"Lightening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there was a quiver of lip and flicker of eyelid, the lightening, as Cranky called it, was evidently gaining ground. Herbert's ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the ground that night, and next morning, under Captain Selover's directions, we commenced the task of lightening the ship. He detailed the Nigger and Perdosa for ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... looking down at her with a certain lightening in his gaze, "as I remember, I did not say that there was nothing amusing to do. I merely, as a stranger, came to you begging some guidance on ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... hear that it was washed down from the ship and departed into the sea with the salt spray of evening, following the watery deep. Yet verily often did I charge the labour-lightening servants that they should keep it safe, but they forgat: and now upon this island[3] is the imperishable seed of spacious Libya strown before the time appointed; for if the royal son[4] of Poseidon, lord of horses, whom Europa Tityos' child bare him on Kephisos' ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... just before dessert is served at dinner. If it is any satisfaction to you to know it, Tom is more of a Scout than at any time in his career, and there is a better chance of his being struck by lightening than his drifting away from the troop whose adventures you have ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... rolls, and honey were set before us, and the waiter, being an accomplished linguist, like most of his singularly gifted and enterprising kind, had heard and understood the last sentence. Bursting with gruesome information, he could not resist lightening himself of the burden, for our benefit and his own. "You can see the dead man lying on the snow, far up on the mountain," said he eagerly, "if you go into the town and look through one of the telescopes. I have seen him already; he is ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... interest. In these days of the decay of representative institutions, the House of Commons has become a complete misnomer. The Commons are not represented; modern members belong to classes of the community which have really no interest in providing for popular needs and lightening popular burdens. In one word, there is no sort of hope for us in the House of Commons. And whose fault is this? I own it with shame and sorrow—it is emphatically the fault of the people. Yes, I say to you plainly, it is the disgrace and the peril ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... at his position returned upon his heart because of the lightening that had come with the impulse of love. That impulse still remained, an under-current of calm, a knowledge that his will and the power of the world were at one, such as men only feel when they yield themselves to some sudden conversion; but above this new-found ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... without any lightening of the tempest, till noon, when the wind suddenly fell to a calm. Until that time, the sea, although heavy, was not vicious or irregular, and we had not shipped any heavy water at all. But when the force of the ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... man answered: "O my brother, what is this difficult and delicate affair which prevents you from staying here? If you will tell me, doubtless I shall find some means of coming to your aid, and lightening the burden which weighs so heavily upon your heart. But, now, what can I do since you tell ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... rode in silence, except at long intervals when she asked him if he was in pain or too tired to travel. The lightening of the sky for the coming dawn found them still in the saddle with the jagged mountain line rising vaguely before them in the darkness like a long shadow. Presently they could make out the gash in the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... suppose it's lightening and thundering now?"—as the two girls cuddled up closer together on the roomy old sofa, the cushion crowded up ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... Between 400 and 500 workmen are employed upon the premises; labourers' wages rating 10s. and 12s. weekly; and those of skilled artisans ranging from 16s. to 23s. A small steam-engine, kept in constant motion, contributes to the lightening of toil, and the division of labour is practised wherever it can be done with advantage. With these facilities at command, no time is lost in the execution of orders, nor would present circumstances ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... a bounty on the former till their numbers should be found equal. Rewards also might be given to those slaves who should raise a certain number of children; and to those who should devise means of lightening negro-labour. If the plan of his honourable friend should comprehend these regulations, he would heartily concur in it. He wished to see the Slave Trade abolished. Indeed it did not deserve the name of a trade. It ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... Dilating, shrinking, lightening, it hath won Our spirit with its strange strong influence, And sways it as the tides ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... Margaret, her cheek flushing, and her eye lightening, 'how you judge, Bessy. I shall go home to my mother, who is so ill—so ill, Bessy, that there's no outlet but death for her out of the prison of her great suffering; and yet I must speak cheerfully to my father, who has ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Show more of your hands and less of your feet. I perceive scamps who plunge their ingenious fists into the pockets of their foolish neighbours. Dear pickpockets, have a little modesty. Fight those next to you if you like; do not plunder them. You will vex them less by blackening an eye, than by lightening their purses of a penny. Break their noses if you like. The shopkeeper thinks more of his money than of his beauty. Barring this, accept my sympathies, for I am not pedantic enough to blame thieves. Evil exists. Every one endures it, every one inflicts it. No one is exempt from the vermin ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... I turned and twisted within the battle-girth Before those bears of onset: while out from the grey world streamed The broad red lash of the lightening and in our byrnies gleamed. And long I leapt and laboured in that garland of the fight 'Mid the blue blades and the lightening; but ere the sky grew light The second of the Hun-kings on the rain-drenched daisies lay; ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... the shrieking of the elements diminished; the seas were palpably falling. Great, dark shapes could now be seen rushing across the lightening firmament, and once the girl, stretching her arm upward, exclaimed, as through a rift overhead she caught a glimpse of a ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... left the club, and Ford had no more than time to check his luggage and get to his train. He wondered a little when Adair went with him to the ferry, and was not ungrateful for the hospitality which seemed to be directed toward a lightening of the burden of failure. But Adair's word of leave-taking, flung across the barrier when the chains of the landing-stage were rattling to their ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... and hostile as I was to the effects of his enthusiasm, I took no trivial interest in the individual. Still, to set him at liberty was palpably impossible; and my only resource was, to give him such aid in this extremity of his career as could be given by lightening the severities of his prison, and providing him with the means of securing able counsel. I had now an opportunity of seeing, for the first time, the genius of this singular people displayed under a new and brilliant form—the eloquence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... distributed that we should unite and form groups with the sole object of bringing about universal destruction. It's urged that, however much you tinker with the world, you can't make a good job of it, but that by cutting off a hundred million heads and so lightening one's burden, one can jump over the ditch more safely. A fine idea, no doubt, but quite as impracticable as Shigalov's theories, which you referred to just now ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... weather for some days, no reliable observations had been taken, and we were very doubtful as to the frigate's position. Driving as we were at a great rate, before the gale, we were reckoning on the occasional partial lightening of the fog to catch sight of and recognize some point of land or rock, according to which we might steer our course amongst the reefs which swarm at the entrance of Brest harbour. We had to be ready to change our course and go ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... with a quick lightening of the eyes, and the suspicion of a smile in the depths of his curly beard. He ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... was that both were so lamentably altered. Brodrick was no longer the enthusiastic editor, gathering around him the brilliant circle of the talents; he was the absorbed, depressed and ponderous man of business. It was as if some spirit that had breathed on him, sustaining him, lightening his incipient heaviness, had been removed. Jinny sat opposite him, a pale Mater Dolorosa. Her face, even when she talked to you, had an intent, remote expression, as if through it all she were listening for her child's cry. She was silent for the most part, passive in ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... to get further from the idea of immediate emancipation, looking upon it as a very serious problem. He tended, as the following extracts will show, to advocate lightening the burden of the slave, hoping that in the West Indies, where he thought the Negro would eventually rule absolutely, the blacks might establish governments to which freedmen gradually emancipated in the United States might be sent to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... of wild-fowl on its passage to his mouth, and, after a moment's consideration, replied that in his opinion lightening the load of the canoe was the best ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... themselves—independent of legislators, parsons, advisers, gentlemen, noblemen, and every one that tries to help them by moral agents; but the slaves of the capitalists, bound to them by a servitude increasing instead of lightening with their numbers. Now, the only way in which we can clear the cause of this calumny is to let the men fight their own battle; to prevent any one saying, 'These men are the tools of dreamers and fanatics,' ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... drudgery wherever we find it. We shall never be wholly civilized until we remove the treadmill from the daily job. Invention is doing this in some degree now. We have succeeded to a very great extent in relieving men of the heavier and more onerous jobs that used to sap their strength, but even when lightening the heavier labour we have not yet succeeded in removing monotony. That is another field that beckons us—the abolition of monotony, and in trying to accomplish that we shall doubtless discover other changes that will have to be ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... the poor she was always a welcome visitor, while at the houses of the more wealthy she was treated with courtesy and kindness; and many a housewife who might have been doubtful about buying fish that day, when the dame and her granddaughter arrived, made up her mind to assist in lightening Nelly's creel by selecting some of ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... singing in the churches is, for the most part, of the lowest order. In many parishes considerable pains have, of late, been taken in order to improve the psalmody, but no corresponding effect has been produced. In the agricultural districts of the south of England, no songs are heard lightening the daily toil of the labourer, and the very plough-boys can hardly raise a whistle. It is impossible to account for this; but the fact will be acknowledged by all who have had the opportunity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... to have to pretend when each knew the other was pretending; and as they pretended to the world in general, what a relief and blessed lightening of tension it would have been to have said merely an honest: "We don't care about Mrs. Gorgeous Girl or any one else. We are quite content with each other. True, this is still platonic friendship—with one of us—but ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... upon him. Instead of sympathy, there was a positive lightening in the elder man's face—a gleam ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... times coom on, an' neaw, aw think we're poo'd deawn as nee to th' greawnd as ony body can be. My daughter's husband went off a-seekin' work just afore that child was born,—an' we haven't heard from him yet." My friend took care that his visit should result in lightening the weight of the old woman's ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... our lineage prove, Give and forgive, do good and love; By soft endearments, in kind strife, Lightening the ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... them out into the world in which their families live, is a difficult task. It must be undertaken and accomplished, first, for the purely humane reason of lightening their lot and making them individually more happy in the New World; second, for the sake of preventing the disruption of families, the corner stone of the present social order; third, for the sake of creating and sustaining good citizenship. Whether immigrant women vote or not, they ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... wintry. We have a box at the opera, which, is close by (for nothing), and sit there when we please, as in our own drawing-room. There have been three fine days in four weeks. On every other the water has been falling down in one continual sheet, and it has been thundering and lightening every ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... running up, but the wind still held from the northeast, and though moderated in force since the evening it was strong enough to take them slowly down toward the Good Intent. The sky was lightening, but a slight mist hung over the river. Desmond kept a close lookout ahead, and after about half an hour he caught sight of the hull of the Good Intent, looming before him out of the mist. Allowing the second boat to come alongside, he turned and ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... near woke him at last, and he slowly sat up and stared about. He looked out of the window and saw that the sun was lightening the hills across the river. He rose and brushed his hair as well as he could, folded his blankets up, and went out to find his companions. They stood gazing silently at the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... in all these mixtures is variation and liveliness of colour, not an effect of stripes or spots; indeed, these are very objectionable, especially when in contrasted or different colors. A deepening or lightening of the same colour in irregular patches, as will occur in clouded yarns, gives interest, whereas if these cloudings were in strongly contrasted colours they would be crude and unrestful. For this reason, if for no other, it is well to work in few tints, ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... with raiment of white waves, Thy brave brows lightening through the gray wet air, Thou, lulled with sea-sounds of a thousand caves, And lit with sea-shine to thy inland lair, Whose freedom clothed the naked souls of slaves And stripped the muffled souls of tyrants bare, Oh, by the centuries of thy glorious graves, By ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... at that. He kept on winning cases, clearing the innocent and lightening the burdens of the guilty; he became the most dangerous attorney for the defence in Canaan; his honorable brethren, accepting the popular view of him, held him in personal contempt but feared him professionally; ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... after a restless night, the ship had settled so much, despite the lightening process, that she rode soggily along at not more than fifty feet above the level of the sea. The situation was ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... The iron lightening gleams up and it lies cold and moist in my arms. It seems to me as though the blood upon it began to ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... neighbourhood. All else was silent. Presently a distant sound of singing arose and approached; and a procession drew near along the road, the hot clean smell of the men and women striking in my face delightfully. At the corner, arrested by the voice of Maka and the lightening and darkening of the church, they paused. They had no mind to go nearer, that was plain. They were Makin people, I believe, probably staunch heathens, contemners of the missionary and his works. Of a sudden, however, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... height. "Fear not the forests to explore alone, "But in their deepest shades adventurous go; "A god shall guard thee:—no plebeian god, "But he whose mighty hand the sceptre grasps "Of rule celestial, and the lightening flings. "O fly me not"—for Ioe fled, amaz'd. Now Lerna's pastures, and Lyrcaea's lands With trees thick-planted, far behind were left; When with a sudden mist the god conceal'd The wide-spread earth, and stopp'd her eager flight; And in his arms the struggling maid ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... the close. She sank rapidly: the delirium left her; but, as she whispered, she was "clean silly;" it was the lightening before the final darkness. After having for some time lain still, her eyes shut, she said, "James!" He came close to her, and, lifting up her calm, clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly but shortly, looked for Rab but could ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... Yonder, lightening other loads, The seasons range the country roads, But here in London streets I ken No such helpmates, only men; And these are not in plight to bear, If they would, another's care. They have enough ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... and factory, but the wife and mother still plods along in an ill-fitted kitchen and laundry. And yet our greatest modern inventor has said that the cares of the home could be reduced to a minimum and the servant problem solved if the perfectly practicable devices, for lightening household labor were ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... the mother's eyes—the growth of a vigorous body by which a vigorous mind may be fitly tenanted—and this form of materialism which Tolstoy as a father accepted, Tolstoy as idealist condemned; while the penury he courted as a lightening of his soul's burden was averted by the strenuous exertions of his wife. So a rift grew without blame attaching to either, and Tolstoy henceforward wandered solitary in spirit through a wilderness of thought, seeking rest and ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... that will only lure you into destruction, but follow the light of life which is Jesus Christ Himself. Do not take these tyrants for your helpers, who will master you under pretence of aiding you; and work their will of you instead of lightening your burden. The same unwise and hopeless mode of life, which we have been describing this evening by one symbolic illustration, as calling vain helpers to our aid, was presented by Ahaz's great contemporary Isaiah, in words which Ahaz himself may have heard, as 'striking ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... on a lovely afternoon that we all went out to the City of Justice, and there I see agin what great wealth might do in lightening the burdens of a sad world. Robert Strong might have spent his money jest as that old man did whose place I have described, and live in still better style, for Robert Strong wuz worth millions. But he felt different; he felt as if he wanted his capital to lighten ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... showed that the spiritual struggle was a very palpable one to her; but it ended in a great calm. For two hours she lay in a peace that passeth understanding, and you would have said that she was dead but for a vague look of expectancy in the happy, restful face. Then suddenly there was a lightening of the whole countenance; she stretched out her arms to meet the messenger of the King, and entered heaven with this prayer ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... chance never amounted to anything, the kind words and manner of the storekeeper gave him courage to hope that he would meet with equal kindness from others. Kind words cost nothing, but they have a marvelous power in lightening the burdens of the sorrowful and ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... flood of laughter, jocundity, and semi-boisterous frolic continued to roll up and down the Corso all day long, never attempting to be anything but pure nonsense, indeed, but achieving, nevertheless, the wise end of nonsense in the right time and place—that of refreshing and lightening the mind and heart. Dulce est desipere in loco—that old saw might have been made precisely to serve as the motto of the Roman carnival; and very likely it was actually suggested to its renowned author by some similar sport belonging to the old Roman days, before Christianity was thought of. The ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... lightening that must have been to do that!" said Ollie, as he looked at the curb ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... and my Bab in the same breath again, and I'll throttle you, you vile woman!" cried Mrs. Wylder, and hung there like a thunder-cloud, lightening continuously. ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... of the harvest-field—soon to become great golden splendours to the memory. With the reapers she would remain from morning till night, sharing in their meals, and lightening their labour with her gentle frolic. Every day, after the noon-tide meal, she would go to sleep on the shady side of a stook, upon two or three sheaves which Dowie would lay down for her in a choice spot. Indeed ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... reasonable to surmise that Beverly and the boys had made the very utmost of the fifteen minutes spent in Athol's room the previous Wednesday, and some lightening-like communications had been interchanged. On the way back to Leslie Manor, Beverly, Sally and Aileen had kept somewhat in the rear, Petty and Hope (by the latter's finesse) contriving to keep Jefferson between them. This had ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... that must undergo daily wear and wash; its rather unobtrusive character too makes it the more suitable for this purpose. The work is used in conjunction with other kinds of embroidery, perhaps making a neat finish to an edge, or lightening what would otherwise be too heavy ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... there are no stigmata, or breathing holes, to be seen in the sides of the body. This fact sustains the view of Gegenbaur[26] that at first the tracheae formed two simple tubes in the body-cavity, and that the primary office of these tubes was for lightening the body, and that their function as respiratory tubes was a secondary one. The aquatic Protoleptus, as we may term the ancestor of Leptus, may have had such tubes as these, which acted like the swimming bladder of fishes for lightening the body, as suggested by Gegenbaur. It ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... chum as the latter came on deck between wireless performances, "do you notice that the fog is lightening off to weatherward?" ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... knew me, yes, A flush as of pain, or pride, Pass'd swiftly o'er the pale stern face, And the high white forehead dyed, I heard the roll of carriage wheels, Unthinkingly raised my eyes, One glance flashed out beneatt thosee Brows, Like lightening across ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... his borrowed plumage, strode forth before dawn, and reaching a spot where the valley narrowed into the gorge and marked the grim outline of Schloss Szolnok against the lightening East, slowly climbed the rugged slope of the mountain on his left which faced it. He meant to spend the morning in a study of the approaches to the castle, and if possible devise some means by which he could inspect it unobserved at closer range. Daylight found him perched ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... relieved for a month or two, and we wandered through the fields; nutted, gathered fruit, or saw others gather it as well as the crops, taking as much exercise as possible in the open air, equally for the good of our bodies, and the lightening of our spirits. ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... suffer them to be at rest. The foot-passengers run along as if they were pursued by bailiffs. The porters and chairmen trot with their burthens. People, who keep their own equipages, drive through the streets at full speed. Even citizens, physicians, and apothecaries, glide in their chariots like lightening. The hackney-coachmen make their horses smoke, and the pavement shakes under them; and I have actually seen a waggon pass through Piccadilly at the hand-gallop. In a word, the whole nation seems to be running ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... in which they had the advantage over us, and that was in lightening their labors in the boats by their songs. The Americans are a time and money saving people, but have not yet, as a nation, learned that music may be "turned to account." We pulled the long distances to and from the shore, with our loaded boats, without a word spoken, and with discontented ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... could possibly be spared were now placed in a depot at the junction of the south branch, and the commissioner proceeded with the boats thus lightened toward Kedgwick Lake. The lightening of the boats was rendered necessary in consequence of the diminution of the volume of the river and the occurrence of falls, over which it would have been impossible to convey them when fully loaded. For want of a guide, a branch more western than that which issues from the lake ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... Monetary Unions and has benefited from lower interest and inflation rates. The current government has enacted numerous short-term reforms aimed at improving competitiveness and long-term growth. Italy has moved slowly, however, on implementing needed structural reforms, such as lightening the high tax burden and overhauling Italy's rigid labor market and over-generous pension system, because of the current economic slowdown and opposition ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... wake any of the men who lay stretched upon the ground, like so many corpses, sound asleep. At length Saat sat up, and after rubbing his eyes for about ten minutes, he made a fire, and began to boil the coffee; meanwhile I was hard at work lightening the ship. I threw away about 100 lbs. of salt; divided the heavy ammunition more equally among the animals; rejected a quantity of odds and ends that, although most useful, could be forsaken; and by the time the men woke, a little before sunrise, I had completed the work. We now reloaded the animals, ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... ideas. It is observed in the early stages of fever, and even in the dying—and this accounts for the clearing up of the mind which sometimes occurs in the last moments of life—what is called familiarly 'the lightening before death.'" ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... men, two odd, short oars, and shoes and hats for balers, he set out to struggle through the breakers to a calm ring of water beyond, where they might find a sandbank to land upon, or get within hailing distance of the Bridgewater. Meanwhile Fowler was thinking of lightening the Porpoise and letting her drive further up on the reef; but fear was expressed that she might be carried over its inside edge, and founder in 17 fathoms of water. The two cutters were launched, and stood by under the lee of the ship throughout the long, weary ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... Mutteringly she put that question to herself. But strange are the caprices of ebb and flow in the deep fountains of human sensibilities. At this very moment, when the utter incapacitation of despair was gathering fast at Kate's heart, a sudden lightening shot far into her spirit, a reflux almost supernatural, from the earliest effects of her prayer. A thought had struck her all at once, and this thought prompted her immediately to turn round. Perhaps it was in some blind yearning after the only memorials of life ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... heard in any part of the world it shall be that of an honoured place, with no divided interest, but one place working wisely, so that the world may be grateful for good work done, as we to-night are grateful for the welcome given, grateful for the lightening of our burdens, grateful for the possibility of good work in the future, most grateful for the happy homes you have given us in welcoming us home so fervently. I thank you most heartily in the name of the school and the masters and myself for this address, which I trust ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... the foot of the binnacle, her hands clasped round her knees, as if hugging the new rapture as closely to her as she could. And looking up at the alert figure before her which she now began to discern more clearly under the lightening sky; at the face which she divined, although she could only see the watchful gleam of the eyes as now and again they sought her down in the shadow at his feet, she felt herself kindle in answer to the glow of his glorious ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... altogether unlooked for, and which would have baffled the skill of the most experienced navigator; our chart, upon examination, also proving to be incorrect. Luckily it was ebb tide when she went on, and after getting out all the boats, and lightening the ship by throwing overboard shot and starting water, she was got off, after having been aground about eight ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... turning back, and they were silent for the rest of the way. But instead of lightening, the cloud of depression became deeper and more foreboding until even the stout Little Captain began, almost to wish that they had ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... The last chance was still not gone, for the friendly old postmaster would have given it back to her if she had asked for it, but the mere noise it made in falling—one of the most distinctive and irrevocable sounding in the world—caused her to feel a lightening of the heart that meant satisfaction. She turned and went away down the bare village street, past the last row of whitewashed slate-roofed cottages, with the dark clumps of myrtle or tamarisk by their doors, and then she struck off the hard, bleak road, where the wind ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... remained at anchor, and it appeared that she had been lightening so as to get further in; for on that morning she weighed, and stood in to a mile and a half of us, and we were obliged to do the same, and run inshore out of his reach. To effect this we anchored in ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... the government to an interregnum. The two interreges, Caius Sulpicius and Marcus Fabius, succeeded in that which the dictator had in vain attempted, scil. in having both the consuls elected from the patricians, the people being rather more appeased in consequence of the service done them in lightening their debts. The persons elected were, Caius Sulpicius Peticus himself, who first resigned the office of interrex, and Titus Quinctius Pennus. Some attach the name of Kaeso, others that of Caius to Quinctius. They both set out ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... aground. In vain we pushed with the oars; the boat would not budge. Then Junior sat down and coolly began to take off shoes and stockings. In a flash Merton followed his example. There was no help for it, and we had no time to lose. Over they splashed, lightening the boat, and taking the "painter," or tie-rope, at the bow, they pulled manfully. Slowly at first, but with increasing progress, the keel grated over the stones, and at last we were again afloat. A round of applause greeted the boys as they sprung back into the boat, and away we went, cautiously ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... was lightening again, and the small flame in the distance looked nearer. He put his hands to his mouth and gave a long, clear hail. He was answered by a similar one. Then followed a peculiar musical call, which ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... cold nor careless, stern nor selfish, but ready to share all the joys and sorrows of those about her; and when advice was asked she gave it gladly. Christie had won her heart long ago, and now was as devoted as a daughter to her; lightening her cares so skilfully that many of them slipped naturally on to the young shoulders, and left the old lady much time for rest, or the lighter tasks fitted for feeble hands. Christie often called her "Mother," and felt herself rewarded ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... suggested other charities that I could be of help about when we came home. I visited infant schools, working women's homes, orphan asylums, and places of that sort. You don't know how much good it did me and how glad I am that I have the means of lightening a little some of the misery ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... how or why the feeling prevailed, but the fact was, that the whole family were impressed with a conviction that this partial and sudden restoration of his powers was merely what is termed the lightening before death, and the consequence was, that every word he spoke occasioned their grief, for the loss of the venerable and virtuous patriarch, to break out with greater force. When he was dressed he called Dora to aid her ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to Madrid is nearly three hundred miles, the first half of which distance we passed over in the daytime, lightening the journey by enjoyment of the pleasing scenery and local peculiarities. Though it was quite early in the spring, still the fields were verdant and full of promise. More than once a gypsy camp was passed by the side of some cross-road, presenting the usual domestic ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... and strolled thoughtfully back to the theatre, pausing a moment by the way, while Tinker bought a white carnation for his buttonhole. There was a good deal, he remarked absent-mindedly, in what Mr. Potter had said about lightening ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... winning even the smallest benefit. For these reasons, the king should act with mildness in taking wealth from his subjects. If a king continually oppresses his people, he meets with extinction like a flash of lightening that blazes forth only for a second. Learning, penances, vast wealth, indeed, everything, can be earned by exertion. Exertion, as it occurs in embodied creatures, is governed by intelligence. Exertion, therefore, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... had been as furtive as possible about their proposed journey. They had not met since the night Varney had dangled the hope of jail and disgrace into Peter's lightening face, and so, or otherwise, cajoled him into going along. Both of them had kept carefully away from the Cypriani. Now they proceeded to her by different routes, and reached her at different times, Peter first. Their luggage had gone aboard before them, and there was no longer a thing to wait ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... she was so unspeakably, sickeningly weary! There was no home, no help for the erring; even those who pitied were constrained to hardness. But ought she to complain? Ought she to shrink in this way from the long penance of life, which was all the possibility she had of lightening the load to some other sufferers, and so changing that passionate error into a new force of unselfish human love? All the next day she sat in her lonely room, with a window darkened by the cloud ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... to be polite. I'm putting my watch back into my pocket, and I'll go with you, Father Rielle. My refuge—a temporary one—is no longer needed, it's lightening very considerably, and I suppose you'll ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... pilgrimages and perform other works of penance, we are accused of clinging to the rags of dead works, instead of "holding on to Jesus" by faith. If, on the other hand, we enrich our souls with the treasures of Indulgences we are charged with relying on the vicarious merits of others and of lightening too much the salutary burden of the cross. But how can Protestants consistently find fault with the Church for mitigating the austerities of penance, since their own fundamental principle rests on ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... The fellows seemed utterly unafraid of the great beasts leaping and snarling about them, handling them much the same as one might handle a pack of obstreperous dogs. Along the bed of the old watercourse that once ran through the gorge they made their way, and as the first faint lightening of the eastern horizon presaged the coming dawn, they paused for a moment upon the edge of a declivity, which appeared to the girl in the strange light of the waning night as a vast, bottomless pit; but, as their captors resumed their way and the light of the ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... first opportunity of imparting to my wife the scheme which had occurred, relative to our guest; with which, as I expected, she readily concurred. In the morning, I mentioned it to Mervyn. I dwelt upon the benefits that adhered to the medical profession, the power which it confers of lightening the distresses of our neighbours, the dignity which popular opinion annexes to it, the avenue which it opens to the acquisition of competence, the freedom from servile cares which attends it, and the means of intellectual gratification with which it ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... regardful of the poor. His alms-houses were so pleasantly situated and so tastefully designed that many Polterham people wished they were for lease on ordinary terms. The Infirmary was indebted to his annual beneficence, and the Union had to thank him—especially through this past winter—for a lightening of its burden. Aware of these things, Lilian never felt able to speak harshly against the old Tory. In theory she acknowledged that the relief of a few families could not weigh against principles which enslaved a whole population (thus Quarrier put it), but ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... violins. About six at night they had dined, and I went up to my wife. And strange it is to think, that these two days have held up fair till now that all is done, and the King gone out of the Hall; and then it fell a-raining and thundering and lightening as I have not seen it do for some years: which people did take great notice of; God's blessing of the work of these two days, which is a foolery to take too much notice of such things. I observed little disorder in all this, only the King's footmen had got hold of the canopy and would keep it from ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... it has made me realise how little help one can give, and what a fraud money is when it comes to the test. I used to imagine that I could do pretty nearly everything I wanted because I was rich, but look at Evie! I would give my life to help her, but beyond a few trumpery presents, and a little lightening of pain, what can I do? She would not accept more, and one dare not offer it, though if she would allow it we would be thankful to pension her off for life. Money ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... am now, through the loving kindness and bounty of our Heavenly Father, in such circumstances that I can afford this small testimonial to their former fraternal kindness, and I know no better occasion to manifest the long pent-up feelings of my heart towards them than by lightening, under the embarrassments of the times, the pecuniary burden of our united testimonial to the best of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of lathered lightening Billy went for his clothes. A centipede could have been no more active. He jerked up his suspenders; he jerked on a shirt; he jerked on a coat; he was wiping his face as he darted through the halls and down the stairs. No lift had speed enough for his descent. At the desk he flung some gold pieces ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... up a farm-rent, which is perishing in their hands, and thus lightening the labor of the community, our hundred proprietors prefer to rest. In consequence of this withdrawal,—the absolute production being diminished by one hundred, while the consumption remains the same,—production and consumption seem to balance. But, in the first place, since the proprietors ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... a nod and slight lightening of the eyes, which, however, hardly disturbed the habitual sombreness of the face. He was a dark, finely featured man, with grizzled hair, carrying himself with an air of sleepy melancholy. He was much older than his wife, and was a prominent leader ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... going and returning to your party alone. I know!" (her face lightening up as with some magic inspiration) "I'll come and stay the night with you, dear, see you dressed, and have a real good gossip up in your room about those ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... when that we were gone onward something more, we to see that there went a lightening and a darkening afar along the Gorge, so that the background of the night was made to lose somewhat of the intensity of its darkness, as with constant shudders of light; and this to be surely the far away dance of the flame ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... many schemes that were planned and carried out for lightening the long hours of confinement to their wooden home in the Arctic Regions, was the newspaper started by Fred Ellice, and named, as we have ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... but not very applicable to present circumstances. Still, it set me thinking. I went into the front room and glanced out of the open window. A faint lightening of the murky sky heralded the approach of dawn, and from afar came the murmur of commencing traffic out in High Street. I was about to turn away when my ear caught a new and unusual sound rising above that distant murmur; the measured ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... closed his eyes and prepared to do her bidding. Then it seemed to him that another presence than Edith's was around him, another voice than hers was whispering words of courage, Nina, who went before, guiding his footsteps, and lightening his load, screening him from the scorching heat and buoying him up, while he walked the blackened beam, which shook and bent at every tread, and at last fell with a crash, but not until the ladder was reached, and a dozen friendly arms were outstretched for Richard, and for him, too, for sight ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... is the electrical discovery of the age, and so simple in application that the marvel is that it has escaped us so long. The lightening power of magnetism has been known for years, the greatest saving power to overcome gravity, but it seems it had to wait for Doctor Albertson ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... prince of the earth! There is charity in lightening his golden burden, or the man would sink under it, as did the Roman matron under the pressure of the Sabine shields. I think you see no such gilded beauty in the stranger, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... some fitness in leadership, for as youth verged toward middle age he was repeatedly besought to marry, that his princely line might be continued. Tired of these importunities, and possibly not averse to the lightening of his spirit, he consented that a wife should be sought for him, and appointed his handsome, dashing cousin, Kalamakua, as his agent in the choice. The cousin sailed at once for Maui, where rumor said a young ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... themselves, have little more than ephemeral interest, and parts of other letters could have been eliminated, from the point of view of lightening this volume and of economising the reader's attention. But I decided, with the fullest approval of the Wallace and Darwin families, that the letters of these illustrious correspondents should be here presented as a whole, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... by Hume seems to me a character dove-tailed into a system, adjusted to his plan of lightening the errors of Charles the First by participating them among others. This character conceals the more favourable parts of no ordinary man: the spirit which was fitted to lead others by its own invincibility, and some qualities he possessed of a better nature. All the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... time of the Chickamauga raid which was followed by Shelby's counter-stroke.] with eight companions, one of them a negro. He followed Boon's trace,—Wilderness Road,—through Cumberland Gap, and across the Cumberland River. Then he struck off southwest through the wilderness, lightening his labor by taking the broad, well-beaten buffalo trails whenever they led in his direction; they were very distinct near the pools and springs, and especially going to and from the licks. The adventurers reached the bend of the Cumberland without mishap, and fixed on the neighborhood ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the craft itself. Oppressed beyond endurance by one practitioner, allegiance would be transferred to some new claimant of occult powers, and the breaking of the monopoly of magic would be followed by a temporary lightening of the burdens. Some of the most lurid of Alaskan legends deal with the thaumaturgic contests of rival medicine-men, and one judges that sleight of hand and even hypnotic suggestion were cultivated to a ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... abated more and more and, glancing into the lightening East, I saw the black storm-clouds pierced, as it were, by a sword of glory, a single vivid ray that smote across the angry waters, waxing ever more glorious until up flamed the sun before whose joyous beams the sullen clouds scattered, little ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... her taste for dress, and of making a figure in the beau monde, no other concerns ever disturbed her imagination. If, at first, she had sufficient resolution to resist the contagion of example, and not take a male friend to her bosom, by way of lightening the weight of her connubial chains, she seldom failed, in the end, to follow the fashion of the day, and frequent the gaming-table, where her virtue was sacrificed to discharge her debts ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Yorke, do you see, whether this be the case." Playfully denying that he possessed any celebrity as a writer on legal matters, Yorke, with an assumption of candor, admitted that he had some thoughts of lightening the labors of law-students by turning Coke upon Littleton into verse. Indeed, he confessed that he had already begun the work of versification. Not seeing the nature of the reply, Sir Lyttleton Powys treated the droll fancy as a serious project, and insisted that the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... fashion the serried columns of black letter, writing and rewriting till he could shape the massive character with firm true hand. He cut his quills with the patience of a monk in the scriptorium, shaving and altering the nib, lightening and increasing the pressure and flexibility of the points, till the pen satisfied him, and gave a stroke both broad and even. Then he made experiments in inks, searching for some medium that would rival the glossy black letter of the old manuscripts; and not till he could produce a ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... taking place. The allotment of the State into subordinate governments, the administration of which is committed to persons chosen by the people, will work in time a very beneficial change in their constitution. The expense of the trappings of monarchy, too, is lightening. Many of the useless officers, high and low, of the King, Queen, and Princes, are struck off. Notwithstanding all this, the discovery of the abominable abuses of public money by the late Comptroller General, some new expenses of the court, not of a piece with the projects of reformation, and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... involved in any genuine appreciation of art. The struggle for life, the serious work of a trade or profession, is apt to make people too solemn for jokes and too pre-occupied for art. The easing of the struggle, the diminution in the hours of work, and the lightening of the burden of existence, which would result from a better economic system, could hardly fail to increase the joy of life and the vital energy, available for sheer delight in the world. And if this were achieved there would inevitably be more spontaneous pleasure in beautiful things, and more ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... was, in truth, whistling away to the westward and its rage, so far as Robert's island was concerned, was fully spent. The waves were sinking and the night was lightening fast. The sloop of war, heaving at her anchorage, stood up sharp and clear, and it seemed to Robert that there was something familiar in her lines. As he looked he was sure. Coincidence now and then stretches forth her long arm, and she had ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... done me good. Physically, I was not ill before I went there, but my mind had undergone some painful laceration. In the course of looking over my sister's papers, mementos, and memoranda, that would have been nothing to others, conveyed for me so keen a sting. Near at hand there was no means of lightening or effacing the sad impression by refreshing social intercourse; from my father, of course, my sole care was to conceal it—age demanding the same forbearance as infancy in the communication of grief. Continuous solitude grew more than I could bear, and, to speak truth, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... understands any thing,—less, indeed, than the very stupidest peasant. Give him workshops, all sorts of workmen at his desire, an order for a machine from abroad, and he will get along. But how to devise means of lightening toil, under the conditions of labor of millions of men,—this is what he does not and can not know; and because of his knowledge, his habits, and his demands on life, he is ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... there for any one—even for her. A soft, damp breeze was blowing in his face; from amongst the dripping trees of the Park the birds were beginning to make their morning music. Already the blackness of night was passing away, the clouds were lightening, the stars were growing fainter. Wrayson leaned a little forward. His eyes were fixed upon the exact spot where she had crossed the road and disappeared. All the horror of the coming day and the days to come loomed out from the background of ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the vestibule she encountered Chirac's face, lightening at the sight of her, which proved to him that his deliverance ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... slow consuming bitterness of years spoke through those fixed and filmy eyes. Her son gave a sudden irrepressible sob. There was a faint lightening in the little wrinkled face, and the lips made a movement. He kissed her, and in that last moment of consciousness the mother almost forgave him his good clothes ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... went to war against her, did the only thing that could unite her; and every sword they drew was a conductor of that lightening which fell upon their heads. But we must now look at our homes. Where there is no strict union, there is no perfect love; and where no perfect love, there is no true helper. Are you satisfied, sir, at the celebrity and the distinctions you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... upturned toward where such unexpected summons came, and, lying as I did flat upon my back, my eyes gazed across the narrow valley, to the summit of the cliff on the farther side. There, solitary, a carven statue full in the glow of the westering sun, turning her garments golden, and lightening her rich profusion of hair into radiant beauty, stood a young woman of white face and slender, stately figure. It was no time to note dress, yet I could not fail to observe the flowing white robe, draped from shoulders to feet, gracefully falling away from an extended arm, as she stood thus ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... his countenance lightening as he spoke. "Edith has mentioned you in her letters; but I expected to see a little girl, not the young lady, whom ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... here with greater violence than they had felt before, and after lightening their load once more by reducing their stock of provisions, in spite of their efforts such a drowsiness set in that in a very short time the ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... levels he spurred on at a gallop, finding some relief in the pounding action of the saddle and in the rush of air past his ears. The moon was late, but when it came it seemed to help him, lightening his mood as it lightened the trail. The big ledges and lowering, lesser peaks lifted into the dark sky weirdly translucent, and their upper edges seemed smooth and graceful as the rims of bubbles. Solid rock seemed melted and transfused with light and air. It was all miraculously beautiful, ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... men shall be saved. Such preaching is not foolish. The Holy Spirit makes the word alive. He brings it to the remembrance of the preachers in whom He abides, and He applies it to the heart of the hearers, lightening up the soul as with a sun until sin is seen in all its hideousness, or cutting as a sharp sword, piercing the heart with resistless conviction of the guilt ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... the shell where he had wedged it, but he had done better than he knew when he had left it exposed in the night. Small things scuttled away from it into hiding, and several birds arose—scavengers had been busy lightening his unwelcome task for that morning. And seeing how the clean-up process had gone, ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... Lavender was so very hungry that evening when he sat down to supper that he was unable to leave the lobster which Mrs. Petty had provided until it was reduced to mere integument. Since his principles prevented his lightening it with anything but ginger-beer he went to bed in some discomfort, and, tired out with the emotions of the day, soon fell into a heavy slumber, which at dawn became troubled by a dream of an extremely vivid character. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... their supply; and as the former stream in its windings over the open plain approached within a mile of its large neighbour, we resolved to move the boat a little further up before starting on our new expedition. By occasionally lightening her, and dragging her over the shallows, this was accomplished in a couple of hours, and we finally halted at a bend in the river where the bank was high enough to shield the boat from all observation, ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... not fit for masts, but such as would make the finest plank in the world. The carpenter of the ship, who was with the party, said that the timber resembled that of the pitch-pine, which is lightened by tapping. If it should appear, that some such method would be successful in lightening these trees, they would then furnish masts superior to those of any country in Europe. As the wood was swampy, the gentlemen could not range far; but they found many stout trees of other kinds, with which they were ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... he said, his full-blooded face lightening and softening at the same time, as though a load were off his mind, "it's no pleasure to me to deprive any man of his billet, but you never were a nurse, and you know that as well as ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... lateness. It was characteristic of their relationship that he felt no desire to tell, nor she to hear, the details of the political struggle now drawing to a close. She was too purely his sweetheart to share his cares; her loving embrace sufficed for their lightening. Even in the shadow of their retreat they could see each other's faces distinctly, hers moonlike, with hair like an halo of the moon, and his of more swarthy hue. If she was beautiful in his eyes, he fulfilled no less her ideal of manhood; and certainly an impartial witness could ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... one of the spades Hendrik the other, while Swartboy acted as shoveller, and filled the baskets as fast as Hans and Totty, assisted by Trueey and little Jan, could empty them. These last carried a small basket of their own, and contributed very materially to the progress of the work, by lightening the labours of Hans ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... room grew dimmer, paling before the coming day. A bird in the garden whistled a long note, and after a silence it was answered from another part of the garden, and then quickly from another. A star gleamed low in the ever-lightening purple of the east, the herald of the dawn, and from her window Frina watched it, wondering. There was mystery in the breaking of a new day; would her eyes behold its setting? What thoughts would be in her brain as the golden ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... a foot or more in diameter, and setting them upon end in a shallow trench. Such a walk from the barn to the kitchen will always be clean, and there will be less to disturb the temper of the women folks of the household, to say nothing of the good effect upon the men folks who take pleasure in lightening the labor required to keep everything neat and ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... sank rapidly: the delirium left her; but, as she whispered, she was "clean silly"; it was the lightening before the final darkness. After having for some time lain still—her ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... that you are so anxious to get married again?" asked Ralph, to whom these conversations with the Cuif were a means of lightening his mind of his ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... by Thee, which caused them so much suffering. Tell me, were we right in doing as we did. Did not we show our great love for humanity, by realizing in such a humble spirit its helplessness, by so mercifully lightening its great burden, and by permitting and remitting for its weak nature every sin, provided it be committed with our authorization? For what, then, hast Thou come again to trouble us in our work? And why lookest Thou at me so penetratingly with Thy ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky
... Rickman." As he slipped into his place between Miss Walker and Miss Roots he forgot his usual "Busy to-day at the Museum, Miss Roots?"—a question that recognized her as a fellow worker in the fields of literature, thus lightening the obscurity that ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... do so," he replied, "only that as I go on I keep lightening it"; and as he passed each of the widows, he threw gold to her, and stooping down, hid pieces of it in the bosoms ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... fundamental principles of true statesmanship is that permanent interests should never be abandoned or prejudiced for the sake of momentary advantages, such as the lightening of the burdens of the taxpayer, the temporary maintenance of peace, or suchlike specious benefits, which, in the course of events, often prove ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... like apprehension was making Jane write to Mr. Phillips to return to England without delay as soon as the children were seized with the fever. Jane also wrote to Dr. Phillips, and Vivian hurried to London, and stayed with his brother's family until his return, which was a great lightening of the load of responsibility which the sisters felt rested on them. In spite of every care and all that either doctor or nurses could do, little Eva fell a victim to the disease; and, after her death, Mrs. Phillips for the first time seemed to realize the danger of the others. Everything ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... rice—called Mopunga here and paddy in India—is poured in, and the three heavy pestles worked in exact time; each jerks up her body as she lifts the pestle and strikes it into the mortar with all her might, lightening the labour with some wild ditty the while, though one hears by the strained voice that she is nearly out of breath. When the husks are pretty well loosened, the grain is put into a large plate-shaped basket and tossed so as to ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... Ulysses men, whom rapt with sweetenes new, 195 Taking to hoste*, it quite from him did stay; And eke those trees, in whose transformed hew The Sunnes sad daughters waylde the rash decay Of Phaeton, whose limbs with lightening rent They gathering up, with sweete teares did lament. 200 [* ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... miles the day after the battle, and found that the enemy had dropped much, if not all, of their provisions, some ammunition and the extra wheels of their caissons, lightening their loads to enable them to get off their guns. About five miles out we found their field hospital abandoned. An immediate pursuit must have resulted in the capture of a considerable number of prisoners ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... she retired, and presently placed in his hands a packet of some bulk and weight, which required, she said, very particular attention. He took it without examining the address, and carried it in his pocket next day, not at all to the lightening of a forty miles' ride in August. On his arrival, it turned out to contain one of the old lady's pattens, sealed up for a particular cobbler in Kelso, and accompanied with fourpence to pay for mending it, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart |
