"Wear away" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ventures, self-reproach and failure, defiance and fun, and then—oh, the ache I would not confess, the glory of being provoking, and, oh, the final anguish I brought on myself and on you all; and I went on, when it began to wear away, still stifling the sting which revived whenever I came home, and all was renewed! Really, whenever I shammed it was only remorse. I don't think that real repentance, and the peace after it, began till those quiet days with ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... interrupted Aunt Judith, rising from her chair and advancing to the tea-table; "if you were to hear my stories often, the novelty would by-and-by wear away. But here is Aunt Debby with the urn. Let us see what a successful tea-maker she is, and we can talk more about ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... sad misfortune," said the merchant. "In a world so great as this there is surely room for all to work and all to get reward for their labor. But so long as the English merchant guilds wear away their time and substance in fighting one another I fear ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... and perplexity of the teacher's life are, as was explained in the last chapter, almost proverbial. There are other pressing and exhausting pursuits, which wear away the spirit by the ceaseless care which they impose, or perplex and bewilder the intellect by the multiplicity and intricacy of their details; but the business of teaching, by a pre-eminence not very enviable, stands, almost by common consent, at ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... but he had no proofs. What could he say? Besides, he hated such scenes as must needs ensue on a revelation of the little he did know. So there was for a time a great coolness between the two houses; but Madame de Valricour had now formed another scheme, and as incessant dropping will wear away even a stone, she soon contrived to induce the marchioness to insist on having Clotilde frequently at Beaujardin. The marquis had always been fond of his niece, and the fact that they both secretly grieved over the fate of Isidore and Marguerite drew him still closer to her. This ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... shoe these ponies only on the fore feet, as the weight of the animal's head and neck, together with that of the rider, comes harder on these hoofs and causes them, when traveling over sharp rocks, to wear away quickly. It seldom happens that the hind feet become tender. The Indians cannot understand the policy of this, and one of them philosophizing on the subject, while visiting the blacksmith's shop attached to a military post, made the remark in Spanish, after apparently having been ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... by Pah-ah, the Great Spirit, who dwells above all, that the sun must swallow one of his children each month. Then the mother-moon feels very sorry, and she must mourn. She paints her face black, for her child is gone. But the dark will soon wear away from her face a little by little, night after night, and after a time her face becomes all bright again. Soon the sun swallows another child, and the moon puts on ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... the night did wear away at last, and still the brave minstrel and his comrade Hagen stood before the hall, a-leaning on their shields. More scathe they awaited from those of Etzel's band. Then spake the fiddler: "Now go we into the hall. Then the Huns will ween, that we all be dead from the torture that hath ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... quietly out of the room. Then the sun got too high up in the heavens to watch little runaway orphan girls. Nobody saw her steal through the deserted playroom, down the clean bare steps, which she had helped to wear away, and out through the yard to the coal-shed. Here she got the reluctant Tommy into his clothes, and tied on his little round straw hat, so absurdly ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... expressman; he must see that everything necessary for the journey is packed, and that the groom does not absent-mindedly put the furnishings of his room in his valise and leave his belongings hanging in the closet. He must see that the clothes the groom is to "wear away" are put into a special bag to be taken to the house of the bride (where he, as well as she, must change from wedding into traveling clothes). The best man becomes expressman if the first stage of the wedding journey is ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... ever heard of any ancient bells which were not largely composed of that metal? It is a pretty myth, however, which we adopt with pleasure; though common sense plainly says that silver would soon wear away in such use; that the noble patrons of a struggling colony in a wild country would not have been so extravagant as that; and that bell metal is a composition of copper and tin which has been in use from ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... found purity; and returned to the library. But here the air seemed faintly impregnated with Orduma cigarettes. "Curious!" he said as he composed himself once more to read—and presently the odour seemed to wear away and vanish. Mr. Atwater was relieved; the last thing he could have wished was to be ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... to alleviate your confessed boredom. Your persistence would be praiseworthy if well directed. Waters wear away stone, the wind crumbles the marble, but a woman is not moved till she wishes to be. I never thought that I should dabble in an intrigue of this sort, and I am surprised at the amusement it affords me. I really owe you some gratitude. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... tyranny. Uncle George used sometimes to take my part when some hazy recollection of his dead brother came before his mind, declaring that as long as he had a crust to spare I should not want; still, as the incessant dropping of water will in the end wear away stone, so my aunt's persistent nagging and iteration of my shortcomings in resisting my cousins' bullying had their due ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... return to the charge. It had been the secret of his life's success so far. He had never taken a refusal. He had never believed that when man or woman said no that no was meant; and, if it were meant, he still believed that constant dropping would wear away the stone. He still held that persistence was the greatest lever in the world, that unswerving persistence was the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... they would be almost forced to turn to him in their difficulties. That was what he wanted. He knew that the money won over Diablo, if accepted, must always be considered as coming from him. The gradual persistent dropping of water would wear away the hardest stone; he would ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... lost can never be recovered had been left to his daughter. The same day that Leandra made her appearance her father removed her from our sight and took her away to shut her up in a convent in a town near this, in the hope that time may wear away some of the disgrace she has incurred. Leandra's youth furnished an excuse for her fault, at least with those to whom it was of no consequence whether she was good or bad; but those who knew her shrewdness and intelligence did not attribute ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... hypotheses, though these are far less so than those of Cuvier's Discours. He distinguishes between the action of rivers or of fresh-water currents, torrents, storms, the melting of snow, and the work of the ocean. The rivers wear away and bear materials from the highlands to the lowlands, so that the plains are gradually elevated; ravines form and become immense valleys, and their sides form elevated crests and pass into ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... forgive you, let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel, between you and me—let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean, of course—and he'll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping will wear away a stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she is concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to? That you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old hunks, that you and I spend ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... took them, and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city, called Bethsaida. 11. And the people, when they knew it, followed Him; and He received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing. 12. And when the day began to wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto Him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and get victuals; for we are here in a desert place. 13. But He said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they said, We have no more but five loaves ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... to listen to such poor comfort as Reuben's sad heart can find to give her. For by reason of those eventful circumstances which serve to cement friendships by suddenly overthrowing the barriers time must otherwise gradually wear away, Reuben May and Joan Hocken have (in the week which has intervened between her arrival and this day of trial) become more intimate and thoroughly acquainted than if in an ordinary way they had known each other for years. A stranger in a large ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... there was any change. All the same, he felt sure that it was only a matter of time. He seemed to regard my trouble as a kind of artificial barrier which divided the past from the present, but that time would constantly wear away the barrier. He also said that if some very vivid and striking happening were to take place, something that was vitally connected with my past, it might suddenly pierce it—tear it aside, and let ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... to the endless schemes, and systems, and wonders, that lie buried in and about our world. Still let all who enter our museum, go there with the resolve to accomplish something by their visit. Even in the common concerns of life; in the petty matters that wear away the brain at last; in the market-places of the world, this insight is not without its effect. The heart is humbled as the eyes open to the grandeur of the scheme, and to the consequent littleness of individual manhood; but again, the breast ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... cross by his two arms alone the great ocean of wide expanse and immeasurable water. He that wisheth to split by a slap of his palm the high Kailasa mountain, is not able to do the slightest damage to the mountain although his hand only with its nails is sure to wear away. He that would conquer Vasudeva in battle, would, with his two arms, extinguish a blazing fire, stop the Sun and the Moon, and plunder by force the Amrita of the gods,—that Vasudeva, viz., who having mowed down in battle by main force all the royal ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... I wonder oft as I lie awake, And list to the river that seethes and surges Over the wheel that it chides and urges— I wonder oft if that wheel will break With the mighty pressure it bears, some day, Or slowly and wearily wear away. ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... occurred while the present volumes were under preparation (1909). Carbon for commutator brushes has been superseded by graphite in some cases, the latter material being found much more advantageous, electrically. Trouble developed, however, for the reason that while carbon was hard and would wear away the mica insulation simultaneously with the copper, graphite, being softer, would wear away only the copper, leaving ridges of mica and thus causing sparking through unequal contact. At this point ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... opposing both to the best of my ability. Mr. Booth's system appears to me, and, as I have shown, is regarded by Socialists themselves, to be mere autocratic Socialism, masked by its theological exterior. That the "fantastic" religious skin will wear away, and the Socialistic reality it covers will show its real nature, is the expressed hope of one candid Socialist, and may be fairly conceived to be the unexpressed belief of the despotic leader of the new Trades Union, who has shown his zeal, ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... sit there where thou canst see me. It is by thine own wish, remember—again I say, blame me not if thou dost wear away thy little span with such a sick pain at the heart that thou wouldst fain have died before ever thy curious eyes were set upon me. There, sit so, and tell me, for in truth I am inclined for praises—tell me, am I not beautiful? Nay, speak not so hastily; consider well the point; ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... you, scholar, that unless the hook be fast in his very gorge, 'tis more than probable he will live, and a little time, with the help of the water, will rust the hook, and it will in time wear away, as the gravel doth in the horse-hoof, which ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... grow and flourish as submarine forests in the stormy channel of Terra del Fuego, where they shake their heads defiantly, always trembling, always triumphing, in the fierce lashing of waves that wear away rocks. You belong to a very rare order of human algae, rocked and reared in the midst of tempests that would either bow down, or snap asunder, or beat out most natures. As you will not grant my petition, try to forget it; we will bury the subject. Good-bye! I shall call to-morrow ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... which could neither be helped nor hindered—something which could only be borne silently and patiently. Through time and a loyal devotion to the work which his Master had given him to do, the pain should wear away. ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... and hard to please, and you'll be peevish, and full of little angry fits, and apt to be complaining by the fireside, when he comes to rest himself from his troubles out of doors; so your love will wear away by little and little, and leave you miserable at last. It has been so with us; and yet my husband and I were true lovers once, if ever ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Come, my false impressions begin to wear away. I find I can be loved without the glitter of gold about me. Now let us go back to the house, for I have that cap to finish for Mrs. Jones; and mind, Hetty, you don't call me Miss Ursula again, in the presence of your mother; and don't ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... after this crude fashion settled down for the first night. None of them expected to obtain a good rest, because the first night out is always a wakeful one on account of strange surroundings. But in due time all this would wear away and in the end it might even prove to be a difficult task to arouse some of ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... moved, and tried to speak consoling words. "Weep not," he said, "for grief will wear away thy beauty and thy health. Odysseus lives and will return. I met him lately on his homeward way, laden with wealth which he had gathered in ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... manner they wear away their hours, that might otherwise he employed to their improvement and advantage. This silly suspension of thought they would have pass absence of mind—Ridiculous!—Wherever you are, let me recommend it to you to pay attention to all that passes; observe ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... before she reached the castle, exhausted from the violence of her emotion, and faint and weak from her long fasting. Hilda expressed alarm at her protracted absence, and said that she was just about going in search of her. "My darling," said she, "you will wear away your strength. You are too weak now to leave. Let me urge you, for the last time, to stay; give ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the house, while Mrs. Jonas Clark has closed the shutters, added a new forelog, and fanned the embers to a cheerful flame. The young couple whom Madam Hancock has studiously brought together exchange sympathetic glances as they take part in the conversation. The hours wear away, and the candles are snuffed again and again. Then the guests retire, not, to be sure, without apprehensions of approaching trouble, but with little thought that the king's strong arm of military authority is already extended toward ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... wanting leg have honored this occasion with your presence—to you, your commander is not dead. Though Boston erected no monument, and history recorded no story, in you and the loyal race which you represent Robert Gould Shaw will have a monument which time cannot wear away." ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... generalizations, M. LeBon[29] says, "The discoveries due to the intelligence are the common patrimony of humanity; qualities or defects of character constitute the exclusive patrimony of each people: they are the firm rock which the waters must wash day by day for centuries, before they can wear away even its external asperities." These are strong words and would be highly worth pondering over, provided there were qualities and defects of character which constitute the exclusive patrimony of each people. Schematizing theories of this sort ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... the other day, I think he'd like to try and make Mr. Bressant more of a society fellow; perhaps it would wear away that coldness and hardness ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... conventional idea of a theological student had dwelt in her mind; and she had expected to find a rather narrow and spiritually conceited man, full of the clerical mannerisms which she had often heard laughed at. But she saw that Hemstead's awkwardness would wear away, through familiarity with society, and that, when at ease, he was simple and manly in manner. She also perceived that this seclusion from the world, which was the cause of his diffidence, had been employed in training and richly storing his mind. Moreover, to one so accustomed ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... summer through, for many hours on clear days, the sun will melt those snows and the frost at night will glaze them into ice. The more conformable ice-blocks will gradually be cemented together, while the fierce winds that beat upon the ridge will wear away the supports of the more egregious and unstable blocks, and one by one they will topple into the abyss on this side or on that. It will probably never again be the smooth, homogeneous slope it has been; "the gable" will probably ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... parted from my life, my soul, my Piozzi. If I can get health and strength to write my story here, 'tis all I wish for now—oh misery! [Here are four pages missing.] The cold dislike of my eldest daughter I thought might wear away by familiarity with his merit, and that we might live tolerably together, or, at least, part friends—but no; her aversion increased daily, and she communicated it to the others; they treated me insolently, and him very strangely—running away whenever ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... spiritual reading and obedience to the Master, is, to bring soulvision, and to wear away hindrances. Or, to use the phrase we have already adopted, the aim of these practices is, to help the spiritual man to open his eyes; to help him also to throw aside the veils and disguises, the enmeshing psychic nets which surround him, tying his hands, as it were, and bandaging his eyes. ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... you, Scholer, that unless the hook be fast in his very Gorge, he wil live, and a little time with the help of the water, wil rust the hook, & it wil in time wear away as the gravel does in the horse hoof, which ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... her throne. He fled here from Waq of the Caucasus—it is there you must make inquiry; there is no other way of getting at the truth.' On hearing these words, the prince said to his heart, 'O my heart! your task will yet wear away much ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... sleeve and wanting leg, have honored this occasion with your presence, to you, your commander is not dead. Though Boston erected no monument and history recorded no story, in you and the loyal race which you represent Robert Gould Shaw would have a monument which time could not wear away. ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... all nights—even the starless night before dissolution—must wear away. About six o'clock, the hour which called up the household, I went out to the court, and washed my face in its cold, fresh well-water. Entering by the carre, a piece of mirror- glass, set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. It said I was changed: my cheeks and lips ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... naturally be asked where the lime comes from in the sea which the corals absorb in such quantities. As far as the living corals are concerned the answer is easy, for an immense deal of lime is brought down to the ocean by rivers that wear away the lime deposits through which they pass. The Mississippi, whose course lies through extensive lime regions, brings down yearly lime enough to supply all the animals living in the Gulf of Mexico. But behind this lies a question, not so easily settled, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... things drowned diversedly. 70 Twice seven nymphs are in my house of body passing fair: Of whom indeed Deiopea is fairest fashioned there. I give her thee in wedlock sure, and call her all thine own To wear away the years with thee, for thy deserving shown To me this day; of offspring fair she too shall ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... received the young foundling into the bosom of a second Socrates; and soon your rule, with artful surprise, straightens the moral twists that it detects, and my spirit becomes moulded by reason and struggles to be subdued, and assumes plastic features under your hand. Aye, I mind well how I used to wear away long summer suns with you, and with you pluck the early bloom of the night for feasting. We twain have one work and one set time for rest, and the enjoyment of a moderate table unbends our gravity. No, I would not have ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... to the doctor to say is the padded room at the workhouse the most place where you will be safe, till such time as it will be known did the poison wear away. ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... Glen as if the morning would never wear away as she sat and guarded her prisoner. The severe strain was showing its effect upon her face, which was unusually pale. Her eyes never once left the man before her, and the revolver, as it rested lightly upon her lap, was pointed straight toward him, ready for immediate action. She would ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... of unholy snacks wear away at length. By tea-time things had brightened up. The rain had ceased, and the old, low-raftered room was full of sunshine which danced on the shining dishes of the dresser, made mosaics on the floor, and flickered over the table ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the praw, I verily thought she had sunk; for I came in company with her myself in the Hopewell, and had so great a storm that I gave her up as lost, having twelve of my stoutest men in her. It was no small grief to me to see the season thus wear away, and could not get my loading to the ship, neither durst I bring over my ship to Pulo-way, as there was no safe anchorage for her. I made enquiry for some other vessel, and heard of a junk belonging to Lantor, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... characteristic of the unreasoning, it has been one of the opinions of grooms and farriers that this callous, india-rubber-like substance would wear away upon exposure to the action of the road or pavement, and it has been one of their cherished practices to set the horse up upon iron, so that he could by no possibility strike ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... and gamble, as you've been doing lately, and to-night, I will drink and gamble, too. I mean every word I am saying, Phil. It may go against the grain at first to associate with such cads as Chad and his crowd; but perhaps that'll wear away in time, and I may come to enjoy what I now abhor. As these low pleasures have fascinated you, ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... the wall, though sometimes even a little he raised his hands, yet he leaned forward always, listening well, and picturing clearly as though his gleaming eyes could see them, each doleful tale of violence or sin. And so night came, and began to wear away, and neither knew how late the hour was. And then as Rodriguez spoke of an evening in a garden, of which some old song told well, a night in early summer under the evening star, and that sword there as always; as he told of his grandfather as poets had loved to tell, going among ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... Tibur, that delightful haunt, Reared by an Argive emigrant, The tranquil haven be, I pray, For my old age to wear away; Oh, may it be the final bourne To one with war and ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... quit my books A month at least, for I was wearing out. 