"Wear out" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you, Mr. Menendez. I was just telling your brother—if Pedro is your brother—that I intend to wear out a buggy whip on him as soon as his leg ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... despised opinion, made the victim yield. But her sufferings were not long; the separation from her child, the bleak clime, the strange faces around her, sharp memory, and the dull routine of an unimpassioned life, all combined to wear out a constitution originally frail, and since shattered by many sorrows. Mrs. Coningsby died the same day that her father-in-law was made a Marquess. He deserved his honours. The four votes he had inherited in the House of Commons ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Ronny? It gives Avalon a foothold in the Catalina economy. When the locomotives wear out on the railroad, new engines, new parts, must be purchased. They won't be available on Catalina because there will be no railroad industry because none will have ever grown up. Catalina manufacturers couldn't compete with that initial ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... all my experience, I have never seen the benefit there was to be derived from this. I always found that the mule worked better when allowed to carry his head and neck in a natural position. When not reined up at all, he will do more work, out-pull, and wear out the one that is. At present, nearly all the Government mule-teams are reined up, and worked with a single rein. This is the old Virginia way of driving mules. It used to be said that any negro knew enough to drive mules. I fear ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... could carry it; that his personal force was far beyond his own estimation; that his intuitions were like those of a woman, but were not infallible; that his singing the campaign was a fancy; that "Marching Through Georgia" would wear out, and was of the stuff of dreams. Mr. Blaine's accredited friends felt that things had gone too far to permit a change to be contemplated. They were half mad at Blaine for his Sherman and Lincoln proposal, which was confidentially in the air, regarding ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... persisted, until she had won the confidence of mother and children. Her visits were frequent, and she had helped the family so materially that she had astonished the field matron, an energetic woman who covered enormous distances in the saddle in the fulfillment of duties which would soon wear out ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... his mental torture diminished, the image that had appeared to his eyes and which haunted his nights became more indistinct and less frequent. He began once more to live nearly like everybody else, like all those idle people who drink beer off marble topped tables and wear out the seats of their trousers on the threadbare velvet ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... this last raid was still further to wear out Burnside's mounted troops, but he pressed forward to the front all his infantry and organized a column for advance. In less than a week, on August 4, he was able to announce to the War Department that he had 11,000 men concentrated at Lebanon, Stanford, and Glasgow, with outposts on the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the 'means of grace' she wants me to, I wouldn't have any time left for lessons. I'm going to try all-fired hard not to do anything to hurt Mother or make her ashamed of me, but I'm not calculating to wear out the pews at prayer meetings—not so you'd notice it." Ernest grinned at ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... examine the physical and physiological conditions of sleep we shall better understand its hygiene. Sleep is a state in which the tissues of the body which have been used up may be restored. Of course some restoration of broken-down tissue takes place as soon as it begins to wear out, but so long as the body keeps working, the one process can never quite compensate for the other, so there must be a periodic cessation of activity so that the energies of the body may be devoted to restoration. Viewing sleep as a time when broken-down bodily cells ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast night. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... know. And I think never did boys outgrow their things like our boys. It is pleasant, too. If only clothes did not wear out so fast." ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... that is a different thing from allowing you to wear out your life in a hopeless engagement. If she cast off her family, nothing could be better, otherwise, I would never ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... its broad cheek-bones and high temples running far up into the hair on either side, that type does not make its appearance till close upon the advent of the Reign of Terror. But enough! I shall weary you with theories, and wear out the patience of our friend Guichet, who is sufficiently tired already with waiting for a head that never comes to be cut off as it ought. Adieu—adieu. Come soon again, and see how I get on ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... "this odious and shameful trial," says Guizot, "the judges' prejudiced servility and scientific subtlety were employed for three months to wear out the courage or overreach the understanding of a young girl of nineteen, who made no defence beyond holding her tongue or appealing to God, who had dictated to her that which she had done." Formal accusation was made under twelve heads or articles, based on the preliminary examination, and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Christian blood w' have let; 'Twill save our credit, and maintain 985 Our title to do so again; That needs not cost one dram of sense, But pertinacious impudence. Our constancy t' our principles, In time will wear out all things else; 990 Like marble statues rubb'd in pieces With gallantry of pilgrims' kisses; While those who turn and wind their oaths, Have swell'd and sunk, like other froths; Prevail'd a while, but 'twas not long 995 Before from world to world they swung: As they ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... stormed in him. He was too young, too strong, too full of the sap of living, to submit so easily to the destruction of his hopes. Must he wear out all his years at the side of a bitter querulous woman? Other possibilities had been in him, possibilities sacrificed, one by one, to Zeena's narrow-mindedness and ignorance. And what good had come of it? She was a hundred ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... well for ninety miles, and at a certain trail the driver pulled up and said, "Well, son, here's where you have t' wear out your moccasins. There's your trail, bearing off t' th' right. Follow it for twenty-five miles, an' you'll be where you ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... allowed in hallowed places. Let not poetizers practice on the tombstone. My uniform advice to all those who want acceptable and suggestive epitaph is, Take a passage of Scripture. That will never wear out. From generation to generation it will bring down upon all visitors a holy hush; and if before that stone has crumbled the day comes for waking up of all the graveyard sleepers, the very words chiseled on the marble ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... "you see the old one did not wear out entirely. It wore away so that it dropped out. Do you know where I ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... they wanted without discovery. Moreover, his own particular information still gave him reason to hope that the affairs of the enemy would soon be in a worse state than their own, if the Athenians persevered in the siege; as they would wear out the Syracusans by want of money, especially with the more extensive command of the sea now given them by their present navy. Besides this, there was a party in Syracuse who wished to betray the city to the Athenians, and kept sending him messages and telling ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... horses' feet, it never seriously affects our wheels. There being nothing harder than the rubber ties of comparatively light drays upon it—for the heavy traffic is carried by electric railways under ground—it will practically never wear out. "With the application of steel to the entire surface, car-tracks became unnecessary, ordinary wheels answering as well as those with flanges, so that no new tracks were laid, and finally the car companies tore up the existing ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... patience and of temper, have they not cost the unlucky Roystonians who were destined to walk upon {114} them for so long and with so little hope of change? It was a cheap way of serving posterity, but assuredly not a kind one, for the evil of it is that they never wear out! Farmers and others paid their highway rates in kind, that is by carting materials, &c., and of this "composition" according to scale, there were seven farmers in Royston availing themselves. The first piece of stone paving in our streets ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... persuade, my loving Proteus: Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. Were't not affection chains thy tender days To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love, I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad, Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness. But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein, Even as I would, when I to ...
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... wrecks nations. I said we stand now on an isthmus of time; fifth-century Greece stood on such another. For reasons that we have seen, there was to be a radical difference between the ages that preceded, and the ages that followed it; its influence was not to wear out, in the west, for twenty-five hundred years. It was to give a keynote, in cultural effort, to a very long future. So all western ages since have suffered because of its descent from lofty ideals to vulgar greed and ambition; from Aristides to ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Mrs. Farrell had not retired at the usual hour. It was after midnight, yet she was still occupied in a rather hopeless effort to patch Jack's only pair of trousers; for he evinced as remarkable an ability to wear out clothes as any son of a millionaire. The work was tedious and progressed slowly, for her fingers were stiff and the effort of sewing painful. Finally it was finished. With a sigh of relief she rested a moment in her chair. Just ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... Paris too well. And I have no desire to wear out my existence in opening paths for my descendants, always supposing I leave any. No, no! There is small pleasure in praying all day and fighting all night. No, thank you. Paris is plenty for me." Yet ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... like that of one of my persecutors. Why do you not place the climax to your injuries by at once taking away life. I should be better pleased that you would do so, than that I should wear out the useless struggle of existence in so dreary and wretched an abode ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... crossed the room to the bookcases. Opening one, she ran her finger-tips tenderly along the stout backs of a row of dark red volumes. "My very own Wide-Awakes! What a storehouse they would be for the little folk! They needn't be allowed to circulate, so they'd not wear out badly. They could just come in and read them there. I was going to give them my little rocking-chair, anyhow. O, dear! I'm afraid I'm really going to let them have you, you dear, dear books. It would be selfish to keep you up here all the time, when I almost ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... as well as privilege to perfect our constitution, and see that it does not wear out too soon, that we are not prematurely called away from our duties. And I bring it as serious charge against modern systems of education, that they tend to degenerate mankind, to impair the constitution and to shorten life. That we should not submit to this, but should all aspire ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... therefore worse than other roads, to the end that his policy of utter secrecy might be the better served; but to the majority his course seemed sprung from a certain cold wilfulness, a harshness without object, unless his object were to wear out flesh and bone. The road, such as it was, was sheeted with ice. The wind blew steadily from the northwest, striking the face like a whip, and the fine rain and snow continued to fall and to freeze as it fell. What, the evening before, had been hardship, now grew to actual misery. The column ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... disapproved. Mary had left off her summer things and wore again the plain serge skirt, and because it was rainy, the battered straw hat of the preceding winter. She was using up her old things, and having got all possible wear out of them, intended on the day before her marriage generously to distribute them ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... serves to shew that he thought the whole labour of such a Performance unworthy to be thrown away upon those Intrigues and Adventures, to which the romantic taste has confined Modern Tragedy: and, after the example of his predecessors in Greece, would have employed the Drama to wear out of our minds everything that is mean or little, to cherish and cultivate that Humanity which is the ornament of our nature, to soften Insolence, to soothe Affliction, and to subdue our minds to the dispensations of Providence. ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too, Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's out; And take upon's the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out, In a wall'd prison, packs and sets of great ones, That ebb and flow ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... were securely tied upon his feet; and he kept an officer in his palace whose sole business it was to examine people's sandals and to supply them with a new pair at the expense of the royal treasury as soon as the old ones began to wear out. In the whole course of the king's reign he had never been thrown into such a fright and agitation as by the spectacle of poor Jason's bare foot. But as he was naturally a bold and hard-hearted man, he soon took courage and began to consider ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... known that Mole, although he passed the greater time with his old friends, had taken a small cottage close by so that he might not entirely wear out ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... vessels, by which he might escape by water, nor any resources or material with which to build them, and very little food, because the latter had been burned with the vessels) it would be better and conduce more to his own safety to besiege the fort and to settle down there until hunger should wear out the enemy, in order that they might thus be forced to surrender, or capitulate under certain conditions. Notwithstanding the nature of these conditions, the enemy would consider them better than death by hunger. This resolve seemed good to all of them, although quite the contrary of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... the astronomers threaten that we may be in a future age. Each molecule, not alone of the atmosphere, but of the entire earth's substance, is kept aquiver by the energy which it receives, or has received, directly or indirectly, from the sun. Left to itself, each molecule would wear out its energy and fritter it off into the space about it, ultimately running completely down, as surely as any human-made machine whose power is not from time to time restored. If, then, it shall come to pass in some future age that the sun's rays fail us, the temperature of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... made me cleansed of its nits Presse seamen, without which we cannot really raise men Shakespeare's plays She had the cunning to cry a great while, and talk and blubber There eat and drank, and had my pleasure of her twice These Lords are hard to be trusted Things wear out of themselves and come fair again To my Lord Sandwich, thinking to have dined there Upon a very small occasion had a difference again broke out Very high and very foule words from her to me What wine you drinke, lett it ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... stature, and yet were eminently strong, owed that advantage to their cultivation of bodily exercise. This kept their limbs supple, and rendered their constitution stout and hardy. Now, very laborious exercises would rather wear out the machine than they would invigorate it, if there was not a due relaxation, which should not, however, be too abrupt a transition from the most fatiguing exercises to a state of absolute rest. Whereas that dancing, of which they were so fond, afforded them, not only a pleasing employ ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... and tear. The shelf was evidently not popular, yet it contained the books that had been specially recommended to me as best worth reading by my stylist friends. 'There is style for you!' said my friend. 'Style lasts, you see. Style is engraved upon stone. All the other books about us wear out and perish, but here are your stylists still, as fresh as the day they were bought.' 'Because nobody reads them!' I exclaimed. 'Precisely,' he said. 'There is no comfort in life in them. They are the mere mechanics of literature, and nobody cares about them except the mechanicians.' After ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... attention of our audience. It is a question whether any man, who cannot make the people listen, should not be content to take his place in a pew. It is better to be able to heat or light the chapel well, than to wear out the patience of a congregation by prosy preaching, and it will be more to our eternal advantage to have been AN INDUSTRIOUS CHAPEL-KEEPER THAN A ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... Suffering and death have met us so often! Can you wonder, my dear reader, that the historian of such an epoch longs to escape, when he can, from the gloom of the tragedy, and paint those scenes of comedy which occasionally broke the monotonous drama? To write this book is not agreeable to me. I wear out a part of my life in composing it. To sum up, in cold historic generalities that great epoch would be little—but to enter again into the hot atmosphere; to live once more that life of the past; to ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... raised the clear voice and bent her flushed face over the crowd—'in Birmingham those same "fragile flowers" make bicycles to keep alive! At Cradley Heath we make chains. At the pit brows we sort coal. But a vote would soil our hands! You may wear out women's lives in factories, you may sweat them in the slums, you may drive them to the streets. You do. But a ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... don't. That's why I don't have a real quarrel with Carly. I think she knows I've discovered her part in it all, and I think she knows I resent it; but, as you say, if it helps dear old dad and mother to bear their grief, I'm willing they should wear out ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... "Confessions,") when I was less annoyed if my bosom or wristband happened to be minus a button, than I am at present. But continual dropping will wear away a stone, and the ever recurring buttonless collar or wristband will wear out a man's patience, be he naturally as enduring as the Man ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... deeds. The German armies hold the line between Ghent and Mulhausen and are wearing out the Allies by exhaustion. Many armies have reinforced the British and the French, but the German lines hold fast and wear out the Allies. The Russians are still upon the defensive in Poland. London is in a panic as it has been attacked by Zeppelins, and the German Fleet has come out from Kiel and claims a victory. That news, of course, you can ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... ages who have such a ballad and such pictures as this in store for them! It is a comfort to think that woodcuts never wear out, and that the book still may be had for a shilling, for those who can command ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... returned Grace. "It looks like new. No one would know that you bought it last season. You take such good care of your clothes, Anne. I wish I could take as good care of mine. I hang them up and keep them in repair, but somehow they just wear out all ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... "Why! she would never wear out the half of them in all her whole life!" uttered Tynn, speaking the true sentiments of her ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... rust out than wear out. To keep the range free from rust rub it very frequently with a cloth slightly oiled with any kind of oil or grease, except kerosene or one containing salt; we suggest the use of olive oil or one of its cheaper substitutes. ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... when he first came with the road—no one certainly knew. Some said he spoke his mind too freely—a bad trait in a railroad man; others said he could not hold down the job. All they knew in the mountains was that as a snow fighter he could wear out all the plows on the division, and that if a branch line were needed in haste Glover would have the rails down before an ordinary man ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... not walked, but had done that much more hungrifying thing—we had been for hours in a motor-car, exceedingly engaged on the task of looking at houses to let. At last, utterly worn out, in the way that motoring can wear out body, soul and nerves, and filled with a ravening desire to tear meat limb from limb, we came to an inn of which our host had the highest opinion—so high, indeed, that, empty though we were, he had forced the car at full-speed past at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... I answered with a groan. "I understand you to mean that worldly impressions soon wear out and that people who have departed to other spheres may there form new ties and ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... and a foreign prince. To become and remain master in such an annexed country it is always advisable to exhibit the sword. Nevertheless, it would not be wise to strike incessantly; the blade, used too often, would wear out; it is better to utilize the constitution of the annex, rule over it indirectly, not by an administrative bureau (regie), but by a protectorate, in which all indigenous authorities can be employed and be made responsible for the necessary rigors. Now, by virtue of the indigenous constitution, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Willy Cameron, "I'm on the job about eleven hours a day, and I wear out more shoe leather than trouser seats at that. But it doesn't seem to ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had no time for thinking just then. From the moment we landed in Bombay, and for a week or two afterwards, we were continually on the move. Long forced marches under a broiling sun, it was enough to wear out any ordinary troops. But our men, and the column to which they were now attached, formed no ordinary body of men. They were Englishmen hastening to the rescue, and nothing on earth could stop them. It was strange how slowly the news of those stirring times ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... so much overworked and weakened, as to occasion only trouble and anxiety, she yielded resignedly when forbidden to wear out strength and spirits by a visit to the burial-ground before her embarkation. She must content herself with Maurice's description of the locality, and carry away in her eye only the general picture of the sapphire ocean and white rock fortress of the holy warriors vowed to ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... notice that one of the wheels on your little wagon, when it becomes loose, soon wears out? The more it sags over on one side, the weaker it grows. While the wheel stands up straight, it does not seem to wear out ...
— Proud and Lazy - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic
... matched pair of young chimpanzees will wrestle and play longer and harder than the young of any other primate species known to me. It is important to cage together only young apes of equal size and strength, for if there is any marked disparity in size, the larger and stronger animal will wear out the strength of its smaller cage-mate, and impair ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... and cigarettes are, of course, always in demand, and under the peculiar circumstances of this nerve-racking campaign, are more or less of a necessity. Socks, too, are needed, for whether the weather is hot or cold, socks will wear out. The men dearly love sweets, such as toffee, chocolate, peppermints. Cardigan jackets—not too heavy—are largely called for; a packet containing writing paper, envelopes and an indelible pencil are very acceptable; woollen ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... have got up ('happy country') more crying grievances than France at the moment of outbreak; but what makes outbreaks now-a-days is not 'the cause, my soul,' but the stuff of the people. You are huckaback on the other side of the Channel, and you wear out the poor Irish linen, let the justice of the case be what it may. Politics enough and too much, surely, especially now when they are depressing to you, and more or less to everybody.... We are still in the slow agonies of furnishing our apartment. You see, being the poorest and most prudent ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... see me about myself, Miss Clinton. You find me sitting idly with my legs crossed, and you are surprise. I work as I dance,—very, oh, so very hard while I am at ze task,—but with frequent periods of rest. So I do not wear out myself too soon. It is the only way. Work for an hour, rest for ten minutes,—relax and forget,—and you will see how well it goes. Why do you come? Is it to ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... lavishing yourself. You are doing too much. Don't wear out your luck. Believe me, you ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... much reaedship in that. Whether vo'k mid have childern or no, Wou'dden meaeke mighty odds in the main; They do bring us mwore jay wi' mwore ho, An' wi' nwone we've less jay wi' less pain We be all lik' a zull's idle sheaere out, An' shall rust out, unless we do wear out, Lik' do-nothen, rue-nothen, ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... rumbled a dull undertone. San Francisco had been very proud of this pavement when it was new. She was very grateful for it even now, for in the upper part of town the mud and dust were still something awful. Unfortunately the planks were beginning to wear out in places; and a city government, trying to give the least possible for its taxes, ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... of animals! They who built their pyramids, not with carved traceries, nor lacy spires, but with solid blocks of granite fifty feet square! How they must have laughed in the depths of those sepulchres as they watched Time dull its scythe and pashas wear out their nails in vain against them. Let us build pyramids, my dear Sir John. They are not difficult as architecture, nor beautiful as art, but they are solid; and that enables a general to say four thousand ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... with you, Terence? It bothers me entirely; there is not a soul who will take you, and if anyone would do so, you would wear out his patience before a week's end; there is not a dog in the regiment that does not put his tail between his legs and run for his bare life if he sees you; and as for the colonel, he told me only the other day that he had so many complaints against ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... any one, who would like to gain a little money, who could endure this day to take my place in being tortured? Who are those fellows hardened to a flogging, who wear out iron chains, or those who for three didrachmas[19] would get beneath besieging towers, where they might have their bodies pierced with fifteen spears? I'll give a talent to that man who shall be the first to run to the cross for me, but on condition that his feet and arms are doubly fastened there. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... I went ashore, two suits of khaki and two army blankets, and a pair of good army shoes that afterwards seemed never to wear out. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... I born, and I believe they gave a tone to my mind, which subsequent intercourse with the world did not altogether wear out; and such as may be supposed had a still more powerful effect on the mind of my sisters, who enjoyed less means of having ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... he writes from 33 Denmead Street, the eight-room house, to which he had gone, with the attendant necessity of buying "at least three hundred twenty-seven household utensils" and "hiring a colored gentlewoman who is willing to wear out my carpets, burn out my range, freeze out my water-pipes, and be generally useful." He mentions having written a couple of poems, and part of an essay on Beethoven and Bismarck, but his chief delight is in his new home, which invests him with the dignity ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... A steam-engine from the first stroke of its piston-rod begins to wear out, and before long needs repair. All work involves waste. The engine, unless kept in thorough repair, would soon stop. So with our bodies. In their living cells chemical changes are constantly going on; energy, on the whole, is running ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... Argus and Daily City Gazette[214] points to the deaf man as "abandoned to his hard fate, to wander in darkness, the pitiable object of dismal despair." In an address delivered in the Capitol in Washington[215] the deaf are said to be "doomed to wear out their lives ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... glanders," he sighed, when Bill finally washed the grease off his hands and forearms and rolled down his sleeves. "But Casey Ryan's game to try anything once, and most things the second and third time. You ask anybody. Gimme all the hootin'-annies that's liable to wear out, Bill, and a load uh tires and patches, and Casey'll come back and hand yuh a diamond big as your fist, some day. Ole Lady Trouble's always tryin' to take a fall outa me, but she's never got me down so't I had to holler 'nough. You ask anybody. Casey Ryan's ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... taken, and replied To all the propositions of surrender By mowing Christians down on every side, As obstinate as Swedish Charles at Bender. His five brave boys no less the foe defied; Whereon the Russian pathos grew less tender, As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience, Apt to wear out on ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... ward, I thought the captain behaved ungallantly, to say the least, in availing himself of the opportunity of her charming society, to wear out his remaining old clothes; for no gentleman ever pretends to save his best coat when a lady is in the case; indeed, he generally thirsts for a chance to abase it, by converting it into a pontoon over a puddle, like Sir Walter Raleigh, that the ladies may not soil ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... has Leviculus spent his time, till he is now grown grey with age, fatigue, and disappointment. He begins at last to find that success is not to be expected, and being unfit for any employment that might improve his fortune, and unfurnished with any arts that might amuse his leisure, is condemned to wear out a tasteless life in narratives which few will hear, and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... mere mortal body could not stand it. The misery and terror and confusion of his soul would soon wear out his body, and he would die, as I have seen men actually die, when their souls have been left in that deep somewhat too long; shrink together into dark melancholy, and pine away, and die. And I have seen sweet young creatures too, whom God for some purpose of his own (which must ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... excess of faith in certain authorities, which induces them to throw their own pia desideria into the scales, or in a want of cool, impartial observation continued for a sufficient length of time to wear out sanguine expectations. The fact is that there neither exists a reliable prophylactic, nor has a safe specific been found as yet; that all is guess-and-piece work; and that people are taken by scarlet-fever and die of it about the same ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... should arise as to "who shall be great- est." Let us serve instead of rule, knock instead of push at the door of human hearts, and allow to each and every one the same rights and privileges that we [15] claim for ourselves. If ever I wear out from serving students, it shall be in the effort to help them to obey the Ten Commandments and imbibe the spirit of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... to another: "Look there, if you please, How they wear out their shoes, while their Ass takes his ease. Were there ever, d'ye think, three such asses as these?" Said the Miller: "You're right. I'm an Ass! It is true. Too long have I listened to people like you. But now I am done with the whole ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... sill, In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,—lurking still, Find it somewhere you must and will,— Above or below, or within or without,— And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, That a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... obliged to fight the match out, if she died for it. For his part, instinct-ridden as he was, the expressions of his animal passion, partaking something of ferocity, were rather worrying than kisses, intermixed with ravenous love-bites on her cheeks and necks, the prints of which did not wear out for ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... Hilda von Sigmundskron and heir to all the wealth of the Greifensteins, as that thing says I am? Could all the laws you talk of prevent me from doing that? And you talk of my dishonour through you! I would beg for you, I would toil for you, I would wear out my body and my soul to get you bread—oh, I would almost sell the hope of heaven for your dear sake! And you say that because you have found this paper I am not your wife! A bit of paper, Greif, between you and ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... ill-tempered judge, who committed his wrath to the hands of the hangman; and the latter, not being bribed, used his plenary power upon our shoulders. But that is past and gone; and all things pass, memories wear out, lives do not renew themselves, tongues grow tired, and new events make their predecessors forgotten. I am matron of a hospital; my behaviour is plausible in appearance; my unguents procure me some pleasant moments, and I am not so old but that I may live ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... its lots an' lots of candies, cakes, an' toys, Was made, they say, for proper kids an' not for naughty boys; So wash yer face an' bresh yer hair, an' mind yer p's and q's, An' don't bust out yer pantaloons, and don't wear out yer shoes; Say "Yessum" to the ladies, an' "Yessur" to the men, An' when they's company, don't pass yer plate for pie again; But, thinkin' of the things yer'd like to see upon that tree, Jest 'fore Christmas be as ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... then to know that in the zenith of physical strength Landor was at his noblest and best, for his example is a forcible protest against the feverish enthusiasm of young American authors, who wear out their lives in the struggle to be famous at the age of Keats, never remembering that "there must be a good deal of movement and shuffling before there is any rising from the ground; and those who have the longest wings have the most difficulty in the first mounting. In literature, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... too, since you prefer it, grandpa. See what I've brought you! 'way across the blue waters, from Scotland! Isn't it a bonnie plaid?" and she held out before him a real Highland shawl, and, folding it, threw it around his shoulders. "'Tis so nice to wear out here, dear grandpa, ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... Posture; besides the fulsome Drenches, unseasonable Watrings, and other Practices of ignorant Horse-Quacks and surly Grooms: The Tyranny and cruel Usage of their Masters in tiring Journeys, hard, labouring and unmerciful Treatment, Heats, Colds, &c. which wear out and destroy so many of those useful and generous Creatures before the time: Such as have been better us'd, and some, whom their more gentle and good-natur'd Patrons have in recompence of their long and faithful service, dismiss'd, and sent to Pasture for the rest of their Lives (as ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... were born to no higher purpose than to wear out a long life in ease and prosperity, with the general esteem of the world, your wisdom was evidently as much superior to mine as my life was shorter and more unhappy than yours. Nay, I verily believe it exceeded the prudence of any other man that ever ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... about the little things that every motorist wants to know about his own car. Do you want to cure ignition troubles? Overhaul and adjust your carbureter? Keep your transmission in order? Get the maximum wear out of your tires? Do any other of the hundred and one things that are necessary for the greatest use and enjoyment of your car? Then you will ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... seem utterly impossible to wear out a father's affection or a mother's love, and many a child, after the perversities and losses of a misdirected manhood, has found himself welcomed back again to the paternal home, with all the unquenched ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... to put a label on your back, 'Second-hand!' or her velvet will be a scandal. I can't wear out that at home like this flagrant, flowery thing, that I saw Miss Curtis looking at as rather a disreputable article. There's preferment for you, Ailie! What do you think of a general's widow with six boys? She is come after you. We had a great invasion—three Curtises and this ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there's a wear out to us, Cleone? I wish it to you this minute, Baldy, that you had the muscles in the back of my legs. I guess you think it's choice for us girls to come out on the ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... only I stayed two hours with the mistress of the house and M. Schlegel, whose anger against the abbe did not wear out. These two hours Mme de Stael's conversation enchanted me, proving how much there is to attach us in one who can live at one and the same time so near and yet so far above the world.... I might pass many evenings ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... fiction. I'd like to see all the shoemakers get together and refuse to make any more shoes till people promised to write reviews about them, like all these book-reviews. Then just as soon as people's shoes began to wear out they'd come right around, and you'd read about the new masterpieces of Mr. Regal and Mr. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... tire, felloe, in spring or thill, In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,—lurking still, Find it somewhere you must and will,— Above or below, or within or without,— And that 's the reason, beyond a doubt, That a chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... which sometimes remind us that he was writing in an age which had rediscovered Sir Thomas Browne. The following sentence proves how accurately he could catch the rhythm of the seventeenth century. "That we should wear out by slow stages, and dwindle at last into nothing, is not wonderful, when even in our prime our strongest impressions leave little trace but for the moment, and we are the creatures of petty circumstance."[104] ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... cautious, persuaded the people to be patient, and not to risk battles by land, where the Spartans fought as well as they did, whereas nobody was their equal by sea; and as their fleet and all their many isles could save them from hunger, they could wear out their enemies, and be fresh themselves; but it was hard to have plague within and Spartans wasting their homes and fields without. Brave little Plataea, too, was closely besieged. All the useless persons had been sent to Athens, and there were only 400 Plataean ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the colour and features of the Negro or European are entirely lost in the fourth generation, provided that no fresh infusion of one or other of the two races takes place. The distinctive physical features, therefore, of the Aryan conquerors might soon wear out and be lost in those of the nations they overran; yet many of the words, and, what is more in point, some of the grammatical forms of their language, might be retained by the masses which they had governed for centuries, these masses continuing ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... and petty, feverish ambition. Partially it may be so. He will take, he is already taking, something of the tone of the climate and of the old Spanish occupation. But the race instinct of thrift and of "getting on" will not wear out in many generations. Besides, the condition of living at all in Southern California in comfort, and with the social life indispensable to our people, demands labor, not exhausting and killing, but still incessant—demands industry. A land that will not yield satisfactorily without irrigation, ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... deadly Foe continually invading it, or with such a Foe? When the membranes and tissues of the body, with their host of nerves and blood vessels, have to be fighting against some deadly poison in connection with their ordinary work, will they not wear out sooner than if they could be left to do their ordinary work quietly? To illustrate: A particle of tobacco dust no sooner comes into contact with the lining membrane of the nose, than violent sneezing is produced. This is the effort of the besieged ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... allowed themselves to be stripped of everything; they let themselves be exiled, imprisoned, tortured and made martyrs of, like the Christians of the primitive church; through their invincible meekness, they were going, like the primitive Christians, to exhaust the rage of their executioners, wear out persecutions, transform opinion and compel the admission, even with those who survived in the eighteenth century, that they were true, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... (says "Aleph," in the City Press), a stock-jobber's pursuits tend to shorten life; violent excitement, and the constant alternation of hope and fear, wear out the brain, and soon lead to disease or death. Yet instances of great longevity occur in this class: John Rive, after many active years in the Alley, retired to the Continent, and died ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... laughter, in which of course I joined. I must explain that the natives of the Tokelau Group, among whom I had lived, through constantly chewing the tough drupes of the fruit of the fala (pandanus palm) wear out their teeth prematurely, and are sometimes termed "toothless" by other natives of the South Pacific. However, I was to have my own little joke ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... she would add something more to her illness; and won't it be dreadful! The clothes may be no matter how fine, but what is their worth, after all? The health of our child is what is important to look to! and were she even to wear out a suit of new clothes a-day, what would that too amount to? I was about to tell you that a short while back, Feng Tzu-ying came to see me, and, perceiving that I had somewhat of a worried look, he asked me what was up; and I told him that our son's wife was not well at all, that as we couldn't ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Sixteenth. Today it is. In aid of funds for Mercer's hospital. The Messiah was first given for that. Yes. Handel. What about going out there: Ballsbridge. Drop in on Keyes. No use sticking to him like a leech. Wear out my welcome. Sure to know ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the father to wreak vengeance on those who, through "Al-f-r-u-d's" generosity, had depleted the pickle barrel. Grabbing his heaviest cane he stalked toward the door, vowing he would wear out every last one of the boys who had made him so far forget himself as to punish one whose age and inexperience ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... of standard authors, one should always discriminate, so as to secure for the library, if not the best, at least good, clear type, sound, thick paper, and durable binding. Cheap and poor editions wear out quickly, and have to be thrown away for better ones, which wise economy should have selected in the first place. For example, a widely circulated edition of Scott's novels, found in most libraries, has the type so worn and battered by the many large editions printed from ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... the river nearly a year now, and, though universally liked and accounted a fine steersman, he was receiving no wages. There had been small need of money for a while, for he had no board to pay; but clothes wear out at last, and there were certain incidentals. The Pennsylvania made a round trip in about thirty-five days, with a day or two of idle time at either end. The young pilot found that he could get night employment, watching freight on the New Orleans levee, and thus earn from ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... in payment of a debt in any state or territory. In 1789 the currency was foreign coins and state paper. But the Constitution forbade the states ever to make any more money, and as their bills of credit already issued would wear out by use, the time was near when there would be no currency except foreign coins. To prevent this, Congress in 1791 ordered a mint to be established at Philadelphia, and in 1792 named the coins to be struck, and ordered that ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... grim rammer-and-sponger behind me; "it's all devilish fine for you nobs to look at; but what would you say if you had to holy-stone the deck yourselves, and wear out your elbows in polishing this cursed old iron, besides getting a dozen at the gangway, if you dropped a grease-spot on deck in your mess? Ay, ay, devilish fine for you, but ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... lots an' lots of candies, cakes an' toys, Was made, they say, for proper kids an' not for naughty boys; So wash yer face an' bresh yer hair, an' mind yer p's an' q's, An' don't bust out yer pantaloons, an' don't wear out yer shoes; Say "Yessum" to the ladies, an' "Yessur" to the men, An' when they's company, don't pass yer plate for pie again; But, thinking of the things yer'd like to see upon that tree, Jest 'fore Christmas be as good ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... likely to wear out of its own accord, for the Count de Ribaumont was an elderly and childless man, and his brother, the Chevalier de Ribaumont, was, according to the usual lot of French juniors, a bachelor, so that it was expected that the whole inheritance would centre upon the elder ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is always bad economy. It is, in fact, great waste, especially if conjoined with worry. Indeed, worry kills far more than work does. It frets, it excites, it consumes the body—as sand and grit, which occasion excessive friction, wear out the wheels of a machine. Overwork and worry have both to be guarded against. For over-brain-work is strain-work; and it is exhausting and destructive according as it is in excess of nature. And the brain-worker may exhaust and overbalance ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... officers were frequently unable to spot their own bursts. A field-battery of eighteen-pounders firing at this rate will blaze away anywhere from twelve to twenty tons of ammunition a day. As guns firing with such rapidity wear out their tubes and their springs in a few days, it is necessary to rush entire batteries to the repair-shops at the rear. And that provides ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... poor Susan. She had often heard a chanting machine utter the marriage service all on one note, and heard it with a certain smile of unintelligent complacency her sex wear out of politeness; but when the man Eden told her at the altar with simple earnestness what a high and deep and solemn contract she was making then and there with God and man, she began to cry, and wept ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... fat oath you've bolted in your time. Now on the nick of your conscience, Val darling, how many Bibles did you wear out, by a long and honest course ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... reproducing the old is a mistake, I think. At least, if a man likes to do it he must pay for his whistle. Besides, where are you to stop along that road—making loopholes where you don't want to peep, and so on? You may as well ask me to wear out the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... customers to pay, and it was very amusing to watch the process of a sale. A price was named by the dealer; a bid was made by the customer; then figuring, explaining, and dickering went on in a mixture of languages and signs until finally, if the buyer's patience did not wear out, the deal closed with a compromise. When the purchaser departed happy with a bargain, the dealer also appeared well satisfied, and if the same buyer returned to the store after once making a purchase, the Arab merchant would ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... in the first place the best promoter of health. Repining and secret murmurs of heart give imperceptible strokes to those delicate fibres of which the vital parts are composed, and wear out the machine insensibly; not to mention those violent ferments which they stir up in the blood, and those irregular disturbed motions, which they raise ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... first of December he already foresees that he cannot last long. "Next Christmas, please God, I shall be at Merton; for, by that time, with all the anxiety attendant on such a command as this, I shall be done up. The mind and body both wear out." ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... mighty cheerin' and comfortable, thanky, ma'am. Idleness is dreadful tryin' to me, and I'd rather wear out than rust out; so I guess I can weather it a spell longer. But it will be pleasant to look forrard to a snug harbor bymeby. I feel a sight better just hearin' tell about it." He certainly looked so, faint as the hope was; for the melancholy eyes brightened as if they already saw a happier ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... truer words, sir. Of all cruising grounds, Heaven defend me from that of St. James's! I do assure you, Bignall, the service is quite sufficient to wear out the strongest constitution. There were moments when I really thought I should have died that ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... another slash in the back. "Cut works, imbroidd or needle or capps bands & rayles," and gold or silver girdles, hat-bands, belts, ruffs, and beaver hats were forbidden. Liberty was thriftily given, however, to the colonists to wear out any garments they chanced to have unless in the form of inordinately slashed apparel, immoderate great sleeves and rails, and long wings, which could not possibly ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... this fleeting world Place their affections, wickedness alone Is nourished into freshness; sounds of death, too, Are ever on the gale to wear out life. My heart is satisfied—O Heaven! no more, Free me at once ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... may wear out his shoes this time, his tongue, too, and his purse, but to no purpose. Behold, your friend the kaimkam is gloomy and impassive as a camel; what can you do? Whisper in his ear? The Padres have done that before you. Slip a purse ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... impoverishes land, not use. Intelligent use makes land better year by year. The only way to wear out land is to starve and to rob it at the same time. Food for man and beast may be taken from the soil for thousands of years without depleting it. All it asks in return is the refuse, carefully saved, properly applied, and thoroughly worked in to ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... bugbear. He had given out in plain terms that he did not intend to part with any of his property, except for current money, and Servadac, equally resolute, had strictly forbidden any purchases to be made, hoping to wear out the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne |
