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Wear and tear   /wɛr ənd tɛr/   Listen
Wear and tear

noun
1.
Decrease in value of an asset due to obsolescence or use.  Synonym: depreciation.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wear and tear" Quotes from Famous Books



... each day they stand wear and tear, and each new person they satisfy, is another day and another voice towards showing they do correspond to something that is so far ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... frozen down to its rocky bottom—a dead stream of solid white from source to mouth. The she-wolf was trotting wearily along, her mate well in advance, when she came upon the overhanging, high clay-bank. She turned aside and trotted over to it. The wear and tear of spring storms and melting snows had underwashed the bank and in one place had made a small cave out of ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... Mr. Chuggins. "And it is saving me a lot of trouble and wear and tear. When your friends tell you jokes about your car they don't expect you to ask ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... have floors that can be used either way, with rugs or without, with matting, with carpets, or with nothing at all but their own unadorned loveliness. Those in the chambers, where there is not much wear and tear, may be of common clear pine, and we can paint or stain a border around the edges. The others ought to be of harder wood, and, as they will last as long as we shall need floors, we can afford to have them cost rather more than a good carpet, perhaps thirty ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... dressed in "linsey woolsey," while the boys of all ages wore buckskin pantaloons and hickory shirts. Now, buckskin is well calculated to stand the wear and tear of even a robust boy. Yet there were awkward drawbacks. The legs of the pantaloons absorbed too much moisture from the dew-bedecked grass and they would stretch out to almost any length. The boy, therefore, must roll them up at the bottom. Arrived at school, however, the drying ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... seems likely to do, it will try severely even the soundest constitutions. Hence it is becoming of especial importance that the training of children should be so carried on, as not only to fit them mentally for the struggle before them, but also to make them physically fit to bear its excessive wear and tear. ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... least a thousand years old; while at many cross-roads among the fields, and in all manner of unexpected nooks and corners of the villages, crucifixes are erected to accommodate the devotionally inclined. Most of the streets of these interior villages are paved with square stones which the wear and tear of centuries have generally rendered too rough for the bicycle; but occasionally one is ridable, and the astonishment of the inhabitants as I wheel leisurely through, whistling the solemn strains of "Roll, Jordan, roll," is really quite amusing. Every village of any size boasts ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... (other things equal) in increased fertility. His chapters on this subject in the "Principles of Biology" should be read by everybody who pretends to talk on questions of population. But in new and difficult colonies the increase is slight. Whatever compels greater wear and tear of the nervous system proves inimical to the reproductive function. The strain and stress of co-ordination with novel circumstances and novel relations affect most injuriously the organic balance. The African negro has long ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... well-mannered figure of speech. To serve as a deterrent, the penalty must strike the point where vests the discretion; but servile use and wont is still too well intact in these premises to let any penalty touch the guilty core of a profligate dynasty. Under the wear and tear of continued war and its incident continued vulgarisation of the directorate and responsible staff among the pacific allies, the conventional respect of persons is likely to suffer appreciable dilapidation; but there need be no apprehension of such ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, had made in exact imitation of the standard weight established by the deified Dungi, an earlier king." The stone now weighs 978.309 grammes, which, making the requisite deductions for the wear and tear of time, would give 980 grammes, or rather more than 2 pounds 2 ounces avoirdupois. The Babylonian maneh, as fixed by Dungi and Nebuchadnezzar, thus agrees in weight rather with the Hebrew maneh of gold than with the "royal" ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... was insignificant in this battle. The most remarkable feature in Caesar's campaigns, and that which indicates most clearly his greatness as a commander, was the smallness of the number of men that he ever lost, either by the sword or by wear and tear. No general was ever so ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... first officers, wireless operators and artillerymen, engineers are needed. Each man, too, must be a "seadog." Some of the smaller submarines toss like tubs when they reach the ocean and only toughened seamen can stand the "wear and tear." Hence the weeks and months which are necessary to put the men in order before they leave home for their first excursion in ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman

... each was too conscious of what the other was thinking and fearing. They did not meet each other's eyes with those mute demands in them any more; but they stole stealthy glances sometimes each to see how the other face looked; what tokens of wear and tear it was showing; taking in at a rapid view the lines of weariness, the marks of anxiety, the faded colour, the languor of spirit which had gradually taken the place of the earlier energy. In word and action ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... this wear and tear of sails Ronne was occupied the whole time, both at sea and in Buenos Aires, in making and patching sails, as there was not much more than the leeches left of those that had been used, and on the approaching trip (to the Ice ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... appearance of his guide, on the contrary, was that of the class who dwell on the extreme borders of poverty, but who there maintain their ground with no surrender. His old blouse, patched with pieces of different shades, indicated the perseverance of an industrious mother struggling against the wear and tear of time; his trousers were become too short, and showed his stockings darned over and over again; and it was evident that his shoes ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... passengers seventy miles there, and bring them seventy miles back, at a cost of 18 1s. 8d. Six hundred passengers at a shilling is 30, so that there would be a clear profit to the company of nearly 12 on the haulage, towards the payment of interest on the capital, wear and tear of line, &c. But I reckon, at a very moderate computation, that two hundred thousand persons would travel to and fro every season. An addition of 10,000 to the exchequer of a railway company is not to be despised and this would be a mere bagatelle to the indirect profits which would ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... anything further of Silas Pomeroy. Indeed, so many years have rolled away since the occurrence of the events above narrated; years pregnant with great events to the American Republic; events, I am proud to say, in which I bore my part: that the wear and tear of life had nearly obliterated all memory of the episode from my mind, until, as detailed in the opening paragraphs of this story, I saw "Gagtooth's Image," from the top of a Thornhill omnibus. That image is now in my possession, and no extremity less urgent than that under which it was ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... effects of the disuse of any particular organ, an important part in causing variability. We can see in a vague manner that, when the organised and nutrient fluids of the body are not used during growth, or by the wear and tear of the tissues, {258} they will be in excess; and as growth, nutrition, and reproduction are intimately allied processes, this superfluity might disturb the due and proper action of the reproductive organs, and consequently affect the character of the future offspring. But it ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... that bad?" asked Mr. Taylor, quite ruefully. "Well, I daresay it's to be expected. I've been plodding around on the bottom of the lake for a year and the wear and tear is enormous. For months I was frozen stiff as a rail. Then summer came along and I was warmed up a bit. The terrible cold snap we're having just now almost caught me before I got out of the water. The trouble was, I lost my bearings and wandered miles and miles out into the lake. Then ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... right,' said the Honourable Jane; 'we will soon move you.' Then she turned and saw me. I was in the most nondescript khaki, a non-com's jacket which I had caught up on leaving the tent, and various odds and ends of my outfit which had survived the wear and tear of the campaign. Also I was dusty with a long gallop. 'Here, serjeant,' she said, 'lend a hand with this poor fellow. I can't have him disturbed just now.' That was Jane's only comment on the passing of a shell ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... he may arrest for a time so prolonged as to appear incredible, if I said it—that hardening of the parts which constitutes old age. A year may age him no more than an hour ages another. His intense will, scientifically trained into system, operates, in short, over the wear and tear of his own frame. He lives on. That he may not seem a portent and a miracle, he dies from time to time, seemingly, to certain persons. Having schemed the transfer of a wealth that suffices to his wants, he disappears from one corner of the world, and contrives that ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... intercourse with us might still be dangerous to the peace of one heart; and in his inner conviction he believed that it might be. He only looked at Val; the yearning face, the tearful eyes; and in that moment it occurred to the doctor that something more than the ordinary wear and tear of life had worn the once smooth brow, brought streaks of silver to ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... while the future may bring forth amplified editions of the work, it will probably never be superseded. Recognizing its importance, the publishers have given it faultless form. The typography leaves nothing to be desired, the paper is calculated to stand wear and tear, and the work is at once handsomely and attractively bound."—New York ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... delight in the other's presence. When she met him, she thrilled to the delicate fingertips. Herminia had planned it so of set purpose. In her reasoned philosophy of life, she had early decided that 'tis the wear and tear of too close daily intercourse which turns unawares the lover into the husband; and she had determined that in her own converse with the man she loved that cause of disillusion should never intrude itself. They conserved ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... a mistake, even for an opulent woman. They get out of fashion, and excepting for a girl going out to many balls they are entirely unnecessary. A girl who is dancing needs to be perpetually renewed, for she should be always fresh, and the "wear and tear" of the cotillion is enormous. There is nothing so poor as a dirty, faded, and patched-up ball-dress; the dancer had better stay ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... concession, or contract, or whatever else it was, on the north-east frontier, leaving his wife to follow and rejoin him in the Himalayas as soon as she had exhausted the sights of India. So, after a few dusty weeks of wear and tear on the Indian railways, we met him once more in the recesses of Nepaul, where he was busy constructing a light local line ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... rockets, and signal fires, necessary for service. Besides this, room is to be provided for the stowage of fresh rigging, sails, ropes, cables, and yards, to replace those lost by accident, battle, or wear and tear. Besides this, too, there is to be a provision for the hospital. So far for the mere necessaries of the ship. Then we are to regard the science; for nothing can be more essential than the skill ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... their peculiar attractiveness. The two essential qualities, namely, brilliancy and hardness, are only possessed by certain rare minerals; a brilliancy which makes them unrivaled for ornamental purposes and a hardness which protects them from wear and tear and makes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various

... find, do we not find, my friends, in practice, that our Lord's words are true? Who are the people who get through most work in their lives, with the least wear and tear, not merely to their bodily health, but to their tempers and their characters? Are they the anxious people? Those who imagine to themselves possible misfortunes, and ask continually—What if this happened—or that? What would become of me then? ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... physically and I knew I was sound everywhere. I wasn't sure how long I could keep sound and continue drinking. So I decided to stop drinking and keep sound. I noticed that a good many men of the same age as myself and the same habits as myself were beginning to show signs of wear and tear. A number of them blew up with various disconcerting maladies and a number more died. Soon after I was forty years of age I noticed I began to go to funerals oftener than I had been doing—funerals of men between forty and forty-five I had known socially and convivially; that these funerals occurred ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe

... to practical uses, essential to our social conversation and the comforts of our daily life. No fame is asked by the inventor, and none is given to him; he enjoys an occupation congenial to his tastes, and needing no wear and tear of the passions. Man must have exercise for his mind as well as body; and continuous exercise, rather than violent, is best for both. Our most ingenious cultivators of science are, as a general rule, the longest lived and the most free from disease. Painting is an amusement to many, but the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... I could sell my small, shrinking and flat-chested steamer trunk —original value in New York eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents—for what it cost me over on the other side in registration fees, excess charges, mental wear and tear, freightage, forwarding and warehousing bills, tips, bribes, indulgences, and acts of barratry and piracy, I should be able to laugh in the income tax's face. In this connection I would suggest to the tourist who is traveling ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... six, seven, or eight days getting to the straits, a distance of forty miles only. These are considerations worthy of the attention of merchants, the length of the voyage not being the sole source of annoyance, since vessels taking cargoes at Aden save the great wear and tear occasioned in their return down ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... remember, more than that, the terrible and physically demoralising strain she has been under in the line of duty. No human mind can remain healthy very long under such circumstances; no reasoning can be normal. The small daily vexations, the wear and tear of nerve tissue, the insufficient sleep and nourishment, the close confinement in the hospital atmosphere, the sights, sounds, odours, the excitement, the anxiety—all combine to distort reason ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... the solitary drawing-room, thinking over the disappointment and loss, severely felt for his own sake, and far more for the poor young mother, threatened with so grievous a trial at an age when sorrow is usually scarcely known, and when she had well-nigh sunk under the ordinary wear and tear of married life. She had been so utterly cast down and wretched at the sight of the child's suffering, that it was fearful to imagine what it would be when there would be ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and the "Life" room of the Art School. The capital outlay should, therefore, be L994. In making a fair estimate of the annual cost, we should also allow something for percentage on capital, and something for wear and tear. Take— ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... case was precisely of that order: he had been worried by a long session of Parliament, which adds the crowning irritation in the interruption of sleep. The nervous system, ploughed up by intense wear and tear, is denied the last resource of natural relief. In this crisis, already perilous, a new tempest was called in—of all the most terrific—the tempest of anxiety: and from what source? Anxiety from fear, is bad: from hope delayed, is bad: but worst of all ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... than in the "sitting room," while callers, when they came formally, were kept to the "parlour," a place of formidable polish and discomfort. The upholstery of the library furniture was a little shabby; but the hostile chairs and sofa of the "parlour" always looked new. For all the wear and tear they got they should have ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... be afraid I'll ask too much money for her," interposed Charlie. "All I want is enough to pay for any possible damages, and for reasonable wear and tear. We'll talk ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young

... considered almost as effective as when the expedition left England; the wear and tear having been trifling, and the quantity of stores remaining on board being amply sufficient, in all probability, for a much longer period than the provisions and fuel. The health of the officers and men continued also as good, or nearly so, as at the commencement of the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... persistently; yet, on the other hand, she was convinced that Adela had been so deeply shocked by the revelations of Hubert's wickedness that her moral nature would be in arms against her lingering inclination. After much mental wear and tear, she decided to adopt the strong course of asking Alfred's assistance. Alfred was sure to view the proposed match with hearty approval, and, though he might not have much influence directly, he could in all probability secure a ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... and you know it. Now I'm resting, or loafing, if you prefer to call it that, and"—he bit off the words and fairly threw them at his friend—"it will save you and Epstein and Haxon a lot of mental wear and tear if you will mind your own business ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan

... I lay on my spar, warmed into meagre life by the sun, and tortured at first with the angry clamour of an empty stomach, for it was full twenty hours since I had eaten, and the wear and tear alone would have needed very full supplies to make good. But in time the bitter hunger gave place to a sick emptiness which I essayed to stay by chewing bits of floating seaweed. And this, and the drying of my body by the sun, brought on a furious ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... not told for its intrinsic merits, but because it illustrates the difference of method between English and German women. The German with much wear and tear of body and spirit washes her own lace curtains. She saves a little money, and spends a great deal of time over them. The Englishwoman, when she possibly can, likes to spend her time in a different way. In both countries there are admirable housekeepers, and middling housekeepers, and extremely ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... years of experience have prescribed. Many physicians refuse to verify the waters' virtues; some openly scoff. But the fact stands that every year hundreds who come helpless cripples walk jauntily to the station on their departure, and many thousands of sufferers from rheumatic ills and the wear and tear of strenuous living return to their homes restored. I myself can testify to the surprising recuperative effect of only half a dozen daily baths, and I know business men who habitually go there whenever the stress of overwork demands measures ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... anticipates. "A quarter's" mathematics, or "two quarters" political economy, moral philosophy, algebra, and quadratic equations, would seldom, I should think, enable the teacher and the scholar, by their joint efforts, to lay in such a stock of these sciences as would stand the wear and tear of half a score of children, and ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... name to be found among these islands. In the olden times Lahaina, on the island of Maui, was the city of the king, and the recognized capital in the palmy days of the whale fishery. This settlement is now going to ruin, tumbling to pieces by wear and tear of the elements, forming a rude picture of decay. Should the Panama Canal be completed, it would prove to be of great advantage to these islands, as they lie in the direct course which a great share of navigation must follow. The aggregate ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... Huxley, in his Physiography, has estimated that "at the present rate of wear and tear, denudation can have lowered the surface of the Thames Basin by hardly more than an inch since the Norman Conquest; and nearly a million years must elapse before the whole basin of the Thames will be worn down to the sea-level"; and Dr. A. Geikie, after ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... as this over a small side-issue, what would he be like when he had done adding that luster to the constitutional edifice which the nation in its crisis would presently be demanding of him? The wear and tear ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... were mostly, like Sokrates, men of robust health, and if they put their physical constitution to a severe test by poor living and exposure to wind and weather, they also saved it from the wear and tear of steady industry and toil. Exercise of body and of mind, with a view to strength and endurance, was enjoined; but it was the drill of the soldier rather than the drudgery ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... Mr. Peters, suavely, "should the Finance Committee require it, I am prepared to submit the vouchers which show how much wear and tear on a house is required to raise eighty dollars for ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... such convenient spot, where a large number of natives are busily engaged in building them into one of those huge rafts so constantly met with on the river. These rafts have a long journey before them, and constantly grounding as they do, no ropes would hold them together through all the wear and tear of their weeks upon the water, so instead of ropes rattan is used. This is a peculiarly long, tough, and flexible cane, which grows all over the forests, and is often a hundred yards or more in length. The logs are mostly of teak (about which I will tell you more presently) and ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly

... Like a miser he hid the product, down, down, amid heaps of household rubbish in an uncared for nook by the chimney, and only drew it forth to add to its value when there was no witness that could betray him. It was a worthless-looking thing, that old leather portfolio, with the wear and tear of years upon it; but the boy felt a sort of inward consciousness that the gloomy and dismal hiding-place beneath the refuse truck was not its irrevocable destiny; and this feeling buoyed him up when he was inclined to despondency or sadness, and kept him busy with his new labor during ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... then forwarded to a destination known only to the supreme authorities of the concern. As for Tientietnikov's adhesion, it was brought about by the two friends already alluded to as "embittered"—good-hearted souls whom the wear and tear of their efforts on behalf of science, civilisation, and the future emancipation of mankind had ended by converting into confirmed drunkards. Perhaps it need hardly be said that Tientietnikov soon discovered ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... country has presented me with one pair of excellent marching-boots. But a hospital ward is no place in which to go clumping about in footgear designed to stand hard wear and tear on the high-roads; and my army boots, after two years, have not yet needed re-soling. I wore them, it is true, during my period of service with the Chain Gang, as a squad of outdoor orderlies, engaged in road-making, ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... at all hazards, misses the quiet joys of life to which the wealth he pursues in such hot haste is merely the means, breaks down in early or middle life, and destroys the physical basis on which both work and enjoyment depend. To undertake more than we can do without excessive wear and tear and without permanent injury to health and strength is wrong. Laziness is the more ignoble vice; but the folly of overwork is equally apparent, and its results are equally disastrous. Laziness is a rot that consumes the base elements of society. Overwork is a tempest ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... gradually—say an inch or two inches in the course of a century,—what would be the practical effect of that movement? Why, that the sediment A and B which has been already deposited, would eventually be brought nearer to the shore-level and again subjected to the wear and tear of the sea; and directly the sea begins to act upon it, it would of course soon cut up and carry it way, to a greater or less extent, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... Lee-Enfield bullet (150 grs. as against 215 grs.), and when fired with a heavier charge of powder (51 grs. as against 31 grs.) gives, it is claimed, better results in muzzle-velocity, trajectory, deflexion from wind and wear and tear of rifling, than the present universally used cylinder-shaped bullet. In 1906 details of its prototype, the German "S'' bullet (Spitzgeschoss), and of the French "D'' bullet, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... It is as though we found ourselves in a vast hall, filled to repletion with machinery in every condition of motion, from the slowest and scarcely perceptible movements of the hour hand of a watch up to the incalculable rapidity of a fly-wheel. All is flux, change, consumption of energy, wear and tear of the machinery itself. We know it must run down sometime, we know one day it must all be renewed. But amid all this instability we are well aware that there is a secret source of power, a centre whence ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... dear, old Barnstaple has served me afloat and ashore these four-and-twenty years, and he's a little the worse for wear and tear. In a cutting-out affair his sword warded off the blow that would have sacrificed my life. We ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... her that every course of study is trying, and that one can never attain a result with out paying some price for it. When she sees the sensation which my forthcoming paper on "The Relation between Mind and Matter" may make, she will understand that it is worth a little nervous wear and tear. I should not be surprised if I got my F. R. S. ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the House of Lords. It would be all but impossible for the House of Commons to maintain this position if it were doomed to frequent and inevitable dissolutions. Frequent dissolution of Parliament means frequently recurring cost, struggle, anxiety, wear and tear, to the members; and; of course, it meant all this in much higher measure during the reign of George the Second than it could mean in the reign of Victoria. Walpole had {12} devoted himself to the task of strengthening ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... pretty and ingenious things one does (not wear out in honourable wear and tear, but) utterly lose, and wilfully destroy, in one's young days—things that would have given pleasure to so many more young eyes, if they had been kept a little longer—things that one would so value in later years, if some of them had survived ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... tenants, coverin' up the suite, but you've no call to do it. You wouldn't be likely to soil it much, and I always say when you let a house furnished, you can't expect it to continue without wear and tear; so don't, please, bother to cover it with those old things. Lor' bless me, it takes me back to see it! It was my first suite after I married Mr. Gurrage, and we had a pretty place on Balham Hill. We put it here because Augustus ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... notebook each successive visit of Dr. Fiddler, and, consulting it from time to time, had no difficulty in realising that he came high. Twenty-one visits, at ten dollars a visit, that's what it amounted to, say nothing of the drug bill, the extra-food bill, the night-nurse's wages, and the wear and tear on the nerves of his wife, himself—and Melissa. For, it would appear, Melissa had nerves as well as the rest of them, and Uncle Joe was the very worst thing in the world for Melissa's nerves. She very frequently said so, and sometimes ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... manner in us, caught from the social atmosphere, kept up by tradition, and idealized by many as the admirable way of life, are the last straws that break the American camel's back, the final overflowers of our measure of wear and tear and fatigue. ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... other floats. Nevertheless, every breeze strains the bridge a little, every tide does something to weaken its foundations; every change of temperature alters the adjustment of its parts, produces friction and consequent wear and tear. From time to time, the bridge must be repaired, just as the ironclad must go into dock; simply because nature is always tending to reclaim that which her child, man, has borrowed from her and has arranged in combinations which are not those ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... of mental wear and tear for the bride-elect to go through in the few weeks immediately before her marriage, and it is a pity that it should be so. The fuss and display at an up-to-date wedding make it a thing to quail before. Dress has become so extravagant and ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux

... channel unless ice co-operated as a transporting power. Their angularity also favours the supposition of their having been floated by ice, or rendered so buoyant by it as to have escaped much of the wear and tear which blocks propelled along the bottom of a river channel would otherwise suffer. We must remember that the present mildness of the winters in Picardy and the northwest of Europe generally is exceptional in the northern hemisphere, and that large fragments of granite, sandstone, ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... descendants and others for many years. While it is doubtful if a single article now in existence can be positively identified and truthfully certified as having made the memorable voyage in the MAY-FLOWER (nearly everything having, of course, gone to decay with the wear and tear of more than two hundred and fifty years), this honorable origin is still assigned to many heirlooms, to some probably correctly. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes in his delightful lines, "On Lending a Punch Bowl," humorously claims ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... certain amount of nourishment according to the work performed and to replenish wear and tear; when food is supplied in excess, the system cannot utilize it, but it is compelled to rid itself of the excess in some way. The work involved in this eliminating process is exceedingly detrimental to ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... worthy father was obviously a Frenchman born and bred (I became more and more persuaded of his resemblance to my confessor)—he was a true son of Rome; when he did lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners, with more and sharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could survive the wear and tear of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was a ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... pavement too! The only thing to survive the wreck is the sewing-machine. The only thing that I know among the many things supplied to the poor on the hire system that is the least bit likely to stand the wear and tear is the machine. Doubtless the poor pay highly for it; still it is comforting to know that in this one direction the poor are supplied with good articles. And the poor respect their machines, as the poor always respect things that ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... on a windy hill, lie a little grey church and a quiet churchyard. At all seasons high winds from the North Sea blow over the graves and fret and eat away the soft grey sandstone of which the plain headstones are made. So great is the wear and tear of these winds that comparatively recent monuments look like those which have stood for centuries. On one of these stones lies a recumbent figure, with what looks not unlike a lance clasped in the hand and laid across the breast. Involuntarily one thinks of the stone Crusaders, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... an amount that would go far toward the construction and maintenance of a road of the very best quality only thirty feet wide. Furthermore, while it is impossible to estimate such items exactly, and while the amount thus saved cannot be controlled for the road-making account, the saving in the wear and tear of vehicles, and in the team force needed to move heavy loads, constitutes an important argument in favor of the best construction. The amount thus saved in the short streets of the village, where the principal traffic is over rough country roads, would not be very great, but it would ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring

... sitting in a chair set well back from a small fire—she half-whispered "Miche" with a fine, greeting smile, as if to a brother after a week's absence. To a person forced to lie abed, shut away from occupation and events, a day is ten, three are a month: not merely in the wear and tear upon the patience, but also in the amount of thinking and recollecting done. It was to be expected, then, that on this, the apothecary's fourth visit, Palmyre would have learned to take pleasure in ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... his. He was always falling in love, and then using his diplomatic skill in avoiding the consequences. He had found out that though one girl had looked so well under waxlight she did not endure the wear and tear of the day. Another could not be always graceful, or, though she could talk well enough during a waltz, she had nothing to say for herself at three o'clock in the morning. And he was driven to calculate that he would be wrong to marry a girl without a shilling. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... dawn she spread a light film of clouds over the stars, from which she first puffed a stiff dust-cleansing breeze and then proceeded to sprinkle a good washing shower which took away the last trace of wear and tear of the past hot days, so by the time she brought the sun out for a final shine up, the village looked like it had been having a most professional laundering. And after an hour or two of his warm encouragement, the roses lifted their buds and began to blow out with joyous exuberance. ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... of us had turned out that morning immediately the Hun bombardment started. No sleep could be looked for that night either; but there was the morrow, March 22nd, to be reckoned with—it might entail even more wear and tear than the day which was ending; so I sent back to the waggon lines all but six of the signallers, the brigade clerks, the two wireless operators, who had nothing whatever to do, and most of the servants, telling them to get as much sleep as possible. The colonel's servant was still ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... five thousand years back said in controversy on this subject, that 'the clock was not made to go for ever;' by which he meant that human bodies, like the materials of machines, wore out by lapse of time. In his day this was true, since it was impossible fully to repair the waste and physical wear and tear of the human frame. This is no longer so. The clock does not wear out, but it goes more and more slowly and irregularly, and stops at last for some reason that the most skilful inspection cannot discover. The body of him who dies, as we say, 'by efflux of time' at the age of fifty is as perfect ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... said L.O. doth agree to take the said house (and garden) of the said R.A. for the term and rent payable in manner aforesaid; and that he will, at the expiration of the term, leave the house in as good repair as he found it [reasonable wear and tear excepted]. The said R.A. to be at liberty to re-enter, if any rent shall be in arrear for 21 days, whether such rent has been demanded or not. Witness our hands. R.A. L.O. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... time had she any other thought than the combination of various plans to this end. The faculty of self-concentration seen in rough, uneducated persons, explained on a previous page, the reserve power accumulated in those whose mental energies are unworn by the daily wear and tear of social life, and brought into action so soon as that terrible weapon the "fixed idea" is brought into play,—all this was pre-eminently manifested in La Cibot. Even as the "fixed idea" works miracles of evasion, and brings ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... kind to her children, whether they are old or young; and during those restful times she builds up what the learned folks call tissue, and strengthens mind and muscle, fitting the said children for the wear and tear that is to go on again the ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... arrival and passage of the month of September, during which no appreciable progress was made in the operations before Port Arthur, even the unexampled patience and superb stoicism thus far displayed by the Japanese as a people showed signs of the wear and tear to which they had so long been subjected, and murmurings at General Nogi's apparent non-success began to make themselves heard. The casualty lists seemed to grow ever longer with the passage of the days, without any visible result, except that Nogi contrived to retain ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... boast, when he insisted on the recognition of the Spanish republics in South America—that he had called a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old. This is one of the sayings—of which sort many another might be found—that make the fortune of a rhetorician, yet stand ill the wear and tear of time and circumstance. The new world that Canning called into existence has so far turned out ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... visitor at Eden Farm, Beckenham, the seat of Lord Auckland. It was on the way to Holwood, and the cheerful society of that large family afforded a relief from cares of state not to be found in his bachelor household. His circle of friends, never large, had somewhat diminished with the wear and tear of politics. His affection for Wilberforce, perhaps, had not quite regained its former fervour. As for the vinous society of Dundas, a valuable colleague but a far from ideal companion, Pitt must in his better moments have held it cheap. He rarely saw his mother, far away in Somerset; and probably ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... evidenced by its maintenance grants, is to discourage women students from entering residential colleges. Yet it is a well-known fact that the wear and tear involved in living at home is far greater than at college—especially for women—and the educational advantages correspondingly fewer than ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... drains being out of sight, it is morally certain that defects will exist, or be caused by wear and tear, unseen. In one place evil liquids and gases will percolate; in another evil accumulations will putrefy. Instead of blending small portions of needful manure quickly with small portions of earth that needs it, we secure ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... diversity of power. It is the complement of the entire system; a system which appears to want nothing but a thorough loyalty in the persons composing its several parts, with a reasonable intelligence, to insure its bearing, without fatal damage, the wear and tear of ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... when the singer was an insufficient musician. Evelyn was an excellent musician.... If a woman had the loveliest voice, and was as great a musician as Wagner himself, it would profit her nothing if she had not the strength to stand the wear and tear of rehearsals. He looked at Evelyn, and calculated her physical strength. She was a rather tall and strongly-built girl, but the Wagnerian bosom was wanting. He had always considered a large bosom to be a dreadful deformity. A bosom ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... Puteoli is undoubtedly the best preserved and the most interesting. So splendidly constructed is this relic of the past, that but for continuous shocks of earthquake the whole breakwater must have survived intact; as it is, more than half the Mole has withstood the wear and tear of centuries of wind and storm. It is built on the model of a Greek pier, a series of arches of massive masonry, acting at once as a barrier against the force of the invading waves and as a means of preventing the silting of ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... Don Quixote, "does not apply to me, for I always go well dressed and never patched; ragged I may be, but ragged more from the wear and tear of arms than ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... do know them, when I am at fault; but I know these people about here, fathers and mothers, and children and grandchildren, so as all the science in the world can't know them, without it takes time about it, and sees them grow up and grow old, and how the wear and tear of life comes to them. You can't tell a horse by driving him once, Mr. Langdon, nor a patient by talking half ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... frame. His labours began, perhaps, to tell against him. In earlier life he had been as active as a hunter of the chamois, and the hardy exercise of his frame counteracted the effects of a restless and ardent mind. The change from an athletic to a sedentary habit of life—the wear and tear of the brain—the absorbing passion for knowledge which day and night kept all his faculties in a stretch; made strange havoc in a constitution naturally strong. The poor author! how few persons understand; and forbear with, and pity him! He sells ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ascended the Rotung Pass, and on the 13th he crossed the famous Twig Bridge over the river Chandra. It is remarkable for the rude texture of birch branches of which it is composed, and which, at this late season, was so rent and shattered by the wear and tear of the past year as to render the passage of it a matter of great exertion. Lord Elgin was completely prostrated by the effort, and it may be said that from the exhaustion consequent on this adventure he never rallied. But he returned to ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... had! I and my neighbours are by a special concession permitted to have water from the Folkestone source. By incessant vigilance we do, I believe, usually succeed in deducting the Folkestone water rate from the Sandgate general rate which covers water, but the wear and tear is enormous. However, these are details, dear to my heart, but the merest marginal comments to my argument. The essential fact is the impracticable silliness of these little divisions, the waste of men, the waste of ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... rents. The capitalist claims a right to the whole additional production due to the employment of capital. The labourer, on the other hand, may claim a right to the whole additional production, after replacing the wear and tear and allowing to the capitalist enough to support him in equal comfort with the productive labourers.[459] Thompson holds that while either system would be compatible with 'security,' the labourer's demand is sanctioned by 'equality.' ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... Seven Plates and a Vignette, and a glazed, ornamented cover which will withstand the wear and tear of the little play ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... the way when the aid of an individual is required, there is likely to be a requisition on the individual's services. Montezuma Moggs understood how to "skulk;" and we all comprehend the fact that to "skulk" judiciously is a fine political feature, saving much of wear and tear to the body corporate. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... peaceful, less turbulent, than my youth has been. I reach forward gladly, too, for life holds much that is sweet to old age, which youth can in no wise comprehend. Possibly this is one reason why youth is so anxious to concentrate enjoyment. But I am tired of concentration. There is a wear and tear about it which precludes the possibility of pleasure. I want to take the rest of my life gently, and by redoubled tenderness repay it for rude handling in my youth—that youth which lies very far away from me to-night and is ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... of corduroy roads, but how few have experienced their miseries! They are generally used for traversing swampy ground, and are formed of small pine-trees deprived of their branches, which are laid across the track alongside each other. The wear and tear of travelling soon separates these, leaving gaps between; and when, added to this, one trunk rots away, and another sinks down into the swamp, and another tilts up, you may imagine such a jolting as only leather springs could bear. On the very worst roads, filled ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... confidential adviser of Seward, wrote in favor of concessions; he declared that "a victorious party can afford to be tolerant;" and he advocated a convention to revise the Constitution, on the ground that, "after more than seventy years of wear and tear, of collision and abrasion, it should be no cause of wonder that the machinery of government is found weakened, or out of repair, or even defective." Frequently he uttered the wish, vague and of fine sound, but enervating, that the Republicans ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... was partially unsewn. When in motion his orb was encircled by a ring. "If they are coming, Sir Harry will let them move in before the twenty-ninth, and he will cross out the clause about whitewashing the ceilings, because it made them nervous, and put in the fair wear and tear one.—That doesn't count. ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... has a great rest! Friction is said to be one of the notable hindering powers in the world of matter—it is equally true, perhaps, of the world of spirit. Without it, in either sphere, how softly and with how little wear and tear, everything moves! And Faith's life ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... the literal Mrs. Kittridge, ignorant of the cause of the amusement which she saw around her; "but you wa'n't no help to me, you know; you was always off to sea, and the whole wear and tear ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Palestine, the magicians of Persia, and the sages of Greece and Rome. They have actually been able to hold their own from the days of HOMER, through those of HORACE, down even to those of HAGGARD. I have seen the wear and tear of the Pyramids of Egypt (which is nothing to that of a lionised hero in Societas); I can certify that the Sphynx presents a very battered appearance indeed (though not so battered as mine, after the "little people" had done with me), but the Pygmies of to-day in Societas ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various

... aching eyes; none of us had much skin on our faces, and what little remained was of a patchwork description; none of us had shaved for days—we couldn't have stood the torture; and our clothes, too, were showing signs of wear and tear. We all now slept in our clothes, partly for the sake of warmth, and also to be in readiness in case of emergency. There we were, sitting or lying on our bedding, which was spread on the floor round the room, the latter divided, like all Chitrali ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon

... their own honour. The old heathen would have attributed his misadventures to a [Greek text], an envy of the Gods, who will not abide to see men as prosperous as they themselves are. We may attribute it more simply and more piously to the wear and tear of frail humanity. For it may be that very few human souls can stand for many years the strain of a great rule. I do not mean that they break down from overwork, but that they are pulled out of shape by it; and that, especially, the will becomes enormously developed at the expense ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... was sure to come when the crops would no longer be adequate for all. Furthermore, a positive danger threatened the people in their dwellings. The rock, being extremely friable, crumbled constantly; and now and then inhabited caves were falling a prey to the wear and tear of the material in which they had been excavated. As this slow decay was sure to continue, it was logical to expect that room must be found for the houseless outside. Already the Corn clan had been compelled to build a house in the bottom of the valley. All this further ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... Thaddeus: "It is time for us to be off, while our soldier friends are enjoying the hunt. Only you lie around here while we explore a little; this gipsy life means a deal of wear and tear, if a fellow would live. There is likely to be something worth picking up about the castle, and after we have done the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... heart away? To Spirit her to matrimony? — That which contracts all matches — money. It was th' inchantment oft her riches That made m' apply t' your croney witches, 1180 That, in return, wou'd pay th' expence, The wear and tear of conscience; Which I cou'd have patch'd up, and turn'd, For the hundredth part of ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... was this. The good lady, who had struck the family at first as a somewhat elderly mother for so young a daughter, had been for many years a governess, engaged all the time to a curate, who only obtained a small district incumbency in a town, after wear and tear, waiting and anxiety, had so exhausted him that the second winter brought on bronchitis, and he scarcely lived to see his little daughter, Arthurine. The mother had struggled on upon a pittance eked out with such music teaching as she could procure, with ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... functions of the external organism. This nervous system is dual. One system, known as the Sympathetic, is the channel for all those activities which are not consciously directed by our volition, such as the operation of the digestive organs, the repair of the daily wear and tear of the tissues, and the like. The other system, known as the Voluntary or Cerebro-spinal system, is the channel through which we receive conscious perception from the physical senses and exercise control over the movements of the body. This system has its centre ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... patches in the carpets, and the pallor of the drawing-room, where no chair or cover had been renewed for some years, were due not only to the miserable pension, but to the wear and tear of twelve children, eight of whom were sons. As often happens in these large families, a distinct dividing-line could be traced, about half-way in the succession, where the money for educational purposes had run short, and the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... snarled in a temper as vicious as his countenance; and both of these were much the worse for wear and tear. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... diffidence. Colonel Parsons was a man who made people love him by a modesty which seemed to claim nothing. He was like a child compelling sympathy on account of its utter helplessness, so unsuited to the wear and tear of life that he aroused his fellows' instincts ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... was the all-sufficient reason why the good lebkuchen that would have proved Gottlieb a thief was not for sale at the Cafe Nuerenburg; and this was the reason why Gottlieb himself, broken down by loss of food and sleep and by the nervous wear and tear incident to forced companionship with an angry ghost, was drawing each day nearer and nearer to that dark portal through which bakers and all other people pass hence into the shadowy region ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier

... often means pain, the wear and tear of physical or nervous suffering. That is another matter. We cannot meet it fully with any philosophy. My patients very often beg to know the best way to bear pain, how they may overcome the attacks of "nerves" that are harder to bear than pain. To such a question I can only say that ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall

... are just those which only by-roads lead to. In and near the towns every other man, if not by profession still by practice, is a beggar. From the seedy-looking rascal in the street, of whom you incautiously ask the way, and who piteously whines 'para zapatos' - for the wear and tear of shoe leather, to the highest official, one and all hold out their hands for the copper CUARTO or the eleemosynary sinecure. As it was then, so is it now; the Government wants support, and it is always to be ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... day. Let us be sensible, intelligent, let us realize that there will be to-morrow and that it, too, must be lived. Let us get ready to live it sensibly. Let us build our social system so that it will stand the wear and tear of another day and will not fall in ruins about ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... But wear and tear and the anxieties of business life had made old Mr. Smith often quick-tempered, and difficult to please; and the coming of Mr. "W.H." into the business was hailed with pleasure by the workmen: he was so full of tact and sympathy; and sometimes, when his father had raised a storm of ill-feeling ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... of the said canoe. C. returns it to B. in this condition. B. returns it to A. in this condition. A. sues B. before native chief, saying he lent his canoe to B. on the understanding, always implied in African loans, that it was to be returned in the same state as when lent, fair wear and tear alone excepted. B. tries first to get C. to pay for the canoe, and for the rent of the canoe on top, as a compensation for the delay in bringing down his, B's., trade. C. calls B. the illegitimate offspring ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... change in his colour as he lay with closed eyes, a thinness of the flesh over the cheek bones, dark shadows beneath the eyes. Whether he slept she could not be sure. But when he sat up again these signs of wear and tear seemed to vanish at the magic of his smile, which had never been brighter. Nevertheless she watched him with a new sense of anxiety, wondering if there might really be danger of his splendid physique giving way before the rigour of ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond

... its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now, to have been ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... occasions in the white convict-like suits, which by the way we were supposed and indeed asked to purchase, so that we might present a smart uniform appearance, we preferred to don our own clothes, although they were now showing sad signs of wear and tear. Naturally the immaculate Major resented our refusal to fulfil his bidding, thus producing vivid blemishes upon the prim appearance of the lines, but we always succeeded in producing an excuse which was so ostensibly reasonable as to escape his ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... patriotic angels, and that Daubeny and his friends were all fiends or idiots,—mostly idiots, but with a strong dash of fiendism to control them. It has all come now to one common level of poor human interests. I doubt whether patriotism can stand the wear and tear and temptation of the front benches in the House of Commons. Men are flying at each other's throats, thrusting and parrying, making false accusations and defences equally false, lying and slandering,—sometimes ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... Mr. Garrick was beginning to look old, he said, "Why, Sir, you are not to wonder at that; no man's face has had more wear and tear[1231]."' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... sinking back into the chair from which she had just risen. "Well, the only thing I'm afraid of is that my enjoyer will be totally worn out. It has stood the wear and tear of so many good times I don't see how it can possibly stand any more. Why, I've been fairly wild to see Peter Pan, and I've felt so green for the last few years because I've never set foot in ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston

... worked on canvas in fine petit point stitches. One in South Kensington Museum is larger than most of these volumes, and has on one side Solomon in all his glory and on the reverse Jacob and his ladder and King David. These canvas-covered books appear to have suffered most from the wear and tear of time, and ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes

... the medical faculty, even the latest licentiate of the Apothecaries Hall, who knows the fatal effect of wear and tear upon the system caused by ceaseless worry, can explain why Philippo Beroaldi the Younger departed this life five years after undergoing the labour of preparing for the press at the order of Leo X. the MS. found in the Westphalian ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... mile thick instantaneously adapt itself to the change? For all these markings took place in the interval between the time when the external force, whatever it was, struck the rocks, and the time when a sufficient body of "till" had been laid down to shield the rocks and prevent further wear and tear. Neither is it possible to suppose an ice-sheet, a mile in thickness, moving in two diametrically opposite directions at the ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... fur's honesty goes, I could run a seine through Ostable County any day in the week and load a schooner with honest folks; and there wouldn't nary one of 'em have cash enough to pay for the wear and tear on the net. Honesty's good policy, maybe, but it takes hard money ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... overruling, but occasionally misdirecting Providence,—"it might be from the way things are piling up on me that some one might have rung in another corpse instead o' HIM, but so far as I can judge, allowin' for the space of time and nat'ral wear and tear—it's HIM!" ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... weeks went by; I heard nothing of Henry nor of Edward, though both were almost constantly before my mind's eye; in this perpetual wear and tear of feeling my health began to give way, and I grew ever, ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... working up of these into finished goods as a "consumption." But though industrial usage speaks of cotton yarn, etc., being consumed when it is worked up, the same language is not held regarding machinery, nor would any business man admit that his "capital" was consumed by the wear and tear of machinery, and was periodically replaced by "saving." The wearing away of particular material embodiments of capital is automatically repaired by a process which is not saving in the industrial or ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... praise both of myself and my poem, because it comes from a good quarter. You saw me where and how a man is best seen—at home, and in his every-day wear and tear, mind and manners: I have no holiday suit, and never seek to shine: such as it is, my light is always burning. Somewhat of my character you may find in Chaucer's Clerk of Oxenford; and the concluding line of that description might be written, as the fittest ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... who have well remarked, that though shewy and apt to catch the eye, they are of a flimsy and perishable fabric, not of that less gaudy but more substantial and durable texture, which, imparting permanent warmth and comfort, will long preserve its more sober honours, and stand the wear and tear of life, and the vicissitudes of seasons. It has been shewn, that these qualities often fail us when most we want their aid; that their possessors can solace themselves with their imaginary exertions in behalf of ideal misery, and yet shrink from the labours of active benevolence, or ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... nature into account, it may be the most economical. In their construction, it may be simply a matter of calculation with him who needs them, to calculate the first cost of any material he has at hand, or may obtain, and to that add the interest upon it, the annual wear and tear, the insurance, and the period it may last, to determine this matter to his entire satisfaction—always provided he have the means at hand to do either. But other considerations generally control the American farmer. His pocket is apt more often to be pinched, ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... blueberry swamp. The mouth of this slough was wide, while the slough itself was practically without a current. In the dead water, just inside its mouth, lay a tangled mass of tree trunks. Some of these, what of the wear and tear of freshets and of being stranded long summers on sand-bars, were seasoned and dry and without branches. They floated high in the water, and bobbed up and down or rolled over when we put our weight ...
— Before Adam • Jack London

... saddle with him when travelling in the East. Of what material is formed the nether man of a Turk I have never been informed, but I am sure that it is not flesh and blood. No flesh and blood,—simply flesh and blood,— could withstand the wear and tear of a Turkish saddle. This being the case, and the consequences being well known to me, I was grieved to find that Smith was not properly provided. He was seated on one of those hard, red, high-pointed machines, in which the shovels intended ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope

... landshark of a Jerry Clifford is in sight, bound to the post-office, I cal'late. Goin' to put a one-cent stamp on a letter and let the feller that gets it pay the other cent, I suppose. He always asks the postmaster to lick the stamp, so's to save the wear and tear on his own tongue. That's a fact. . . . No," he added, a moment later, "he ain't goin' to the office; he's turnin' down the lane here. . . . Eh! Jumpin' fire of brimstone, I do ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... of a darker colour and of wainscot is, no doubt, due to considerations of wear and tear, and so, like the origin of much ornamental art, may be traced to actual use and constructive necessity. When the wood-work of a room—the doors and window frames—is of the same colour and character as the dado, a certain agreeable unity is preserved, and it forms a useful plain framing ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane

... Lenoble's claim against the Crown was taken by Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon, the solicitors, of Whitehall; and George Sheldon discovered that between Charlotte Hawkehurst and the Haygarth estate there stood a prior claimant, whereby all his toil, trouble, costs out of pocket, and wear and tear of body and mind, ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... held out no sort of hopes; he didn't commit himself in any sort of way, and he can't break his word, for he hasn't given it. I wish, now, that I had never let Godolphin have the play back after he first renounced it; I should have saved a great deal of time and wear and tear of feelings. Yes, if I had ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... out of us. And the great cares crush us earthward till there is scarcely a sweet word left in our lips or a noble thought in our heart. A man cannot save his soul in the day of trouble. He cannot by himself make good the wear and tear of anxieties and griefs. He can hold his head high and hide his secret deep, but he cannot keep his life sweet. Only Christ can teach a man how to find the nameless dignity of the crown of thorns. The kingship of suffering is a secret in the keeping of faith and love. If ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth

... it has taken forty-eight years of the wear and tear of storm and surge to extinguish a quarter of a mile, how long a time must elapse before this island splits up? But then I reflected that during the greater part of those years this seat of ice had been stuck very low south ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... by destroying by instantaneous combustion a certain amount of valuable chemical products. Then, besides all this direct destruction of commodities which must ultimately be replaced, or which at least some kind contractor may plausibly offer to replace, consider for a moment the increased wear and tear of every sort of equipment both civil and military, from steam-rollers and rolling-stock to boots and bandages and walking-sticks, which a state of war must involve. Or consider again that the mere mobilisation ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato

... trade, and although it does not form a conspicuous figure, nor produce a great sum, still perhaps it is not the less likely to make up its full share of increase; for with these, cast metal may be classed, and recollecting the great wear and tear in mills, machinery, and waggons on the Railway, the quantity is more likely to be doubled, in a short period, than that of any named before; the amount of revenue as at present calculated, would be 1250 tons, up to Knaresbro' from Bolton Percy, ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee

... had spent flopping around from one party to another, and doing the things she was supposed to do, and saying the things she wasn't supposed to say, and then she estimated the cost in time and strength and money and wear and tear on her character, and announced that it wasn't a paying business, and at the end of the year she was going to get out. The year won't be up until October and that is why she is with Mother and Florine ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher

... is thus with people in an open boat, They live upon the love of Life, and bear More than can be believed, or even thought, And stand like rocks the tempest's wear and tear; And hardship still has been the sailor's lot, Since Noah's ark went cruising here and there; She had a curious crew as well as cargo, Like the first old ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... some mordant of fancy, And, despite the wear and tear Of time or distance or trouble, Insists on its right ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... great deal, but which is firm and solid and practical. Don't get one of the various three-legged folding easels which cost about seventy-five cents or a dollar. They tumble down too often and too easily. The wear and tear on the temper they cause is more than they are worth. It is true that they fold up out of the way. But they fold up when you don't expect them to; and you ought to be able to afford room enough for an easel anyway, if you ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... straining of our moral faculties, of which much is unavoidable in the existing complex condition of affairs, but of which the less the better. At present the tug of professed principles in one direction, and of necessary practice in the other, causes the same sort of wear and tear in our moral gear as is caused to a steam-engine by continually reversing it when it is going it at full speed. No ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... severe strain of his labour, and the poor quality of the food upon which he had to live, and the constant wear and tear of a constitution that never had been very strong, told upon the poor, overworked father. Gradually he became a confirmed invalid, so that he could not perform even the lightest work on his little farm. The shadows of coming misfortune grew ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan

... times like a disjointed foot rule and then retired to charge up the wear and tear to his backbone under the head ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... forward ends in the cruelest of all delusions: it encourages hope. The present time is the precious time. Live for the passing day: the passing day is all that we can be sure of. You suggested, just now, that I should ask my son if he was engaged to be married. How do we know what wear and tear of your nervous texture I succeeded in saving when I said. 'Wait till Philip mentions it without asking?' There is the personal application of my system. I have explained it in my time to every woman on the list of my acquaintance, including the female servants. Not one ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... still. The fulness of joy is peace." There, you are fast asleep; and perhaps that is the best thing for you; for sleep will (so I am informed, though I never saw it happen, nor any one else) put fresh gray matter into your brain; or save the wear and tear of the old gray matter; or something else—when they have settled what it is to do: and if so, you will wake up with a fresh fiddle-string to your little fiddle of a brain, on which you are playing new tunes all day long. So much the better: but when I believe that your brain is ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley

... ought to be credited with about five years for what you went through then, old fellow. And a man—Do you know, Miss Mollie," he said, breaking suddenly off—"that a man who was in that war, even if he did not get a shot, discounted his life about ten years? It was the wear and tear of the struggle. We are different from other nations. We have no professional soldiers—at least none to speak of. To such, war is merely a business and peace an interlude. There is no mental strain in their case. But in our war we were all volunteers. Every ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... sick," returns Algy, with the air of one who is making a handsome concession, "it is a disagreeable, bilious expression, but it would be useless to try and convince me that any human affection could stand the wear and tear of twenty-eight whole days of an absolute duet and not be rather the worse ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton



Words linked to "Wear and tear" :   non-cash expense, write-off, depreciation, financial loss, straight-line method, straight-line method of depreciation, write-down



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