"Shortness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... My sanguine self-confidence, though sometimes apalled, has all my life prevented me from being subject to fits of permanent chagrin, or melancholy. The recollection of my mother's passionate promises, the shortness of the time, the suddenness of the change, the family into which she had married, and the instability of a woman that was my mother, drew a few sighs from me, and in these my gloom evaporated. I returned ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... from the place of production to the place of consumption, and he hits on a railroad. Every master has found his materials collected, and his power lay in his sympathy with his people, and in his love of the materials he wrought in. What an economy of power! and what a compensation for the shortness of life! All is done to his hand. The world has brought him thus far on his way. The human race has gone out before him, sunk the hills, filled the hollows, and bridged the rivers. Men, nations, poets, artisans, women, all have ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... sprung up with a neighboring ally. He chose the city of Mentz for his winter quarters, and the settlement of these state affairs, and showed a greater partiality for this town than seemed consistent with the interests of the German princes, or the shortness of his visit to the Empire. Not content with strongly fortifying it, he erected at the opposite angle which the Main forms with the Rhine, a new citadel, which was named Gustavusburg from its founder, but which is better known under the title ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... said Luke, as he gave his arm to his master, "you'll make up your mind to't a bit better when you've seen iverything; you'll get used to't. That's what my mother says about her shortness o' breath,—she says she's made friends wi't now, though she fought again' it sore when it just ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... terror by night, for in the dark they broke the taboo and heads as well, stripped trees of their fruit, stole swine and fowls, staved in the bottoms of canoes, cut trees, and in order to look as bad as he felt, the leader cropped his hair and his beard (when one came to him) to the shortness of an inch, tattooed the upper half of his body in black, and wore a hog-skin over his shoulders with bristles outward. On attaining his majority he left his parents, taking with him some of his reprobates, and ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... of sickness in their warm hammocks below. Now, I will endeavour to give a faithful account of what happened; and let the unprejudiced determine, in the horrible calamity that ensued, how much blame was fairly attributable to me. I must premise that, owing to shortness of number, even when all were well, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... about an inch in diameter, the blade itself being not more than an inch wide, the handle is straight, and twelve or fifteen inches long; the whole weighing about a pound. By way of ornament, the blade is perforated with several circular holes. The length of the blade compared with the shortness of the handle render it a weapon of very little strength, particularly as it is always used on horseback: there is still however another form which is even worse, the same sort of handle being fixed to a blade ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... among us sometimes who complain of the shortness of life, the smallness of truth, the limited stage on which man is forced to act. But the men who thus complain are not men who have filled this little stage with their action. The man who has learned to serve the Lord never complains that his Master does not give ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... asked, how the shortness of the duration in office can affect the independence of the Executive on the legislature, unless the one were possessed of the power of appointing or displacing the other. One answer to this inquiry may be drawn from the ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... more I reflect on the [Greek text] of animals, the more I am astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helplessness of her brood, and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow in defence of those chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... presented him a bill for the horse's board during his residence at the inn. Joseph said Mr Adams had paid all; but this matter, being referred to Mr Tow-wouse, was by him decided in favour of the hostler, and indeed with truth and justice; for this was a fresh instance of that shortness of memory which did not arise from want of parts, but that continual hurry in which ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... was stored deep, and I was bending to the search with some shortness of breath, when the Englishman touched ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... glad to hear such a testimony from thee," said the old man, earnestly. "It is a pity that any of us should forget the work to be done in this world, and the shortness ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... trust their delegates. This is manifest in the shortness of the term, the provision for recall, the reserved right to control the delegates by controlling their pay, and ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... pieces are given; you pay nothing for admission, but are expected to call for some refreshment. It is splendidly illuminated, and is the Cafe par excellence, frequented by those ladies who have made the opposite choice to that of Hercules, and who, taking into consideration the shortness and uncertainty of life, dedicate it entirely to ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... his brother he feared he should never be a poet, and if he was not he would destroy himself." This was perhaps a half-conscious reminiscence of Chatterton, with whose genius and fate he had an intense sympathy, it may be from an inward foreboding of the shortness of his own career.[387] ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Notwithstanding the shortness of the time and the restrictions placed upon him, he succeeded in getting nearly thirty women to give evidence on his behalf, and at his trial, which was publicly held, revelations of a very ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... readable. The subject material, set in the Canadian wilderness, is very well treated: in fact one might almost say that he had read the works of the later masters of Canadian wilderness writing, Ballantyne or Egerton Ryerson Young. Another feature which is unusual for him is the shortness and evenness of the chapters; nor are there any of the long paragraphs normal for his earlier works. This helps to make the book so suitable as a ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... the shortness of food, which was thinning the flesh over Finn's haunches now, it was another cause which led him to swerve from the north-westerly course in a south-westerly direction. He paid no particular heed to old Tufter's continuous growls about ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... passing of things; he could take no count of the collapsing leagues. More and more grew the amazingness of the Plough's leaps, things only to be measured by miles, and counted as joltings on the way; while fast to the back of it clung Noodle, and endured, praying that shortness of breath might not overmaster him, or the check of his lungs give way and burst him to the emptiness of a drum. His senses rocked and swayed; he felt the gates of his resolve slackening and forcing ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... when the bishop returned to Paihia (Jan. 5), only 44 Maoris were able to be presented, besides 20 white people—mostly missionaries' children. At the Hauraki station the bishop found a mere handful able to receive the laying-on of hands. Owing to the shortness of his visit and to the difficulty of communication, he was unable to visit more than these three stations; and he had left for Norfolk Island before many of the missionaries ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... raise up the broken-hearted youth; but would often say: "Oh, how nearly hadst thou reached thy last trial, and gained the victory, and looked on Verena's countenance, and atoned for all! Now thou hast thrown thyself back for years. Think, my son, on the shortness of man's life; if thou art always falling back anew, how wilt thou ever gain the summit on this ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... which the servant returned was almost insolent in the shortness and coolness of its tone. Mr. Rambert had no books in his library which were not in perfect condition. The volume of the Times had left his house perfect, and whatever blame might attach to the mutilation of it rested therefore on other shoulders ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... flesh undergoes a loss of soluble and nutritious substances, while, as a matter of course, the soup becomes richer in these matters. The albumen is gradually dissolved from the surface to the centre; the fibre loses, more or less, its quality of shortness or tenderness, and becomes hard and tough: the thinner the piece of meat is, the greater is its loss of savoury constituents. In order to obtain well-flavoured and eatable meat, we must relinquish the idea of making ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... country. She watched him eat. She saw in his cuffs the glint of gold; she noted with what elegance he held his little fingers aloof from his hands. She noted the polish and cleanliness of his nails, the shortness of his recent hair-cut, the great breadth of his shoulders (they were his coat's shoulders, but she did not know this), the narrowness of his waist, the interesting pallor of ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... multiplication of data. In the first place, those who seek parity, whether men or women, are in a majority over those who seek disparity. In the second place, the existence of any disparity at all is due only to the universal desire to find a tall person. Not one man or woman sets down shortness as his or her ideal. The very fact that no man in these initial announcements ventures to set himself down as short (although a considerable proportion describe themselves as tall) indicates a consciousness that ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... "effective as a remedy for all fluxes, spitting of blood, agues, measles, colds, coughs, and to put off the most violent fever; as a treatment, remedy, and cure for stone and gravel in the kidneys, bladder, and urethra, shortness of breath, straightness of the breast; and to rekindle the most natural heat in the bodies by which they restore the languishing to perfect health." Okell and Dicey had scarcely promised more. By 20th-century ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... then, as the shadow stretched out in the afternoon, his strength returned. A certain hero discovered the secret of Tukaitawa's strength and slew him at noon. The savage Besisis of the Malay Peninsula fear to bury their dead at noon, because they fancy that the shortness of their shadows at that hour would sympathetically ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... little child that will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, is deeper far than is generally believed. It is not only in a careless reliance upon Divine Providence, that we are to become little children, or in the feebleness and shortness of our anger and simplicity of our passions, but in the peace and purity of all our soul. Which purity also is a deeper thing than is commonly apprehended.' ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... already wandered across to the other side of the studio and was revolving about Miss Light. "Ah, he 's gone to look at my beautiful daughter; he is not the first that has had his head turned," Mrs. Light resumed, lowering her voice to a confidential undertone; a favor which, considering the shortness of their acquaintance, Rowland was bound to appreciate. "The artists are all crazy about her. When she goes into a studio she is fatal to the pictures. And when she goes into a ball-room what do the ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... him of the shortness of the time, and urge him to finish the undertaking—but in vain; Mozart was nowhere to be found. At length he was discovered in a billiard-room, half intoxicated, earnestly engaged in a critical part of this very fascinating game. The person who came in search of him, aware of Mozart's passionate ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... and dropped several verses, because of their difficulty. Finally he settled on one, because of its shortness. He read its seven words haltingly ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... some attention; but Waverley, hitherto occupied by the amusements which he had found at Tully-Veolan and Glennaquoich, dispensed with paying any attention to hints so coldly thrown out, especially as distance, shortness of leave of absence, and so forth, furnished a ready apology. But latterly the burden of Mr. Richard Waverley's paternal epistles consisted in certain mysterious hints of greatness and influence which he was speedily to attain, and ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... altogether short in stature, and very short below the knee. She had fair hair and a fair skin, small bones and copious soft flesh. She had a trick of sighing gently in the evolutions of the waltz, which young men attributed to her softness of heart, and old ladies to her shortness of breath. They both loved dancing dearly, and were content to enjoy it whenever the chance might be given to them by the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... half-wild character ascribed by P. Laestadius and other Swedish writers to the reindeer of Lapland, may be in some degree due to the comparative shortness of the period during which he has been partially tamed. The domestic swine bred in the woods of Hungary and the buffalo of Southern Italy are so wild and savage as to be very dangerous to all but their keepers. The former have relapsed into their original condition, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... putting in of the horses to larger specimens of the human species, but he took care that all was done properly. Putting one of his big boots a little in advance, and drawing himself up to his full shortness, he watched the operation attentively, as if the smallness of his stature had nothing to do with his inactivity. When all was ready, he climbed up to his seat, and at a signal from the station-keeper, who watched with paternal pride all the movements of the little ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... by many in the settlement, that both at Sydney and at Rose Hill the countenances of the labouring convicts indicated the shortness of the ration they received; this might be occasioned by their having suffered so much before from the same cause, from the effects of which they had scarcely been restored when they were again called ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Mr. Rust's attention was attracted by a pair of mantis, whether Mantis religiosa or not, he was not sure, but from the length of the body and the shortness of the wings he was inclined to think them of some other species. The female had her arms tightly clasped around the head of the male, while his left arm was around her neck. Mr. Rust watched intently to see whether the embrace ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... with greater force than it did from the Cape of Good Hope upon the strait of Magellan, or from the strait of Magellan to Cape Frido; upon which coasts Jacques Cartier met with the same, considering the shortness of the cut from the said Cape Frido to Iceland, Lapland, etc. And so the cause efficient remaining, it would have continually followed along our coasts through the narrow seas, which it doeth not, but is digested about ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... preparation, which contains hemlock and aconite, would produce mental confusion, impaired movement, irregular action of the heart, dizziness and shortness of breath. ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... to the eaters, but it is not confined to slaves, nor do slaves eat in order to kill themselves; it is a diseased appetite, and rich men who have plenty to eat are often subject to it. The feet swell, flesh is lost, and the face looks haggard; the patient can scarcely walk for shortness of breath and weakness, and he continues eating till he dies. Here many slaves are now diseased with safura; the clay built in walls is preferred, and Manyuema women when pregnant often eat it. The cure ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... by a cold and chilling languor. Green herbs in winter are much more beneficial than is generally imagined; they are particularly salutary to aged persons, and such as are subject to stoppages, or shortness of breath. In this case, instead of an onion, a clove of garlic may be put into the salad, which is a preferable way of eating it. This will open and warm the stomach, and give a general glow to the ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... his pocket and Ellen took a step forward. The shortness of her breath and the glitter in her eyes should have warned him. The greatness of his subject, however, had carried him away. His attention was riveted upon the beans lying in the palm of his hand. He looked at them ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... from shortness of sight and a high parsonic manner. He paused on the threshold to wipe his eyeglasses, adjusted them on his nose, and gazing around the room, cleared his throat as if about to address ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hot, but exceedingly neat and clean. After I had changed my clothes, which the serjeant's civility enabled me to do, by furnishing me with a complete suit of his own, we were invited to sit down to dinner, which I have no doubt was the best he could procure; and, considering the shortness of time he had to provide it, was managed with some ingenuity. As there was not time to prepare soup and bouilli, we had in their stead some cold beef, sliced, with hot water poured over it. We had next a large bird roasted, of a species with which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... closely affiliated in the Hindoo myth {HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} a reddish colour of the skin, want of symmetry and ungainliness of form, strength in hugging with the fore paws or arms, the faculty of climbing, shortness of tail(?), sensuality, capacity of instruction in dancing and in music, are all characteristics which more or less distinguish and meet in bears as well as in monkeys. In the Ramayanam, the wise Jamnavant, the Odysseus ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... papers were thrust inside the covers of the books; and all books without covers were jammed into all the covers without books that seemed likely to fit. Then all the pens and pencils were put into a pencil case, and if any happened to be too long, they were broken to the required shortness. This being satisfactorily done, Jack used next to turn his attention to the miscellaneous articles of food of which he found himself possessed. The sandwiches, if not more than a week old, he either ate or generously offered to some of ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... imitating the example of the ancient philosophers, is employing the last days of his political existence in composing a learned discourse "On the Shortness of Ministerial Life." To try the effect of it, his lordship gives a full dress dinner-party, immediately after the meeting of Parliament, to several of his friends. On the removal of the cloth, he will read the essay, and then the Queen's intended speech, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... accented on the first syllable, counts for a spondee, the shortness of the second o being partly helped out by the two consonants which follow it; partly by the fact that the syllable is in thesi; (2) the laws of position are to be observed, according to the general rules of classical prosody: (a) dactyls terminating in a consonant like beautiful, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... suffering. Dysentery and fever had broken out in the English camp, and the number of effective men was greatly reduced. Upon the other hand, the French were suffering from shortness of supplies. The English frigates above the town prevented food being brought down from Montreal in boats, and the difficulties of land ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... Layton certainly is, to be united to the widow of a sugar-boiler!—yes, absolutely!—who is an inch shorter than pretty Lelia and more tiger-headed than Lizzy Grey, and who declares she hates music, although her dear first husband took her hoften to the Hopera—who adds deformity to shortness, talks loudly of the hinfluence of wealth, and compares the presentations at the Mansion House, that she has seen, to those at St. James's which she has not yet seen! Verily, Edward Layton has had ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... once by the use of tricks which were designed to outwit Claflin a week later. The second managed a field-goal from the fifteen yards. Toward the end the 'varsity used substitutes freely, but Clint played through to the last, emerging with many an aching bone, a painful shortness of breath and a fine glow of victory. Mr. Detweiler, red-faced and perspiring, caught him on the side line as he dragged his tired feet toward the blanket pile. "All ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... we have since mourned; though the shortness of his career was owing to accident, not disease or climate. But with Daniel Wilson the see of Calcutta became established as a metropolitan bishopric, and ceased to possess that character of gradual extension which rendered its first holders necessarily missionaries. True, it needs ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the little river Clyst joins the Exe. It has given names to a surprising number of villages and manors, considering the shortness of its course—Clyst St Mary, Clyst St Laurence, Honiton Clyst, and so on. At Clyst St George a small estate used to be held on the curious tenure of 'the annual tender of an ivory bow.' About two miles east of the river the land begins to slope ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... conductor to devote his whole time to the work of the campaign, and he began to appreciate the difficulty of meeting him naturally. If he went to his boarding-house, he would doubtless find him away, or not alone. On the whole, considering the shortness of the time and the different worlds in which they moved, he decided that he must make his opportunity, rather than wait for ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... we part from in this world with a light good-bye whom we never see again! Often do I think, in my meditations on this subject, that if we realised more fully the shortness of the fleeting intercourse that we have in this world with many of our fellow-men, we would try more earnestly to do them good, to give them a friendly smile, as it were, in passing (for the longest intercourse on earth is little more ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... of days be thy portion, make it not thy expectation. Reckon not upon long life; but live always beyond thy account. He that so often sur- viveth his expectation lives many lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his days. Time past is gone like a shadow; make times to come present; con- ceive that near which may be far off. Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensions of them: be like a neighbour unto death, and think there is but little to come. And since ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... "Faith of my father!" exclaimed the general, "I see no great things in that; and if it be all you require in proof of my courage, I will show you that I can do it a dozen times, and with less trouble than it would give me to ride my horse Battle." All now made way for the wonderful general, whose shortness of legs rendered it necessary to bring benches to facilitate his mounting; for the flying-horse stood some six feet or more from the spar deck, and was not so easily mounted by a general accustomed ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... very long neck, was too large, much too large for his body. His face was narrow, his complexion swarthy, his sallow cheeks high and sunken. A nose slightly turned up, gave an expression of boldness to his countenance, increased by the shortness of his upper lip, which exposed to view two large front teeth that were almost ferocious in their size. On either side of his high, narrow forehead, his hair, instead of being worn according to the prevailing fashion, was suffered to fall in long elf-locks about his ears. Notwithstanding all these ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... her books: "Oh," said she, "why is life so short, when there is such an infinite deal to learn? Yet this is not right, and it evidences ignorance to imagine the time of learning limited; besides, this remark about the shortness of time and the length of art proceeds from the heathen writer Hippocrates. But let us praise God for the hope, for the certainty, that we may be scholars to all eternity. Ah, Uncle Munter, I rejoice myself heartily over the industrial spirit of our age! It will make it easy ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... turnips, lettuce and cabbage, could be raised anywhere in those regions; the intensity of the season compensates for its shortness; the sun is in the heavens twenty-four hours in the day, and all living things sprout and grow with amazing rankness and celerity under the strong compulsion of his continuous rays. Spring comes literally with a shout and ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... thought! As we glance at the record of its events, and contemplate its changes, we can but feel a realizing sense of the shortness of time, and the necessity of improving the present to the best possible advantage. One after another has dropped from our little circle, till we are left but few in number; but enough to claim the ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... this devotion. Lay hold upon his soul, O God, till that soul have thoroughly considered his account; and how few minutes soever it have to remain in that body, let the power of thy Spirit recompense the shortness of time, and perfect his account before he pass away; present his sins so to him, as that he may know what thou forgivest, and not doubt of thy forgiveness, let him stop upon the infiniteness of those sins, but dwell ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... in cold, soupy odors, that left a feeling of a coating of grease over the surface of her. The poor filbert of gaslight burning into floor after floor of slits of hallway. The climb after a whole processional of spotty landladies whose shortness of breath ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... where Juliet Mascarene had sat often enough, no doubt, whilst the preacher had preached on the vanity of life, on the delusions of the world and the shortness of Time. ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... in length and two and one-half inches in width. This oblong form is most generally used, but there is an almost square shape, two and a half inches by three, also in favor, and especially used by unmarried ladies where the shortness of their name would be too much emphasized in the longer card. For instance: "Miss Ray" would be quite justified in choosing the square style, while "Miss Ethelinda Crane" or "Mrs. Algernon Spencer" would find the length of their names displayed to better ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... duke; and who, by his signal victory over the Saracens, had saved his country, and perhaps Europe, from the Mahometan yoke. The ambassadors of the pope were received by Charles with decent reverence; but the greatness of his occupations, and the shortness of his life, prevented his interference in the affairs of Italy, except by a friendly and ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin, the heir of his power and virtues, assumed the office of champion of the Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince appears to have been prompted by the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... is very common there, and also in France; its ears are nearly as long as its body, yet, when reposing, they are so folded as to be almost out of sight. The Indian species is only a variety distinguishable by its yet longer ears ("and comparative shortness of ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... 1755.... "The health of the Empress [Czarina Elizabeth, CATIN DU NORD, age now forty-five] is bad. She is affected with spitting of blood, shortness of breath, constant coughing, swelled legs and water on the chest; yet she danced a minuet with me," lucky Hanbury. "There is great fermentation at Court. Peter [Grand-Duke Peter] does not conceal his enmity to the Schuwalofs [paramours of CATIN, old ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... official intimation from the Government of Great Britain that orders had been given for the protection of the fisheries upon the coasts of the British Provinces in North America against the alleged encroachments of the fishing vessels of the United States and France. The shortness of this notice and the season of the year seemed to make it a matter of urgent importance. It was at first apprehended that an increased naval force had been ordered to the fishing grounds to carry into effect the British interpretation of those provisions ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... wind from Rosamund's side. Notwithstanding her exceedingly ugly red dress, its shortness, its uncouth make, she ran as gracefully as a young fawn. Soon she had disappeared round the corner, and as soon as she had done so Lady Jane was seen tripping across the grass. She motioned Rosamund to ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... Museum, ii. 35. t. 3.) has recently described a species of this genus from Madagascar, under the name of A. MADAGASCARIENSIS, which is nearly allied to the Van Diemen's Land species, in the shortness of the frontal process, the spines on the sides of the second abdominal segment, and in the lobes of the tail; but it differs from it in the length of the claws, and other particulars. Madagascar appears to be the tropical confines ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... 'How different, sire, is what thou art now doing from what thou didst a little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself; and now, behold! thou weepest.' 'There came upon me,' replied he, 'a sudden pity, when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by.' 'And yet there are sadder things in life than that,' returned the other. 'Short as our time ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... "Q. M., you are beside yourself." (We always called the Quartermaster Q. M. for shortness.) "There was a pass sent to your wife, but nothing was ever said about ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the cottage in October. Fanny writes, November 29: "Our cottage building stops now, from the shortness of the days, till the beginning of March. The foundation is laid, and it will then be run up with great speed. The well, at length, is finished, and it is a hundred and odd feet deep. The water is said to be excellent, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Dutocq, Thuillier, having bedizened himself, went to the hotel Minard, rue des Macons-Sorbonne, to capture the stout Zelie, and gloss over the shortness of the invitation. ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the slope. He watched her with an admiring eye; and well he might, for it was the very poetry of motion. Hazel in his hours of health had almost given up walking; he ran from point to point, without fatigue or shortness of breath. Helen, equally pressed for time, did not run; but she went almost as fast. By rising with the dawn, by three meals a day of animal food, by constant work, and heavenly air, she was in a ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... these goods and much excellent silver with which to buy them. This would be a very good thing for the people of Manila; for, although the profits for any year might be less than those of Nueva Espana, still they would be more sure, because of the much greater frequency and shortness of the voyage. Furthermore, they would enjoy the entire proceeds from the returns for their goods. Of the returns from Nueva Spana they enjoy only to the sum of five hundred thousand pesos—the amount that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... if you don't believe it; I didn't myself, but thought I was asleep and dreaming it all. 'I will give you in exchange two others,' he said. 'The fat English lady has shortness of breath, and cannot keep my hours of work, and the young Russian makes eyes at me, which is not to be endured. Will you take them, both very rich, and give ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... Notwithstanding the shortness of the affair, it proved sufficiently tragical to both Mexicans and Indians; five of the guerrilleros had bit the dust, and twice that number of savage warriors lay lifeless upon the plain—their bodies glaring under the red war-paint, as if shrouded in blood. ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... or white topaz, or with rock crystal (quartz), the spectra will be less vivid—they will appear in pairs (due to the double refraction of these minerals), and the red and blue will be near together (i. e., the spectra will be short). This shortness in the latter cases is due to the small dispersive power of the three minerals mentioned. Paste (lead glass) gives fairly vivid spectra, and they are single like those from diamond, as glass is singly refracting. The dispersion of the heavy lead glass approaches that of ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... righting is no reason why we should be silent. Before the women of this country are fully enfranchised, a hard fight, an almost life and death struggle for liberty, must be fought, and it will be a shorter fight the hotter it is. And the heat of the battle and the shortness of the struggle will depend almost entirely on our courage in presenting vividly and with power woman's case to ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the - Woman's Movement • Agnes E. Ryan
... kept up her part, rallying Heron for the shortness of his visit, begging him to tarry for another five minutes at least, throwing out—with subtle feminine intuition—just those very hints anent little Capet's safety that were most calculated to send him flying ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... clean omits the former Emir because he has nothing to do with the tale. In Heron it is the same, and the second chief is named "Emir-Ben-Hilac-Salamis"; or for shortness tout bonnement "Salamis"; and his wife becoming Amirala which, if it mean anything, is Colonel, or Captain ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... flippant background of Dresden china and photographs, telling a roomful of women preoccupied with their spring bonnets all she thought she knew about Greek art. The ladies assembled to hear her had given me to understand that she was "doing it for the baby," and this fact, together with the shortness of her upper lip and the bewildering co-operation of her dimple, disposed me to listen leniently to her dissertation. Happily, at that time Greek art was still, if I may use the phrase, easily handled: it was as simple as walking down ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... Westcott was soon to his waist, leaning to his right to keep his feet; he heard the marshal splashing along behind, convinced by his ceaseless profanity that he also made progress in spite of his shortness of limbs. Indeed they attained the rock shelter almost together, creeping up through a narrow crevasse, leaving a wet trail along the grey stone. This was accomplished none too soon, a yell from the bank telling of their discovery, followed by the crack of ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... of moral letters, nominally addressed to Lucilius, the procurator of Sicily, merely represent a slight variation of method from the more formal treatises, On Anger, On Clemency, On Consolation, On Peace of Mind, On the Shortness of Life, On Giving and Receiving Favours, which are the main substance ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... covered by a growth of thick, rank grass, which was kept to a navigable shortness by the machetes of the police. Stone sidewalks, little more than a ledge in width, ran along the base of the mean and monotonous adobe houses. At the outskirts of the village these streets dwindled to nothing; and here were set the palm-thatched huts of the Caribs and the poorer natives, and ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... the unusual position of eleventh man, with an expression on his face that seemed to suggest that he meant business. He was curiously garbed. Owing to the shortness of the interval allowed him for changing, he had only managed to extend his cricket costume as far as white buckskin boots. He wore no pads or gloves. But even in the face of these sartorial deficiencies, he looked ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... these varieties, more especially those brought from distant countries, we can make an almost perfect series between the extremes of structure. Thirdly, those characters which are mainly distinctive of each breed, for instance the wattle and length of beak of the carrier, the shortness of that of the tumbler, and the number of tail-feathers in the fantail, are in each breed eminently variable; and the explanation of this fact will be obvious when we come to treat of selection. Fourthly, pigeons have been watched, and tended ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... determines results. Not length of time, but intensity of purpose, energy of action,—in these lie the secret of achievement. The power that lies in brief moments is the power required for effective life and work. Emerson truly says that we talk of the shortness of life, but that life is unnecessarily long. Degree and not duration is the test of power in any work, and the application of this truth to the ordinary affairs of life would render it possible to have every day hold in itself the value of a week or a month as usually ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... only to give the right intonation for the chanting of the priests. From the twelfth century, small portable organs of limited compass were much used; although the tone of these instruments was necessarily slight, and, owing to the shortness of the pipes, high in pitch, the principle of the mechanism was similar to that of the larger instruments. They were hung by means of a strap passed over the shoulders; one hand pressed the keys in front of the pipes (which were arranged perpendicularly), and the other ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... combining by means of their six sides; for if the atoms possessed no distinction of parts (and hence filled no space), a group of even a thousand atoms would not differ in extension from a single atom, and the different kinds of extension—minuteness, shortness, bigness, length, &c.—would never emerge. If, on the other hand, it is admitted that the atoms also have distinct sides, they have parts and are made up of those parts, and those parts again are made up of their parts, and so on in infinitum.— But, the ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... another pole explorer. He was saved the ignominy of reaching the desired point by the shortness of rations, but he was near enough to become ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... believe you could have overtaken them if all of us had been close at your heels," replied George, speaking with considerable difficulty because of the shortness of his breath. "But, as a matter of fact, I don't think we could have followed those men even if the team itself had been ours only in consideration of our catching them. You see, we have run a mile at full speed, and we're about ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... aunt had read her a lecture on the subject only the Christmas before; and yet she lay awake ten minutes on Wednesday night debating between her spotted and her tamboured muslin, and nothing but the shortness of the time prevented her buying a new one for the evening. This would have been an error in judgment, great though not uncommon, from which one of the other sex rather than her own, a brother rather than a great aunt, might ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... order and had inherited different perceptions from theirs. The trifle—whatever it was—appeared visibly, I knew, before us; it was evident and on the surface, and if I failed to discern it what did that prove except the shortness of the vision through which I looked? A physical soreness, like that of a new bruise, attacked my heart, and rising hastily from the table, I made some hurried apology and went out, leaving them alone together. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... complain of the shortness of human life, that can re-travel all the windings, and wanderings, and mazes that his feet have trodden since the farthest back hour at which memory pauses, baffled and blindfolded, as she vainly tries to penetrate and illumine the palpable, the impervious ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... Jackson to Bengal, in 1812. It was subsequently followed by Lieutenant C. Jeffreys, R.N., in the command of the hired armed vessel Kangaroo, on her passage from Port Jackson to Ceylon, in 1815.* This officer drew a chart, with a track of his voyage up the coast; which, considering the shortness of his time, and other circumstances that prevented his obtaining the necessary data to lay down with accuracy so intricate and dangerous a passage, does him very great credit; he filled up the space between Endeavour River and Cape Direction, which Captain Cook did not see; the only ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... well, and remember to you. You will excuse the Shortness of this Scroll; for I have Sprained my right Hand, with boxing three new made Officers.—Tho' to my Comfort, I beat them all. ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... typical judgments, one in which a filled space of 3 cm. is judged equal to an open space of 4.2 cm., and then one in which the filled space is 9 cm., and is judged equal to an open space of 7.4 cm. In the case of the shorter distance, because of its shortness, after the finger leaves it, it is held in a present state of consciousness for some moments, and does not suffer the foreshortening that comes from pastness. This is, however, only a part of the reason for ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... placed his single figure with a multitude of objects, or animals, or natural scenery, or figures standing round or in motion; and these give additional vitality and interest to the representation. Again, they are short, as short as a soliloquy or a letter or a conversation in a street. Shortness belongs to this form of poetic work—a form to which Browning gave a singular intensity. It follows that they must not be argumentative beyond what is fitting. Nor ought they to glide into the support of a thesis, or into didactic ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... four is not necessary. We do not, indeed, find verses in six groups, because there is not room for six in the ten syllables; and we do not find verses of two, because one of the main distinctions of verse from prose resides in the comparative shortness of the group; but it is even common to find verses of three. Five is the one forbidden number; because five is the number of the feet; and if five were chosen, the two patterns would coincide, and that opposition which is the life of verse would ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as fast as we can, Mister David, to make up for the shortness of time we've got to do it in," observed Pat, as he rolled himself up in ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... old; the professor was wholly given up to his profession, which he jokingly called his sweetheart; and, though he cut half of his acquaintances in the street through inattention and the shortness of his sight, he had eyes in his head, and upon occasions could use them. He therefore ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... ancestor very high up in the line of descent. We cannot get the least idea (even upon the full assumption of the theory of evolution) of the first man; but we can get a very tolerable idea of the Paulo-prehistoric man, if I may so say—of man as he existed some short time (as we now reckon shortness), some ten thousand years, before history began. Investigators whose acuteness and diligence can hardly be surpassed—Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Tylor are the chiefs among them—have collected so much and explained so much that they have ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... there began at Highcourt a regime of retrenchment, bitterly fought by Adelle—the rich man's poverty where there is no actual want, but a series of petty curtailments and borrowings and sometimes a real shortness of cash, almost as squalid as the commoner sort of poverty. Adelle could not understand the reason for this sudden change, and refused absolutely to stop all work upon Highcourt and go abroad again for the sake of economy. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... on earth, though their number is by no means infinite. The science of mathematics, which embraces but a limited field of knowledge, comprises an indefinite number of propositions and problems which even the greatest genius can not master. Add to these impediments the shortness of human life, the limitations of the intellect, the multitude and intricacy of scientific methods, the inaccessibility of many objects which are in themselves knowable, (e.g. the interior of the earth, the stellar universe)—and you have a host of limitations which ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... any work which cannot be made other than repulsive, either by the shortness of its duration or the intermittency of its recurrence, or by the sense of special and peculiar usefulness (and therefore honour) in the mind of the man who performs it freely,—if there be any work which cannot ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... we will but enjoy them; and on the other hand, that though we unavoidably have miseries here, life is short, and they will soon be over. Thus do these consolations destroy each other; for if life is a place of comfort, its shortness must be misery, and if it be long, our griefs are protracted. Thus philosophy is weak; but religion comforts in an higher strain. Man is here, it tells us, fitting up his mind, and preparing it for another abode. When the good man leaves the body and is all ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... have no reason at all to trouble myself about it, nor have any thanks from them for my labour, but contrarily Brouncker looked mighty dogged, as thinking that I did not intend to do it so as to save him. This troubled me so much as, together with the shortness of the time and muchness of the business, did let me be at it till but about ten at night, and then quite weary, and dull, and vexed, I could go no further, but resolved to leave the rest to to-morrow morning, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... departure. On the contrary, a brave belief in death has been assuredly held by many not ignoble persons, and it is a sign of the last depravity in the Church itself, when it assumes that such a belief is inconsistent with either purity of character, or energy of hand. The shortness of life is not, to any rational person, a conclusive reason for wasting the space of it which may be granted him; nor does the anticipation of death to-morrow suggest, to any one but a drunkard, the expediency ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... by which time they had cleared three masses of weed and a barnacle-covered plank, they abandoned the search and resumed the voyage. A gloom settled on the forecastle, and the cook took advantage of the occasion to read Tim a homily upon the shortness of life and the suddenness of death. Tim was much affected, but not nearly so much as he was when he discovered that the men were going to pay a last tribute to the late captain's memory by abstaining from breakfast. He ventured to remark that the excitement and the night air had ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... as he had done before; but he did it only in his old fashion, using the affectionate familiarity of an old friend to a young maiden. He was a small, aged man, very thin and meagre in aspect—so meagre as to conceal in part, by the general tenuity of his aspect, the shortness of his stature. He was not even so tall as Nina, as Nina had discovered, much to her surprise. His hair was grizzled, rather than grey, and the beard on his thin, wiry, wizened face was always close shorn. He was scrupulously clean in his person, and seemed, even at his age, ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... this a little too bold, a little too brazen. Had they actually come South in pursuit of him? It was shameless, and she let Mrs: Pasmer know something of her feeling in the shortness with which she answered, "I saw him in Washington the other day—for a moment." She shortened the time she had spent in Dan's company so as to cut Mrs. Pasmer off from as much comfort as possible, and she stared at her ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... passage before us was a low arch and occupied from wall to wall by water, the direction of the flow being into another of somewhat greater size at right angles to that by which we had come, and at the mouth of this lay the boat. The distance we could see in either direction was of tantalizing shortness, and the boat was provided with no means of guidance or control, save an abundance of slender twine which secured it to a log of drift from the outside; so I decided to leave my companions in charge of the main coil of twine while ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... $12,000,000 which was authorized by Congress at its late session only $5,432,726.88 have been negotiated. The shortness of time which it had to run has presented no inconsiderable impediment in the way of its being taken by capitalists at home, while the same cause would have operated with much greater force in the foreign market. For that reason the foreign market has not been resorted ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Church Conference was held at Newcastle, Hole told a story of a young curate who was preaching in a strange church from which the rector was away. He preached a very short sermon, and in the vestry afterwards the churchwarden remarked upon its shortness, and the curate told him that a pup at his lodgings got into his room and ate half his sermon, whereupon the churchwarden said: "I should be much obliged if you could get our rector one of the breed." Reading this story, Mr. Boultbee wrote to ask Hole if he could say ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... story of Greek mathematical science. If anything could enhance the marvel of it, it would be the consideration of the shortness of the time (about 350 years) within which the Greeks, starting from the very beginning, brought geometry to the point of performing operations equivalent to the integral calculus and, in the realm of ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... deliberate purpose, from the beginning, to subvert the government, but of course he kept that to himself for a time. He used different arts with different individuals. He awakened dissatisfaction in one quarter by calling attention to the shortness of the Sunday services; he argued that there should be three three-hour services on Sunday instead of only two. Many had secretly held this opinion before; they now privately banded themselves into a party to work for it. He showed certain ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... our arms that night among the tombs at the Cemetery, so suggestive of the shortness of life and the nothingness of fame; but the men were little disposed to moralize on themes like these and were too much exhausted to think of anything but ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... nature of a mutiny marred the voyage, Flinders' journal shows that Bligh's harshness occasioned discontent. There was a shortness of water on the run from the Pacific to the West Indies, and as the breadfruit plants had to be watered, and their safe carriage was the main object of the voyage, the men had to suffer. Flinders and others used to lick the drops that fell from the cans to ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... there were an unusual number of furnished houses to be let, in the neighbourhood, the recent political movements having driven away their ordinary occupants, the English and Russians. Some of the proprietors, however, might object to the shortness of the time that we could propose for (a month), as it was customary to let the residences by the year. There was nothing like trying, however, and, ordering dinner to be ready against our return, we took a carriage and drove ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 'Gad, I wish I was safely cleared out of it. [KNICKERBOCKER rises, hobbles forward; but, forgetting the shortness of the petticoats, in curtseying, is discovered by the DAME, from the exposure ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... FURROWED WHALE. A name of Scandinavian origin applied to the fin-back whales, distinguished from the right whales by the small size of their heads, shortness of their whalebone, the presence of a dorsal fin, and of a series of conspicuous longitudinal folds or furrows in the skin ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... mind. The closing sentences of his third prison book, "Christian Behaviour," published in 1663, the second year of his durance, clearly point to such an expectation. "Thus have I in few words written to you before I die, . . . not knowing the shortness of my life, nor the hindrances that hereafter I may have of serving my God and you." The ladder of his apprehensions was, as Mr. Froude has said, "an imaginary ladder," but it was very real to Bunyan. "Oft I was as if I was on the ladder ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... An apology is due here in some measure. The work which I quote as of Professor Chamberlin ("Geology," 1903) is really by two authors, Professors Chamberlin and Salisbury. I merely quote Professor Chamberlin for shortness, and because the particular ideas I refer to are expounded by him in separate papers. The work is the finest manual in modern geological literature. I have used it much, in conjunction with the latest editions of Geikie, Le Conte, and Lupparent, and such recent manuals as Walther, De Launay, ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... In more humid countries plants delay the time of seed production and thus enable the plants to store up more carbon and thus reduce the percent of protein. The short growing season, induced by the shortness of water, is undoubtedly the main reason for the higher protein content and consequently higher nutritive value of ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... had here an air which was like the ordinary air in every respect. Since this air is necessarily required for the origination of fire, and makes up about the third part of our common air, I shall call it after this, for the sake of shortness, Fire-air; but the other air which is not in the least serviceable for the fiery phenomenon, and makes up about two-thirds of our air, I shall designate after this with the name ...
— Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 • Carl Wilhelm Scheele
... neighboring villages, and a Hammerfest merchant, who came in the following morning from a distance of seven miles, obtained a guide at less than the usual price, through the anxiety of the latter to arrive in time to have his portrait taken. The shortness of the imperfect daylight, however, obliged me to decline further offers, especially as there were few Lapps of pure, unmixed blood among ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... annoyances endurable, and the days that dragged so now seem short. The office business did not fill half her time, and the constant confinement began to be irksome to her, whose nature demanded activity; in consequence, she often grew impatient and answered unnecessary questions of customers with a shortness that gave considerable offence; and had it not been for Cyn, who brought her sunny presence quite often into the office, heedless of the "no admittance" on the door, the monotony that had now displaced the romantic side of telegraphy would have plunged ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... about it to Hella, it will make her laugh. She sent me a lovely little jewel box with a view of Berchtesgaden packed with my favourite sweets, filled with brandy. In her letter she complains of the "shortness of my last letter." I must write her a long letter to-morrow. At supper I noticed for the first time where "Balder" sits; that's what I call him because of his lovely golden hair, and because I don't know his real name. He is with an old gentleman and an old lady and a younger lady ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... sign of general weakness. Pain is also a frequent but not constant early symptom in the form of "stitch in the side," or pain between or beneath the shoulder blades, or in the region of the breastbone. This pain is due to pleurisy accompanying the tuberculosis. Shortness of breath on exertion is present when consumption is well established, but is not so common as an early symptom. The voice is often somewhat hoarse or husky at the onset of consumption, owing to ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... but he indulged in no hope of the future. He knew what her husband had been to Mary, despite the shortness of their union; and, rightly, he felt positive that ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... with a due sense of its military character and prowess. Behind the whole procession, at a little distance, rode M'Clutchy and M'Slime, graceful Phil having declined the honor of the expedition altogether, principally, he said, in consequence of the shortness of the days, and the consequent very sudden approach of night. We cannot omit to state, that Darby O'Drive was full of consequence and importance, and led on his followers, with a roll of paper containing ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... says, "The drawers this year are made very short, and some have lace ruffles." Some fashion reporter has evidently been looking over our back fence at the clothes line. But they got awfully fooled. The shortness of those drawers was caused by the flannel shrinking and the "lace ruffles" the reporter noticed is where a calf chewed them when they were hanging out to dry last fall on Black Hawk Island, when a gun kicked us out of a boat. Some of these fashion ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... and canine, not failed to distribute their malady among their elders, and the pack, straitly coupled, went for dismal constitutionals, and the kennels reeked to heaven of remedies, and Freddy's new hunter, Mayboy, from shortness of work, smashed the partition of the loose box and kicked his neighbour, Mrs. ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... very interesting sight to watch a Mias making his way leisurely through the forest. He walks deliberately along some of the larger branches in the semi-erect attitude which the great length of his arms and the shortness of his legs cause him naturally to assume; and the disproportion between these limbs is increased by his walking on his knuckles, not on the palm of the hand, as we should do. He seems always to choose those branches which intermingle with an adjoining tree, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... seldom causes fissures in the walls, while in the Peruvian plains oscillations apparently much less intense injure low reed cottages. The natives, who have experienced many hundred earthquakes, believe that the difference depends less upon the length or shortness of the waves, and the slowness or rapidity of the horizontal vibrations.* than on the uniformity of the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... hundreds of miles on horseback through rough and dangerous regions to glean new facts. Grass and water for his mules, and geology or botany or zooelogy or anthropology for himself, and he was happy. At a great altitude in the Andes the people had shortness of breath which they called "puna," and they ate onions to correct it. Darwin says, with a twinkle in his eye, "For my part I found nothing so ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... I have lost it, I should have lost the worth of it in gold. I'll make a journey twice as far, to enjoy A second night of such sweet shortness which Was mine in Britain; for ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... a goose, Ellen," she said with unaccustomed shortness as she took her lamp. She went upstairs ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Several of the American skippers were forward amongst us, and they were of opinion that the chase was a man—of—war, although our own people seemed to doubt this. One of the skippers insisted that she was the Hornet, from the unusual shortness of her lower masts, and the immense squareness of her yards. But the puzzle was, if it were the Hornet, why she did not shorten sail. Still this might be accounted for, by her either wishing to make out what we were before ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the inclined surface to a set of regular steps, which would have been attended with the same good effect, as if the whole could have been reduced to one level; but in consequence of the hardness of the rock, the shortness and uncertainty of the intervals in which this part of the work was performed, and the great tendency of the laminae of the rock to rise in spawls, according to the inclined surface when acted upon by tools with sufficient force to make ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... affair ended. The telephone operators were hand-picked, men of very short memories, carefully trained never to look at a face and never to remember a name or a number. Although the precaution was unnecessary, this shortness of memory was often encouraged by bills ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... for the Cure of Consumptions, Catarrhs, Asthma's, Phtisick, and all other Diseases incident to the Lungs, Colds new and old, Hoarsness, Shortness of Breath, and Stuffings of the Stomach; also a sovereign Antidote against the Plague, ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... indefatigably at Thebes, but the shortness of his reign prevented him from completing the buildings he had begun there. There existed everywhere, at Luxor, at Karnak, and on the left bank of the Nile, the remains of his unfinished works; sanctuaries partially roofed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... her shortness of money. She had but a trifle left out of the guinea her brooch had fetched. In the old days she could have soon earned a shilling or two by singing outside and inside taverns. But what she had done as a beggar maid could not be thought of in her fine clothes. And during the ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... scatters here and there, and is always civil to him afterwards. So when folks are disposed to ill- treat you, young man, say, 'Lord have mercy upon me!' and then tip them to Long Melford, which, as the saying goes, there is nothing comparable for shortness all the world over; and these last words, young man, are the last you will ever have from ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Should the shortness of her existence be regretted for Marie? Certainly, thoroughly in love, she would not have found happiness in marriage, which fashionable society too often transforms into a partnership of egotisms, interests, and hypocrisy. But would not maternity have ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... and we followed the course of a small stream which cut through it, the walls of snow being breast-high on each side; the path was still frequented by yaks, of which we overtook a small party going to Tibet, laden with planks. All the party appeared alike overcome by lassitude, shortness and difficulty of breathing, a sense of weight on the stomach, giddiness and headache, with ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... 'that Mr. Hobbs, in his Version, has given a correct explanation of the sense in general, but for particulars and circumstances, lops them, and often omits the most beautiful. As for its being a close translation, I doubt not, many have been led into that error by the shortness of it, which proceeds not from the following the original line by line, but from the contractions above mentioned. He sometimes omits whole similes and sentences, and is now and then guilty of mistakes, into which no writer of his learning could ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... was at noon, but two hours earlier Tignol took the train at the St. Lazare station. And with him came Caesar, such a changed, unrecognizable Caesar! Poor dog! His beautiful, glossy coat of brown and white had been clipped to ridiculous shortness, and he crouched at the old ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... reach to the waistband of the trunkhose, while those nether garments stopped short of his knees; the whole attire belonging to a smaller man than the unfortunate statesman. His delicate white hands, much exposed by the shortness of the sleeves, looked very unlike those of a day-labourer, and altogether the new mason presented a somewhat incongruous and wobegone aspect. Grotius was fearful too lest some of the preachers and professors frequenting the book-shop next door would ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley |
