"Lessening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... addition of no impassioned appeal; the child is already wondering whether he can empty his bank for their help. If expression is denied to the feeling, it tends to die out, and continual repression means a lessening either in power to act or power to feel. "Sentimentalists" have lost power to act except in tears or ejaculations when their emotions are stirred, and "hardened" people have lost the power to feel under ordinary stimulation. Therefore ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... highest summit of the Elburz range, he watched the proceedings of the evil genii, and guarded the world from their attempts. The Iranians were his special care; but he lost no opportunity of injuring the Powers of Darkness, and lessening their dominion by teaching everywhere the true religion. In the other world it was his business to conduct the souls of the faithful through the dangers of the middle passage, and to bring them before the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... to the revolution of the sun, and not of the stars, and they observe yearly by how much time the one precedes the other. They hold that the sun approaches nearer and nearer, and therefore by ever-lessening circles reaches the tropics and the equator every year a little sooner. They measure months by the course of the moon, years by that of the sun. They praise Ptolemy, admire Copernicus, but place Aristarchus and ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... to-day concerning the War Department are the advisability of strengthening our coast defences, and the lessening of the desertions in the army, which amount yearly to from ten to fifteen per cent, of the ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... I had no doubts. It seemed at the moment that my father had acted wisely in leaving his Iowa farm in order to claim his share of Uncle Sam's rapidly-lessening ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... new and strange impression is never wanting. The sense of calm and silence, the great waste of sea, the monotonous 'plash' of the paddle-wheels, the sort of solitude in the midst of such a crowd, the gradually lengthening distance behind, with the lessening, as gradual, in front, and the always novel feeling of approach to a new country—these elements impart a sort of dreamy, poetical feeling to the scene. Even the calm resignation of the wrapped-up shadows ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... seeing in this revival of Islam an effective force, took steps to encourage the "true believers" and strengthen the Sultan by the construction of a branch line of the Bagdad system running southwards through Aleppo and the district east of the Dead Sea towards Mecca. Purporting to be a means for lessening the hardships of pilgrims, it really enabled the Sultan to threaten ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Olaves, Southwark, desirous of contributing their aid towards lessening the consumption of wheat, resolved on the following succedaneum for their customary suet puddings, which they give to their Poor for dinner one day in the week; which was ordered ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... sun and wind and thirst, traveling due northwest, keeping always on the trail of the six horses that traveled steadily before them Always a day's march behind, always watching hopefully for some sign of delay—for an encouraging freshness in the tracks that would show a lessening distance between the two parties, Luck and his Happy Family rode—from dawn till dusk, from another dawn to another dusk. Their horses, full of little exuberant outbursts of horse-foolishness when they had left ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... and Basset was evidently gaining on the fugitive, when, turning short, the latter jumped over some bars which had been left down, and directed his course across a field. The constable's blood was up, and without hesitation, he followed, every moment lessening the distance between himself and the chase. He could not help, as he ran, wondering at the agility of Holden, from whom, on account of his seeming age, he had not anticipated such activity, and ascribed it now to his greater length of limb, and habit ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... labour will be made honourable; when he who serves, and he who commands, will rejoice in this freedom of soul together; when both master and servant will enjoy a reciprocal communion of mind, without lessening the respect due from the one to ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Acts had been in operation for eight years, it was found that various amendments were needed, and in February, 1853, Lord St. Leonards introduced, along with another Bill lessening the expense arising out of lunacy inquisitions, one consolidating the laws respecting asylums, and one amending Lord Shaftesbury's Act (c. 100). They constitute the 16 and 17 Vict., ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... that Their High Mightinesses and some other friends, before whom this may come, may think strange that we speak as highly of this place as we do, and as we know to be true, and yet complain of want and poverty, seek relief, assistance, redress, lessening of charges, population and the like, and show that the country is in a poor and ruinous condition; yea, so much so, as that without special aid and assistance it will utterly fall off and pass under foreign rule. ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... by any group or class; the building up and preservation of equality of opportunity; the stimulation of initiative and individuality; absolute integrity in public affairs; the choice of officials for fitness to office; the direction of economic progress toward prosperity for the further lessening of poverty; the freedom of public opinion; the sustaining of education and of the advancement of knowledge; the growth of religious spirit and the tolerance of all faiths; the strengthening of the ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... was amply able to fight his own battles, and he was doing so with a grim determination that knew not failure. The ponies already were lessening their frantic efforts ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... of this first Medicine being commonly a lessening of the Strength, we endeavoured to fortify, by some gentle Cordial, especially by Venice Treacle and Diascordium, by reason they are proper to prevent or stop an over-working of ...
— A Succinct Account of the Plague at Marseilles - Its Symptoms and the Methods and Medicines Used for Curing It • Francois Chicoyneau
... far from degrading or lessening the woman, is really for her advantage and honour, in confiding to her a kind of domestic empire and government, administered only by gentleness, reason, equity, and good nature; and in giving her frequent occasions of concealing the most valuable and excellent qualities ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... contended by well-informed people that what they call a natural relation between the sexes, such as comes up in the competitive work of university life, so far from furthering, has the result of lessening the risk of immature sentiment and of undesirable flirtations. By the use of the college system, the advantages of these larger facilities can be secured to women, and have in fact been secured without any sacrifice of the separate life ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... bright track; I hear your lessening voices as they go; Have ye no sign, no solace to fling back To those ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... garland and singing-robes, throned in the high realms of its inheritance, a kingdom of boundless scope and ever new delights: then sweeping down through the lower world with diminishing rapture, rapture lessening into astonishment, astonishment dying into despair, it gathers up the passion and the pain, the blight and woe and agony; all garnered joys are scattered. Evil supplants the good. Hope dies, love pales, and faith is faint and wan. But every death has its moaning ghost, pale spectre ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... foundation on which natural selection rests, to be the primary and efficient causes of organic change, and thus to account for the origin of variations, which Darwin himself assumed as the starting point or basis of his selection theory. It is not lessening the value of Darwin's labors, to recognize the originality of Lamarck's views, the vigor with which he asserted their truth, and the heroic manner in which, against adverse and contemptuous criticism, to his dying day ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... magnificent spring—Slone estimating it to be forty feet—but he had missed the stallion. There were Wildfire's tracks again, slow and short, and then deep and sharp where in the impetus of fright he had sprung out of reach. A second leap of the lion, and then lessening bounds, and finally an abrupt turn from Wildfire's trail told the futility of that stalk. Slone made certain that Wildfire was so keen that as he grazed along he ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... was shivered on the instant, the pieces flying round in all directions, but happily without causing hurt to anyone. Then she pushed the wicket open and ran down the narrow stair, and so to the hall door. Opening this also, she ran down the avenue, never lessening her speed till she stood outside the door of Lesser Hill. The door was opened at once ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... This was in contrast with what she had done in the era of the conversion of the Roman Empire, during that of the invasion of the barbarians, and amid the immense religious movement which characterized the apogee of the Middle Ages. Father Hecker discovered the cause of this lessening influence in the fact that since the sixteenth century the Church had been compelled to stand upon the defensive. This had greatly paralyzed her power of initiation and her liberty. As a consequence of the Protestant heresy, which threatened the utter destruction of the principle ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... iniquity of my sin." Mark, nothing comes in betwixt confession and forgiveness of sin, Psalm xxxii. 5; nothing of works of righteousness, nothing of legal amendments, nothing but an outcry for mercy; and that act is so far off from lessening the offence, that it greatly heightens and aggravates it. That is ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... products. Notwithstanding that by its valuable suggestions this book helps to reduce the expense of supplying the table, the recipes are so planned that the economies effected thereby are not offset by any lessening in the attractiveness, variety ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... easier than life, he told them so, but that life was possible if they only willed it, and a better life than had been theirs. And so he kept them encouraged and kept them putting one foot before the other, pointing out the ever lessening distance to the mountain before them. He appealed to their manhood. "Be men," said he, "Be brave and courageous, and you have more strength than you believe." Thus by example and words he proved to be a true captain to his ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... drank of the stream and washed his face and his hands therein, and then did on his helm again and turned back again toward the wood, feeling very strong and merry; and he looked out seaward and saw the Ship of the Isle of Ransom lessening fast; for a little land wind had arisen and they had spread their sails to it; and he laid down on the grass till the four folk of the country came out of the wood again, after they had been gone somewhat less than an hour, but the Sea- eagle was not with ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... the powerful King of Day Rejoicing in the East; the lessening cloud, The kindling azure, and the mountains brow Illum'd with fluid gold, his near approach Betoken glad; lo, now apparent all He looks in boundless majesty abroad, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... developed ideas and sentiments which are opposed to this demoniac Nature,—much as voluntary movement is opposed to the blind power of gravitation. But the possession of such ideas and sentiments does but aggravate the atrocity of our situation, without lessening in the least the gloom of ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Body. The eldest, whose Belly sunk in monstrously, was a great Coward; and tho' his splenetick contracted Temper made him take fire immediately, he made Objects that beset him appear greater than they were. The second, whose Breast swelled into a bold Relievo, on the contrary, took great pleasure in lessening every thing, and was perfectly the Reverse of his Brother. These Oddnesses pleased Company once or twice, but disgusted when often seen; for which reason the young Gentlemen were sent from Court to study ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... in ceaseless circles wheeling, With clang of wings and scream, the eagle sailed Incessantly—sometimes on high concealing Its lessening orbs, sometimes, as if it failed, Drooped through the air, and still it shrieked and wailed, And casting back its eager head, with beak And talon unremittingly assailed The wreathed serpent, who did ever seek Upon his enemy's heart ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... had died down by the time the troopers entered the brilliantly lighted parking area. The temperature seemed warmer with the lessening winds but in actuality, the mercury was dropping. The snow clouds to the west were much nearer and the ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... are still pious parents or godfearing Christian rulers, they ought, for the sake of lessening the evil of intemperance, to restrain their children and domestics with serious chastisements. Pastors and preachers are under obligation to admonish the people frequently and faithfully, holding up to them God's displeasure and wrath and the injuries to soul, body and property resultant ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... "honest work" so praised—by all who don't do it, but live pleasantly by making others do it. Wasn't there something in the ideas of Etta's father, old Tom Brashear? Couldn't sensible, really loving people devise some way of making most tasks less repulsive, of lessening the burdens of those tasks that couldn't be anything but repulsive? Was this stupid system, so cruel, so crushing, and producing at the top such absurd results as flashy, insolent autos and silly palaces and overfed, overdressed women, and dogs in jeweled ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... was satisfactory to Mrs. Schenck and her sympathizers, but Mr. Ames seemed loth to relinquish his preference for the American, and the course taken had the effect of lessening his zeal and that of his followers, until they gradually dropped from the ranks. But the convention, despite the unfortunate schism, was a grand success. The sessions were crowded, and so great was the interest awakened in the public mind that a final adjournment was not had until ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... incessant competition produces injury and malice by two motives, interest and envy; the prospect of adding to our possessions what we can take from others, and the hope of alleviating the sense of our disparity by lessening others, though we gain ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... was intensified. There was, however, a general consensus of opinion that the normal vaginal secretion during coitus was greatly lessened. In the cases of women over 33, including also hysterectomies, a gradual lessening of sexual feeling and desire was found to occur most generally. Dr. Isabel Davenport records 2 cases (reported in Medical Standard, 1895, p. 346) of women between 30 and 35 years of age whose erotic tendencies ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... treasurer had objected, concerning the great charge his majesty was at in maintaining you, said, that his excellency, who had the sole disposal of the emperor's revenue, might easily provide against that evil, by gradually lessening your establishment; by which, for want of sufficient for you would grow weak and faint, and lose your appetite, and consequently, decay, and consume in a few months; neither would the stench of your carcass ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... man of excellent understanding, and had an incomparable heart. Misfortunes had softened common humanity into a most tender disposition; and had given him a thorough knowledge of mankind without lessening his benevolence for individuals; though such as learn it by adversity, the surest school for that science, seldom see them ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... of Girl Scouts knew the health laws of their town, and helped to get them obeyed, there would be a wonderful lessening of epidemics and a wonderful advance in the health and beauty of ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... dazed. "No," he said; "I was going for some more wood." He went out, passed the woodpile by, got round behind a corn-crib, and stood in the cold, wet gale watching the distant company lessening on the view. It was but a short, dim, dark streak, creeping across the field of vision like some slow insect on a window-glass. A spot just beyond it was a grove that would presently shut the creeping line finally from sight. They reached it, passed beyond, and disappeared; and then Bonaventure ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... their monarch's pyre, resolved with him To share in death, and with becoming pomp Attend his footsteps to Valhalla's Hall. The torch is lit: forth sails the ship, black-winged, Facing the midnight seas. From beach and cliff Men watch all night that slowly lessening flame: Yet no man sheds a tear.' Earconwald, An aged chief, made answer, 'Tears there be Of divers sorts: a wise and valiant king Deserves that tear which praises, not bewails, Greatness gone by.' The pirate shouted ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... went on crying, and the mother's heart was torn. The woman of the house said he must be already cutting his teeth, and recommended some devilish sirup. Letty bought a bottle with the next money she got, and thought it did him good-because, lessening his appetite, it lessened his crying, and also made him sleep more than ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... Nonincrease, Decrease. — N. decrease, diminution; lessening &c. v.; subtraction &c. 38; reduction, abatement, declension; shrinking &c. (contraction.) 195; coarctation|; abridgment &c. (shortening) 201; extenuation. subsidence, wane, ebb, decline; ebbing; descent &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... not sup with us at our inn; we had therefore another evening by ourselves. I asked Johnson, whether a man's being forward to make himself known to eminent people, and seeing as much of life, and getting as much information as he could in every way, was not yet lessening himself by his forwardness. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, a man always makes himself greater as ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... separates himself, but is drawn back, and a new parley is commenced. But everything ends. The policemen turn on their immense heels. The driver and conductor race towards the motor-bus. The bell rings, the motor-bus, quite empty, disappears snorting round the corner into Walham Green. The crowd is now lessening. But it separates with reluctance, many of its members continuing to stare with intense absorption at the place where the puppy lay or the place where the policemen stood. An appreciable interval elapses before ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... cowardice, the governor reproached them as not being the same brave men he had left in India only two years before. To this they answered, thinking he meant it as a reflection on his predecessor, "That the men were the same, but the governor was changed; and that this was the fruit of lessening their pay, to enable him to give gratuities to those who knew better how to beg favours than to deserve them." De Sousa retired to the ships for the night, but landed next day, when he utterly destroyed the city and surrounding country with fire and sword, and made all the woods be cut down[363]. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrushka to follow with the things, and—now slipping in the mud, now splashing right through it—set off with Ilyin in the lessening rain and the darkness that was occasionally ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... sensation. And he had found it at Waikiki. Heading for Australia, he had stopped off for a week to find out if there were any thrills in surf-riding, and he had become wedded to it. He had been at it every day for a month and could not yet see any symptoms of the fascination lessening on him. ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... When carbon dioxide occurs in large quantities, it is dangerous to health, because it interferes with normal breathing, lessening the escape of waste matter through the breath and preventing the access to the lungs of the oxygen necessary for life. Carbon dioxide is not poisonous, but it cuts off the supply of oxygen, just as water cuts it off from ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... general Observation of those who are in the way of observing that the sinking our State bills for Notes & thereby lessening the Quantity in Circulation & the Taxes we have laid has already reduced the price ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... when I learned the advantages that might arise from it. At first I yoked myself to the plough, and Mrs Reichardt held it: this proved such hard and awkward work, that I kept projecting all sorts of plans for lessening the labour—the best was that of yoking our calves, and making them pull instead of myself. This was more easily thought of than done. The animals did not prove very apt pupils, but in course of time, with a good deal of patience, and some ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of food, insanitary surroundings, overwork, lack of exercise, drains on the system from acute or chronic diseases, worms; and can also be brought about by excessive heat, cold or pressure and lessening of the calibre of the arteries, poisons in the blood, suppurating wounds, ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... falling, blindness hide Whose hand shall snatch, before it scars the sod, The light thy lessening grasp no more controls: Truth's rescuer, Truth shall instantly provide: This is the torch-race game, that noblest souls Play on through time beneath ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... mice, if their stomachs were not too dainty for such vile provender. Thus this famous piece of ingenuity, the Stamp Act, had no other effect than that of giving the civilized world a hearty laugh, and increasing the British debt just so much as the paper cost, instead of lessening it, as its inventors, in their blind confidence, ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... Gradually a lessening of the heat told of coming evening. A little water arrived and was distributed in small potions. Mac was conscious that those who came periodically to the hollow to do for the wounded all that lay in their power were performing fine actions of ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... them to glide through the air to an astonishing distance from tree to tree. We cannot doubt that each structure is of use to each kind of squirrel in its own country, by enabling it to escape birds or beasts of prey, or to collect food more quickly, or, as there is reason to believe, by lessening the danger from occasional falls. But it does not follow from this fact that the structure of each squirrel is the best that it is possible to conceive under all natural conditions. Let the climate and vegetation change, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... activity. Roughly 250,000 tourists visit each year. Political uncertainty and drought, however, contribute to substantial fluctuations in earnings from tourism and sugar and to the emigration of skilled workers. In 1992, growth was approximately 3%, based on growth in tourism and a lessening of labor-management disputes in the sugar and gold-mining sectors. In 1993, the government's budgeted growth rate of 3% was not achieved because of a decline in non-sugar agricultural output and damage from Cyclone Kina. Growth in 1994 is estimated to be 5%, ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... after a fashion, and I think that I do myself. That is my idea of Conservatism. The doctrine of Liberalism is, of course, the reverse. The Liberal, if he have any fixed idea at all, must, I think, have conceived the idea of lessening distances,—of bringing the coachman and the duke nearer together,—nearer and nearer, till a ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... along where the pine tree falls, its dissolution leaves a mossy mound—last-flung shadow of the perished trunk; never lengthening, never lessening; unsubject to the fleet falsities of the sun; shade immutable, and true gauge which cometh by prostration—so westward from what seems the stump, one steadfast spear of lichened ruin ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... only to defile, but—with the double meaning of the Greek word, which we cannot render into English—to destroy; to weaken his brain-power, which he wants for his work in life, to weaken his nervous system, lessening his strength thereby and rendering him less able to excel in athletics, and often, if carried to excess, in after-life bringing results which are the very embodiment of the terrible words, "Him will God destroy." The full force and bearing of this teaching he ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... she could take no revenge, for he was not altered, or not for the worse. No; the years which had destroyed her bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no respect lessening his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... the Old Bailey, and passing, with no pleasing sensations, that structure in front of which so many human beings expiate their offences with their lives, without, in any degree, the frequency of the dreadful example lessening the perpetration of crime,—"The crowd thickens," exclaimed the 'Squire; and advancing into Smithfield, a new scene opened on the view of the astonished Tallyho. An immense and motley crowd was wedged together in the open space of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... physical universe with Newton, human nature with Locke and Condillac, and society with Turgot and Rousseau. In the vision of the future, with its progress in knowledge and in morals, its individual and social improvement, its lessening inequalities between nations and classes, the philosopher finds his consolation for all the calamities of the present age. Condorcet died in prison, poisoned, it is believed, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... thinner, to let the soul out when its time comes, and the soul to keep growing bigger and stronger every day, until it bursts the body at length, as a growing nut does its shell; when, instead, the body grows thicker and thicker, lessening the room within, it squeezes the life out of the soul, and when such a man's body dies, his soul is found a shrivelled thing, too poor to be a comfort to itself or to anybody else. Cosmo, to see that man drink, makes me ashamed of my tumbler of toddy. And now I think of it, I ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... to him in the most fascinating manner: she embraced him before the whole court; the king appeared no less delighted; but the Cardinal, whether with the view of lessening the merit of an action which deserved a handsome reward, or whether it was from a return of that insolence which always accompanied him in prosperity, appeared at first not to pay any attention to what he ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... burst of cheers from the crowds, who now saw that the little line of scarlet-coated men was marching out of the filmy, grey cloud and lessening the distance ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... a disadvantage. To teach the people patience and innocence in the midst of craft and cruelty, is to furnish the red-mouthed wolves with woolly, bleating lambs. Hence the grip of the churches on humanity has been steadily lessening during the past two hundred years. Men permanently love only those things that are beneficial to them. The churches must come to the rescue of the people or retire from the field. A babe in the claws of a tiger is not more helpless than ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... we were sinking in that sky stream's depths its light kept lessening, darkening imperceptibly with luminous shadows of ghostly beryl, drifting veils of pellucid aquamarine, ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... last evening sent A winged messenger whose flight Thro' the clear, roseate element, She watched till lessening out of sight Far to the golden West it went, Wafting to him, her distant love, A missive in that language wrought Which flowers can speak when aptly wove, Each hue a word, each ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... eyes, the grimed face turned bony, Oped mouth gushing, fallen head, Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony! O sudden ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... compose a purely quantitative and corporeal world. The inner essence of things may at any rate be approached by a monism of matter or of energy. This theory is epistemological only to the extent of moderating its claims in the hope of lessening its responsibility. Another agnosticism places all sense qualities on a par, but would regard physics and psychology as complementary reports upon the two distinct series of phenomena in which the ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... hand wheel, a heavy or light pressure can be applied according to the work done or size of molding. The cutter-heads are square and slotted so that any style of molding can be stuck by putting cutters on all sides of the head, thus equalizing the cost and lessening the power. The pressure shoe is arranged to hold the "stuff" at the very point of contact with the cutters, and, as we have shown, is readily adjusted to a long or short cutter, so that a small molding can be made as smooth as a large one, and so as not to require any finishing with sandpaper ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... South receive their supplies from the North, cannot be determined by any data now in the possession of the public. It must, however, be very large in amount, and, if withheld, would greatly embarrass the Southern people, by lessening their ability to export as largely as hitherto. So, on the other hand, if the Northern people were deprived of the markets afforded by the South, they would find so little demand elsewhere for their products, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... being in some consternation upon the rumour that was spread of the great forces that king Juba was leading against him, instead of abating the apprehension which his soldiers had conceived at the news and of lessening to them the forces of the enemy, having called them all together to encourage and reassure them, he took a quite contrary way to what we are used to do, for he told them that they need no more trouble themselves with inquiring after the enemy's ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... waited I the favouring hour, and fled; Fled from those shores where guilt and famine reign, And cried, 'Ah! hapless they who still remain— Who still remain to hear the ocean roar; Whose greedy waves devour the lessening shore; Till some fierce tide, with more imperious sway, Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away; When the sad tenant weeps from door to door, And begs a poor protection from ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... have held fast to their allegiance to the British Crown. This city of Delhi, with the schools of the Methodists, the Anglicans, and the English Baptists, is permeated with religious influences that attract its native populations, and these influences are continually lessening the prospect of any future rebellion such as the mutiny of ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... had had showed itself in her constantly seeking the advice of Miles, who thought her the most sensible woman in the world, except his Nan. Whether this constant occupation, furnishing, repairing, planning, beautifying her model cottages, her school chapel, and all the rest, were lessening the heartache, no one knew, but the sharp black eyes looked as dry and hard, the lines round the mouth as weary as ever; and Rosamond sometimes thought if Sirenwood were not full of ghosts to her, she was much like ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for the three-figure runs You have made since we opened play! O ill for my nine thousand start, Which you're lessening day ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... fallen, and the lessening shouts of the pursuers, told them that they had won, and ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... of the psychology of it, equally unaware that familiarity which may breed contempt can also dissolve dislike, and feeling merely a lessening of her instinctive hostility, told herself that he was perhaps not as cocky as he looked and drank of the glass ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... (August 25) a letter to secretary Nicholas, with an order to publish its contents, that it was his fixed determination, by the grace of God, never, in any possible circumstances, to yield up the government of the church to papists, Presbyterians, or Independents, nor to injure his successors by lessening the ecclesiastical or military power bequeathed to him by his predecessors, nor to forsake the defence of his friends, who had risked their lives and fortunes in his quarrel.—Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... "Hate is discord lessening through the ages; Anger a false note, fear a slackened string. Key thy soul up to the wiser manhood, Gentler lovelier joy ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... William was never guilty of the temptation to call himself "sanctified." Sanctification is a good thing to preach and a better thing to strive after, but the minute a man professes it he becomes less truthful and less intelligent spiritually, and he proceeds to develop along these lessening lines. ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... abundance of new wood, and it is new wood on which the fruit grows, of course they will have abundance of grapes; and they are disappointed by a failure. The explanation of the whole is, fruit grows on new wood, from wood of previous year's growth, and not from old vines; hence, in lessening a vine, remove old wood. This is the renewal system, whatever the form of the vine, and is the whole secret of successful pruning. This accounts for the great success of the Germans in producing ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... passed through the short and winding reaches of the now quickly lessening stream, Ellen said: "How pleasant this little river is to me, who am used to a great wide wash of water; it almost seems as if we shall have to stop at every reach-end. I expect before I get home this evening I shall have realised what a little country England is, since we can so ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... the length of exposure; so that if the test-strip concludes development in half a minute with ten seconds exposure, I give the next five seconds exposure in the expectation that it will take a minute to develop. This assists greatly in lessening the number of test-strips required to ascertain the correct exposure of ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... physiological side, as if it were a more exciting process. Thus it is found that as measured by the increase in strength of the hand grip under the stimulation of the respective colors, red has particularly exciting qualities, but the other colors have an analogous effect, lessening, however, with the descent from red to violet. The pleasure in bright red, or yellow, for instance, may thus well be the feeling-tone arising in the purely physiological effect of the color. If red works like a trumpet call, while blue calms and cools, and ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... voluptuous phrases which linger in the memory of all the world. And she recalled and reconstituted Arthur's physical presence, and the emanating charm of his disposition, and dwelt on them long and long. Instead of lessening, the secret commotion within her increased and continued to increase. While brooding with feverish joy over the immediate past, her mind reached forward and existed in the appalling and fatal moment, for whose reality however her eagerness could scarcely wait, when she should see him once more. ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... country that he had changed for seven miles around. Looked back on the humming village of five thousand workmen; up stream and down, along the vista of spurs and sand; across the river to the far piers, lessening in the haze; overhead to the guard-towers—and only he knew how strong those were—and with a sigh of contentment saw that his work was good. There stood his bridge before him in the sunlight, lacking only a few weeks' work ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... great characteristics, just reasoning, accuracy, and strength; he is extremely concise, but even this brevity will please us when we find it comprehends so many things without confounding them, or lessening their evidence or force: it is no wonder the book should be translated into ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... him, and with twelve hundred others fled north and east to seek a new way out of Ohio. The fight at Buffington Island took place on the 18th, five days after Morgan crossed the Ohio line into Hamilton County, and on the 26th he surrendered with the constantly lessening remnant of his force seven miles from ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... says that the Archbishop applied to the King for a respite for fifty days for Lord Cobham. "If this be so," Milner says, "the motives of Arundel can be no great mystery. It was thought expedient to employ a few weeks in lessening his credit among the people by a variety of scandalous aspersions;" Milner then quotes the forged recantation, of which we speak in a subsequent note. It did not occur to that writer, that the space of fifty days might be required to ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... wearisome. Close upon the heels of her thrilling sense of gladness and mastery came the feminine instinct of concealment, and presently Adams began to notice in her manner a suggestion of reserve. There was certainly a difference, he said to himself, a little lessening of the frank comradeship she had shown toward him the day before. He wondered if he bored her, if he had shown too much desire for her society. He went away to the smoking car, where he fidgeted about, began a cigar, threw it out of the window, and in ten minutes was back ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... a single instant to shift his glance. I had forgotten that, and in that short interval when I focused my camera the lion had seen I meant him no harm, or feared him, and he had risen. Even then in desperate lessening ambition for a great picture I attempted to take one, still ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... in life, and enters so constantly into all the arrangements and details of our conduct, influencing so largely all real plans for doing God's work—"Lord, I will deny it, when it is in danger of lessening my labours for Thee and Thy Kingdom." The pleasant hour, the quiet evening, the restful book, "I will lay them at Thy feet, for Thy sake, when they hinder me doing Thy will. It is between me and Thee alone; it is the sacrifice ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... full and complete, both for happiness and continuing therein, what need will there be that our work should be rewarded? Nay, may not the doctrine of reward for good works be here not only needless, but indeed an impairing and lessening the completeness of that glory to which we are brought, and in which we shall live inconceivably happy ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... whether it be possible to get rid of these aggravations; and whether credit itself may not be so organized as to be self-sufficient and self-supporting, whatever the vagaries of the standard. The suppression of small notes might have a perceptible effect in lessening the aggravations of paper, but it would not touch the more fundamental point, as to a stable organization of credit. Yet it is in this direction, we are persuaded, that all reformatory efforts must turn. Credit is the new principle of trade,—the nexus ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... interested in these pamphlets by Sir Max Waechter, who has opened an office here and is spending much money to "federate" Europe, and to bring a lessening of armaments. I enclose also an article about him from the Daily Telegraph, which tells how he has interviewed most of the Old World monarchs. Get also, immediately, the new two-volume life of Lord Lyons, Minister to the United States during the Civil War, and subsequently ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... sympathized with both of them. But Marguerite could not understand her father, and her father could not understand either his daughter or George. Never could they understand! He alone understood. And his understanding gave him a melancholy, hopeless feeling of superiority, without at all lessening the strange conviction of guilt. He had got himself gripped by destiny. Destiny had captured all three of them. But not the fourth. The charwoman possessed the mysterious power to defy destiny. Perhaps the power lay in her simplicity.... Fool! An accursed ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... and—"Luff it is!" echoed the man at the wheel mechanically as he put the helm up; and a moment afterwards the ship glided by the derelict hull, her speed lessening as she came up to the wind and her canvas quivering, like a bird suspending its flight in the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... the wheel and we looked for the shift that old Martin had promised, but there was no sign of it—no lift to the misty horizon, no lessening in the strength of the squalls, now heavy with a smashing of bitter sleet. Bunched up against the helm, a mass of oilskins glistening in the compass light, our 'lucky man' scarce seemed to be doing anything but cower from the weather. Only the great eyes of him, peering ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... winter. I heard business men speak of it so: "Winter was always Russia's best friend. Perhaps now it will rid us of Revolution." On the freezing front miserable armies continued to starve and die, without enthusiasm. The railways were breaking down, food lessening, factories closing. The desperate masses cried out that the bourgeoisie was sabotaging the life of the people, causing defeat on the Front. Riga had been surrendered just after General Kornilov said publicly, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... back home when upon the eve of finding her father. She had looked again into the crystal and as always had seen him wandering among big hills in a region much like this. What did it all mean? She did not know, but now a deeper, more insistent longing was lessening the hold of the other. Her thoughts in the last few days had gone back more often than ever they had to the younger man who had played, with such vivid, brilliant strokes, so important a part in her life. She felt, what was new to her, a growing need of him—a need based on nothing tangible ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... incapable of putting a sentence together, and Maggie bent her arm a little upward toward the large half-opened rose that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm? The unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled elbow, and all the varied gently lessening curves, down to the delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm softness. A woman's arm touched the soul of a great sculptor two thousand years ago, so that he wrought an image of it for the Parthenon which moves ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the internal state of the government by great reforms? No such thing. Or by a wise and incorrupt administration of justice? No. Has he enlarged the boundary of our government? No: there are but too strong proofs of his lessening it. But his pretensions to merit are, that he squeezed more money out of the inhabitants of the country than other persons could have done,—money got by oppression, violence, extortion from the poor, or the heavy hand of power ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in the way of lessening all these ills by continuous, properly directed effort on the part of the individual. Every inroad upon one faulty habit strengthens the attack upon all, and each gain means a step toward the acquisition ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... wonderfully efficient and could be trusted even in "detachments of one," the fact was that burdens were laid upon one man that should have been borne by two or three. To many a man the increase in the number of detachments meant doubling his hours in the saddle and lessening his hours for recuperation. One wonders that more men did not break down under the strain. But for their invariable high calibre this would have been the result. An indication of the way in which the arduous labours of the Police ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... more hope. I cannot think I am totally depraved. I do not believe that God wishes me to think so. And while I am still aware of the distance between Christ's perfection and my own imperfection, I feel that the possibility is greater of lessening that distance. It gives me more self-respect, more self-reliance. George Bridges says that the logical conclusion of that old doctrine is what philosophers call determinism—Calvinistic predestination. I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... all these made also for the same harbour. The wind bore them all in, they cutting the water before them, gliding round the point of the sand-bar, making their way up the channel of the bay in the lessening light, a chain of gigantic sea-birds with white or ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... helpless against capital. The employer, perhaps, decides to shut up the shops; he ceases to make profits for a short time. There is no change in his habits, food, clothing, pleasures—no agonizing fear of want. Contrast this with his workman whose lessening means of subsistence torment him. He has few comforts, scarcely the necessities for his wife and children in health, and for the sick little ones no proper treatment. It is not capital we need to guard, but helpless labor. If I returned ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... he was flying by like the wind. But he did not heed me nor stop, but vanished in the thick darkness, while the lessening sound of his horse's hoofs rang dismally back ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... Philip was ashamed of his passionate ways in her serene presence, and loosened his grasp of his wife, and she ran away; ran into her mother's empty room, as to a solitary place, and there burst into that sobbing, miserable crying which we instinctively know is too surely lessening the length of our days on earth ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... symptoms which appeared in this case, an agreement is observable between it and those cases which are mentioned in the beginning of these pages. The weakened state of both arms; the power first lessening in one arm, and then in a similar manner in the other arm; the affection of the speech; the difficulty in chewing and in swallowing; as well as of retaining, or freely discharging, the spittle; the convulsive motions of the body; and the unimpaired state of the intellects; constitute ...
— An Essay on the Shaking Palsy • James Parkinson
... bladder has no respiratory function, but merely acts as hydrostatic apparatus for the purpose of increasing or lessening the specific gravity of the body. The fishes, which have a fully-developed floating bladder, can press it together, and thus condense the air it contains. The air also escapes sometimes from the alimentary canal, through an air-duct that connects ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... of France, published in the Medical Transactions of Paris for 1779, who was successful in curing the small-pox with cows milk, mixed with a decoction of parsley roots. From these instances it would appear, that, milk has the power of lessening the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... was holding to the lowland. This did not strike him as singular until for the third time he found the trail lead a short distance up the side of a ridge, then descend, seeking a level. With this discovery came the certainty that Brandt's pace was lessening. He had set out with a hunter's stride, but it had begun to shorten. The outlaw had shirked the hills, and shifted from his northern course. Why? The man was weakening; he could not climb; ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... on, each day lessening the number of the inhabitants of the town. Fever and famine were making terrible ravages, and the survivors moved about the streets like living skeletons, so feeble and weak, now, that they could scarce bear ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... days when the great Comstock lode was lessening its yield and the metal was at a premium, such ore as this which he held meant millions—if one could but find the main ledge. He scanned the specimen closely, looked round for others and then, as ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... most of these cases, is of the female sex—would facilitate the diagnosis. Among the feeble-minded, we find, not only sexually premature individuals, but also persons with a tendency to pathological deceit, this latter sometimes manifesting itself in childhood, and of course lessening or completely abolishing the subject's credibility as a witness to the occurrence of alleged ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... not improper to add that all this talk about expenditure of vitality is full of sophistry. Lecturers and writers speak of our stock of vitality as if it were a vault of gold, upon which you cannot draw without lessening the quantity. Whereas, it is rather like the mind or heart, enlarging by action, gaining ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... with her little apron. "Now, how long can we count on in the most unfavourable circumstances?" she asked, but, to her astonishment, the others walked off without a word. She set her teeth in her under-lip and stared through tears at the lessening cart. She began to sing so that she might keep down the sobs that hurt her throat, and the words told of her satisfaction that Uncle Alfred was perched uncomfortably on the back ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... yes, My bosom's better half, I can.—With thee, I'll gladly seek the coast unknown, and leave The lessening mark of irksome life behind. With thee, my friend, 'tis joy to die!—'tis glory! For who would wait the tardy stroke of time? Or cling like reptiles to the verge of being, When we can bravely leap from life at once, And spring, triumphant, in ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... pursued its slow advance. The music from Tchaichowsky admonished it, as a matter of form, from far off, then sharply, summarily, from a lessening distance. The woodstack was puzzled, vaguely worried. It stopped, dubiously moved to one side, and pursued its cautious way ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... work in the morphology of the vertebrata: your arm and hand are parts of your head, or rather the processes (i.e. modified ribs) of the occipital vertebra! He gave me a grand lecture on a cod's head. By the way, would it not strike you as monstrous, if in speaking of the minute and lessening jaws, palpi, etc., of an insect or crustacean, any one were to say they were produced by the affaiblissement of the less important but larger organs of locomotion. I see from your letter (though I do not suppose it is worth ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... life in the woods of New Brunswick: "The earth sleeps. A silence that can be felt has fallen over the woods. The stars begin to fade. A softer and stronger light wells up and flows over the scene as the broad moon slowly floats above the tree tops. . . . The tree trunks stand out distinct in the lessening gloom; the dark pine boughs overhead seem to stoop caressingly towards you. Amid a stillness that is terrifying, man is not afraid. Surrounded by a majesty that is appalling, he shrinks not nor is he dismayed. In a scene of utter loneliness he feels himself not to be alone. A sense of companionship, ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... a brilliant morning, with baggage repacked, and the lessening amount of provisions more firmly strapped on the shoulders of the Indians, the explorers left their pleasant site on the banks of the Maniri. The repose allowed to the bulk of the party during the absence of their Bolivian ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... at all unhappy, the lessening of social responsibility was a real relief, and Warren's solicitude and sympathy were a tonic of which she drank deep, night and morning. His big warm hands, his smile, the confidence of his voice, these ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... along—nearer and nearer it drew to the terrible ring of white foam that marked the deadly whirl. And now he could see plainly the grim crag that kept watch over that ghastly abyss, and now he almost touched its outermost eddy—and now he was dragged into it and began to spin dizzily round in lessening circles nearer ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... to our MASTER, far from lessening our power to impart, increases both our power and our joy in ministration. The five loaves and two fishes of the disciples, first given up to and blessed by the LORD, were abundant supply for the needy multitudes, and grew, in the act of distribution, into a store of which twelve hampers full of ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... again, and swelling gradually upon the 'aching sense,' almost overpower you with their fulness of melody. This transcendent effort of genius reminded us of the phantasmagora, or 'magic lantern;' for what the lessening and enlarging figures of that instrument are to the eye, OLE BULL'S magic sounds are to the ear. We had intended to allude in detail to several of the performances of this great Master; but we ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... upon his page without doubt, but he will not pervert natural history one jot or tittle for the sake of making a pretty story. His whole aim is to invest the fact with living interest without in the least lessening its value as a fact. He does not deceive himself by what he wants to be true; the scientist in him is always holding the poet in check. Of all contemporary writers in this field, he is the one upon whom we can always ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... life that carries me From where thy true heart dwells, Waves of my thoughts and memories turn to thee With lessening farewells; ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell
... New-England kitchens of old times,—the girls that could wash, iron, brew, bake, tackle a horse and drive him, no less than braid straw, embroider, draw, paint, and read innumerable books,—this race of women, pride of olden time, is daily lessening; and in their stead come the fragile, easily fatigued, languid girls of a modern age, drilled in book-learning, ignorant of common things. The great danger of all this, and of the evils that come from it, is that society by-and-by will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various |