'Unbend the bow,' he said. His watchful eye Saw toil and care at work upon my cheeks; He could not see the canker at my heart, But he had seen pale students wear away With overwork the vigor of their lives; And so he gave me means and bade me go To romp a month among my native hills. I went, but not as I had left my home— A bashful boy, uncouth and coarsely clad, But clothed and ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... or chisels. The grinders or molars are large, and have an extremely complicated structure, being composed of a number of different substances of unequal hardness. The consequence of this is that they wear away at different rates; and, hence, the surface of each grinder is always as uneven as that of a ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... in untruths against him. Mr. William spoke of him with the warmth of fraternal affection. The Baron perceived that his kinsmen disliked Edmund; but his own good heart hindered him from seeing the baseness of theirs. It is said, that continual dropping will wear away a stone; so did their incessant reports, by insensible degrees, produce a coolness in his patron's behaviour towards him. If he behaved with manly spirit, it was misconstrued into pride and arrogance; his generosity was imprudence; ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... night began to wear away. For the first hour or two, every now and then, a stifled sob would make itself just faintly heard. It was a sound to wring the heart, for what it meant was that not even Catherine Elsmere's extraordinary powers of self-suppression could avail to check the outward ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of anything to almost anybody, will produce remarkable results; or a kind of Hypnotism Causing the patient to yield to what becomes an irresistible power. Thus it is said that perpetual dropping will wear away stones. Dr. JAMES R. COCKE in his "Hypnotism," in illustrating this, speaks of a man who did not want to sign a note, he knew that it was folly to do so, but yielded from having been "over persuaded." ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... came over me. The water and Mercer's white face were blurred and swimming before me, and I was fast losing consciousness, but the faintness was not much more than momentary, and the sickening sensation began to wear away as rapidly as it came, as I fully realised the fact that I was half off the little platform, with my legs in the water, but holding my companion all the time with a desperate clutch, while he clung as tightly ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... of japan applied without a priming never peel or crack or are in any way damaged except by violence or shock, or that caused by continual ordinary wear and tear caused by such constant rubbing as will wear away the surface of the japan. But japan coats applied with a priming coat crack and fly off in flakes at the slightest concussion, at any knock or fall, more especially at the edges. Those Birmingham manufacturers who were the ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... that I have been able to wear away any portion of your tedious journey, Miss Percival, so I shall ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... which they could draw together only by degrees. It was a comfort to her that he did not try to bridge it by anything in the way of forced tenderness. He was willing to talk over the situation simply and quietly until, in the course of an hour or two, the sense of separation began to wear away. ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... produced by the alternating current. It presents several peculiarities. With an insufficient number of alternations per second it goes out. As the carbons wear away equally it is adopted for such lamps as the Jablochkoff candle, (see Candle, Jablochkoff). As no crater is formed the light is disseminated equally both up and down. For this reason to get full downward ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... tyrannies and annoying and irritating habits, and the vexatious regulations from which the Uitlander continually suffered—to form an idea of the terrible mental gulf which existed between oppressor and oppressed. As the constant dropping of water will wear away stone, so the constant fret of Boer treatment wore out the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... enmity to Dockwrath was beginning to wear away, and one of modified friendship for the whole family was supervening. It was much better that it should be so. He could not understand before how Dockwrath had had the heart to write to him and call him John, but now he did understand it. He felt that he could ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... brave or patriotic enough to enlist should not ridicule or throw obstacles in the way of men who are going to fight for them. There is a great prejudice against it, but now that it has become a government matter, that will probably wear away. At any rate I sha'n't be frightened out of it by its unpopularity. I feel convinced I shall never regret having taken this step, as far as I myself am concerned; for while I was undecided, I felt ashamed of myself as if ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... cannot debase strong souls, any more than riches can elevate low souls.[7] That depends. If poverty means pinching and fretting need of money, it may not debase the soul in any vital sense, but it is extremely likely to wear away a very priceless kind of delicacy in a man's estimate of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... matter worthy of attention by all future historians, that the movements of the American army, until the attack upon the Hessian post at Trenton, the 26th of December, are to be considered as operating to effect no other principal purpose than delay, and to wear away the campaign under all the disadvantages of an unequal force, with as little ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... I find the constraint, the reserve, I have been wont to feel in his presence, wear away; the politeness, the sweetness, with which he speaks to me, restore all my natural cheerfulness, and make me almost as easy as he is himself;-and the more so, as, if I may judge by his looks, I am rather raised, than sunk of ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... the engineer himself should be requested to resume his position and undertake the management of the work. There was some slight demurring at first, but the catastrophe was so recent that its effect had not had time to wear away, and finally the ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... human life and happiness thrown away, for ends that appear oftentimes unwise, and still oftener remain unaccomplished. But the wisest people and the best keep a steadfast faith that the progress of Mankind is onward and upward, and that the toil and anguish of the path serve to wear away the imperfections of the Immortal Pilgrim, and will be felt no more, when they have ...
— The Sister Years (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... have done with, give over, surcease, shut up shop; give up &c (relinquish) 624. hold one's hand, stay one's hand; rest on one's oars repose on one's laurels. come to a stand, come to a standstill; come to a deadlock, come to a full stop; arrive &c 292; go out, die away; wear away, wear off; pass away &c (be past) 122; be at an end; disintegrate, self-destruct. intromit, interrupt, suspend, interpel^; intermit, remit; put an end to, put a stop to, put a period to; derail; turn off, switch off, power ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... from the South said the negro men could not vote the Democratic ticket because the women would not live with them if they did. The negro men go out in the hotels and upon the railroad cars; they go to the cities and by attrition they wear away the prejudice of race; but the women remain at home, and their emotional natures aggregate and compound the race-prejudice, and when suffrage is given them what ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the prophets' eyes streamed with tears, and their hearts were torn with grief as they saw their land wasted by the heathen. Yet they did not despair. The dark night of sorrow would wear away at last, God's people should be brought back, Jerusalem rebuilt; her King would come, the Sun of Righteousness arise, 'And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of ...
— The Bible in its Making - The most Wonderful Book in the World • Mildred Duff
... urged by air, renders us better able to conceive its action when urged by water. The erosive power of a river is vastly augmented by the solid matter carried along with it. Sand or pebbles, caught in a river vortex, can wear away the hardest rock potholes' and deep cylindrical shafts being thus produced. An extraordinary instance of this kind of erosion is to be seen in the Val Tournanche, above the village of this name. The gorge at Handeck ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... bosom, and never can it be torn from thence, but by the strings that grapple my heart to life! This circumstance made me quite ill. I had been wandering among the wild-wood scenery and terrible graces of the Welsh mountains to wear away, not to revive, the images of the past;—but love is a local anguish; I am fifty miles distant, and am not ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... according to most; for it had its baleful origin in popular institutions themselves. In justice it must be added that there were some who, in consequence of the American passion for traveling, entertained a mild hope that in time this rudeness would wear away, and this total ignorance of good breeding would be enlightened by the polish and refinement that would be picked up from the quantity to be found scattered about foreign courts. The published correspondence of ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... as youth is apt I know, Some harshness show; All vain asperities I day by day Would wear away, Till the smooth temper of my age should be Like the high leaves ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... novelty and the excitement cause them to revel in all that is enjoyable, and to endure with indifference all that is disagreeable; sometimes, even, to take pleasure in shewing how stoically they can put up with discomfort. But after a time the novelty and excitement wear away, and then it is usual to hear the praises of Indian life spoken of immediately before and immediately after supper. Towards midnight—particularly if it should rain, or mosquitoes be numerous—men change their minds, and begin to dream of home, if they can sleep, or to wish they ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... was likely to wear away without a riot, nay, even without a fight; a most extraordinary occurrence for such a place under the existing circumstances; for of late the populace, or, perhaps, the townspeople, were extremely pugnacious, and many were the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... empty their hearts were full, Gallic optimism and child-like faith in their patron saints bringing them through untold misfortunes with a prayer or a song upon their lips. The savage Indian with his reeking tomahawk might break through and steal, the moth and rust of evil administration might wear away the fortunes of New France, yet the habitant ever found joy in labour and made ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... not the effect on Walden that year, for she had soon got a thick new garment to take the place of the old. This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice. I never knew it to open in the course of a winter, not excepting that of '52-3, which gave the ponds so severe a trial. It commonly opens about the first of April, a week or ten days later than Flint's ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... this moment covered by skittles, and groups of stout lads were enjoying themselves in all directions. It should seem that nothing but youthful sports and pastimes had ever prevailed there: so insensibly do succeeding occupations wear away all traces of the past. I paused for half a minute, casting a thoughtful eye towards the spot. The Abbe Betencourt moralised aloud, and Dom Brial seemed inwardly to meditate. We now reached the Observatory. The Sub-Principal was at home, and was overjoyed to receive his venerable visitors. He was ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... labours of those who, in the degree they become eminent, to use their own style, in the art of "dish, dash, long-tail fly," the less they become interesting to the public; for what can the most skilful writing-master do but wear away his life in leaning over his pupil's copy, or sometimes snatch a pen to decorate the margin, though he cannot compose the page? Montaigne has a very original notion on writing-masters: he says that some of those ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... wear away a stone; and you should only hear his pleading! His handsome face is impressive, and his manners are—O, so genteel! I am not rich; I am, in short, a poor lady of decayed family, who has nothing to ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... her profession, which is a great protection and a help to her success, and she has married a man who can look lightly upon certain qualities in her that others might not be so lenient to. His worst faults are on the surface, and will wear away in contact with the world, and he looks up to her as his superior. I gathered this from her friend, for I did not speak with her myself; I did not go there to see her. But as I expected to be leaving ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... of herself Boy found her opposition dying away. Indeed, she could no more resist him than she could resist the elements. She might put her umbrella up, but that did not stop the rain. And if the rain chose to go on long enough, the umbrella would wear away. The choice lay with the rain and ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... after dinner, Vivian got away; and Lord Glistonbury attributed his retiring early to the awkwardness he might feel in the company of men whom he had, till now, so violently opposed. This his lordship thought a foolish young man's feeling, which would soon wear away. Vivian returned home, anxious to escape from crowds, and to have some hours of leisure to pass alone; but, the moment he entered his own house, he saw the great staircase lined with roses and orange-trees; he found the rooms lighted up and prepared for company; ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... us the man himself in an imagined state of sleep. Yet this imagined state of sleep is so incalculably long, and by the will of God withdrawn from human prophecy, that the ages sweeping over the dead man before the trumpets of archangels wake him, shall sooner wear away memorial stone than stir his slumber. It is a slumber, too, unterrified, unentertained by dreams. Suspended animation finds no fuller symbolism than the sculptor here presents to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... can tell you," said Estella. "First, notwithstanding the proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set your mind at rest that these people never will—never would, in hundred years—impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... of those scholars who wear away their lives in closets; he entered early into the world and was long busy in public affairs, in which he was initiated under the patronage of Addison, whose notice he is said to have gained by his verses in praise of Rosamond. To those verses it would not have been just to deny regard, for ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... Gudrun were wed and all the kingdom that the Nibelungs ruled over rejoiced. And Queen Grimhild thought that though the effect of the potion she gave would wear away, his love for Gudrun would ever fill his heart, and that no other memory would be able to find ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... this, my lord, the cruelty he received, sometimes in one madhouse and sometimes in another, sometimes in England and sometimes in Ireland, it would be terrible to know. Everything that could wear away life was attempted, and the instruments in that black villain's hands were well paid for their cruelty. At length, my lord, he escaped, and wandhered about till he settled down in the town of Ballytrain. Thomas Gourlay—then Sir Thomas—had been away ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... for her constitutional delicacy, her rooted sorrow, and the violence of her feelings, sunk beneath the hopelessness of her situation, and a secret resolution in her mind to refuse the aid of her physicians, and to wear away the faster if she could, the feeble remains of life. But who shall paint the emotions of a mind which so much grief, and so much love, and distraction ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... the hallway and down a flight of stairs to the office. The woman in the darkness could hear him laughing and talking with a guest who was striving to wear away a dull evening by dozing in a chair by the office door. She returned to the door of her son's room. The weakness had passed from her body as by a miracle and she stepped boldly along. A thousand ideas raced through her head. When she heard the scraping of a chair and the sound of a pen scratching ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... to himself, when he saw her depart, that he would have the more joy in the castle of his Lady if he were alone, and would wear away the day in better patience therefor. But in sooth the hours of that day were worse to wear than any day there had yet been. He went not without the house at all that day, for he deemed that the folk abroad would note of him that he was so changed ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... so earnestly desired by a young and enthusiastic mind; of admiring, even at a reverential distance, "emperors of thought and hand." But then, as a compensation, you ought to consider that you are, at the same time, freed from those intrusions which wear away the time, and the spirits, and the very powers of enjoyment, of those who are placed in a more public position than your own. When you do, at rare intervals, enjoy any intercourse with congenial minds, it has for you a pleasurable excitement, a freshness of delight, which those who ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... consul had not looked at the Carthaginian enemy in Italy, had dared, he said, to go and attack Carthage, while he, after slaying a hundred thousand fighting men at Trasimenus and Cannae, had suffered his strength to wear away around Casilinum, Cumae, and Nola. Amid these reproaches and complaints he was borne away from his long occupation ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... drawn back. Spurs are not worn, and another remarkable thing is that he has absolutely no guard to his sword. The Russian soldier scorns buttons; he says, "They are a nuisance; they have to be cleaned, they wear away the cloth, they are heavy, and they attract the attention of ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... look'd again—his eye was flush'd With passion proud and deep delight, But often o'er his brow there gush'd A blackened cloud which made it night, But still the cloud would wear away, (His youthful cheek was red and rare,) And still his heart beat light and gay, Still did he fancy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... told him that since Glaucon's fearful end, he was welcome as a son-in-law. Still he could not conceal that Hermione never spoke of him save in hate, and in view of her then delicate condition it was well not to press the matter. The orator had seemed well content. "Woman's fantasies would wear away in time." But the rumour of this negotiation, outrunning truth, grew into the lying report of an absolute betrothal,—the report which was to drift to Asia and turn Glaucon's heart to stone, gossip having always wrought ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... oblige me by your obstinacy to treat you with severity? It is in your own power to be happy. You need only resolve to love, and be true to me, and I shall treat you with more mildness." "Thou hideous satyr," answered the lady, "never expect that time should wear away my abhorrence of thee. Thou wilt ever be a monster in my eyes." To these words she added so many reproaches, that the giant grew enraged. "This is too much," cried he, in a furious tone; "my love despised is turned into rage. Your hatred has at last excited mine; I find it triumphs over my ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... children of God may be able to bear it. But even if I were not to speak at all, my very presence would do good, with God's blessing, as they would see that I am desirous of being united with all who love our Lord Jesus; and I cannot but hope that thus prejudices will wear away, they will come to our meetings, and read my book. The Continent is not like England. Every particle of progress one is able to make here, is highly to be prized. The state of things is most interesting here. Infidelity is most awfully showing itself, regardlessly trampling under foot God's ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... the city, all so strange and fascinating to me; the new occupation, calling into play an entirely different line of thought; the new surroundings, all combined to ward off any feeling of loneliness or homesickness. A few weeks of this, however, sufficed to wear away the novelty, and a full sense of my solitary condition rushed over me; I had made few acquaintances and had practically no society. I began to look around for companions, or at least for some place where I could spend my evenings, when ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... said the old clock. "Now, I'll warrant me that, if you wanted to, you could tell many a pretty and wonderful story. You must know many a Christmas tale; pray tell us one to wear away ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... fluids," etc., are generally apt to produce skin diseases. They contain, in almost every instance, substances which are either directly or indirectly poisonous to the skin. The "tooth washes," "powders," and "dentifrices," are hurtful. They crack or wear away the enamel of the teeth, leave the nerve exposed, and cause the teeth to decay. If you are wise, dear reader, you will never use a dentifrice, unless you know what it is made of. The principal constituent of these ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that, having bound himself more strictly to a religious life, and received Divine influences, he has more to answer for. But after he has repeated his attendance several times, this fear and reverence wear away with the novelty. As he begins to be familiar with the words of the prayers, and the order of the Service, so does he both hear and receive with less emotion and solemnity. It is not that he is a worse man than he was at first, but ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... not the case; for in the course of time water would penetrate, or wear away silex, or any other kind of stone, while it is effectually ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... nor drawn aside by the love of friends or kindred, betraying his understanding through his affections; he will neither be bowed down by conventional arrangements of manners producing too often a lifeless decency; nor will the rock of his spirit wear away in the endless beating of the waves of the world; neither will that portion of his own time, which he must surrender to labours by which his livelihood is to be earned or his social duties performed, be unprofitable to himself indirectly, while it is directly useful to others; for that time ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the horse is simply a greatly enlarged and thickened nail: four of his five toes are reduced to mere vestiges. His teeth are built of substances of varying hardness: they wear away at different rates presenting uneven grinding surfaces. Probable descent of the horse, link by link, especially as traced in the fossils of North America. Evolution has taken a long time: how long the physicist and the ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... The ages come and go; The mountains wear away; the seas retire; Destruction lays earth's mighty cities low, And empires, states, and dynasties expire; But caught and handed onward by the wise, Truth ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... surface, and, if only 100 miles apart, then about two-thirds of a mile wide.[15] But as the production of the fissures might have occupied perhaps millions of years, a considerable amount of atmospheric denudation would result, however slowly it acted. Expansion and contraction would wear away the edges and sides of the fissures, fill up many of them with the debris, and widen them at the surfaces to ...
— Is Mars Habitable? • Alfred Russel Wallace
... vexations in life. It begets resentment in him who is the subject of it, sows the seed of strife and dissension amongst others, and inflames little disgusts and offences which if let alone would wear away of themselves: it is often of as bad effect upon the good name of others, as deep envy or malice: and to say the least of it in this respect, it destroys and perverts a certain equity of the utmost importance to society to be observed—namely, ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... befall That ever they come back at all) 840 Into the road, to end their rout, Than they can give why they went out. But to return—this book—the Ghost— A mere amusement at the most; A trifle, fit to wear away The horrors of a rainy day; A slight shot-silk, for summer wear, Just as our modern statesmen are, If rigid honesty permit That I for once purloin the wit 850 Of him, who, were we all to steal, Is ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... to the boat and aboard our vessel, and then getting up anchor we sailed away across the White Sea until the spires of Archangel sank down behind the horizon. She had my cabin, my room, every comfort. I slept among the men in the forecastle. I hoped that in time her aversion to me would wear away, and that she would consent to marry me in England or in France. For days and days we sailed. We saw the North Cape die away behind us, and we skirted the grey Norwegian coast, but still, in spite of every attention, she would not forgive me for tearing ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thin flanges of the shroud rings are purposely made in that way, so that, in case of accidental contact between revolving and stationary parts, they will wear away enough to prevent the blades from being ripped out. This protection, however, is such that to rip them out a whole half ring of blades must be sheared off at the roots. The strength of the blading, therefore, depends not ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... little troubles and annoyances. These we should accept as inevitable, and neither think nor talk much about them. They help to wear away the rough edges. We are stupid at times and so are others and then mistakes are made. These should also be accepted as inevitable, and we should not be more annoyed by those that others make than by our own. Those who go into a rage when their subordinates err waste ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... is this or that animal, a sheep or an ox, but simply as animal, that it must sustain itself by food, by the process of assimilation. This, however, is merely a contingent truth, because it is in our power to conceive of organized beings whose substance shall not wear away, and consequently shall not need perpetual restoration. But what faculty of the mind is unemployed here that is engaged in perceiving the property of a triangle, that as triangle, it must have two sides greater than the third? The truths elicited in the two cases have a difference, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... quite unconscious of his triumph, and only happy to have gotten his father out of the room safe and sound. For a good while they walked on in silence. Then, when the effect of the excitement had begun to wear away, Grim stopped in the path, gazed admiringly at his son, and said, "Well, Bonnyboy, you are ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... working hard. It was splendid to see their absolute disregard of everything but their duty. I felt myself to be such a slacker beside them, but I told them how gloriously they were carrying on, and how their work was appreciated by the infantry. The night began to wear away, and when I reached the gun-pits that were further back it was broad daylight. In fact, I visited the last one at six a.m. Some of the batteries had by this time ceased firing, and the (p. 201) men had fallen asleep in all sorts ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... of the fifth month the statesman Kueh Yuen drowned himself in the river Mih-lo. Since then twenty-three centuries have passed, and the mountains wear away. Yet every year, on the fifth day of the fifth month, the great Dragon Boats, gay with flags and gongs, search diligently in the streams of the Empire for the body of ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... other new Quarters appointed me, unless I could provide a place for my self to remove to: which now God had put into my hand. As for the King's Command I dreaded it not much, having found by observation, that the King's Orders wear away by time, and the neglect of them comes at last to be unregarded. However I was resolved to put it to ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... has merely become shy because of lack of association. Usually he has been brought up with his mother and sisters and merely lacks the touch of a man and a man's viewpoint. After he comes in contact with other boys, this will wear away. The problem of the Teacher is to get the other boys in his class to pilot the boy into ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... different degrees of hardness and softness, the harder varieties being capable of quite a fine point. A chisel-shaped point is the most convenient, as it does not wear away so quickly. And if the broad side of the chisel point is used when a dark mass is wanted, the edge can constantly be kept sharp. With this edge a very fine ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... much discussion as to whether Ski boots should have nails in the soles or not. They tend to wear away the aluminium or linoleum plates fixed to the Skis under the foot, but on the other hand they are almost indispensable when Skis are carried across a hard, steep slope, or down an icy path. It seems to me that it is positively dangerous ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... is going to wear away the ice—is going to loosen the entire glacier. And then, suddenly, with no warning at all, the field will plunge forward—break up, sink, grind itself to powder against these cliffs! And where ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on my return at night, "Now, little woman, little woman, this will never do. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching will wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a while and take possession ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... water failing, so that his mill was likely to stop. To prevent this, he collected together a few of the neighbors, and dug a little trench from the pond to the stream that carried his mill. At first it ran very slowly and quietly along, till it began to wear away the channel, and to turn the force of the body of water in the pond in that direction, when it increased violently, tore away the banks, and poured the whole contents of the pond into the little stream, carried off ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... like almost every other man, would have been proud to have his daughter become the wife of a wealthy and promising young man, and, so far as he knew, Matthew bade fair to become such. To be sure, people said he was a little wild, but that would wear away. ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... there Concord will decay, Where Concord fleets there Plenty will decease, Where Plenty wants there Love will wear away. Pari jugo dulcis tractus. ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... the general: "You seem to be a little—afraid of me. I don't know why it is that people are always that way with me." A halt, to give her the opportunity to say the obvious flattering thing. Mildred said nothing, gave no sign. He went on: "It will wear away as we know each other better. I am a simple, plain man—kind and generous in my instincts. Of course I am dignified, and I do not like familiarity. But I do not mean to ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... fire, in his errors and crotchets so much of the self-delusion of youth, that one could scarce fancy him other than young. Those Quixotic, exaggerated notions of honor, that romance of sentiment which no hardship, care, grief, disappointment, could wear away (singular in a period when, at two and twenty, young men declare themselves blases!), seemed to leave him all the charm of boyhood. A season in London had made me more a man of the world, older in heart than he was. Then, the sorrow that gnawed him with such silent ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wear away before the water-drop," Judge Custis finally said; "his obdurate heart has been bruised by that nickname. In public he never appeared to flinch before it; but you see it inflicted a never-healing wound. Who has ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... watercourses, assisted by glacial ice and frost, it must be apparent how slowly the work of forming the rocks is being carried on. It goes on steadily, but so slowly that it is estimated to take 6000 years to wear away one foot of the American continent by all the denuding causes combined. To erode a stratum 5000 feet thick will require at this ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... a sinful tie that binds you to that man; he does not love you, and it should be broken,—for this slavery will wear away the life now ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... my parents sent me to Athens; time and patience wear away pain and grief, as fire goes out for want of fuel. Quantum oculis, animo tam procul ibit amor. But so as they tarry out long enough: a whole year [5669]Xenophon prescribes Critobulus, vix enim intra hoc tempus ab amore sanari ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Burgess gives the case[5] of a family consisting of a father, mother, and ten children, all of whom, without exception, were prone to blush to a most painful degree. The children were grown up; "and some of them were sent to travel in order to wear away this diseased sensibility, but nothing was of the slightest avail." Even peculiarities in blushing seem to be inherited. Sir James Paget, whilst examining the spine of a girl, was struck at her singular manner of blushing; a big splash of red appeared first on one cheek, ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... then being told that "Miss E. N. is come." Oh dear! in this monotonous life of mine that was a pleasant event. I wish it would recur again, but it will take two or three interviews before the stiffness, the estrangement of this long separation will quite wear away. I have nothing at all to tell you now but that Mary Taylor is better, and that she and Martha are gone to take a tour in Wales. Patty came on her pony about a fortnight since to inform me that this important event ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... sky-blue vesture, Fenland-queen in scarlet ribbons, Come I to exchange my silver, To exchange my gold and silver; Gold I have, as old as moonlight, Silver of the age of sunshine, In the first of years was gathered, In the heat and pain of battle; It will rust within my pouches, Soon will wear away and perish, If it be not used in trading." Long the hunter, Lemminkainen, Glided through the fen and forest, Sang his songs throughout the woodlands, Through three mountain glens be sang them, Sang the forest hostess friendly, Sang he, also, Tapio friendly, Friendly, all the forest virgins, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... must be renewed every day, or at least every other day. Strange and repelling as the custom appears at first, the eye soon learns to look without aversion upon a well-blacked and polished set of teeth; but when the colour begins to wear away, and turns to a dullish grey, streaked with black, the mouth certainly becomes most hideous. Although no one who reads this is likely to put a recipe for blackening the teeth to a practical test, I append one furnished to me by a fashionable chemist ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... wilt thou never cease thy sighing? Dark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away? Cold, cold Church, in thy death sleep lying, Thy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... differ, Abimelech. Sir Alexander wants me to turf them over! He says that, where you may have the smooth verdure, gravel walks are ridiculous; and are only tolerable in common pathways, where continual treading would wear away the greensward. But I know what has given him such a love for the soft grass. Sir Alexander is gouty, and ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... influence of seducing companions. Mittie's jealous and unyielding temper would embitter the peace of the household; while Helen's morbid sensibility, like a keen-edged sword in a thin, frail scabbard, threatened to wear away her young life. What firmness—yea, what gentleness—yea, what wisdom, what holy Christian principles were requisite for the responsibilities ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... say 'rebel' anymore. Before we came to Washington I thought rebels would look unlike other people. I find we are very much alike, and that kindness and good nature wear away prejudice. And then you know there are all sorts of common interests. My husband sometimes says that he doesn't see but confederates are just as eager to get at the treasury as Unionists. You know that Mr. Schoonmaker ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... sort of game, and almost too hot for vice - and fuddled themselves in the evening, and filled themselves to distension with the healthy nitrogenous food provided for them, and the more they stoked the less exercise they took and more explosive they grew. Then tempers began to wear away, and men fell a-brooding over insults real or imaginary, for they had nothing else to think of. The tone of the repartees changed, and instead of saying light-heartedly: I'll knock your silly face in," men grew laboriously polite and hinted that ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... engrossed her thoughts. Fully aware of this, Mrs. Bloundel said nothing of it to her husband, because the subject was painful to him; and not supposing the passion deeply rooted, she hoped it would speedily wear away. But she was mistaken—the flame was kept alive in Amabel's breast in a manner of which she was totally ignorant. Wyvil found means to deceive the vigilance of the grocer and his wife, but he could ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... as he sot at the table in his stockin' feet and shirt sleeves, and eat more than wuz good for him, fur more. He had begun to onbend, and I knew that for days I couldn't keep clothes enough on him to be hardly decent, but knew also that that would wear away in time. ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... thing many times but, ah, it was a weary thing which took much repetition that familiarity might wear away a little of ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... be equally discreet with Miss Darling. Time will wear away the hallucination, if you women only hold your tongues. I must caution Rose, who has an unfortunate habit of letting out whatever comes ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... fulness of expression which is developed by a life of solitude. Where the eyes of a multitude beat like waves upon a countenance they seem to wear away its individuality; but in the still water of privacy every tentacle of feeling and sentiment shoots out in visible luxuriance, to be interpreted as readily as a child's look by an intruder. In years she was no more than nineteen or twenty, but ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... get out of a scrape—by scraping. His Viol has the effect of a Scotch Fiddle, for it irritates his hearers, and puts them to the itch. He tears his audience in various ways, as I do this subject; and as I wear away my pen, so does he wear away the strings of his Fiddle. There is no medium to him; he is either in a flat or a sharp key, though both are natural to him. He deals in third minors, and major thirds; proves a turncoat, and is often in the majority and ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart |
