"Weakening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the number of between thirteen and sixteen thousand men, and that a French squadron of sixteen ships was stationed off the harbour, the sending a detachment equal to a battalion from Gibraltar would be an ineffectual supply for the relief of the place, and a weakening of the garrison from which they must be sent. He observed, that supposing the orders to have been positive, and seven hundred men detached to Minorca, the number remaining at Gibraltar would not have exceeded one thousand five hundred and fifty-six: ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of dissenting Protestant Churches, especially the Puritans, to worship as they please: in preaching and catechising they are more zealous than the Episcopalians, very far more successful in converting the people, and indispensable for weakening the popish party. We see how the necessity of the war acts on home affairs. The chief minister favoured the elements which were forcing their way out through the existing ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... the seale of the Spirit.... Now, after our sermons were ended at our publike lectures, you might have seene halfe a dozen pistols discharged at the face of the preacher (I meane) so many objections made by the opinionists in the open assembly against our doctrine ... to the marvellous weakening of holy truths delivered ... in the hearts of all the weaker sort." [Footnote: Welde's Short ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... contrary excellences (of form, for instance) in a single figure, can never escape degenerating into the monstrous, but by sinking into the insipid, taking away its marked character, and weakening its expression. ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... these defeats, they sought revenge and actuated by an ill-judged hope of weakening the resisting obstacles, they dismissed a countless multitude of military officers, who were turned out of the army upon half pay, though their full pay had been formally guarantied. It must be acknowledged ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... its purpose, with all the solidity and grace consistent with that, the Moresque structure before us is not excelled by any within the grounds. The curved roofs of the forcing-houses would have the effect upon the eye of weakening the base, but that, being of glass and showing the greenery within, their object explains itself at once, and we realize the strong wall rising behind them and supporting the lofty range of iron arches and fretwork that springs seventy-two feet to the central lantern. The design of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... with you," he said still as gloomily; "but I'm sorry in two ways. I'm sorry, too, that this means breaking up our friendship—if not breaking up, at least weakening it. You will understand that for me, too, it cannot ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... destroys the health. Thinking thoughts of lust is a prolific cause of unhappiness, sickness and nervous disease. The divine forces of life are directed into a wrong channel, resulting either in indulgence and inevitable weakening of body, brain and will, or in repression and its consequent nervous diseases. If the thoughts are allowed to dwell upon impurity, evil results must follow in some form, either in action or ill-health, ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... is not yet extinct in Spain, though, like many others of a similar kind, its observance is daily weakening since the period of the French revolution, and of the increased intercourse between the two nations. Many of the greatest names in the Spanish annals voluntarily assumed the profession, and thereby ceased to be laymen. Among these was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... contributed, especially in English, to such a simplification of grammatical inflexions as certainly has the practical convenience of giving us less to learn. But in addition to this decay in the forms of words, we have also to reckon with a depreciation or weakening of the ideas they express. Many words become so hackneyed as to be no longer impressive. As late as in 1820, Keats could say, in stanza 6 of his poem of Isabella, that "His heart beat awfully against his side"; ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... morning," she said finally, her voice surprising Lee, who had looked for a sign of weakening to accord with her sudden pallor ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... superadds the vast power, both actual and virtual, which would flow from the inviolability of the Royal office, and forecloses, so far, the chance which the more pliant Tory doctrine would leave open, of counteracting the effects of the King's indirect personal influence, by curtailing or weakening the grasp of some of his direct regal powers. Ovid represents the Deity of Light (and on an occasion, too, which may be called a Regency question) as crowned with movable rays, which might be put off when too strong or dazzling. But, according to this principle, the crown ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... Thus, by mutually weakening each other, the great powers and the great influences in the state were wasting away; the reverses of the French arms, the loss of their colonies, and the humiliating peace of Paris aggravated the discontent. In default of good government the people ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the terrible year of 1918 was the month of all months when troops were sent abroad by the thousands, half equipped, untrained, as fast as the speeding transports could carry them. It was a time of weakening hope, of misgivings, of confusion and frantic hurry. Men, men, men, whether they were soldiers or not, so only that they were men! Few know of the frenzied haste in the embarkation camp those days. Few will ever realize how near the ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... her life. For an hour she crouched on the floor, listening to the heavy voices of the men rumbling up and down in mimic thunder. Like familiar chords of childhood melodies, every intonation, every trick of her husband's voice swept in upon her, fluttering her heart and weakening her knees till she lay half-fainting against the door. It was well she could neither see nor hear when he took ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... I had some fresh injury to bear ... She would ring me up to tell me of her appointments with my husband ... she hoped to make me suffer so much I should end by killing myself.... I did think of it sometimes, but I held out, for the children's sake ... Jacques was weakening. She wanted him to get a divorce ... and little by little he began to consent ... dominated by her and by her brother, who is slyer than she is, but quite as dangerous ... I felt all this ... Jacques was becoming harsh to me.... ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... is performing the especial duties of philosophy, and is provided with a triple medicine against adversity: in the first place, because he has long reflected that such things might befal him, and this reflection by itself contributes much towards lessening and weakening all misfortunes; and, secondly, because he is persuaded that we should bear all the accidents which can happen to a man, with the feelings and spirit of a man; and lastly, because he considers that what is blameable ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... mere syncope, my dear sir. Perhaps—even only the result of tight lacing, or inaction. Perhaps some sudden nerve crisis. These are the results of the easy luxury of an enervating high-life. All these social habits are weakening elements. Now, fortunately, your wife has a singularly strong vital nature. You may safely dismiss all your fears. Madame will be entirely herself ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... bruises about the knee when I set the leg, and I asked Mrs. Bell some general questions but received no very definite replies until to-day, and what you heard indicates that the child has already had a slight attack of tuberculosis. I had counted on my treatment to overcome the weakening influences of confinement to bed and crutch for so ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... others for her. Who but me could decide for her now? I longed to plead with her, longed to let her see that I was not hard-hearted, was thinking of her, was acting for her sake as much as for my own. But I dared not. "She would misunderstand," said I to myself. "She would think you were weakening." ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... is usually accompanied by fever, is of a kind very difficult to shake off, gradually weakening the sufferer till he sinks under its influence; the natives themselves are by no means free from its strokes, to which attacks every stranger who remains for many days in the vicinity of the marshes is liable. Though a veil of mystery still covers the particulars of poor Moorcroft's fate, it ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... by a step of this kind. Consider how many persons you are unsettling; what a triumph you are giving to the enemies of all religion; what encouragement to the notion that there is no such thing as truth; how you are weakening our Church. Well, all I say is, that you should have very strong convictions ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... easier, because hers was the sole authority—it was a constant strain to provide the education necessary for her boy. But that accomplished, she had a sweet interlude with her daughter in humble peace, and while she did her best to arm the child for the conflict of life, she avoided weakening herself by too much thought for her future. This spell of repose was broken by the necessity for sacrificing some of her small capital to set her son free from his embarrassments. Then came his death and her present experiment in house-keeping in order ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... are fencing, Euripides. You are weakening: your grip is slipping. Come! try your last weapon. Pity and love have broken in your ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... very successfully evacuated, but as you remarked to me, on communicating the case to you at the time, tonic medicines should have been given, to second the ground that had been gained, instead of weakening the patient ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... heart-rending scene, to hear again the deep voice of a big-shouldered thief pleading for a sick woman. Again he saw the huge form of the squatter loom up before him, and heard once more the frantic prayer for a week's freedom. He had not taken his eyes from the boy's, and a weakening of his knees compelled him to grip the back of the chair for support. With a voice ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... feeling suddenly that she had seen enough, and that her defences against the siege being made upon her heart and judgment were weakening perilously. If she were to hold out before it she must hear of no more affairs to Richard Kendrick's credit, especially such affairs as these. Not all his efforts at establishing a successful career in the world ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... life, with another nation living in its midst, but dwelling wholly in the thought of the other world. Religion would have grown to superstition, ecstasy would have ruled in the hearts of the religious devotees, weakening their hold on the real, and wafting them away into misty regions of paradise. We should have had every exaggeration of ascetic practice, hermitages multiplying among the rocks and islands of the ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... so reasonable that Ralph's weakening scruples entirely vanished. He assented without further parley to Captain Shard's offer, and was straightway placed under the supervision of the foreman, who was in a rear stable yard haltering a small drove of ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... found me with little to do. I pined silently. The nurse flitting in and out cheered and then distracted me; she was too busy elsewhere most of the time to suit me. I dared not think too much of my troubles, for I found it discouraging and weakening. The letters from Obreeon furnished the material I needed to sustain a happy train of thought. Sitting up in bed with this precious poetic patchwork piled over my lap, I had many a good sneeze. I am sure I got some of my money back by reading them over and over ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... in a heap from the violence of the concussion. For some fifteen minutes without intermission the frenzy lasted. I was nearly exhausted. My efforts to avoid her mad rushes, the terrible tension of my nervous system produced by the spectacle of such exquisite and prolonged suffering, were weakening me beyond what I should have thought it possible an hour before for anything to weaken me. In fact, I felt my strength leaving me. A terror such as I had never yet felt was taking possession of my mind. I sickened at the sight before me, and at the thought of agonies yet to come. ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... arose, of violets fermented in the sun, a hot boudoir perfume, enervating, weakening, which called up before de Gery's eyes feminine visions, Aline, Felicia, gliding across the enchanted landscape, in that blue-tinted atmosphere, that elysian light which seemed to be the visible perfume of such a ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... Monmouth to all his offices and commands, from which, it appears to the house, he had been removed by the influence of the duke of York: and that it is the opinion of the house, that the prosecution of the Protestant dissenters upon the penal laws is at this time grievous to the subject, a weakening of the Protestant interest, an encouragement of Popery, and dangerous to the peace ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... was only twelve miles, yet some of our horses were nearly knocked up, and we ourselves in but little better condition. The incessant walking we were subject to, the low and unwholesome diet we had lived upon, the severe and weakening attacks of illness caused by that diet, having daily, and sometimes twice a day, to dig for water, to carry all our fire-wood from a distance upon our backs, to harness, unharness, water, and attend to the horses, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Princess of Orange to the throne should contain a declaration against the using of racks and thumbscrews for the purpose of forcing prisoners to accuse themselves. Such a declaration would have been justly regarded as weakening rather than strengthening a rule which, as far back as the days of the Plantagenets, had been proudly declared by the most illustrious sages of Westminster Hall to be a distinguishing feature of the English jurisprudence, [306] In the Scottish Claim of Right, the use of torture, without evidence, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... blood is too weakening to permit of the patient walking, and the exertion may start the wound bleeding again, so a stretcher of some kind must be contrived in which she may be carried. You can make a good emergency stretcher of two strong poles of green wood, one large blanket, and the ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... horse too soon or too hard after feeding may cause either colic or indigestion. Any condition that reduces the vitality, such as disease, overwork, poor feed, or lack of care, may directly bring on indigestion by weakening the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... intentional buffoonery and extravagance of conduct. On May 20, 1347, the first blow was struck. Rienzi, with a chosen band of conspirators, and accompanied by the papal vicar, who had every interest in weakening the baronage, proceeded to the Capitol, and, amid the applause of the mob, promulgated the laws ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... bill as an attack upon the Church, brought in for the purpose of impoverishing and weakening the clergy, I should be one of the foremost in an early ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it shattered one fruitless conviction after another—convictions which, happily for my after life, I never lacked the courage to abandon as soon as they proved inadequate. From all this weary mental struggle I derived only a certain pliancy of mind, a weakening of the will, a habit of perpetual moral analysis, and a diminution both of freshness of sentiment and of clearness of thought. Usually abstract thinking develops man's capacity for apprehending the bent of his mind at certain moments and laying ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... rather embarrass it. It may, of course, impress all those whose conception of scientific method is poor—and sometimes one thinks that this is all that is deliberately aimed at—but it will not affect anyone else. To the informed mind it will appear that the Goddite is weakening his case with every step he takes in the direction of what he apparently believes to be a demonstration ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... was very far from saying, even in the privacy of her own mind, "I am in love with you," and that sentence might very well never have framed itself. She was, indeed, rather annoyed with herself for having allowed such an ill-considered breach of her reserve, weakening her powers of resistance, she felt, should this impulse return again. For, as she walked along the street to her office, the force of all her customary objections to being in love with any one overcame her. She did not want to marry at all. It seemed to her that ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... slipping out of the world, and then, except for a rap, you might have called on me in vain (and said rap you wouldn't have believed in). Also, even this winter, even in this Rome, the city of refuge, I have had an attack, less long and sharp, indeed, but weakening, and, though I am well now, and have corrected the proofs of a very thin and wicked 'brochure' on Italian affairs (in verse, of course), yet still I am not too strong for cod-liver oil and the affectionateness of such friends as you (I speak as if I had a shoal of such friends—povera mi!). ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... in perplexity. Here was a game in which neither his bold heart nor his active limbs could help him. It was the new force mastering the old: the man of commerce conquering the man of war—wearing him down and weakening him through the centuries until he had him as his ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... suitable notice of your great merit hath not been taken by persons in power. But how to remedy the omission I see not. No encouragement hath ever been given me to mention things of this nature to his majesty. And therefore, in all likelihood, the only consequence of doing it would be weakening the little influence which else I may possibly have on some other occasions. Your fortune and your reputation set you above the need of advancement; and your sentiments, above that concern for it, on your own account, which, on that of the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... himself on the Delagoa Bay railway and deny it to Kruger. At Kroonstad, Lord Roberts, seeing that he could not expect assistance from Buller, contemplated detaching Ian Hamilton and sending him into the Eastern Transvaal, but the fear of unduly weakening the main body in view of probable opposition at the Vaal, Johannesburg, and Pretoria, caused him to give up the project. As events turned out, it would in ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... a world for women!" thought Jim, in simple wonder. Hunted down mercilessly, pushed at the first sign of weakening, they know not where, and then lost! Hundreds of thousands of them forever outcast, to pay through all the years that are left to them for that hour of yielding! Hundreds of thousands of them, and his Julia only different because she had ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... opposed to the shell at various points, in a line extending throughout its whole circumference, about one third below the larger end of the egg; and a series of perforations more or less numerous are thus effected by the increasing strength of the chick, weakening the shell in a direction opposed to the muscular power of the bird; it is thus ultimately enabled, by its own efforts, to break the walls of its prison. In the common fowl, this horny appendage falls off in a day or two after the chick is hatched; in the pigeon it sometimes remains on the beak ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... interests. He was accustomed to say that one of the chief merits of Christianity was that it taught that right and wrong were as far apart as Heaven and Hell, and that no greater calamity can befall a nation than a weakening of the righteous ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... the rear. A great many that had been broken down by the rapid marches and the sun's burning rays from the time of our crossing into Maryland till now, were not up at the battle of the 17th, thus weakening the ranks of Lee to nearly one-half their real strength, taking those on detached service into consideration also. But these had all come up and joined their ranks as we began crossing the Potomac. None wished ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... all the forces controlled by the caucus were employed in the work of disparaging and weakening Mr. Forster. The latter was engaged in his almost hopeless struggle with the disaffected classes in Ireland—in other words, with four-fifths of the nation. I have told elsewhere the story of Mr. Forster's public career, and it is not necessary that I ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... deputy, and Dad Peppin, later sheriff of Lincoln county. The Kid and his men waited until the victims had gone by. Then a volley was fired. Sheriff Brady, shot in the back, slowly sank down, his knees weakening under him. "My God! My God! My God!" he exclaimed, as he gradually dropped. He had been struck in the back by five balls. As he sank down, he turned his head to see his murderers, and as he did so received a ball in the eye, ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... straight into his eyes, "please tell me the truth: Aren't you feeling the advance of age? As the body is weakening, are your perceptions of ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... he had seen with his own eyes, and it appeared less funny than he had been led to believe. The horrible screams of the dead manager's wife pursued them as they hurried to the town. McMurdo was absorbed and silent; but he showed no sympathy for the weakening of his companion. ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... form, but it is the policy of the nation itself, and no Government that attempted to recede from or palter with that policy would last a week. (Loud cheers.) I am perfectly certain that no idea or intention of any weakening on this point or this question has entered the head ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... of old economic friction, in which most of the injury would be suffered by the weaker combatant, the indefinite postponing for Ireland of the prospect, now so hopeful, of national development and social amelioration, a weakening of the whole United Kingdom for diplomacy or for defence. It is a policy which no Dominion in the Empire would dream of adopting—a policy which every Dominion would most certainly resist by force, just as the United States resisted ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... art should be studied again in a different spirit from that of professorial pedantry. Now, after the Thirty Years' War, there was no war in Germany in which the nation took any warm interest. The policy pursued in France during the long reign of Louis XIV. (1643-1708) had its chief aim in weakening the house of Hapsburg. When the Protestants would no longer fight his battles, Louis roused the Turks. Vienna was nearly taken, and Austria owed its delivery to Johann Sobiesky. By the treaty of Ryswick (1697), all the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... perished by the executioners, or in prisons, or in the galleys. All who could fly escaped to other countries; and those who escaped were among the most useful citizens, carrying their arts with them to enrich countries at war with France. Some two hundred thousand contrived to fly,—thus weakening the kingdom, and filling Europe with their execrations. Never did a crime have so little justification, and never was a crime followed with severer retribution. Yet Le Tellier, the chancellor, at the age of eighty, thanked God that he was permitted the exalted privilege of affixing ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... for the nurse. She tells her of the trials, the irritations, the unreason, the tiresomeness of sick people, and still women will come to the school, and forgetting the warnings, they will complain when some exasperating incident occurs. If a nurse, from overwork and the consequent weakening of her nervous energy, has lost her patience, she will be a wise woman if she drops out of nursing work for a year or more; this will probably help ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... climate and the air exceedingly oppressive; and the heat, although at that period hardly above 86 degrees in the shade, very weakening. During the warm months, which last from the end of December to May, the heat rises in the shade to 99 degrees, and in the sun to above 122 degrees. In Egypt, I bore a greater amount of heat with far greater ease; a circumstance ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... elfin mountains, tipped with snow, going range on range into the region of Myth, and beyond it into the kingdom of Fantasy, which pertain to the Lands of Dream. Long we regarded one another, knowing that we should meet no more, for my fancy is weakening as the years slip by, and I go ever more seldom into the Lands of Dream. Then we clasped hands, uncouthly on his part, for it is not the method of greeting in his country, and he commended my soul to the care of his own gods, ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... Eagle five thousand pounds; you would give up that objection. And I stand committed to no bookseller, printer, money-lender, banker, or patron whatever; and decidedly strengthen my position with my readers, instead of weakening it, drop by drop, as I otherwise must. Is it not so? and is not the way before me, plainly this? I infer that in reality you do yourself think, that what I first thought of is not the way? I have told you my scheme very badly, as I said I would. I see its great points, against ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Ladysmith was in a perilous condition. On the 28th Kimberley had been relieved, the Boer army was scattered or taken, the lines of Magersfontein were in our possession, Clements found his assailants retiring before him, Gatacre was able to advance at Stormberg, Buller had a weakening army in front of him, and Ladysmith was on the eve of relief. And all this had been done at the cost of a very moderate loss of life, for most of which Lord Roberts was in no sense answerable. Here at last was a reputation so well founded that even South African warfare could ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... moment of weakening was soon over. Her mind chafed and twisted. Why had he undertaken it—a complete stranger to her! It ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cowardice, disloyalty, selfishness, sluggishness, which are his works, and to be utterly afraid of which is to be truly brave. God grant that we of the clergy may remember this during the coming war, and instead of weakening the righteous courage and honour of our countrymen by instilling into them selfish and superstitious fears, and a theory of the future state which represents God, not as a saviour, but a tormentor, may boldly tell them that "He is not the God of the dead but ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... Palace the Archduchesss had had a moment of weakening, but the Countess had laughed away ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... affairs in beleaguered Warsaw on that fatal 6th of September when the Russian general, taking advantage of the weakening of the patriot ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... which were the flower of all the armies in the universe, without depopulating either their fields or cities by new levies; without suspending their manufactures, or disturbing the peaceful artificer; without interrupting their commerce, or weakening their navy. By venal blood they possessed themselves of provinces and kingdoms; and made other nations the instruments of their grandeur and glory, with no other expense of their own than their money; and even this ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... and soft again) Scott guessed that the coastal mountains could not be far away, and we now know that the actual distance was only 130 miles. About the same time Scott mentions that he had been afraid that they were weakening in their pulling, but he was reassured by getting a patch of good surface and finding the sledge coming as easily as of old. On the night of January 12, eight days after leaving the Last Return Party, he writes: "At camping to-night every one ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... This new disposition of the empire was followed by dissensions and intrigues against which the weak sons of Theodosius were helpless in the hands of able and unscrupulous self-seekers, the result of which was the final separation of the empire into two distinct governments and the weakening of the powers of resistance of both against those ever-increasing encroachments of the barbarians which eventually caused the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... sharp tap. The glass, practically cut loose from its case, now dropped and would have slid out to the roadway with a crash had he not dexterously caught it, to draw it into the car. Quickly he repeated the operation with the door pane at the left. A nauseating, weakening something in the car sent Helene's head spinning; she choked for breath and lay back weakly, despite her will. Shirley turned to the small glass square in the rear. This came out more easily. He lay the glass with the others, on the ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... multitude generally, He said: "He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me." Allegiance to Himself was allegiance to God; the people were plainly told that to accept Him was in no degree a weakening of their adherence to Jehovah, but on the contrary a confirmation thereof. Repeating precepts of earlier utterance, He again proclaimed Himself the light of the world, by whose rays alone mankind might be delivered from the enveloping darkness of spiritual unbelief. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... inferior race of physical, mental, and moral pigmies as the foremost inhabitants of the earth? Why could not humanity organize itself as a great unit of unselfish effort and equality, for the purpose of uplifting and strengthening all of its component parts, instead of those parts pulling down, weakening, and destroying one another in a ferocious struggle ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... occasion from the commonplace tactics of his countrymen. It was essential for him to extend his line so as to cover all the practicable ground, and to secure himself from being outflanked and charged in the rear by the Persian horse. This extension involved the weakening of his line. Instead of a uniform reduction of its strength, he determined on detaching principally from his centre, which, from the nature of the ground, would have the best opportunities for rallying, if broken; and on strengthening his wings so as to insure advantage at those points; and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... school opens again, there'll be pretty lively doings in Chester, with the squad out for drill nearly every afternoon. All of us have got to get as hard as nails, so we can stand every kind of thumping without weakening." ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... a wonderfully short time began to see matters in a brighter light. The general did not fail to explain that one of the great objects of the system from which he wished to emancipate her was that of weakening the minds of those it got into its toils to keep them in subjection. "Such was their aim in insisting on confession, on fasting, and on vigils. What is even a strong man fit for, who is deprived of his sleep and half-starved? How completely does a man become the ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... weakening. He nodded. I looked at my watch and found that it was after eleven. I drew the curtain and saw that sheets of rain were still being blown slantwise across the foggy radiance of the arc lights. There is a trace of the criminal in me. Perhaps all men feel it at times. Just then, observing ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... anti-English principles: he was far from suspecting that its source was rather a revolutionary and republican sentiment. But he had conversed with his brother-in-law on the possibility of advantages which might accrue to France from the weakening of her old foe, if French aid should enable the Americans to establish their independence. Joseph's opinion was clear and unhesitating: "I am a king; it is my business to be royalist." And he easily convinced Louis that for one sovereign to assist the ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... fact that the clergy differ concerning the most important matters. The fear that the differences of opinion which spring from freethinking may endanger the peace of society lacks foundation; on the contrary, it is only restriction of the freedom of thought which leads to disorders, by weakening moral zeal. The clergy are the only ones who condemn liberty of thought. It is sacrilege to hold that error can be beneficial and truth harmful. As a proof that freethinking by no means corrupts character, Collins gives in conclusion a list of noble ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... apt to give and to ask for weakening consolation. Sympathy in the ordinary use of the term is more weakening than anything, and it is pleasant to ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... within the enemy's lines, traveled in thirty-six hours one hundred miles, injured the Federal Government half a million dollars, caused him to collect troops at points heretofore unprotected, thereby weakening his force in front of our army. After destroying the train at Woodburn, and being closely pursued by the enemy, we swam an angry little stream known as Drake's creek, in which attempt Corporal L.H. McKinney was washed from his horse and drowned. He was indeed a gallant ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... hostile criticism of very unusual minuteness and ability, no flaw or error has been pointed out which in the slightest degree affects my main argument, and I consider that every point yet objected to by Dr. Lightfoot, or indicated by Dr. Westcott, might be withdrawn without at all weakening my position. These objections, I may say, refer solely to details, and only follow side issues, but the attack, if impotent against the main position, has in many cases been insidiously directed against notes and passing references, and a plentiful sprinkling ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... must ultimately produce a new and beautiful social order; while the Socialist, with an equal liberalism, regards the outlook with a kind of hopeful dread, and insists upon an elaborate readjustment, a new and untried scheme of social organisation to replace the shattered and weakening Normal Social Life. ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... weakening in its kind, had not been long enough to make her recovery slow; and with youth, natural strength, and her mother's presence in aid, it proceeded so smoothly as to enable her to remove, within four days after the arrival of the latter, into Mrs. Palmer's dressing-room. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... sign of weakening Doctor Ingraham favoured the queer old street with a tableau to which it long had been a stranger. And the cabinet, creeping back to reconnoitre, immediately guessed the worst. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... sent into the Baltic to interrupt his communications. Disunion among Protestants, argued Defoe, was the main cause of French greatness; if the Swedish King would not join the Confederacy of his own free will, he should be compelled to join it, or at least to refrain from weakening it. ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... perfection. The army which had enabled Radama to pursue on the whole a beneficent course, ere long began to make its creator know its power. Feeling his dependence on it, Radama adopted the unwise policy of increasing the military influence, and weakening that of the civil officials, the heads of the people, and other functionaries whose position was derived from ancient political arrangements. Public offices of honour and importance were given to military officers rather ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... new countries; too great encouragement therefore cannot be given to them to settle in our colonies: they make better settlers than our own people; and at the same time their numbers are an acquisition of real strength where they fix, without weakening the mother country. ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... got to stand on his own hind laigs, ain't he?" Hollister grunted. He was weakening, and he ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... world to himself, as yet. The birds of the morning had not begun their orisons, while the birds of the night, the owls and the corncrakes had, happily, retired before the promise of that weakening darkness which seemed nevertheless to have reached a moment of suspense—indeed, I fancied that it was darker, now, than when I had come out of the Hall a quarter ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... successively stripped of all its prerogatives, and reduced to impotence by tacit consent, would become incompetent to fulfil its purpose; and the second Union would perish, like the first, by a sort of senile inaptitude. The gradual weakening of the federal tie, which may finally lead to the dissolution of the Union, is a distinct circumstance, that may produce a variety of minor consequences before it operates so violent a change. The confederation might still ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... other devices, they succeeded in destroying life and weakening the country, so that less resistance might ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... Amidst a harvest of evil feelings the mere strength of his nature rendered him especially capable of intense feeling and generous emotion. One who relied on him was safe; one who rebelled against him trusted only to the caprice of his scorn. Still, however, for two years, love, though weakening with each hour, fought on in either breast, and could scarcely be said to be entirely vanquished in the wife, even when she eloped with her handsome seducer. A French writer has said pithily enough: "Compare for a moment the apathy of a husband with ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have been no hard matter, then, to have foretold the fate of Rome. The natural order of things was deranged to too violent an extreme to be of long duration. The state was become like a wall that had declined from the perpendicular, while age was every day weakening the cement, by which it was held together, and though of the time and hour of destruction no man knew, the event ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... since she was young and of the same delicacy of figure as Ingigerd, only of a very different race, a dark-haired, dark-eyed race, Frederick felt himself perceptibly weakening. His compassion grew; and he was well aware that openly expressed sympathy is the surest approach to love. So he again forced himself into a hard, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... one on the rock; it broke in his trembling fingers. Another—there were so few left. He drew it with infinite care on the surface of rock. The figures below tore in frenzy at the weakening barricade, while yet others stood waiting at this sign of some new ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... his cigar to reply, but thought better of it. His hold on the wheel was weakening, and he remarked to his wife that night that this should be his last active campaign. Shelby entertained a ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... had never collided with the dominant opinion of Democracy. He undoubtedly believed profoundly in the mission of his party, as an organization standing above all for popular government and the preservation of the Union. No ordinary circumstances would justify him in weakening the influence or impairing the organization of the Democratic party. Paradoxical as it may seem, his partisanship was dictated by a profound patriotism. He believed the maintenance of the Union to be dependent upon the integrity of his party. So thinking and feeling he entered upon the most ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... there a parallel to the abandoned Bahrdt. The Deists were steady in the pursuit of their game, for when they struck a path they never permitted themselves to be deflected. But the Rationalists were ever turning into some by-road and weakening their energies by traversing many a ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... a pause. George could hardly bring himself to ask the next question. Try as he would, he could not keep his voice from weakening. "Well, ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... entanglement of Buchanan's Administration with the slavery extremists had the double effect of weakening loyalty in army officers and building up rebellion among the Southern people. Instead of heeding the advice of Colonel Gardner to reenforce the forts, it removed him from command, and within two months the President ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... nature that is revealed in such a note as the following: 'A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the Spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening days; a sudden softening, a weakening of nature.' In describing this atmosphere, this too sudden softness, he uses a word frequent in the vocabulary of Shelley—'fainting.' In truth, like the great English poet, whom he seems not to have known, he seeks from the beauty ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... distinct sense of a system which abolishes private property, and places the control of the capital, labor, and combined industries of the country in the hands of the state. The essence of modern socialism is the appeal to state-help and the weakening of individual self-help. Collectivism is also a term now used by German and French writers to describe an organization of the industries of a country under a collective instead of an individual management. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... northern Gothic. Now it is a suggestion, a beginning of greatness; and its chief glory lies in the simplicity and directness of its height. Clustered columns rise plainly to the pointed Gothic roof. There is so marked an absence of carving that it seems as if ornamentation would have been weakening and trammelling. It is not bareness, but beautiful firmness, which refreshes and uplifts the heart of man as the sight of some island mountain rising ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... time for words, prepared to sell their lives dearly, believing that those of the crew who might have been loyal had been slaughtered. For some minutes they stood waiting in the darkness, and heard no sound but the moans of the steward, who was fast weakening ...
— The South Seaman - An Incident In The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... Mr Wegg returned. 'For when a person comes to grind off poetry night after night, it is but right he should expect to be paid for its weakening effect on his mind.' ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... blood was kept at its best. Added to this were the hardships of the Indian life, which resulted in the survival only of the fittest and provided the foundation for a sturdy people. But with advancing civilization one foresees the inevitable disintegration of their tribal laws, and a consequent weakening of the entire social structure, for the Indians seem to have absorbed all the evil, and to have embodied little of the ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... care of you and look after you. I'm the man. You may think you can fool me; but I can tell. You're weakening on this Freddie proposition. You're beginning to see that it won't do. One of these days you're going to come to me and say: 'George, you were right. I take the count. Me for the quiet sneak to the station, without anybody knowing, and the break for London, and the ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... restricted leisured body to which the Free Press appeals. So strict has been the boycott—and still is, though a little weakening—that the editors of, and writers upon, the Free Papers probably underestimate their own effect even now. They are never mentioned in the great daily journals. It is a point of honour with the Official ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... dismasted and rudderless as you might have thought. I'd carried that 1920 diary to my room and, before I slept, read the whole of it. This was the last word we had from the dead man; here if anywhere would be found support for the suggestions of a weakening ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... question can never be safely predicted, until you ascertain, as correctly as he can, what is the prevailing temper of the House or the nation. That he will try to "make things pleasant," to conciliate the Opposition without weakening the strength of his own party, you may be sure; but for, any further clue to his policy you must consult the press, study the spirit of Parliament, and hear the voice of the people. I know no better illustration to prove the justice ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... off easily. The German offensive for the moment was weakening. They had never fully recovered from the terrible punishment they had received during the first three days from the Canadians. They realized that a new element was barring the way to ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... will correct his defect, and it will be interesting to note whether his eyes will eventually grow into near sighted ones. I have several cases where the defective vision has been due entirely to other causes, such as inflammation of the cornea, weakening this part of the eye, and the effect in trying to see producing an elongation of the anterior portion of the eyeball, and this in turn producing myopia. The eye of the Indian does not differ materially from that of any deeply pigmented ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... effects; and these may become strongly marked in the course of time, though we have not sufficient evidence on this head. Habit in producing constitutional peculiarities, and use in strengthening, and disuse in weakening and diminishing organs, appear in many cases to have been potent in their effects. Homologous parts tend to vary in the same manner, and homologous parts tend to cohere. Modifications in hard parts and in external parts sometimes affect softer and internal parts. When one part ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... German States in Europe has some points in common with the struggle of the Independent States of North America (from 1778 to 1783), for it is directed chiefly against England's scheming guardianship, and her practice of weakening the Continental powers by sowing ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... inhumanity, the incompatibility of alien races is being steadily exaggerated. The natural tendency of every human being towards a stupid conceit in himself and his kind, a stupid depreciation of all unlikeness, is traded upon by this bastard science. With the weakening of national references, and with the pause before reconstruction in religious belief, these new arbitrary and unsubstantial race prejudices become daily more formidable. They are shaping policies and modifying laws, and ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... weakening of the ending -a in Old English to -e in Middle English. The older forms, widuwa—widuwe, became identical, and a new masculine ending was therefore added to distinguish the masculine from the feminine ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... gives a very one-sided picture of him. While cordially admitting his unselfishness, his good comradeship, his patience, and his pluck, my friend challenges me to deny that military, and especially active, service often has a brutalizing effect on the soldier, weakening his moral fibres, and causing him to sink to ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... views of man and virtue, which I can not help believing must have had great effect in weakening in their minds the old, exclusive, bigoted notions, and in paving the way for the great outburst of free thought and the great assertion of the dignity of humanity which the fifteenth century beheld. ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... now, and she could not read the look; it hid something—or else it sought for something hidden; and in its oddity—which reminded her of a blind animal dazedly seeking its path—it so nearly touched her that, with a revulsion from any hint of weakening pity for him, it made her bitterness against ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... up with resolute and grim determination stamped on every face. There would be no weakening at any spot where a Mounted Policeman ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... he had once in a dream a contest of wit with some other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining that his opponent had the better of him. "Now, (said he,) one may mark here the effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for had not my judgement failed me, I should have seen, that the wit of this supposed antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was as much furnished by me, as that which I thought I had been uttering ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... plates, as on the impact of a shot the heads or the nuts always flew off the bolts. The fracture usually took place just at the point where the screw-thread terminated. Sir William adopted the bold course of actually weakening the bolt in the middle of its length by turning it down, so that the screw stands raised up instead of being cut into the bolt, and by this simple device he changed the whole face of affairs, and the expedient applied in other ways, such as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... embodied; but the fury was of that grand order which allures rather than repels. As I felt myself succumbing to its fascination and beheld how he was weakening under it even more perceptibly than myself, I started from my chair, and sought to glide away before I should hear him utter a ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... could I lift my foot to the ice and roll over on my side, for the ledge was far too narrow for that. I had altered my position, but I had accomplished no change in my situation. It was impossible for me to rest more of my weight upon my breast than my hips had borne. My weakening arms still had to sustain it, and the river was going its swirling way below me, just as it had gone in the beginning. I had not helped myself ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... into an assembly of notables. Alexander III. determined to adopt the opposite policy. He at once cancelled the ukaz before it was published, and in the manifesto announcing his accession to the throne he let it be very clearly understood that he had no intention of limiting or weakening the autocratic power which he had inherited from his ancestors. Nor did he afterwards show any inclination to change his mind. All the internal reforms which he initiated were intended to correct what he considered as the too liberal tendencies of the previous reign, so that he left ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... again honouring Alexander, got themselves honoured on the same grounds. Dionysius on the contrary pulling Gelon to pieces, and calling him the Gelos[787] of Sicily, was not aware that through his envy he was weakening the importance and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... tiresome as possible," she said, addressing her special ally, Maggie. "There, Mag, you need not stare at me. Your brain will get as small as ever again if you don't take care, and I know staring in that stupid way you have is particularly weakening to the brain. You had better help George to pack up, for I suppose Nell is right, and we must all begin to think of getting home. Oh, dear, what a worry it is to have to put up with the whims of other people. Yes, I understand at last why father hesitated to allow the strangers ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... employed. He and I are agreed that the tribulations of the present time can be traced to two disasters only—the lack of goodwill—as shown in the proletariat, whose leaders teach them to respect nobody, and the weakening hold of religion as also revealed in the proletariat. Now, to combat these things and set a good example is our duty—nay, our privilege. Don't ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... Ride'—with that touch of natural feeling at the end, to prove that it was not in brutal carelessness that the poor horse was driven through all that suffering ... yes, and how that one touch of softness acts back upon the energy and resolution and exalts both, instead of weakening anything, as might have been expected by the vulgar of writers or critics. And then 'Saul'—and in a first place 'St. Praxed'—and for pure description, 'Fortu' and the deep 'Pictor Ignotus'—and the noble, serene 'Italy in England,' which grows on you the more you know of it—and that delightful ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... cell already described have its terminals connected by a wire for some time, it will be found that the current rapidly weakens until it ceases to be manifest. This weakening results from two causes: first, the hydrogen gas which is liberated in the action of the cell is deposited in a layer on the copper plate, thereby covering the plate and reducing the area of contact with the liquid. This increases ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... was fighting for time, anxious now to have the game called a draw, so that they might have another chance on their home grounds. Such yelling as took place. Harmony was loudly accused of weakening, and trying to crawl out of a tight hole. Loud calls were made for Big Bob at bat to knock one over the fence and lose the ball ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... close of his speech (Appendix 2), presents an idea, first in general terms, and then in specific terms, thus: "No contrivance can prevent the effect of...distance in weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the execution, and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system." Find elsewhere in Burke's speech and in the ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... continued. The stubbornness of the men, far from showing signs of wilting under the strain of so many weeks of enforced idleness and suffering, seemed to be gathering strength, while our own people, the manufacturers, were frankly weakening. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... part led to the demand for Emancipation and in part resulted from it, further removed the differences between Jew and non-Jew, at least from the standpoint of the former, and further removed him from his religious and historical past, perceptibly weakening and in many cases practically destroying the medieval sense of solidarity. Each Jew adopted the culture of his native country, and so one Jew became virtually a foreigner to another. Haskalah, in a word, is a looking outward on the part of the Jew; for all its virtues this movement ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... compass of the microscopic hair of a plant, which we commonly regard as a merely passive organism, is not easily forgotten by one who has watched its display, continued hour after hour, without pause or sign of weakening. The possible complexity of many other organic forms, seemingly as simple as the protoplasm of the nettle, dawns upon one; and the comparison of such a protoplasm to a body with an internal circulation, which has been put forward by an eminent physiologist, loses much of ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... your opponent know you are worried. Never show fatigue or pain if it is possible to avoid, since it will only give him confidence. Remember that he feels just as bad as you, and any sign of weakening on your part encourages him to go on. In other words, keep your teeth always ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... during wind storms. Rod connections are preferred, however, when rigidity is required, as in unions made close to the crotch; but for tying two branches together before they have shown signs of weakening at the fork, the chain may best be used, as the point of attachment may be placed some distance from the crotch, where the flexibility factor will be important and the strain comparatively small. Elms in an advanced stage of maturity, if subjected to severe climatic ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... war, and by their firm opposition, which they by and by induced the Poles and Yugoslavs to imitate, they brought about a permanent political deadlock, menacing Austria's very existence internally and weakening her resistance externally. ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... primary emotions retain the original impulse, but increase their volume. Grief and disappointment are transmuted into tenderness, sympathy, and endurance. The reason, as it develops, regulates, without weakening, the primitive instincts. All the greatest, and therefore most common, sights of nature are indelibly associated with 'admiration, hope, and love;' and all increase of knowledge and power is regarded as a means for furthering the gratification ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... 1). I suspect that this anecdote belongs to ante, April 14, when 'Johnson was not in the most genial humour.' Boswell, while showing that Mrs. Piozzi misrepresented an incident of that evening 'as a personality,' would be afraid of weakening his case by letting it be seen that Johnson on that occasion was very personal. Since writing this I have noticed that Dr. T. Campbell records in his Diary, p. 53, that on April 1, 1775, he was dining at Mr. Thrale's with Boswell, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... considerable reinforcements were sent to the apparently hard-pressed left wing, and a distinct weakening of the centre took place, without a clear idea having been formed as to the intention of the Russians. Heideck's conviction was that such probably had been the Russian tactics. He was of opinion that they probably ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... which their ancestors had lived for many centuries taken from them. The descriptions of the scenes attending their leave-taking of the hills and glens they loved with such passionate fervor are among the most pathetic in history. Strong men who had met the ravage of a brutal sword without weakening abandoned themselves to the agony of sorrow. They kissed the walls of their houses. They flung themselves on the ground and embraced the sod upon which they had walked in freedom. They called their broken farewells to the peaks ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... render du Bousquier both ridiculous and odious for a time; but ridicule ends by weakening; when all had said their say about him, the gossip died out. Besides, at fifty-seven years of age the dumb republican seemed to many people to have a right to retire. This affair, however, envenomed the hatred which du Bousquier ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... not be for very long,—it can't be," said Mrs. Carey wistfully. "The telegram only said 'symptoms of typhoid'; but these low fevers sometimes last a good while and are very weakening, so I may not be able to bring father back for two or three weeks; I ought to be in Fortress Monroe day after to-morrow; you must take turns ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... trust, and fear are opposite poles. If a man has the one, he can scarcely have the other in vigorous operation. He that has his trust set upon God does not need to dread anything except the weakening or the paralysing of that trust; for so long as it lasts it is a talisman which changes evil into good, the true philosopher's stone which transmutes the baser metals into gold; and, so long as it lasts, God's shield is round him and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... under the show of legitimacy. The former class demanded a distinct recognition of the right of subjects to dethrone bad princes. The latter class desired to rid the country of one bad prince, without promulgating any doctrine which might be abused for the purpose of weakening the just and salutary authority of future monarchs. The former class dwelt chiefly on the King's misgovernment; the latter on his flight. The former class considered him as having forfeited his crown; the latter as having resigned it. It was not easy to draw up any form ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
