"Lessening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jamestown Island after considerable had been accomplished in the way of lessening the number of its historic sites. For a long while, almost every important event in its story had occurred at so many different places that it was scarcely possible for the pilgrim to do justice ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... not ask you strive to keep Awake the woe that winks for sleep, Or swell the lessening tear; I do not ask; dear to me still May be the eyes regret would fill; And, sooth, in vain I'd Nature sue To go a little out for you; But whether 'tis Or that or this Is from ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... be well-founded diffidence in recommending the study. The advantage conferred upon the nation by a more wide-spread and intelligent understanding of military matters, as a factor in national life that must exist for some ages to come, and one which recent events, so far from lessening, have rendered more conspicuous and more necessary, affords a sounder ground for insisting that it is an obligation of each citizen to understand something of the principles of warfare, and of the national needs ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... anchor in Plymouth harbor. The fifteenth Sunday in this port. Many of the crew dead and some still sick, but the sickness and mortality lessening. ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... the wheel and we looked for the shift that old Martin had promised, but there was no sign of it—no lift to the misty horizon, no lessening in the strength of the squalls, now heavy with a smashing of bitter sleet. Bunched up against the helm, a mass of oilskins glistening in the compass light, our 'lucky man' scarce seemed to be doing anything but cower from the weather. Only the great eyes of him, ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... more talk, we bade the old couple good day, and went to peep at the cellar where they had crept stealthily away, for the sake of keeping their expenses close to their lessening income. The place was empty, and the door was open. It was a damp and cheerless little hole, down in the corner of a dirty court. We went next into Pole Street, and tried the door of a cottage where a widow woman lived with ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... perhaps, decides to shut up the shops; he ceases to make profits for a short time. There is no change in his habits, food, clothing, pleasures—no agonizing fear of want. Contrast this with his workman whose lessening means of subsistence torment him. He has few comforts, scarcely the necessities for his wife and children in health, and for the sick little ones no proper treatment. It is not capital we need to guard, but helpless labor. If I returned to business ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... one end of the kingdom to the other there is a general collapse of industry. Those Members of this House not intimately acquainted with the trade and commerce of the country do not fully comprehend our position as to the diminution of employment and the lessening of wages. An increase in the cost of living is finding its way to the homes and hearts of a vast number of the ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... there are few occasions where the Operation Plan will not accomplish the full purpose of the Operation Order. The use of the Operation Plan removes the undesirable feature of imposing possible restriction on the latitude allowed the subordinate without, in any degree, lessening the ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... of the MS. suggests that, either the sun is traveling on an orbit of great eccentricity, or else that it was approaching the green star on a lessening orbit. And at this moment, I conceive it to be finally torn directly from its oblique course, by the gravitational ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... for the things you don't know, Doc," he went on, his manner relaxing as he felt that his difficulties were lessening. "You didn't read the report I'd written. It told the whole story of the boy right. I tore it up after you'd—told me. I had to. If I hadn't, why, I'd have lost that anchor God Almighty flung out to me in my trouble. Next to my own little kiddie I love that boy. He's got into my heart good—what's ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... its speed, bracing its steel muscles, its thews of iron, and roared out upon the open track, filling the air with the rasp of its tempest-breath, blotting the sunshine with the belch of its hot, thick smoke. Already it was lessening in the distance, when Delaney, Christian, and the sheriff of Visalia dashed up to ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... name of von Kluck was beginning to have a familiar ring. English and French were retreating before the enveloping progression of the invaders. Some were expecting another Sedan. Desnoyers was following the advance of the Germans, going daily to the Gare du Nord. Every twenty-four hours was lessening the radius of travel. Bulletins announcing that tickets would not be sold for the Northern districts served to indicate how these places were falling, one after the other, into the power of the invader. The shrinkage of national territory was going ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... ourselves had the village church in view, all of which we have now planted out of sight! Very true: but, instead of the parish steeple, have we not steeples of our own in every direction? And, instead of the road, with the Gloucestershire hills and lessening clouds in perspective, have we not the cedar quincunx? Yet see the curse of obstinacy and want of taste! Would you think it, Aby? ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... that we could not escape. Our pursuer was hardly a gunshot off, and slowly but surely lessening the space between us. The sagacious Mr. Campbell regarded our capture as inevitable, and, true to his characteristics, repeated the stratagem which had served him so successfully when we were molested by the Patriot privateer. He doffed his old garments, which were not worth stealing, and ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... no talk of raising wages in proportion, this arrangement was equivalent to a cut of twelve cents per week and the girls rebelled and went out on strike to the number of twenty-five hundred. In all probability, however, it was not only the enforced lessening of their wages, but some of the many irritating conditions as well that always attend any plan of living-in, whether the employe be a mill girl, a department-store clerk or a domestic servant, that goaded the girls on, for we hear of "dictation not only ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... to you personally?" said Theydon, racking his wits for some means of lessening the girl's foreboding without tickling the ears of the other people in the compartment by suggesting that she might have been brought from her home by some cruel ruse ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... and fall in slow and billowing bursts, and for perhaps the next five minutes, these stupendous waves of uncontrollable excitement, now rising into the deepest and fiercest shouts, and then sinking, like the ground swell of the ocean, into hoarse and lessening murmurs, rolled through the multitude. Every now and then it would seem as though the physical power of the assembly was exhausted, when all at once a new hurricane would break out, more prolonged and terrific than anything before. If sheer exhaustion had not prevented, we don't know but the ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... sign of outward suffering, without consciousness of acute pain. The task of her life had been weary, and the wished-for goal was ever becoming more and more distant; but there had been still a chance, and she had fallen away into a lethargy of lessening expectation, from which joy, indeed, had been banished, but in which there had been nothing of agony. Then had come upon the whole house at Heavitree the great Stanbury peril, and, arising out of that, had sprung new hopes to Arabella, which made her again capable ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... wealth, and root of misery. He carried his corrupting influence with him, go where he would; and shed it round him, even on his hearth. It made of his own child a greedy expectant, who measured every day and hour the lessening distance between his father and the grave, and cursed his tardy ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... day to feel the influence of such a pass of civilization, and went west, almost as a matter of course. With the commencement of his migratory life, Gershom began to "dissipate," as it has got to be matter of convention to term "drinking." Fortunately, Mrs. Waring had no children, thus lessening in a measure the privations to which those unlucky females were obliged to submit. When Gershom left his birthplace he had a sum of money exceeding a thousand dollars in amount, the united means of himself and sister; but, by the time he had reached Detroit, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... feel that too impatiently I seem to multiply the sounds of woe. Yet suffer me, dear women! Mighty force Compels me. Who that had a noble heart And saw her father's cause, as I have done, By day and night more outraged, could refrain? Are my woes lessening? Are they not in bloom?— My mother full of hate and hateful proved, Whilst I in my own home must dwell with these, My father's murderers, and by them be ruled, Dependent on their bounty even for ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... surface of pail. The entrance of organisms into the milk can be greatly reduced by lessening the area of the milk pail directly exposed to the dust shower. A number of so-called sanitary or hygienic milk pails have been devised for this purpose. In one case the pail is smaller at the top than bottom, but in most of them the common form is kept and ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... our feast before A lessening group was yearly spread, And all our joys were ruffled o'er With somber mem'ries of ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... fain would I rest thereby, And watch the flickering martins fly About the long eave-bottles red And the clouds lessening overhead: E'en now meseems the cows are come Unto the grey gates of our home, And low to hear the milking-pail: The peacock spreads abroad his tail Against the sun, as down the lane The milkmaids pass the moveless wain, And stable ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... sense of the prevention of pregnancy by chemical, mechanical, or other artificial means, is being widely advocated as a sure method of lessening poverty and of increasing the physical and mental health of the nation. It is, therefore, advisable to examine these claims and the grounds on which they are based. The following investigation will prove that the propaganda throughout ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... this. It was therefore urgent to resort to measures which should develop the colonies; and the question was inevitable whether reserving to British navigation the trade by which they were supplied was not more than compensated by the diminished production, with its effect in lessening the cargoes employing ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... converted. I had no doubts. It seemed at the moment that my father had acted wisely in leaving his Iowa farm in order to claim his share of Uncle Sam's rapidly-lessening unclaimed land. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... DEFINITIONS.-l. A-bat'ing, lessening. List'less-ly, not paying attention, heedlessly. 3. Fal'low, a new clearing usually covered with brush heaps. 8. Con-cen-tra'tion, bringing into a small space, the essence. 9. Can'o-py, a covering or curtain. 10. Ef-fect', to ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... make a long tack, this time I guess,' continued the earl, as they both stood watching the still lessening sails of ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... constant demand for small detachments, each of which should be commanded by a commissioned officer, and the various details of officers for necessary service away from their commands occasion a scarcity in the number required for company duties. With a view to lessening this drain to some extent, it is recommended that the law authorizing the detail of officers from the active list as professors of tactics and military science at certain colleges and universities be so amended as to provide that all such details ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... out. Every morning the lads danced in solemn procession round the hut, lessening their rounds by one each day. Daily the heap of fruit, dried fish, and vegetables under the shed increased; and the natives, who believed that their new deities were intent upon the thoughts of marriage, had no suspicion whatever of any desire, ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... be drawn out to minutes as the Boers rode on, lessening their distance and talking loudly in a sort of formation two or three abreast, till the front pair were level, when one of them raised his hand to shade his eyes, and drew his comrade's attention to ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... moment bear to think. His heart swelled, his brow flushed, whenever the remembrance of that position flashed upon his mind, yet he never for an instant regarded it as changing his relations with Lucy, or lessening his desire to call her his. He recollected with pleasure two circumstances which had scarcely been remarked at the moment of their occurrence. The man who had opened the door to him, when he saw him spring forward to meet Lucy, had exclaimed, "Oh! it was Miss Lucy ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... or what? Funny thing: I could 'a' swore 'e wasn't alone. Well, whatever it was, they'll 'ave to see to it aboard. She's off now. Another week and we shall be gettin' the 'oliday customers.' In five minutes more there was nothing but the lessening lights of the boat, the long line of the Dover lamps, the night breeze, ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... approaches, we should have only the privilege of spending it, and it would have its natural end in the cradle, in which we should be rocked into eternal sleep. Born old, one would, of course, inherit experience, so that wealth could be made to contribute to happiness, and each day, instead of lessening the natural powers and increasing infirmities, would bring new vigor and capacity of enjoyment. It would be going from winter to autumn, from autumn to summer, from summer to spring. The joy of a life without care as to ways and means, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the mighty shock of an earthquake, it split and cracked with a tremendous and overwhelming sound. The work was soon finished; in a few minutes a tumultuous sea rolled between me and my enemy, and I was left drifting on a scattered piece of ice that was continually lessening and thus preparing for me a hideous death. In this manner many appalling hours passed; several of my dogs died, and I myself was about to sink under the accumulation of distress when I saw your ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... to cooperate with and take full advantage of this intensification of the work of the Employment Service. This does not mean that there will be any lessening of our efforts under our W.P.A. and P.W.A. and other work relief programs until all workers have decent jobs in private employment at decent wages. We do not surrender our responsibility to the unemployed. We have had ample proof that it is the will of the American ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... our duty to God. If our reading makes us discontented with the lot in life which Divine Providence has assigned to us, if it leads us to neglect or do ill the duties of our position, if we find that our trust in God is lessening and our love of this world growing, in all these cases we must examine ourselves with the greatest care, and banish from ourselves any book which is having these evil effects ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... that in a country conquered by a nobler race than the natives, and in which the latter became villeins and bondsmen, this custom, lex merchetae, may have been introduced for wise purposes,—as of improving the breed, lessening the antipathy of different races, and producing a new bond of relationship between the lord and the tenant, who, as the eldest born, would at least have a chance of being, and a probability of being thought, the lord's child. In the West Indies it cannot ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... must be rigorously scrutinized, but in the mere change or in the fact of innovation there is no valid reproach. When one of the plans for the better government of Ireland is described as depriving parliamentary institutions of their elasticity and strength, as weakening the Executive at home, and lessening the power of the country to resist foreign attack, no careful observer of the events of the last seven years can fail to see that all this evil has already got its grip upon us. Mr. Dicey himself admits it. "Great Britain," he says, "if left to herself, could act with all the force, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... wont to dwell near pleasant field, Enjoying all the sunny day did yield— With me the change lament, in irksome thrall, By rains incessant held; for now no call From early swain invites my hand to wield The scythe. In parlour dim I sit concealed, And mark the lessening sand from hour-glass fall; Or 'neath my window view the wistful train Of dripping poultry, whom the vine's broad leaves Shelter no more. Mute is the mournful plain. Silent the swallow sits beneath the thatch, And vacant hind hangs pensive o'er his ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... is sometimes entertained, and the question is sometimes asked, May not adherence to this principle of helpfulness and service become mere sentimentalism? or still more, may it not be the means of lessening another's sense of self-dependence, and thus may it not at times do more harm than good? In reply let it be said: If the love which impels it be a selfish love, or a weak sentimental ism, or an effort at show, or devoid of good common sense, yes, many times. But if ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... back, the enemy obviously were being pressed back; when the fire had to be brought closer the enemy were closer. An urgent call for rapid fire with an increasing range meant our infantry attacking; with a lessening range, their ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... loved you," said Sidonie. "That love which I renounced long ago because I was a young girl—and young girls do not know what they are doing—that love nothing has ever succeeded in destroying or lessening. When I learned that Desiree also loved you, the unfortunate, penniless child, in a great outburst of generosity I determined to assure her happiness for life by sacrificing my own, and I at once turned you away, so that you should go to her. ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... coming, but each a little fainter. Either the man was moving on or the pain was lessening. Mrs. Toomey's heart continued to thump as she lay rigid, listening. She wanted to get up and look through the window, but the floor was cold and she could not remember exactly where she had left her slippers. Anyway, somebody else would ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... lessening of the elimination of tissue waste is simply an evidence of the accumulation of poisonous substances within the body, through the lessened activity of liver and kidneys and the ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... when he was asked what he thought of it, is described to have been so much at a stand, that he could not tell what to say. The book was afterwards bought by many. It is said to have spread conviction, wherever it went. Hence it had the effect of lessening the prejudices of some, so that the Quakers were never afterwards treated, on this account, in the same rugged manner as they ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... drank wine more freely, never had a return of the disorder." It is therefore evident, that a moderate use of wine tends to promote health, and keeps off the numerous train of disorders, to which the constitution of man is subject, thereby lessening the evils incidental to human nature. We can then exclaim with Virgil ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... depth the gradual curtailment has been more apparent. At one time the average depth was many hundred feet, and several soundings of 1,000 feet were taken, with the result reported, in sailors' parlance, of "No bottom." At the present time the depth varies from 40 to 100 feet, and appears to be lessening steadily, presumably because of the extraordinary deposit of solid matter from the very dense waters ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... received with a loud guffaw of derisive laughter, and the man who had done it was highly complimented on his achievement. I took no notice, however, doing that which I had set out to do. This, instead of lessening their dislike for me, increased it, and for days after I was subjected to many petty annoyances. A few weeks before, I should not have stood it. I was wild and passionate then, full of life and strength, now I was so bitter that I scarcely ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... 70 to 80 lbs. of provisions, was thrown over, and then we rose so rapidly that all the objects around were instantly passed and were very soon lost to view. The swelling form of our balloon told us that the gas inside had expanded under the heat of the sun and the lessening density of the surrounding air. We opened the two valves, but even this outlet was insufficient, and we had to cut a hole about seven or eight inches long in the lower part of the balloon, through which the gas might escape. At five minutes past five ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... encircling wall of woods, through and over which gleamed the bright waters of the far-spreading Umbagog on the north; while all around, towering up in their green glories, rose, one above another, the amphitheatric hills, till their lessening individual forms were lost, or mingled in the vision with the lofty summits of the distant White Mountains in the south and west, and of the bold detached eminences which shot up from the dark wilderness and studded the horizon ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... Artillery by Hamilton's Crossing. All day the guns had been doggedly at work; horses and drivers and gunners and guns and caissons; there was death and wounds and wreckage. In the wintry, late afternoon, when the battle thunders were lessening, Major John Pelham came by and looked at Rockbridge. Much of Rockbridge lay on the ground, the rest stood at the guns. "Why, boys," said Pelham, "you stand killing better than ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... than positive; it is the lessening of evil, but is not itself the good; it is a noble discontent, but is by no means felicity. This ceaseless pursuit of an endless end is a generous madness, but is not reason; it is the yearning for what can never ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... won one another's money and lost to one another again, we have had our disputes, but were firm in support of any member of our party who was flouted by any one who was not one of WE. "Section 3, right or wrong" was and is our motto. And the section dwindles, the bullet and shell has been busy in lessening our strength, for that ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... civil magistrate could be found under whose directions they might act; and they could be considered only as having a tendency to keep the inhabitants in some degree of awe, and even this was every day lessening; and the affronts the troops received were such that there was no avoiding quarrels and slaughter." Still he hesitated substantially to retract his word; for now a request from him, he knew, was equivalent to an order; and before he determined, he consulted three officers of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... in the lessening light it all came back; the old university at Basle, and above all, the old professor, Maude's ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... and, about the middle of September, the little ones hatch, but without leaving their tabernacle, where they are to spend the winter packed in soft wadding. The mother continues to watch and spin, lessening her activity from day to day. She recruits herself with a Locust at longer intervals; she sometimes scorns those whom I myself entangle in her trap. This increasing abstemiousness, a sign of decrepitude, slackens and at last stops the work ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... will increase in value, by the safety of the Province being increased; since the lands to the southward already sell for above double what they did before the new Colony arrived. Nor need I mention the great lessening of the burden of the people by increasing the income of the tax from the many thousand acres of land either taken or taking up on the prospect of ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... and well, you remember how Mr. Taylor, in that noble play, works out to our view the sad sight of the deterioration of character, the growing coarseness and harshness, the lessening tenderness and kindliness, which are apt to come with advancing years. Great trials, we know, passing over us, may influence us either for the worse or the better; and unless our nature is a very obdurate and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... it was still too deep for them to attempt its crossing. Then, directed by the shouts and motions of the Kaffir Tom and Mr. Dove, they proceeded up stream for several hundred yards, till they came to a rapid where the lessening flood ran thinly over a ridge of rock, and after investigation, proceeded to try its passage hand in hand. It proved difficult but not dangerous, for when they came near to the further side where the current was swift and the water rather deep, Tom threw them a waggon rope, clinging ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... non-introspective male tends to avoid discomfort, even of his own making, it thus came about that Keith spent less and less time at home. He did not explain to himself why. It was certainly no lessening of his affection for Nan. Only he felt absolutely sure of her, and the mental situation sketched above left him more open to the lure of downtown, which to any live man was in those days especially great. Every evening the "fellows" got ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... was six moons ago that I fled, as I have told you; and even then it was the common talk amongst our masters that there were fair dales to the south which they would overrun. Man would say to man: We were over many in Silver-dale, and we needed more thralls, because those we had were lessening, and especially the women; now are we more at ease in Rose-dale, though we have sent thralls to Silver-dale; but yet we can bear no more men from thence to eat up our stock from us: let them fare south to the happy dales, and conquer ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... Portugal, equally glorious and costly; but much better adapted; and therefore in its Propriety easier to be accounted for. That was a Glory for the Head of her Ladiship, every Ray of which was set with Diamonds, large at the Bottom, and gradually lessening to the very Extremity of every Ray. Each Ray might be about half a Yard Long; and I imagin'd in the Whole there might be about one Hundred of them. In short, if ever her Ladiship did the Offerer the Honour to ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... kept her promise to him in the most fascinating manner: she embraced him before the whole court; the king appeared no less delighted; but the Cardinal, whether with the view of lessening the merit of an action which deserved a handsome reward, or whether it was from a return of that insolence which always accompanied him in prosperity, appeared at first not to pay any attention to what he said, and being afterwards informed that the lines had been forced, that ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... presently, and swim as well as before. But alas! it was in the direction of the Daur, which would soon, his master did not doubt, sweep his carcase into the North Sea. With troubled heart he strained his sight after him as long as he could distinguish his lessening head, but it got amongst some wreck, and unable to tell any more whether he saw it or not, he returned to his men with ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... it so: "Winter was always Russia's best friend. Perhaps now it will rid us of Revolution." On the freezing front miserable armies continued to starve and die, without enthusiasm. The railways were breaking down, food lessening, factories closing. The desperate masses cried out that the bourgeoisie was sabotaging the life of the people, causing defeat on the Front. Riga had been surrendered just after General Kornilov said publicly, "Must we pay with Riga the price of bringing the country to a sense ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... to Mrs. Schenck and her sympathizers, but Mr. Ames seemed loth to relinquish his preference for the American, and the course taken had the effect of lessening his zeal and that of his followers, until they gradually dropped from the ranks. But the convention, despite the unfortunate schism, was a grand success. The sessions were crowded, and so great was the interest awakened in the public ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... world seemed filled with its din. Hurling itself passionately against the house, it gathered strength with every gust, till it seemed as if the old walls must soon crash in ruins round me. Gust upon gust; blow upon blow; swelling, lessening, never ceasing. The noise surrounded me; it penetrated my inmost being, as all-pervading as silence itself, and wrapping me in a solitude even more complete. There was nothing left in the world but the wind and I, and then a weird intangible doubt as to my own identity seized me. The wind was real, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... at whatever address you send me. If you like Veronique, my darling, do not fear any jealousy from me; I should be wrong to entertain such a feeling in my present position. I expect that if you make much of her she will not be able to resist, and I shall be glad to hear that she is lessening your sadness. I hope you will write me a few lines ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... during the next six months a special Jubilee Year Fund of $100,000 in shares of $50 each, with the hope and expectation that these shares will be taken by the friends of missions without lessening those regular contributions which must be depended upon to ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various
... have the least employment for the sex: sensible that a woman must be satisfied some way, they ply her with a thousand little tender attentions, presents, caresses, confidences, and exhaust their inventions in means and devices to make up for the capital deficiency; and even towards lessening that, what arts, what modes, what refinements of pleasure have they not recourse to, to raise their languid powers, and press nature into the service of their sensuality? But here is their misfortune, that when by a course of teasing, worrying, handling, wanton postures, lascivious ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... The Murata rifle, with which the army is equipped, is the invention of a Japanese. In 1897 Colonel Arisaka invented several improvements in this same rifle, increasing the velocity and accuracy, and lessening the weight. Still more recently he has invented a rapid-fire field-piece to superintend whose manufacture he has been sent to Europe. Mr. Shimose has invented a smokeless powder, which the government is ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... slowly up from the Farralones, now shut out from view by the lovely haze. Captain Booden gazed morosely on the western horizon, and swore by a big round oath that we should not have a capful of wind if that fog-bank did not lift. But we were fairly out of the bay; the Mesa was lessening in the distance, and as we drifted slowly southward the red-roofed buildings on its level rim grew to look like toy-houses, and we heard the dull moan of the ebb-tide on Duxbury Reef on our starboard bow. The sea grew dead calm and the wind ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... of tact. The hot, instructive tour of the stone antediluvians, which had loomed with ever-lessening charm before the children, was not ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... a grave!' said the sexton. 'What else! And which of our old folks, knowing all this, thought, as the spring subsided, of their own failing strength, and lessening life? ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... greatest interest in life would be money-making—if one only knew what to do with the money afterwards." The banker had been eating a biscuit, and he now swept the crumbs together with his little finger from all sides in a lessening circle until they formed a heap upon the white tablecloth. "It accumulates," he said slowly, "accumulates, accumulates. And, after all, one can only eat and drink the best that are to be obtained, and the best costs so little—a mere drop in the ocean." He handed Tony the decanter as he spoke. ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... (colic). A horse with colic may sit upon his haunches, like a dog, or may stand upon his hind feet and rest upon his knees in front, or he may endeavor to balance himself upon his back, with all four feet in the air. These positions are assumed because they give relief from pain by lessening pressure or tension upon ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... thus, she would be not less ready for war than she is now, and would have all her vigorous men turned into producers instead of consumers, to the immense advantage of the States' coffers, to the great comfort of the women and children, to the lessening of crime and poverty, and to the general well-being of the world ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mrs. Woodbourne, to tell her some horrible stories of hydrophobia; and Elizabeth, in hopes of lessening the impression such stories were likely to make on Mrs. Woodbourne's mind, listened also, sometimes not very courteously correcting evident exaggerations, and at others contradicting certain statements. At last, just as the subject, fertile ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and only they, had been what you and Konig attacked. Them I sacrifice, with a great deal of willingness, to persons who think of increasing their own reputation by lessening that of others. I have not the folly nor vanity of certain Authors. The cabals of literary people seem to me the disgrace of Literature. I do not the less esteem honorable cultivators of Literature; it is only the caballers and their leaders that are degraded in my eyes. On this, I pray God to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... luminous consciousness which carry one almost to the very bottom of things. It is difficult to consider those in the wrong who admit, with Leibnitz, the existence of small states of consciousness. The lessening of the consciousness is already our means of understanding the unconscious; unconsciousness is ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... commanded to refrain from presenting similar petitions in the future. Later, however, the Privy Council secured a reversal of this decision and an order was issued authorizing the Assembly to appoint commissioners to confer with the Marylanders upon the best means of lessening the excessive crops.[401] Accordingly a meeting was held at Wiccocomico, May 12, 1664, which recommended that the planting of tobacco after the twentieth of June each year should be prohibited. The report ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... by the time the troopers entered the brilliantly lighted parking area. The temperature seemed warmer with the lessening winds but in actuality, the mercury was dropping. The snow clouds to the west were much nearer and the overcast ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... regarded Zeke intently from its red eyes. But it did not growl. It was plain that the bull-terrier was thinking deeply, and that Zeke was the center around which thought revolved. But, if the dog did not growl, its mistress showed no lessening of hostility. She explained succinctly to the representative ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... revenue has been intimated. This would be still more the case were it not for the impediments which in some places continue to embarrass the collection of the duties on spirits distilled within the United States. These impediments have lessened and are lessening in local extent, and, as applied to the community at large, the contentment with the law appears ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington
... if she is thinking of him. But the river is already reached. Up flies the alarmed heron, his long blue legs trailing behind him; a hawk is let loose; the young lady's laugh has ceased as, with gloved hand shading fair forehead and sweet gray eye, she watches hawk and heron lessening in heaven. The Crusades are now over, but the religious fervour which inspired them lingered behind; so that, even in Chaucer's day, Christian kings, when their consciences were oppressed by a crime more than usually ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... grimed face turned bony, Oped mouth gushing, fallen head, Lessening pressure of a hand, shrunk, clammed and stony! O sudden spasm, ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... being peculiarly exposed to the West Indian insurrection, she quickly found it "inexpedient" to allow Negroes "from Africa, the West India Islands, or other place beyond sea" to enter for two years. This act continued to be extended, although with lessening penalties, until 1803.[5] The home demand in view of the probable stoppage of the trade in 1808, the speculative chances of the new Louisiana Territory trade, and the large already existing illicit traffic combined in that year to cause the passage of an ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... transportation corporation, has been declared to be a legitimate street improvement equivalent to a change in grade; and, as in the case of a change of grade, the owner of land abutting on the street has been refused damages for impairment of access to his land and the lessening of the circulation of light and ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the British Crown. This city of Delhi, with the schools of the Methodists, the Anglicans, and the English Baptists, is permeated with religious influences that attract its native populations, and these influences are continually lessening the prospect of any future rebellion such as the ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... gave full citizenship to all the Transpadane Gauls, and to numerous communities in Transalpine Gaul, in Spain, and elsewhere. He established a wide-spread colonization, thus planting his veterans in different places abroad, and lessening the number of proletarians in Italy. He rebuilt Carthage and Corinth. He re-organized the army, and the civil administration in the provinces. In the space of five years, while he was busy in important wars, he originated numerous ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... paid worker to 4 1/2d., or nine cents an hour. For the small sweater the profit is slight, but each additional machine sends it up, till four or five mean a handsome return. If work is slack, he has another method of lessening expenses, and thus increasing profits, arranging matters so that all the work is done the three last days of the week, starting on a Thursday morning, for instance, and pressing the workers on for thirty-three to thirty-six ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... an obstacle intervened, it gathered strength and force, and it presently rose rapidly, with prodigious uproar, threatening to burst all bounds, and to destroy every thing that stopped its course. Lady Mary was now inclined to try what effect lessening the opposition might produce. To do her justice, she was also moved to this by some nobler motives than fear; or, at least, her fears were not of a selfish kind: she dreaded that her son's health and permanent happiness might be injured by this violent ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... urge the stratagem any further, and he retired from the presence of the shepherdess in silence. If he had been able to distract her ingenuous mind between contending duties, he had not however succeeded in his principal object, that of undermining her virtue, and lessening her attachment to her parents and her lover. If Imogen were perplexed and confounded, Roderic was scarcely more happy. He looked back upon the scene with mortification and astonishment. It was difficult for him to determine where it had digressed from the auspicious appearances it had at first ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... the building up and preservation of equality of opportunity; the stimulation of initiative and individuality; absolute integrity in public affairs; the choice of officials for fitness to office; the direction of economic progress toward prosperity for the further lessening of poverty; the freedom of public opinion; the sustaining of education and of the advancement of knowledge; the growth of religious spirit and the tolerance of all faiths; the strengthening of the home; the ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... revealed to the white-faced woman before him the whole abominable plot. She listened to him in a growing agony of doubt. Could it be? Was it by any means possible that Fletcher, desiring to win her, but despairing of lessening the distance she maintained between them by any ordinary method, had devised this foul scheme of compromising her in the eyes of society in order to force ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... (pastern or suffraginocoronary) joint. This also, is a ginglymus joint, having but slight lateral motion, and that only when it is in a state of flexion. A rather broad articular surface—from side to side—exists here, lessening the strain on the collateral ligaments somewhat. Dorsal flexion is checked by the flexor tendons and dorsal ligaments. Volar flexion is restrained by the ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... the short and winding reaches of the now quickly lessening stream, Ellen said: "How pleasant this little river is to me, who am used to a great wide wash of water; it almost seems as if we shall have to stop at every reach-end. I expect before I get home this evening I shall have realised what a little country England is, ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... take into account must be all of a very plain and intelligible character. It would not do to recognize anything like a graduated scale of responsibility. A very bad training in youth would be in a certain limited sense regarded as lessening the guilt of any wrong thing done; and you may remember, accordingly, how that magnanimous monarch, Charles II., urged to the Scotch lords, in extenuation of the wrong things he had done, that his father had given him a very bad ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... swarming bacteria of animalism that made up the rest of the human body controlled by the brain. He pointed out that the difference between types of brains was two ounces of grayish pulp, almost wholly absent in the unthinking herd of men. But it enlarged in gradually lessening groups of men to the intellectual few that ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... about this, and a perspicuity in making arrangements for lessening her immediate embarrassment, which had some effect in softening Eleanor's anger. So she suffered herself to walk by his side over the now deserted lawn, till they came to the drawing-room window. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... year. Political uncertainty and drought, however, contribute to substantial fluctuations in earnings from tourism and sugar and to the emigration of skilled workers. In 1992, growth was approximately 3%, based on growth in tourism and a lessening of labor-management disputes in the sugar and gold-mining sectors. In 1993, the government's budgeted growth rate of 3% was not achieved because of a decline in non-sugar agricultural output and damage from Cyclone Kina. Growth in 1994 is estimated to be 5%, largely attributed to increased tourism ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... father could not understand either his daughter or George. Never could they understand! He alone understood. And his understanding gave him a melancholy, hopeless feeling of superiority, without at all lessening the strange conviction of guilt. He had got himself gripped by destiny. Destiny had captured all three of them. But not the fourth. The charwoman possessed the mysterious power to defy destiny. Perhaps the power lay in her simplicity.... Fool! An accursed negligence had eternally ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... men seemed to be a rise of land which the lessening mirage now permitted to appear as a small kopje, a solitary hill with rocky outcrops. Toward this they plodded methodically: Kingozi slouching ahead, Mali-ya-bwana close at his heels, very proud of his temporary promotion from the ranks. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. At the signal ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... men who were taking the first staunch grip upon the tricky wheel of fortune and were turning it to their own account. Every man was building; no man complained of conditions, for conditions were so new and so ready to hand that he who found fault was merely lessening his own chance to secure his share of the vast resources that spread before him, welcoming the greedy fingers of him who courted the future and shunned the past. All men lived in the present out there in the great stretches, and all ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... perhaps peculiar to the Venetians. A number of Men, by the help of Poles laid across each other's Shoulders, build themselves up almost as children do Cards—four or five Rows of 'em standing one above the other, and lessening as they advance in height, till at last a little Boy forms the Top, or Point, of the Structure. After they have stood in this manner, to be gazed at, some time, the Boy leaps down into the arms of people appointed to catch ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... heat must be exceedingly small, even in a long period of time. The cause, however, is continually in operation, and, accordingly, the crust of the earth has from time to time to be accommodated to the fact that the whole globe is lessening. The circumference of our earth at the equator must be gradually declining; a certain length in that circumference is lost each year. We may admit that loss to be a quantity far too small to be measured by ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... Lower Pool of Gihon, out of which the sun was fast driving the lessening shadow of the royal hill; slowly they proceeded, keeping parallel with the aqueduct from the Pools of Solomon, until near the site of the country-house on what is now called the Hill of Evil Counsel; there they began to ascend to the plain ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... taking place against their becoming residents. They are every where regarded as a nuisance, and must really be such as long as they are under the degradation which public sentiment inflicts on them. They are at the same time rapidly increasing from manumissions and from offspring, and of course lessening the general disproportion between the slaves and the whites. This tendency is favorable to the cause of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... the moon, as it revolved round the earth. As a result, the moon drew further and further away from the earth until it reached its present position, about 240,000 miles away. At the same time the tidal influence of the earth was lessening the rotational movement of the moon. This went on until it turned on its axis in the same period in which it revolves round the earth, and on this account it always presents the same face to ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... Norman's arms were like iron round him; and he gave over his resistance sooner, because at that moment a whirring flapping sound was heard, and the poor hawk rose high, higher, over their heads in ever lessening circles, far away from her enemies. The servant who held her, had relaxed his grasp in the consternation caused by Lothaire's fall, and she was mounting up and up, spying, it might be, her way to her native rocks in Iceland, with the yellow eyes ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bed and thrown herself on her husband's bosom and been consoled. But after all what did it matter? Could anything have made it more easy to bear? When sorrow and pain occupy the whole being, what room is there for consolation, what importance in the lessening by an infinitesimal ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... by reason of the narrowness of his fortune, which was not sufficient to support his dignity; and he was sensible besides, that his brothers would not approve of his marrying, the marriages of younger brothers being looked upon as what tends to the lessening great families; the Cardinal of Loraine soon convinced him, that he was not mistaken; he condemned his attachment to Mademoiselle de Chartres with warmth, but did not inform him of his true reasons for so doing; the Cardinal, it ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... full of shifts for lessening the uncertainty of his earnings, and the little household depended principally on him. But now he had had enough of seeking his living in the streets; he wanted to get on; he wanted most of all to be a shopkeeper. The only thing ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... your time," said Von Helmuth, looking out and up at a monoplane descending toward the landing in slowly lessening spirals. ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... States think proper to terminate that Institution, as several of them, I understand, or at least some of their citizens propose, justice and a generous comity require that the Country should interpose to aid in lessening the burden, public and private, occasioned by so radical a change in its ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... daily changing, with a duller taste Of lessening joys, I, by degrees, would waste: Still quitting ground, by unperceived decay, And steal myself from life, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... where, 'tis told, A giant made his den of old; For ere that steep ascent was won, High in his pathway hung the sun, And many a gallant, stayed perforce, Was fain to breathe his faltering horse, And of the trackers of the deer Scarce half the lessening pack was near; So shrewdly on the mountain-side Had the bold burst their ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... Deltas form at the mouths of rivers by this action; the basin of the ocean is gradually elevated, and, in addition, islands and archipelagos are raised from its bed. The surface of the sea is for the present lessening under the influence of these causes, but the time must come, unless it be prevented by some catastrophe, when the ocean must in its turn encroach upon the land, when the plains and valleys shall become bays ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... of quick lime for every pound of Paris green to prevent burning the foliage. For potatoes it is frequently used alone, but it is much safer to use the lime. Paris green and bordeaux mixture may be combined without lessening the value of either, and the caustic action of the arsenic is prevented. The proportion of the poison to use is given under the various insects discussed in ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... Carso Plateau the Austrians, with the evident object of lessening the Italian pressure in the region of Goritz, attempted a powerful effort against positions at Monte Vuocgnacco and Monte Faiti, on the northern sector of the plateau. Successive waves of Austrian infantry were broken down ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... the portal of her dwelling and felt a strange thrill of fear, for he imagined that as the setting sunbeams faded from her figure she was exhaling away, and that something of her ethereal substance was withdrawn with each lessening gleam of light. With his farewell glance a shadow had fallen over the portal, and Lilias was invisible. His foreboding spirit deemed it an omen at the time, and so it proved; for the sweet earthly form by which the Lily had been manifested ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... proper work. Bringing his paper to the window so as to catch the last stormy evening light, he resolutely plunged once more into the almost completed record. He had written for about twenty minutes, bending closer and closer to his paper in the lessening light; then suddenly he sat upright. He had heard the strange ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... that it had been for hours—she had felt a gradual lessening of the tension. Within the last few hours she had heard voices near her; had divined that persons were near her. But she had not been certain. That is, ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... writings what men of King James's day may have put in, and give them so much the better chance. There is no revised Bible; there is only a revised version. Readers sometimes feel disturbed at what they consider the changes made in the Bible. The fact is, the revision which deserves the name is lessening the changes in the Bible; it is giving us the Bible as it actually was and taking from us elements which were not part of it. One can sympathize with the eloquent Dr. Storrs, who declared, in an address in 1879, that he was against any new version because of the history of the King James version, ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... so entertaining that he did not get away until the morning was half gone. By the time he reached Seven Mile the sun was past the meridian, and the stage a lessening patch of dust in ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... for which they were given by Parliament, and that the intention of the Legislature had not been fulfilled; or that the money required to discharge the Civil List debt was to be raised chargeable on the Civil List duties. In the reign of Queen Anne, the Crown was found in debt. The lessening and granting away some part of her revenue by Parliament was alleged as the cause of that debt, and pleaded as an equitable ground (such it certainly was), for discharging it. It does not appear that ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... Do you think I could suffer a connexion in which there is the smallest room for repentance? Do you think I would take the mean advantage of a transient passion, to load you with confusion? Do you think I could ever relish that happiness which was acquired by lessening yours? ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... herring should presume To swing a tithe-pig in a catskin purse, For fear the hailstones which did fall at Rome By lessening of the fault should make ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... loud. With wishful eyes receding, They watch from their swift boat the lessening isle. The yards are squared. Again the good ship speeding Sees the chafed waves beneath her ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... fire. For at the elfin portal hangs a horn Which none can wind aright Save the appointed knight Whose lids the fay-wings brushed when he was born. All others stray forlorn, Or glimpsing, through the blazoned windows scrolled Receding labyrinths lessening tortuously In half obscurity; With mystic images, inhuman, cold, That flameless torches hold. But who can wind that horn of might (The horn of dead Heliades) aright, - Straight Open for him shall roll the conscious gate; And light leap up from all the torches there, And life ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... Sanctification is a good thing to preach and a better thing to strive after, but the minute a man professes it he becomes less truthful and less intelligent spiritually, and he proceeds to develop along these lessening lines. ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... lessening of that look of fear came into the mother's eyes. Galloway was striking, Florrie was not to be accounted for. Though she turned quickly and went again through the house, the patio, and the rear gardens, she was apprehensively certain ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... revealed it. Encouraged by this air, even while he was secretly vexed by it, and perfectly unable to do justice to the dignity of mind which gave something of majesty rather than humiliation to misfortune, Crauford resolved to repeat his visit, and by intervals, gradually lessening, renewed it, till acquaintance seemed, though little tinctured, at least on Glendower's side, by friendship, to assume the semblance of intimacy. It was true, however, that he had something to struggle against in Glendower's manner, which certainly grew colder ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to try conclusions with the enemy on these terms, if his leaders will only give him the chance, but meanwhile our movements take the form of reconnaissances that lead to no tangible advantages either in lessening the vigour of our adversary's bombardment or in loosening any links in the chain of investment by which we are bound. The situation is certainly curious and interesting historically as an event for which no exact parallel can be found in the annals ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... her forehead, 'I trust we shall not call upon you for anything too heroic. With respect to this young gentleman's addresses, I expect in the first place that all clandestine correspondence, which no young woman can entertain for a moment without lessening herself in her own eyes and in those of her lover—I request, I say, that clandestine correspondence of every kind may be given up, and that you will refer Mr. Bertram to me for the reason. You will naturally ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... without trepidation or alarm. Love, sympathy, regret, and indignation were the only emotions that took possession of my heart. I even held in my own the now almost pulseless hand of this poor victim of a brutal persecution, and felt the lessening current of her innocent life become weaker and weaker. For three long hours—long indeed to me, but far longer to her—we watched and prayed. Suddenly the restlessness of immediate dissolution ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Portugal owes $143.82 per subject, Holland $90.74, and Belgium $75.63. The heaviest governmental obligation is that of Australia, averaging $263.90 per inhabitant; and the lightest responsibility among important nations is that of the United States, gradually lessening, now standing at but $10.93. Our Cuban neighbors, owing $21.88 per capita, make little complaint of fiscal burden. Whether a debt be burdensome or otherwise depends as much upon the character of the people as upon natural resources. Decaying Portugal could ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... peasants, lest they who have been befriended by the monks in sickness and penury should steal from them in return. To devote this surplus, obtained by a life of sacrifice compared to which the material misery of the beggars whom they relieve is luxury, to the lessening of human suffering, to the encouragement of the family, offering the hand of charity to the worthy and to the unworthy—expecting no honour from all this, not even gratitude—is a life that makes that of the theoretical ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... a vague form lessening rapidly in the distance. It was the little valet. He turned the corner of the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... indifference, they finally consented to bend and set. The result was at once apparent: the brig began to move through the water, taking the seas very much easier as she was humoured at them with the helm, while the increased height of weather side that she turned up had the effect of considerably lessening the amount of water washing over the deck, and rendering the task of getting fore ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... apply to motions in arrest of judgment in criminal cases, is plainly this:—because the court, having the sentence in its own hands, will give judgment 'on the part which is indictable'—and the failure of part of the charge will go only to lessening the punishment. These reasons, however, have plainly no application to writs of error; because a court of error CANNOT, of course, confine the judgment to those parts which are indictable, or lessen it, as the different charges are found ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... yet swore solemnly to the justice of his demand. I had no doubt of the falsity of his oath, but as I had promised never to swear, I could not disprove it by mine, and therefore was obliged to pay the money, which I did entirely from my own share, not choosing to distress my mother and sister by lessening theirs. After this, other unjust demands were preferred, and I paid them, rather than falsify my promise to my father, though by so doing I became reduced to the most abject poverty, as still I would not trouble ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... fired into the lock, which was shivered on the instant, the pieces flying round in all directions, but happily without causing hurt to anyone. Then she pushed the wicket open and ran down the narrow stair, and so to the hall door. Opening this also, she ran down the avenue, never lessening her speed till she stood outside the door of Lesser Hill. The door was opened at once ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... Pain is the only evil, Pleasure is the only good. Virtue is no end in itself, to be sought: Vice is no end in itself, to be avoided. The motive for cultivating Virtue and banishing Vice arises from the consequences of each, as the means of multiplying pleasures and averting or lessening pains. But to the attainment of this purpose, the complete supremacy of Reason is indispensable; in order that we may take a right comparative measure of the varieties of pleasure and pain, and pursue the course that promises ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... ready wing is spread: So waited I the favouring hour, and fled; Fled from these shores where guilt and famine reign, And cried, Ah! hapless they who still remain; Who still remain to hear the ocean roar, Whose greedy waves devour the lessening shore; Till some fierce tide, with more imperious sway, Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away; When the sad tenant weeps from door to door; And begs a poor protection from the poor! But these are scenes ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... aware of it. More and more frequently sure warnings came to him. Now it was some dim recollection of beliefs once strongly clung to, which came back to him with a shock. He would awaken through some chance word to the glory of the English rule in India, the lessening poverty of the Indian nations, the incorruptibility of the English ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... says Mr. Robertson, 'their privileges have been lessening: they dare not now hunt the deer, or shoot the grouse or the blackcock; they have no longer the range of the hills for their cattle and their sheep; they must not catch a salmon in a stream: in earth, air, and water, the rights of the laird are greater, and the rights of the people ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... same pitching down into the ocean's depths, the same unbounded waste of surging waters, but a slight lessening of ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... "Gillian the Dreamer" (1899) and "The Children of Tempest" (1903) he reveals an intimacy with Highland life such as informs the writing of no other novelist of our day. Of recent years Mr. Munro has wandered farther afield than his native Argyll, and, I feel, to the lessening of the beauty of his writing. In the Isle of Man, T.E. Brown had been striving for years to put into his stories in verse the fast-decaying Celtic life of his country, but even with his example and with all that has been ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... at last, All its auguries fulfilling (For the presages of evil Seldom fail or even linger): Came with such a horoscope, That the sun rushed blood-red tinted Into a terrific combat With the dark moon that resisted; Earth its mighty lists outspread As with lessening lights diminished Strove the twin-lamps of the sky. 'Twas of all the sun's eclipses The most dreadful that it suffered Since the hour its bloody visage Wept the awful death of Christ. For o'erwhelmed in glowing cinders The great orb appeared to suffer Nature's final paroxysm. Gloom the glowing ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... new world, father," she said, "and it has done a great deal for an unhappy woman—not only in taking my thoughts off myself, but in lessening my suffering, too. I do not know why, or how, but music, and these great, solemn pictures painted by dead men, all touch my thoughts of dear Tom. I seem to see that there are so many more mighty ones dead than living. And yet not dead. They live in what they have made. And Tom lives ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... of grace is also in some way adapted to that of nature, so that nature preserves the utmost order and beauty, to render the combination of the two the most perfect that can be. And there is no reason to suppose that God, for the sake of some lessening of moral evil, would reverse the whole order of nature. Each perfection or imperfection in the creature has its value, but there is none that has an infinite value. Thus the moral or physical good and evil of rational creatures does not infinitely exceed the good and evil ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... out—he knew it as he listened. He heard her touch the edge of the half-opened door; he heard the still sound of her first footfall on the stone passage outside; then the noise of her hand drawn along the wall; then the lessening gasps of her affrighted breathing as she gained ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... hurt from them, and for two days fared well; but finding the ships did not come for us, as they expected would soon have been the case, when likewise they looked to have had a large quantity of goods distributed among them in reward for their hospitality, they soon became weary of us; and after lessening our allowance from day to day, they at length left us to shift for ourselves. In this forlorn state, we had to range about the woods in search of fruits and roots, which last we had to dig from the ground with our ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... of their flight seemed to be lessening. Sensation returned to Blake. He again heard the thin high-pitched metallic wail, now swiftly deepening to the familiar growl of rolling bass. He again noted the presence of the glowing green ribbons of the ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... even to please her mother; the poor girl's heart is sorrow-struck for ever. She will never smile again. As it is, however, the steady subdued melancholy of her manner increases the respect, without lessening the love, of all who know her. Who, indeed, could see her, and hear her sad history without loving her purity, and her devoted affection to the memory of him that was only the husband of a day, without pitying the stricken girl who ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... at White Island, and helps to guide him to his prey. Alas, my friendly light-house, that you should serve so terrible a purpose! Steadily the oars click in the rowlocks; stroke after stroke of the broad blades draws him away from the lessening line of land, over the wavering floor of the ocean, nearer the lonely rocks. Slowly the coast-lights fade, and now the rote of the sea among the lonely ledges of the Shoals salutes his attentive ear. A little longer and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various |
