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Lapse   /læps/   Listen
Lapse

verb
(past & past part. lapsed; pres. part. lapsing)
1.
Pass into a specified state or condition.  Synonyms: pass, sink.
2.
End, at least for a long time.
3.
Drop to a lower level, as in one's morals or standards.  Synonym: backslide.
4.
Go back to bad behavior.  Synonyms: fall back, recidivate, regress, relapse, retrogress.
5.
Let slip.
6.
Pass by.  Synonyms: elapse, glide by, go along, go by, pass, slide by, slip away, slip by.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Lapse" Quotes from Famous Books



... Rogt was distracted with anxiety and terror. The public papers immediately took up the theme, and the police were upon the point of making serious investigations, when, one fine morning, after the lapse of a week, Marie, in good health, but with a somewhat saddened air, made her re-appearance at her usual counter in the perfumery. All inquiry, except that of a private character, was of course immediately hushed. Monsieur Le Blanc professed total ignorance, as before. Marie, with Madame, replied ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... by. It is ten years now since I was married, and in that lapse of time there is hardly a happening that I remember, unless it be the disillusion of the death of Marie's rich godmother, who left us nothing. There was the failure of the Pocard scheme, which was only a swindle ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... together for they scarce know what, Now loud proclaiming their late, whisper'd grief, Be wrought at length? Perhaps to yield the city. Thus where the Alps their airy ridge extend, Gently at first the melting snows descend; From the broad slopes, with murm'ring lapse they glide In soft meanders, down the mountain's side; But lower fall'n streams, with each other crost, From rock to rock impetuously are tost, 'Till in the Rhone's capacious bed they're lost. United there, roll rapidly away, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... in surprise. "Do you mean you've got the regular habit of not drinkin', or is it only a temporary lapse of duty?" ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... niche stood John Adolphus Schwarzenberg, and the fires of passion and resentment burned in the glance which he fixed upon the Princess, whom he now saw for the first time after a lapse of three years. How much pain and mortification had he not suffered during these three years on her account? The only change wrought in the Princess by the flight of time was a more perfect development of beauty ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... gone and she left behind. He had seen old Cameron die, and heard Bates promise to do his best for his daughter; he remembered her tears and pleading on the preceding day; the situation came to him now, as perceptions come to dull minds, with force that had gathered with the lapse of time. He had not the refinement and acuteness of mind necessary to make him understand the disinterested element in Bates's tyranny, and while he sympathised cunningly with the selfishness of which, in his mind, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... observe hillocks and intumescences caused by the action of the elastic vapours, cones of broken scoriae and ashes which cover the funnels. None of these phenomena characterise the crater of the peak of Teneriffe; its bottom is not in the state which ensues at the close of an eruption. From the lapse of time, and the action of the vapours, the inside walls are detached, and have covered the basin with great blocks ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... eternal friendship and love, I did not want to see that which my indulgent reader observes from the windows of his dwelling—how friends, relatives, mother and wife, in apparent despair and in tears, follow their dead to the cemetery, and after a lapse of some time return from there. No one buries himself together with the dead, no one asks the dead to make room in the coffin, and if the grief-stricken wife exclaims, in an outburst of tears, "Oh, bury me together with him!" she is merely expressing symbolically the extreme degree of ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... from Germany, from dozens of scattered places throughout the wide dominions of Charlemagne, the students came; were kept, as Bede expressly tells us, free of cost in the Irish monasteries, and drew their first inspirations in the Irish schools. Even now, after the lapse of all these centuries, many of the places whence they came still reverberate faintly with the memory of ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... permitted at all in Utopia, one may venture to doubt. But whatever the nature of the shares a man may hold, they will all be sold at his death, and whatever he has not clearly assigned for special educational purposes will—with possibly some fractional concession to near survivors—lapse to the State. The "safe investment," that permanent, undying claim upon the community, is just one of those things Utopia will discourage; which indeed the developing security of civilisation quite automatically discourages through the fall in the rate of interest. As we shall see at ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... home was destroyed; Of my flesh and blood many are scattered and lost. North of the River, and South of the River— In both lands are the friends of all my life; Life-friends whom I never see at all,— Whose deaths I hear of only after the lapse of years. Sad at morning, I lie on my bed till dusk; Weeping at night, I sit and wait for dawn. The fire of sorrow has burnt my heart's core; The frost of trouble has seized my hair's roots. In such anguish has my whole life passed; ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various

... the superintendent for Mr. Gillespie and was informed that that gentleman could probably be found at the temporary building in the adjoining street. Thither, therefore, I went, sure that after so great a lapse of time Jerry must pardon my interest and intrusion. I was not surprised to discover that Mr. John V. Gillespie was no less a person than Jerry himself, who was at the moment of my arrival busily engaged with a Scoutmaster, helping to teach the setting-up exercises. I slipped into the room ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... due south (or, as it is technically called, "on the meridian"), and note by a good clock the hour, minute, and second at which it crosses a wire stretched vertically across the tube, then after a lapse of 23 h. 56 m. 4.09 s., will that star be again threaded on the wire. If the earth were stationary—or, rather, if she had no motion but that round her axis—this would be the length of our day. But, as is well known, she is revolving round the sun from left to right; and, as a necessary consequence, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... occasion to refer to again. There is one method, however, which may be mentioned now. If, when a calf is born, its mouth be smeared with a balsam of dung, before it is allowed to suck, the fairies cannot milk that cow. Those taken to fairyland lose the power of calculating the lapse of time, although they are not unconscious of what is going on around them. Those spirited away to fairyland may be recovered by their friends or relatives, by performing certain formula, or—and this was often the method resorted to—by out-witting ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... lapse of many years, I close my eyes, and leaning back in my chair listen again to my comrade as with tremulous voice he reads the fatal letter.—"Monsieur, you once did me a priceless service. I have never forgotten—shall never ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx

... paymaster, than offers arrive, and continue to arrive, from all sides. He is not asked to take any trouble; his library is an object of solicitude to everybody who has anything to sell; the order on his bankers is all that his humble servants desire. He finds himself, after the lapse of a decade or so, the master of a splendid collection, without having once known what it was to get disagreeably warm or anxious in the pursuit of a volume, to deliberate whether he could afford to buy it, or to submit to the ordeal of attending an auction, one of a motley throng ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... brought down, till saturated; then super-saturated, so that the salts become precipitated, or perhaps crystallised out, maybe by the presence of more or other salts, or by a change in temperature. These crystals then become packed hard by further supplies and pressure, till eventually, after the lapse of ages, a natural gem is found, exactly filling the cavity, and is a ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin

... strips of court-plaster, and treated with iced water for forty-eight hours. The patient suffered from muscae volitantes, and could not bear even a mild degree of light falling on the closed lids. After the lapse of a few weeks, the muscae volitantes were greatly mitigated, and ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... After the lapse of more than a century since the author's death, the Works of Dryden are now, for the first time, presented to the public in a complete and uniform edition. In collecting the pieces of one of our most eminent English classics,—one who may claim at least the ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... thousand men. Overcome by panic, the Romans fled and disbanded at the first encounter. They were closely followed from valley to valley, and slain in such numbers that scarcely one third of them reached the walls of Aurelian in safety. The local memories of the battle still survive, after a lapse of eight centuries; the valley which leads from the villa of Q. Voconius Pollio (Sassone) to Marino being still called by the peasantry ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... only excuse Burke for his heat, but love him for letting me warm my hands at it after a lapse of a hundred ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... practical anachronism that has ever been committed. We mean by an anachronism, in common usage, that sort of blunder when a man ascribes to one age the habits, customs, or generally the characteristics of another. This, however, may be a mere lapse of memory, as to a matter of fact, and implying nothing at all discreditable to the understanding, but only that a man has shifted the boundaries of chronology a little this way or that; as if, for example, a writer should speak of printed books as ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... submarine mountains which have gradually subsided into the sea, having originally existed above its surface. Upon these foundations the reef-building saxigenous corals have become attached, and slowly accumulating in large numbers, and gradually depositing their carbonate of lime, during the lapse of ages, by degrees construct these large piles, which, at last emerging from the ocean's bosom, appear as newly-formed continents and islands. Once above the surface, the work of the corals is at an end; no longer exposed to the salt water, the emerged portion dies, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... the coming of Christ was to take place at the end of the world? There was no connection at all, according to the common notions on this subject. If the coming of Christ was to be a great outward manifestation in the sky, to take place long after his death, after the lapse of thousands of years, and at the destruction of the visible universe, what had that to do with the Jewish Temple? or, indeed, what had that to do with any of their ideas concerning their Master? But the notion in their minds, when they asked the question, was something very different; ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... chief escape from care. He saw no reason why his friends should Commiserate him because of the endless handshaking. That was a small matter compared with the interest he took in the ever various stream of human types. Sometimes, indeed, he would lapse into a brown study in the midst of a reception. Then he "would shake hands with thousands of people, seemingly unconscious of what he was doing, murmuring monotonous salutations as they went by, his eye dim, his thoughts far withdrawn. . . . Suddenly, he would see ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... his fingers tingle for a grip on Courthorne's throat. "And that's what I've been doing lately? You, of course, concluded that after conducting myself in an examplary fashion an astonishing time it was a trifling lapse?" ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... acknowledge it. It would be otherwise if they received and acknowledged it and afterwards denied it. This seldom occurs, however; for many among them acknowledge it outwardly but deny it inwardly and are like hypocrites. But those who first accept and acknowledge and later lapse and deny, are the ones who profane holy things ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg

... Hamlet has its ground in the lapse of weeks during which nothing has been done towards punishing the king. Suddenly roused to a keen sense of the fact, he feels as if surely he might have done something. The first act ends with a burning vow of righteous vengeance; the second shows ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... more to call Monte's attention to the fact that in his own life a decade had also passed than anything else could possibly have done. Between birthdays there is only the lapse each time of a year; but between the coming and going of the maitre d'hotel there was a period of ten years, which with his disappearance seemed to vanish. Monte was twenty-two when he first came to Nice, and now he was thirty-two. ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... the relapse owing? I believe to this cause—that no use was made of renewed health and spirits; that time passed on in idleness, till the lapse of time brought with it a sense of neglected duties, and then relief was again sought for a self-accusing mind;—in bodily feelings, which when the stimulus ceased to act, added only to the load of self-accusation. This Cottle, is an insanity which none but the soul's physician can ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... if he was about to lapse again into unconsciousness over the purely ludicrous aspect of the subject, but he haply recovered his seriousness. "He'll have as much money from me as he wants to go into business with. What's his line of business, Teresa?" ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... position was very doubtful; economy of coal had long since necessitated the extinction of fires in the boilers, and if a heavy gale drove the ship from her shelter, steam could only be raised with difficulty and after the lapse of many hours. There was, too, the possibility that the ship, if once driven off, would not be able to return, and so it was obviously unsafe [Page 71] to send a large party away from her, because if she went adrift most of them would ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... without, however, disturbing the confidence in the traditional superstitions. The strange combination of primitive and advanced religious beliefs is characteristic, as we shall have occasion to see, of various divisions of the Babylonian religious literature. The lapse from the ethical strain to the incantation refrain is as sudden as it is common. The priest having exhausted the category of possible sins or mishaps that have caused the suffering of the petitioner, proceeds to invoke ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... comfortable: I took it in with a throb of hope. Wasn't he looking, through the haunted pane, for something he couldn't see?—and wasn't it the first time in the whole business that he had known such a lapse? The first, the very first: I found it a splendid portent. It made him anxious, though he watched himself; he had been anxious all day and, even while in his usual sweet little manner he sat at table, had needed all his small strange genius to give ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... effective means of escape left any longer, for when they saw that their lines were falling back, they surrendered to the conqueror. Arngrim imposed on them the following terms of tribute: that the number of the Finns should be counted, and that, after the lapse of (every) three years, every ten of them should pay a carriage-full of deer-skins by way of assessment. Then he challenged and slew in single combat Egther, the captain of the men of Permland, imposing on the men of Permland the condition that each of them should pay one skin. Enriched ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... really finds it safer to suppose that references to ancestor-worship in the Bible were obliterated by late monotheistic editors, who, none the less, are so full and minute in their descriptions of the various heresies into which Israel was eternally lapsing, and must not be allowed to lapse again. Had ancestor-worship been a peche mignon of Israel, the Prophets would have let Israel ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... and willows, pools of water shaking in the wind, and treacherous bogs, as green as emerald, to tempt and to betray the traveller. The path lay almost straight through the morass. It was already very ancient; its foundation had been laid by Roman soldiery; in the lapse of ages much of it had sunk, and every here and there, for a few hundred yards, it lay submerged below the stagnant waters of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... her habitual expression was sad, and even dejected. She did not look around with the breezy alertness natural to a young girl in such a place. The curiously diverse people around her excited no interest, and she appeared inclined to lapse into deep reveries, even when the music was light and gay, as was the character of the earlier part of the entertainment. At times she would start perceptibly when her father spoke to her, and hesitate in her answer, as if she had to recall her thoughts from far-off wanderings. ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... difficulties with his superiors in the excise. The poetry which Burns wrote, not in dialect, but in the classical English, is in the stilted manner of his century, and his prose correspondence betrays his lack of culture by his constant lapse into rhetorical ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... he knew There was a little danger, too. This made me very weak and ill, And while, last night, I lay quite still, And, as he fancied, in the deep, Exhausted rest of my short sleep, I heard, or dream'd I heard him pray: 'Oh, Father, take her not away! Let not life's dear assurance lapse Into death's agonised "Perhaps," A hope without Thy promise, where Less than assurance is despair! Give me some sign, if go she must, That death's not worse than dust to dust, Not heaven, on whose oblivious shore Joy I may have, but her no more! The bitterest cross, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... attempted to give a complete history of the town of Oneonta. My main object has been to put into a more preservative form some of the facts that have been derived from the recollection of the older inhabitants as well as from family papers, which, in the lapse of time, would be forgotten and lost to the public. This is not so much a history as it is a sketch of history, but it may be made a beginning of a more pretentious historical work. I have endeavored to make it trustworthy, and in my efforts in this direction, I have ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell

... relate to something of a political nature, and most of them containing a personal pin-prick. With the assistance of the printer, let me reconstruct here in the type and narrow measure of the Morning News a column of specimens of Field's political paragraphs. The reader must allow for the lapse of time. Only those referring to persons or matters of national note are, for obvious reasons, preserved. The first one has the peculiar interest of being the initial paragraph in "Sharps and Flats." In point of time they ran all the way from 1883 to 1895, thus covering the entire period of Field's ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... irregularity in the motions of planets, which becomes important only after a long lapse of years. The great inequality of Jupiter and Saturn is a variation of their orbital positions, caused by the disturbing action of one planet ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... water is essential to the continuance of the vital motions, its dissipation hastens death. Cases have occurred, in which a full supply of water being accessible to the sufferer, death has not occurred till after the lapse of twenty days. In one case, life was sustained in this way for ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... lapse of time was unheeded by me; my post was by the bedside of the sufferer—my employment to anticipate his slightest wish, and yield to every humor. As he grew better I read to him, sung to him, talked to him; and in return received the grateful glances of those expressive eyes, which followed ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman

... Should I lapse to what I was Ere we met; (Such can not be, but because Some forget Let me feign it)—none would notice That where she I know by rote is Spread a strange and withering change, Like a drying of the wells Where ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... end was not yet. Again doomed to death, the milk-white hind was still fated not to die. Even before the funeral rites had been performed over the ashes of Pius the Sixth, a great reaction had commenced, which, after the lapse of more than forty years, appears to be still in progress. Anarchy had had its day. A new order of things rose out of the confusion, new dynasties, new laws, new titles; and amidst them emerged the ancient religion. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... mouldering wood, became a place of much interest. Along the back there were three rows of weasels and stoats nailed through the head or neck to the planks. There had been a hundred in each row—about three hundred altogether. The lapse of time had entirely dissipated the substance of many on the upper row; nothing remained but the grim and rusty nail. Further along there hung small strips without shape. Beyond these the nails supported something that had a rough outline still of the animal. In the second row the ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... disease. And, besides, there is something revolting to me in raking a heap of money together, and internally chuckling over it, when others are feeling the loss of it. I should even call it base, if it were more than an exceptional lapse. There are enough inevitable turns of fortune which force us to see that our gain is another's loss:—that is one of the ugly aspects of life. One would like to reduce it as much as one could, not get amusement out ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... bank of frozen earth near the mouth of the Lina, in Latitude 77 deg. broke away and revealed the body of a mammoth. Hair, skin, flesh and all, had been completely preserved by the frost. In 1806 a scientific commission visited the spot, but the lapse of seven years proved of serious consequence. There had been a famine in the surrounding region, and the natives did not scruple to feed their dogs from the store of flesh which nature had preserved. Not supposing the emperor desired the bones of the beast they carried ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... at Kalinga; in 1023 in Kathiawar; but in no case did he make good his foothold on the country. His expeditions were raids and nothing more. Other invasions, however, followed in quick succession, and after the lapse of two centuries the Muhammadans were firmly and permanently established at Delhi. War followed war, and from that period Northern India knew no rest. At the end of the thirteenth century the Muhammadans ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... also committed suicide in his cell.] There was, therefore, reason enough, both in the man's hellish character, and in the mystery which surrounded him, for a Postscript [Footnote: Published in the "Note Book."] to the original paper; since, in a lapse of forty-two years, both the man and his deeds had faded away from the knowledge of the present generation; but still I am sensible that my record is far too diffuse. Feeling this at the very time of writing, I was yet unable to correct it; so little ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... and other encumbrances, to be sent back to Chattanooga. On its march to Atlanta the division passed over much of the old campaign ground, which had lost none of its familiarity, seeming as if there had been no lapse of time. ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear

... trial and condemnation. By the pathetic simplicity of its diction the following extract gives a vivid and piteous picture of the utter desolation and misery into which he was cast: it shows likewise that, after a lapse of fifteen years, the memory of his shame and sorrow was yet green, and that a powerful stimulus had been given to his superstitious fancies by the events lately chronicled. "In the month of May, in the year MDLX, a time when ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... sorrowing heart and laughter to the weeping eyes. "Time heals all wounds; one cannot mourn for ever," say the wise people, and in nine cases out of ten their words hold good, though I think there are some sorrows which no lapse of time can cure—sorrows which deepen and intensify as the years roll on; only the wound, bleeding inwardly, is hid with a sacred reverence from the gaze of the outside world, and is known to the ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... innovate in doctrine; why, then, should it be the only one upon which a man may make it a merit, to work up silently into a book of his own, the best materials found among the instructions of his predecessors and rivals? Some definitions and rules, which in the lapse of time and by frequency of use have become a sort of public property, the grammarian may perhaps be allowed to use at his pleasure; yet even upon these a man of any genius will be apt to set some impress peculiar to himself. But the doctrines of his work ought, in general, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... on his ministry. His biographer says: "The aged refer to his ministry with many delightful recollections. He was held in high estimation, especially by the church, and was esteemed by all classes as "an apt and very ready man in the pulpit." The mere mention of his name even now, after the lapse of half a century, seems to renew in their minds interesting associations. The church and society were strengthened by his labors, and many wished to retain him as their permanent pastor. The sensibility of a few individuals prevented, it is said, the accomplishment ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... the characteristic, spiritual features of a New Testament congregation in its normal condition; also the possibility of deviation from that standard. A practical question is, How far could such a congregation lapse into an abnormal state and still be a church of God? Or, Can a church as a body backslide? The church at Ephesus evidently was on the verge of such an apostasy. Therefore in the special message addressed to it in Revelation the Lord said: "I have somewhat against ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith

... was so lowered by the change of the ministry, and the lapse of the time allotted for their circulation, that they fell nearly twenty per cent, to the prejudice of the revenue, and the discredit of the government in foreign countries. The commons having taken this affair into consideration, voted, That provision should ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... pictured the lover with a warm hand; and that omission on his part caused him a greater amount of irritation than anyone who was unaware of his skill in phrase-making could have thought possible to arise from a lapse apparently so trifling. ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... very late that night, for my mind was so occupied with some personal matters that I felt no inclination for sleep. I lighted a cigar and became so absorbed in my own thoughts that I was totally unaware of the lapse of time, until I was aroused by what I thought was a stealthy step outside. I then became conscious, for the first time, that I was very weary, both physically and mentally, and I also discovered that ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... After the lapse of two days order was restored, and Barras declared to the triumphant National Convention that the victory over the insurgents was chiefly due to the comprehensive and gallant ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... by in which we do not hear of some defalcation, some lapse from integrity, by a man who, through many years of business life, had maintained an untarnished reputation. I have half a dozen such cases in my memory now, and I do not know what to make of them. When I see a character ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... As she has never yet caught her hare, never spied out her lucky impostor—how should she, with the life she has led?—her husband's intention has come very near lapsing. His idea, to do him justice, was that it SHOULD lapse if exactly the right person, the perfect mixture of genius and chill penury, should fail to turn up. Ah the poor dear woman's very particular—she says there must ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James

... rose a hill, on the top of which was a temple, entire, with a balcony round it, heedless of the lapse of ages. There is some little difference between the ancient and modern ideas of ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... Stanmore across a dozen yards of turf. Do not blame him—remember his education and the opinions of those amongst whom he lived. Remember, too, that his crowning sorrow had not yet taught him resignation, an opiate which works only with lapse of time. There is a manlier and a truer courage than that which seeks a momentary oblivion of its wrongs in the excitement of personal danger—there is a heroism of defence, far above the easier valour of attack—and those are distinguished as the ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... that troubled Moss was her growing tendency to lapse into troubled thought. "Remember, now, you're the crocus, the first violet, or something like that—not the last rose of summer. Don't think, don't droop! There, that's right! What have you to think or droop about? When you're ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... glad to meet our subscribers again after such a long lapse of time, and we hope that they will patronise us in the same kind and indulgent manner as they did, ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... the missing letter still gives a false quantity to a vowel or shifts an accent. It is remembered, as it were, by its vacant chair. Or rather, like a ghost it haunts a word, rattling a warning lest we disarrange a syllable. Its absence, however, in the flesh, despite the lapse of time—for it went off long ago when the mastodon still wandered on the pleasant upland—its continued absence vexes the learned. They scan ancient texts for an improper syllable and mark the time upon their brown old fingers, if possibly a jolting measure may offer them a clue. Although ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... their evidence, and the Duke of Alva issued his repeated commands to use despatch. They delayed, however, from week to week, while they renewed their protests against the illegality of the court. At last the duke assigned them nine days to produce their proofs; on the lapse of that period they were to be declared guilty, and as having forfeited all right ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... confirmed the imperial decree, and conferred on the institution the same privileges as those enjoyed by the Spanish university of Salamanca. The Lima university was originally established in the convent of Santo Domingo, but after the lapse of three years it was removed to the building now occupied by San Marcel, and in 1576 it was installed in the site it now occupies. It received the name of Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Marcos. In the year 1572 the first lay rector was elected in ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... lapse of a few years there had been no further discussion of plans for visiting Stornham. Rosalie had become so remote as to appear almost unreachable. She had been presented at Court, she had had three children, the ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... received with indescribable enthusiasm. This famous incident gave rise to Buchanan Read's stirring poem of Sheridan's ride, now one of the most popular pieces in the repertories of public readers, both in England and the United States. After the lapse of a few hours, spent in preparing his forces, Sheridan ordered an advance, and literally swept the enemy from the field in one of the most overwhelming and decisive engagements of the war. All the lost Union guns were retaken, and twenty-four Confederate guns and many ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... light on the existence and career of Tell have now been thoroughly searched by many impartial and competent scholars, as well as by enthusiastic partisans, with the invariable result that, till a considerable lapse of years after the presumed date of their deaths, not one particle of evidence has been discovered tending to prove the identity of either William Tell or of the tyrant Gessler. On the other hand, many local authorities, as early as the beginning of the fifteenth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... the interpolated passages, repetitions, and parts eliminated or abridged; in fact, to say the truth, as the result of a certain incoherence, accounted for no doubt by the circumstance that the work had been carried on, altered or extended by successive artists during a lapse ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... moment of pain and pleasure, strangely mingled, when Willoughby and Maud reached the rocks, and got a first view of the ancient Beaver Dam. All the buildings remained, surprisingly little altered to the eye by the lapse of years. The gates had been secured when they left the place, in 1776; and the Hut, having no accessible external windows, that dwelling remained positively intact. It is true, quite half the palisadoes were rotted down; but ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... be more interesting and worthy of the largely-extended circulation that it is now likely to obtain, additions have been made, and particulars inserted, which a greater lapse of time from the occurrence of the events narrated, seems now to permit. A slight thread of biographical ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... full the voice rings over the room, transfixing for one moment the entire court; then the gavel descends; order is commanded with double unction, because of the recent lapse. Mr. O'Meara is on his feet; Mr. Rand's impromptu ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... that astounding fact she felt exactly as if her heart stopped beating for a full minute. Then it started again as if trying to make up for the lapse in a couple of breaths. She gasped for breath and, throwing off the bedclothes, jumped up and lighted the gas. Here was something to be met in the light. But, as soon as she caught sight of her flushed cheeks ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... Daddy seemed to grow with the lapse of time. She wanted to see him so much that it actually hurt when she allowed herself ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... have introduced into their general conversation, and would have it pass for innocent freedom or humour, which is a dangerous experiment in our northern climate, where all the little decorum and politeness we have are purely forced by art, and are so ready to lapse into barbarity. This, among the Romans, was the raillery of slaves, of which we have many instances in Plautus. It seemeth to have been introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by preferring the scum ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... Sir, as you are by Character a profest Well-wisher to Speculation, you will excuse a Remark which this Gentleman's Passion for the Brunette has suggested to a Brother Theorist; 'tis an Offer towards a mechanical Account of his Lapse to Punning, for he belongs to a Set of Mortals who value themselves upon an uncommon Mastery in the more humane and polite Part of Letters. A Conquest by one of this Species of Females gives a very odd Turn to the Intellectuals ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... not possible. Nobody could expect it after such a lapse of time. Something David pulled out—it might be paper, it might be rags. It was too dry to be moss or earth, but no one could have recognized ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... He had expected a return of his old-time gaiety, but somehow the charm lacked potency. He wanted to paint, but his ideas were turgid and fragmentary. He wanted excitement, but the city only seemed to offer memories. The lapse of a short eighteen months had scattered his friends surprisingly. Adolph remained, but Nanette was married. Louise had left Paris, and Giddens, the English painter, had gone back to London. Perhaps it was the spring, perhaps it was merely ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... point to point, and from moment to moment, and accounted for himself to himself without any lapse whatever; unless, indeed, his brain had played him false and he had gone out of the house again after going into it, and followed Tom and ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... covered with 4 inches of ice. The explanation of the observed fact that Lake Tahoe does not entirely freeze over even in severe winters is found in the extreme depth; and the fact that the bodies of drowned persons do not rise to the surface after the lapse of the usual time is explained by the low temperature prevailing near the bottom, which does not allow the necessary decomposition to go forward so as to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various

... food, of any of the circumstances which surrounded any member of this first and lowest class of life would tend to alter it in some slight manner, and the alteration would have a tendency to perpetuate itself by inheritance. Many failures would doubtless occur, but with the lapse of time slight deviations would undoubtedly become permanent and inheritable, those alone being perpetuated which were beneficial to individuals in whom they appeared. Repeat the process with each deviation and we shall again obtain divergences (in the course ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler

... infant's stomach, not yet endowed with much muscular power, meat, which requires considerable trituration before it can be made into chyme, is an unfit aliment. But this objection does not tell against animal food from which the fibrous part has been extracted; nor does it apply when, after the lapse of two or three years, considerable muscular vigour has been acquired. And while the evidence in support of this dogma, partially valid in the case of very young children, is not valid in the case of older children, who are, nevertheless, ordinarily ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... a.m., the bell rung as a signal for landing upon the rock, a sound which, after a lapse of ten days, it is believed was welcomed by every one on board. There being a heavy breach of sea at the eastern creek, we landed, though not without difficulty, on the western side, every one seeming more eager than another to get upon the rock; ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... discontent, chiefly affecting the wealthy and influential classes, and giving colour to the Brahmins' accusation that we intended to upset the religion and violate the most cherished customs of the Hindus, was Lord Dalhousie's strict enforcement of the doctrine of the lapse of property in the absence of direct or collateral heirs, and the consequent appropriation of certain Native States, and the resumption of certain political pensions by the Government of India. This was condemned by the people of India as grasping, and as an unjustifiable interference ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... in their Report, published in 1837, acknowledged the superior excellence of the London Corporation as compared with other corporate bodies. They readily admitted that the Common Council possessed the necessary powers to effect whatever reforms might have become necessary through the lapse of time. They also bore witness that the Corporation had already of itself corrected much that was amiss in its constitution, and that its history furnished "honourable testimonials to the vigilance, good sense, and justice of its legislative body." On these grounds the Imperial ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen

... lay in the qualities, if not of a great general, at least of a great soldier. His frame was powerful, and developed by every kind of exercise; his peasant's face and frank manners won general popularity; his memory was marvelous, and after the lapse of years could recall the names of his followers, the number of their horses, and the amount of their pay. His education was purely Italian: he devoted his leisure to the study of history, and had Greek and Latin authors translated for his use. Francesco, his still ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... commenced looking for some passenger who had come over by the same steamer, and after the lapse of a little time we succeeded in ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... the painful emotions that struggled for utterance, Beryl was unconscious of the lapse of time, and when her averted eyes returned reluctantly to her grandfather's face, he was slowly tearing into shreds the tear-stained letter, freighted with passionate prayers for pardon, and for succor. Rolling the strips into a ball, he threw it into the waste-paper basket under the table; ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... Michel," replied Barbicane quietly; "we know what diminution of temperature the earth undergoes in the lapse of a century. And according to certain calculations, this mean temperature will after a period of 400,000 years, be brought ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... with no sense of any time-lapse I am lying in the big lighted hold, with the sound of trampling all round: it is somehow filtered and far off and despite the lights there seems to be a globe of darkness around my head. I hear my own voice ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell

... fretted under the tyranny exacted, he could see nothing which could relieve the situation save his own withdrawal. He had already long over-stayed his visit; important affairs connected with his work demanded his attention, he had the comfort of Carroll's love assured; and the lapse of time alone could be depended on to change Mrs. Bishop's attitude, a consummation on which Carroll seemed set. Although Orde felt all the lively dissatisfaction natural to a newly accepted lover who had gained slight opportunity for ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... prevail on him to revoke his decision, the chimney stood, and with it the three fireplaces, where, in the fall and spring, were burned the twisted knots too bulky for the kitchen stove. This was fourteen years ago, and in that lapse of time Lucy Lennox had gradually fallen in with the family ways of living, and ceased to talk of her cottage in Western New York, where her husband had died and where were born her daughters, one of whom she was expecting home on the warm July ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... called to mind with so much ease and distinctness, as the years which we spent together in theological studies. The events of that short season, and the sentiments we then indulged, are clothed with a freshness and interest which the lapse of ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... were not acted upon, and the honour of carrying out the project was reserved for France. Ferdinand de Lesseps, who succeeded in connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, was the man who, after the lapse of centuries, seriously interested his fellow-countrymen in boring ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... myself," continued Tom. "I thought absence—entire change—might make a difference in my feelings. But when the two years ended I came back, only to find my love grown deeper from the lapse of time, with every feeling more firmly centred there. You speak kindly to me sometimes. You pity me—at least you pity me! But you couldn't love me, of course; that is impossible! Let me get up—I mustn't talk ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... of the ivory snuff box, in return for his liberty, what could he do, in retaliation? Hartmann would calmly deny his story, and would doubtless produce witnesses, such as Mayer, to prove that the detective came to him for treatment for some slight mental disorder, some lapse of memory and that the exposure to the light rays had been but part of his usual treatment. Clearly the doctor had covered his ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks

... shale, fixed and supporting. As long as it held he was happy and maintained the attitude of a guitar-player, thrumming the calf of the useless leg to accompany tuneful thoughts, but the inevitable lapse and slide of the foot recurred, and the philosopher was exhibited as an infant learning to crawl. The seat, moreover, not having been fashioned for him or for any soft purpose, resisted his pressure and became a thing of violence, that required to be humiliatingly coaxed. His ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... constantly attended, admonished, and trained, and who shared in public estimation the praise and blame of his acts; so that it is even reported that on one occasion a Spartan boy having cried out in a fight, not he himself but his friend was fined for the lapse of self-control. The custom of Sparta existed also in Crete. But the most remarkable instance of the deliberate dedication of this passion to political and military ends is that of the celebrated "Theban band," a troop consisting exclusively of pairs of lovers, who marched and fought in battle ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... toughness, which was the antithesis of Whitwell's remorseless self-interest. For the moment this claimed Cynthia of its kind, and Westover beheld her rustic and Yankee of her father's type. If she was not that now, she would grow into that through the lapse from the personal to the ancestral which we all undergo in the process ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... investigation may be cited to illustrate quite a different department. It aimed to find out something about the rate at which memory fades with the lapse of time. Messrs. W., S., and B.[7] began by formulating the different ways in which tests may be made on individuals to see how accurate their memories are after different periods of time. They found that three different tests might be employed, and called them ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... be considered as immediately divested from the original owner, and transferred to the captor. As to personal property, the title is considered as lost to the former proprietor, as soon as the enemy has acquired a firm possession, which, as a general rule, is considered as taking place after the lapse of twenty-four hours.[98] ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson

... afterward took me prisoner in Maryland. Some of them were riding horses that they had stolen,—no; impressed,—from my county. They showed me their repeating Spencer carbines, and asked that if I should be exchanged I would tell the 9th Virginia cavalry that they would be glad to meet them. The lapse of fifty years has made old men of them and me. I have forgiven the wrongs those brave fellows inflicted on my country, and I would be glad to meet them to talk over the stirring events of ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... these people, whose name, much as I would like to express my gratitude to them, I may not even give here, nevertheless cumbered themselves with me, sheltered me, and protected me from myself. Apparently they had learned something of my story from me during the days of my lapse. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... virtues of the brush. At first I was a good deal frightened, not knowing how long the trance might continue. However, after the lapse of twelve hours, the man recovered consciousness again, and the complete use of all his faculties just as suddenly as the old miser had done ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... of her own diplomacy. In dealing with a Wilcox, how tempting it was to lapse from comradeship, and to give him the kind of woman that he desired! Henry took the hint at once, and said: "Why later on? Tell me now. No ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... have become household words throughout the world. He has been equally familiar with court, with camp, and with cottage. He has been the companion of the soldier, the text-book of the philosopher, and the vade-mecum of kings and statesmen. And his name even now, after the lapse of so many ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... the drinking-place. Then they found another charred brand, and another; and now, quite happy in the assurance that they were passing back over ground that they had already traversed, they pressed forward light-heartedly enough until, after the lapse of nearly another half-hour, Lethbridge again damped their ardour ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... Greece,—conquered, fascinated, charmed, from one end of Europe to the other, the imaginations of the Middle Ages. The amorous languor and the subtlety of our "courteous poetry" are breathed no less by the madrigals of Shakespeare himself than by Petrarch's sonnets; and after such a long lapse of time we still discover something that comes from us even in the Wagnerian drama, for instance in 'Parsifal' or in 'Tristan and Isolde.' A long time later, in a Europe belonging entirely to classicism, from the beginning of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... begins, however, to reflect on the probable causes of the sudden lapse of the most civilized parts of Europe into worse than primitive savagery, he comes at once on two old and widespread evils in Europe from which America has been exempt for at least 150 years. The first is secret diplomacy with power to make issues and determine events, ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... never too late to be virtuous. It is right that we should look before we leap, but it is gross misconduct to neglect duty to conform to the consuetudes of the hour. We must endeavour in practical life to carry out to the best of our ability our philosophical and ethical convictions, for any lapse in such endeavour is what constitutes immorality. We must live consistently with theory so long as our chief purpose in life is advanced by so doing, but we must be inconsistent when by antinomianism we better forward this purpose. ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon

... anatomical writings of the physician of Pergamum form a remarkable era in the history of the science; and that by diligence in dissection and accuracy in description he gave the science a degree of importance and stability which it has retained through a lapse of many centuries. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... at the head; who reported that it was written in a rude and familiar style, quite beneath the dignity of history, and that for this and other reasons it had better not be printed. The precious manuscript was laid on the shelf until in the lapse of years it was found that the very reasons why those solemn critics rejected it were the things that gave it supreme value to a later age. It has been the pride of Geneva scholars to print in elegant archaic style every page written by the Prisoner ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... our feeling of duration or of the lapse of time is notoriously an unsafe guide as to the time that has elapsed by the clock. Times when we are bored or suffering pain pass slowly, times when we are agreeably occupied pass quickly, and times when ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell

... Loyalists continued to agitate for justice. As early as 1790 the island legislature passed an act empowering the governor to give grants to those who had not yet received them from the proprietors. But this measure did not entirely redress the grievances, and after a lapse of fifty years a petition of the descendants of the Loyalists led to further action in the matter. In 1840 a bill was passed by the House of Assembly granting relief to the Loyalists, but was thrown out by the Legislative Council. As late as 1860 the question was still troubling the island ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace

... a similar fuse from the substance of the lung after the lapse of nine months, the patient having developed an empyema, and a chronic fistula, which rapidly closed after the removal ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... with greater ability and more knowledge of history than had been displayed by any of the preceding speakers. Sergeant Glynn had asserted, that in conquering the Irish and Welsh our laws had been imposed upon them; but Wedderburne clearly showed that this was only effected in the lapse of ages; English laws not being introduced into Ireland till the time of James I., and in Wales till the time of Henry VIII. He argued, that it was the custom of all conquering states to leave the conquered countries in the possession of their own ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... encouragement from the natives when he first starts in a district. At first the converts flock in, get baptised in batches, go to church, attend school, and adopt European clothes with an alacrity and enthusiasm that frequently turns their devoted pastor's head, but after the lapse of a few months their conduct is enough to break his heart. Dressing up in European clothes amuses the ladies and some of the young men for a long time, in some cases permanently, but the older men and the bolder youths soon get bored, and when an African is bored—and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... thinke Foundations flye the wretched: such I meane, Where they should be releeu'd. Two Beggers told me, I could not misse my way. Will poore Folkes lye That haue Afflictions on them, knowing 'tis A punishment, or Triall? Yes; no wonder, When Rich-ones scarse tell true. To lapse in Fulnesse Is sorer, then to lye for Neede: and Falshood Is worse in Kings, then Beggers. My deere Lord, Thou art one o'th' false Ones: Now I thinke on thee, My hunger's gone; but euen before, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... me also the following sonnet. I believe it never to have been published; but although she requested I "would not have copies of it made to give away," I presume the prohibition cannot now be binding, after a lapse of thirty years since I received it. The poet, he who wrote the sonnet, and the admirable woman to whom it was addressed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... After a lapse of thirty years since the above was written, I have been requested by my publishers to make some preparation for a new and revised edition of my poems. I cannot flatter myself that I have added much to the interest of the work beyond the correction of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... all that generation had passed away and the storm of the Revolution was beginning to gather over the colonies, there were a few aged men still living who sometimes told how, when they were children, they had seen Cecil Grey bidding the people farewell at the old meeting-house; and through all the lapse of years they remembered what a wonderful brightness was on his face, and how sweet and kind were his words to each as he bade them ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... with a nondescript collection of the very greenest green pellets of hyson-bloom gunpowder tea. The buttons (things of use in this garment) describe the figure and proportions of a large turbot. They consist of two rows (leaving imagination to fill up a lapse of the absent), commencing, to all appearance, at the small of the back, and reaching down even to the hem of the garment, which is invariably a double-breasted one, made upon the good old dining-out principle of leaving plenty of room in the victualling ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... of an early answer is particularly requested, that the extent of the funds supplied may as soon as possible be ascertained, particularly as any aid, however kindly intended, will, after the lapse of a very few weeks, become useless ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... lay there I knew that I was indeed in the grasp of fever. I nearly went crazed from terror at the thought that in a few minutes I should perhaps lapse into unconsciousness and be unable to rise—unable to reach the sands in the morning and seek for Wynne's body—unable even to send some one there as a substitute to perform that task. But then whom ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... for the alarming ordeal I was so soon to undergo, let me present to the reader a slight sketch of myself, mental and bodily; and, as mind ought to take precedence of matter, I will attempt, as far as I am able after the lapse of time, to paint my character in true colours, "nought extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice". I was, then, as the phrase goes, "a very well-behaved young gentleman"; that is, I had a great respect for all properly constituted authorities, and an extreme regard for the proprieties ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... Sir John's leading traits, and explains much in him that were else inexplicable, is here seen however labouring under something of an eclipse. The truth is, he is plainly out of his sphere; and he shows a strange lapse from his wanted sagacity in getting where he is: the good sense so conspicuous in his behaviour on other occasions ought to have kept him from supposing for a moment that he could inspire the passion of love in such a place; nor, as ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... acquaintance with that great and good man, for such I may venture to call him, now that the lapse of some thirty years has shrouded his name with venerable antiquity, and the popular voice has elevated him to the rank of the classic historians of yore, my first acquaintance with him was formed on ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... a large mill property, one building of which was erected a short time before the failure of the corporation, which resulted in the whole plant remaining idle several years. After the lapse of about five years this establishment was again put into operation; but before the new mill could be safely filled with machinery, it was necessary to remove all the beams which entered walls and to substitute for them new ones, because ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... description. In general, when the educated minority and the common people differ about the merit of a book, the opinion of the educated minority finally prevails. The "Pilgrim's Progress" is perhaps the only book about which, after the lapse of a hundred years, the educated minority has come over to the opinion of the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... Thomas Cheeke, Knight, of Purgo, in the county of Essex, or more probably his son, from the way Dorothy speaks of him; but it is difficult to discriminate among constant generations of Toms after a lapse of two hundred years. We find Sir Thomas's daughter was at this time the third wife of Lord Manchester; and it appears that Dorothy's great-grandfather married Catherine Cheeke, daughter of the then Sir Thomas. ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry

... of the Etruscans [191] and Greeks: [192] and in the mad abuse of prosperity and power, every pleasure that is innocent was deemed insipid; and the Scatinian law, [193] which had been extorted by an act of violence, was insensibly abolished by the lapse of time and the multitude of criminals. By this law, the rape, perhaps the seduction, of an ingenuous youth, was compensated, as a personal injury, by the poor damages of ten thousand sesterces, or fourscore pounds; the ravisher might be slain by the resistance ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... arose on the report of the Committee of Education as to the expediency of the establishment of a college for colored young men, which was discussed pro and con by arguments that can not be surpassed even after a lapse of more than half a century. The report gives unstinted praise to the chairman of the committee for his scholarly style, his choice diction, his grace of manner, and this statement excites no surprise when we learn that this ...
— The Early Negro Convention Movement - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 9 • John W. Cromwell

... worthies, and because I understand that now and then one may still be found to regard it with a captious eye. The far greater part, however, I have reason to flatter myself, receive my good-humored picturings in the same temper with which they were executed; and when I find, after a lapse of nearly forty years, this haphazard production of my youth still cherished among them; when I find its very name become a "household word," and used to give the home stamp to everything recommended for popular acceptation, such as Knickerbocker societies, Knickerbocker insurance companies, Knickerbocker ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... seat, saying she would try to find the book, and left him there meditating. When she came back after the lapse of half an hour or so she found him sitting just as she had left him, with his sad eyes on the sad sea. The girl had a volume in her hand. "There," she said, "I knew there would be a copy on board, but I am more bewildered than ever; the frontispiece is an exact ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... galleries once more, after a lapse of nearly fifty years, and was struck by the fact that, in that interval, several women had been admitted to places of honor. This was especially noticeable in the Luxembourg Sculpture Gallery, where two women, Mme. Bertaux and the late Claude Vignon, wife of M. Rouvier, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... of heart and manner visible in Aunt Hepsy at the time of Tom's departure disappeared before the lapse of many days. You see, she had gone on in the old, sour, cross-grained way so long, she felt most at home in it. She did not feel unkindly towards gentle, patient Lucy; but her manner was so ungracious, and her words so sharp, you will not wonder that Lucy could not read beneath the surface. ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan



Words linked to "Lapse" :   return, finish, forego, revert, drop off, vanish, failure, relapsing, advance, backslide, march on, slip away, drop away, suspension, go on, interruption, elapse, lapsing, waive, end, pass on, move, retrovert, regress, terminate, stop, recidivate, fell, retrogress, slip by, turn back, move on, error, mistake, break, fall away, forgo, reversion, give up, forfeit, pause, progress, fly, slip, throw overboard, recidivism, fault, intermission, cease



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