"Diminish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yes, Master Copperfield,' he proceeded, in a soft voice, most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb, which did not diminish its hard pressure in the least degree, 'there's no doubt of it. There would have been loss, disgrace, I don't know what at all. Mr. Wickfield knows it. I am the umble instrument of umbly serving him, and he puts me on an eminence I hardly could have ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... 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 beasts in ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... it be possible for the farmers all over the country to form so perfect and well-disciplined an organization that every member shall diminish his remittances to market of grain, wool, meat, hay, or what not, enough to raise prices; or that he shall refrain from selling all these articles below a certain defined price? It must be plain to every intelligent ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... chamber. While there is the same temperature, there is a material difference in the water-vapor present, and hence the moisture content as expressed in terms of tension of aqueous vapor must be considered. This obviously tends to diminish the true volume ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict
... it causes a 'tremor which is felt on the surface of countless worlds.' It exerts frictions; and although the friction is infinitely small, yet as it has an almost infinite time to work in, it will diminish the momentum of the planets, and diminish their ability to maintain their distance from the sun, the consequence of which will be the planets will fall into the sun, and the solar system will end ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... than they require,—wealthy persons would bequeath sums for the erection of buildings after the manner of the Victoria Square or the Peabody Dwellings, a wonderful transformation would soon appear in our cities. Crime would diminish, life would rise to a higher level, and from the hearts and brains of tens of thousands, a great and terrible load would be lifted. Yet noble and praiseworthy as is this work, we must not lose sight of the fact, that at best it is only a palliative measure: ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... cloud it. I will join my regiment soon. If the war ends and I live to return, I will arrange with you. I have no power to do this, now, as my wife would have to join in the sale. I will not ask her to diminish the value of the tract. I leave no lien on this property. My wife and child have it free from incumbrance ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... a saving of trouble to ourselves, if we settled his claim of twelve doti of good cloths at once. We did not think it the best way of proceeding, knowing as we did the character of the native African; so we at once proceeded to diminish this demand; but, after six hours' hot argument, the Mutware only reduced it by two. This claim was then settled, upon the understanding that we should be allowed to travel through Uhha as far as the Rusugi River without ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... that happy time the true writer will be neither an atom the more regarded nor disregarded; he will only be less troubled with birthday books, requests for autographs, and such-like irritating attentions. From that time, also, it may be, the number of writers will begin to diminish; for then, it is to be hoped, men will begin to see that it is better to do the inferior thing well than the superior thing after a middling fashion. The man who would not rather be a good shoemaker than a middling author ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... astral plane need have little fear of encountering the very unpleasant creatures described under this head, for, as before stated, they are even now extremely rare, and as time goes on their number will happily steadily diminish. In any case their manifestations are usually restricted to the immediate neighbourhood of their physical bodies, as might be supposed from their ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... reason for believing that the vast immigration of this year will diminish. In fact, there is no limit to its rate of progress but the means of conveyance. Now, then, we have upon this basis an aggregate for the six years and a half intervening between this period and 1860, of 3,250,000 ————- Making for the current ten ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... divorce, of property inheritance and possession, and of the domestic and social rights, as those we have seen in the cases examined, afford conclusive proof of women's power in the maternal family. If this is denied, the only conclusion that suggests itself to me is that, those who seek to diminish the power of mother-right have done so in reinforcement of a preconceived idea of the superiority of the man as the natural and unchanging order in the relationships of the sexes. One suspects prejudice here. To ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... the true equally with the false, have felt the instinct for surrounding themselves with the majesty of darkness. And in a religion like the Pagan, so deplorably meagre and starved as to most of the draperies connected with the mysterious and sublime, we must not seek to diminish its already scanty wardrobe. But let us pass from speculation to illustrative anecdotes. We have imagined several cases which might seem fitted for giving a shock to the general Pagan confidence in Oracles. Let ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the Capitalists of the Rand. If happier times return to South Africa, Mr. Reitz may yet find the mistake he has made in confounding Mr. Rhodes with the mere dividend-earning crew, who brought about this war in order to diminish the cost of crushing gold by five or six shillings a ton. In the realisation of the ideal of Africa for the Africanders Mr. Rhodes might be more helpful to Mr. Reitz and the Dutch of South Africa than any other living man. Whether it ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... accusations were retorted on both sides, for many years, with the utmost degree of virulence and rage; and time seemed rather to augment than diminish their resentment. That the anger of Mr. Savage should be kept alive is not strange, because he felt every day the consequences of the quarrel; but it might reasonably have been hoped that Lord Tyrconnel might have relented, and at length have forgot those provocations, which, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... between relaxation and recreation. To relax is to unbend the bow, to diminish the tension, to lie fallow, to open the nature on all sides. Relaxation involves passivity; it is a negative condition so far as activity is concerned, although it is often a positive condition so far as growth is concerned. Recreation, on the other hand, involves activity, but activity along ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... a feeble note and prevents it from being heard; a brilliant light eclipses a feeble glimmer. Heavy waves overcome and obliterate ripples. In the two cases cited we have waves of the same nature. But a clap of thunder does not diminish the feeblest jet of light; the dazzling glory of the sun will not muffle the slightest sound. Of different natures, light and sound ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... recollect it. I have seen," continued he, "ah, that I could forget it! a woman, beauteous as the day, before whom the charms of Miss Frampton disappear, as, before the rising sun, each little star hides its diminish'd head. Her features, full of sensibility, her voice such as to thrill the soul and all she says, pervaded with wit and good sense." "And where," cried the baronet, in a lively tone, ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... sure about this. He was inclined to think that, certain modifications allowed for, there would always be plenty of Harriet Rays for unworldly mothers to commend to their sons; and he had no desire to diminish their number by removing one from the ranks of the marriageable. He had no desire to marry at all—that had been the whole truth of it till he met Undine Spragg. And now—? He lit a cigar, and began to recall his hour's conversation ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... you can, a man formed on nature's most liberal scale, who at the age of 50 is possessed with the ambition of being a pretty fellow, wears corsets to diminish his bulk, uses cosmetics, as he told Mrs. Gore, to smooth and soften a skin growing somewhat wrinkled and rigid with age, dresses in a style which would be thought foppish in a much younger man. You must ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... 1609 the company wrote to Sir Humphrey Weld,(136) then mayor of London, for assistance in financing the undertaking, urging him at the same time to diminish the risk of pestilence and famine in the city by removing the surplus population to Virginia. For the sake of convenience they purposed to issue no bills of adventure for less than L12 10s., but if his lordship were to make ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... ancient magnanimity. But the most magnanimous resolution rests in the Christian religion, which trampleth upon pride and sits on the neck of ambition, humbly pursuing that infallible perpetuity unto which all others must diminish their diameters, and be poorly seen ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... julep's tang Will diminish the pang Of an old man's dream of yore, When meadows were green And the brook flowed between The hills he will climb no more; But the drink of luck For the youth of good pluck, Who can stare in the eye of fate, Is the good old whiskey of old Kentuck ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... 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
... ruined through former sins, and when trying to diminish his daily supply of opium, he suffered acutely, and was often ill for weeks together. It was during one of these attacks that the Lue children told him to pray to God for healing. He did so, as he said he could not withstand the pleading of the children, ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... the hospital list, the trustees and inspectors determined to remove all who showed no symptom of the contagion, to an old, long-abandoned cotton factory several miles distant; where the vacant houses of former operatives would afford temporary shelter; and to diminish the chances of carrying infection, each prisoner was carefully examined by the attending physician, and then furnished with an ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... his stronghold in East Beirut. Awn had defied the legitimate government and established a separate mini-state within East Beirut after being appointed acting Prime Minister by outgoing President Gemayel in 1988. Awn and his supporters feared Ta'if would diminish Christian power in Lebanon and increase the ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... family of towers. It is said that the life is one that requires the consumption of unlimited quantitics of 'schnapps,' and the humidity of the atmosphere is undoubted. But even free libations do not diminish the prosperity of the bargees. They are a thriving race, and it must also be noted to their credit that they are well behaved, and not given to quarrels. Collisions on the thickly-covered canals are rare; malicious ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... that, if utter loss of relation to the outer world were capable of destroying a man's consciousness of himself, the destruction of half of his sensitive surfaces might well occasion, in a less degree, a like result, and so diminish his ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... Brinton, Physician to St. Thomas', in his great work on Dietetics, says: "Careful observation leaves little doubt that a moderate dose of beer or wine would, in most cases, at once diminish the maximum weight which a healthy person could lift. Mental acuteness, accuracy of perception and delicacy of the senses are all so far opposed by alcohol, as that the maximum efforts of each are incompatible ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... condition between the man whose means of subsistence are both assured and transmissible, and him for whom these means depend upon the duration of his working life; thirdly, inequality of instruction. How are we to establish a continual tendency in these three sources of inequality to diminish in activity and power? To lessen, though not to demolish, inequalities in wealth, it will be necessary for all artificial restrictions and exclusive advantages to be removed from fiscal or other legal arrangements, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... modern buildings; still, viewed as a whole, it was massive and imposing; and as Mr. Sponge looked down upon it, he thought far more of Jawleyford and Co. than he did as the mere occupants of a modest, white-stuccoed, green-verandahed house, at Laverick Wells. Nor did his admiration diminish as he advanced, and, crossing by a battlemented bridge over the moat, he viewed the massive character of the buildings rising grandly from their rocky foundation. An imposing, solemn-toned old clock began striking four, as ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... that subject out of the way, and choose what is most interesting to yourself. As might be expected, he will at times revert to his own concerns; your superior obstinacy will oppose effectual passive resistance to all such efforts; by degrees the episodes diminish in frequency and duration; at last they cease altogether. The ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... England the cavalry is almost entirely 'heavy,' and, though well drilled, is clumsy. John Bull, with his roast beef and plum pudding, makes a poor specimen of a light cavalryman. English officers are now endeavoring to revolutionize their mounted service, so as to diminish its weight and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... propagating rationalism in days when it was dangerous to propagate it openly. This is what the Abbe did in his Discourse against Mohammedanism. Again, in his Physical Explanation of an Apparition he remarks: "To diminish our fanatical proclivities, it would be useful if the Government were to establish an annual prize, to be awarded by the Academy of Sciences, for the best explanation, by natural laws, of the extraordinary effects of imagination, of the prodigies related in Greek and Latin literature, and of the ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... of the country. A trading people will pursue its interests under any conceivable or tolerable condition of things. It would require a generation or two, indeed, to obliterate, or even sensibly to diminish the habits and opinions now in existence among the people; and it must ever be remembered that society pursues its regular course more or less successfully, according to circumstances, even in the midst ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... he became so thirsty that a drink of water seemed even more desirable than a bite of food. He tried to lick some of the moisture from the sides of the sewer, but that was only aggravating. It seemed to increase rather than diminish his thirst. ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... but this sort of work might continue until the whole of our ammunition was exhausted. Though we had every reason to believe that some of our bullets took effect, it was impossible to ascertain what number of the enemy were killed; their fire, however, did not appear to diminish. They probably calculated on our having no large amount of ammunition, and intended to make their assault when they found our fire slackening. It occurred to me, while I was working away at my gun, that we ought to ascertain what quantity of ammunition we ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... sometimes of extreme and terrible suffering. Alfred bore all the pain which it caused him with exemplary patience; and, though he could not always resist the tendency to discouragement and depression with which the perpetual presence of such a torment wears upon the soul, he did not allow it to diminish his exertions, or suspend, at any time, the ceaseless activity with which he labored for the welfare of the people of ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... or embrace: to clip and cling. To clip the coin; to diminish the current coin. To clip the king's English; to be unable to speak plain ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... tablets are placed on the walls, but they diminish rather than increase the decoration: some others have been removed to the entrance, and in 1865 the close pews were taken away and replaced by open seats; the organ has been enlarged and its position changed, which does not improve ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... Circumstances change, temptations diminish, troubles lessen; but those people who trouble or offend us are an ever-present source ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... From this extravagant summit of horror, his fears gradually receded. Such a waking nightmare even quieted his nerves when it was past; for if a possibility presents a ludicrous side, then its horror must diminish by so much. Moreover, Henry told himself that if the threat of a disaster so absolute could really be felt by him, it was his duty to rise at once, intervene, and, if necessary, summon his uncle and force May to leave ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... perfectly well. On setting his sail, he stood on in the Dido until he was obliged to bear up on account of the cliffs. This brought him so close to the rocks as greatly to diminish the chances of being seen. There both wind and current aided his progress; the first drawing round the end of the island, the coast of which it followed in a sort of eddy, for some time, and the latter setting down towards the cove, which was less than two miles from the north bluff. In twenty ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... that auctioneers and buyers treat the slaves in a manner that is not unkind. They handle them just as though they were animals with a market value that ill-treatment will diminish, and a few of the women are brazen, shameless creatures—obviously, and perhaps not unwisely, determined to do the best they can for themselves in any surroundings. These women are the first to find purchasers. The unsold adults and little ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... cloud went and came, and many a lesson it taught to Gabriel Grub, who, although his shoulders smarted with pain from the frequent applications of the goblins' feet thereunto, looked on with an interest that nothing could diminish. He saw that men who worked hard, and earned their scanty bread with lives of labour, were cheerful and happy; and that to the most ignorant, the sweet face of Nature was a never-failing source of cheerfulness and joy. He saw ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... in their zeal to uphold their own practice against these innovators, they go so far as even to attribute to this practice an ideal perfection. Somebody has been wanting to introduce a six-pound franchise, or to abolish church-rates, or to collect agricultural statistics by force, or to diminish local self-government. How natural, in reply to such proposals, very likely improper or ill-timed, to go a little beyond the mark and to say stoutly, "Such a race of people as we stand, so superior to all the world! The old Anglo-Saxon race, the best breed in the whole world! I pray that our unrivalled ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... together, but with great labour and attention. If possible, let the historian be an eye-witness of everything he means to record; or, if that cannot be, rely on those only who are incorrupt, and who have no bias from passion or prejudice, to add or to diminish anything. And here much sagacity will be requisite to find out the real truth. When he has collected all or most of his materials, he will first make a kind of diary, a body whose members are not yet distinct; ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... invited me to take office in December 1845 he did not make me aware of the offer he had made to the cabinet in his memorandum, I think of Dec. 2, to propose a new corn law with a lowered sliding duty, which should diminish annually by a shilling until in some eight or ten years the trade would be free. No doubt he felt that after Lord John Russell had made his attempt to form a government, and after, by Lord Stanley's ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... and 1870 the game (walrus, seal, bear, and reindeer) began to diminish in such a degree that the hunters were compelled to seek for themselves new hunting-grounds. They turned to the north and east, the less accessible parts of Spitzbergen, afterwards still farther eastwards towards Novaya Zemlya, and beyond this island ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... illustrate the meaning or give emphasis to the force of an important passage. The usual fault of young speakers is too much action. To emphasize all parts alike, is equivalent to no emphasis; and by employing forcible gestures on unimportant passages, we diminish our power to render other ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... furnished matter for great controversies, and has been finally condemned on the statement of the Cardinal of Chatillon, who declared that then there would be no such thing as sin, which would considerably diminish the revenues of the Church. But Sister Petronille lived imbued with this feeling, without knowing the danger of it. After Lent, and the fasts of the great jubilee, for the first time for eight months ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... not diminish Colonel Boone's interest in his new home, that it was exposed to all the perils of border life; that his rifle should be ever loaded; that his faithful watch-dog should be stationed at the door, to give warning of any approaching footsteps; and that ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... diminish. The giraffe appeared to become exhausted with only a slight exertion; and on reaching a piece of marshy ground, where its feet sunk into the mud, it made a violent struggle and then ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... days that she had first known Harvey as the brilliant counsellor, she has felt that inextinguishable love which thrives on hope, and which will not diminish, even when hope is banished. Harvey and she had been friends. His brains had won him admittance to the social class in which she moved. When their attachment had grown to love, and he had asked her father's consent to their marriage, Gorman Purdy, ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... wondered at the extreme fecundity of the press, and how it comes to pass that so many heads, on which Nature seems to have inflicted the curse of barrenness, should teem with voluminous productions. As a man travels on, however, in the journey of life, his objects of wonder daily diminish, and he is continually finding out some very simple cause for some great matter of marvel. Thus have I chanced, in my peregrinations about this great metropolis, to blunder upon a scene which unfolded to ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... grotesque imitation of the fantasia, performed by the colonial militia, all drunk, who fired their pistols off under my nose and blackened my face with powder. General Marey, commanding at Medeah, owned the Romance vintage in Burgundy, and gave us some to drink at dinner, which did not diminish the general cordiality. Ah, well! a glass of good French wine, drunk far from home and the dissensions of the mother country, among comrades ready to give their lives for her at any moment, is a thing ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... all work and recreation, carrying on the internal movements of digestion and respiration, by thinking, by loss of temperature, by indulgence of any of our functions, and by any wrong indulgence especially. Excessive use, voluntary or otherwise, will of course diminish our total capital and cut short our lives. Could we always maintain the right balance we ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... progress, and settlement of the Colony of Georgia, so often quoted in this chapter, closes his account of this invasion with the following remark: "Instead of raising and heightening their success, to do honor to the General's character; we ought rather to lessen or diminish some of the circumstances, to render it, in such an age as this, more credible. But we have taken no liberties at all. The facts are represented, step by step, as they happened; and the reader left to make his own inferences, estimate, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... as this statement may have been, the fact that Daddy was always found by the visitor to be engaged at his wood-pile, which seemed neither to increase nor diminish under his axe, a fact, doubtless, owing to the activity of Mammy, who was always at the same time making pies, seemed to give some credence to the story. Indeed, the wood-pile of Daddy Downey was a standing reproof to the indolent and ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... engaged in the foreign trade, and were to be reduced annually during the ten years' term of the law.[BP] They were thus fixed: for French-built ships, one franc and fifty centimes a registered ton for every thousand sea miles sailed the first year, the rate to diminish each succeeding year of the term seven francs and fifty centimes on wooden ships, and five centimes on iron and steel ships; for foreign-built ships owned by Frenchmen admitted to registry, one-half the above rates; for French-built steamers constructed according to plans of the Navy Department, ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon
... scholars had reported, the dead areas would diminish and fade from existence. He smiled bitterly. Here was a nice evasion—a neat excuse for avoiding study ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... most interesting companion for a solitary female; and his grave, stern, and absorbed deportment, which seldom showed any interest, except in that which concerned his religious profession, made his presence rather add to than diminish the gloom which hung over the Castle of Avenel. To superintend the tasks of numerous female domestics, was the principal part of the Lady's daily employment; her spindle and distaff, her Bible, and a solitary walk upon the battlements of the castle, or upon the causeway, or occasionally, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... expressed. The body itself 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 changes ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... all except Joe Hopper—he refused to be comforted. They tried to console him, but he only wept the more. They went on drinking and left him out, but this did not tend to diminish his tears. ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... "hithertos," but we did so in two plays, and found in "Midsummer Night's Dream" four, and in "Much Ado" two cases, where the reading claimed as a restoration occurred also in Mr. Knight's excellent edition of 1842. These oversights do not affect the correctness of Mr. White's text, but they diminish our confidence in the accuracy of the collation to which he ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... make each atom of Xlarbti, the Sthalreh metal and everything on it, become compact, to do away with the empty spaces that exist in every atom. Theoretically, it would reduce Xlarbti to a fraction of its present size, diminish its mass while its weight and ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei
... passed through the mind of Sir Tom. It was a moment in which Lucy's heart was very soft. She was ready to do anything for the husband to whom, she thought, she had been unjust. And it was hard upon him to diminish his own importance and cut off at a stroke by such a sacrifice half the power and importance of the wealth which was his, though Lucy might be the source of it. Was he to consent to this loss, not even wisely, carefully arranged, but which might do little ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... we take it, that the upshot of the change will be this: We shall save three farthings in a shilling's worth of flour; and the honest men of your order—whom candour forbid that we should reckon at only twenty-five per cent on the whole—will diminish our wages simply by that same three farthings in a shilling; but the knaves (we are given to understand) will take an excuse out of that trivial change to deduct four, five, or six farthings; they will improve the occasion in evangelical proportions—some sixty-fold, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... to be kept under penalty of excommunication. Doubtless John expected this from the pope, and if his own view of the charter were correct, Innocent's action would be entirely within his rights. No vassal had a right to enter into any agreement which would diminish the value of his fief, and John had done this if the rights that he was exercising in 1213 were really his. It was apparently about this time that the insurgent barons determined to transfer their allegiance to Louis of France. We are told that they selected him because, if he were king of England, ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... habits, there will be a necessity of paying some attention to what we eat and what we drink, from day to day, and from hour to hour; but only that the tendency of this work is not to increase this necessity, but on the contrary, to diminish it. In my own view; these occasions of inquiry in regard to what is right, physically as well as morally, are one part of our trials in this world—one means of forming our characters. We are constantly tempted to excess and to error, in spite of the most firm ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... pecuniary concerns of the Government; will, it is confidently anticipated, produce in other respects many of the benefits which have been from time to time expected from the creation of a national bank, but which have never been realized; avoid the manifold evils inseparable from such an institution; diminish to a greater extent than could be accomplished by any other measure of reform the patronage of the Federal Government—a wise policy in all governments, but more especially so in one like ours, which works well only in proportion as it is made to rely for its support upon ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... an interesting inquiry for the medical man, who seeks to enlarge his knowledge of the vis medicatrix Naturae, for the philanthropist, who would stimulate or increase the means of human happiness, and remove or diminish those of human misery, and even for the statistician, alike indifferent to both: Why do particular articles of diet and beverage concentrate their use so much in particular climates, lands, and localities? ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... by a keen wind, and was followed by a draught which caught leaves and straws of grass and took them swirling along. Round and up, and ever up it went, narrowing and spiring to the zenith. There, looking long after it, I saw it diminish in size and brightness till it became filmy as a cloud, then melted into the company of ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... passage. Either love gains a stronger life, as the earth after rain, or the shock still echoes like distant thunder through a cloudless sky. It is impossible to recover absolutely the former life; love will either increase or diminish. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... to the discussion, Mrs. Poynsett explaining what she thought the due of her eldest son, only that Cecil's jointure would diminish the amount at her disposal. Indeed, when she was once aroused, she attended the most fully; but when Miles found her apologizing for only affording him the little house in the village, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... princes and senates, but by public opinion, and at the fiat of this mighty potentate, ancient institutions are levelled in the dust. Let this despot wield only a delegated authority, and each individual, however humble, can enhance or diminish his power. Who, then, will refuse to lend his assistance to enable public opinion to say to the troubled nations, 'peace—be still;' and to compel the rulers of the earth to refer their disputes to another tribunal than ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... Seymour, "I would not delay coming to you, in order that I might show you that love only brings me to you, and that no other consideration could induce me. The king's will is not yet opened, and I know not its contents. But however it may determine with respect to all of us, it cannot diminish or increase my happiness in possessing you. Whatever you may be, you will ever be to me only the adored woman, the ardently loved wife; and only to assure you of this, I ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... those concessions which Austria always said (and she was perfectly right) would lead to a general attack upon her power, but when the attack began, the British Government strained every nerve to limit its extension and diminish its force. That Lord Palmerston in his own mind disliked Austria, and would have been glad to see North Italy free, does not alter the fact that he played the Austrian game, and played it with success. He strongly advised every Italian prince to abstain ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... recruits was accompanied by the seizure of a supply train on its way to Springfield. Our success served to diminish the Rebel threats to capture St. Louis, or perform other great and chivalric deeds. The inhabitants of that city continued to prophesy its fall, but they were ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... two Things:—First, That, at your Peril, you do not presume to alter or transpose one Word, nor rectify one false Spelling, nor so much as add or diminish one Comma or Tittle, in or to my Romance:—For if you do,—In case any of the Descendents of Curl should think fit to invade my Copy-Right, and print it over again in my Teeth, I may not be able, in a Court of Justice, to swear strictly to ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... Consciousness had returned, a clear, penetrating consciousness. At the foot of the throne, he thought, and, mayhap, close to one not visible to the human eye! What a checkerboard he had moved upon, and now the checkmate! So long as the pain did not diminish, he was content; a sudden ease was what he dreaded. Life was struggling to retain its hold. He did not wish to die; he was young; there were long years to come; the world was beautiful, and to love was the glory over it all. He wondered if Beauvais still lay in the road where he had left him. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... entrusted to his care. Wrongs of this kind may appear to be diluted when the national prosperity is the trust-fund, and the legislative body is the trustee. The largeness, however, of the transaction, does not diminish the injustice of it, although it may soothe the conscience, or partially excuse the conduct of any individual member of the governing class. By governing class, I do not merely mean the legislative bodies, but I include ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... the university, enjoyed a revenue of forty Scottish marks, about two pounds four shillings and sixpence of sterling money. In the present age of trade and taxes, it is difficult even for the imagination so to raise the value of money, or so to diminish the demands of life, as to suppose four and forty shillings a year, an honourable stipend; yet it was probably equal, not only to the needs, but to the rank of Boethius. The wealth of England was undoubtedly to that of Scotland more than five to one, and ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... of life, and who finds himself obliged, by a tardy and ill-requited diligence in age, to repair those omissions and negligences of youth which would have rendered the end of his toil easy and profitable. Improved as their speed had become, it continued to increase rather than to diminish, for Pierre Dumont kept his eye riveted on the heavens, and each moment of time seemed to bring new incentives to exertion. The wearied beasts manifested less zeal than the guide, and they who rode them were beginning to murmur at the unreasonableness of the rate at which they were compelled ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Republic, explains in no small measure the acquiescence of the Dutch in a state of things which made the smaller country almost a dependency of the larger. They were proud that their stadholder should reign as king in Britain; and his prolonged absences did not diminish their strong attachment to him or lessen his authority among them. So much greater indeed was the power exercised by William in the Republic than that which, as a strictly constitutional sovereign, he possessed in the kingdom, that it was wittily said that the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... too frequently or completely, or destroy the continuity and coherence of the members. And it is therefore an almost invariable practice, especially in music of a higher order, to modify and disguise the cadences by some means or other; that is, to diminish the weight of the characteristic "longer tone,"—to counteract, partially or entirely, the impression of actual cadential cessation, by continuing (instead of interrupting) the rhythmic pulse. This is so very common, ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... to free myself from my fatal habit; and the very day I reached home I began to diminish the quantity I was then taking by one grain per day. I received the most careful attention, and every thing was done that could add to my comfort and alleviate the sufferings I must inevitably undergo. Until I had arrived at seventeen and a half grains a day I ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... shafts into which the wall was reduced to be dependent altogether upon the length of the spaces a, b, a, b, &c., a length which was arbitrarily fixed. We are at liberty to make these spaces of what length we choose, and, in so doing, to increase the number and diminish the diameter of the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... considerable caliber; but at this inaccessible situation, they seldom or never call for surgical interference. As the intercostal arteries pass outwards, traversing the intercostal spaces with their accompanying nerves, they diminish in size. Each vessel divides at a distance of about two inches, more or less, from the spine; and the upper larger branch lies under cover of the inferior border of the adjacent rib. When it is required ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... Square, was to be let at an exceedingly low rent on a repairing lease, and that the owner had a lot more property in Brighton to be let on the same terms. The lady was exceedingly rich and eccentric; indeed, by asking such low rents she was doing her best to seriously diminish her income. ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... eyes of a civilized people. For the ruthless and violent perpetrators of lawless deeds, especially when they are incarnate, are murderers to all intents and purposes, and popular approval does not diminish the magnitude of the crime. Millions may say, "Well done," but God, reason and civilization stamp them ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... this year furnished five million, three hundred and ninety-three thousand seven hundred and sixty-five dollars. The nation is not in a condition to maintain a superiority over the allies in the Netherlands, Italy and Silesia. It is, therefore, indispensable to diminish the force of the enemy. France can not be detached from the alliance. Prussia can be and must be. This concession England expects from Austria. What is to be done must be done immediately. The King of Prussia can not be driven from ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... no natural love of man for woman, of an entire human being, body and soul, for another entire human being, can ever be the counterpart of this passion for Beatrice, the passion of a mere mind for a mere mental ideal. But if the old lust-fattened evil of the world is to diminish rather than to increase, why then every love of man for woman and of woman for man should tend, to the utmost possibility, to resemble that love of the "Vita Nuova." For mankind has gradually separated ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... marriage isn't a partnership. It's the opposite except in name. It's a partnership in which the junior partner gives her whole mind to extracting from the business sums of money which ought to go back into it. And she spends those sums almost invariably on things which diminish in value the moment they are bought. It isn't the serpent that is the arch enemy of mankind. It's the pool in which Eve first saw that she was beautiful, or would be if she could only get her ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... complexion I should have great pleasure in beholding. It must add to her charms, and cannot diminish the character, sense, and shrewdness which distinguish her physiognomy, and which she possesses in a great degree, with a happy engrafting of a high-bred foreign air upon an English ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... other hand, remains unchanged—if we disregard the continual work performed by rain and streams, weather and wind, which tends to fill up the hollows with mud and sand, to cut the valleys ever deeper, and to diminish the mountain masses by weathering. However powerfully these forces may have acted, Tibet still remains the highest mountain ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... A galvanometer so constructed that the deflections of its index are proportional to the current passing. It is made by causing the deflecting force to increase as the needle is deflected, more and more, or by causing the restitutive force to diminish under like conditions, or by both. The condition is obtained in some cases by the shape and position of the ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... apple. The juices of Apples are matured and lose their rawness by keeping the fruit a certain time. These juices, together with those of the pear, the peach, the plum, and other such fruits, if taken without adding cane sugar, diminish acidity in the stomach rather than provoke it: they become converted chemically into alkaline carbonates, which correct sour fermentation. It is said in Devonshire that apples shrump up if picked when the moon ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... that pure water leaves no residue was not demonstrated until after alchemy had practically ceased to exist. It was possible also to demonstrate that water could be turned into fire by thrusting a red-hot poker under a bellglass containing a dish of water. Not only did the quantity of water diminish, but, if a lighted candle was thrust under the glass, the contents ignited and burned, proving, apparently, that water had been converted into fire. These, and scores of other similar experiments, seemed so easily explained, and to accord so well with the "four elements" theory, that they ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... beautifully. However, in a given case that doesn't diminish the merit. So, as soon as you arrive, you are going off ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... one who took the trouble to influence me. One thing, nevertheless, I was determined on, to let no circumstance defer my arrival at Paris a day later than was possible: therefore, though my office as chaperon might diminish my comforts en route, it should not interfere with the object before me. Had my mind not been so completely engaged with my own immediate prospects, when hope suddenly and unexpectedly revived, had become so tinged with fears and doubts as to be almost torture, I must have been much amused ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... which closed a round, wooden cover. They also carried provender for their teams and the only necessary cash expense was a sixpence each night for lodging. The more sumptuous and less economical might, if they chose, diminish their exchequer to the amount of an extra sixpence by indulging in a glass of "flip." Nearly every farm-house of any pretension on the high road to Albany was a hotel, so-called, if not in fact. ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell
... farms in 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 ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... wrong, but when I say that my single self have more acquaintances than all the chapter put together, and, consequently, that I am put to more expenses in the way of hospitality, then I am right. This embarrassment increases every day, and my resources diminish. I have made vain efforts to free myself from my difficulties. My prebend, it is true, yields me more bread and wine than I need for my own consumption. I can even sell some of it. But my expenses are very considerable. I have never less than two horses, usually five or six ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... corresponding to the object glass is formed by thin cross wires: and that corresponding to the eye piece by a plate of brass, pierced in the center by a small circular hole an eighth of an inch in diameter. The tube of the telescope is replaced by a lattice of brass work, so as to diminish, as far as possible, the resistance of the wind. The vertical and horizontal circles are divided decimally, and this much facilitates the reduction ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... was suggested that some remarks might be added for the benefit of many persons, especially young officers at sea, and the suggestion was complied with; yet not so as to diminish the portability of this compilation, ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... thousand puerile prettinesses, which were in themselves uninteresting, and took off greatly from the effect of the whole; as the numberless suckers, and straggling branches of a fruit tree, if permitted to shoot out unrestrained, while they are themselves barren and useless, diminish considerably the vigour of the parent stock. Ovid had more genius, but less judgement than Virgil; Dryden more imagination, but less correctness than Pope; had they not been deficient in these points, the former would certainly have equalled, the latter infinitely outshone the merits of ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... and diminish to pp as indicated. The upper tone must not only be sung softly, but the throat must be entirely free. There must be no ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... Society at home were at a low ebb, and it was thought needful to diminish the number of stations. The intolerance of the Burmese Government led to the decision that there was less benefit in maintaining that at Rangoon than those in the British provinces; and, as Dr. Judson had no private means, he was obliged to obey ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... others have done for you. Equalitie is the chiefe ground-worke of equitie, who can complaine to be comprehended where all are contained? So may you live long enough, you shall never diminish anything from the time you have to die: it is bootlesse; so long shall you continue in that state which you feare, as if you had died, being in your swathing-clothes, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... remain quite quiet for a time, and you will see that your pain will diminish, and then ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... with an impotent attempt to diminish the gravity of the revolt. 'When he saw this,' he tried to turn the flood into another channel, and so proclaimed a 'feast to Jehovah'!—as if He could be worshipped by flagrant defiance of His commandments, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... feeling would naturally diminish in succeeding generations, whereas the Gallicism of our people is on the increase,—in fact its origin is of comparatively recent date. But we really are more like the French in some senses. Politically the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... replenishing the fires under the boilers of imagination, initiative, aspiration, and reverence, we spend our time striving to bank or quench these fires and in playing and dawdling with the torches of arithmetic, grammar, and history with which we should be kindling the fires. Thus we diminish the power of the plant while life's activities are calling for extension and enlargement. We seem to be trying to train our pupils to work with one or but few boilers when there are scores of them available if only we knew how to ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... England at that time little exceeded three hundred thousand pounds.[**] Any considerable supplies could scarcely be expected from parliament, considering the present disposition of the nation; and as the war would sensibly diminish that branch arising from the customs, the finances, it was foreseen, would fall short even of the ordinary charges of government, and must still more prove unequal to the expenses of war. But though the queen owed great arrears to all her ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... rose higher and higher, the darkness began to melt on the tops of the lower hills and to diminish on the slopes of the upland pastures, lingering in the valleys as the snow delays there in spring. As point by point the landscape uncovered itself to his view, the eagle shaped his flight into a vast circle, or rather into a series of stupendous ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... violence, forbear saying any thing to the reproach of the Duke of Albemarle; but, contrarily, speaks much of his courage; but I do as plainly see that he do not like the Duke of Albemarle's proceedings, but, contrarily, is displeased therewith. And he do plainly diminish the commanders put in by the Duke, and do lessen the miscarriages of any that have been removed by him. He concurs with me, that the next bout will be a fatal one to one side or other, because, if we be beaten, we shall ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... purpose. Their presence is necessary because of the pressure to which the veins are subjected in different parts of the body. The contraction of a muscle will, for example, close the small veins in its vicinity and diminish the capacity of the larger ones. The natural tendency of such pressure is to empty the veins in two directions—one in the same direction as the regular movement of the blood, but the other in the opposite direction. ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... father's will had contemplated the cutting down of her annual allowance. The young heir had, on the other hand, made up the deficit. But why did these artificial restrictions exist? Why were precautions taken by the father to diminish his daughter's income? She had been extravagant. Both father and brother quarrelled with her on this point. Indeed, there was a slight family disturbance with reference to it during Sir Alan's last visit to London. Was Capella mixed ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... campaign was certain to make Austria pivotal in European politics once again. Her preparations were not well advanced, but her strength was growing daily, while that of her rivals was sure to diminish until in the end the coalition would be powerless without her. This Napoleon saw, and he arranged his strategy to checkmate what he now felt to be a hostile neutrality. Believing that the enemy would meet him half way, his first plan showed all the marks of greatness ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... him, and a report having arrived that he, and all the party with whom he went, were slain by the savage inhabitants of the island, William's despair of seeing his brother again caused the desire to diminish; while attention and affection to a still nearer and dearer relation than Henry had ever been to him, now ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... Woodbridge as fast as we may. For thither goes William Airy, partly in hopes of meeting me: he says he is much shaken by the dangerous illness he had this last Spring: and thinks, truly enough, that our chances of meeting in this World sensibly diminish. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... order to boil in down into sugar. Hour after hour passed away, and the sugar-maker looked as hot and black as the stoker in a steam-boat. Many times I peeped into the large pot, but the sap never seemed to diminish. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... los Indios, resalta la profunda veneracion que tributavan a Pachacamac." Antiguedades Peruanas, p. 149. Inasmuch as elsewhere this author takes pains to show that the Incas discarded the worship of the Sun, and instituted in place of it that of Viracocha, the above would seem to diminish the sphere ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... noticed it, and the fact that I had never seen it, and was perfectly unaware whether or not it resembled Sally, seemed in some curious way to increase, rather than to diminish, the jealous pain at my heart. Why should George have been given this trifle, which was associated with Sally, and which I had ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... said Barret; and we need scarcely add that the explanation tended rather to increase than diminish Milly's affection for, as well as her belief in, her lover! But when Barret went on further to describe the meeting in the Eagle Pass, she went off ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... the future, comforters of prose-ridden humanity, stewards of some of God's best gifts, openers of the gates of the beautiful, and hence ushers into the vestibule of the glorious 'Land of the Hereafter.' May they all remember their lofty calling, and never diminish their usefulness by unworthy contests among themselves, or by sacrificing their own better judgment to the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had any method of working. When he was strong and well he had always rather suffered from his superabundance than been disturbed at seeing it diminish: he followed his whim: he used to work first as the fancy took him, as circumstances chanced, with no fixed rule. As a matter of fact, he was always working everywhere: his brain was always busy. Often and often Olivier, who was less richly endowed and ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... to diminish their speed in order to let the cowboys keep them in sight. This was annoying, and Merry formed another plan and slowed to a halt in order ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... strangely been anticipated in the age of Gillesbeg Gruamach. Let not those chronological divergences perturb you; they were in the manuscript (which you will be good enough to assume) of Elrigmore, and I would not alter them. Nor do I diminish by a single hour Elrigmore's estimate that two days were taken on the Miraculous Journey to Inverlochy, though numerous histories have made it less. In that, as in a few other details, Elrigmore's account is borne out by one you know to whom The Little Wars of Lorn ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... gaining admission. The severity of the retribution meted out under his superintendence to those who had ventured to resist the royal authority was unparalleled in French history.[529] If the constable's ferocity did not diminish with age, it acquired a tinge of the ludicrous from his growing superstition. Never would he omit his devotions at the appointed hour, whether at home or in the field—"so conscientious was he." But he would interrupt the recital of ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... hour of need, as you remind me, needs that be a sign of my infatuation? Does every cavalier so think when a helpless woman turns to him in her distress? But even so," she continued, "how should all that diminish the peril you now talk of? Even were your suit with me to prosper, would that make you any the less Romeo Gonzaga, the butt of the anger of my uncle and Gian Maria? Rather do I think that it should ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... written constitution. But she has institutions, free institutions, institutions similar to those we have here in America. It is the free institutions of England that preserve and increase the liberty of Englishmen, and diminish and destroy the authority of the monarch, who is now only the personification of the nation, the ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... nothing in the notion that limiting the day's work will diminish the excellence of American workmen. On the contrary, the BEST work is done slowly and carefully. The WORST work ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... Lancashire weavers dying with hunger there is more thought and heart, a greater arithmetical amount of misery and desperation, than in whole gangs of Quashees.' He maintained, too, that a strain of sentiment about criminals was very prevalent in his day, which tended seriously to obliterate or diminish the real difference between right and wrong. He hated with an intense hatred that whole system of philosophy which denied that there was a deep, essential, fundamental difference between right and wrong, and turned the whole ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... I have both said and printed, and the last sentence you have just read from my satire is preceded by one that you have not read. An exposure of the impudence and falsehood of Blackwood's Magazine is not likely to injure its character, or diminish the number of its subscribers; and in this sentence you have the secret of my desire to become a contributor to Blackwood. I want a popular vehicle to convey my censures to the world, especially on Wordsworth. I do not pretend to have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... white-uniformed men had swung about and were pointing blazing rifles into the transmitter room. The racketing of the gunfire ended abruptly and the rifles were lowered again. The human din in the office began to diminish, turned suddenly into a shocked, strained silence. Quillan realized the blond girl ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... it, and the Talmud references[8] are equally involved. But certain negative facts are clear. First, the temple did not become, even if it were designed to be, a rival to the temple of Jerusalem: it did not diminish in any way the tribute which the Egyptian Jews paid to the sacred centre of the religion. They did not cease to send their tithes for the benefit of the poor in Judaea, or their representatives to the great festivals, and they dispatched messengers each year with contributions ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... just struck, and the enthusiasm did not diminish; it was kept up in equal doses in all classes of the population; magistrates, savants, merchants, tradesmen, street-porters, intelligent as well as "green" men were moved even in their most delicate fibres. It was a national enterprise; ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... the jug. It soon became more urgent than the completion of the inventory. Frequent visits of loyal Kentuckians with other jugs and botles, to drink to the renewed supremacy of the Banner of Beauty and Glory, did not diminish Kent's and Abe's apprehensions of ultimate thirst. Their clay seemed like some other kinds, which have their absorptive powers strengthened by the more they take up. They belonged to a not-unusual class of men whom it takes about as long to get thoroughly drunk as it does to heat up an iron-furnace, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Prussian statesman, born at Metschkau, Silesia; as Minister of Public Worship and Education he was instrumental in passing laws designed to diminish the influence of the clergy in State affairs; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... has vitalized my mind, should be extinguished forever, I will not in life act a mean, ungenerous, or useless part. Therefore, let not a slight thing lessen your respect for me. If you feel as much pain as I do, when obliged to diminish my respect for any person, you will be glad of this assurance. I hope you will not think this note in the ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... teaspoonful, of sand, clay and leaf mould. Dry them and then place each in an iron spoon or on a small coal shovel and heat in stove to redness. It will be found that the leaf mould will smoke and burn, and will diminish in amount, while the sand and ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... leave, sir (said he), to assure you, that in your fact you are mistaken, and in your deduction erroneous. Not one in two hundred that leave Scotland ever returns to settle in his own country; and the few that do return, carry thither nothing that can possibly diminish the stock of South-Britain; for none of their treasure stagnates in Scotland — There is a continual circulation, like that of the blood in the human body, and England is the heart, to which all the streams which it distributes are refunded and returned: ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... says: "Take him for all in all, I think it will be conceded that Michael Faraday is the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen; and I will add the opinion that the progress of future research will tend not to diminish or decrease, but to enhance and glorify, the labors of this ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... 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 ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... adopt some distinctive postage stamp to be used only in prepayment of the Registration charge, both to make it clear that this charge has been duly paid and accounted for in every case, and to diminish the risk which is occasionally felt at points of distribution of omitting to carry on the Registration in cases where the ordinary Registration postmark is not as distinct and calculated to arrest attention as it ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... seceded December 20, 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 Congress, in which ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... these social and economic tendencies the individual merges into the group; the group into the community; the community into a new society. In this clear perspective of historic development the spectacular hero at first sight seems to diminish; but the mass, the movement, the social force which he epitomizes and interprets, ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... people conversed together who have left an echo that is still heard. There also is still heard "the shot fired round the world," which of course returned to Concord on completing its circuit. But even the endless concourse of visitors, making the claims of any region wearisomely familiar, cannot diminish the simple solemnity of the town's historical as well as literary importance; and indeed it has so many medals for various merit that it is no wonder its residents have a way of speaking about it which some of us would call Bostonian. Emerson, Thoreau, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... summit of the ledge and was dispersed by the wind. This day we walked as far as the Table Rock which overhangs one side of the Horse-shoe Fall, and made a closer acquaintance with it; but intimacy serves rather to heighten than to diminish the effect produced on the eye and the ear by this ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin |
