"Diminish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spoke very earnestly, and with a certain dignity and authority that his small stature and rude working-dress could not diminish. A sudden feeling of solemnity and awe came over Edith, and she felt as if she were crossing the mystic threshold and entering the one true church consisting of all believers ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... fuel was exhausted, the tubes that contained it dissolved into their own blast and added to the accelerating thrust, even as they diminished the amount of mass to be accelerated. Then the quantity of fuel burned could diminish—the tubes could grow smaller—so the rate of speed gain would remain constant. Under the highly special conditions of this particular occasion, there was a notable gain in efficiency over a liquid-fuel rocket design. For one item, the Platform ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... by re-writing your book on the proof sheets, correcting everything there which you should have corrected in manuscript. This is an expensive process, and will greatly diminish your pecuniary gains, or rather will add to your publisher's bill, for the odds are that you will have to publish at your own expense. By the way, an author can make almost a certainty of disastrous failure, by carrying to some small obscure publisher a work which ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... leader. His resources seemed boundless, and our confidence in him grew with every escape. While he kept guard at the peepholes we watched for meteors from the windows. We must have come almost within striking distance of a thousand in the course of an hour, but Edmund decided not to diminish our speed, for he said that he could control the car quicker when it was under ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... goods at a much lower price than we could manufacture them. The evil of dumping grows out of the fact that it tends to force domestic producers out of business. Then later the foreign supply may diminish, in which case we suffer from a shortage of goods. If foreign producers do continue to supply the American market they may take advantage of the fact that American competitors have been forced out of business, and demand monopoly prices. The free trader admits the force of the anti-dumping argument, ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... more laborious. Dredging in 150 fathoms is very hard work, if it has to be carried on by manual labour; but by the use of the donkey-engine to supply power,[2] and of the contrivances known as "accumulators," to diminish the risk of snapping the dredge rope by the rolling and pitching of the vessel, the dredge has been worked deeper and deeper, until at last, on the 22nd of July, 1869, H.M.S. Porcupine being in the Bay of Biscay, Captain Calver, her commander, performed the unprecedented ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... their superior management about the registration, such as Leeds and Ripon, where they were sure of both members. He then talked of the tactics to be used, and said they must direct their hostility against the Whigs rather than the Radicals, and make it their principal object to diminish the number of the former. I said I thought this a very perilous game to play, and that if it was avowed and acted upon, it would infallibly produce a reunion between the Whigs and Radicals, who would coalesce to crush their Government; ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... without Stockings or Cap: and her Hair hung dishevelled over her Shoulders. She complained of the Cruelty of Theseus to the deep Waves, whilst an unworthy Shower of Tears ran down her Cheeks. She wept, and lamented aloud, and both became her; nor did her Tears diminish her Beauty. Once, and again, she beat her delicious Breasts with her Hands, and cried aloud, The perfidious Man hath abandoned me; What will become of poor Ariadne? What will become of poor Ariadne? ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... Castellina, is sent to Florence for figure-sculpture, whilst the common kinds are carved locally, at a very cheap rate, into vases, clock-cases and various ornamental objects, in which a large trade is carried on, especially in Florence, Pisa and Leghorn. In order to diminish the translucency of the alabaster and to produce an opacity suggestive of true marble, the statues are immersed in a bath of water and gradually heated nearly to the boiling-point—an operation requiring ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... on French wines thus reduced and the general rates of the tariff which went into operation the 1st January, 1829, shall be maintained in case the Government of the United States should think proper to diminish those general rates ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... sun-spots is that they show definite periodic variations in number. The best-defined period is one of about eleven years. During this period the spots increase to a maximum in number and then diminish to a minimum, the variation being more or less regular. Now this can only mean one thing. To be periodic the spots must have some deep-seated connection with the fundamental facts of the sun's structure and activities. Looked ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... worship, though now it is a seat of fanatical Mahomedanism. It is, however, one of the few places where the old religion lingers. In 1859 there were reckoned 850 families of Guebers in Yezd and fifteen adjoining villages, but they diminish rapidly. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... which lies shipping from all the world, more largely than at the piers of New York; and, finally, with what to most modern communities appears to flash as a costly but brilliant diamond necklace, a public debt, beginning now to diminish, it is true, but still approaching, in net ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... of fuel, and many other processes, are annually converting a large quantity of these matters into carbonic acid; and if there were no other source of carbon but the humus of the soil, the amount of vegetable life would gradually diminish, and at length become entirely extinct. Schleiden, who has discussed this subject very fully, has made an approximative calculation of the total quantity of humus on the earth's surface, and of the carbon annually converted into carbonic acid by the respiration of ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... unchecked, she begins to feel the first stress of the situation of which the tension in Europe has already become almost intolerable. It is the situation which cannot fail to result from the system of private property and inheritance established throughout the Western world. Opportunities diminish, classes segregate. There arises a caste of wage-earners never to be anything but wage-earners; a caste of property-owners, handing on their property to their descendants; and substantially, after all deductions have been made for exaggeration and simplification, ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... this rule to the practical affairs of to-day, would diminish the number of our machine politicians by about four fifths. We are loaded down, almost to the breaking point, with politicians who do not understand politics, and who advocate measures which are not for the ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... not be doubted that the proposed reductions will for the present diminish the revenues of the Department. It is believed that the deficiency, after the surplus already accumulated shall be exhausted, may be almost wholly met either by abolishing the existing privileges of sending free ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... man, great as he was, was marred by many meannesses, to use the expression employed by his enemies, who were anxious to diminish his glory, but which it would be more proper to call apparent contradictions. Envious people and fools, having no knowledge of the determinations by which superior spirits are moved, seize at once on superficial inconsistencies, to formulate an accusation and so to pass sentence ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac
... frequently fancied that they had a temporary interest to diminish the quantity of pure metal contained in their coins; but they seldom have fancied that they had any to augment it. The quantity of metal contained in the coins, I believe of all nations, has accordingly been almost continually diminishing, and hardly ever augmenting. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... had written a genuine Address for the occasion, which was sent to the Committee, and shared the fate it merited, in being rejected. To swell the bulk, or rather to diminish the tenuity of our little work, we added it to the Imitations; and prefixing the initials of S. T. P. for the purpose of puzzling the critics, were not a little amused, in the sequel, by the many guesses and conjectures into which we had ensnared some of our readers. We could even ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... his demeanor toward the king, instead of triumphing over him, and boasting of the victory which he had achieved, he did every thing in his power to soothe and assuage the fallen monarch's sorrow, and to diminish his chagrin. ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... not weaken, and his long absence, his infrequent visits to Stratford, the Duke's injunction to Viola—"let still the woman take An Elder than herself"—and the ironical bequest of his second best bed, neither diminish nor destroy. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... might be chosen by lot for his majesty's service, in any case of emergency. This expedient, however, was rejected, as an unnecessary and ineffectual incumbrance on commerce, which would hamper navigation, and, in a little time, diminish the number of seamen, of consequence act diametrically opposite to the purpose for which it was contrived.—Numberless frauds having been committed, and incessant law-suits produced, by private and clandestine conveyances, a motion was made, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... dominant quality in Schiller's character, this practice would undoubtedly have been abandoned, or rather never taken up. It was an error so to waste his strength; but one of those which increase rather than diminish our respect; originating, as it did, in generous ardour for what was best and grandest, they must be cold censurers that can condemn it harshly. For ourselves, we but lament and honour this excess of zeal; its effects were mournful, but its origin was noble. Who can picture Schiller's feelings ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... Nature, we must now be married by Law." But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a proceeding dubious, and to dread her father's face when he heard of it. Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an opinion of her such as she could not bear to diminish. No! Mary Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to Scotland. More at ease now she packed, avoided her aunt, and took a bus to Chiswick. She was too early, and went on to Kew Gardens. She found no ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the hopeful prediction of the young officer, this blow showed no signs of an early abatement. The wind seemed to increase, rather than diminish and the seas were ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... foreign deposit is evidently of a delicate and peculiar nature. It depends on the good opinion of foreigners, and that opinion may diminish or may change into a bad opinion. After the panic of 1866, especially after the suspension of Peel's Act (which many foreigners confound with a suspension of cash payments), a large amount of foreign money was withdrawn from London. And we may reasonably presume that in ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... salutary function of the study of the past is to tone down those historical animosities which derive their bitterness from the ignorant habit of trying the actors in bygone scenes by moral laws to which they are not justly amenable. The moral function of an historian is to diminish the hatreds which divide nation from nation and class from class; such as at the present moment do more to prevent real unity between the inhabitants of the two islands making up the United Kingdom than do unjust laws or vicious institutions. ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... drive it back to Lee, but he had furthermore determined to make that sections by the destruction of its supplies, untenable for continued occupancy by the Confederates. This would cut off one of Lee's main-stays in the way of subsistence, and at the same time diminish the number of recruits and conscripts he received; the valley district while under his control not only supplying Lee with an abundance of food, but also furnishing him many men for his regular and irregular forces. Grant's instructions to destroy the valley began with the letter ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... species diverge through their dental characters, on the one side into the mastodons, and on the other into the Elephants.* (* "Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society" volume 13 1857 page 314.) The next result is to diminish the distance between the several members ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... speak to their manhood. You and they will have no one between you. There will be no official of the camp; no one to listen to you, no one to come between yourself and them. We trust you entirely with them, and you will understand, I am sure, that we do not wish to diminish anyone's sense of nationality who is imprisoned or interned in Germany." ("My Visit to Ruhleben," p. 21.) The words, says Bishop Bury, "seemed to come straight from the heart of the speaker." Some readers will be sceptical; but at least ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... not produce ourselves. These things will be brought to England and sold at the National Service Stores, at the lowest possible price, for paper money, to those in the service of the State. This of course will only have the effect of introducing greater variety into the stocks—it will not diminish the surplus: and as there would be no sense in continuing to produce more of these things than necessary, it would then be the duty of the Administration to curtail or restrict production of the necessaries ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... brevity, obviously comes under the same generalization. If it be an advantage to express an idea in the smallest number of words, then will it be an advantage to express it in the smallest number of syllables. If circuitous phrases and needless expletives distract the attention and diminish the strength of the impression produced, then do surplus articulations do so. A certain effort, though commonly an inappreciable one, must be required to recognize every vowel and consonant. If, as all know, it is tiresome to listen ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... anything from an empire which is the fruit of ten years' war and bloodshed, continued with an admirable courage and accompanied with the most unhappy agitation and an unexampled constancy. It is still less in his power to diminish the territory of a foreign state which, by entrusting him with the care of governing, had laid upon him the duty of protecting it." A few sentences added by the emperor to the diplomatic document left room for vague hopes of certain consolations. ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... The character of ecclesiastical as of all other institutions has varied with the character of the men who have worked them and the varying needs of the times and places in which they have been worked; and our intense feeling of the gratitude we owe to English Puritanism need in nowise diminish the enthusiasm with which we praise the glorious work of the mediaeval church. It is the duty of the historian to learn how to limit and qualify his words of blame or approval; for so curiously is ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... scrape the coat of arms of Henry IV.? We scoff at M. de Vaublanc for erasing the N's from the bridge of Jena! What was it that he did? What are we doing? Bouvines belongs to us as well as Marengo. The fleurs-de-lys are ours as well as the N's. That is our patrimony. To what purpose shall we diminish it? We must not deny our country in the past any more than in the present. Why not accept the whole of history? Why not love the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... each person imported; and this is a political consideration, not arising from either religion or morality, and is the only principle upon which we can proceed to take it up. But what effect do these men suppose will arise from their exertions? Will a duty of ten dollars diminish the importation? Will the treatment be better than usual? I apprehend it will not, nay, it may be worse. Because an interference with the subject may excite a great degree of restlessness in the minds of those it is intended to serve, and that may be a cause ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... be gain-said that the Turkish power was much weakened by the event, and the arrogance of the Christians proportionately increased, while the change of frontier to which it conduced tended rather to aggravate than diminish the evil. The new boundary line was defined by an European mixed commission, which decided on increasing Montenegro by the annexation of territory on the western frontier, including Grahovo, which they had ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... skill and science which has been directed to diminish the difficulty of producing manufactured goods, has not been beneficial to that country alone in which it is concentrated; distant kingdoms have participated in its advantages. The luxurious natives of the East,(1*) ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... manager to gratify: I proved by mathematical demonstration, that small theatres wanted nothing but good dialogue to support them: I entreated you to send your gorgeous trumpery to rag-fair, and to diminish your overgrown Drury, which no man could now think of entering unaccompanied by a telescope and an ear-trumpet. All the persuasions of a Tully, all the energy of a Waithman, were enlisted into my harangue; which ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... live single, or marry late, do not by such conduct contribute in any degree to diminish the actual population, but merely to diminish the proportion of premature mortality, which would otherwise be excessive; and consequently, from this point of view, do not seem to deserve any ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... flaws of structure. It was as if it had erred only through an excess of softness that made the flesh of it plastic to its blood, to the subtle flame that transfused the white of it, flushing and burning to rose-red. A flame that even in soaring knew its place; for it sank before it could diminish the amazing blueness of her eyes; and it had left her forehead and her eyelids to the whiteness that gave accent to eyebrows and eyelashes ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... their westward pushing do not diminish the cattle, they reduce the cattleman and pinch off much that is romantic and picturesque. Between the farm and the wire fence, the cowboy, as once he flourished, has been modified, subdued, and made partially to disappear. In the good old days of the Jones and Plummer trail there ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... were various collateral movements designed to cripple the power and diminish the territory of Mexico. General Kearney, with an independent force of volunteers, had marched into and taken possession of the province of New Mexico; Colonel Doliphan had in like manner occupied Chihuahua; while ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... means," said Charity, smiling a little at the gleam in Miss Havender's eyes. She had a feeling that Miss Havender had a deep, personal interest in Mr. Ferriday. Miss Havender had; most of the women in his environs had. In the first place, he was powerful and could increase or diminish or check salaries. He distributed places and patronage with a royal prerogative. But he was hungry for praise and suffered from the lack of social prestige granted "the ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... sulphuric acid, passed from the first reservoirs to the second, and thence into the immense globe, which was thus gradually inflated. These preparations occupied all the morning, and about 11 o'clock, the balloon was three-quarters full; sufficiently so;—for as we rise, the atmospheric layers diminish in density, and the gas, confined within the aerostat, acquiring more elasticity, might otherwise burst its envelope. My calculations had furnished me with the exact measurement of gas required to carry my companions and ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... find any yielding qualities about the hearts of Miss Betsy or Mrs. Molly. They observed me with jealous eyes; they considered me as an interloper, whose manners attracted Mr. Harris's esteem, and who was likely to diminish their divided influence in the family. I found them daily growing weary of my society; I perceived their sidelong glances when I was complimented by the visiting neighbours on my good looks or taste in the choice of my dresses. Miss Robinson rode on horseback ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... girl, and leaned wholly upon Andy, who seemed to feel how much was depending upon him, and so kept up a cheery aspect while he kindled a fresh fire and cleared the ashes from the hearth by blowing them off upon the oilcloth; then, as the warmth began to make itself felt and the cold to diminish, he answered Richard's query. ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... mistake that he was quite unable to rally himself and talk on the subject with any spirit or confidence. When interrogated he would simply reply that Sir Peter said this and Sir Peter said that, and thus add to, rather than diminish, the doubt, and excitement, and varied opinion which prevailed through the city. On one morning it was absolutely asserted within the limits of the Close that Miss Stanbury was dying,—and it was believed for half a day at the bank that she was then lying in ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... diminish, and she presently looked up at the old man through her tears, and said, in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her feet when she saw who her visitor was, and exhibited the clearest signs of agitation. David's own emotions were not less violent, for although the gypsy's surroundings were poor and mean, they served rather to enhance than to diminish her exquisite beauty. Her shoulders and arms were bare, and on her wrists were gold bracelets of writhing serpents in whose eyes gleamed diamonds. On her fingers and in her ears were other costly stones. Her dress was ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... old friends, whom distance cannot diminish, figuring up in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on terra firma still, for so we must in courtesy interpret that speck of deeper blue which the decorous artist, to prevent absurdity, has made to spring up beneath their sandals. I love the men with women's faces and the women, if possible, ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... and mixed civilization of which it is the offspring. You feel power and invention in it with a touch of quaintness and fancy. Walls of enormous grandeur are developed or expanded without the few windows in them happening to impair their massiveness or diminish their strength. There are no flying buttresses; they are self-sustaining. Marble panels, alternately yellow and black, cover them with a glittering marquetry, and curves of arches let into their masses seem to be the bones of a robust ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... life of America is disappearing at a rapid rate, we all know only too well. That proposition is entirely beyond the domain of argument. The fact that a species or a group of species has made a little gain here and there, or is stationary, does not sensibly diminish the force of the descending blow. The wild-life situation is full of surprises. For example, in 1902 I was astounded by the extent to which bird life had decreased over the 130 miles between Miles City, Montana, ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the surface circulation of the body, and the elimination of waste matter and thus make the body capable of withstanding the causes which lead to disease, and of resisting it when formed. Grief, anguish and despair enfeeble the circulation, diminish or vitiate the secretions, favour the causes which induce disease, and impede the action of the mechanism by which the body may get rid of its maladies. An army when flushed with victory and elated with hope maintains a comparative immunity from disease under physical ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... This saw-horse is lashed to the hull with numerous straps and ropes and on top of it are placed rugs and cushions. Each saddle is built for four passengers, sitting dos-a-dos, back to back, two on a side, and a little shelf hangs down to support their feet. In order to diminish the climb the elephant kneels down in the road. A naked heathen brings a ladder, rests it against the side of the beast and the passengers climb up and take their seats in the saddle. Another naked heathen, who sits straddle the animal's neck, looks around at the load, inquires if everybody is ready, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... fixedly at the captain, shrugged his shoulders, and responded, "It is impossible! The frigate is a fast sailer; she could not diminish her speed to attend ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... confederation. In the newly-elected second chamber, the opposition, at whose head stood the celebrated poet, Uhland, brought forward numerous propositions for reform, but remained in the minority, and it was not until the new diet, held in 1836, that the aristocratic first chamber was induced to diminish socage service and other feudal dues twenty-two and one-half per cent in amount. The literary piracy that had hitherto continued to exist solely in Wurtemberg was also provisionally abolished, the system of national education ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... occasion. The first task will, of course, be to quarry stones. As soon as sufficient are prepared for one of these outworks you should proceed to erect it, as it would render one side at least unassailable and diminish the circuit to be defended. As soon as one is finished, with its drawbridge, ladder, and entrance, proceed with the next. I would build the one at the rear first. As you see from this plan, the two walls are to be twenty feet high and each ten yards long, so that they could be defended ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... is altogether an insufficient excuse to point to the compensation of coolness being secured from the expansion. Fans driven by electric motors already offer a better solution of the ventilation difficulty, and the advantages on this side are certain to increase rather than to diminish during ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... completed his seventeenth year. They were left in independent, if not in affluent, circumstances; but the fond indulgence of a widowed mother, who could deny them no enjoyment, tended, notwithstanding their long minority, to diminish ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... which I write my narrative, but to consider that, though the diversity of incidents may sometimes break the thread of the history, yet I will tell you nothing but with all that sincerity which the regard I have for you demands. And to convince you further that I will neither add to nor diminish from the plain truth, I shall set my name in the front of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of prolonging it, even as slaves, was worth trying. They chose twilight, that they might be unobserved. We can see them creeping cautiously, with beating hearts, towards the camp, expecting every moment to be challenged, and possibly slain. How their caution would diminish and their wonder grow, as they passed from end to end, and found no one! There stood the horses and asses, left behind lest their footfalls should betray the flight, and every tent empty of men and full of spoil. The lepers seem to have gone right through the camp before ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... any circumstances are likely to produce. There will now be more poets in every generation than in that which preceded it; they will increase faster than your population; and as their number increases, so must the proportion of those who will be remembered necessarily diminish. Tell the Fitz-Muses this! It is a consideration, Sir Poet, which may serve as a refrigerant for their ardour. Those of the tribe who may flourish hereafter (as the flourishing phrase is) in any particular age, will be little more remembered in the next than the Lord ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... sound of a door opening and shutting below, the girl again looked from the window. Footsteps crunched on the gravel-walk, and a shape in a drab greatcoat, easily distinguishable as her father, withdrew from the house. He moved to the left, and she watched him diminish down the long east front till he had turned the corner and vanished. He must have gone ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... with his mouth agape and his eyes fixed on the savage baron with such earnestness of terror that his frame seemed literally to shrink together and diminish in size while encountering the fierce Norman's fixed and baleful gaze. The unhappy Isaac was deprived not only of the power of rising to make the [v]obeisance which his fear had dictated, but he could not even doff his cap ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... was to clear the bushes away from the court of the temple; and this, after several days' hard work, he carried out; although he soon saw that by so doing he would not diminish the number of the snakes, for the greater portion of the area was covered with blocks of fallen stone, among which the reptiles found an impenetrable shelter. The clearance effected, however, was so far useful ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... diminish his disquiet. On the contrary, he became every moment more excited as he turned them over. "These are all from Central India!" he said, laying aside part of the bouquet. "They are rare, even there: and I have never seen them in any other part of the world. These two are ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... echoed by the hollow ground; and, though it was not altogether dark, the verger having left a lamp burning just before the door that led to the chapel (otherwise it would have been impossible for him to have found the place), yet did the glimmering it gave, rather add to, than diminish, the solemn horror ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... always singular and always instructive. I could not be checked by any fear of overstepping the modesty of Truth in the celebration of Virtue, so solid and so extensive, that the malevolence of Envy could not diminish its weight, the fondness of Enthusiasm could not amplify its effects. But I must not forget that there are professional limits to my discourse. It is incumbent on me to confine myself to a single object, and to dwell only ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... value to the proprietor, I was permitted to take all I could carry away; and in a single day's time, M. Houlet and I, aided by some slaves, succeeded in possessing ourselves of 3,000 young plants, which we carefully arranged in bamboo baskets (here called cestos). To diminish the weight, M. Houlet removed as little soil as possible; but carefully wetted the roots before closing the baskets, and covered them with banana leaves. In one garden, the largest I have seen devoted to the growth of tea, but which is not particularly well kept, I saw that the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... to be undertaken seriously; and while this would be an ultimate source of wealth, its immediate effect was to diminish the demand for imported foodstuffs—another blow to a purely ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... fairly to be argued that she could not see us; I therefore went forward and slipped the cable without noise, and sent men up aloft to loose the sails. There was a light breeze, sufficient to carry us about two knots through the water, and we knew that it would rather increase than diminish. In half an hour, weak-handed as we were, we were under sail, every thing being done without a word being spoken, and with the utmost precaution. You may imagine how rejoiced we all were when we found that we had manoeuvred so well; notwithstanding, we kept a sharp look-out, to see ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... for me did not diminish. While in his right mind he could not bear to have me out of his sight. Every morning we might have been seen leaving our cottage, I holding his hand as he went to his work; yet nearly as certainly as the evening came round I had to creep supperless to bed. All day he would ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... indeed, constantly circulated, and tended to damp the ardour and diminish the vigilance of the line. Some scouring parties from Norfolk Plains fell in with a tribe of forty, whom they pursued beyond the Shannon. They followed them for three days, but were compelled to return: the blacks, in their progress, had surprised a settler, and murdered him. The rumours of escape ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... disapproves of blood-letting in fevers, "for a fever is like a pot boiling; it is requisite to reduce the fire and not diminish the liquid in the vessel, if we ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... greater. In other words, the conditions were those of to-day intensified. In summer, then, the amount of water seeking outlet by these drainage channels to the sea was enormously multiplied, and the corrasive power was correspondingly augmented. When the ice caps finally began to permanently diminish, the summer floods were doubtless terrific. The waters of the Colorado now rise in the Grand Canyon, on the melting of the snows in the distant mountains, from forty to one hundred feet; the rise must then have amounted to from one hundred to four hundred or more. The Kanab ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... anteriorly are seen the two vocal processes which give attachment to the two vocal cords (white ligaments), which extend across the voice-box to be inserted in front in the angle of the shield cartilage. Groups of muscles pull upon these cartilages in such a manner as to increase, or diminish, the chink between the vocal cord in ordinary inspiration and expiration; in phonation a group of muscles approximate the cords, while another muscle ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... opens with a series of restless dotted notes for the strings ff which diminish and retard to an entrance of the first theme, piu lento, for the pianoforte; the two phrases of which are interrupted by a passage, somewhat modified, from the introduction. Some preludial measures, expanding the material presented, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... much opposition in carrying out his plans, and had he been less popular than he was with the people his efforts might have cost him his throne and his life: but the Rebu were devoted to him, and as the priests came gradually to see that the change would not diminish their power, their opposition died away, especially as many of the younger men were soon convinced by the arguments of the king and his minister, and preached the new religion with enthusiasm among the people. But it was not until many years after ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... will of course need special treatment. Moreover provision of German for all has avowedly not been made. For all it is desirable and for many indispensable. But as the number who read it for pleasure, never very large, seems likely to diminish, German may perhaps be reserved as a tool, the use of which must ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... unexpectedness; but the great essential features of the prospect preserve throughout the year the same impressive serenity. Soracte, be it January or May, rises from its blue horizon like an island from the sea and with an elegance of contour which no mood of the year can deepen or diminish. You know it well; you have seen it often in the mellow backgrounds of Claude; and it has such an irresistibly classic, academic air that while you look at it you begin to take your saddle for a faded old arm- chair in a palace gallery. A month's rides in different directions will ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... different direction to what I said I was when leaving Kangwe, and there are so many ways of accounting for death about here—leopard, canoe capsize, elephants, etc.—that even if I were traced—well, nothing could be done then, anyhow—so will only take three Fans. One must diminish dead certainties to the level of sporting chances along here, or ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... exception of the plain between Pasco and the vicinity of Tarma, twenty leagues in extent, and the valley of Xauxa) presents a continuation of rugged and fatiguing ascents and declivities. That these difficulties do not diminish between Cuzco and Potosi may be inferred from the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... there not good reason to believe that this refusal was prompted by laudable feelings? What selfish motive could faction itself impute to the royal mind? The Exclusion Bill did not curtail the reigning King's prerogatives, or diminish his income. Indeed, by passing it, he might easily have obtained an ample addition to his own revenue. And what was it to him who ruled after him? Nay, if he had personal predilections, they were known to be rather in favour of the Duke of Monmouth than of the Duke of York. The most natural explanation ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... production, the factors which make work pleasant or irksome, and especially the moral condition of the worker. Good-will diminishes the toll which labour takes of the labourer; envy and hatred vastly increase it while they diminish its product. It is, of course, impossible that the worker should not resent having to devote his life to making what is useless or mischievous, and to ministering to the irrational wastefulness of luxury. Christianity, in condemning the selfish ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... the Treasury Department, so far as may be practicable under its present powers over the collection, keeping, and disbursement of the public money, is to diminish the circulation of small bank notes and to substitute specie, and especially gold, for such notes, with the view of rendering the currency of the country, through which its fiscal operations are ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson
... to year, but there is no more—there is no possible way of adding to it, though we may lessen it by allowing it to rush out to sea, giving no service to the land. As the land waters diminish ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... must ever be very limited, because those persons who are fitted for the due performance of them are of necessity few in number; and that in proportion as new facts are added by them to our knowledge, THE EXPERIMENTS MUST DIMINISH IN NUMBER...." ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... all the leading papers. When the paid-for advertisements terminated not a single paper would renew the contract. The holders of those quack medicines and patents had found means to shut down (so far as the advertising of it was concerned) a scientific work which threatened to diminish their profits. That is why I ask what price we are prepared to pay for the protection of ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... assume their natural right of independence, and refuse to rise. It was Lord Lovat's policy, therefore, to discourage all disposition in his clansmen to enter trade or to go to sea and seek their fortunes abroad, lest they should both shake off their dependence on him, and also, by emigrating, diminish the broad and pompous retinue with which he chose to appear on all occasions. It was therefore his endeavour to check industry, to oppose improvement, to preach up the heroism of his ancestors, who never stooped to the meannesses of commerce, but made themselves famous by martial ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... perform other necessary work. Repaired the chronometer and one of the aneroid barometers, which had been broken by the motion of one of the pack-horses. As there was no practicable route to the south, and the sandstone hills to the north seemed to diminish in elevation to the east, I decided on following the northern limit of the desert to the west till some line of practicable country was found by which to penetrate the country to the south. In selecting a westerly route ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... practising was similar to that which other artists feel when members of the public break in and see their work in an incomplete condition. He liked his music to be appreciated. He felt that acknowledgment of the stages by which it came to its ultimate perfection was likely to diminish its glory. But he had no place in which he could practise except the back yard of his father's house, and that, unfortunately, was in the very middle ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... as much as others. Woe to him who would seek to diminish the force of this moral spring; he would cripple at a blow all the virtues. I do not, however, place this noblest of sentiments on the somewhat isolated height where it is put by the exclusive adorers of liberty. Let us not confound dignity with mere loftiness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... long as Weather will permit and if by the providence of God, that by Stormy Weather or some unforeseen Accident we should part, I then Order You to proceed directly to the Island of providence, One of the Bahamia Islands, and there to wait my Arrivall, And not to Embezzle diminish Waste Sell or Unload any part of her Cargo till I am there present, Under the penalty of the Articles Already Signed by You. Att Your Arrivall att providence make a Just Report to his Hon'r the Gov'r of that place of the Sloop's Cargo and what on Board and ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... polysyllables such as Gongora (p. 209) and Zuniga (p. 57 and elsewhere). It will be seen that, in this matter, I have been guided by strictly utilitarian principles. Inconsistencies are perhaps unavoidable under any system. The plan followed here, while it tends to diminish the total number of accents, probably involves no more inconsistencies than any other. It is based on rational grounds, and is, it may be hoped, less offensive to the eye than the current system. Quotations, I repeat, are reproduced ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... work. Finding here enough to explain his influence, and the true seal of mastery, its authors assign to Pellegrino da San Daniele the Holy Family in the Louvre, for certain points in which it comes short of that standard, but which will hardly diminish the spectator's enjoyment of a singular charm of liquid air, with which the whole picture seems instinct, filling the eyes and lips, the very garments, of its sacred personages, with some wind-searched brightness and energy; of which fine air the blue peak, clearly defined ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... 1860, and Mississippi soon after. Emissaries came to Louisiana to influence the Governor, Legislature, and people, and it was the common assertion that, if all the Cotton States would follow the lead of South Carolina, it would diminish the chances of civil war, because a bold and determined front would deter the General Government from any measures of coercion. About this time also, viz., early in December, we received Mr. Buchanan's annual message to ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... bodies would cause a relative reduction in the wings—as with the Pouter, where the wings have been greatly lengthened but not so much as the body.[28] Slender bodies, too, and the lessened divergence of the furculum,[29] would slightly diminish the spread of the wings, and so would affect the measurements taken. As the wing-bones, moreover, are to some extent correlated with the beak and the feet, the artificial selection of shortened beaks might tend to shorten the wing as well as the feet. Under these circumstances how ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... real when I find myself leaning for a moment on a ruined wall and looking listlessly down into the historic pool of Bethesda. I did not think such things could be so crowded together as to diminish their interest. But in serious truth, we have been drifting about, for several days, using our eyes and our ears more from a sense of duty than any higher and worthier reason. And too often we have been glad when it was time to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... convention was looked upon as the probable recipient of the honor that fell to Garfield, the generous warmth of this letter will be accounted most creditable to both of the two friends, whose strong friendship rivalry could not weaken or diminish. ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... were leaving, the first four companies of the Rifle Brigade arrived. Every day boats laden with stores went forward, every day white troops came up. Vast as was the quantity of stores sent off, the piles at Atbara did not seem to diminish. Ninety days' provisions, forage, and necessaries for the whole force had been accumulated there, and as fast as these were taken away they were ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... exercised great hospitality, would be taxed much more lightly than one who entertained fewer guests. Secondly, this mode of taxation, by paying for an annual, half-yearly, or quarterly licence to consume certain goods, would diminish very much one of the principal conveniences of taxes upon goods of speedy consumption; the piece-meal payment. In the price of threepence halfpenny, which is at present paid for a pot of porter, the different taxes upon malt, hops, and beer, together with the extraordinary profit which ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... I learned was not to believe too firmly anything of which I had learnt merely by example and custom; and thus little by little was delivered from many errors which are liable to obscure the light of nature, and to diminish our capacity of hearing reason. Finally, I resolved one day to study myself in the same way, and in this it seems to me I succeeded much better than if I had never departed from either my country or ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... concerning the pamphlet seems rather to increase than diminish, but Seor Gutierrez has many devoted friends, and the place of his retreat is secure. There is little doubt that he will be forced to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... I was close to one of the crimson curtains. For I hoped that if I entered any one of the twelve halls at the right moment, that would as it were give me the right of entrance to all the others, seeing they all had communication behind. I would not diminish the hope of the right chance, by supposing it necessary that a desire to enter should awake within me, precisely when I was close to the ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... they certainly showed it little in their appearance and manner, and Laura was at least sure that if Selina had been perpetually dropping in Miss Steet would have taken that discomfort even more tragically. The sight of this young woman's either real or fancied wrongs did not diminish her conviction that she herself would have found courage to become a governess. She would have had to teach very young children, for she believed she was too ignorant for higher flights. But Selina would never have consented to that—she ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... also advised him to the course, regarding it as the easiest method of keeping good the fortune of Sheldon, whose choice of literature as a profession tended rather to diminish than increase his coffers. And so he embarked his all with Hardin; and all thought him sure to succeed in the enterprise, with so far-seeing and judicious a ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the hissing of the exploding rocket fuel began to diminish in volume. The apex of the flight was nearly at ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... sufficient to observe that he composed this wooden elephant in such a manner that all the parts could be separated. He opened a panel (it is immaterial on which side of the body) and introduced himself into the interior by means of this opening, either to diminish the thickness of the wood or for any other purpose during its construction; the head, the trunk, all was hollow; so that the body, alarming at first from its supposed weight, might be easily transported from one place ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... her ideal of Sunday occupation, and she had gained a little fragmentary experience under Sydney's guidance at Fordham. So she was in a most engaging glow of shy delight, and the tidy little well-trained girls who were allotted to her did not diminish her satisfaction. To say that Armine's positive enjoyment was equal to hers would not be true, but he had intended all his life to be a clergyman, and he was resolved not to shrink from his first experience of the kind. The boys were too ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Rosalie greeted the visitors without a shadow of confusion or a sign of gaucherie. Bonner felt a thrill of joy and pride as he took note of the look of surprise that crept into his mother's face—a surprise that did not diminish as the girl went through ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... eye with beauty. It is created for the purpose of moving through the sea and over the sea with the smallest resistance and the greatest stability; yet, somehow, it does fill the eye with its beauty. And in so far as a boat fails in its purpose, by that much does it diminish in beauty. ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... less side-movement of the pole. In a regular curve, the movements are the same; but in going from a shorter to a longer, or from a longer to a shorter curve, the side-measurement must increase or diminish regularly. ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... would bring in a steady income to author and publisher. The offer found the Professor in a moment of financial perplexity. His illness, his unwonted holiday, the necessity of postponing a course of well-paid lectures, had combined to diminish his resources; and when Harviss offered him an advance of a thousand dollars the esoteric savour of the joke became irresistible. It was still as a joke that he persisted in regarding the transaction; and though he had ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... source almost as intangible as Cassowary's ship. Food and tobacco! What more could the heart of a casual relic of such a race want? Actually he wanted nothing more, save, peradventure, a blanket; but he dreamt he did, and no earthly agent could diminish the festal extravagance of the scenes among which he revelled, conducted by the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... ceased firing, and as our boats had escaped damage, one was lowered, and McAllister and I went on board to take possession. We had certainly contrived in a short hour considerably to spoil the beauty of the French schooner, and dreadfully to diminish the number of her crew. Her brave captain and most of his officers were wounded, and six men were killed and ten wounded. Her captain received us on the quarter-deck, where he stood ready to deliver his sword with the greatest ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... conditions of rude or violent life. He was not likely to find a satisfying range in any mode of existence that would be shared by Sibyl. But he clutched at any chance of extensive travel. It might be necessary—it certainly would be—to make further incision into his capital, and so diminish the annual return upon which he could count for the future; but when his income had already become ludicrously inadequate, what did that matter? The years of independence were past; somehow or other, he must make money. Everybody did it nowadays, and an 'opening' would ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... garrison are confident they can hold out, while at Delhi we know that our position is becoming stronger every day; the reinforcements are beginning to arrive from England, and though the work may be slow at first, our army will grow, while their strength will diminish, until we sweep them before us. I need not stop until the end, only till the peril is over, till Lucknow is relieved, ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... the shudd'ring midnight I had sent From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent, That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry— That in no after-moment aught less vast Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout Black horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout From the more with'ring scene diminish'd pass'd. Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity! Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood, Wand'ring at eve, with finely frenzied eye, Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! Awhile, with mute awe gazing, I would brood, Then weep aloud in a ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... are with the Lord are tender, great, rich, a multitude, and manifold; so they are mercies that DIMINISH NOT in the using, but that rather increase in the exercising of them. Hence it is said, grace aboundeth, and hath abounded unto many; and that God is able to make all grace abound towards us (Rom 5:15; 2 Cor 9:8; Eph 1:7,8). The grace of forgiveness I mean, wherein he hath abounded ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the coalition; and he is such a happy man that he never undertook any thing in which he did not succeed: and even if there were no hopes of success at present, ought we not to sow the seed which may be useful to posterity[652]? Even if we should only diminish the mutual hatred among Christians, and render them more sociable, would not this be worth purchasing at the price ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, follow him with an eternal song, nor(496) before the mountains and hills were, when nothing was brought forth. Many thousand more worlds would add nothing to him, nor diminish anything from him. It is not so with man, he is bounded and limited, he cannot have well being in his own breast. He was indeed created with it in the enjoyment of God, which was his happiness, so that ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... four Evangelists, with their several characteristics. The predominance of the number four again appears in another way. There are four general covenants, of Noah, of Abraham, of Moses, of Christ. It is therefore an act of audacious folly to increase or diminish the number of the Gospels. As there is fitness and order in all the other works of God, so also we may expect to find it in ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... people, early advised of the advance of the foraging party, mounted their horses, rifle in hand, from every direction; and, occupying well protected positions along the main road, also faithfully endeavored to diminish the number of his Majesty's forces, and hastened the retreat of the British into Charlotte, the survivors swearing after their arrival that "every bush along the road concealed ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... gathering corn, was liable to be surprised and slaughtered. In this way tribes were either swept away at once, or gradually thinned out, and savage life was surrounded with constant horrors and alarms. That the race of red men should diminish from year to year, and so few should survive of the numerous nations which evidently once peopled the vast regions of the west, is nothing surprising; it is rather matter of surprise that so many should survive; for the existence of a savage in these parts seems little ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... thousands. He bought fine clothes, purchased fine horses, gave grand entertainments, made handsome presents, lived as if he had been as rich as Sir James Lowther, or his Grace of Bedford, and yet the five thousand pounds never seemed to diminish. No wonder that he gave where giving was so easy; no wonder that he was generous with Fortunatus's purse in his pocket. I say no wonder that he gave, for such was his nature. Other Fortunati tie up the endless purse, drink small beer, and go to bed ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... inconveniences possible in this nocturnal party, the Queen determined on having a number of people with her; and even ordered her waiting women to accompany her. All precautions were ineffectual to prevent the effects of calumny, which thenceforward sought to diminish the general attachment that she had inspired. A few days afterwards, the most wicked libel that appeared during the earlier years of her reign was circulated in Paris. The blackest colours were employed to paint an enjoyment so harmless that there is scarcely a young ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... the main struggle for victory in the war. The case against divergent operations was strongest of all against the East African campaign; and it would have been criminal folly for the sake of amour propre or imperial expansion to diminish our safeguards against a German victory in the West, or weaken the defence of our threatened communications with Egypt and India. Von Lettow-Vorbeck had forces enough to hold his own, but he never even attempted the conquest of British East Africa or the Belgian Congo, and the most ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... little help. I venture to call it help, the sort of thing he came to me for on that summer afternoon. It is always help when a woman who is not an idiot lets an embarrassed man take up her time. If he too is not an idiot, that does n't diminish the service; on the contrary his superiority to the average helps him to profit. Ambrose Tester had said to me more than once, in the past, that he was capable of telling me things, because I was an American, that ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... those who maintain that it is vain to search for reasons of the laws where none are given in the Bible itself; that the sole reason in those cases is the will of God. These people labor under the absurd impression that to discover a rational purpose in the ceremonial laws would diminish their value and reduce them to human institutions. Their divine character and origin is attested in the minds of these people by their irrationality, by the fact that they have no human meaning. This is clearly ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... writes on our fate at the hour of birth:— first, age; secondly, action; thirdly, wealth; fourthly, science; fifthly, fame. I have now done a good deed, and as long as a man's virtue is in the ascendant, all people becoming his servants obey him. But when virtuous deeds diminish, even his friends become ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... to Enforce Peace— undertakes, but the difficulties cannot be overcome unless we try to overcome them. I believe much can be done. Probably it will be impossible to stop all wars, but it certainly will be possible to stop some wars, and thus diminish their number. The way in which this problem must be worked out must be left to this league and to those who are giving this great subject the study which it deserves. I know the obstacles. I know how quickly we shall be met with the statement that this ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... very sensitive, and a very honest mind. His emotions were noble. He felt so keenly that he was obliged to find relief in imparting his emotions. And his mental processes were so sincere that he could neither exaggerate nor diminish the truth. If he had lacked any one of these three qualities, his appeal would have been narrowed and weakened, and he would not have become a classic. Either his feelings would have been deficient in supreme beauty, and therefore less worthy to be imparted, or he would not ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... an animal and to feed on it, although neither his nails nor his teeth nor his muscles make it natural to him. To hunt, to fish, to defend his territory against the wild beasts who attacked it and himself, to drive back tribes of his fellows who would diminish his provisions, these were the first rudiments of the industry of Man. Having become more skilful, he obtained in an expedition more game than he could consume at once; he then kept near him living ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... crop proved an "embarrassment of riches." We feasted on them ourselves and gave to our neighbors, and yet our store did not visibly diminish. The county fair occurred on September 22 that fall; and Addison suggested loading a farm wagon—one with a body fifteen feet long—with about eight hundred of the cantaloupes and tempting the public appetite—at ten cents a melon. The girls helped us to decorate ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... deepest intuition into child's nature, and therefore had the deepest reverence for it, wrote as follows: "Where we behold children we suspect there are princes, but as to the kings, where are they?" Not only life's tragic elements diminish and dam up its vital energies. Equally destructive is a parent's want of reverence for the sources of life which meet them in a new being. Fathers and mothers must bow their heads in the dust before the exalted nature of the child. Until they see that the word "child" is only another expression for ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... the interest of the state demanded: that the supply of precious metals should not diminish; and that the nation should not be dependent upon rival countries for staple commodities. The supply of gold and silver actually present in the king's coffers, or within the radius of his tax-gatherers, was of far greater moment then than now. ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... none of us will easily forget the sledge-hammer blows with which he smote the table. The noise was distinctly audible in the room below, and gave one the idea that the table would be broken to pieces. In vain we withdrew from the table, hoping to diminish the power. The heavy blows increased in intensity, and the whole room shook with their force. The direst penalties were threatened if we again interfered with the development by bringing in new sitters. We have not ventured to do so again; and I do not think we shall easily be persuaded ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... father paired with his daughter, than from a mother with her son. I may add that Mr. Eyton, of Eyton, the well-known ornithologist, who is a large breeder of Grey Dorkings, informs me that they certainly diminish in size, and become less prolific, unless a cross with another strain is occasionally obtained. So it is with Malays, according to Mr. Hewitt, as far as size ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... is a mere aggregation of physical atoms, as a planet is, so organized that they constitute an instrument for a purpose. The mass of matter constituting the body is a variable mass. It may increase or diminish greatly, but the man remains unchanged. There is no permanent relationship between the man and the physical matter which he uses for his vehicle of consciousness. According to the physiologists every atom of the body ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... instance, with a time when the observer can find few or no spots, they gradually increase in number and size until a maximum, in both senses, is reached, during which the spots are often of enormous size and exceedingly active. After two or three years they begin to diminish in number, magnitude, and activity until they almost or quite disappear. A strange fact is that when a new period opens, the spots appear first in high northern and southern latitudes, far from the solar equator, and as the period advances they not only increase in number and size, but ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... historical knowledge, and the unique example of provident and exhaustive equipment which she cited, reduced me to silence, but did not diminish my anxiety. The delay made me nervous, ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... on the roof!" he said, and setting down the pail he had brought, he got on his hands and knees, first to escape the wind in his ears, and next to diminish its hold on his person. Over roof after roof he crept like a cat, stopping to listen every time a new gush of the sound came, then starting afresh in the search for its source. Upon a great gathering of ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... has given us a wonderful work in constructive imagination. As has been said elsewhere, the imagination works with the ideas which are present in the mind. It creates nothing, but it may enlarge, diminish or recombine ideas with an infinity of form. In Adventures in Lilliput Swift has used largely the reducing power of his imagination. If he has been accurate, he has reduced everything in the same proportion. An interesting study of this phase ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... frequently useful to diminish the quantity of natural stimulus for a short time, by which afterwards the irritability of the system becomes increased; according to the third law of irritation above-mentioned, hence the use of baths ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... earnestness to give your most sincere attention to this matter. It is of the utmost importance to every one of you. Let your next object be to obtain as soon as may be, a competency of the good things of this world; immense wealth is not necessary for you, and would but diminish your real happiness. Abject poverty is and ought to be regarded as the greatest, most terrible of all possible evils. It should be shunned as a most deadly and damning sin. What then are the means by which so dreadful a calamity may be avoided? ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... distrust. He advised the building of forts near Lake Erie, and his advice was rejected. "Niagara and Detroit," he was told, "will secure forever our communications with Louisiana."[56] "His Majesty," again wrote the Colonial Minister, "thought that expenses would diminish after the peace; but, on the contrary, they have increased. There must be great abuses. You and the Intendant must look to it."[57] Great abuses there were; and of the money sent to Canada for the service of the King the larger part ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... by influencing the mind of the party with a high idea of the importance and solemnity of the business. In England the familiarity of the object and the summary method of administering oaths are well known to diminish their weight, and to render them too often nugatory. They sometimes swear by the earth, laying their hands upon it and wishing that it may never produce aught for their nourishment if they speak falsely. In all these ceremonies they burn on the spot a little gum benzoin—Et acerra thuris ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... practice cannot be sheer suicide, when the Dutch peasant-girl plods bloomingly through her daily duties beneath a dozen successive involucres of flannel. So in regard to tight lacing, no one can doubt its ill effects, since even a man's loose garments are known to diminish by one-fourth his capacity for respiration. Yet inspect in the shop-windows (where the facts of female costume are obtruded too pertinaciously for the public to remain in ignorance) the light and flexible corsets of these days, and then contemplate at Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth the stout buckram ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... they are modest in behaviour. M. Denon has underrated the Nubians, but it must not be forgotten that their physique varies in different districts. Where there is much land to cultivate, they are well developed; but in districts where arable land is a mere strip, the people diminish in vigour, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... larger—the size of one of Polter's giants—would enable us to make it. We would be seen, but in the pale starlight, keeping away from the city as much as possible, we might only be mistaken for Polter's people. And when we got closer we would diminish our size, creep into the boat, get near Babs and Polter and then plan what ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... night, with all the pomp observed amongst noble families on such occasions. The church in which the corpse was buried, was hung with black cloth; and even the innumerable wax tapers which burned upon the altar and around the coffin failed to diminish the lugubrious ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... possible Turner might have felt the necessity of compelling himself sometimes to dwell on the most familiar and prosaic scenery, in order to prevent his becoming so much accustomed to that of a higher class as to diminish his enthusiasm in its presence. Into this probability I shall have occasion to ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... took over, but such was his adroitness, skill and tact in leading them that he won their complete confidence and trust, and they gave him an unreserved support as well as a free hand in many things. This unbounded support of his early work he never forgot; nor did he let his appreciation diminish with the success of later years. In the course of the observances that marked his forty years as rector, he ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... night[250], Where flames consume, and yet we freeze with cold. Sorrow adds sulphur unto fury's heat, And chops them ice whose chattering teeth do beat; But sulphur, snow, flame, frost, nor hideous crying Can cause them die that ever are in dying, Nor make the pain diminish or increase: Sorrow is slack, and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... own pride. That you should see me disloyal to him in little things, such as this—" (she caught his hand again and caressed it with soft finger-tips) "—hurts me in my love for you, diminishes me, must diminish me in your eyes. I shrink from the thought that my disloyalty to him in this I do—" (she laid his hand against her cheek) "—gives you reason to pity him and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... soil will certainly have an influence on the number and character of the Mushrooms. As a proof of the exhaustive nature of the fungus, it almost invariably happens that when the soil is used a second time it tends to diminish the size and lower the quality ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons |
