an island, we can get through it just as well by daylight. Ready about!' ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Whatever the doctor believed, he believed with all his heart, and would fight for it whenever he got the chance; and if the intervals between chances grew to be irksomely wide, he would invent ways of shortening them himself. He was severely conscientious, according to his rather independent lights, and whatever he took to be a duty he performed, no matter whether the judgment of the professional moralists agreed with his own or not. At sea, in his ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... what God wills, Leuconoe: Better far, what comes, to bear it. Haply many a wintry blast Waits thee still; and this, it may be, Jove ordains to be thy last, Which flings now the flagging sea-wave on the obstinate sandstone-reef. Be thou wise: fill up the wine-cup; shortening, since the time is brief, Hopes that reach into the future. While I speak, hath stol'n away Jealous Time. Mistrust To-morrow, ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... sensitive to this defect, some try to increase their stature by high heels, which renders their gait awkward, besides being injurious to health. Others endeavor to add to their apparent height by cultivating a long waist. This they do at the expense of shortening the lower limbs, thus making themselves seem shorter than they actually are. Others strive to attain the same end by dressing the hair high, in this way too often adding to the apparent bulk of the head and giving a top-heavy appearance ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... late, and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is near ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... the modification consists in simply shortening the forward projection of the stem or base, the bowl remaining perpendicular. The next modification is shown in Fig. 6, which represents a type less common than the preceding, but found in several localites, as, for example, in Hamilton ...
— The Problem of Ohio Mounds • Cyrus Thomas
... of this species which sometimes manifest themselves are very singular; the sporangium has a tendency to dilate, becoming funnel-form or even salver-shaped, the stipe shortening and even disappearing. I have a large specimen which superficially resembles some lichen, a Physcia, for example; the sporangia are pressed down, flattened out, extremely irregular, and in many places confluent; the rudimentary stipes are hidden beneath the leafy expansions. In all ...
— The Myxomycetes of the Miami Valley, Ohio • A. P. Morgan
... pursue, viz., to offer immediately her services in mediation but wholly and clearly on the side of the North. He stated that if England did not feel free to offer mediation, she should at least show "such a consistent and effective demonstration of sympathy and aid" for the North as would help in shortening the war[96]. The British Consul at Boston wrote to Russell in much the same vein. So far, indeed, did these men go in expressing their sympathy with the North, that Lyons, on April 27, commented to Russell that these consuls had ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... 1760. also experimented on the pressure of powder and the velocity of the bullet in a musket barrel; this he accomplished by shortening the barrel successively, and measuring the velocity obtained by the ballistic pendulum; thus reversing Noble's procedure of gradually lengthening ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... same time to effect certain alterations of form in the bullet. These with rectangular impact in the case of bullets travelling at a low degree of velocity consist in a bending and deformation of the tip; in the higher degrees, of bending, shortening, extensive destruction, or complete fragmentation. If the bullet makes lateral impact, only widening and flattening result, often with the escape of the lead core from the mantle. That a ricochet bullet may travel a considerable distance is shown by the following ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... sailed backwards and forwards off the mouth of the river, or when a tempest threatened, shortening sail, we beat out to sea to avoid shipwreck, again to return the instant the wind moderated. This sort of work greatly added to the experience my companion and I had gained on the coast of Ireland, so that we could boast ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... for joy or trot journeys." Acceleration in the speed of travelling, if unaccompanied by danger, is eagerly sought after, because the period of discomfort is lessened. But steam-carriages will not only lessen the discomfort by shortening its duration; they can be so equipped that positive comfort, nay, luxury, may be enjoyed. A steam-engine is perfectly under control, and consequently much more safe than horses. The life of the traveller cannot be jeoparded by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... middle one for foot passengers. The bridge curved upward from each tower, being at the middle 135 feet above the water in summer, and three feet higher in winter, owing to contraction by the cold. All but the very largest ships sailed under without shortening their masts. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... have a meeting at the offices here. They said, moreover, that, if Longworth had five or six men who would go at work with a will, the whole affair would be finished in a week at most. They did not appear to be at all alarmed at the shortening time, but said everything depended upon the men Longworth was going to bring with him. If they were the right men, there would be no trouble. So, all in all, they advised me not to worry about it, but to communicate with Longworth, if I could, and get him to come as soon as possible. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... means that your creameries more cloth by decreasing your will yield a better product if yardstick one-half; when you you water the milk; it means can sell more tons of merchandise that when the housewife shops by shortening your pound she will buy more linen, or one-half,—then, and not until gingham, or calico, if the then, can you increase the value merchant moves the brass tacks of your property or labor by of his counter yard measure decreasing your ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... not remarking a single part of my way hither, I fancied I would take a shorter cut back to supper, beginning to feel hungry, having eaten nothing since morning. In fact, I soon got into another track upon this absurd idea of shortening the route. I recommend my successors in Saharan travel, never to try short-cuts in unknown places. In ten minutes I made sure of my encampment, and ran right up to some mounds of sand topped with bushes, where I expected to find Said with the supper already ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... were transpiring in the meanwhile doubtless had their effect in hastening the decision and shortening the labors of Congress. To command the thirteen regiments of militia furnished by the State of Ohio, Governor Dennison had given a commission of major-general to George B. McClellan, who had been educated at West ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... by the end of the lower glacier, and then went on and on at a steady rate toward the great giant whose pyramidal peak could be faintly discerned in the distance, looking to Saxe terribly far off, and as if it would be impossible to reach the top that day. But their guide had cunning ways for shortening the distance, leading them round this outer buttress, up that ravine, and in and out and along shelves, so that, by the time the sun rose, they had well mastered the outworks, and were ready to attack the ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... presently came to the islands that lie in the mouth of the Gulf of St Lawrence, to have suspected that a passage here lay to the open sea. Doubtless the set of the wind and current revealed it to the trained instinct of the pilot. 'If it were so,' he wrote, 'it would be a great shortening as well of the time as of the way, if any perfection could be found in it.' But it was just as well that he did not seek further the opening into the Atlantic. By turning westward from the 'heel' of Newfoundland he was led to discover the milder waters and the more fortunate lands which awaited him ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... from service all those who showed a relatively long time between the stimulus and reaction. This involved laying off many of the most intelligent, hardest-working, and most trustworthy girls. Yet the effect was the possibility of shortening the hours and of reducing more and more the number of workers, with the final outcome that thirty-five girls did the work formerly done by a hundred and twenty, and that the accuracy of the work at the higher speed was two thirds greater than at the former ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... Government has been to preserve that station; and for the purpose of preserving it, to maintain peace. By remaining at peace ourselves, we best secure Portugal; by remaining at peace, we take the best chance of circumscribing the range and shortening the duration of the war, which we could not prevent from breaking out between France and Spain. By remaining at peace, we shall best enable ourselves to take an effectual and decisive part in any contest into which we may be hereafter forced against ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... the canoe out of the water and turned it over after a wet day in the bush across Giant's Lake, and were drying ourselves before the camp-fire, when Con taught a lesson and perpetrated a confidence. His keen, shrewd eyes twinkling, and a broad smile shortening his long, lean face till its great Roman nose and pointed chin were hobnobbing sociably together, the best hunter and guide on the Gatineau sat pouring boiling water through the barrel and into the innermost holy of holies of the intricate lock mechanism ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... as a rest for the hammers, also serves the purpose of the regulating rail, as you will see the regulating screw, with its button, attached to it. This rail is stationary in the square, not moving toward the strings and shortening the stroke as it does in the upright when the soft pedal is used. The soft pedal in the square piano simply interposes a piece of felt between each hammer and its corresponding string or strings. This felt ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... still occupying Germany. A fine, early flintlock Kentuck, that had been made out of a fine, late percussion Kentuck by sawing off the breech-end of the barrel, rethreading it for the breech-plug, drilling a new vent, and fitting the lock with a flint hammer and a pan-and-frizzen assembly, and shortening the fore-end to fit. Rivers has a gunsmith over at Kingsville, one Elmer Umholtz, who does all his fraudulent conversions for him. I have an example of Umholtz's craftsmanship, myself. The collector who bought this spurious flintlock spotted what had been done, and squawked ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... before his Majesty's knees, and the rest of the bishops knelt on either hand, and about him; and they did their homage together, for the shortening of the ceremony, ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... colonel of dragoons when he was in bed. He was tremendously pleased with it; but so he was with his snow-goggles, in spite of the fact that he could not see with them, and that they allowed him to become snow-blind. The rest of us kept our sleeping-bags as they were, only lengthening or shortening them as required. We were all greatly pleased with the device for closing them — on the plan of a sack. Outside our bags we had a cover of very thin canvas; this was extremely useful, and I would not be without it for anything. In the daytime ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... Kind reader! the shortening space we have prescribed to our volume warns us we must draw our story to an end. Nine months after this Killarney excursion, Lord Scatterbrain met Dick Dawson near Mount Eskar, where Lord Scatterbrain had ridden to make certain ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... intrude upon others a personal weakness or a personal appetite. It is selfish to divert from family purposes to "soothing excited nerves" even the small amounts necessary to maintain the cigar or cigarette habit. It is selfish to run the risk of shortening one's life, of reducing one's earning capacity. Because the tobacco habit is selfish it is anti-social and a nuisance, and should be fought by social as well as personal weapons, as are other recognized nuisances, such as spitting ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... to do everything in his power, but that did not extend to altering the times of the trains or shortening the mileage they had to travel. He wired for the suit-case to be put out at Medford, the next stop, some forty miles on, and sent back by the next up-train. "But that," he explained, "is a slow one and is not due here till ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... for the shortening of our stay here. Mr. Hooley will 'phone you the time we will leave—probably ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... the first day of Paradise, to "Dress it and to keep it." And that will always be the song of perfectly accomplished Liberty, in her industry, and rest, and shelter from troubled thoughts in the calm of the fields, and gaining, by migration, the long summer's day from the shortening twilight:— ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... of insulated wire around their poles, to discover empirically the exact effect of each element of the combination, and thus to deduce a more perfect form of apparatus. It was found that a marked increase in the loudness of the sounds resulted from shortening the length of the coils of wire, and by enlarging the iron diaphragm which was glued to the membrane. In the latter case, also, the distinctness of the articulation was improved. Finally, the membrane of goldbeaters' skin was discarded entirely, and a simple iron plate was ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... as she spoke, and Drake kept pace with her, shortening his strides. The need of doing that, trifle though it was, increased his sense of responsibility towards her. 'It's so abominably deceitful, and it's my doing. I should ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... much as it was in my nature to be offended, and I began to meditate apologies for shortening my visit at Ormsby Villa: but, though I was shocked by the haughtiness of Lady Geraldine, and accused her, in my own mind, of want of delicacy and politeness, yet I could not now suspect her of being an accomplice with her mother in any matrimonial ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... bushy beards. He found more difficulty in making this reform than in taking Azof, although aided by Mentchikof, his favorite, fellow-traveller, and prime minister. He was not content with cutting off the beards of the soldiers and shortening their coats,—he wished to make private citizens do the same; but the uproar and discontent were so great that he was obliged to compromise the matter, and allow the citizens to wear their beards and robes on condition of a heavy tax, graded on ability to pay it. The only class he exempted from ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... not envy the men who might have gone but who stayed at home in those early days, when their earlier presence on the field of battle might have been the means not only of saving many thousands of valuable lives, but of shortening the terrible carnage. It would have been a thousand times better had the mind which conceived the phrase "business as usual" been acute enough to foresee the possible and disastrous misapplications of the phrase. Rather would it have ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... 2: Although death comes, of necessity, to all, yet the shortening of temporal life is an evil and consequently ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... abreast, but a couple of hundred yards distant. The tug was shortening the line, and on the hulk's forecastle-head a couple of hands were busy at a cathead, preparing to let go anchor. She was ill-favored enough to look at, that hulk—weather-beaten, begrimed, stripped of all that makes a ship sightly. Nothing but the worn-out old ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... it the slight chill which, at the summer's end, begins to mark the shortening days. She turned her face homeward, and by this time became conscious that if Verena's companion had not yet brought her back there might be ground for uneasiness as to what had happened to them. It seemed to her that no sail-boat ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... end of January, 1913, that the changed attitude of the Oligarchy toward the favored unions was made public. The newspapers published information of an unprecedented rise in wages and shortening of hours for the railroad employees, the iron and steel workers, and the engineers and machinists. But the whole truth was not told. The oligarchs did not dare permit the telling of the whole truth. In reality, the wages had been raised much higher, and the privileges were correspondingly greater. ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... once the success and the permanence of his reform of the tariff—which you recall was confessedly and very properly not a reformation to free trade—by failing to provide in it a method for avoiding or at least minimizing and shortening any incident disturbance to the business world. His plans, further, failed by not reasonably insuring for the transition period from the old tariff to the new one sufficient national income for national expenses."] have virtually prevented all that? When I sent that plan, which I ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... had rusted the machinery of the war department, while the machinery of railway construction was in the highest working order. Sir John Burgoyne, the chief of the engineering staff, testified that it was impossible to overrate the services rendered by the railway, or its effects in shortening the time of the siege, and alleviating the fatigues and sufferings of the troops. The disorganization of the government department was accidental and temporary, as was subsequently proved by the success of the Abyssinian expedition, and, indeed, by the closing period of the Crimean war itself, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... implements and stock, and vindicated generally, in opposition to the existing practice, the right of the burgesses to decide definitively as to the new province. He is said to have prepared farther popular measures, for shortening the period of service, for extending the right of appeal, for abolishing the prerogative of the senators exclusively to do duty as civil jurymen, and even for the admission of the Italian allies to Roman citizenship. How far his projects in reality reached, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... in still another way—its disposition to make prodigious jumps by cutting through narrow necks of land, and thus straightening and shortening itself. More than once it has shortened itself thirty miles at a single jump! These cut-offs have had curious effects: they have thrown several river towns out into the rural districts, and built up sand bars and forests in front of them. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... collect the camels, and tried my hand with Bluey. At the moment that I was putting the loop of his line on to the nose-peg, he reared up and struck me on the chest, his hobble-chain adding power to the blow, which sent me spinning on to my back. For this and other assaults I meant to punish him, so shortening his hobbles until his fore-legs were fastened with no more than an inch or two between, I armed myself with a stout stick. As I had expected, as soon as I started to put on his nose-line, off he went as hard as he could, jumping like a kangaroo, and I after him beating ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... world. Alaska was bought in 1867, and added an area more than two thirds as large as the United States comprised in 1783. The improvement and extension of education, the interest in social reform, the beginning of the decline of the "let alone doctrine," the shortening of the hours of labor, and the consequent increase in time for self-improvement,—are all especially important steps of ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... of September, and the days were shortening. The dusk of evening had already closed over the city when de Casimir and Charles at length came downstairs. No one had troubled to open the shutters of such rooms as were not required; and these were many. ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... the South are such as to necessitate a system of separate schools for whites and Negroes, and since this necessitates the establishment of a large number of extra schools, it inevitably results in the shortening of school terms and the cutting down of the salaries of teachers. I have found some Negro country schools in Alabama paying the teachers from twelve to fifteen dollars per month, and the length of the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... soft darkness, watching the lights of the town and hearing a faint echo of the life there, I realized with something of a shock that it was Hallow-e'en. Does that convey nothing to your mind? To me it brings back memories of cold, fast-shortening days, and myself jumping long-legged over cabbage-stalks in ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... an account of the mortifications to which this interior pressure drove him, shortening of sleep, wearing hair-shirts, severe discipline, abstinence ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... for they are all commissioned to do their work, the same as a ship is commissioned to cruise in certain latitudes: but for the winds and the weather, they are given for a seafaring man to guard against, by making or shortening sail, as the case may be. Now, the headland to the southward stretches full three leagues to windward, and the shoals lie to the north; among which God keep us from ever running ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... bound not to do or appear to do, I should wish to put an end to this litigation between relations; and though your father thinks me his enemy, would convince him to the contrary, if he would allow me, and could point out the means of shortening this difference between relations, which has occasioned so much scandal; and moreover, could devise an accommodation, which might be agreeable to both parties, and save you a vast deal of trouble and vexation; ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... co-operative system, will be the elevation and perfection of human lives. To this end will tend the invention of every labor-saving machine; increasing the product and shortening the hours of labor. With the physical man thus properly nourished and developed; the intellectual and spiritual man, will for the first time in history, have the necessary conditions in which to expand, blossom and bear fruit. Under such circumstances, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... apartment house on Forty-ninth Street, and a few minutes later they were in a large new room with an open fireplace and four walls lined with books. A colored butler served them gin rickeys, and an hour vanished politely with the mellow shortening of their drinks and the glow of a ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... repaired, to find her last hope wrecked; the relation also was dead and gone. Her money was now spent, and she had begged her way along the road, or through the lanes, she scarce knew whither, till the accident which, in shortening her life, had raised up a friend for ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... first watch after the second dog-watch, and at two bells, or nine o'clock, in the evening, Mayo awoke and heard him give orders to "pinch her." He heard the sails flap, and knew that the men were shortening in readiness to lay to. He slipped on his outer clothing and went ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... a religious system obviously springs having for its object to hasten the purification of the soul, that it may the more quickly enter on absolute happiness, which is only to be found in absolute rest. The methods of shortening its wanderings and bringing it to repose are the exercises of a pious life, penance, and prayer, and more especially a profound contemplation of the existence and attributes of the Supreme Being. In this profound contemplation many holy ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... to Rome, the people, not approving of them, sent ten commissioners to Sicily, to terminate the affair. These made no alteration as to the substance of the treaty;(697) only shortening the time appointed for the payment, reducing it to ten years: a thousand talents were added to the sum that had been stipulated, which were to be paid immediately; and the Carthaginians were required ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... him time; he would make him eat his words, and he figured Hilary retracting and apologizing in the presence of the whole Board; Hilary apologized handsomely, and Northwick forgave him, while it was also passing through his mind that he must reduce the risks of railroad accident to a minimum, by shortening the time. They reduced the risk of ocean travel in that way, by reducing the time, and logically the fastest ship was the safest. If he could get to Montreal from Wellwater in four or five hours, when it ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... passed. With the rapidly shortening days of November, cold increased with grim earnestness. Already the snow was gathering depth in the forest, and on the open spaces it lay frozen and hard, and the sun now had no strength to soften it. A coating of ice crusted the beach where the tide rose and fell, and ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... is no answer to that," answered the doctor; "and we ought to believe that they are shortening ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... them, for, although the action of the play terminates in less than four hours (I. 2. 240 and V. 1. 186), yet Ariel's ministry is not to end till the voyage to Naples shall be over. Prospero, too, repeats his promise, and marks his contentment by further shortening the time of servitude, 'within two days,' I. 2. 420. Possibly 'Invisible' (301) should have a line to itself. Words thus occupying a broken ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... the pains, the quicker it will be over. First confinements necessarily take longer, because the parts take more time to open up, or dilate, to a degree sufficient to allow the child to be born. In subsequent confinements, these parts having once been dilated yield much easier, thus shortening the time and the pains of this, the most painful, stage of labor. The average duration of labor is eighteen hours in the case of the first child, and about twelve hours with women who have already borne children. The time, however, is subject to considerable variation, in individual cases, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... admiringly over two chicken pies which she brought, and which I must say had a singular appearance. The pastry looked very hard and of a curious leaden color. Mrs. Jameson said that she made them herself out of whole wheat, without shortening, and she evidently regarded them as triumphs of wholesomeness and culinary skill. She furthermore stated that she had remained up all night to bake them, which we did not doubt, as Hannah Bell, her help, had been employed steadily in the ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... compass, and veering forward again as much in an hour, until at last in one tremendous squall it settled in the N.W. for a business-like blow, Unlike the hurried merchantman who must needs "hang on" till the last minute, only shortening the sail when absolutely compelled to do so, and at the first sign of the gales relenting, piling it on again, we were all snug long before the storm burst upon us, and now rode comfortably under the tiniest ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... set forth, after a hack at his lessons, and turned to make his way across lots along a well-worn path, in this fashion cutting off several corners, and shortening the distance, which is apparently a thing desired by ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... prehensile at its lower end—is necessary for the animal to reach the ground. But the snout still lies on the projecting lower jaw, and is not a trunk. Passing over the many collateral branches, which diverge in various directions, we next kind that the chin is shortening (in Tetrabelodon longirostris), and, through a long series of discovered intermediate forms, we trace the evolution of the elephant from the mastodon. The long supporting skin disappears, and the enormous snout becomes ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... moccasins, and curing such meat as they could get, so as to be able to vary the fish diet of the Columbia. In February Captain Clark completed a map of the country between Fort Mandan and Fort Clatsop, and sketched a plan he had conceived for shortening the route from the mountains east of the Nez Perce villages to the Falls of the Missouri. His sagacity in this was marvelous; when it came to the point, his plan was found to be perfectly practicable, cutting off 580 miles from the most ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... Nina muttered, lacing high white buckskin shoes, with some shortening of breath. ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... outraged. The effect he produces is generally a laugh,—a loud, irresistible laugh, which bursts from one even when alone and calls the people away from the neighboring pictures. It is impossible to carry further than Steen did the art of flattening noses, twisting mouths, shortening necks, making wrinkles, rendering faces stupid, putting on humps, and making his puppets seem as if they were roaring with laughter, vomiting, reeling, or falling. By the leer of a half-closed eye he expressed idiocy ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... the night drew down on him, he felt himself so enfeebled, so sensitive to the icy wind, that he feared to sleep, lest he might never wake. So, for his life's sake, he kept moving, now by sheer stress of will-power lashing the spent muscles to movement. From time to time, with ever shortening intervals, he stopped to make a little fire, over which he huddled drowsily, but with his will set firm against a moment's yielding to that longing for a sleep which, of necessity, must merge into one from which there could be no awakening... In such manful wise, Donald battled with death ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... enormous value, and they're just waking up now. That road, cutting across four hundred miles of wilderness, is opening up a country half as big as the United States, in which more mineral wealth will be dug during the next fifty years than will ever be taken from Yukon or Alaska. It is shortening the route from Montreal, Duluth, Chicago, and the Middle West to Liverpool and other European ports by a thousand miles. It means the making of a navigable sea out of Hudson's Bay, cities on its shores, and great steel-foundries close ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... chains thy syllables are linkt; Thy words together tied in small hanks, Close as the Macedonian phalanx;[2] Or like the umbo[3] of the Romans, Which fiercest foes could break by no means. The critic, to his grief will find, How firmly these indentures bind. So, in the kindred painter's art, The shortening is the nicest part. Philologers of future ages, How will they pore upon thy pages! Nor will they dare to break the joints, But help thee to be read with points: Or else, to show their learned labour, you May backward be perused like Hebrew, In which they need not lose a bit Or of thy harmony or ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... made up the measure of his life in a chronic state of bodily infirmity. The fret and worry incidental to an ambitious parliamentary and official career doubtless also contributed their share to the shortening of his life. ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... delight, softened and purified, which he experiences in excelling his companion, or in winning a game.—These are the reasons why the catechetical exercise is so much relished by the young, and why it has succeeded so powerfully, not only in smoothing the pathway of education, but also in shortening it. ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... world." And Gardiner might have written to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire "See that execution be done without fall on Master Ridley and Master Latimer, as you will answer the same to the Queen's grace at your peril. But if they shall desire to have some gunpowder for the shortening of their torment, I see not but you may grant it, as it is written, Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo; that is to say, My kingdom is not ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... presence of heat. There are so many ways of making bread of this kind that a recipe is not necessary. The amount of salt to be added depends upon individual taste. Some like to set their yeast working in part potato, part flour. Others use milk instead of water. Some add shortening. And nearly all women believe that their own ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... former case, he can resolve for himself an approximation upon all the factors bearing on value, except the quality of the ore. For this, aside from inspection of the ore itself, a look at the plans is usually enlightening. A longitudinal section of the mine showing a continuous shortening of the stopes with each succeeding level carries its own interpretation. In the main, the current record of past production and estimates of the management as to ore-reserves, etc., can be accepted in ratio to the confidence that ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... man[oe]uvred throughout that night. After several hours of ineffectual efforts to bring their enemies fairly within reach of their guns, after the moon had risen, the French gave the matter up for a time, shortening sail while most of their superior officers caught a ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... won't you have to give a longer role to the wife of the good Saint-Gueltas? The play ought not to be very hard to cut. It is only a question of condensing and shortening it. If it is played, I'll guarantee a terrific ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... there came two shocks, not very far apart. This showed that the creature beneath us was at work in some way or another. Perhaps he had reached the opening of his den, and was shortening up his arm before he plunged down into it with us after him. I couldn't stay any longer in that room alone. I looked for the maid, but she had put out the galley light, and had probably turned in ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... headed toward a black speck, apparently a hundred yards below them, and the great steamer slowly drifted down-stream. The speck moved toward shore, and the boat, rapidly shortening distance, seemed to scrape the bank with her ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... roars a townward train. I hear it through the grass Dragging the links of my shortening ...
— Bay - A Book of Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... rest the heel. In severe strains the local symptoms are quite prominent. The tendons may be hot and swollen. Pressure may cause the animal pain. In chronic tendinitis the tendon may be thickened and rough or knotty. Pain is not a prominent symptom in this class of cases. Shortening of the inflamed tendon may occur, causing the animal to knuckle over. Rupture of one or more of the tendons and the suspensory ligament can be recognized by the abnormal extension of the pastern. If the ruptured tendon heals, ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... this?" demanded Ram Nath. "I am no child to be amused by a riddle. I know naught of your 'Pink Satin.'" He bent forward, shortening his grasp upon the reins, as if to signify that the interview ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... "The rapidly shortening days meant long cold nights. The soldiers in Moscow made camp-fires of the costly pieces of furniture that remained in the palaces, but those who were encamped on the plains outside had no fire at ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... course, approximated; and according to the relations of their points of attachment to the centres of motions of the different rings, the bending or the extension of the tail results. Close observation of the newly- opened lobster would soon show that all its movements are due to the same cause—the shortening and thickening of these fleshy fibres, ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... insect itself boring the exit passage, the problem assumes a more troublesome form. If the larva, rich in leisure and satisfied with its sojourn in the interior of the trunk, simplifies the coming emergence by shortening the road, what must not the adult do, who has so short a time to live and who is in so great a hurry to leave the hateful darkness? He above any other should be a judge of short cuts. To go from the murky heart of the tree to the sun-steeped ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... eleven days in the ice, during every day of which period they had witnessed it working effectually under every circumstance; they had seen the crews of the whalers labouring at the track-line, at the oar, and in making and shortening sail, both by day and by night; whilst our crews had nothing to do beyond taking the ships in tow and casting them off again; already I observed a really sincere anxiety upon all their parts for the safety of the "screw." I heard from henceforth inquiries ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... time for rest, for this was the season of lengthening nights and shortening days, and Manikawan was in much need of rest and food. For nearly thirty-six hours she had been exerting herself to the utmost of her strength. At the river tilt she had made a fire in the stove and brewed herself some tea, but she had eaten nothing. ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... more, waving and smoking slightly. He now turned down the gas and replaced the chimney, then set the tap at the same angle as before. "Here," said he, "we have a flame barely four inches high—of brilliant white—which gives more light than the taller flame did. The cause of the shortening of the flame is the more rapid combustion of the gas, owing to the increased draught or air-supply in the chimney. From the greater intensity of this flame a much larger quantity of light is produced than by the longer flame. If too tall a chimney is used, the flame is shortened still more ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... and released, and (T) delivers a sharp tap. The height of the lift, and therefore the intensity of the stroke, is measured by means of a graduated scale. We can increase the intensity of the stroke through a wide range (1) by increasing the projecting length of the lifter, and (2) by shortening the length of spring by a sliding catch. We may give isolated single taps or superpose a series in rapid succession according as the wheel is rotated slow or fast. The only disadvantage of the tapping method of stimulation ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose
... stowed her; there huddied she lay, Shortening sleeves, legs, and tails to her limbs; But most o' the time in a mortal bad way, Well knowing that there'd be the divel to pay If 'twere found that, instead o' the elements' prey, She was living in lodgings ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... said. "Price shortening. I suppose the stable's got all the money they want on her, and so they don't bother ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... was rather dilapidated from constant hunting, and the limited number of clothes I had with me, I proceeded to mend my trousers, which were worn through just where it might naturally be expected they would first give way. This I could only do by shortening the legs of the garment. However, the end justified the means ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... N. decrease, diminution; lessening &c v.; subtraction &c 38; reduction, abatement, declension; shrinking &c (contraction.) 195; coarctation^; abridgment &c (shortening) 201; extenuation. subsidence, wane, ebb, decline; ebbing; descent &c 306; decrement, reflux, depreciation; deterioration &c 659; anticlimax; mitigation &c (moderation) 174. V. decrease, diminish, lessen; abridge ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... diameter of the cistern is about an inch and a quarter, and that of the tube about a quarter of an inch. The scale, instead of being divided into inches in the usual way, is shortened in the proportion of about 0.04 of an inch for every inch. The object of shortening the scale is to avoid the necessity of applying a correction for difference of capacity between the cistern and the tube. The perfection with which this is done may be judged of from the fact, that of ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... Isthmus of Darien, and a route by the Cape with a branch to the Mauritius. The route by Egypt and India has at length been chosen, and the most sanguine hopes are entertained of its success. The steam establishment will have the farther advantage of shortening the distance by one-half between Calcutta and Sydney; and reducing it to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... error. The general tendency of civilized government is now strongly in favor of attaching the process of deliberation upon financial measures to the period of their administrative incubation, and of shortening the period ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... her right hand. The escort gives his arm a slight spring, and with a corresponding action on the part of the fair equestrienne, she is lifted into the saddle. The man faces the near side of the horse, or the left. He takes the reins in his right hand and with it grasps the pommel of the saddle, shortening the reins until he feels the mouth of the horse. He inserts the left foot in the stirrup and springs ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... Hence, to the vagrants' rendezvous repair; Or shun in some black forge the midnight air. Proceeds this boldness from a turn of soul, Or flows licentious from the copious bowl? Is it that vanquish'd Irus swells thy mind? A foe may meet thee of a braver kind, Who, shortening with a storm of blows thy stay, Shall send thee howling all ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... of being able to take with me this fall the results of a preliminary survey of this route. It necessarily involves heavy work, as must any short line across the mountains, a condition which will be readily accepted in consideration of the material shortening ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... case of labour, it would be obviously unfair to claim that the employer element was actuated by motives of self-interest alone; nor were their concessions due only to fear. Instances could be cited, if there were space, of voluntary shortening of hours of labour, of raising of wages, when no coercion was exerted either by the labour unions or the state; and—perhaps to their surprise employers discovered that such acts were not only humane but profitable! Among these employers, in fact, may be observed individuals ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... oldest Greek from the 8th or 7th century B.C.) A rests upon its side thus—@. In the Greek alphabet of later times it generally resembles the modern capital letter, but many local varieties can be distinguished by the shortening of one leg, or by the angle at which the cross line is set— @, &c. From the Greeks of the west the alphabet was borrowed by the Romans and from them has passed to the other nations of western Europe. In the earliest Latin inscriptions, such as the inscription found in the excavation ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... in the open, garnished with the wilderness sauce that creates appetite, eaten piping hot, are mighty palatable though the dough is mixed with water and shortening is lacking. As a camp cook, Molly was a success. Confused with Pedro's offer of lard and a stove that was complicated compared to her Dutch kettle, the result was a bitter failure that she acknowledged as soon as her teeth met ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... him to the ground, while his comrade in the chariot raised his spear to dispatch him. Jethro sprang forward with a shout of rage, and with a blow of his sword struck off the head of the spear as it was descending. Then shortening his sword, he sprang into the chariot, ran the man holding the bow through the body, and grappled ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... difficulty about that,' replied Long, and he stretched himself up and up and up till he was three times as tall as the tallest tree in the forest. Then he looked all round and said, 'We must go in this direction in order to get out of the wood,' and shortening himself again, he took the prince's horse by the bridle, and led him along. Very soon they got clear of the forest, and saw before them a wide plain ending in a pile of high rocks, covered here and there with trees, and very much like the ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... called the boys by their full names, for the shortening of the names, Ritz and Edi, seemed to her a degrading of their names and an injustice ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri
... his spear against him; but after a moment's hesitation he plunged it into the horse, which reared high in the air and then fell. Edgar had at the moment rid himself of the man who was grasping him, by shortening his sword and plunging it into his body, and as the horse reared he drew his feet from the stirrups and dropped off over his tail, coming down upon his feet just as the animal ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... the general body is created, an enlightened legislator will endeavour by every possible method to diminish the operation of such interest. The first and most natural mode that presents itself is that of shortening the regular duration of this trust, in order that the man who has betrayed it may soon be superseded by a more worthy successor. But this is not enough; aware of the possibility of imposition, and of the natural tendency of power to corrupt the heart of man, a sensible Republican ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... situation demanded of him only quick action and that he should keep his head. As Roddy now saw it, he was again the base-runner, beset in front and rear. He missed only the shouts and cheers of thousands of partisans. The players of the other side were closing in and shortening the distance in which he could turn and run. They had him in a trap, and, in another instant, the ball would touch him. It was quite time, Roddy decided, to "slide!" Still hidden by the shadow of the thatched roof, he dropped at the feet of Inez, and, before she could understand his purpose, ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... the bolt which kept them from entering the passage from the corridor of the Chateau Larouge—forcing them to take a long, roundabout journey to "The Twisted Arm"—had not counted on their shortening that journey by entering the passage from Fouchard's tavern, doing, in fact, the very thing which he had declared to Margot he himself had done. And lo! here they were, howling and crowding about him—dirks in their hands and ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... jollification begin. Far and near, all sorts and conditions of voices caught up the old melody and added their quota to the music; and when their leader began mischievously to alter the refrain by dropping the last word, and shortening it each time by one word less, delight was general and the fun waxed fast ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... arrangement is a bad one, the facts which have been stated speak for themselves. To my view it is an almost sublime instance of the benevolent employment of superior wealth and power in shortening the struggles of advancing civilization, and elevating in a few years a whole community to a point of education and material prosperity, which, unassisted, they might never ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... to the protecting blanket of ice. The warmer water remains unfrozen at the bottom, and the animals live on. (3) The risk of being washed away, e.g. to the sea, is lessened by all sorts of gripping, grappling, and anchoring structures, and by shortening the juvenile stages ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... the middle of the morning, Ellen, to her great surprise, saw Sharp brought before the door, with the side-saddle on, and Mr. John carefully looking to the girth, and shortening ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... he ever did in Virginia woods or Louisiana swamps. But now I knew all. And yet, what could one do? That child's eyes and voice, and his expression, which exceeded in sweetness that of any of the angels I had ever imagined,—that child could coax a man to do more self-forgetting deeds than the shortening of his precious sleeping-hours amounted to. In fact, he was fast divesting me of my rightful sleepiness, so I kissed ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... the next morning, in spite of an ominous gray sky and a new sound of the wind in the trees, Norman and Roy were off on their three hundred mile flight. They planned a short stay at the Landing and upon reaching camp again before the shortening day was at an end. They carried in the cockpit their Mackinaw jackets and their winter caps. Philip also prepared a cold luncheon to be eaten on the return trip, thus saving ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... is risen—if the sun is up, Malcolm—then the morning and not the evening is the season for the place of tombs; the morning when the shadows are shortening and separating, not the evening when they are growing all into one. I used to love the churchyard best in the evening, when the past was more to me than the future; now I visit it almost every bright summer morning, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... tea with Mrs. Sykes on a pleasant September evening. The latter lady, as in duty bound, was highly pleased to see her dear friends, and forthwith ordered Hannah, her servant-girl, to make a batch of soda rolls, with a bit of shortening rubbed in, and just step over to Mrs. Frye's, and ask that good lady "if she would not be so very kind and obliging as to lend Mrs. Sykes a plateful of her nice, sweet doughnuts, as she had visitors come in unexpectedly, and was not quite ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the players by those who may be supposed to have seldom understood them; they were transmitted by copiers equally unskilful, who still multiplied errours; they were, perhaps, sometimes mutilated by the actors, for the sake of shortening the speeches; and were at last printed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... amount of hard fighting, receive their doom, Godard the Dane being hanged, and Godric the Englishman burnt at the stake. This rough and vigorous story is told in rough and vigorous verse—octosyllabic couplets, with full licence in shortening, but with no additional syllables except an occasional double rhyme—in very sterling English, and with some, though ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... The entrepreneurial and technical advantages of the American economy were never greater and it is small business that is creating virtually all new jobs and employment opportunities. Commercial technology and products are turning over on ever shortening cycles. Performance, especially in high-technology products, is improving and costs ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... of his success, I sprang at his throat, grasped his sword-arm with my left hand, and, shortening my stump of a weapon, drove the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... to the other side of the strip; the king fish had not seen him; and the next moment Tom saw him suck in a bee, laden with his morning's load of honey, who touched the water unwarily close to his nose. With trembling hand, Tom took off his tail fly, and, on his knee, substituted a governor; then shortening his line, after wetting his mimic bee in the pool behind him, tossed it gently into the monster's very jaws. For a moment the fish seemed scared, but the next, conscious in his strength, lifted his nose slowly to the surface and sucked in ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes |
