"Shorten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of bending his meagre skeleton from the forehead to the feet; and a curious spectator, after numbering twelve hundred and forty-four repetitions, at length desisted from the endless account. The progress of an ulcer in his thigh [72] might shorten, but it could not disturb, this celestial life; and the patient Hermit expired, without descending from his column. A prince, who should capriciously inflict such tortures, would be deemed a tyrant; but it would surpass the power of a tyrant to impose a long and miserable existence on ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... length of sommers day, which the travailers on foote may use for a staye to ease their weried bodye, and the journeours on horsback, for a chariot or lesse painful meane of travaile in steade of a merie companion to shorten the tedious toyle ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... got ready to go out. When she came out she bore a little basket on her arm, and she went to visit her old women, and her favourite children. Whenever she stepped into Black Mary's kitchen that aged dame was sure to be smoking, and the little lady would say, "Now Mary, you'll shorten your life if you keep on with that bad habit." Mary would answer, "Well, well, I'm a long way over seventy now, a day or two won't make a great deal of difference." This joke pleased both parties very much, and it was always followed by the production of enough tobacco ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... could run a good distance with a horse and trap, ere he would come to the step and look up with a laugh, saying, "Here, take me up; I'm blown!" The old horse in the shafts knew the ways of the dogs well, and would shorten his pace, and indeed pull up altogether, if a thoughtless one was likely to be injured. It was probably from this that Murphy suffered all his life from a mistaken notion that it was the duty of horses, as well as drivers of all kinds, to get out of his way, and not ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... one thing, and, for another, less pretentious and rhetorical. The second (Gertrude of Wyoming, 1809) is truly one of 'the glories of our birth and state.' The third (idem) I have ventured to shorten by three stanzas: a proceeding which, however culpable it seem, at least gets rid of the chief who gave a country's wounds relief by stopping a battle, eliminates the mermaid and her song (the song that 'condoles'), and ends the lyric on as sonorous and romantic a word as even Shakespeare ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... bosom friend. There was no leisure for idle probing of hearts. Sails blew adrift. Things broke loose. Cold and wet, we were washed about the deck while trying to repair damages. The ship tossed about, shaken furiously, like a toy in the hand of a lunatic. Just at sunset there was a rush to shorten sail before the menace of a sombre hail cloud. The hard gust of wind came brutal like the blow of a fist. The ship relieved of her canvas in time received it pluckily: she yielded reluctantly to ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... his feet. "Oh, gosh!" said he. He was obviously and vividly a victim of panic. Sheila's small and very expressive face showed a little gleam of amused contempt. "My guardian!" she seemed to mock. To shorten the embarrassment of the moment she stepped quickly into the elder Hudson's arm. He took her hand and began to pump it up and down, keeping time to the music and counting audibly. "One, two, three." To Dickie he gave neither ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... I, rising from my seat with a stern air, to see a reasonable creature behave so outrageously!—Will this vehemence, think you, mend the matter? Will it avail you any thing? Will it not rather shorten the life you are so desirous to have lengthened, and deprive you of the only opportunity you can ever have to settle your affairs for both worlds?—Death is but the common lot: and if it be your's soon, looking at her, it will be also your's, and your's, ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... northern U. S. growers could do better. With an average frost-free season of less than five months (from May 7 to Oct. 2), Canadians do this. The normal dates of latest spring frosts average from April 20 to May 24, and of earliest fall frosts, from Sept. 10 to Oct. 12. Extremes at either end often shorten the season somewhat. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... the cells were covered by others. The increased weight of the yeast is always due to the action of two distant modes of vital energy— activity, namely, in presence and activity in absence of air. We might endeavor to shorten the duration of the experiment still further, in which case we would still more assimilate the life of the yeast to that of ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... all hands were called again. The wind was blowing half a gale, and the starboard watch had taken in the light sails. It was deemed advisable still further to shorten sail, and a reef was put in the topsails. The starboard watch then turned in, the port having the deck till four in the morning. The wind came in heavy gusts from the south-west, and shortly after midnight it began to veer to the west, which brought up a dense fog. At four bells in the mid watch, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... last chance—gone!" he said brokenly. "The chance for me to redeem myself, so that I might again look at the flag without shame, taken from me in the name of mercy, when, by helping to bring victory and shorten the war, I might have saved thousands of lives!" he ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... registration within four months after an application for registration is filed shall be deemed to be a refusal to issue a certificate of registration for purposes of this subsection and section 910(b)(2), except that, upon a showing of good cause, the district court may shorten such four-month period. ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... said, putting his finger on "orthopedic." "And this wan," he said, touching "esophagus." "Thim be tough wans! But it's thankful I am there be but three hunderd av thim. There w'u'd be no ind t' th' day's worrk sh'u'd th' prisidint take a notion t' reforrm th' whole dic-shunnery. If he was t' shorten all th' worrds in th' English language, I w'u'd have a long job av it, niver knowin' whin th' worrds was spelled right or wrong. They be a powerful increase of worrk, thim three hunderd worrds. Take this wan, now—'thoroly'—'t is a bird, that wan ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... have managed to smoke her cigarette, however rigid had I been in expressing my principles. And she would have found some excuse to shorten her visit under my roof, and then where would be my opportunity to ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... The gizzards, livers, and necks of poultry, parboiled, are good for the same purpose. If you wish to bake your meat pie, line a deep earthen or tin pan with paste made of flour, cold water, and lard; use but little lard, for the fat of the meat will shorten the crust. Lay in your bits of meat, or chicken, with two or three slices of salt pork; place a few thin slices of your paste here and there; drop in an egg or two, if you have plenty. Fill the ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... of the monsoon," Fairclough said. "I am just going to shorten sail. There is no saying which way the wind will come. The glass is falling fast but, of course, that is only to be expected. I think, if you are wise, after breakfast you will take off that drill suit, and get into something better calculated to stand rough weather; ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... I'll shorten your nose! Sing, I say," repeated the woman, advancing the poker so as ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... him now, and settle up ovens and spits and all sorts in the cell, wouldn't he, to shorten the day, be ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... breaths of it, and his eyes shone with a strange light. It was wonderful air. It brought life to the Dream. It rose up within him, ten times more lusty than on the day it was born, and his limbs trembled as he drew in the hot, scented breezes that breed the Wanderlust and shorten the long ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... through the iron bar A. They pass more easily through iron than through air; and will choose iron by preference. The attraction exercised by a magnet on iron may be due to the effort of the lines of force to shorten their paths. It is evident that the closer A comes to the poles of the magnet the less will be the distance to be travelled from one pole to the bar, along it, and ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... manifestly refers either to the destruction of Jerusalem or to the end of the world. If it refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, the "elect," according to Biblical usage,(610) are the faithful Christian inhabitants of the Holy City, for whose sake God promises to shorten the terrible siege. If it referred to the end of the world, electi would indeed stand for praedestinati, but the context would not forbid us to interpret their predestination hypothetically, as merely indicating the immutability of ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... he jeered. "Well, you're wise to take a rest while you still got time. Rawhide shrinks a whole lot when it gits to drying. Only question is how much slower the rattler's whang strap'll shorten up than your lines." ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... wood was dear, and had Daniel fed his little iron stove in the garret with such costly food, his monthly bill would have reached a fabulous height. He paid seven marks a month for his room and counted every penny so as not to shorten the period of his liberty ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... emotion she asked this question; holding out her sweet face, as the Captain described her, with the most earnest attention, as if she would shorten the way which his words were to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... shorten sail before long," said Martin Harris. "If we don't, a sudden gust might ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... quarante faons. The Upavishta, majlis, or sitting postures, when one or both "sit at squat" somewhat like birds, appear utterly impossible to Europeans who lack the pliability of the Eastern's limbs. Their object in congress is to avoid tension of the muscles which would shorten the period of enjoyment. In the text the woman lies supine and the man sits at squat between her legs: it is a favourite from Marocco to China. A literal translation of the Ananga range appeared in 1873 under the name of Kama-Shastra; or the Hindoo Art of Love (Ars Amoris Indica); ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Foch that the French should extend their line north, up to the line of the La Bassee canal. When this was done, the Commander of the 2nd Corps was able to shorten his line and keep one of his brigades back ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... very convenient method of increasing such varieties as will not grow readily from cuttings; and vines thus propagated will, if treated right, make very good plants. To layer a vine, shorten in its last season's growth to about one-half; then prepare the ground thoroughly, pulverizing it well; then, early in spring make a small furrow, about an inch deep, then bend the cane down and fasten it firmly in ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... Judge, what was the precise truth, that an eccentric gentleman wished to adopt Dennis, under this new name, into his family. It never occurred to him that Dennis might be more than fourteen years old. And thus, to shorten this preface, when we returned at night to my parsonage at Naguadavick, there entered Mrs. Ingham, her new dumb laundress, myself, who am Mr. Frederic Ingham, and my double, who was Mr. Frederic Ingham by as good right ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... thought to be a matter of so much importance as to justify one or more independent lines, which, despising intermediate cities and their traffic, still hold their even course as the crow flies, from point to point, and thereby shorten the transit from the south to the north of England by—it may be—the matter of an hour. We did not use to be quite so chary of our minutes: nor, though fully aware of the value of time, did we ever bestow the same regard ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the four leagues of land which there are from Panama to this river were cut through, one might pass from the South Sea to the ocean on the other side, and thus shorten the route by more than fifteen hundred leagues; and from Panama to the Straits of Magellan would be an island, and from Panama to the New-found-lands would be another island, so that the whole of America would ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... why I went to Ireland, except it was to indulge the few drops of Irish blood in my veins, and maybe also with a view to shorten my sea voyage by a day. I also felt a desire to see one or two literary men there, and in this sense my journey was eminently gratifying; but so far from shortening my voyage by a day, it lengthened it by three days, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... they grind their joints With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them Then pard or ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... I may count on your silence? The poor chap is so powerfully set on crossing the Rockies and getting to close quarters with some real wickedness, that to tell him the truth might shorten the few days he ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... points again 20 minutes 23-1/4 seconds before it has really completed a revolution, i.e. before the true year is fairly over. This slow movement forward of the goal-post is called precession—the precession of the equinoxes. (One result of it is to shorten our years by about 20 minutes each; for the shortened period has to be called a year, because it is on the position of the sun with respect to the earth's axis that our seasons depend.) Copernicus perceived that, assuming ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... animal of getting up so steep an ascent was very severe. Rollo would have stopped oftener; but he did not like to be left behind by his uncle George, who, being active and agile, mounted very rapidly. Mr. George would often shorten his road very much by climbing directly up the rocks from one turn of the road to the other; while the horse, with Rollo on his back, was compelled to ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... two hours' time the party were near the Castle of Stirling, over whose battlements the union flag was brightened as it waved in the evening sun. To shorten his journey, or perhaps to display his importance and insult the English garrison, Balmawhapple, inclining to the right, took his route through the royal park, which reaches to and surrounds the rock upon which the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... volumes will have to be full-sized octavo, so I have written to Murray to suggest details to be printed in small type. But I feel that the size is quite ludicrous in relation to the subject. I am ready to swear at myself and at every fool who writes a book.") I fear it can never pay. But I cannot shorten it now; nor, indeed, if I had foreseen its length, do I see which parts ought ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... gripped the rope and tried to shorten the extent of its holding; but he found this a greater task than he had bargained for, and indeed, utterly impossible, with all that sweep of the river to buck ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... from Avignon to l'Isle. They covered the nine miles between the two places in an hour. During this hour Roland, as he resolved to shorten the time for his travelling companion, was witty and animated, and their approach to the duelling ground only served to redouble his gayety. To one unacquainted with the object of this drive, the menace of dire peril impending over this young man, with his continuous flow of conversation ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... quitted the place, than Roque, struck by the decision and promptitude of his master, stood silent and motionless, gazing on the unfortunate and deserted fair. She was tranquilly sleeping; dreaming perhaps of love and joy, and Roque hesitated to shorten the sweet illusion by making known to her the dismal reality. He felt an unconquerable repugnance to be the messenger of such fearful intelligence; for though the valet was accustomed to the unprincipled vagaries of his master, he was not entirely divested of humanity, and he could not but ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... miseries more than men: Ah, nothing doth the world with mischief fill, But want of feeling one another's ill! With their descent the day grew something fair, And cast a brighter robe upon the air. 30 Hero, to shorten time with merriment, For young Alcmane[93] and bright Mya sent, Two lovers that had long crav'd marriage-dues At Hero's hands: but she did still refuse; For lovely Mya was her consort vow'd In her maid state, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... raise or lower it. If so, rectify the error by straightening it and then put it in place. Now with a degree gauge, or calipers, proceed to take the distance between the outer surfaces of the hole jewels and shorten the staff to the required length. Do not remove too much, but leave the staff a little long rather than cut it too short, as the length can ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... fine weather and fair wind till October 26th, when they experienced their first tropical rain and thunder-storm, and the Admiral ordered litanies. On November 2d he signaled to the fleet to shorten sail, and on the morning of the 3d fifteen hundred pairs of wondering eyes beheld the mountains of an island mysteriously hidden till then in the bosom of ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... undertook to make a road across the coast mountains from King's Valley to the Siletz, to shorten the haul between the two points by a route I had explored. I knew there were many obstacles in the way, but the gain would be great if we could overcome them, so I set to work with the enthusiasm of a young path-finder. The point at which the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... much Wit, Shall shorten all my Cares; If I can but a Licence get, To play before the Bears: 'Twould be a gallant Place indeed, As I may tell to thee: Then who dares call me Fool or ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... releasing the King of Scotland, had bound him by the strongest ties of gratitude and affection; his exertions were suddenly arrested by the sad news of the defeat of his forces at Baugy in Anjou, and the death, in battle, of his brother, the Duke of Clarence.[225] These tidings caused him to shorten his progress, and to return to his capital, where he arrived at furthest on the ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... at the lean length of arm which Katherine held out before her, stiff as a ramrod. "No, you can't shorten them," she said, "but you can help making them look any longer than necessary. You generally stand with your shoulders drooped forward, and that pulls your arms down. If you'd stand up straight and throw your shoulders back your arms wouldn't ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... already done a little to improve poor Labour's lot, Shorten its hours, insure its life, and help to fill its pot. But the poorer and the weaker yet fall short of the reality Of "conformity to the principles of Chris-ti-an morality." Then ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... and every Saturday night when her meager wages, reduced by sick days "off," were compared with what the others brought in, she was regularly scolded, "sometimes slapped," by her parents, jeered at by her more vigorous sisters and bullied by her brothers. She tried to shorten her hours by doing "rush-work" as a waitress at noon, but she found this still beyond her strength, and worst of all, the pay of two dollars and a half insufficient to satisfy her mother. Confiding her ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... In order to shorten our road to Kertch we left the coast, and tramped across the steppes. There was nothing in my knapsack but a three-pound loaf of barley bread, which we had bought of a Tartar with our last five-kopeck piece. Owing ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... cover up ignorance, and "the constant trembling lest some blunder should expose one's emptiness," are pitiable. Short cuts and abridged methods are the demand of the hour. But the way to shorten the road to success is to take plenty of time to lay in your reserve power. Hard work, a definite aim, and faithfulness will shorten the way. Don't risk a life's superstructure ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... objection. On getting up to take leave of His Highness he asked: "How do you like our country? What do you think of our merchants? Are the people civil to you? Shall you again return? How old are you? Why do you travel so far? Will it not shorten your life? Will not your Sultan give you a great deal of money for coming so far?" &c. Hateetah now told me to sit down again. All were reclining on mats, and no particular attention was paid to the Sultan. A merchant present said, "Why don't you buy and sell, the Souk is open? We ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... was going on, that was partly due to the distracting uproar, for nearly every scene contained a fight, and some contained several, the shortest lasting well over a minute. Whoever had been employed to shorten the story would have earned the thanks of one member of the audience if he had acted upon Pococurante's remarks to Candide about the works of Homer. He ought not to have left in so many combats; they ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... wished to reach Ujiji before the news reached Livingstone that I was in search of him, for my impression of him was that he was a man who would try to put as much distance as possible between us, rather than make an effort to shorten it, and I should have my long ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... of the river about 2 P.M., I put on my snow-shoes to cut across the point and meet the road again, flattering myself that I should thus shorten the distance some two or three miles. The weather being mild, and the sun overcast, I was as much at a loss to find my way in the woods as if I had been blindfolded; I nevertheless continued my onward course, ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... You have often complained to me that you hate the service into which you are forced. Have you forgotten your longing for freedom? If you go back you have no option, for your father will bind you fast in the chains, and he will but shorten the links, when he sees you ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... it will be best, without attempting to shorten the path by referring to famous theories of the drama, to start directly from the facts, and to collect from them gradually an idea of Shakespearean Tragedy. And first, to begin from the outside, such a tragedy brings before us a considerable number of persons (many more than the persons in a Greek ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... most instances these mark Apache graves. A favorite place of burial is a cleft in the rocks, in which the body is placed by the deceased's relatives and covered with stones. These small stones are always deposited one at a time, the Apache believing that to put them on the body all at once would shorten the life of the one so doing. Infants are usually placed on the upper branches of large cedar or pinon trees. The child is wrapped in its carrier, or cradle-board, which is left face up and covered with any sort of cloth, the belief being that the souls of ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... nature, he would have died. This was founded upon another belief, that there is a day of death appointed for every man, which no one can pass; but as man is possessed of a free will, he may, by his own wicked determination, shorten the union of his soul and body, but that there his power ends: he cannot in reality kill either soul or body, for were he to possess this power, he would possess the power to alter the decrees of God, which is a power impossible ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... get to Paris, buy a long necklace of jet beads, cut into facets, and shorten it so that it consists of seventy-five beads, of almost ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... that," said the fairy; "her enemy has too much power; but I can shorten her term of punishment, and soften it a little, by granting that during every night she becomes a woman, though as soon as day breaks she must again wander about as a hind of ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... gave up very early in my practice, for several reasons, the habit of lying to my patients. If they are cowards, or if, for any reason, I think the truth and the whole truth would shorten their days, I often tell them little or nothing; but I tell them nothing but the truth. She is not a person to be put off from knowing what she has a right ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... and round on his flushed and contracted features. He was under the effect of opiates,—why not (if his case was desperate, as it seemed to be considered) stop his sufferings with chloroform? It was suggested that it might shorten life. "What then?" I said. "Are a dozen additional ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... had something to do with it, I daresay. And then there was no anxiety. We had played for a big stake and lost. Now we had to pay and make the best of it. It was the tenth day (there were no railways then to shorten the journey) when we drove up to the big gate and looked at the high walls and dark, heavy lines of Berrima Gaol, the largest, the most severe, the most dreaded of all the prisons in New South Wales. It ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... love as he travelled back to town that day, and the two years of waiting seemed unbearably long. Perhaps, if he got on unusually well, the Runkle might be induced to shorten the probation. He would sound him at the ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... Eat" the author offers the sufferer from "nerves" a remedy as simple as that Elisha offered Naaman. He gives him an opportunity to profit by his well-tested knowledge that overeating and rapidity in eating are ruinous to health and shorten life. ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... familiar with the article of household furniture just described. Every young wife piously provides herself with one, together with a warming-pan; for the old domestic ideas are religiously handed down here from mother to daughter. But I must shorten this 'journey round my room,' so little in the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... have seemed more tireless or iron more insensate. But now, when the hardship was somewhat relaxed, he was forced back on the perception that he was faint and hungry His speed slackened; his shoulders sagged; the long second wind, which had lasted so well, began to shorten. For the first time it occurred to him to wonder how long ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... the ARROW knew better than to send it on a course that would enable the pursuing boat to cut across and shorten the distance to it. After sending the stolen craft far enough out from shore to clear points of land that jutted out into the lake, the leading boat was ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... should have little hope of giving satisfaction to you. I therefore refer the matter to your own feelings and consideration. It has afforded me great pleasure to learn frequently of late that you are so much better. I hope during the winter, if we have any, to send you many amusing books to shorten the tediousness of time, and charm away your indisposition. Mrs. Murray is still up and well, and desires me to send her best compliments to you ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... explain," returned Lecoq, stepping aside to make way for the commissary of police to come forward. "But, to shorten matters, I may tell you that I have obtained a warrant for your arrest, Martin Rigal, alias Tantaine, ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... easier for her to get back, when a huge wave broke over her. A shout of horror went up from her, and then silence. In another minute I saw my boat capsized, on the crest of a wave, with two or three men, one of them a midshipman, clinging to the keel. To shorten their agony, I made as though I was going ahead. The middy understood that I was forced to abandon them, for he waved a farewell and let himself go. I had been weak, but I was cruelly punished. Thirteen men drowned instead of one, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... build across that county line by noon of the fifteenth of next March, the subscriptions of both those counties will be forfeited. Then Tandy will step in and offer the company that is building the line a much larger subscription of some sort from Paducah and from his Memphis road, as an inducement to shorten the line by taking it to Paducah ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... Grace Cunningham did not recall them, but only wrote and told Horatia that she must shorten her visit ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... Newfoundland Fog; and we are yet crossing the Grand Banks, wrapt in a mist, that no London in the Novem-berest November ever equaled. The chronometer pronounced it noon; but do you call this midnight or midday? So dense is the fog, that though we have a fair wind, we shorten sail for fear of accidents; and not only that, but here am I, poor Wellingborough, mounted aloft on a sort of belfry, the top of the "Sampson-Post," a lofty tower of timber, so called; and tolling the ship's bell, as if ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... modicum of hard work and a very wide margin of sport—pig-sticking, peacock-shooting, paper-chases, all the delights of an Indian life. But now, vegetating on a slender pittance in the semi-slumberous idleness of Les Fontaines, he had nothing to do and nothing to think about; and he was glad to shorten his days by dozing away the fresher hours of the morning, while his wife toiled at the preparation of that elaborate meal which he loved to ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... die Krucke; meaning that the contents of the letter can but shorten his declining years, and so spare him the necessity ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... not going to scold you," she said, "although it is through not following my advice that you are in this misfortune, for it goes to my heart to see you thus. I cannot release you altogether from this enchantment, but I have power to shorten the time, and also to say that during the night you may regain your rightful form, but by day again must you run through the forest as a Fawn." The fairy also told them where they could find a little hut in which to pass the nights. Then she disappeared. Giroflee ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... her, nor thought it unworthy of a soldier that his own tears mingled with hers as he bade her good-by, kissing her again and again, and calling her his precious wife, whose memory would make his camp-life brighter and shorten the days of absence. There was no one with them when at last Mark's horse dashed from the yard over the creaking snow, leaving Helen alone upon the doorstep, with the glittering stars shining above her head and her husband's farewell ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... hastened off. Although not as impetuous by nature as Steve, he knew that every minute gained now would shorten the lead which the audacious pelt thief had upon them. And so Max sprinted more or less ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... first three months she was not well, Staboo, when here nurse Quigley from the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor was it not meet as she remembered them being her mind was to have all orderly against lord Andrew came for because she was jealous that no gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was an ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... mind is long before it suspects its own weakness, or submits to sap the difficulties which it expected to subdue by storm. Before disappointments have enforced the dictates of philosophy, we believe it in our power to shorten the interval between the first cause and the last effect; we laugh at the timorous delays of plodding industry, and fancy that, by increasing the fire, we can at pleasure accelerate ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... allow this base newspaper slander to shorten your stay here, Mr. Winkle?' said Mrs. Pott, smiling through the traces ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... might be found so standing as might shorten our course, and so standing, as that the nauie of Cambalu, or other those parties might conueniently saile vnto without their dislike in respect of distance, then would it fal out well. For so, besides lesse danger and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... a deaf person's being roused easily. I know the case of a deaf chap who'd start up at a step or movement in the house when no one else could hear or feel it; keen sense of vibration, I reckon. Well, just at daybreak (to shorten the yarn) the banker woke suddenly, he said, and heard a crack like a shot in the house. There was a loose flooring-board in the passage that went off like a pistol-shot sometimes when you trod on it; ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... and then all the three quicken the imagination, and then all the four strengthen the resolution; while yet there is a danger, on the other hand, that the encouraged and morbid feeling may weaken or bias the understanding, or that the over shrewd and keen understanding may shorten the imagination, or that the understanding and imagination together may take place of, or undermine, the resolution, as in Hamlet. So in the mere bodily frame there is a delightful perfection of the senses, consistent with the utmost health of the muscular system, as in the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... warning. I shall take no notice of this letter. I shall neither write to him about it, or speak to him about it. But I charge you to write to him, and tell him that if he does this thing he shall not have a child's portion from me. It is not that I will shorten that which would have been his; but he shall have—nothing!" Then, having spoken these words with a solemnity which for the moment silenced his wife, he got up and left the room. He left the room and closed the door, but, before he had gone half the length of the ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... unconquerable woman ruling within, apparently gaining still in vitality and youth. "Unjailed malefactors often attain great ages," he said to himself, as he turned away and thought of the lives she had helped to blight and shorten. ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... conspiracy against her life; at length, on February 1, 1587, she signed the death warrant, and then made her secretaries write word to Paulet of her displeasure that in all this time he should not of himself have found out some way to shorten the life of his prisoner, as in duty bound by his oath, and thus relieve her singularly tender conscience from the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... too watched the demolition; but with far different thoughts. She knew better than these militiamen her father's obstinacy, and that his high resolve reached beyond the mere gaining of time. It seemed to her that God was drawing out the agony; and with the end before her mind she prayed Him to shorten this cruel interval. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Duncan, or by all the saints, thou wilt drive me mad!" wrathfully exclaimed Buchan. "It shall be as thou sayest; and more, I will gain the royal warrant for the deed—permission to this effect may shorten this cursed confinement for us both. I have forgotten the boy's age; his mother's high-sounding patriotism may have tinctured ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... Blow off your loose corns, and bring about your musket to the left side. Trail your rest. Balance your musket in your left hand. Find out your charge. Open your charge. Charge with powder. Draw forth your scouring-stick. Turn and shorten him to an inch. Charge with bullet. Put your scouring-stick into your musket. Ram home your charge. Withdraw your scouring-stick. Turn and shorten him to a handful. Return your scouring-stick. Bring forward your musket and rest. Poise your musket and recover your rest. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... prompted by kindness or anger. On the evening following Walcott's return, however, Mr. Underwood dictated to Darrell a letter to Kate, addressing her by her pet name, assuring her of his constant improvement, and that she need on no account shorten her visit but enjoy herself as long as possible, and enclosing a ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... between them stood a candle from which the wax occasionally dripped, so that for a moment the flame would die down, causing the shadows to shorten. A jam-jar did service as a tumbler; there was one between the three of them, which meant that they had to drink quickly in order not to keep the next man waiting. Granger served out the whisky, and he served it ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... "Ah, Madame, they are too fortunate," replied the cottager; "but Jacques is a bad boy. I hope he will stay with you!" The Queen, taking little Jacques upon her knee, said that she would make him used to her, and gave orders to proceed. It was necessary, however, to shorten the drive, so violently did Jacques scream, and kick ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... eyes shorten not the day, Nor let your gentle hands my journey stay! Perchance love is not wholly ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... hundred feet. They had gone only seven hundred feet in thirty-seven minutes. In spite of repeated signalling, their progress during the next hour was even still more alarming, one hundred feet taking exactly 59 minutes. To shorten detail, it required two hours more to make another hundred feet; and then the Nautilus, after taking ten minutes to crawl an inch further, came to a perfect stand still. The pressure of the water had evidently now become too ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... she ceases to write to me, keeps me in wretched suspense, treats me like something loathsome to her when I return to enquire the cause, denies it with scorn and impudence, destroys me and shews no pity, no desire to soothe or shorten the pangs she has occasioned by her wantonness and hypocrisy, and wishes to linger the affair on to the last moment, going out to keep an appointment with another while she pretends to be obliging me in the tenderest point (which C—— himself said was too much). . . .What do you think of all this? ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... that was quite enough to satisfy my most ardent longings. Moreover I seemed able to step on it, to lengthen or shorten it, to make it assume strange grotesque shapes; in a word I could play with it. This I could not do with such objects as trees, house, barn and fences; or rather there was no such response from them ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... now." A sort of Fortunatus's joke. It was his way of launching me. But did he think I intended this for more than a lift? I his puppet? He, sir, was my tool! Well, I came. All my efforts were strained to shorten the period of penance. I had the best linen, and put on captivating manners. I should undoubtedly have won some girl of station, and cast off my engagement like an old suit, but just mark!—now mark how Fortune tricks us! After ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that spacious Book, which the supreme Being has laid open before his Eyes? The Truths he discovers there, are of infinite Service to him. He thereby cultivates and improves his Mind. He lives in Peace and Tranquility all his Days; he is afraid of Nobody, and he has no tender, indulgent Wife to shorten ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... in which Joseph Sturge and other Quakers played so prominent a part. By an organized crusade of political education the Abolitionists induced an originally hostile Parliament to emancipate the West Indian negroes in 1833, and to shorten the period of semi-servile apprenticeship in 1838. Yorkshire was the home of the Short Time Committees, which organized the campaign against White Slavery at home. The Ten Hours Movement caused the Ten Hours Bill to become the law of the land. From Lancashire came the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... was a pleasant place even after the days had begun to shorten, which they do very rapidly in northern England. From Redcar, Hawthorne went to Leamington, where he finished his romance about the first of December, and remained until some time in March, living quietly and ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... habits or tendencies which might be expected to shorten your life? A.—I am aware. I drink, I smoke, I take morphine and vaseline. I swallow grape seeds ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... "I'll shorten the rope oui-gia! Then you shall see him swing," he grumbled viciously ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... make you Master of my business; My credit yet stands fairer with the people Than to be tried with swords; and they that come To do me service, must not think to win me With hazard of a murther; if your love Consist in fury, carry it to the Camp: And there in honour of some common Mistress, Shorten your youth, I pray be better temper'd: And give ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... that very day, the new machine had been tried. Everything had succeeded to his heart's desire. The worthy man was triumphant. It seemed to him that he had paid a debt, by giving the house of Fromont the benefit of a new machine, which would lessen the labor, shorten the hours of the workmen, and at the same time double the profits and the reputation of the factory. He indulged in beautiful dreams as he plodded along. His footsteps rang out proudly, emphasized by the resolute and happy ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and that there are no opposing reasons of any validity. Moreover, we know that sometimes whole cities are destroyed and the inhabitants put to the sword, to inspire terror in the rest. That may serve to shorten a great war or a rebellion, and would mean a saving of blood through the shedding of it: there is no decimation there. We cannot assert, indeed, that the wicked of our globe are punished so severely in order to intimidate ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... the general silence and constraint, and resolved to shorten it as much as possible. Dropping his pen, he wheeled around in ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... work. The man receives successive shocks. It is as though one strained level eyes towards the horizon, and then were bidden to shorten his sight and to close his search within a poor half acre before his face. Now, it is that he suddenly perceives the hitherto remote, remote youth of his own parents to have been something familiarly near, so measured ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... unjust she should be bound by the engagement which she had been graciously contented to abide under. Three years he had assigned for its term; to which space the Arch-bishop Baldwin had consented to shorten the period of his absence. If I appear not when these are elapsed," he said, "let the Lady Eveline conclude that the grave holds De Lacy, and seek out for her mate some happier man. She cannot find one more grateful, though there are many who better ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... have, therefore, no assurance as to the view they will take of this case. The first thing they will do will be to make what they will call a 'thorough examination' of the premises; but a study of chemistry gives to the word 'thorough' a significance of which they have no conception. It is to shorten this examination as much as possible,—to prevent it from being more tiresome to you than is absolutely necessary," he said to Gwen, "that I have taken the liberty of ascertaining and recording most of the data the officers ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... water-front of Rome to Carthage. This amazed me. And not unnaturally. For we Romans generally dislike or even abhor the sea and sail it as little as possible, making our journeys as much as we can by land and as little as may be by water, choosing any detour by land which will shorten what crossings of the sea cannot ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... guard, and watched against lengthening the lessons into gossip, and they were always after hours when the hands had gone away. The fear of being detected kept Gillian ready to shorten the time. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... perform it withal; and persuaded the company, or as many as he could induce, to yield themselves unto God and to the mercy of none else; but as they had, like valiant resolute men, repulsed so many enemies, they should not now shorten the honour of their nation by prolonging their own lives for a few hours or a ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... and that, much as he was in love—proportionately, that is, to his faculty for loving—he dare not do. But for the unconventionality of the Raymounts he would have reached the point long before. He began, therefore, to lessen the number, and shorten the length of his ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... of linnen. And who can tell but that their tattling would last a whole night, for there's hardly one of them who hath not at the least a hundred in their Budgets; but because it is high time that either the Dry or Wet-Nurse must go to swathe the child, they begin to break off and shorten their prittle-prattle. ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... bundle, and displayed them. 'Oh,' said she, 'they are long, aren't they! and I've just put my baby in short dresses.' If you could have heard the kind of helpless, dissatisfied tone in which it was uttered! I had half a mind to bundle them up, and take them back. 'You can shorten them,' I answered, 'and some of them will make two dresses.' 'Yes,' she answered reluctantly, 'only I should want something for yokes and sleeves.' Then her mother came to inspect them, and she was rather more gracious. But I could not help contrasting the two families. Mr. Cole is a carpenter, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... boat with his pistol leveled, he commanded them, through the mediumship of the patriarch, to shorten the ropes and paddle in still closer. When the beach was only a few rods distant he gave orders that all should land, carrying the ropes with them. He himself was one of the first ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... or so much as a glance at her rescuer. This unmerited repulse, and the constraint occasioned by Cantapresto's presence, made the remainder of the drive interminable. Even the Professor's apposite reflections on rice-growing and the culture of the mulberry did little to shorten the way; and when at length the bell-towers of Vercelli rose in sight Odo felt the relief of a man who has acquitted himself of a tedious duty. He had looked forward with the most romantic anticipations ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton |
