"Shortening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... detail came to his notice which caused him to become very amiably disposed and confident of success. Proceeding with the matter, he caused a well-supported report to be spread about that Ling was suffering from a wasting sickness, which, without in any measure shortening his life, would cause him to return to the size and weight of a newly-born child, and being by these means enabled to secure the entire matter of "The Ling (After Death) Without Much Risk Assembly" at a very small outlay, he did so, and then, calling together a company of those who hire themselves ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... and treat them as incurable moral and mental invalids. We must cease to deal with such as with responsible human beings, who might do better if only they would. The "indeterminate sentence" is a step toward such treatment, but it is often rendered wholly futile by being mixed with "reward of shortening term for good behavior in prison." Good behavior inside prison walls gives no proof of ability to take good care of one's self outside those walls; it may be only a proof that the moral weakling has to have an external conscience and a strict watch in order to be amenable to even simple rules. ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... early frosts and shortening days drove Hawthorne within doors that he again took up his writing, but who can tell how long he had been dreaming over his subject? Within five months, or by the last week of January, "The House of the Seven Gables" was ready for ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... in Scottish tradition as Kate Barlass, who had thrust her arm through the staple, in place of a bar, to hold the door against the assassins. A few stanzas of "The Kinges Quair" are fitted into the poem by shortening the lines two syllables each, to accommodate them to the ballad metre. It is generally agreed that this was a mistake, as was also the introduction of the "Beryl Songs" between the narrative parts of "Rose Mary." These ballads of Rossetti compare ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... answer to that," answered the doctor; "and we ought to believe that they are shortening the circle about ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... 'groanings which cannot be uttered!' How few among us there are whose spirits are stretching out eager desires towards the land of perpetual summer, like migratory birds in northern latitudes when the autumn days are shortening ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... the forward main cross-piece of the frame to the extreme front edge; (2) the encasing in the cloth of all cross-pieces and ribs of the surfaces; (3) a rearrangement of the wires used in trussing the two surfaces together, which rendered it possible to tighten all the wires by simply shortening two ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... apologizing in the presence of the whole Board; Hilary apologized handsomely, and Northwick forgave him, while it was also passing through his mind that he must reduce the risks of railroad accident to a minimum, by shortening the time. They reduced the risk of ocean travel in that way, by reducing the time, and logically the fastest ship was the safest. If he could get to Montreal from Wellwater in four or five hours, when it would take him twelve hours to get to ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... are able to conclude that the shortening of working hours and the improvements in machinery has been attended by an increased effort per unit of labour time. In the words of an expert, "the change to those actually engaged in practical work is to lessen the amount of hard manual work ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... Steaming to our anchors had saved us. All the vessels that went ashore became matchwood. But before we could get our anchors or slip them, our main steam pipe gave out and we had to blow down our boilers. It was now a race between the engineers trying to repair the damage and the shortening hours of daylight. On the result depended quite possibly the lives of us all. I cannot remember one sweeter sound than the raucous voice of the engineer just in the nick of time calling out, "Right for'ard," and then ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... little the light fell stronger on the more obscure points of the terrible enigma proposed to him, saw the necessity of shortening a scene which had overtasked her faculties to an almost insupportable ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... left one relation settled in a town in the North; thither she now repaired, to find her last hope wrecked; the relation also was dead and gone. Her money was now spent, and she had begged her way along the road, or through the lanes, she scarce knew whither, till the accident which, in shortening her life, had raised up a friend ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... fulfilled the vow which he had made to Jupiter. On the return of the army to Rome, the soldiers, by his directions, cut down a small oak-tree, and trimming the branches at the top, and shortening them as much as was necessary for the purpose, they hung the weapons and armor of Acron upon it, and marched with it thus, in triumph into the city. Romulus walked in the midst of the procession, a crown of laurel upon his head, and his long hair hanging ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... pleasurable (though many persons of literary taste may, perhaps, regard it as a bore), is the relation of modern prosody to ancient, and more particularly to Latin. It has always seemed to me that the lengthening and shortening of syllables according to their position, as happens in classical Latin, with regard to the syllables that follow them, must always have corresponded with the stresses or absence of stress which would naturally be made apparent by ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... panic of Eighteen Hundred Ninety-three struck the country, and dealers were canceling their orders and everybody was shortening sail, the Olivers kept right along ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... times to make use of the true and proper word, he is obliged to quit the natural and easy way of expression, and avail himself of new modes and turns of phraseology, such as tropes, and metaphors, with the liberty of transposing words, and lengthening or shortening syllables as he sees occasion. Quod alligati ad certam pedum necessitatem non semper propriis uti possint, sed depulsi a recta via, necessario ad quaedam diverticula confugiant; nec mutare quaedam modo verba, sed extendere, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... a discharge of assegais from all sides at once, the Zulus crouched down, covering as much as possible of their bodies with the shield. A few men fell, but the gaps were at once filled by the circle shortening in. For some time the Zulus only resisted passively, the circle slowly moving on towards the forest-fringe of the river, and consequently the Makalakas became bolder, and closed in nearer and nearer to the ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... account of the mortifications to which this interior pressure drove him, shortening of sleep, wearing hair-shirts, severe discipline, abstinence and fasting, and ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... the northwest, with the sting of the ice in it, but the fog did not lift, and the Scarrowmania plunged on through it with spray-wet decks and the gray seas smashing about her bows. It was bitterly cold and the raw wind pierced to the bone, but the voyage was rapidly shortening. ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... which the trade-union movement concentrates are the raising of wages, the shortening of hours, the diminution of seasonal work, the abolition or regulation of piece-work, with its resultant speeding up, the maintaining of sanitary conditions, and the guarding of unsafe machinery, the enforcement of laws against ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... this year, at a meeting of the electors of Southwark, 'instructions' had been presented to Mr. Thrale and his brother-member, of which the twelfth was:—'That you promote a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... medley of races are still in the Eastern state of activity, in which time is of no account; and, instead of getting off in the early morning to return before night, as arranged, we left Ragusa at 2 P.M. We were in October, and the shortening days did not favor long journeys, and the road was even worse than those in Montenegro. On the way across the frontier the going was simply climbing a Cyclopean stairway, and we reached the camp only ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... Alfred was shortening the stirrup straps to the length of his limbs as measured by his arms. Alfred's thinking gear was working faster than the white mare's hoofs ever pounded the earth. As he was about to mount he said: "Mr. Thornton, I'll bring this ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... believe in fact, in my homely simplicity, that the whole thing may be accomplished without any mystery, without trading in secrets or charlatanry; without the aid of modern anatomical improvement, or rather destruction, of the worn-out throat, through shortening or increasing the flexibility of the palate, through the removal of the unnecessary glands or by attempts to lengthen the vocal passage, or by remedying a great many other things in which Nature has made a mistake, and on ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... seem to me to be fundamental, so far as assisting pupils through the difficulties which lie in their way is concerned. Diminish the difficulties as far as is necessary by shortening and simplifying the steps, and make thorough work as you go on. These principles, carried steadily into practice, will be effectual in leading any mind through any difficulties which may occur. And though they ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... darted, until it seemed as though the slender rod would break under the strain. Bert's fighting blood responded to the challenge, and he played his opponent with all the skill and judgment in which he was a past master. It was fully ten minutes before, carefully shortening his line, he was able to land on the ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... to be long-lived. I no where saw a person, man or woman, whom I could suppose to be sixty years of age; and but very few who appeared to be above fifty. Probably their hard way of living may be the means of shortening ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... matter for the time being. A few months later tact was thrown to the winds and the working hours were arbitrarily shortened in successive steps to 10 hours, 9 1/2, 9, and 8 1/2 (the pay per day remaining the same); and with each shortening of the working day the output increased ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... you would for cream-tartar biscuits, only put considerable shortening in. Roll thin; bake in a pan; when done, split it and put the berries (mashed in sugar) between. Whipped cream over the top ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... tremendously pleased with it; but so he was with his snow-goggles, in spite of the fact that he could not see with them, and that they allowed him to become snow-blind. The rest of us kept our sleeping-bags as they were, only lengthening or shortening them as required. We were all greatly pleased with the device for closing them — on the plan of a sack. Outside our bags we had a cover of very thin canvas; this was extremely useful, and I would not be without it for anything. In the daytime the sleeping-bag was always ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... States would unite with them, and thus tend to prolong the War; and he was of opinion, if this Resolution should be adopted by Congress and accepted by our States, these causes of irritation and these hopes would be removed, and more would be accomplished towards shortening the War than could be hoped from the greatest victory achieved by Union Armies; that he made this proposition in good faith, and desired it to be accepted, if at all, voluntarily, and in the same patriotic spirit in which it was made; that Emancipation was a subject exclusively ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... was not the hope of shortening our homeward run, or the prospect of meeting Indians on the shores, or of finding historical records, even, that caused us to make this early start. It was the knowledge that the wonderful Rainbow Natural Bridge, recently discovered, ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... flight, and at the same time to effect certain alterations of form in the bullet. These with rectangular impact in the case of bullets travelling at a low degree of velocity consist in a bending and deformation of the tip; in the higher degrees, of bending, shortening, extensive destruction, or complete fragmentation. If the bullet makes lateral impact, only widening and flattening result, often with the escape of the lead core from the mantle. That a ricochet bullet may travel a considerable ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... removed from my very soul, as the ship passed out of the range of the last gun in the little semi-circle. The soldiers were making gestures to us to indicate we were getting too far west for a good berth, but we heeded them not. Instead of shortening sail, the fore and main tacks were boarded, and the top-gallant-sails set. This revealed our intention, and the clamour on the shore even reached the ship. Preparations were making to get a piece of light artillery to bear on us, and ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... of reeds, or the great flooded concavity on which we had fixed our depot; but the sameness of vegetation, and the seemingly diminutive size of the timber in the distance, argued against any change for the better in the soil of the interior. Having taken the precaution of shortening the painter of the skiff, we found less difficulty in steering her clear of obstacles, and made rapid progress down the Morumbidgee during the first cool and refreshing hours of the morning. The channel of the river became somewhat less contracted, but still retained sufficient depth for larger ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... believed that each had kept the letter of the law; that, whatever his faults, he had turned his face to no other woman. If she had not made his heart captive and drawn him by an ever-shortening cord of attraction, yet she was sure that none other had any influence over him, that, as he had looked at her in those short-lived days of his first devotion, he looked at no other. The way was clear yet. There was nothing irretrievable, nothing irrevocable, which would for ever stain the memory ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... week—was held to discuss the Irish situation. By a strange coincidence this Secret Session immediately followed the grant by the Commons of a Return relating to Irish Lunacy accounts. From the meagre official summary we gather that the absence of reporters has at least the negative advantage of shortening speeches. In a very few days, however, the Prime Minister discarded reticence, admitting the gravity of the situation, the prevalence of street fighting, the spread of the insurrection in the West, the appointment of ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... time forward I have steadily avoided, whenever it was possible, the vulgar vice of directly possessing myself of objects to which I could show no legal title. My father was indignant at the results of my college career; and, according to my aunt, his shame and sorrow had some effect in shortening his life. My sister believed my account of the matter. It ended in my being used for a year as an assistant in the shop, and in being taught to ring bells—a fine exercise, but not proper work for a man of refinement. My father died while training his bell-ringers in the Oxford ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... defect, some try to increase their stature by high heels, which renders their gait awkward, besides being injurious to health. Others endeavor to add to their apparent height by cultivating a long waist. This they do at the expense of shortening the lower limbs, thus making themselves seem shorter than they actually are. Others strive to attain the same end by dressing the hair high, in this way too often adding to the apparent bulk of the ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... first watch after the second dog-watch, and at two bells, or nine o'clock, in the evening, Mayo awoke and heard him give orders to "pinch her." He heard the sails flap, and knew that the men were shortening in readiness to lay to. He slipped on his outer clothing ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... obliged to cover the flight of the Confederate Government, compelled him to hold on to Richmond and Petersburg till the afternoon of the 2d, though before that Parke, Ord, and Wright had carried his outer intrenchments at several points, thus materially shortening the line of investment. ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... that had been made out of a fine, late percussion Kentuck by sawing off the breech-end of the barrel, rethreading it for the breech-plug, drilling a new vent, and fitting the lock with a flint hammer and a pan-and-frizzen assembly, and shortening the fore-end to fit. Rivers has a gunsmith over at Kingsville, one Elmer Umholtz, who does all his fraudulent conversions for him. I have an example of Umholtz's craftsmanship, myself. The collector who bought this spurious flintlock ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... distributed among the new landholders for the procuring of the requisite implements and stock, and vindicated generally, in opposition to the existing practice, the right of the burgesses to decide definitively as to the new province. He is said to have prepared farther popular measures, for shortening the period of service, for extending the right of appeal, for abolishing the prerogative of the senators exclusively to do duty as civil jurymen, and even for the admission of the Italian allies to Roman citizenship. How far his ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... calendar above his table. How many days to Christmas? How much time might he spend in Freeford? How long before Christmas might he arrange to leave Churchton? The holidays at home loomed as a harbor of refuge. By shortening as far as possible the interval here and by lengthening as far as possible the stay with his family, he might cut down, in some measure, the imminent threatenings of awkwardness and constraint; then, beyond ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... no more expert canoeman than Tayoga in the whole northern wilderness. A single sweep of his paddle would send the canoe to any point he wished, and apparently it was made without effort. There was no shortening of the breath nor any sudden and violent movement of his figure. It was all as smooth and easy as the flowing of the water itself. It seemed that Tayoga was doing nothing, and that the canoe once more was alive, the master ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... the demonstration, gentlemen," he said, as the attendants placed it beside the other in full view of everybody. "Now, as time is shortening, I will get on with the ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... indebted to no wheels, And urged by storms along its slippery way; I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st, And dreaded as thou art. Thou hold'st the sun A prisoner in the yet undawning East, Shortening his journey between morn and noon, And hurrying him impatient of his stay Down to the rosy West. But kindly still Compensating his loss with added hours Of social converse and instructive ease, And gathering at short notice in one group The family dispersed by daylight and its cares. ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... not call it a "caravanserai") to the schoolhouse the distance by the wagon road was about a mile and a half; but there was a trail, very little used, which led over an intervening range of low, heavily wooded hills, considerably shortening the distance. By this trail I was returning one evening later than usual. It was the last day of the term and I had been detained at the schoolhouse until almost dark, preparing an account of my stewardship for ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... good cheer did not last long. In a few weeks the unhappy men, or such as still clung to life, were living on a few shrimps, pieces of sealskin boots, lichens, and even more offensive food. The shortening of the ration, and the resulting hunger, broke down the moral sense of some, and by one device or another, food was stolen. Only two or three were guilty of this crime—an execrable one in such an emergency—and one of these, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... with a quiet smile, "as you say, a stern chase is a long one; nevertheless we are not far astern, and that is what I count on for shortening the chase." ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... no tragedy at all. In the three acts to which Prosper Vane had condemned it the play appealed to both critics and public; for the Fourth Act (as he recognised so clearly) was unnecessary, and would have spoilt the balance of it entirely. Best of all, the shortening of the play demanded that some entertainment should be provided in front of it, and this enabled Mr. Levinski to introduce to the public Professor Wollabollacolla and Princess Collabollawolla, the famous exponents of the Bongo-Bongo, that fascinating Central African war dance which ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... foot. His gaze first sought the strange opening three-fourths of the way to the top,—a matter of eighty or ninety feet above the spot on which he stood. There it was,—a deep, black gash in the solid rock, rendered narrow by fore-shortening and a slightly protruding brow. He could think of nothing more analogous than an open mouth with a thick upper lip and the nether ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... severity of the disease. If the fever is high and the cough persistent, the strength of the food of nursing infants should be reduced. We can reduce the strength of the food by giving the child a drink of cool boiled water before each feeding and shortening the length of each feeding. Older children may be given toast, milk with lime water, cocoa with milk, broths, gruels, custards, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... person, to note the manner in which the two fleets man[oe]uvred throughout that night. After several hours of ineffectual efforts to bring their enemies fairly within reach of their guns, after the moon had risen, the French gave the matter up for a time, shortening sail while most of their superior officers caught ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... quicker it will be over. First confinements necessarily take longer, because the parts take more time to open up, or dilate, to a degree sufficient to allow the child to be born. In subsequent confinements, these parts having once been dilated yield much easier, thus shortening the time and the pains of this, the most painful, stage of labor. The average duration of labor is eighteen hours in the case of the first child, and about twelve hours with women who have already borne children. The time, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... Meanwhile they were shortening sail on the whaler, and though she was no beauty, yet, I tell you, I found her as picturesque as any ship I had ever beheld as she lay with her main-topgallant-sail clewed up, her topsail yards on the caps, and the heads of men knotting the reef-points ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... ardent and not derogatory and he is talking and not swaying as he is standing and he is shortening in not betraying that he has not been changing. He stayed longer than he was refusing to stay and this was not embittering. He could win enough of complete likelihood to release the volume of delicate intention. He had it then and was enough and he stayed with ardent expression of having ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... saw him suck in a bee, laden with his morning's load of honey, who touched the water unwarily close to his nose. With trembling hand, Tom took off his tail fly, and, on his knee, substituted a governor; then shortening his line, after wetting his mimic bee in the pool behind him, tossed it gently into the monster's very jaws. For a moment the fish seemed scared, but the next, conscious in his strength, lifted his nose slowly to the surface and sucked ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... who had been expecting this attack, drove the spurs into his mustang, and started in full gallop across the prairie. On followed the bull, sometimes shortening the distance between him and his enemy, while at intervals the lazo, tightening, would almost ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... the sheet lightning which now and then revealed the lake in the bosom of the mountains, or appeared to lay open the whole sky. But June passed away, and there was no change. July came and went—the sun was visibly shortening his daily journey, and leaving an hour of actual darkness in the middle of the night: and still there was no prospect of a further journey. She began to doubt Mr Forster as much as she hated Lord Lovat, and to say to herself that his promises of further personal ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... The assent and the sigh completely puzzled him. Were they for himself, or for Stephen Archdale? Had she already chosen without being willing to speak, or was she still hesitating? In either case, the decision was equally momentous, the only question was of lengthening or shortening the suspense of waiting ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... insect itself boring the exit passage, the problem assumes a more troublesome form. If the larva, rich in leisure and satisfied with its sojourn in the interior of the trunk, simplifies the coming emergence by shortening the road, what must not the adult do, who has so short a time to live and who is in so great a hurry to leave the hateful darkness? He above any other should be a judge of short cuts. To go from the murky heart of the tree to the sun-steeped bark, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... really greater than those demanded of the deep-water skipper. They drove these great schooners alongshore winter and summer, across Nantucket Shoals and around Cape Cod, and their salvation depended on shortening sail ahead of the gale. Let the wind once blow and the sea get up, and it was almost impossible to strip the canvas off an unwieldy six-master. The captain's chief fear was of being blown offshore, of having ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... rule for these two times is like that for two in a bar. If the movement is very slow, each time must be divided; and consequently eight gestures must be made for the time, four in a bar, and six for the time, three in a bar, repeating (and shortening) each of the principal gestures we have ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... were transcribed for the players by those who may be supposed to have seldom understood them; they were transmitted by copiers equally unskilful, who still multiplied errours; they were perhaps sometimes mutilated by the actors, for the sake of shortening the speeches; and were at last printed without ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... here and there, penetrating the crevices of the soil wherever there is the least chance, and the matured portions begin to shorten, reminding one somewhat of an angleworm when one end has been stepped on. By this shortening process the top or crown of a dandelion or plantain is pulled down beneath the surface ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... rod is attached to the lower. When the engine is at rest the end of the valve rod and its block are dropped till in a line with the eccentric rod; but when the machinery begins to work the block is gradually drawn up by the governor, diminishing the movement of the valve, and so shortening the period of ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... intervals from the side of the guide, yielding to pressure from that side and resisting pressure from the opposite direction; they recover intervals, if lost, by gradually opening out or closing in; they recover alignment by slightly lengthening or shortening the step; the rear-rank men cover their ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... us, whoever he is?" So Claudius was led out, and the first to be asked his opinion was Father Janus: he had been made consul elect for the afternoon of the next first of July,[Footnote: Perhaps an allusion to the shortening of the consul's term, which was done to give more candidates a chance of the honour.] being as shrewd a man as you could find on a summer's day: for he could see, as they say, before and behind. [Footnote 8: II, iii, 109; alluding here to Janus's double face.] He made an eloquent harangue, ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... ordinarily attached to a pump of suitable size to allow the mill to run at a mean speed in an 8 to 10 mile wind. Now, if the wind increases to a velocity of 16 to 20 miles per hour, the mill will run up to its maximum speed and the governor will begin to act, shortening sail before the wind attains this velocity. Therefore, by a very liberal estimate, the pump will not throw more than double the quantity that it did in the 8 to 10 mile wind, while the power of the mill has quadrupled, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... of the world's commerce has led to an urgent demand for shortening the great sea voyage around Cape Horn by constructing ship canals or railways across the isthmus which unites the continents. Various plans to this end have been suggested and will need consideration, but none of them has been sufficiently matured to warrant the United States ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... thirty-five miles," said Davis. "High time we were shortening sail, then. If it is an island, we don't want to be butting our head against it in the dark; and if it isn't an island, we can get through it just as well by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for holding weights is suspended by a flat chain, which applies to the curvature of the arc nDo, in a groove made for the purpose. To the other extremity E of the beam is applied another flat chain, i k m, so constructed, as to be incapable of lengthening or shortening, by being less or more charged with weight; to this chain, an iron trivet, with three branches, a i, c i, and h i, is strongly fixed at i, and these branches support a large inverted jar A, of hammered copper, of about 18 inches diameter, and 20 inches deep. The whole ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... usually a single, pear-shaped pouch, the stomach, during digestion, is practically divided into two parts by the shortening, or closing down, of a ring of circular muscle fibres about four inches from the lower end, throwing it into a large, rounded pouch on the left, and a small, cone-shaped one on the right. The gullet, of course, opens into the large left-hand pouch; ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... tearing stream of water; a light wavered and disappeared across the pallid fields to the left, a group of starveling trees on a hill slid up into the skyline behind them, and at last it seemed as if some touch of self-control, some suggestion of having had enough of the joke, was shortening the mare's grasping stride. The trap pitched more than ever as she came up into the shafts and back into her harness; she twisted suddenly to the left into a narrow lane, cleared the corner by an impossible fluke, and Fanny Fitz was hurled ignominiously on to Rupert Gunning's ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Latin, because it is round like a bull's head, he would file or clip to the value of five-pence, and from lesser coin in proportion. He was connected with a numerous gang, or set, of people, who had given up their minds and talents entirely to shortening.' ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... The autumn days were shortening imperceptibly and the sunsets had gained an almost articulate splendor: cloud calling unto cloud, the west horizon signaling to the east, and answering again, while the mute dark circle of hills sat like a council of chiefs with their blankets drawn over their heads. Soon those blankets would ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... little renown can be admitted in the world. Mankind are kept perpetually busy by their fears or desires, and have not more leisure from their own affairs than to acquaint themselves with the accidents of the current day. Engaged in contriving some refuge from calamity, or in shortening their way to some new possession, they seldom suffer their thoughts to wander to the past or future; none but a few solitary students have leisure to inquire into the claims of ancient heroes or sages; and names which hoped to range over kingdoms and continents ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... have to give a longer role to the wife of the good Saint-Gueltas? The play ought not to be very hard to cut. It is only a question of condensing and shortening it. If it is played, I'll guarantee a terrific success. But ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... inquiry, regardless of all warnings, go out on the first appearance of a strip of blue sky, and come home wet through, with what she calls "only a chill," but which really means a nail driven into her coffin—a probable shortening, though it may be a very small one, of her mortal life; because the food of the next twenty-four hours, which should have gone to keep the vital heat at its normal standard, will have to be wasted in raising it up to that standard, ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... The only ones I have ever heard offered are: (1) it is an incentive, and (2) it does enable students to shorten the period of undergraduate work. I grant them both, but I hold that the incentive is a low one—much lower than we need to use—and that the shortening of the course is far from being ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... by simple tension of the vocal ligaments, which is proved by the diminution of the ring-shield aperture. While this goes on we are in the Lower Thin. Now the laryngoscope reveals another method of still further raising the pitch, which consists in a gradual shortening of the vocal chink. This is caused by the shield-pyramid muscles pressing together the ends of the vocal ligaments, thereby giving the vocal chink a slightly elliptic shape. When this mechanism comes into play we are in the ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... of the organization of Trades or Labor Unions has been the shortening of the hours of labor. In 1894 the Government established an eight-hour day for workingmen in dockyards and in ordnance factories. [2] The Trade Disputes Act of 1906. This forbids any suit for tort against a Trade Union. See A. L. Lowell's "The Government of England," ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... Imitations of Virgil in Propertius, Ovid, and Manilius, " II. On the shortening of final o in Latin poetry, " III. On parallelism in Virgil's poetry, " IV. On the Legends connected ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... third stanza contains a redundant syllable, a defect which might be corrected by the removal of the article before the word "louder", or by the poetical contraction of "sympathy" into "symp'thy". The third line of the fourth stanza possesses only four feet. This may be an intentional shortening to give rhetorical effect, yet it mars none the less the symmetry ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... discipline, or the moral good of the children, only a panic horror of the inexpressibly pitiable calamity of their living a ledge or two lower on the molehill of the world—a calamity to be averted at any cost whatever, of struggle, anxiety, and shortening of life itself. I do not believe that any greater good could be achieved for the country, than the change in public feeling on this head, which might be brought about by a few benevolent men, undeniably in the class of "gentlemen," who would, on principle, enter into some of our commonest ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... yielding to my entreaties, he read, while I leaned back against the tree trunk, listening at first critically, and interested, perhaps, because it was his work, then with clasped hands and shortening breath, leaning forward that I might lose no word. A little squirrel scampered through the undergrowth back of us, and far in another field I could hear Mr. Hopper's quavering voice, as he called to the haymakers. Sometimes a leaf ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... or opposition to ministry; and their merits and their faults are equally a secret to me. The Parliament sitting, so long has worn itself to a skeleton; and almost every body takes the opportunity of shortening, their stay in the country, which I believe in their hearts most are glad to do, by going down, and returning for the trials, which are to be on the 28th of this month. I am of the number; so don't expect to hear from me ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... inches beyond the lower, and supported what were called butting poles—poles which crossed these projections at right angles, and, extending along the front and back of the building, formed the eaves of the roof. This latter was constructed by gradually shortening the logs at either end, until those which crossed them, as we said before, at right angles, came together at an angle of forty-five degrees, and the last one formed the ridge-pole or comb of the whole. On these logs, lapping one over the other, and the lower ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... awakened by the tramp of men overhead, and knew that they were shortening the anchor chain, and preparing to be off. Going out on to the deck, he saw that the courses had been dropped, and the topsails were lying loose in their gaskets. The crew were singing merrily, as they worked the capstan. Three of the boats already hung from the davits, and two large ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... weeks passed. With the rapidly shortening days of November, cold increased with grim earnestness. Already the snow was gathering depth in the forest, and on the open spaces it lay frozen and hard, and the sun now had no strength to soften it. A coating of ice crusted the beach where ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... Caltech. 2. 'change phase the hard way': To stay awake for a very long time in order to get into a different phase. 3. 'change phase the easy way': To stay asleep, etc. However, some claim that either staying awake longer or sleeping longer is easy, and that it is *shortening* your day or night that's hard (see {wrap around}). The 'jet lag' that afflicts travelers who cross many time-zone boundaries may be attributed to two distinct causes: the strain of travel per se, and the strain of changing phase. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... Mrs. Florence Kelley, chairman of the Industrial Committee, spoke on the Wage Earning Woman and the Ballot. "Because of the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Oregon case," she said, "fourteen State Legislatures in the past year have considered bills for shortening the workday for women and six have enacted laws for it. South Carolina has taken a step backward by changing the hours from ten to twelve. Child labor is constantly increasing in spite of our efforts. I have seen the evolution of modern industry and it has meant the sacrifice ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... meat; four tablespoonfuls shortening; two green peppers; one large onion; three tomatoes; one cupful milk; two tablespoonfuls flour; one teaspoonful Kitchen Bouquet, one teaspoonful salt, one-fourth teaspoonful pepper. Make a white sauce by melting ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... before another, to the contemplation of which every eye was turned. This was a small fishing-boat, which, with a low mast and ragged piece of canvas was seen standing boldly out for us; a red handkerchief was fastened to a stick in the stern, as if for a signal, and on our shortening sail, to admit of her overtaking us, the ensign was lowered, as though ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Melanesian language and has few marked peculiarities. In Sa'a there is a distinctive use of the shortened forms of the pronouns of the first and second persons, au and 'o, suffixed to verbs and prepositions as object; in Lau the same shortening is not effected and the longer forms nau, oe, ...
— Grammar and Vocabulary of the Lau Language • Walter G. Ivens
... anchylosis. When the left ulna is compared with the right radius, it might at first sight be concluded that the bones respectively belonged to different individuals, the ulna being more than half an inch too short for articulation with a corresponding radius. But it is clear that this shortening, as well as the attenuation of the left humerus, are both consequent upon the pathological ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... increase to the length which they had when he was in Sagittarius. From Aquarius he enters Pisces at the time when Favonius begins to blow, and here his course is the same as in Scorpio. In this way the sun passes round through the signs, lengthening or shortening the days and ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... had been busy with irreparable deeds of vandalism, but at Hereford he surpassed his previous efforts in this direction. He altered the whole proportion of the building, shortening the nave by a bay of 15 feet, erected a new west front on a "neat Gothic pattern," and availed himself of the chance of removing all the Norman work in the nave, above the nave arcade substituting a ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... milk and put to 3 pints of Indian meal, and half pint of flower—bake before the fire. Or scald with milk two thirds of the Indian meal, or wet two thirds with boiling water, add salt, molasses and shortening, work up with cold water pretty stiff, and bake ...
— American Cookery - The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables • Amelia Simmons
... himself lightly into the saddle, shortening the lead rope and fastening it to the horn. "I ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... a few of his townsfolk immediately after. He himself was seized by cholera on the following day; in less than two days more he was dead and buried; and the disease went creeping about the streets and lanes for weeks after—here striking down a strong man in the full vigour of middle life—there shortening, apparently by but a few months, the span of some worn-out creature, already on the verge of the grave. The visitation had its wildly picturesque accompaniments. Pitch and tar were kept burning during the night in the openings of the infected lanes; and ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... to the crown of the bent, and before them were the oak-trees sparser and smaller as they went down the further side, which seemed by their sudden shortening to be steeper than the hither side; and betwixt them showed the topmost of thorn and whitebeam and logwood, intertwined with eglantine and honeysuckle and the new shoots of the traveller's joy. There the wood-wife put forth her hand ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... when a shot, flying higher than the rest, struck the head of her main-mast. Over the side went the topmast and topsail, down came the mainsail, and the vessel's head paying off, in five minutes she was hard and fast on a reef. The frigate had, meantime, been shortening sail, and scarcely had the schooner struck, when she dropped her anchor in a position completely to command the wreck with ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... to heavy pruning is regarded as an abomination, and the general opinion is now in favour of shortening back long drooping primaries, removing cross shoots and wood that is not likely to bear anything more, and thinning out overgrowths of new wood. The most luxuriantly wooded part of the plantation should be pruned first, and the sticky coffee last, because, in the first place, ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... to Marenga Mkhaili, the "Salt Water," to breakfast, and camped in the crooked green thorns by night, carrying water on for our supper. This kind of travelling—forced marches—hard as it may appear, was what we liked best, for we felt that we were shortening the journey, and in doing so, shortening the risks of failure by disease, by war, by famine, and by mutiny. We had here no grasping chiefs to detain us for presents, nor had our men time to become ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... or by elections in the assemblies of the craft-gilds, or are even allowed to descend by hereditary right. As the popular control over the executive declines, jealousy of the executive leads to some disastrous changes: to the multiplication of offices, to the shortening of terms of office, to the creation of innumerable checks and balances, to the organisation of this or that powerful interest or party as a state within the state. But the morbid pathology of the communes in their last stage of decline is a subject with ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... him; so they seized him and dragged him along and carried him before the Sultan who no sooner saw him than she ordered him to jail. And they imprisoned him for he had not come to that city save for the shortening of his days and the lavishing of his life-blood and he knew not what was predestined to him and in very sooth he deserved all that befel him. Hereupon the damsel bade bring before her, her father and her cousin and the Ra'is and the King and the Wazir and the Pirate (while she still bore ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... pleasures and comforts of civilization to live among savages, and the still rougher whites of the South Pacific, in order that her husband might have just a little more oxygen for his failing lungs, a little more chance for a respite and an extension of his shortening years? Probably no one ever better deserved than she the noble tribute of verse which her husband gave her, and from which I have quoted ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... own place, and him outward bound. When the night was wearing on it came his turn to sing, and with his song I knew that my thinking was right, for his song was a farewell to Skye. Now I know not the words, but the air will haunt me whiles when the days are shortening, and the pictures he painted will never be leaving ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... to be transferred to the granary, railway truck, or other destination, the band travels horizontally on suitable bearings, the buckets being so constructed that in traveling they retain their load intact. The contrivance for lengthening and shortening the bucket band is an application of the "lazytongs" device, which is well known. The float of the elevator is shown at the left hand of the engraving, and, as seen in the latter, there is an automatic weighing machine, by which the material may be weighed as it is delivered, before it goes to ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... With the shortening of the days, and the sweeping away of great shoals of leaves, in the frequent gales, Miss Du Prel's mood grew more and more sombre. At last she announced that she could stand the gloom of this wild North no longer. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... full of little dolls, which she was dressing. Every day since his accident she had been allowed to make him two visits,—one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. They helped wonderfully in shortening the long, tedious days for Jules. True, Madame Greville came often with broths and jellies, Cousin Kate made flying visits to leave rare hothouse grapes and big bunches of violets; Clotilde hung over him with motherly tenderness, and his uncle looked into the room ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Cornwall, are small of stature, and nearly all suffer from the thirtieth year throughout life from chest affections, which end, especially when this work is persisted in, as is almost always the case, in consumption, so greatly shortening the average of life of these people. If the miners of this district are somewhat longer lived than those of Cornwall, this is the case, because they do not enter the mines before reaching the nineteenth year, while in Cornwall, as we have ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... &c. adj.; brevity; littleness &c. 193; a span. shortening &c. v.; abbreviation, abbreviature[obs3]; abridgment, concision, retrenchment, curtailment, decurtation|; reduction &c. (contraction) 195; epitome &c. (compendium) 596. elision, ellipsis; conciseness &c. (in style) 572. abridger, epitomist[obs3], epitomizer[obs3]. V. be short &c. adj.; render ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and ending with l. 1680, the poet attempts to indicate the gathering and abating fury of the ghostly revel by the successive lengthening and shortening of the verses. The final verses also express Don Flix's waning strength. This device is an attempt to imitate the crescendo and diminuendo effect of music. This whole passage is an obvious imitation of Victor Hugo's "Les Djinns," a poem included in "Les Orientales." ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... and the plates become paddles, propelling the frail craft,— prisms, dividing the sunbeams into rainbow hues. Suddenly two lines of gossamer are dropped from unseen openings in its sides, and trailed behind it as it goes. Twisting, lengthening, shortening, they are drawn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... as it was in my nature to be offended, and I began to meditate apologies for shortening my visit at Ormsby Villa: but, though I was shocked by the haughtiness of Lady Geraldine, and accused her, in my own mind, of want of delicacy and politeness, yet I could not now suspect her of being an accomplice with her mother in any matrimonial designs upon me. From the moment I was convinced ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... feeling of horror induced by the uncanny experience that I have related as to admit of my contemplating seriously the idea of securing some rest; and even when at length I did so, and had completed all my preparations, such as shortening sail and heaving-to, it was still some time before oblivion came to me. But when it did, it was complete, for the weather was fine and had a settled appearance, the boat lay-to most admirably and took perfect care of herself, and altogether ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... proved that they have on their part, lessened the number of degrees, for the voyage from Guinea to Calicut is shown to be greater than they assert or show, because from the time those lands were discovered until now, the said Portuguese have been shortening and lessening the said distance. [This assertion is proved by the various discoveries eastward made by the Portuguese navigators from the time of the Infante Don Enrique, (Prince Henry the Navigator) namely, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... summer was waning, though it was summer still. The days were no less lovely; not a leaf had fallen in the woods; red roses flushed the gardens with bloom, yellow roses hung in luxuriant clusters on arches and walls; but the days were shortening, the sunsets were earlier, coming inconveniently before dinner was over at The Knoll; and the Wykehamists began to be weighed down by a sense of impending doom, in the direful necessity of going ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Republicans had preferred restriction by "just, humane, and reasonable laws." The bill passed, but President Arthur vetoed it on the ground that prohibiting immigration for so long a period transcended the provisions of the treaty. A bill which was then passed shortening the period of the restriction to ten years received the President's signature, and on August 5, 1882, America shut the door in the ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... the eggs, and pour the milk and flour hot to them. Butter a basin, pour in the pudding. Tie it close in a cloth, and boil it half an hour. It may be made smaller or larger, by allowing one egg to one tea-spoonful of flour and a quarter of a pint of milk, and proportionately shortening the time of boiling. It may be prepared for boiling any time, or immediately before it is put into the saucepan, as maybe most convenient. The basin must be quite filled, or the ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... great help toward shortening a long journey. A little picnic every hour, if it is permitted, is something not too distant to look forward to, and it may take up ten minutes each time. A larger meal all at once may, ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... he had left tied and helpless in the cabin. Two of the four harpooners were below in their bunks, asleep. The greater part of one watch was likewise below, in the fo'c's'le; and the rest of the crew, under Dick Morrell's eye, were shortening sail. In the after part of the ship there were only Mark Shore, Finch, a foremast hand at the wheel, old Aaron Burnham, and the cook. Of these, Mark, Jim, and the man at the wheel were in sight when Joel appeared; and only Mark ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... purified, which he experiences in excelling his companion, or in winning a game.—These are the reasons why the catechetical exercise is so much relished by the young, and why it has succeeded so powerfully, not only in smoothing the pathway of education, but also in shortening it. ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... to shortening our canvas—a perilous task. When that was done, leaving only the topsails spread, Ludar bade us make good the hatches, and fall to and eat. Which we did, all but the poet, who, being either big with his ode, or misliking the wildness ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... wedding finery. Mr. Lamb, you are not a fool, but a very excellent young man. I thank you for saving my life, and I wish you well with all my heart. You needn't say anything. I'm far from strong, and all this agitation is shortening ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... the fire engines went clanging past with the rattle and roar of galloping horses and shouting men. Never had Archie Anderson felt his frailty as he felt it at this moment. The very news made him almost faint, but he started to run with the crowd until his shortening breath and incessant coughing compelled him to return home, where he flung himself down on the doorstep, burying his throbbing forehead in his hands and saying: "Oh! I'm no good! I can never hope to be a man! I'm not even a boy! I seem to ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... settler's wife crossed the river to buy maple-sugar and deer-meat at the Ottawa village. She saw the warriors busy filing at their gun-barrels—shortening the guns to scarce a yard of length. This was a curious thing to do. When she went back to the ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... increased immigration to our Union, and each new settler writes to his friends abroad, and often remits money to induce them to join him in his Western home. The electric ocean telegraph will soon unite Europe with America, and improved communications are constantly shortening the duration of the voyage and diminishing the expense. Besides, this war has made us much better known to the European masses, who, everywhere, with great unanimity and enthusiasm sustain our cause, and, with slavery extinguished, will still more ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various |
