"Feeble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... invasion of New Jersey, Washington put his army in motion early on the morning of the day in which Knyphausen marched from Elizabethtown and proceeded to the Short hills behind Springfield, while the British were in the vicinity of that place. Feeble as his army was, he made the necessary dispositions for fighting, but the unexpected retreat of Knyphausen rendered a battle unnecessary. The British were followed by an American detachment, which attacked their ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... time in trying to force a round block into a square hole. The demand on intelligence certainly seems slight enough; and the test would probably not differentiate between a Newton and you or me; but it does suffice to catch the feeble-minded, the young child, or the chimpanzee, as any of these is likely to fail altogether, or at least to waste much time in random moves and vain efforts. This test was tried on representatives of several ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... o'er the broad lake flying, Like a great Angel missioned to bestow Some boon on men beneath in sadness lying: The waves are murmuring silver murmurs low: Over the waves are borne Those feeble lights which, ere the eyes of Morn Are lifted, through her lids and lashes flow. Beneath the curdling wind Green through the shades the waters rush and roll, (Or whitened only by the unfrequent shoal,) Till two ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... floated through one gale she may float through another. We must trust in God," said the old man. "Ah me! I am very feeble. If we couldn't put our faith in Him, we should be badly off indeed. I cannot help ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... way go wrong. Ever since her failure in that moral coup d'etat by which the sinful dynasty of the natural self-determining power was to be dethroned, her attempts in the way of education had been a series of feeble efforts followed by plaintive wails over their utter want of success. The face she turned upon the young girl in her solemn expostulations looked as if it were inscribed with the epitaphs of hope and virtue. Her utterances were pitched in such a forlorn tone, that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... said Allison, opening his eyes again. "It will do no good, but it won't do harm." And the rector, catching at the feeble flicker of a dawning faith, said the twenty-third Psalm slowly on his knees: "'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... of the main trunk diminished to about five hundred feet, the greater portion became torpid, as is shown by the moraines, and lay dying in its crooked channel like a wounded snake, maintaining for a time a feeble squirming motion in places of exceptional depth, or where the bottom of the canyon was more steeply inclined. The numerous fountain-wombs, however, continued fruitful long after the trunk had vanished, giving rise to an imposing array of short residual glaciers, extending around ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... concealed party of the enemy on their flank. It was, however, found impracticable to cross the hills with the cannon; and, returning to the plain, the march was continued, the Californians still prancing and performing their antics in our faces. Our horses were so poor and feeble that it was impossible to chase them with any hope of success. As we proceeded, they retreated. Some of the Indian scouts, among whom were a Delaware named Tom, who distinguished himself in the engagement near San Juan, and a Californian Indian named ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... pity for his deformity. She now acutely felt her aunt's, her cousin's, dislike; and her uncle's gentleness was not less galling. In her softly rounded youthful face there was revealed definitely for the first time an underlying expression of strength, of what is often confused with its feeble counterfeit, obstinacy—that power to resist circumstances which makes the unusual and the firm character. The young mobility of her features suggested the easy swaying of the baby sapling in the gentlest ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... including Sir Francis himself, who had already heard more than a fortnight back from Lord Walwyn, and had become uneasy at the non-arrival of his two young guests. On Smithers's appearance, all had been made ready; and as Berenger, with feeble, tardy movements, made courteous gestures of thanks to the lady, and alighted form the coach, he was absolutely received into the dignified arms of the Ambassador. 'Welcome, my poor lad, I am glad to see ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of dust, and feeble as frail, In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail. Thy mercies how tender! how firm to the end! Our Maker, ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... minute," spoke the old man. His brain was feeble and Jack realized if he hurried or confused the sufferer he might ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... certain small shops, which are suppressed today and opened to-morrow. In order that this enterprise may go on increasing for the service of God and of your Majesty, will you order that an encomienda be given to us. With it and my feeble efforts we could support ourselves, and so great a work as this is would ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... finest mountains of the world are soaring into the purple firmament. Like northern lights, they flash, or flush, or fade into a reclining gleam; like ladders of heaven, they bar themselves with cloudy air; and like heaven itself, they rank their white procession. Lonely, feeble, puny, I look up with awe and reverence; the mind pronounces all things small compared with this magnificence. Yet what will all such grandeur do—the self-defensive heart inquires—for puny, feeble, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... these people can never emerge from their condition of semi-barbarism. They must continue behind the spirit of the age in all that pertains to the highest order of civilization. Science, in a limited sense, may find a few votaries; the arts may be cultivated to a certain degree; a feeble school of literature may attain the eminence of a national feature; but there can be no general expansion of the intellectual faculties, no enlarged and comprehensive views of life and of human affairs. Whatever these people do must ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... sitting up and some were lying down, so there could not be the same busy gathering, bustling, and shifting to and fro with which children generally prepare themselves to hear a story; but their faces, and the turning of their heads, and many feeble exclamations of expected pleasure, showed that all such preparations were making ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... contrary the existence of an hereditary prince inspires perpetual distrust among the friends of liberty; his authority is odious to them; in checking despotism they constantly obstruct the action of government. Observe how feeble the executive power was found, after our recent pretence of marrying Royalty ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... equally easy to mankind. But the Christian alone knows that he must look beyond himself for guidance, and for support. He knows only too well, that there are times when the practice of some plain and evident duty, costs his feeble nature a severe struggle—in no instance will he dare trust his own strength alone. He knows that even in those cases where duly is also a pleasure, he must still be watchful and humble, lest he fall. One would ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... "the weak things" and "things that are despised." He loves to put the treasure of His grace into the feeble, that the world may be compelled to ask, "whence hath this man power?" ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... it's a shame to mention ducks in the same chapter with this atmosphere! Zow hippy! But it's hot an' dusty an' thirsty! Come along there, you old hunk of jerked beef!" he added to his pony, giving a gentle reminder with the spurs and pulling on the reins. The pony made a feeble attempt to increase its gait, but it was no more than ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... to regain her former colonial power, would use the Mississippi Valley as a means of provisioning her West Indian islands; of dominating Spanish America, and of subordinating to her purposes the feeble United States, which her policy assigned to the lands between the Atlantic and the Alleghanies. The ancient Bourbon monarchy, the revolutionary republic, and the Napoleonic empire—all contemplated the acquisition of the whole Valley of the ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... the canteen from the prostrated man's feeble grasp before he had drained more than a mouthful or two. But even that had revived him, and he was able to sit up and gaze about bewilderedly. All at once his eyes rested on Peggy, and he seemed to regard her as the means of his salvation ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... said Madison, turning despairingly towards her. "Let us for His sake, let us for the sake of our dear blessed past, talk together earnestly and prayerfully. Let us take this time to root out of our feeble hearts all yearnings that are not prompted by Him—yearnings that your union with this man makes impossible and sinful. Let us for the sake of the past take counsel of each other, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... where their demesne possessions and their goods had been before made away with. Even the lands and funds set aside for their funeral ceremonies, in which they hoped to find an end to their miseries, and some indemnity of imagination for all the substantial sufferings of their lives,—even the very feeble consolations of death, were, by the same rigid hand of tyranny,—a tyranny more consuming than the funeral pile, more greedy than the grave, and more inexorable than death itself,—seized and taken to make good the honor of corruption and the faith of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and enjoying a well-earned reputation as the most ornate and artistic liar in the Territory. For two hours he had been exercising his talent to the full, and merely paused now in search of some fresh inspiration, holding in supreme and silent contempt the rather feeble imitations of his less-gifted companion. It is also just to add that Mr. Moffat personally formed an ideal accompaniment to his vivid narrations of adventure, and he was fully aware of the fact that Miss Spencer's appreciative eyes ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... her friends." Here the handkerchief came out of the reticule. "She went to Boston to teach school, and some time afterward I was offered a position in New York, and I never saw her again. But she married in Boston a man of learning and literary attainments, though his health was feeble and he was poor, William Wetherell." (Another stir.) "Mr. Wetherell was a gentleman—Cynthia Ware could have married no other—and he came of good and honorable people in Portsmouth. Very recently I read a collection of letters which he wrote to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in the life of every man a time when feeble words come faintly up for utterance—when the human soul refuses to ease tell its agony in empty phrases—when neither tongue can tell nor pen portray the gloom which o'ershadows the spirit engulfed in woe. This suffering may be selfish, or be merged in a general sorrow. As I write the ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... was in feeble health (and died the next year) in expressing her regrets said: "I am taking a rest. I have worked more than a half-century and, like stronger people, have become tired. I am meaning to build my small observatory and keep up a sort of apology for study—because I am too old ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... same plan of a conformity to nature in our artificial institutions, and by calling in the aid of her unerring and powerful instincts to fortify the fallible and feeble contrivances of our reason, we have derived several other, and those no small benefits, from considering our liberties in the light of an inheritance. Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... the British colonies," he said, "no Governor has ever been placed in greater difficulties. In spite of a support of the most shamelessly feeble character, and in spite of a want of understanding at home, His Excellency has not only had to originate and carry out a policy, but he has had to instruct the whole nation in the dangers which threatened; and the means which were necessary to ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... Darwinism—and among them particularly the Old Catholic philosopher of Munich, Huber, who has written a series of articles in the "Augsburger Zeitung"—have made constant capital out of the harmless talk of the feeble old Von Baer, I must in this place explicitly declare that this dualistic prating of the old man is quite incapable of shaking the monistic principles of the young and enterprising pioneers of science, or of ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... Whether he noticed the look of terror with which Pierre regarded that lifeless arm, or whether some other thought flitted across his dying brain, at any rate he glanced at the refractory arm, at Pierre's terror-stricken face, and again at the arm, and on his face a feeble, piteous smile appeared, quite out of keeping with his features, that seemed to deride his own helplessness. At sight of this smile Pierre felt an unexpected quivering in his breast and a tickling in his nose, and tears dimmed his eyes. The sick man was turned on ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... going to worry me," returned Douglas quietly. "The poor old fellow was unhappy and useless. He died a real hero's death for some one he loved. Folks in Lost Chief are going to remember that instead of his poor old feeble mind." ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... time in Magdalen's experience, Mrs. Wragge was deaf to the customary stimulant. She actually ventured on a feeble remonstrance in ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... scandal successfully afloat, the society papers began to utter a feeble protest against it—thus increasing their own reputation for a refined morality. But they had no power to turn the tide, and the scandal floated on. In society itself judgment was divided. Whether "Laura" was or was not a ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... but the name! what fury that breathed into people! the books were about peace and gentleness, but the name was the most horrible of war-cries—those who wished to uphold old names at first strove to oppose it, but their efforts were feeble, and they had no good war-cry; what was Mars as a war- cry compared with the name of. . . .? It was said that they persecuted terribly, but who said so? The Christians. The Christians could have given them a lesson ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... white, her feeble limbs shivered as with an ague fit. "My son," she moaned, "my only one—and you, too, may be sacrificed. Oh, unhappy country, unhappy fate that makes it ours! But you are right. The Princess is an angel of goodness; she will save us. ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... proceeds he, what is there in thee, that can thus against his will affect the heart of a Lovelace!—Whence these involuntary tremors, and fear of giving mortal offence?—What art thou, that acting in the breast of a feeble woman, which never before, no, not in my first attempt, young as I then was, and frightened at my own boldness (till I found myself forgiven,) had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... of daylight saw him dragging his feeble body to the window. He did not remove from that post till the rain was over,—nor then, except for a moment. As the clouds rose from the sea, he watched them. How strange was the aspect of all things! Thus, while he had lived and not beheld, these trees ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... you, my brother, that it has been through many trials, afflictions, doubts, and temptations, that your feeble humble servant has found the way to this rock; you cannot be altogether ignorant of this travail of mind. Permit me then to call to remembrance the bondage we have escaped, the sea through which we have passed, the sweet songs of deliverance and salvation which we have chanted to our ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... However, that's neither here nor there—at least it does not affect the fact that Wordsworth is a first-rate man, and a fine preacher. I dare say you know he is a nephew or grand-nephew of the Poet. He is a most venerable old man, and worth looking at, merely for his exterior. He is so feeble with age that he can with difficulty climb the three short steps that lead into the pulpit; but, once in the pulpit, it is another thing. There is no feebleness when he begins to preach. He is one of the last voices of the old orthodox school, and I ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... days, Tom, moved with undefined remorse, tried to take a part in nursing her. She took things from him, as she did from the landlady, without heed or recognition. Just once, opening suddenly her eyes wide upon him, she uttered a feeble wail of "Baby!" and, turning her head, did not look at him again. Then, first, Tom's conscience ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... miles, I am told that the lands on this Small river is good, and on its Several falls well Calculated for mills, the wind from S. W. came to at 12 oClock & rested three hours, the ... being hot the men becom verry feeble, Farnsts. Thermometer at 3 oClock Stood at 96 above 0, emence numbs. of Deer on the banks, Skipping in every derection, the party Killed nine Bucks on the river & Bank to day, The Countrey on the S. S. between the Shoal River ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... think you can't. Come, now, Agnes! It's a failure. Own up, and bring the rest of the company out of the next room. I suppose almost anything is allowable at this festive season, but this is pretty feeble." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... necessary to terminate an interview which, in the feeble condition of the aged man, could not be prolonged. Much exhausted, and laboring under deep emotion, Bishop Meade shook the general by the ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... expedition started from Fort La Reine, led by La Verendrye's two sons, Pierre and Francois. They knew the nature of the task before them, its perils as well as its hopes. They took with them no imposing company as their father had done, but only two men. The party of four, too feeble to fight their way, had to trust to the peaceful disposition of the natives. When they started, the prairie was turning from brown to green and the rivers were still swollen from the spring thaw. In three weeks ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... a rule of conduct, and a right on the part of some one, which right ought to be enforced by society. If it is asked why society ought to enforce the right, there is no answer but the general utility. If that expression seem feeble and inadequate to account for the energy of retaliation inspired by injustice, the author asks us to advert to the extraordinarily important and impressive kind of utility that is concerned. The interest involved is security, to every one's feelings the most vital of all interests. ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... association and co-operation on a large scale, affording not merely greater comfort and often luxury, but actually distributing the fruits of labor on a more equitable basis than is possible in sparsely settled regions and among feeble communities. The great improvements of our day in labor-saving machinery, and its application to agriculture, enable the nation to be fed with a less percentage of its total force thus applied, and leave a larger margin of population free to engage in such ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... George?" (p. 496). Even in France herself Tardieu recognizes sadly the language has altered: "les gouvernements francais, qui se sont succede au pouvoir depuis le 10 janvier, 1920," that is, after the fall of Clemenceau, accused in turn by Poincare of being weak and feeble in asserting his demands, "ont compromis les droits que leur predecesseur avait fait reconnaitre a la ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... if you have had any experience of suburban literary societies, but the one that flourished under the eye of Mrs. Willoughby Smethurst at Wood Hills was rather more so than the average. With my feeble powers of narrative, I cannot hope to make clear to you all that Cuthbert Banks endured in the next few weeks. And, even if I could, I doubt if I should do so. It is all very well to excite pity and terror, as Aristotle recommends, but there are limits. In the ancient Greek tragedies ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... are some men," say you, "who use ardent spirits, and who get along very well." Admitted. They endure it. So there are some men who get along very well with poor health and feeble constitutions. Are poor health and feeble constitutions, therefore, no evils? Is the prosperity of such to be attributed to them? As much as is that of the former to the use of ardent spirits. Was ever a man made rich by the use of ardent ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... gloom, came some of the sweet promises of the Word: and so I prayed for their speedy fulfilment. Earnestly did my feeble petitions ascend, that the time would soon come when not only all the poor Indians of the great North-West, but also all the unnumbered millions of earth's inhabitants who are going down from the darkness of paganism and superstition to the darkness of the grave, might soon ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... a very influential factor in aiding the movement. This, however, was not a general thing, because most of the Negro publications, for various reasons, either remained silent or spoke only in a very feeble manner concerning the exodus. Two of these publications, nevertheless, were very outspoken on the whole matter, in that they urged the Negroes to leave the South by all means. The principal one of these was edited in Chicago and its appeal was made to the most lowly class of Negroes. During ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... acclamations of Europe, that his anxious ear could hear the few solitary voices which disputed his legitimacy? that in this manner his troubled spirit was always seeking agitation as its element: that strong as he was to desire, but feeble to enjoy, he himself, therefore, would be the only one ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... feeble as it was, President Roosevelt in 1904 proposed a second conference, yielding to the Czar the honor of issuing the call. At this great international assembly, held at the Hague in 1907, the representatives of the United States proposed a plan for the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... heavily. Up and down the heaving swell we went; crawling laboured to the crown—the shudder, and the quick, sickening descent! Clack—clack-a! Would it ever end? Now I was pulling out of stroke—a feeble paddle. My neck! I had the pain there! ... "Bow, there! Lay in, an' keep yer eyes about. He must be ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... force pump, got the hose along, and by-and-by it burst. Well, it was as old as the ship—a prehistoric hose, and past repair. Then we pumped with the feeble head-pump, drew water with buckets, and in this way managed in time to pour lots of Indian Ocean into the main hatch. The bright stream flashed in sunshine, fell into a layer of white crawling smoke, and vanished on the black surface of coal. Steam ascended mingling ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... he does it and is angry with his wife, is a merely sentimental one—a private, unreasoning, childish love of his father, such a love as Strafford is supposed to have for Charles I.—the kind of love which intruded into public affairs ruins them, and which, being feeble and for an unworthy object, injures him who gives it and him who receives it. Even as a study of characters, much more as a drama, this piece is a failure, and the absence of poetry ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... parliamentary generals, was more intent on schemes for his own personal safety, than anxious for the preservation of his country or religion. The other Irish, divided between their clergy, who were averse to Ormond, and their nobility, who were attached to him, were very uncertain in their motions and feeble in their measures. The Scots in the north, enraged, as well as their other countrymen, against the usurpations of the sectarian army, professed their adherence to the king; but were still hindered by many prejudices from entering into a cordial union with his lieutenant. All these distracted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... sceptre of France, and suffered severely upon the occasion. Guy of Thouars, then in alliance with Philip-Augustus, advanced against it at the head of an army of Britons; and, experiencing on the part of the inhabitants but a feeble resistance, set fire to the palisades, the principal defence of the place. The flames communicated to the houses; and the church also fell a prey to them. To use ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... being always fewer in number, have not been able to keep pace with the variations of the much more numerous imitated form; another reason may be the ever-increasing acuteness of the enemies, which have again and again detected the imposture and exterminated the feeble race before it has had time to become further modified. The result of this growing acuteness of enemies has been, that those mimics that now survive exhibit, as Mr. Bates well remarks, "a palpably intentional ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Introduction, I will take the opportunity to protest against the abuse of the phrase "High Art." It is generally appropriated by that which is the lowest and most feeble. ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... rain was beating against the windows, and a rising wind made itself heard in feeble wails as it turned the dark corners of the Tavern. Presently it was to howl and shriek, and, as the rain ceased, to rattle the window shutters and the ancient, creaking sign that hung out over the porch,—for on the wind tonight came the first chill ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... accidentally at intervals, though never again in Camden. I met him on the streets, and several times took him from the Carl Gaertner String Quartet Concerts in the foyer of the Broad Street Academy of Music to the Market Street cars. He lumbered majestically, his hairy breast exposed, but was a feeble old man, older than his years; paralysis had maimed him. He is said to have incurred it from his unselfish labours as nurse in the camp hospitals at Washington during the Civil War; however, it was in his family on the paternal side, and at thirty he was ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the mantelshelf hummed and gurgled, and with much deliberation struck one. Only an instant later, lagging footsteps ascended the wooden, echoing stairs without, and the door was pushed open by the attendant, an old dame. She was very dingy as to garb, very wrinkled and feeble as to face, yet with a conscious achievement of respectability, both in appearance and manner, befitting her post as housekeeper to the "young master." The young master, be it stated at once, was at that time fast approaching the end of his second ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the mere loss of the paper on which it was written would not be any real loss to him at all! It is only fair to Gottlieb's good angel to state that during this able presentment of the wrong side of the case he did venture to hint once or twice—in the feeble, perfunctory sort of way that unfortunately seems to be characteristic of good angels when their services really are most urgently required—that the whole matter might be compromised satisfactorily to all the parties in interest by permitting Hans ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... is said to be abnormal when it continues too long or occurs too often. It may be strong and continuous, quieting down when he is approached or taken up; or it may be a worrying, fretful cry, a low moan or a feeble whine. And now as we take up the several cries, their description, cause, and treatment, we desire to say to the young mother: Do not yourself begin to fret and worry about deciding just which class your baby's ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... hand, And drive this proud oppressor from the land! Father and Son, in virtuous league combined, No savage despot shall enslave mankind; When Sun and Moon o'er heaven refulgent blaze, Shall little stars obtrude their feeble rays?"[15] ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... wrinkled faced, but well colored and hearty lookin' old girl, and the eyes that peeks out under the rim of the velvet lid is as keen and shrewd as a squirrel's. Whatever else she might be, it was plain Aunt Elvira wa'n't feeble minded. Behind her comes a couple of station porters, one cartin' an old-time black valise, and the other with his arms wrapped around a full sized featherbed in ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... anything in evil, second only to politics—is proclaimed to be the great means of humanizing, enlightening, liberalizing, and improving the human race! Now, against this monstrous mistake in morals, we would fain raise our feeble voices in sober remonstrance. That the intercourse which is a consequence of commerce may, in certain ways, liberalize a man's views, we are willing to admit; though, at the same time, we shall insist that there are better ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... grew sick of the restraint and drilling of camp-life; so some of them, when refused a furlough, took it, and came home. Others stayed at home after leave had ended, feeling secure in their stretches of pine and swamp, not only from the feeble efforts of the conscript-guard, but from any parties who might be sent in search ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... just at dusk, a taxicab which had been wandering up and down a well-kept block in Eighty-seventh Street stopped suddenly in front of a certain drug-store to let an old man out. He seemed very feeble and leaned heavily on his cane while crossing the sidewalk toward the store. But his face was kindly, and his whole aspect that of one who takes the ills of life without bitterness or complaint. When ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... this danger." From this official declaration of Napoleon's confidential Minister, in a society of known anti-imperialists, I draw the conclusion that Moreau will never more, during the present reign, return to France. How very feeble, and how badly advised must this general have been, when, after his condemnation to two years' imprisonment, he accepted a perpetual exile, and renounced all hopes of ever again entering his own country. In the Temple, or in any other prison, if he had submitted ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... maintained, "a fair calculation;" but it was exasperating to England, who thought that America ought to be equally interested with Europe in overthrowing the military despotism of Napoleon, and should not conspire with him for gain. At first the new war disconcerted the feeble Ministry that remained in office on the death of Spencer Perceval: they counted on preventing it, and did their utmost to stop it after it was begun. The tone of arrogance which had so long characterized ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... feeble tenure does poor woman hold her character and peace of mind!—It is true, sir, that a woman's reputation is too frequently, with ruffian cruelty, blasted in the bud, without a cause; and that so effectually, that it seldom or never flourishes ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... settled everything. When Mrs Pipkin suggested that Ruby should be married from her house, he winked his eye as he declined the suggestion with thanks. Daniel Ruggles was old, and, under the influence of continued gin and water, was becoming feeble. John Crumb was of opinion that the old man should not be neglected, and hinted that with a little care the five hundred pounds which had originally been promised as Ruby's fortune, might at any rate be secured. He was of opinion that the marriage should be celebrated in Suffolk,—the feast ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... a naggin'! That is what wears out us public men,— wimmin's questionin'. It hain't so much the public duties we have to perform that ages us, and wears us out before our time,—it is woman's weak curiosity on public topics, that her mind is too feeble to grasp holt of. It is wearin'," ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... with the ease of a fifth-rate professional swimmer. Then a second young woman recited something or other in German, with an atrocious English accent. And the whole concluded with a lecture upon chemistry (given by a seedy-looking old man), which was illustrated with some ambitious, but feeble experiments. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... against the circulating library, and I have read a feeble defence or two; but I have not seen the argument that might be legitimately put forward in its favour. It seems to me this: the circulating library is conservatism, art is always conservative; the circulating library lifts the writer out of the precariousness ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... stimulus. To take a very inconspicuous case, it is found by Fechner that a given increase of force in the stimulus produces a less amount of difference in the resulting sensations when the original stimulus is a powerful one than when it is a feeble one. It follows from this, that differences in the degree of our sensations do not exactly correspond to objective differences. For example, we tend to magnify the differences of light among objects, all of which are feebly illuminated, that is ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... about a fortnight, with a slow fever and the camp disorder, which prevented my being in the skirmish. I had not passed the enemy but a little while before the enemy came up; and if I had been with the regiment at the lines, I was so weak and feeble, I should without doubt have fallen into their hands. I have now left the regiment for a few days, and am with brother Chester, about sixteen miles from ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... feeble struggle, and then the two lads went down together, with Fred under. They fell heavily, and Merriwell came down on his enemy ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... passed on glad at heart. He found Menestheus the charioteer, the son of Peteos, standing still, and round him were the Athenians, masters of the battle-cry. And hard by stood crafty Odysseus, and round about him the ranks of Kephallenians, no feeble folk, stood still; for their host had not yet heard the battle-cry, seeing the battalions of horse-taming Trojans and Achaians had but just bestirred them to move; so these stood still tarrying till some other column of the Achaians ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... its range, as Bragg determined in the case of gases. And we must conclude that the halo in every case grows in this manner. A spherical shell of darkened biotite is first produced and the inner colouration is only effected as the more feeble ionisation along the track of the ray in course of ages gives rise to sufficient alteration of the mineral. This more feeble ionisation is, near the nucleus, enhanced in its effects by the fact that there all the rays ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... to keep us safe in life and in death; as Psalm xxii. saith, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." [Ps. 23:4] If this gain of death move us but little, it is proof that our faith in Christ is feeble, and does not prize highly enough the reward and gain of a blessed death, or does not yet believe that death is a blessing; because the old man is still too much alive in us, and the wisdom of the flesh too strong. We should, therefore, endeavor to attain to the knowledge and the love of this blessing ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... Asia, there are, on the other hand, so many differences that I believe it is safer to infer that they were essentially distinct in origin, and that there had been communication between the two peoples in very early times, but that the foreign influence in Mexico was extremely feeble, and too weak to check the growth of an essentially indigenous civilisation. Possibly sun and serpent worship, baptism, and the use of the cross as a sacred emblem, were the survival of religious beliefs that had obtained in the very cradle of the human race. We cannot, however, ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... unknown father, who now had them in his power; at a woman they scarcely knew, whom they were told to call Aunt Margaret; at a strange man who was to take Lucette's place, and who had a grip that made hers seem feeble, and who was to teach them the things of which they knew nothing, and therefore hated; and at a boy nearer their own size and years, whom their father called William. Both boys refused fruit and cereal, rudely demanding cake and ice cream. Margaret Winslow ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... to the Hobart place f'r goin' on thirty years, I calc'late that I know jest about ez much about the case ez anybody else now on airth, exceptin' perhaps it's ol' Jedge Baker, and he's so plaguy old 'nd so powerful feeble that he ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... describe the details. At last the jury rose to retire for consultation. The President was very tired, and so his last charge to the jury was rather feeble. "Be impartial, don't be influenced by the eloquence of the defense, but yet weigh the arguments. Remember that there is a great responsibility laid upon you," and so on and ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sharp and clear. But this time it proved to be a great battlemented mass of cloud on the horizon. In a few minutes more he was quite close, all of a sudden, to the great front, rising gray and dim in the feeble light, and not till he could have struck it with his good oak "wattle" did he discover it to be only one of those wild, gray frontages of living rock that rise here and there in picturesque tiers along the slopes of those solitary mountains. And so, till dawn, pursuing ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... produce a start, a scream, a distortion of the face, a trembling consequent on general muscular relaxation, a burst of perspiration, a rush of blood to the brain, followed possibly by arrest of the heart's action and by syncope; and if the subject be feeble, an indisposition with its long train of complicated symptoms may set in. Similarly in cases of disease. A minute portion of the small-pox virus introduced into the system, will, in a severe case, cause, during ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... spirits had produced an illusion, or else that some child had been left here by accident. She advanced, but as she did so the two hands were stretched out and locked together as in an agony, and the childish, feeble voice cried out, 'Oh! if you're an angel, please don't frighten me; ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me to the road, white with dust, upon which like a Viking and like a feeble girl I have travelled. It is not long, but how many paths, what byways and what turns! What sudden glimpses of sea and sky, what inaccessibleness! Hark, from the wood on either side murmurings of hope and hard sobbing of despair, ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... object of population may be held by mankind, it will be difficult to find, in the history of civil policy, any wise or effectual establishments, solely calculated to obtain it. The practice of rude or feeble nations is inadequate, or cannot surmount the obstacles which are found in their manner of life. The growth of industry, the endeavours of men to improve their arts, to extend their commerce, to secure their possessions, and to establish their rights, are indeed ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... no harmony in the lighting of the model. In the case where the picture has been flat it has arisen from the sitter being placed too far back from the window, so that the direct light falling upon him has been too feeble to produce any strong lights, and the reflector arranged so that it received a stronger illumination than the model, then reflecting it on to the latter, quite overpowering the dominant lights. The remedy for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... is treue, & many things more which I have forborne. I write it as upon my life, and last confession in England. What is of use to be spoken [45] of presently, you may speake of it, and what is fitt to conceile, conceall. Pass by my weake maner, for my head is weake, & my body feeble, y^e Lord make me strong in him, & keepe both ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... were painful to me, I admit it, owing to the inexpressible difference which struck me between what I found here and what I had left elsewhere. But just as the eye accustoms itself, little by little, to the feeble glimmer of a vault, in the same way my body has accustomed itself to the roughness of my new existence, and my heart to ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... have husbanded his ammunition, but had a feeble fire been kept up at first, it would have encouraged the enemy to come on with greater determination. Several of the garrison had been killed or wounded, but none of the officers had fallen. As soon as possible, therefore, Reginald hastened to assure Violet of his own and her father's safety. ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... did not abundantly manifest itself, for the day was sunless; but now and again, with crisp rattle of his gauze wings, a dragon-fly flashed along the river. Through these scenes the Teign rolled drowsily and with feeble pulses. Upon one bank rose the confines of Whiddon; on the other, abrupt and interspersed with gulleys of shattered shale, ascended huge slopes whereon a whole summer of sunshine had scorched the heather to dry death. ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... as he gave the reluctant twins their occasional bath, and fed them on food regularly prescribed by Mrs. Grubb, and almost as regularly rejected by them, would have melted the stoniest heart. And who was the angel of deliverance? A little vacant-eyed, half-foolish, almost inarticulate child, whose feeble and sickly mother was dragging out a death-in-life existence in a street near by. The child saw Mr. Grubb wheeling the twins in a double perambulator: followed them home; came again, and then again, and then ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... be borne in mind that Mr. Howard actually received the freedom of the borough, with many compliments upon his exertions in the cause of the poor inmates of the gaol, and yet few or no important steps were taken to remedy the glaring evils which he pointed out. Some feeble reforms certainly did take place immediately after his first and second visits to Liverpool, but a retrograde movement succeeded, and things relapsed into their usual jog-trot way of dirt and disorder. When Mr. ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... flashed into those glorious eyes; but, seeing me intolerant of her appeal, she drew back and quickly turned her head aside. Even in this hour of extremity, of impotent wrath, I could find no contempt in my heart for her feeble hypocrisy; with all the old wonder I watched that exquisite profile, and Karamaneh's very deceitfulness was a salve—for had she not cared she would ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... so! I cannot bear that he should die in that faith; he is too feeble to oppose anything they offer, and is scarcely conscious of his own actions. In health, they dared not approach him; for they knew full well that he scorned their creed, and disliked their Padre. Yet now that he is so weak, in both body and mind, they hope to ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... bed. I immediately strolled forth from the inn, and found it sitting up a while longer on the piazza, chiefly at the cafe door, listening to the band of the garrison by the light of a dozen or so of feeble tapers, fastened along the front of the palace of the Government. Before long, however, it had dispersed and departed, and I was left alone with the grey illumination and with an affable citizen whose testimony as to the manners and customs of ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... for that he fasted twice a-week, and paid tithes of all that he possessed. So that you see he pretended to a double foundation for his salvation, a moral and a ceremonial one; but both very lean, weak, and feeble: for the first of his foundation, what is it more, if all be true that he saith, but a being removed a few inches from the vilest men in their vilest actions? a very slender matter to build my confidence for ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... than twenty, for the same reason—because they are more capable to help one another. If ever Christians would do any thing to raise up the fallen tabernacles of Jacob, and to strengthen the weak, and comfort the feeble, and to fetch back those that have gone astray, it must be ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... became aware of something in the doorway. A skull appeared suspended in the gloom of the doorway. A feeble creature like a monkey was there, drawn thither by the sound of voices at the fire. A whining voice ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... was face to face with my start in life. We walked in a body a few steps on a greasy pavement between her side and the towering wall of a warehouse and I hit my shins cruelly against the end of the gangway. The constable hailed her quietly in a bass undertone 'Ferndale there!' A feeble and dismal sound, something in the nature of a buzzing groan, answered from ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... To me thy tedious feeble pace Comes laden with the weight of years; With sighs I view morn's blushing face, And hail mild evening ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... but the feeble effort died on his hot lips. He spat on the ground, and then tried to lift his eyes back to the eyes of Greta, but they fell to the whip that he held in ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... finally, when I caught a slight cold, my health broke down so completely that I had to be taken to the hospital. Shiphrah visited me every day, calling me poor orphan boy and quarreling with the superintendent over me. One afternoon, after I had been discharged, when she saw me at the synagogue, feeble and emaciated, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... scorn and dislike he had conceived for Flint, years ago, when Flint had failed to win back Catherine to him, had long grown keener and more bitter. Waldron took it as a personal affront that Flint, apparently so worn and feeble, could still hang on to life and brains enough to dominate the enterprise. A thousand times, if once, he had wished Flint well dead and buried and out of the way, so that he, Waldron, could grasp the whole circle of the stupendous Air Trust. ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... Egyptian taskmaster, the command, charging the whole work and portion of brick, and giving no straw to work upon? So are many in duties. While the aim and eye is upon some measure according to the perfect rule, the hands fall down feeble, and none is wrought at all, and they do not look if there be another word from God posterior to the command, a word of promise. We use also to gather desperate conclusions of the curse, and make the law according to which ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... in June, 1872, I felt an irrepressible desire to see the grand old man once more, and I accordingly addressed him a note, requesting him the favor of a few minutes' interview.... After we had waited some time, a feeble, stooping figure, attired in a long blue flannel gown, moved slowly into the room. His gray hair was unkempt, his blue eyes were still keen and piercing, and a bright hectic spot of red appeared on each of his hollow ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... overthrow he was growing very feeble, and always carried a cane surmounted with a gold eagle. Commonly too some chosen friend, generally Fleury, gave him his arm, but he always walked in silence. In the afternoon he would drive out, and sometimes horrify the police by ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... feeble, my good Madame Gerard," his mother would respond. "Ah, I am beginning to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... quietly to the two Brazilians who had hold of either arm, and Mr. Swift was held by only one, for it was seen that he was feeble. ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... 3. Respirations feeble and gasping, and soon cease; convulsions of stretching character; heart continues to beat for three to ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... to be destroyed; otherwise, I should consider myself authorized to declare that war had broken out, and that the assurances between us would remain null and void—as his Grace will see in my letters, since his memory is so feeble as he says and declares, since he says and declares that without the assurances being canceled as yet on either side, and without giving any warning or intimation whatsoever, I ordered the boats and galleys ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... something and insisted on trying to talk, though the froth of blood on his lips indicated the folly of it. In vain Ike soothed him and implored him to rest. His black eyes snapped and his right hand made feeble motions toward the floor of the wagon where, on a pile of supplies and camp equipment, lay a burlap sack containing ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... from us in Philadelphia, 1833, erecting a rival judicatory, and dishonestly claiming the name Reformed Presbyterian Church, we bear our feeble testimony for the following among ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... observances are in origin pre-Celtic, but were practised by the Celts. Girls slide down a stone to obtain a lover, pregnant women to obtain an easy delivery, or contact with such stones causes barren women to have children or gives vitality to the feeble. A small offering is usually left on the stone.[1146] Similar rites are practised at megalithic monuments, and here again the custom is obviously pre-Celtic in origin. In this case the spirits of the dead must have been expected to assist the purposes ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... balls swept the decks of the stranger with devastating effect, as might be gathered from the chorus of shrieks and yells of anguish that arose from the deck of the Spaniard. An answering volley was instantly returned by the enemy, but it was wild, straggling, and feeble, bearing eloquent testimony to the state of confusion that already prevailed on board her, and which did little harm; and this state of confusion was further demonstrated by the sight of an officer on her poop waving his sword violently ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... her quite what the oldest son meant. The first-born is the miracle, brought from Heaven itself through the very gates of death, a pioneer, merciless and helpless, a little monarch whose kingdom never existed before the day he set up his feeble little cry. All the delightful innovations are for him,—the chair, the mug, the little airings, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... my wife. The only woman who has the right to bear my name is one whom I married when I was a young colonial official. She was a rather eccentric woman, of feeble mentality and incredibly subject to impulses that amounted to monomania. We had two children, twins, whom she worshipped and in whose company she would no doubt have recovered her mental balance and moral health, when, by a stupid accident—a ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... impossibility that any of the wounded men could be the same whose voice had sounded so recently in the full vigour of health in his ear, he abandoned the idea. Most of the wounded, as they passed, indicated by low and feeble moaning, the inconvenience they experienced from the motion to which they were subjected, and more or less expressed by the contortions of their limbs, the extent of their sufferings. An exception to this ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... tribes of the south-west which had not yet made their submission—the Carians, the Dorian Greeks, the Caunians, and the people of Lycia. Impressing the services of the newly-conquered Ionians and AEolians, he marched first against Caria, which offered but a feeble resistance. The Dorians of the continent, Myndians, Halicarnassians, and Cnidians. submitted still more tamely, without any struggle at all; but the Caunians and Lycians showed a different spirit. These tribes, which ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... a soothsayer told me that Odysseus should make me blind. But ever I looked for the coming of a great and gallant hero, and now there hath come a poor feeble, little dwarf, who made me weak with wine before he dared ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... the River place had brought a fiddle, and, though it was a very feeble one, its screeching seemed to annoy ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... "though I should have no other motive than that of paying my respects to the most potent, most prudent, and most valiant prince in the world, feeble would be my language to express how much I honour your majesty. Could you penetrate into my inmost soul, you would be convinced of the great veneration I have for you, and of my ardent desire to testify my attachment." Having spoke these words, he took the box of jewels from one of his servants, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... basket-work, with venison and fish, for knives and tobacco. And in the course of time my father and I had them for guides in many a pleasant hunting expedition, and for allies against the Spaniards, when they resumed their pretensions to the country, and carried on a feeble, desultory warfare, which kept the settlement always on the alert, but never once disturbed us, for our home lay quite out of their track and beyond them, when they came up the river upon one ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... in covering both the town and the fleet in the sea. When the fighting was over the general in command wrote to Paris: "I have no words to describe the merit of Bonaparte; much science, as much intelligence, and too much bravery. This is but a feeble sketch of this rare officer, and it is for you, ministers, to consecrate him to the glory ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... She returned to Paris and hired out. In her last place she worked for an old lady whom she tended devotedly, but who died leaving her nothing. In 1833 she came back to the country; she was just out of a hospital, cured of a disease caused by fatigue, but still very feeble. Shortly after she married her former lover. Catherine Curieux was rather large, well-made, pale, gentle and refined by her visit to Paris, though she could neither read nor write. She had three married sisters, one at Aubusson, one at ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... an appearance which, if not architecturally imposing, was at least sufficiently venerable. At the present time the aisles were full of heaped-up holly and wreaths; a few lamps and a considerable number of tallow candles shed a rather feeble light amongst the pillars; a crowd of school children, not yet washed for the morrow, were busy under the directions of the schoolmistress in decorating the chancel; Mr. Thomas Reid the conservative sexton was ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... reprimand the bandit when he arrives. But I do not ask or expect the restoration of such a few trifling things. In this country, as the Governor says, "full of Sheiks," where authority is so divided, and the Sultan's power is so feeble, we must expect this sort of freebooting extortion. Such were the good and fine old days of chivalry in France and England, so much regretted by certain morbid romancers, Sir Walter Scott to boot, when ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... you. Be still! If once you fall, call as loud as you will, no man on earth shall hear your cries: prepare a tale however plausible or however true, the whole world shall execrate you for an impostor. Your innocence shall be of no service to you. I laugh at so feeble a defence. It is I that say it: you may believe what I tell you. Do you know, miserable wretch!" added he, stamping on the ground with fury, "that I have sworn to preserve my reputation, whatever be the expense; that I love it more than the whole world and its inhabitants taken together? and do ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... an unremembered vision, stands Immortal upon earth: no longer now He slays the beast that sports around his dwelling And horribly devours its mangled flesh, 445 Or drinks its vital blood, which like a stream Of poison thro' his fevered veins did flow Feeding a plague that secretly consumed His feeble frame, and kindling in his mind Hatred, despair, and fear and vain belief, 450 The germs of misery, death, disease and crime. No longer now the winged habitants, That in the woods their sweet lives sing away, Flee from the form of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... garter-snake, or any other harmless serpent, crosses their path? They know well enough that the poor things do no harm, and are as afraid as death of them; but see the great stones they heave upon the miserable reptile; the shouts they send up, as it writhes, and coils, and fills the air with feeble hisses, trying, poor thing, to save its bruised and ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... herself a travelling dress, oppressed and trembling with thoughts, she was often forced to lay down her work. She had to admit that nothing had turned out as she had expected; even her own power of loving appeared feeble in comparison to the wealth of affection she had imagined herself lavishing upon Dick. Something seemed to separate them; even when she lay back and he held her in his arms, she was not as near to him as she had dreamed of being; and try as she would, she found it ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... narrative herewith inclosed, gives your Excellency some short account of the success of my feeble endeavors, through the blessing of God upon them, in the affair ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... Her answer was that he must apply to me, as my will was law to her, but that she neither liked nor disliked anyone else. The old man could not obtain any more positive reply and left us with but feeble hopes, but commending himself to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Carteret's?" The question made him laugh as her feeble reference five minutes before to the House of Lords had done. But she pursued, too full of her idea to take account of such a poor substitute for an answer: "Let me tell you one thing, for I've known Charles Carteret much longer than you and I understand ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... or fall together,' said I sadly, for at every step his horse grew more and more feeble. 'In this darkness they will make ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... little change. If one of the lozenges was laid on a shovel, previously made red-hot, it speedily took fire; but, instead of burning with a blaze and becoming converted into a charcoal, it took fire, and burnt with a feeble flame for scarcely half a minute, and there remained behind a stony hard substance, retaining the form of the lozenge. This unexpected result led me to examine these lozenges, which were bought at a respectable chemist's shop in the city; and I soon became convinced, that, ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... Boy," said the Seer sternly. "Would you oppose your feeble knowledge to the infinite intelligence of the Unmistakable? A word, and you are ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... the new duke, who used his full powers to forward the doctrines of Luther. This transition did not, however, take place without protest. Summoned before the imperial court of justice, Albert refused to appear and was placed under the ban; while the order, having deposed the grand master, made a feeble effort to recover Prussia. But as the German princes were either too busy or too indifferent to attack the duke, the agitation against him soon died away. In imperial politics Albert was fairly active. Joining the league of Torgau in 1526, he acted inunison ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... we discover no tribe so barbarous as to be without it. It is the foundation of all society. It embosoms the germ and ideal of the State. According to the purity of its relations, the intensity of its sympathies, the inviolability of its rights, a nation's life is high or low, feeble or strong, fickle or enduring. And if it is thus rooted in the nature and the history of man, we may well believe that it affords some of the profoundest occasions for that moral discipline which is the great purpose of our existence ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... the king's officers in the province, headed by the governor. This following included the officers of the customs in particular. It also included the not inconsiderable class of American respectabilities who were feeble in American sentiments, and who belonged by nature and affiliation to the established order. These were the loyalists, destined to be designated as Tories, and to become the bete noire ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... more than usual, indeed a quite irrational, perturbation of the blood, as, coming level with her, I dared to look into her face. As I did so she involuntarily turned to look at me—turned to look at me, did I say? "To look" is a feeble verb indeed to express the unexpected shock of beauty to which I was suddenly exposed. I cannot describe her features, for somehow features always mean little to me. They were certainly beautifully moulded, and her skin was of a lovely pale olive, but the life of her face ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... feeble protest to which he paid no more attention than if it had been the buzzing of a fly. Very steadily and strongly ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... him there all night: she would have talked to him for an hour, feeble as she was, of that little being, in so short a time promoted to its sovereignty of Baby (with a capital B), in which she had already discovered instincts, qualities, high reasoning powers, noble moral characteristics: but the doctor's tap was heard, "scratching," ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... felon's dock and answer to the charge of murder, saw Sybil Lamotte lying upon a soft divan, before a merry Winter fire. It was the first time since her illness that she had quitted her bed. And Evan, too, for the first time in many weeks, came with feeble, halting steps to his sister's room, and sitting near her, scanned her wasted ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch |
