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More "Lessen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... don't wont to lessen their speed, I don't want to hamper their daring; But rashness won't always succeed— Just ask that smart runner, young B-R-NG! And that's why I'm trying to strike a new line For our Paper-Chase—catting the "Paper" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... These, and perhaps other things I should think requisite to be Known, before I should judge my Self to have fully Comprehended the True and Whole Nature of Colours; and therefore, though by making the Experiments and Reflections deliver'd in this Paper, I have endeavour'd somewhat to Lessen my Ignorance in this Matter, and think it far more Desireable to discover a Little, than to discover Nothing, yet I pretend but to make it Probable by the Experiments I mention, that some Colours may be Plausibly enough Explicated ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... combatant, instead of being a Greaser, was a high-blooded youth from the cow ranches, of about the Kid's own age and possessed of friends and champions. His blunder in missing the Kid's right ear only a sixteenth of an inch when he pulled his gun did not lessen the indiscretion of ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... agreed. As we turned into F——Street we were joined by Cumberland, who, as I fancied, did not seem best pleased at seeing me, nor did the scowl which passed across his brow, on hearing I was to accompany them, tend to lessen this impression. He did not, however, attempt to make any opposition to the plan, merely remarking that, as I did not play myself, he thought I should find it rather dull. After proceeding about half ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... to say anything, three or four ways of saying it run in one's head together, and it is hard to choose the best! It is quite as puzzling to a lady as the choice of a ribbon or a—husband. But let us earnestly advise all fair letter writers to lessen their perplexity by restricting themselves to words of home manufacture. They may perhaps think it looks prettily to garnish their correspondence with such phrases as de tout mon coeur. Now, with all my heart is really better English; the only advantage ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... irrevocably that he would pay Mrs. Glegg her loan of five hundred pounds, it naturally occurred to him that he had a promissory note for three hundred pounds lent to his brother-in-law Moss; and if the said brother-in-law could manage to pay in the money within a given time, it would go far to lessen the fallacious air of inconvenience which Mr. Tulliver's spirited step might have worn in the eyes of weak people who require to know precisely how a thing is to be done before they are strongly confident that ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... or counsellors, he lamented that any one should have preceded him either in time or in actions. When I beheld your edifices, I grieved that I had done nothing in this kind. Yet did the vulgar proverb somewhat lessen, though it could not entirely remove my concern;—that 'Rome was not built in a day.' For my age is not yet so far advanced, neither is it yet so long since I began to reign, but that before I pay my debt to nature,—unless Atropos should prematurely cut my thread,—I may still ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... short, squatty, thick-necked, a nose of the variety commonly known as a stub, and a couple of little eyes that had a constant twinkle, half-shrewd and half-humorous, the whole surmounted with a shock of shaggy red hair. But these detractions from his beauty did not in the least lessen our admiration for his personal bravery; he was in our eyes a first-class fighting man; he had proven it by his work at Mons and had the scar to ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... each other. They had reached a spiritual nearness, a passion of surrender each to each, which touch of hand or lip could only at that moment have served to lessen. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... of the signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly understood both by his master and himself; yet when a new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and this necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, and draws, with a human nicety, the distinction between formal and essential truth. Of his punning perversions, his legitimate dexterity with symbols, he is even ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of society not merely tend to make each more and more dependent upon all, and to lessen the influence of individuals, even over their own conditions, as compared with the influence of society; but the effect of association or integration is to give rise to a collective power which is distinguishable ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... the powers above do tune The harmony of this peace. The vision Which I made known to Lucius, ere the stroke Of yet this scarce-cold battle, at this instant Is full accomplish'd; for the Roman eagle, From south to west on wing soaring aloft, Lessen'd herself, and in the beams o' the sun So vanish'd; which foreshow'd our princely eagle, The imperial Caesar, should again unite His favour with the radiant Cymbeline, Which shines here ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... increases the wealth of the world, tends to make everybody richer. This invention which we have got hold of is a small thing. It's only going to do a little, a very little to make the world richer, but it is going to do something for it is going to lessen the labour required for certain results and therefore is going to increase men's power, a little, just a little. That is why we must make the thing available, if we can; in order to add to the general ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... discussed the price I would bring, and that that price might not lessen, they guarded me jealously from one another so the journeys were made as little fatiguing for me as possible. I was given the best food at their command and ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... here?' he stopped and hesitated; and the full bold look she gave him did not lessen ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... widespread a feeling of distrust, already deep-seated with reflecting men. The volume of currency had reached such expansion that its value was merely nominal for purposes of subsistence, when the devices of Mr. Memminger to lessen it began to ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... any species of cloth in the North American provinces produced a resolution on the part of the House of Commons, [1710,] that "the erecting of manufactories in the colonies had a tendency to lessen their dependence on Great Britain." Soon afterward complaints were made to Parliament that the colonists were establishing manufactories for themselves, and the House of Commons ordered the Board of Trade to report on the subject, which was done at great length. In 1732, the exportation of hats ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... the formal language of legations, so cold, dry, and elaborated, those expressions purposely attenuated and smoothed down, those long phrases apparently spun out mechanically and always after the same pattern, a sort of soft wadding or international buffer interposed between contestants to lessen the shocks of collision. The reciprocal irritations between States are already too great; there are ever too many unavoidable and regrettable encounters, too many causes of conflict, the consequences ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... from London that afternoon in command of a large vessel on a long voyage. She was brimming over with sparkling wit that overjoyed him. She skilfully hinted of marriage on his return, and playfully adjured that he should not allow other attractions when he was abroad to lessen his affection for her. ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... raise wages, increase the earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen crime, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify government, and carry civilisation to yet nobler heights, is to appropriate rent by taxation, and to abolish all taxation save that upon land values. The great class of taxes from which revenue may be derived without interference with production ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... great pity, and it may be dangerous too, if we miss this opportunity,' Ping Wang declared. 'By taking one of these pigtails we shall lessen the risk of ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... one of the passions, having its seat in pleasure. And hyperboles may be employed either to increase or to lessen—since exaggeration is common to both uses. Thus in extenuating an opponent's argument we try to make it seem ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... distant horizon, and consequently much nearer to us than it really is. As it advances towards us, it will seem to rise into the sky, and to become gradually larger till it is almost directly overhead. Continuing its progress, it will then seem again to descend and to lessen in size as gradually as it had before increased; till at length it disappears in the distant horizon at a point exactly opposite to that at which it was first seen. Thus the same cloud, without varying its motion in the least from a straight line, and remaining throughout of the ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... whatsoever, has hitherto proved difficult at the very least. The attempt has commonly ended in bankruptcy. But when the Assembly were led, through a contempt of moral, to a defiance of economical principles, it might at least have been expected that nothing would be omitted on their part to lessen this difficulty, to prevent any aggravation of this bankruptcy. It might be expected, that, to render your land-bank tolerable, every means would be adopted that could display openness and candor in the statement of the security, everything which could aid the recovery of the demand. To ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... sunshine of your lives. But, do what you will, it can never give you perfect happiness here below; for when you have, at last, succeeded in possessing the object after which you so ardently sighed, you discover in it imperfections which you had not suspected before; and these lessen your happiness. But suppose, even, that you are of the few who are as happy as they expected to be, how long will your blessedness last? A few years, at most. Then, death, with a merciless hand, tears away from you the objects ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... surprised at the mention of oaths administered, and ceremonials used, at the entrance of these young gentlemen; but his surprise will lessen when we inform him, that these people are subject to a form of government and laws peculiar to themselves, and though they have no written laws, by which means they avoid all perplexity with lawyers, yet they pay obedience to one who is styled their king; to which great honour we shall hereafter ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... one dire view!—all others are destroy'd; This makes his features ghastly, gives the tone Of his few words resemblance to a groan; He takes his tasteless food, and when 'tis done, Counts up his meals, now lessen'd by that one; For expectation is on time intent, Whether he brings us joy or punishment. Yes! e'en in sleep the impressions all remain, He hears the sentence and he feels the chain; He sees the judge and jury, when he shakes, And loudly cries, "Not guilty," ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... clergy, and an intermingled aristocracy? Your endeavours, my good young man, will lessen like those of the man who employed a spade to uproot a rock. It wants blasting. Your married clergy and merchandized aristocracy are coils: they are the ivy about your social tree: you would resemble Laocoon in the throes, if one could imagine you anything ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which comes to one when a friend—a child, a brother or sister, a husband or wife—does badly. In such a case even the divine comfort cannot heal the heart's hurt; love cannot but suffer, and there is no hand that can lessen the pang. The anguish which love endures for others' sins is among the ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... inconvenient so long as he insisted upon keeping up an establishment of a hundred knights; that this establishment was useless and expensive and only served to fill her court with riot and feasting; and she prayed him that he would lessen their number and keep none but old men about him, such as himself, and fitting ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... to recognize for itself that its constitutional machine will not work, except in the way of destruction; and it is the principal revolutionaries, Barnave, Duport, the Lameths, Chapelier, and Thouret,[2147] who undertake to make alterations in the mechanisms so as to lessen its friction. But this source of knowledge and reason, however, to which they are momentarily induced to draw, in spite of themselves and too late, has been turned off by themselves from the very beginning. On the 6th of November, 1789, in deference to principle and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the jealous promptings of a father, indulged in the self-communing suspicions of a mother, and supported smilingly the irritations of a chaperon. The enforced companionship of a courier maid does not lessen the perplexities of certain situations nor lighten the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... Mr. Sumner, "this does not lessen any man, but rather makes him greater. Surely God's working through him makes him truly grander than the ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... bounties of the faithful; and whilst each individual consults solely his own interest, the welfare of the community suffers; since, as Sallust observes, "Small things increase by concord, and the greatest are wasted by discord." Besides, sooner than lessen the number of one of the thirteen or fourteen dishes which they claim by right of custom, or even in a time of scarcity or famine recede in the smallest degree from their accustomed good fare, they would suffer the richest lands and the ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... terror was almost overwhelming, and her impulse was to shriek aloud. But the shock of that ghostly appearance passed, not because the danger appeared to lessen, but because her nerves were healthy, and she somehow possessed sympathy with the red men. Mechanically she noticed, too, that they were blanketed, as in peace. They had donned no feathers or paint. Nor could she see aught ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... music's sweet because 'tis dear, Their vanity is tickled, not their ear; Their taste would lessen if the prices fell, And Shakespeare's wretched stuff ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Competition will make the accumulation of large estates difficult, property will be equalized, but no motive to effort destroyed. Science will be encouraged. Every day will add to the number of those contrivances which facilitate labor, increase production, lessen distance, and raise man from the degradation of an existence wholly occupied with providing for his physical wants. Under these elastic laws, religion, philanthropy, art, learning, the social amenities, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Grasping a bunch, he began drawing himself up, hand over hand, at the same time widely gathering in the ropy mass with his knees, not only to expedite his climbing and reenforce his arms, but to lessen the strain on the smaller bunch, which could be grasped but by his hands. He had made but half the ascent, when becoming aware that the enemy had silenced his battery of stones, he glanced over his shoulder, still ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... was eloquent and persuasive. Before long their fears began to lessen, and later they seemed to accept his assurance that "An-yon" was, indeed, both friendly and anxious to help them ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... political regrets and doubts, however, cannot lessen or affect our interest in those ingenious, subtle, and delicate speculations which Mr. Greg called Enigmas of Life. Though his Creed of Christendom may have made a more definite and recognisable mark, the later book rapidly fell in with the needs of many minds, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... derive their political existence. This election of one branch of the federal, by the State legislatures, secures an absolute independence of the former on the latter. The biennial exclusion of one third will lessen the facility of a combination, and preclude all likelihood of intrigues. I appeal to our past experience, whether they will attend to the interests of their constituent States. Have not those gentlemen who have been honored with seats in Congress often signalized themselves ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... last four years, moreover, he had been Papal Chamberlain (Camerlingo), and folks whispered that Leo XIII had appointed him to that post, even as he himself had been appointed to it by Pius IX, in order to lessen his chance of succeeding to the pontifical throne; for although the conclave in choosing Leo had set aside the old tradition that the Camerlingo was ineligible for the papacy, it was not probable that it would again dare to infringe ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the master, in the meantime, were not idle, but as they could bring one of their guns to bear without running the risk of hitting the Supplejack, they kept firing into the enemy. The effect of their fire was to lessen the number of the boarders, several of the slaver's crew being occupied in working their after-guns, with the object of keeping the two schooners at bay. McTavish and the purser had, however, managed to run out one of the carronades ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... originally acted about the year 1682. "Pierre and Jaffier," says Jackson, in his History of the Scottish Stage, "in the estimation of the theatrical world, are equal in rank, and excel each other in representation only, as the particular talents of the actor elevate or lessen, in the idea of the spectator, the importance of whichever part he assumes. I have seen Garrick and Barry alternately in both parts, and the candid critic was doubtful where to bestow the preference. Mr. Mossop, indeed, raised the character of Pierre beyond all ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... of the blind, wilful folly of childhood? Ah, my soul! Alas, my grown-up friends! Does the moral belong to childhood alone? Have manhood and womanhood no passionate, foolish longings, for which we blind ourselves to obvious truth, and of which the vanity does not lessen the disappointment? Do we not still toil after ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... turned to step into the pilot house. Lord James faced about to the eastern sky, where the gray dawn was beginning to lessen the star-gemmed blackness above the watery horizon. Swiftly the faint glow brightened and became tinged with pink. The day was approaching with the suddenness of the tropical sunrise. In quick succession, the pink shaded to rose, the rose to crimson and scarlet splendor; ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... these considerations ought, in the first place, to be of some force: I feel myself importuned by an error of the soul that displeases me, both as it is unjust, and still more as it is troublesome; I attempt to correct it, but I cannot root it out; and this is, that I lessen the just value of things that I possess, and overvalue things, because they are foreign, absent, and none of mine; this humour spreads very far. As the prerogative of the authority makes husbands look upon their own wives with a vicious disdain, and many fathers their children; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... to affirm, that the advantage accruing to the mother country will fall greatly short of the expectation of the ministry; for certain it is, that our whole substance already in a manner flows to Great Britain, and that whatsoever contributes to lessen our importations must be hurtful to her manufactures. The eyes of our people already begin to be opened; and they will perceive, that many luxuries, for which we lavish our substance in Great Britain, can well be dispensed with. This, consequently, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Sevier's carriage. She bowed brightly, but he—what could it mean?—he lifted his hat with such austere gravity. Dr. Sevier was angry. He had no definite charge to make, but that did not lessen his displeasure. After long, unpleasant wondering, and long trusting to see Richling some day on the street, he had at length driven by this way purposely to see if they had indeed left town, as they had been so imperiously commanded ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... himself. No scruple lessen'd in the full weight of honour: He did command me (pardon my presumption), As his unworthy deputy, To kiss ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... the most ignominious manner,—"Oh! il faudra qu'il y vienne,"—as L'eonor says in the Marquis de Roselle,—"il y viendra." For myself, I have another little comfort, which is seeing that when the ministry encourage the Opposition, they do but lessen our numbers. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... trip to the river did not lessen their worry. At the boathouse, where Jim Haynes kept his canoe, Jim's craft was ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... of the sport was to ride hard against one's adversary and strike him with the spear upon the front of the helmet, so as to beat him backwards from his horse, or break the spear. This kind of sport was of course rather dangerous, and men sometimes lost their lives at these encounters. In order to lessen the risk and danger of the two horses running into each other when the knights charged, a boarded railing was erected in the midst of the lists, about four or five feet high. The combatants rode on separate sides of this barrier, and therefore they could not encounter each other except with ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... with Johnny. They had talked right under his mother's nose, so to speak, and had settled everything. Yes—simply everything! They had told one another that their love was immortal, that nothing could touch it, nor lessen ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... comfort him, without in any way minimising the weight of his sin or attempting to lessen his remorse for it, it struck me that it would be well to try and have a little talk with his poor young victim. So saying good-bye, and promising to remember him in future, I asked mentally for her spirit to come, and then tried to influence her in the direction of ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... Preparing for EU membership continues as a top foreign policy goal. The current account and internal government deficits remain major concerns, but the government's efforts to increase efficiency in revenue collection may lessen the budget deficit. ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... question being put to him, that the water was very shoal all round the ship, but that there were indications of something like a channel to the southward and eastward; upon which sail was shortened to lessen the schooner's speed through the water, and her head was put in the direction indicated. This course was held for about two miles, when, by Courtenay's direction, it was changed to south-south- west. ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... these women; and, as if nature had not done enough for them in this particular, they render their faces still more repulsive looking by tattooing the lips on the outside to the depth of an inch all around, elongating the mark at the corners. This, of course, does not tend to lessen the apparent size of an aperture, already suggestive of a main hatchway. This unhandsome, open, flat countenance, is also further decorated with bands of blue on the forehead. The females wear large rings of iron—some few ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... near, and looked over the church-yard wall. A large crumb upon his upper lip did not lessen the awful severity ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... trituration of the oxyde (1-10) freely upon the open surfaces, so that it may penetrate into the open mouths or orifices. Over this powder apply an emolient poultice, or soft cloths wet in water hot as can be endured. This will soon allay or greatly lessen the pain. It should be repeated as often as any of the burning pain peculiar to the carbuncle returns, until the tumor suppurates in a tolerably healthy manner; then lessen the strength of the Ars. applications, ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... enjoyment from the exhaustless spring of your genius to the ever-increasing thirst of a delighted public, you should have forgotten my humble labours. But whilst I regret that they should have been so forgotten, inasmuch as they might have contributed to aid or lessen yours, I beg to assure you, that every other feeling is absorbed in that of the satisfaction I am now impressed with in learning that you have taken Lord Fountainhall under your fostering care, as I am well aware that, independent of the honor done him and his family by his name ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... Sheerness to Bristol. Those Englishmen who sneer so bitterly at the conduct of our Government but a year ago would do well to study closely the history of their own country in 1588, in which they will find much matter calculated to lessen their conceit, and to teach them charity. The Lincoln Government of the United States had been in existence but little more than thirty days when it found itself involved in war with the Rebels; the Elizabethan Government ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... ease the hawser as much as possible, Captain Barrington, when he had noted the drop of the barometer, had ordered a "bridle," or rope attachment, placed on the end of the cable, so as to give it elasticity and lessen the effect of sudden strains, but the mountainous seas that pounded against the blunt bows of the Southern Cross were proving the stout steel strand ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... views are in the habit of saying that it need not lessen their reverence for God to believe that the Creator fashioned a germ of life and endowed it with power to develop into what we see to-day. It is true that a God who could make man as he is, could have made him by the long-drawn-out process suggested ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... shake off your sluggishness sometimes, Osgod; I should have been less earnest in my advice to you to strike more quickly if I had thought that you were going to do it at my expense. Keep those blows for your master's enemies, lad. If you deal them to his friends you will lessen ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we to conclude that He could not order them as well to be produced in a subject we cannot conceive capable of them, as well as in a subject we cannot conceive the motion of matter can any way operate upon? I say not this, that I would any way lessen the belief of the soul's immateriality, &c.... It is a point which seems to me to be put out of the reach of our knowledge; and he who will give himself leave to consider freely, and look into the dark and intricate ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... somehow or other taken possession of his brain at a time when that brain must have been acted upon (so he continued to think) by strong mesmeric or magnetic influence, he went on his way all the same with a sort of dogged obstinacy which no fatigue could daunt or lessen. He never lay down to rest without the faint hope of seeing once again, if only in sleep, the radiant Being whose haunting words had sent him on this quest of "Ardath,"—but herein his expectations were not realized. No more flower-crowned angels floated before him—no sweet whisper of love, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... her lean arms in continual motion before him. "You're right, there. I wanted money. I made up my mind I'd have it. It was such a purpose of mine, so strongly grown into my whole being, that even Mildred's death couldn't lessen or dislodge it. And there was more than the want of money in my never letting loose of my intention to find him. He couldn't strip me bare and get away! You've understood me pretty well. You know it was written, on the books, that he and I should ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... chemical sequences, as so many late biochemists do, is still to put it where our science cannot unlock the mystery. If we should ever succeed in producing living matter in our laboratories, it would not lessen the mystery any more than the birth of a baby in the household lessens the mystery of generation. It only brings it ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... seems to me likely to mitigate the evil," continued Rachel, charmed at having the most patient listener who had ever fallen to her lot, "would be to commence an establishment where some fresh trades might be taught, so as to lessen the glut of the market, and to remove the workers that are forced to undersell one another, and thus oblige the buyers to give a fairly ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... quitted the same resolution twenty times; but at last I concluded you deserved not to see my grief, and I resolved not to show you the least mark of it. I had a desire to bring down your pride, by letting you see, that my passion for you declined of itself: I thought I should by this lessen the value of the sacrifice you had made of me, and was loth you should have the pleasure of appearing more amiable in the eyes of another, by showing her how much I loved you; I resolved to write to you in a cold and languishing ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... many good buildings were erected, and roads were cut, with about two hundred and thirteen acres of land cleared for corn, and eighty acres for buildings and gardens; that is, the trees were cut down, but the roots remained in the ground, which would certainly lessen the quantity of cleared ground; this ground being grubbed up and laid open, gave me an opportunity of examining what the soil consisted of, and although I do not pretend to any knowledge in farming, yet I thought it ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... perhaps be possible for you to receive her visit with a brow absolutely serene. But, dearest, dearest creature, I beseech you, let the misunderstanding pass as a slight one—as a misunderstanding cleared up. Appeals give pride and superiority to the persons appealed to, and are apt to lessen the appellant, not only in their eye, but in her own. Exalt not into judges those who are prepared to take lessons and instructions from you. The individuals of my family are as proud as I am said to be. But they will cheerfully resign to your superiority—you will be the first woman ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... of the 365 they were completely dry. During this time the Staff were not idle. Pamphlets on the attack, written for trench warfare in France, were liberally issued, and preliminary instructions to lessen the contents of the final orders kept arriving daily. One's ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... about your troubadour. He will always have "his independence and his liberty" because he will always do as he has always done. He has left everything rather than submit to any obligation whatsoever, and then, with age, one's needs lessen. I suffer no longer from not living in ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... that the stub be always filled out before the check, and that the check be then copied from the stub. This course will greatly lessen the chances of disagreement between ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... with every kindness, did not tend to lessen Perrine's anxiety. She was dreading Madame Bretoneux's ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... to this the doctor has very mingled feelings. Sometimes he lacks courage, sometimes he is not sure enough to speak. A weak man fears that he will lose his patient and some quack be called in, and thus lessen the little chance yet left. Most of us can recall painful interviews in which a relative insisted on a definite opinion, which we were unable to give. As to cases where there is little or no doubt left, perfect frankness should be, and is, I think, our rule, but no ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... a letter from Clyde, who was in Boulder visiting his mother. He was leaving for Wyoming the following Saturday and wanted an interview, if his proposition suited me. I was so glad of his offer, but at the same time I couldn't know what kind of person he was; so, to lessen any risk, I asked him to come to the Sunshine Mission, where Miss Ryan was going to help me "size him up." He didn't know that part of it, of course, but he stood inspection admirably. I was under the impression he had a son, but he hadn't, and he and his mother were the very ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... as if everyone was lifted from his feet. They had all stood on their tiptoes, and opened their mouths to lessen the shock, but even then it was terrific. The very ground shook—from the roof of their cave small stones and gravel rattled down on their heads. Their ear-drums were numbed from the shock. And the noise that filled the valley seemed like a ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... that is nothing that will lessen the injury I did you. And to think of the terrible peril in which I placed you! Then, when it was reported that father was dead, they ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... to irritate the temper and sap the resolve and foster a self-centring egotism, by a power that is literally irresistible. Before such experiences as this one thought rises: it is part of mankind's business to lessen, and so far as possible to extirpate, these maladies. The individual sufferer must meet as best he can the conditions thrust upon him, but to prevent such conditions from arising is the lesson for the rest of us. We are only beginning to appreciate ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... seldom seen. The negro woodsmen kill both creatures indiscriminately; and as the older reptiles are the least likely to escape observation, the chances for the survival of extraordinary individuals lessen with the yearly decrease ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... making an immediate inspection into her affairs, and endeavouring, where expence seemed unnecessary, to lessen it. She gave Henrietta to understand she feared they must soon part; and so afflicted was the unhappy girl at the news, that she found it the most cruel office she had to execute. The same intimation she gave to Mrs Harrel, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... use of liquor among ourselves, also surround the opium question in the East. It is their liquor. China grows most of what she consumes, and I believe would grow it all if the Indian drug was not admitted. Its exclusion by the Chinese would not therefore seriously lessen its use. Still it places England in a false position before the world to enforce its admission by treaty stipulations. The sum involved to the Indian revenue exceeds seven millions sterling per annum ($35,000,000); that is the net yearly profit made out of the growth of ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... What is the high and holy mission of any woman but to be the best and most efficient human being possible? To enlarge the sphere of duty and the range of responsibility, where there are adequate power and intelligence, is to heighten, not to lessen, the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Fortunately on the second occasion I came off victor, much to my surprise. How I managed to beat my opponent I never could understand. Anyhow the victory gave me a better standing in the school, though it did not lessen in the least my hatred of the battles that raged periodically with other schools. I never had to fight again except as an unwilling ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... to be such as at least ought not to wound the Nabob's honor, or lessen his credit in the estimation of the people, by the magisterial command which the new guardian must exercise over him,—with abilities and vigor of mind equal to the support of that authority; and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... now plainly told him that his staying in her palace was inconvenient so long as he insisted upon keeping up an establishment of a hundred knights; that this establishment was useless and expensive, and only served to fill her court with riot and feasting; and she prayed him that he would lessen their number, and keep none but old men about him, such as himself, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... "Personally I at no time put faith in the idea that you are a powder expert," said he. "No. I had my own suspicions and I regret to say this inquiry has not in the least served to lessen them." ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... vaccination. In 1801, Dr. Lettsom mentions the circumstance "as being to the honor of the medical professors, that they have very generally encouraged this salutary practice, although it is certainly calculated to lessen their pecuniary advantages by its tendency to extirpate a fertile source of ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... down; keep the peace, remit, relent, take in sail. moderate, soften, mitigate, temper, accoy^; attemper^, contemper^; mollify, lenify^, dulcify^, dull, take off the edge, blunt, obtund^, sheathe, subdue, chasten; sober down, tone down, smooth down; weaken &c 160; lessen &c (decrease) 36; check palliate. tranquilize, pacify, assuage, appease, swag, lull, soothe, compose, still, calm, calm down, cool, quiet, hush, quell, sober, pacify, tame, damp, lay, allay, rebate, slacken, smooth, alleviate, rock to ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... domestic troubles which pressed so heavily on Isabella's heart, nor the rapidly declining state of her own health, had power to blunt the energies of her mind, or lessen the vigilance with which she watched over the interests of her people. A remarkable proof of this was given in the autumn of the present year, 1503, when the country was menaced ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... the colored man, "dat contrary mule ob mine would lay down in de dust ob de road an' not move a step, lessen' he got his oats. So dat's why we has ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... figures accurately, as he fancied, and totted up the trifling totals, there flitted before him something more that refused to be set down upon the paper. The Ledger had no lines for it. What was it? Why was it pleasant, even flattering? Why did it mitigate his discontent and lessen the dissatisfied feeling? It passed hovering in and about his thoughts, though uncaught by actual words; and as his mind played with it, he felt more hopeful. He searched in vain for a definition, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... suffering of hideous woe and misery. It is a sad and dreadful thing that there should of necessity be such throes of agony; and yet they are the birth-pangs of a new and vigorous people. That they are in truth birth-pangs does not lessen the grim and hopeless woe of the race supplanted; of the race outworn or overthrown. The wrongs done and suffered cannot be blinked. Neither can they be allowed to hide the results to mankind of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... pause followed. Miss Craven kept her eyes fixed on the card table with a feeling of nervous apprehension that was new to her. Her nephew's words and the bitterness of his tone seemed fraught with hidden meaning, and she racked her brains to find a topic that would lessen the tension that seemed to have fallen on the room. But Peters broke the silence before it became noticeable. "The one person present whom it most nearly concerns has not given us her view. What do you say, ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... does not matter; while if you were killed all would be lost for, if the explosion did not burst the stone, I am sure that we should never be able to get through it, without you to direct us. No, master, if you stay, I stay; and that would only lessen our chances of running ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... they were greatly astonished. Their astonishment did not lessen when he told them how he came to be where he was. He sent Estevanico back to tell the rest of the party to come, and himself remained to talk with Diego de Alcaraz, the leader of the Spanish adventurers, and his three followers. They were slave-hunters, ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... means of developing their mental and moral faculties unimpeded by unjust restrictions, it is regarded as of still greater importance in facilitating the production of those staples, particularly Cotton, which now are supplied to the world chiefly by Slave Labor. The effect of this would be to lessen the profits of Slavery, to render in time the slave a burden to his owner, and thus furnish an irresistible motive to Emancipation. Africa possesses resources which, properly developed, must doubtless render her eventually a great, ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... shook off every degree of indulgence, and applied his mind to the management of his affairs. This may account for his being stripped no otherwise than of his armour, having retired to his tent in order to repose himself upon his bed, and lessen the fatigues of the preceding day. See him then hastily rising, at dead of night, in the utmost horror from his own thoughts, being terrified in his sleep by the dreadful phantoms of an affrighted imagination, seizing on his sword, by way of defence ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... a picture or a cartoon of yourself, just as you wish. The one thing to remember is that the lines and proportions of the face must be carefully considered and a mode of hairdressing adopted which will lessen and not exaggerate those lines and proportions. Be alert to your defects, and do not forget that what may be essentially appropriate for one woman will ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... that his guns and other arms had not been damaged. These were important, because, heavily loaded, they were to help lessen the fall of the projectile, when drawn by the lunar attraction (after having passed the point of neutral attraction) on to the moon's surface; a fall which ought to be six times less rapid than it would have been on the earth's surface, thanks to the difference of bulk. The inspection ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... talk just before I came over here. She thinks you are the best and most wonderful man on earth and all she feared was that you had taken your last cent, or even borrowed the money, to come to her rescue. When I told her you were worth a quarter of a million, she felt better, but it didn't lessen her gratitude. Forgive you! ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the shadows. The warm, red light that streamed from an uncurtained French window on the ground floor only deepened the uncertainty of everything. The man stepped warily, closing the gate behind him with stealthy care, and crept forward on tiptoe to lessen the sound of the crunching gravel beneath his heavy shoes. It was an undignified entry for an officer of the law who carried his authorization in his hand; but courage was not this man's strong ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... commodities were forbidden to discriminate in price between different purchasers—after making due allowance for differences in transportation costs; corporations were forbidden to acquire any of the stock of other similar industries, where the effect would be substantially to lessen competition; and directors of banks and corporations were prohibited, with stated exceptions, from serving in two or more competing organizations. The Clayton act also settled, at least for the time, several of the complaints raised by the labor interests, especially ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... spinner—his very first in fact. And it cannot be denied that Raymond sees a good deal of her. This is probably not wise, because friendship, at their tender ages, will often run into emotion, and, naturally flattered by his ingenuous attentions, Sabina might permit herself to spin dreams and so lessen her activities as a spinner of yarn. I say she might. These things mean more to a girl ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... it was apparent to the British commanding officers that they must still further lessen the projection of their salient. So on May 12, 1915, the Twenty-eighth Division was sent to the reserve. It had experienced continuous fighting since April 22, 1915, and had suffered severe losses. It had only ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... broke out into a cold perspiration at the idea of the debts thus to be incurred. It was plain that there had been an error in his calculations. He who wishes to raise a sum by small yearly savings must not increase, but lessen his expenditure. True, the increase in his case had been unavoidable; but still, a most unlucky coincidence. The baron had not felt such anxiety since his lieutenant-days. There were a thousand good reasons, however, against giving up the town house; ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it doubted that it would restore the national authority and national prosperity, and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here—Congress and Executive—can secure its adoption? Will not the good people ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... style, nor at the appearance of being learned, but at being understood. The clearness and perspicuity of his remarks, and their application to familiar objects, are well calculated to arrest the attention, and aid the understanding of the pupil, and thereby to lessen the labor of the instructor. The principles of the science are simplified, and rendered so perfectly easy of comprehension, we should think no ordinary mind, having such help, could find them difficult. It is in this ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... fellow fell immediately into tears, and told us he had said something to her of all those things, but that he was himself so wicked a creature, and his own conscience so reproached him with his horrid, ungodly life, that he trembled at the apprehensions, that her knowledge of him should lessen the attention she should give to those things, and make her rather contemn religion than receive it: but he was assured, he said, that her mind was so disposed to receive due impressions of all those things, that, if I would but discourse with her, she ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... as might have done me harm, and dispelled it in contrary cases. Moreover, he was careful to provide me with sufficient reasonable distractions, which while they could not take the place of the joys of love, served at least to lessen the smart of its wounds. As to temptations to debauchery, I felt none. I had too much pride to yearn for any woman in which I had not seen, as in Edmee, the ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... himself a good dancer—and as to that point my memory is unstored with instance or authority—it will at least be conceded that he was an admirable reporter, with his heart in the business. Somewhat to lessen the force of the objection that he puts the foregoing lines into a not very respectable mouth, on a not altogether reputable occasion, I append the following passage from the same poem, supposed to be ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... than he would for me or any of the doctors. He thinks we are all in league against him and he admires Mr. Scanlan—I've read it in his face as he watches him out in the yard. Arthur himself was a noted athlete before he went to South America. He might even box with Mr. Scanlan. That would lessen the tension on his mind and we might get him to see that an operation is—Oh! Will you do it?" she breaks off suddenly, ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... are you crying?" demanded Christine. The sobs became very audible now, and even an apparent effort to stifle them with the bed-clothes did not seem in any way to lessen them. ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... expense of maintaining obstructives. In the name of Babytown, I come to propose to you, not to give up opposing each other all at once,—that would be to act upon a principle, and we despise principles as much as you do,—but to lessen somewhat the present obstacles, taking care to estimate equitably the respective sacrifices we make for ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... men behind roused in him a deep indignation. They were taking their coarse fun out of this simple-minded girl. Cameron's furious glance at them appeared only to increase their amusement. It did not lessen Cameron's embarrassment and rage that now and then during the reading of the hymn Mandy's eyes were turned upon him as if with new understanding. Enraged with himself, and more with the group of hoodlums behind him, Cameron stood for the closing hymn with his arms folded across his breast. At ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... proposition, and that, through his failure for ten minutes to regard it seriously, he had been made a prisoner, mortified him keenly. That his humiliation had taken place in the presence of Beatrice Farrar did not lessen his discomfort, nor did the explanation he must later make to his captain afford him any satisfaction. Already he saw himself playing the star part in a court-martial. He shrugged his ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... must not for that reason fail to have a shirt and a hat, and to dress in style. They give banquets very frequently, for very slight causes; and everything resolves itself into eating, drinking, and great noise. Their vanity is the only thing that causes them to lessen their laziness, in order to get the wherewithal to keep up this esteem, and applause from ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... here describe, but by which the mind returns to the self that is within and realises it as it is, cleared from all particular thoughts and affections. These exercises cannot be called moral; where all is illusion morality disappears. There is no good, no evil, no effort to promote the good and lessen the evil. It is not because the world is bad that it is condemned, but because it exists. The energy which in other faiths is devoted to a moral struggle, is here poured into the ascetic discipline by which ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... Escaping that danger, we were exposed to another, for the sea, now brought on our beam, continually broke over the side, employing two hands in baling, while often it appeared as if she would be turned completely over. At length the monster began to lessen its speed, and we were hauling in the line to get up to it, when suddenly raising its flukes down it went, dragging out the line again at a rate which made the bollard smoke, but the sea breaking over the bows prevented it from catching fire. The first ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... suffering from his fall, and it became necessary for Helen to steady, him in his seat. Her muscles ached with the strain, but she made no complaint, for she feared the ranger might lessen the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... Company, the Stevens Mills of Marland Village, and the Mills of Smith, Dove, & Co., the makers of the well-known "Andover Thread." All these firms have secured such a reputation for their goods that while a period of business depression may lessen the profits it has little effect upon the number of hands employed. The present population of Andover is 5,711. The growth of the town is not rapid, but has been more so of late than formerly. The student and business elements steadily ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... stranger, especially a European, interfering in their trade, and above all of going into the interior to deal with the mountaineers themselves. They of course think he will raise the prices in the interior, and lessen the supply on the coast, greatly to their disadvantage; they also think their tribute will be raised if a European takes back a quantity of the rare sorts; and they have besides a vague and very natural dread of some ulterior object in a white man's coming at so much trouble and expense ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... argument goes upon this supposition, that the description of persons to be affected by a criminal act, may lessen its criminality, which ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... rather insipid. They ate with a will, and the hunks of bread swiftly disappeared. There was nothing refined about the repast, and the wine was mere common stuff, which they watered considerably from a feeling of delicacy, in order to lessen their host's expenses. They had just saluted the leg of mutton with a hurrah, and the host had begun to carve it, when the door opened anew. But this time ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... fresh draughts of enjoyment from the exhaustless spring of your genius to the ever-increasing thirst of a delighted public, you should have forgotten my humble labours. But whilst I regret that they should have been so forgotten, inasmuch as they might have contributed to aid or lessen yours, I beg to assure you, that every other feeling is absorbed in that of the satisfaction I am now impressed with in learning that you have taken Lord Fountainhall under your fostering care, as I am well aware that, independent of the honor done him and his family by his name being coupled ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... such an immeasurable plain was possible, and those were at the flattened poles. Where I was I now knew well. I had reached the antarctic pole. Here the earth was flat—an immense level with no roundness to lessen the reach of the horizon but an almost even surface that gave an unimpeded view ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... no little awe of his host. He had tremors down his back when he thought of his violence; nor was this dogged persistence in a design, as cruel as it was cunning, calculated to lessen the feeling. But he had five thousand pounds at stake, a fortune on which he had been pluming himself since noon; it was no time for hesitation. They were dining in the hall at the table at which they had played cards the night before, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... too, or "Melind," was mentioned as having been over to the "Squire's house helping the old lady to fix up a little," and then Ethelyn knew that the "savage" was no other than brother to Abigail Jones, deceased. The discovery was not a pleasant one, and did not tend to smooth her ruffled spirits or lessen the feeling of contempt for Western people in general, and Richard's friends in particular, which had been growing in her heart ever since the Eastern world was left behind and she had been fairly launched ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... data outside that furnished by the government-owned railways of the British colonies, and such data negatives these assertions; and the advocates of national ownership are justified in asserting that such ownership would materially lessen the cost, as any expert can readily point out many ways in which the enormous costs of corporate management would be lessened. With those familiar with present methods, and not interested in their perpetuation, this objection has no ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... unamiable, for in the very short scenes in which the Octavia of Shakspeare is introduced, she is placed in rather an interesting point of view. But Dryden has himself informed us that he was apprehensive that the justice of a wife's claim would draw the audience to her side, and lessen their interest in the lover and the mistress. He seems accordingly to have studiously lowered the character of the injured Octavia who, in her conduct to her husband, shows much duty and little love." Sir W. Scott (in the same fine piece of criticism prefixed to Dryden's ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... guard against. Captain Bentinck, therefore, hoping that no such necessity would arise, had shaped a course not directly for them, but at an intercepting angle to their own course, by which means he hoped not only to hold way with them, but also to lessen very considerably the distance between them and ourselves before the sight of our canvas, rising above the horizon, would reveal our unwelcome presence to the two slavers, as we believed the strange craft to be. It was also of the utmost importance that we should have instant knowledge of their discovery ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... are old enough to take some of the burden off her hands. I hope you will not neglect these hints. Never suffer mother to undergo any hardship of which you can relieve her. Strive to do all you can to lessen the cares and anxieties which must of necessity come upon her. Be kind, obedient, and cheerful in the performance of every duty. Consider it a pleasure to do anything by which you ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... had been excelled by many, but did not recollect ever having felt envious of his successful rivals; "nor did my winning many a prize from my friend Birch," said he, "ever lessen his ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... never stride and amble At the feet of aged women; Elsewhere there are hills and valleys, Farther on are honey-pastures, Where the lazy bear may wander, Where the indolent may linger; Sneak away to yonder mountain, That thy tender flesh may lessen, In the blue-glen's deep recesses, In the bear-dens of the forest, Thou canst move through fields of acorns, Through the sand and ocean-pebbles, There for thee is tracked a pathway, Through the woodlands ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... sometimes will lead to insubordination on the part of the crew, followed by the free use of handspikes, rope's ends, and manacles, on the part of the officers, could repress the spirits of Jonas Silvernail, spoil his jokes, or lessen the volume of his hearty and sonorous laugh. Jonas was a native of Hudson, in New York; a young, active, intelligent sailor, who, always good-humored, was never more happy than when singing a sea song, spinning a merry yarn, or playing off a practical joke. Jonas was one of those ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... misrepresentation, has thus described the cause and the motive of the atrocities they practised. The first cause was the rapacity of the landlords, who, having let their lands far above their value, on condition of allowing the tenants the use of certain commons, now enclosed the commons, but did not lessen the rent. The bricks were to be made, but the straw was not provided; and the people were told that they were idle. The second cause was the exactions of the tithemongers, who were described by this English writer as "harpies who squeezed out the very vitals of ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... every day better and better, for as much as he that was slowest, Sir W. Batten, do now begin to look about him and to mind business. At which, God forgive me! I was a little moved with envy, but yet I am glad, and ought to be, though it do lessen a little my care to see that the King's service is like to be better attended than it was heretofore. Thence by coach to Mr. Povy's, being invited thither by [him] came a messenger this morning from him, where really he made a most excellent and large dinner, of their ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... had also blotted out everything but itself. She forgot her uncle and Miss White; that she was going to give them pain did not occur to her until safe from their possible interference, in the dark, behind the slowly swaying curtains of her section, her fatigue began to lessen. Then, vaguely, she thought of them. . . . they would be sorry. She frowned, faintly troubled by their sorrow. It was midnight before she remembered Blair: poor Blair! he cared so much about her. How could he,— when she did not care for him? Still, it did not follow that not being loved ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... us the amount of prosperity that we have thus far obtained, shall be enabled to continue its work without being supplanted by monopoly. In a general way I should include public monopoly as well as private among the things which would put a damper on the progress of improvement and lessen the income on which the comfort of laborers in the near future will be dependent. Monopoly of any sort is hostile to improvement, and in this chiefly lies the menace which it holds ...
— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark
... chuddah back from his head and regarded her gravely. His face was swollen and discoloured, but this fact did not in the smallest degree lessen the quaint ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... maidenhood. Some of the most delightful women we meet are those who can be girls with girls, and women with women. The young do not lose their respect for them because they appreciate them, nor do elders lessen their regard for these women because they have kept the ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... advantage accruing to the mother country will fall greatly short of the expectation of the ministry; for certain it is, that our whole substance already in a manner flows to Great Britain, and that whatsoever contributes to lessen our importations must be hurtful to her manufactures. The eyes of our people already begin to be opened; and they will perceive, that many luxuries, for which we lavish our substance in Great Britain, can well be dispensed with. This, consequently, will introduce frugality, and be a necessary ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... the morning the wind had shifted to north-east, and blew, if possible, harder than before, accompanied by a much heavier swell of the sea; it was therefore judged advisable to pay out more cable, in order to lessen the ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... resolved to betray Montreuil, his fears for the priest's vengeance made him eager to destroy where he betrayed. I am not addicted to unnecessary procrastination. Of the unexpected evidence I had found I was most eager to avail myself. I saw at once how considerably Oswald's testimony would lessen any difficulty I might have in an explanation with Gerald, as well as in bringing Montreuil to justice: and the former measure seemed to me necessary to insure, or at least to expedite, the latter. I proposed, therefore, to Oswald, that he should immediately accompany ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he had but a small quantity of corn, and Pompey was strong in cavalry, that he might furnish his army with corn and other necessaries from all sides with less danger: secondly, to prevent Pompey from foraging, and thereby render his horse ineffectual in the operations of the war; and thirdly, to lessen his reputation, on which he saw he depended greatly, among foreign nations, when a report should have spread throughout the world that he was blockaded by Caesar, and dare not hazard ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... hearts around this little grave need have no fear. The largest and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. We know that through the common wants of life, the needs and duties of each hour, their grief will lessen day by day until at last these graves will be to them a place of rest and peace—almost of joy. There is for them this consolation: The dead do not suffer. If they live again their lives will surely be as good ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... to lessen the incidence of military service and to secure land and a small amount of capital for the dispossessed, the prospects for the future were by no means hopeless. The smaller culture, especially the cultivation of the vine and the olive, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... shape, is covered with oiled silk, is foldable, portable, and has a tail, Professor Davis turned his attention to his more recent and important discovery of the dirigible buoy, which bids fair to do much to lessen the dangers of shipwreck. For months past Professor Davis, assisted by Mr. Eddy, has been experimenting on the Kill von Kull with this buoy, and has obtained most encouraging results. There are two kinds, both being designed to be attached to kite lines and drawn over ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... should lessen in your own state to from five to ten inches a year, what changes would take place in the vegetation of the country? in the soil? in the streams? in the erosion of valleys? in the agencies chiefly at work ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... the meeting in the woods, the party arrived at the little town of Stroudsburg, on the Upper Delaware, none having suffered the least harm. The skill of Omas kept them supplied with food, and his familiarity with the route did much to lessen the hardships which otherwise ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... inconvenience was experienced. On another occasion the cylinder was dispensed with, and a reciprocating-motion clutch drew the bast, running to and fro the whole length of the fibre frame, the fibre being gripped by a pair of steel parallel bars on its passage in one or two places, as might be necessary, to lessen the tension. These steel bars, however, always left a transversal black line on the filament, and diminished its marketable value. What is desired is a machine which could be worked by one man and turn out at least as much clean fibre as the old ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... dynasty will be effected. The big chests, the massive brains, the vigorous muscles and stout frames, of the best men will carry the day, whenever it is worth their while to contest the prizes of life with the best women. And the hardship of it is, that the very improvement of the women will lessen their chances. Better mothers will bring forth better sons, and the impetus gained by the one sex will be transmitted, in the next generation, to the other. The most Darwinian of theorists will not venture to propound the doctrine, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... thoughts. That eloquence hath forces & beauties which are incomparable. That Poetry hath delicacies and sweets extremly ravishing; That the Mathematicks hath most subtile inventions, which very much conduce aswel to content the curious, as to facilitate all arts, and to lessen the labour of Men: That those writings which treat of manners contain divers instructions, and exhortations to vertue, which are very usefull. That Theology teacheth the way to heaven; That Philosophy affords us the means to speake of all things with probability, and ...
— A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason - and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences • Rene Descartes
... know that I do not blame you in the least for anything you did. No action of yours can ever lessen my affection ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... their hour of dire need, when poor Frederick had sickened of the fell disease which so soon carried him off. He always declared that her tenderness to his wife and daughter at that time had been beyond all price, and it seemed as though his sense of obligation and gratitude did not lessen with time. ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... because they might talk of them. That which had been great, if another had reported it of them, vanisheth, and is nothing, if he that did it speak of it. For men, when they cannot destroy the deed, will yet be glad to take advantage of the boasting, and lessen it. ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... purpose; the fertile mind built up rapidly a dreadful vista of possibilities, terrible facts that might have to be faced. Even so the dark mood beckoned me again; better to end it, said a hollow voice, better to let your dear ones suffer the worst, with a sorrow that will lessen year by year, than sink into a broken shadowed life of separation and restraint—but again it passed; again a grim ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... conclusions hold on a large scale as on the small, they may aid in explaining the diminished flow of oil wells. Not only will the flow lessen from reduced gas pressure, but the passages in the rock become less able to allow the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... no disgrace If loveliness lessen to serve the race, Nor point the finger of jesting scorn At her who ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... for those who have no other resource? Or, as someone has said, why not "make friends with the weather?" If one will cultivate this frame of mind he will be surprised to find that a certain physical relief will follow. In the first place, he will lessen the excessive perspiration which is the invariable accompaniment of fret, and which in its turn produces more discomfort than the ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... perhaps not wholly destroyed the hopes of Capodistrias that he might become Prince or Hospodar of Greece himself. There were difficulties in the way of filling the throne, and these difficulties, after the appointment of Leopold, Capodistrias certainly did not seek to lessen. His subtlety, his command of the indirect methods of effecting a purpose, were so great and so habitual to him that there was little chance of his taking any overt step for preventing Leopold's accession to the crown; there appears, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... clearly legal right to assemble, and we can not know in advance that their action will not be lawful and peaceful, and if we wait until they shall have acted their arrest or dispersion will not lessen the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... took Barbara home, and on the way across the lawn she giggled suddenly at the funny way in which the distance seemed to increase and then lessen between her eyes and her feet. The ground persisted in rising to meet her, she said, until she had to cling to Caleb's arm. And the outer steps proved difficult to negotiate. But at the sight of her father, sunk in silence ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... the impression will appear without the hands being magnified. It has been found that a person with a freckly face can have as fine, fair, and clear an impression as the most perfect complexion; this may be done by the subject rubbing the face until it is very red. The effect is to lessen the contrast, by giving the freckles and skin the same color and the photogenic intensity of the red and yellow being nearly the same, an impression can ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... dam was finished Hans, who had been too long a rover to settle down, expressed his desire to leave; and as Mr. Hardy had determined to lessen his establishment—as, now that the heavy work was over, if was no longer necessary to keep so many hands—he offered no objection to his leaving without the notice he had agreed to give. Wages were high, and Mr. Hardy was desirous of keeping his remaining capital ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... her own natural manner.) I believe sufferings cannot be very great, sir, which you can so easily remove. A day or two longer, perhaps, might lessen your uneasiness, by showing the little value of what you now think proper ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... a painful difficulty. The idea of her being discovered by the knight himself, in a male disguise, had preyed upon her spirits; and she felt as if guilty of a departure from the laws of womanhood, in having extended her favour towards him beyond maidenly limits; a step, too, which might tend to lessen her in the eyes of the lover for whom she had ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... of their settlement that no one should be allowed to shoot on their land, but at the same time they asked that they might be assessed at lower rates than their neighbours, on the ground that the antelope, being thus left undisturbed, did more damage to their crops; but I told them that this would lessen the merit (pun) of their actions in protecting the animals, and they must be treated just as the surrounding villages were. They consider it a good deed to scatter grain to pigeons and other birds, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... hear it, sir; and please clear your mind of the idea that you have ceased to be welcome. Your presence and that of Miss Fregelius will lessen, not increase, my trouble. I should be lonely in this great place with no company but that ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... for, or whether some minute improvements could be made sufficient to destroy the irregularities. He introduced several fresh terms into these perturbations, but none of them of sufficient magnitude to do more than slightly lessen the unexplained perturbations. ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... is increasing in consequence. That fatal vapour now comes every summer to the gates of Rome: it covers a certain quarter of the city, which, I was told, is uninhabitable during its continuance; and if nothing be done to lessen the malaria at its source, it will, some century or half century after this, envelope in its pestilential folds the whole of the Eternal City, and the traveller will gaze with awe on the blackened ruins of Rome, as he does on those of Babylon on the ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... Now He would lessen their numbers, but in doing it He will pick out the best. The men are encamped on the hillsides overlooking a valley. Across the valley to the north lay the encamped armies of three nations. They were a vast host. They were spread ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... audience on the plea of suffering from sickness. Either the mortification she had undergone had in reality a serious effect upon her health, or, what is not improbable, she had recourse to this expedient to pain his haughty spirit, and in some degree to lessen his triumph. He delivered to her letters from the king, and laid before her a copy of his own appointment, by which the supreme command of the whole military force of the Netherlands was committed to him, and from which, therefore, it would appear, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... a good word even for the Dock. They say that a Dock leaf wrapped round the part stung by a nettle will lessen the pain; others advise us to rub the part with Dock seed. I do not think myself that either remedy has much effect; but the leaves of the Sorrel, which is a relative of the Dock, will lessen the pain of nettle stings. Mrs. Hammond always uses Dock leaves to ...
— Wildflowers of the Farm • Arthur Owens Cooke
... for the use of Irish harbours to convenience Turkish and Algerine pirates in raiding sea-going commerce. The plot is old, but the plea of "increasing his Majesty's revenues" by which it was commended is everlasting. Nor will age lessen its significance for the citizens of that Republic which, amidst the tremors and greed of European diplomacy, extirpated the traffic of Algerine corsairs ninety years ago. British experts cherish Lord Falkland's fame as the sire of their most knightly cavalier, and in their ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... when our Men wanted Silver, they would change now and then an Ounce of Gold, and could get for it no more than 10 or 11 Dollars for a Mindanao Ounce, which they would not part with again under 18 Dollars. Yet this, and the great prices the Mindanaians set on their Goods, were not the only way to lessen their stocks; for their Pagallies and Comrades would often be begging somewhat of them, and our Men were generous enough, and would bestow half an Ounce of Gold at a time, in a Ring for their Pagallies, or in a Silver Wrist-band, or Hoop to come about ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... more aid and comfort to Vincent if we were in the North than we could be here. If he were taken prisoner and wounded, we could return him the kindness we have received here. In any event, we could lessen the hardships ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... found herself a heroine; more than that, she became aware that for some reason those who had once patronized her were now disposed to pay her a kind of court. But this did not lessen her satisfaction; she suspected no motive but real kindness, for she had that innate rectitude which has always confidence in ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... contend in regard to the geographical features and position of the United Kingdom. Its comparatively small size, the propinquity of industrial centres, our efficient day and night express railway services, especially those running north and south, lessen the value of aircraft's superior speed and militate against the operation of successful internal air services. Possible exceptions might include amphibian services between London and Dublin, accelerating the delivery of mails ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... To lessen this scour MacFarlane had looted a carload of plank switched on to a siding, and a gang of men in charge of Jack,—who had now reached his Chief's side,—were dragging them along the downstream slope to form sluices with which to break ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... tell me, without adding anything to the good or taking away anything from the bad; for it is the duty of loyal vassals to tell the truth to their lords just as it is and in its proper shape, not allowing flattery to add to it or any idle deference to lessen it. And I would have thee know, Sancho, that if the naked truth, undisguised by flattery, came to the ears of princes, times would be different, and other ages would be reckoned iron ages more than ours, which ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... that for heating their dwellings; and, being seldom at home in the day-time, would want little more than a place to sleep in; so that the expence of lodging might be greatly diminished.—It is evident, that all these saving together would operate very powerfully to lessen the public expence for the maintenance of the Poor; and, were proper measures adopted, and pursued with care and perseverance, I am persuaded the expence would at last be ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... would make a very respectable library. As the question presents itself to-day, it may well be doubted whether the general practice of large property holders of insuring all their possessions does not tend to lessen the constant vigilance which is the most essential requisite in preventing fires. Thousands of merchants never mean to keep a dollar's worth of goods in store or warehouse that is not fully covered by ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... me at the office, and late home to supper and to bed, with my heart in good rest for this day's work, though troubled to think that my last month's negligence besides the making me neglect business and spend money, and lessen myself both as to business and the world and myself, I am fain to preserve my vowe by paying 20s. dry—[ Dry hard, as "hard cash." ]—money into the poor's box, because I had not fulfilled all my memorandums and paid all my petty debts and received all my petty credits, of the last ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... afterwards to W. Coventry, that he had sat twenty-six years in Parliament and never heard such a speech there before: for which the Lord God make me thankful! and that I may make use of it not to pride and vain-glory, but that, now I have this esteem, I may do nothing that may lessen it! I spent the morning thus walking in the Hall, being complimented by everybody with admiration: and at noon stepped into the Legg with Sir William Warren, who was in the Hall, and there talked about ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... times, when gazing upwards at the sky, see what appears to be a vast cloud approaching from the horizon. It is produced by infinite swarms of locusts, or grasshoppers, as they are called in North America. [From Professor Hind's "Red River Exploring Expedition."] About noon they appear to lessen perceptibly the rays of the sun. The whole horizon wears an unearthly ashy hue, from the light reflected by their transparent wings. The air is filled as with flakes of snow. The clouds of insects, forming a dense body, cast ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... according to certain impressions made on their minds, differ more or less in their mode of obtaining an object dear alike to the hearts of both; and unless some equally zealous, yet impartial, friend steps in to remove or lessen the cause of their dissension, grave consequences, to the disadvantage ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... sweep over a country, rush on with a shout, use the steel and firebrand, and frighten and overwhelm the weak or cowardly; but in the wars of civilized countries, even the implements of carnage are scientifically constructed, and are calculated to lessen or supersede it; and a campaign becomes co-ordinately a tour of savants, or a colonizing expedition, or a political demonstration. When Sesostris marched through Asia to the Euxine, he left upon his road monuments of himself, which have not utterly disappeared even at ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... he has ambitions to be known as such—why, if he believed in the Volstead Act, he still consumed whiskey. His answer was intended to be amusing; to me it was disgraceful. Said he: "I am drinking as much as I can in order to lessen the supply for the ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... remembered that Miss Prescott was consigned to the care of the amiable Keewaygooshturkumkankangewock, wife of Hans Vanderbum. The reasons for this were several. In the first place, the Shawnees were actuated in a small degree by their desire to lessen the sufferings of their captive. This squaw had learned enough of the English language from her husband to hold almost an intelligible conversation in it; and; as quite an acquaintance had already been established between him and the maiden, she would ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... of Storm had much to do; and while this fact did not apparently lessen the neighborhood's attitude of critical animosity toward her, it gave the girl a keen pleasure to know that she was helping her friend. She began to understand the secret of the strong hold his profession has upon those ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... insane enough to try it, a dozen bullets would stop their career for ever. Then horror and disgust at the recollection of their savage crimes took the place of pity, and not even ——-'s suggestion, that the robber-chief might have killed his wife in a transport of jealousy, could lessen our indignation at this last most barbarous murder of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... carriage. She bowed brightly, but he—what could it mean?—he lifted his hat with such austere gravity. Dr. Sevier was angry. He had no definite charge to make, but that did not lessen his displeasure. After long, unpleasant wondering, and long trusting to see Richling some day on the street, he had at length driven by this way purposely to see if they had indeed left town, as they had been so imperiously ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... face commend, And to her virtues be a friend, But instantly your forehead lowers, As if her merit lessen'd yours? ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... with a compass; sometimes it was made in the form of a ring. It was an awkward substitute for the watch, but it was, nevertheless, great-great-great-grandfather to it. Yet advantageous as it was to be able to carry the time about with you, it did nothing to lessen the long, unmarked stretch of darkness that descended upon the earth every night. How was man ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... distributed among the different owners. With regard to personal estate it is very different. It is comparatively easy to conceal one's ownership of some kinds of personal property, or to understate one's income. Hence the temptation to lessen the burden of the tax bill by making false statements is considerable, and doubtless a good deal of deception is practised. There are many people who are too honest to cheat individuals, but still consider it a venial sin to ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting; and as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat everyone of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... at all, it is more likely to refer to the day of the moon, Monday. It was carefully pointed out that in the third line frenetique means not mad but inspired. The fourth and only intelligible line would suggest that the spectre bade Michel ask the King to lessen the taxes and dues which then weighed so heavily on the good folk of ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... live in perfect liberty. Otherwise, I declared, I would stay in London, where the laws guaranteed my freedom. I am waiting for his answer every day, and I expect it will be a favourable one, for no one can deprive me of my estates, and Oeiras will probably be only too glad to protect me to lessen the odium which attaches to his name as the murderer of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... side from the Alcmaeonidae. For the Athenians were highly sensitive in all matters of religion, and it was possible that they might even banish Pericles, if their consciences were suddenly alarmed. And though this was not likely, the Spartans hoped at any rate to lessen his influence, which was adverse to themselves, and fasten on him the odium of being, in some sense, the cause of the war. But their manoeuvre was unsuccessful, and the Athenians retorted by bidding the Spartans drive out the curse of Taenarus, in allusion ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... us, however, to overlook the beneficial effects of Paddy's peculiar genius in swearing alibis. Some persons, who display their own egregious ignorance of morality, may be disposed to think that it tends to lessen the obligation of an oath, by inducing a habit among the people of swearing to what is not true. We look upon such persons as very dangerous to Ireland and to the repeal of the Union; and we request them not to push their principles ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... him on to the moor, and there he lay in the heather. She would not have him touched. She crouched beside him, watching the flames grow and lessen, and when only smoke rose from the blackened heap, she still ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... closing in upon the train. Off there to the left the outlaws were keeping pace with him, but as yet they were making no attempt to lessen the distance between them. He came up with the last wagon, turned off the road beside it, and had the clumsy covered vehicle between him and the ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... afraid, In secret loves his wife, but keeps her maid. Some nymphs sell reputation; others buy; And love a market where the rates run high: Italian music's sweet, because 'tis dear; Their vanity is tickled, not their ear: Their taste would lessen, if the prices fell, And Shakespeare's wretched stuff do quite as well; Away the disenchanted fair would throng, And own that English is their mother tongue. To show how much our northern tastes refine, Imported ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... wrong, among men. Let the omnipotency and prescience of a First Cause be granted, the corollary of 'whatever is, is right,' is one of the most obvious that can flow from any proposition: the distance of any link in the eternal sequence cannot lessen the connection with a First Cause, ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... for the purpose of dealing with treatment-plant effluents and miscellaneous pollution. But more recent investigations have raised strong doubt as to whether such augmentation could do the job in the estuary with its huge volume of water, and its slow, tide-baffled currents that greatly lessen ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... laughter, a part of the fear he had still lingered. He was no longer Erik Dorn, man of words and mirror of nothings. He had said he loved her. Avoiding, of course, the direct remark. But he had indicated it rather definitely. It would undoubtedly lessen him to her, make him human. She had admired him because he was different. Now he was like everybody else saying an "I love you" to a woman. Perhaps he should unsay it. Again, a dreamy laugh. But it made him happy. A drifting, childish ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... something could be done to lessen the harshness—to save the pride—of such a girl as Alice Burnet. Practically you tell her she isn't fit ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... replied that, granting the whole protest, nothing in it lessened the force, or could lessen the force, of the voluntary and public exoneration of his partner. He therefore, once and for all, requested Mr Rugg's immediate aid in getting the business despatched. Upon that, Mr Rugg fell to work; and Arthur, retaining ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... father now! He must have heard the shouts Of victory, yet still he hides himself. ... The king asked not for love. He is Assyria. I would not lessen him by love. Not yet.... 'Tis my triumphant arms he weds. ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... sudden increase of wealth, all the thousand new enjoyments with which life was now adorned and enriched, did not work wholly for good. With luxury there went, as always, laxity in morals. Contact with the vice and effeminacy of the East tended to lessen the manly vigor of the Greeks, both in Asia and in Europe. Hellas became corrupt, and she in ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... retorted that in such a case the United States would very probably send the bill to the British Government. The fact was pointed out that the operation of the English law did not lessen the obligation incumbent upon Great Britain to restore the goods to their bona fide neutral owners or to the neutral consignees. Although the permission had been given to the owners to come and take their goods at the ports ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell
... he repeated, in a tone that made the words a caress. "I wanted you always, and every day I want you more. I am only trying to say that her love seemed to lessen, instead of growing, as time went on. If I could know that she died loving me, I would not ask why. If I could know that she died loving me—if I were sure she loved ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... the man answered, cleaning out his empty pistols and very carefully reloading them. 'As to who I am, it is a matter of small moment. Suffice it that I have helped to lessen Kirk's horse by four of his rogues. Mark their faces, so dusky and sun-dried even in death. These men have learned warfare fighting against the heathen in Africa, and now they practise on poor harmless English folk the devil's tricks which they have picked up amongst the savages. The Lord ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... know the Hero of heroes is well, I care the less about letters; knowing that writing, delivering, or receiving them, will not, either in him or me, make the least alteration, or lessen ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... kissed her sons for the last time after the Communion at the altar-steps (and what more fit place for a mother's kiss?) went to the rocky knoll outside the churchyard wall, and watched the ship glide out between the yellow denes, and lessen slowly hour by hour into the boundless West, till her hull sank below the dim horizon, and her white sails faded away into the gray Atlantic ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and girls trained in the schools and by their contact with life itself to think, such an invitation to lay aside all reason and common sense can do other in the long run than to weaken confidence in the Bible, and so lessen the significance of many of its ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... attacks on the Bishop and on the friars did not lessen for long, nor was the resentment against them diminished amongst the greater number of the colonists, who pushed their reprisals to such an extent that, not only were the priests reduced to the barest necessities ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... obliged to labor. "Do not disturb servants when they are eating," is the frequent charge of a Southern mother, "they have not a great many pleasures within their reach; never do any thing that will lessen their comforts in the slightest degree." Mrs. Weston, even in her own deep sorrow, was not unmindful of others; she frequently tried to induce Phillis to go home, knowing that she must be much fatigued. "I cannot feel tired, Phillis; ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... which the most uninformed can appreciate. And in at least one feature of "counter-measures," the history of the decoy or mystery ships, the record is of such exalted and amazing heroism that not the strictest language of officialdom can lessen its power to stir the heart. Who, for example, could read the story of The Prize, and the involuntary tribute from the captured German commander that rounds it off, without a glow of gratitude and pride? Do ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... articles fried, but the pan must not be too full, or there is danger of overflow when heavy articles are put in. After each frying, drain the fat or oil, put it into a receptacle kept for the purpose, and use it over and over again as long as it lasts. As the quantity begins to lessen, add sufficient fresh fat or oil to keep ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... to eat at a Toy Party, and you can't always have things at a circus, lessen you buy 'em; and maybe not then, 'cepting peanuts and lemonade. Let's have a Toy Party and we can get mother to give ...
— The Story of Calico Clown • Laura Lee Hope
... instant, Mr. Meyers would obey Mrs. Wilson's request to lessen the speed of his car. Then he would dash ahead as though the very ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... sentinel of the river-boats. He, confessing, when put to the torture, that he was a spy, and that he gave and carried messages, was beheaded. On the other side, it was considered that although it would lessen the anxiety to kill all the Sangleys or to attempt it, it did not appear a just punishment toward people of whose crime they were uncertain—much more so, since they had come to Filipinas to conduct their trading in good faith, and the governor ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... be taxed. The final payment of any tax upon their necessary expense, would fall altogether upon the superior ranks of people; upon the smaller portion of the annual produce, and not upon the greater. Such a tax must, in all cases, either raise the wages of labour, or lessen the demand for it. It could not raise the wages of labour, without throwing the final payment of the tax upon the superior ranks of people. It could not lessen the demand for labour, without lessening the annual produce of the land and labour of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... put the candle down on a little shelf. She rubbed her hands one about the other as if her doing so might lessen the affront which she had now somehow to meet. When at last she spoke, her calm, even tones were like the loveliness of primroses; her eyes were ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... quick; A fever seized him, and at once was lost The thought of trespass, error, crime, and cost: Th' indulgent parents, knelt beside the youth, They heard his promise and believed his truth; And when the danger lessen'd on their view, They cast off doubt, and hope assurance grew; - Nursed by his sisters, cherish'd by his sire, Begg'd to be glad, encouraged to aspire, His life, they said, would now all care repay, And he might date his prospects from that day; A ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... themselves put on likewise a granular condition which obscures vision. The discharge by this time has become thicker and white, and looks like matter from an abscess. By slow degrees the inflammation may subside, the discharge lessen, the swelling diminish, and the eye in the course of weeks may regain its natural condition. But the danger is—and when proper treatment is not adopted early the danger is very great—lest the mischief should extend ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... and blazoned about Morus, for the murder of Morus's reputation over Europe, and his ruin in the French Protestant Church in particular. Nor does the reported sequel of Labadie's life, in the ordinary accounts of him, lessen the wonder.—Labadie did not come to London, as Milton had hoped. When he received Milton's letter, he was on the wing for Geneva, where he arrived in June 1659, and where he continued his preaching. Here, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... must employ his strength to that degree that he has no time for the culture of the spiritual. I cannot remain and support myself without becoming subject to the same conditions as existed at home. I cannot expect them to be willing to lessen their present expenses much for the sake of gaining time for spiritual culture; nor do I see how I can at home live with my relatives and have the time which I require. I see no way but to give up the taste for fine clothing and variety in food. I would ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... a shining tress,—a very small one, so loath is he, even for his own benefit, to lessen the glory of her hair,—and, severing it, consigns it to the back case of ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... a bathing-dress for my doll," answered the little girl. "I can't take her on a steamboat where the water is deep lessen I have a bathing-suit for her. Wait a minute. I'll get one," and she ran over to a corner of the room, where she kept ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... vital to others than economists or to the fortunate heirs of some of the purchasers. I am aware (let me say parenthetically) that customs duties might have a somewhat like interpretation under a higher imaginative power; but this possibility does not lessen to me the singularly spiritual character of this series of transactions-of land sales, or transmutations of lands, on the one hand, into the maintenance of the fabric of a government by the people, and, on the other, into the ruggedest, hardiest species of men and women the world ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... exiles 'for conscience sake' forgot to practice those principles of religious liberty and toleration, for the preservation and enjoyment of which they had themselves abandoned home and kindred, and the church of their forefathers; and they tend to lessen the feelings of respect and admiration with which their piety, and their disinterested spirit, must necessarily inspire us. We cannot but regret to find how early, in many of the Puritan communities, ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... submitted in great detail the history of the Cabinet discussions, he closed by no less an offer than saying he had the King's orders to propose to me the situation either of Chancellor of the Exchequer or Secretary of War,—the latter without a seat in the Cabinet, if I wished to lessen the responsibility. ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... they are in no hurry to do it. Believing that the knowledge they have inherited is far greater than any they can obtain, they wish to preserve their intellectual possessions whole and unimpaired; inasmuch as the least alteration in them might lessen their value. Content with what has been already bequeathed, they are excluded from that great European movement, which, first clearly perceptible in the sixteenth century, has ever since been steadily advancing, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... to diminish in proportion as I diminished not only the quality, but quantity of my food, I took less than half a pint at a meal, with a small piece of bread, amounting to about the quantity of a Boston cracker; and at times, in order to lessen arterial action, added some water to the milk, taking only ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... act as an insulator without breaking the wire. How long it would stay there was anybody's guess. It was held mechanically as well as by its sticky action, but when the bird cooled off enough, the sticky effect would lessen. I hoped the pressure between the wire and the gate could be enough to keep it in place. Certainly no forces would be acting ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... are thrown away to provide adulterated alcoholic drinks for one member of it. Until reforms such as these and others have been carried out, and the poor are able and willing to conform to known physiological laws, it is premature to speak of taking measures to lessen the birth-rate—a proposal, be it said, which makes the humiliating confession of man's defeat in the battle ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... middle island of a group of three on our starboard beam. He further reported, on the question being put to him, that the water was very shoal all round the ship, but that there were indications of something like a channel to the southward and eastward; upon which sail was shortened to lessen the schooner's speed through the water, and her head was put in the direction indicated. This course was held for about two miles, when, by Courtenay's direction, it was changed to south-south- west. Another run of two miles enabled ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... most sadly. "What a foolish hussy you are!" said he. "Have I done you any harm?" "Yes, sir," said I, "the greatest harm in the world; you have taught me to forget myself, and have lessen'd the distance that fortune has made between us, by demeaning yourself to be so free to a poor servant. I am honest, though poor; and if you were a prince I would not ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... it stood was orbicular, with a rampart of two yards and a half broad above the ditch. To lessen the destructive effects of this dangerous piece of artillery, chosen men were set as guards with wet hides and woollen coverlids to quench the flame, had the enemy been skilful enough to accomplish their purpose; it being their ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... this invidious praise, Ourselves to lessen, while our sire you raise? Dare to be just, Atrides! and confess Our value equal, though our fury less. With fewer troops we storm'd the Theban wall, And happier saw the sevenfold city fall,(137) In impious ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... see how to lessen this effect. There is really not much said of it; and I know Catriona did it. But ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I know my sympathy helps you, but I mean, I can't do anything to lessen your sorrow at ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... but, the main thing, he had attracted an enormous company. I rejoiced to see him, for it meant that the wicket of his master's tanyard, half a stone's throw ahead, would be unbolted. This would save us a longish detour and lessen the ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... the "hyred woman'' at four o'clock at the Castle Hill, nearly a mile away from the Girth Cross, so—as the Pitcairn Trials footnote says-"that the populace, who might be so early astir, should have their attentions distracted at two opposite stations . . . and thus, in some measure, lessen the disgrace ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... Sancho. The two were taken to a room, where Don Quixote, alone with his squire, undressed and put on the shirt, while he gave Sancho admonitions galore, as to how to behave, begging him never again to have any quarrels with any duennas, for that only tended to lessen the respect for the master, who was always judged by ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 'Now if Voltaire had helped me to feel that,' said he, 'I could have seen some fun in it.' He loved the comedy which shows a hero human, and yet leaves him a hero, and the laughter which does not lessen love. ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... always remain. The moment, however, that we come into a realization of our true selves, and so of the tremendous powers and forces within,—the powers and forces of the mind and spirit,—hereditary traits and influences that are harmful in nature will begin to lessen, and will disappear with a rapidity directly in proportion to the completeness of ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... system of the private market had tended to lessen the broker's commission, he would have gone or stood any where else to transact ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... color paled, and a certain note as of triumph in his voice died out of it. His mother had left them, feeling that her presence might hinder conversation and lessen the comfort which ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... upon her bosom. She felt the rigor lessen. The moaning ceased, and the tortured heart began to leap and strain against her own, as though some invisible hand lashed ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... transportation our large harbors on the North and East seas can be utilized equally well for embarkation. Speed is the chief requisite. In order to lessen the distance of transporting, operations toward the west must be conducted from the North Sea ports and toward the east from our east sea ports. This does not preclude the possibility of towing the transports ...
— Operations Upon the Sea - A Study • Franz Edelsheim
... up or poisoned by the enemy. A less determined army would have given up the siege in despair. But though a few weak ones, unable to stand the hardships, deserted, nothing could daunt the courage or lessen the zeal of the greater part ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... hardly ever sent to prison. Slaves who commit grave crimes are hung; those who commit heinous crimes not punishable with death are sold out of the State. In selling him care is taken that his character and former life are not known, because it would lessen his price." Thus wrote De Beaumont and De Tocqueville; and in so writing they handed down a fine insight into the methods of that Southern propertied class which assumed so exalted an opinion of its ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... things. Had not the poor artist, in her own way, served the general welfare, quite as effectively, as if she had projected a new breakfast food, or made a successful marriage. Her fingers, which had not gathered much gold, had at least been found fit to lessen some human misery. In that strength ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... calculated, for, by sinking so deeply before the spring, he thus made use of the buoyancy of water, and rendered less pressure with his hands on the ice needful. But, although he thus avoided breaking the ice at first he could not by any device lessen the weight of his fall upon it. Again the treacherous mass gave way, and once more he sank ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... mind to something. Lone was impressed somehow with Swan's perfect control of his speech, his thoughts, his actions. But he was puzzled rather than anything else, and when Swan turned, facing him, Lone's bewilderment did not lessen. ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... drink to the last dregs, failed to get rid of social and national grievances. The hanging of thirteen Gipsies at one of the Suffolk Assizes a few years before the Restoration carried with it none of the seeds of a reformation in their character and habits, nor did it lessen the number of these wandering prowlers, for we find that from the landing of a few hundred of Gipsies from France in 1514, down to the commencement of the eighteenth century, the number had increased to something like 15,000. The number who had been hung, died in prison, suffered ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... bourgeois relations of production,—an abolition that can be effected only by a revolution—but administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labor, but, at the best, lessen the cost and simplify the administrative work ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... Secrets of the Ugly Club were exposed to the Publick, that Men might see there were some noble Spirits in the Age, who are not at all displeased with themselves upon Considerations which they had no Choice in: so the Discourse concerning Idols tended to lessen the Value People put upon themselves from personal Advantages, and Gifts of Nature. As to the latter Species of Mankind, the Beauties, whether Male or Female, they are generally the most untractable People of all others. You are so excessively perplexed with the Particularities ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the world for me, and I solemnly determined to win her. It seemed madness—I was a poor, unknown man—but the thought of you drove me resistlessly on until at last the gulf between us has been narrowed, and may be narrower still. That is, I have striven to lessen it in the one way I can—in all others without your help it must remain impassable. Heaven knows how far I am beneath you, and the daring hope has but one excuse—I love you, and shall always do so. Is what I ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... pusillanimity and his desertion of them and his men; while the naval officers only laughed at his unusual and somewhat absurd costume. He was followed by his two daughters, Mrs Major Bubsby bringing up the rear, though it might have been wiser in her to have led the van. Her curious appearance did not lessen the merriment of those who had not before seen her, and those of the crew who were standing near in no way attempted ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... hastening through the park, scarcely heeding the soaking rain, or the chill, or darkness, in the pre-occupation of her thoughts. She had flung a thick shawl over her head and shoulders, a fashion so universal as to greatly lessen her chance of being observed, and when she came to the park gates she looked up and down for some circumstance to guide her further steps. She found it in the lighted windows of the Methodist chapel. There ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... walk up and down the verandah, putting his foot down firmly. His loose linen suit was smart enough: his complexion had been improved by the sun. The consciousness that his business affairs were promising well did not lessen his sense of self-importance. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... refuse the request of so mighty a person as the emperor's mother, and, deciding that they durst not, returned to the hall where Elene sat in splendour on her throne and announced their readiness to reply to all her questions. Elene, however, bade them first lessen their numbers. They chose five hundred to reply for them, and on these she poured such bitter reproaches that ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... introduce the ballot, and Hume, in the interests of economy, but at the cost of much personal odium, assailed sinecures and extravagance in every shape and form. Ward drew attention to the abuses of the Irish Church, and did much by his exertions to lessen them; and Lord John Russell a year or two later brought about a civic revolution by the Municipal Reform Act—a measure which, next to the reform of Parliament, did more to broaden and uplift the political life of the people than any other enactment of the century. Ireland blocked the way ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... inefficient for the purpose of revenue, curtailed our trade relations and impeded our entrance to the markets of the world, has been superseded by a tariff policy which in principle is based upon a denial of the right of the Government to obstruct the avenues to our people's cheap living or lessen their comfort and contentment for the sake of according especial advantages to favorites, and which, while encouraging our intercourse and trade with other nations, recognizes the fact that American self-reliance, thrift, and ingenuity can build up our country's industries and develop its ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... The tumor began to lessen in size, and after the third bottle I would never have known he ever had a tumor there. He is now hearty and healthy. Sleeps as good as any child and is full of life. He does not take anything to prevent a return, and has ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... very well for you to talk like that, Ellis; but nothing you say can lessen the bitterness of parting from Valmai. It is my own wish to go, and nothing shall prevent me; but I could bear the separation with much more fortitude ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... In 1801, Dr. Lettsom mentions the circumstance "as being to the honor of the medical professors, that they have very generally encouraged this salutary practice, although it is certainly calculated to lessen their pecuniary advantages by its tendency to extirpate a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... creditors demand all that money at once, they cannot have it, for that which their debtors have used, is for the time employed, and not to be obtained. With the advantages of credit we must take the disadvantages too; but to lessen them as much as we can, we must keep a great store of ready money always available, and advance out of it very freely in periods of panic, and in ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... thirty years old, not tall, but robustly made; and of a countenance which, under happier circumstances, I thought would display manliness and sensibility; his agitation was excessive, and the clamourous crowds who flocked around him did not contribute to lessen it. Curiosity and observation seemed, nevertheless, not to have wholly deserted him; he shewed the effect of novelty upon ignorance; he wondered at all he saw: though broken and interrupted with dismay, his voice was soft and musical, when its natural tone could be heard; and he readily pronounced ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... easily dropped from the boll and soiled or lost altogether. Leaves and twigs as well as the shell of the boll frequently cling to the fiber, and are picked with it, and all these things tend to dirty and discolor it, and lessen its marketability. It requires about three pounds of cotton with the seed in it, as picked, to produce one pound of ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... boldly upon his work as a champion of the truth. His voice was heard from the pulpit in earnest, solemn warning. He set before the people the offensive character of sin, and taught them that it is impossible for man, by his own works, to lessen its guilt or evade its punishment. Nothing but repentance toward God and faith in Christ can save the sinner. The grace of Christ cannot be purchased; it is a free gift. He counseled the people not to buy indulgences, but to look in faith to a crucified ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... he came again, a few minutes later, to see if I had done, I saw through the game. The authorities wished to "discharge" me rapidly, before the hour when my friends would assemble at the prison gates, and so lessen the force of the demonstration. I slackened speed at once, drank my tea in sips, and munched my dry bread with great deliberation. "Come," said superintendent Burchell, "you're very slow this morning." "Oh," I replied, "there's no hurry; after twelve months of it a few minutes ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... jointly with O'Brien for some time, I took the liberty to ask her to favor us with a song; but she pleaded an awful cold, and asked to be excused. The apple-jack excused her. The Storeys are pleasant people, and I trust that, full as we were, we did nothing to lessen their respect ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... that subject I wished to speak to you. I don't want to lessen your indignation against me, or ask you to do anything for my sake. I only wish to ask you if you will help me to lessen the evil consequences of the past, which is unchangeable. I don't mean consequences ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Doctor Ward and others think, many more might be able to qualify for that position if favorably situated, then society, which is the loser by every undeveloped person, must learn to know the possibilities of children as indicated by scientific study and lessen the present waste of potential talent. Dr. Carl Kelsey says "Heredity determines what a man may become, but environment determines what he does become." This is not entirely true, perhaps, since many noble and wise have risen from untoward surroundings, ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... days rare distinction of America which left no home in the Union inaccessible to such advantages, had made Dickens the object everywhere of grateful admiration, for the most part of personal affection. But even this was not all. I do not say it either to lessen or to increase the value of the tribute, but to express simply what it was; and there cannot be a question that the young English author, whom by his language they claimed equally for their own, was almost universally regarded by the Americans ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... constitutional symptoms are fever, prostration, and a general nervous irritability. The child is seized with pain in the abdomen. The pain is referred to the region around the navel. It is sharp, colicky, and severe, causing the child to cry out and draw up its legs in an effort to lessen its severity. The child is exceedingly restless and acts as if it were on the verge of a dangerous illness. Gas in the bowel is not present as a rule as frequently as it is in infants under the same circumstances. In a few hours diarrhea sets in, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... election. Our political action should be such as to strengthen the arm of Government; and the military action of Government should be such as to strengthen those who shall be engaged in affording it political support. Failure in the field would not lead to defeat at the polls, but it might so lessen the loyal majority that the public sentiment of the country would be but feebly represented by the country's political action. What happened in 1862 might happen again in 1864, and with much more disastrous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... sentences, displaying the highest powers of acuteness and assimilation, if not much profound and original insight or genius. This poem suggests the wish that more of our critics would write in verse. The music might lessen the malice, and set off the commonplace to advantage, so that if there were no "reason," there might be at least "rhyme." His "Lines to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady" are too elaborate and artificial ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... and they are most interesting as being coeval with, if not antecedent to, the most early form of printed book illustration as shown in the "Biblia Pauperum."[B] The archaic drawing of the features, with its disregard of facial perspective, and the wondrous cervical anatomy, do not lessen our admiration of the vigour and "go" shown in this early example of the art of the designer ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... one side of Bannister, his mistress on the other. They rode in close formation, to lessen the chance of an ambuscade. Bannister alone chatted at his debonair ease, ignoring the responsibility they ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... in their capacity for commerce, are certainly among the most favored portions of the globe, and there is but one circumstance that tends in the least degree to lessen their apparent advantage; this is the prevalence of typhoons in the China seas, which are occasionally felt with force to the north of latitude 10 deg. N. South of that parallel, they have never ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... unconscious of fifty small boys all smacking their lips in unison, while he kissed the air one centimeter in front of Miss L'Ewysse's lips. But he learned the art. Indeed, he began to lessen ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... of these letters are quite subordinate to this main fact that the man who wrote them is thus perfectly seen in them. But they do not lessen the estimate of his genius. Admiration rises higher at the writer's mental forces, who, putting so much of himself into his work for the public, had still so much overflowing for such private intercourse. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... her destin'd quarry knew, Contracted, to the boding bird she turns, Which haunts the ruin'd piles and hallow'd urns, And beats about the tombs with nightly wings, Where songs obscene on sepulchers she sings. Thus lessen'd in her form, with frightful cries The Fury round unhappy Turnus flies, Flaps on his shield, and flutters o'er ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... you will reconsider it," said the surgeon. "We should not have dreamed of suggesting a measure of such severity had we not had reason to dread that the further prosecution of gentler means would but lessen your lordship's ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... our troubles to those who are suffering if we can lessen their own. It may be a very great relief to them to know that others have passed through trials equal to theirs and have survived. There are obscure, nervous diseases, hypochondriac fancies, almost uncontrollable impulses, which ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... his fall, and it became necessary for Helen to steady, him in his seat. Her muscles ached with the strain, but she made no complaint, for she feared the ranger might lessen the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... great fact of the birth of a nation, in the midst of those throes of anguish, will lessen their atrocity in the mind of the reader, and explain to some extent the wonderful designs ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... encouragement to do so too. His greediness of praise is so eager that he swallows anything that comes in the likeness of it, how notorious and palpable soever, and is as shot-free against anything that may lessen his good opinion of himself. This renders him incurable, like ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... and, despite Peter's warning that, high or low, they were bound to get it if it came to them, every man on board, including Peter, crouched, with chest contracted by drawn-in shoulders, in an instinctive and purely unconscious effort to lessen the area of body he presented as a target or receptacle for flying ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... of Jesus of Nazareth was from the beginning obscured by error and mistake; granted that those errors and mistakes which were once the strength of Christianity are now its weakness, and by the slow march and sentence of time are now threatening, unless we can clear them away, to lessen the hold of Jesus on the love and remembrance of man. What then? The fact is merely a call to you and me, who recognise it, to go back to the roots of things, to reconceive the Christ, to bring him afresh ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the problems that evil presents are practical, not speculative. Not why evil should exist at all, but how we can lessen the actual amount of it, is the sole question we need there consider. 'God,' in the religious life of ordinary men, is the name not of the whole of things, heaven forbid, but only of the ideal tendency in things, believed in as a superhuman person who calls us to co-operate ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... setting himself to the task of brushing away all illusions and painting life as sterile and unpicturesque as it is in its meanest, most commonplace conditions. To do this, he claimed, was the stern function of the author. To help his readers to self-knowledge, although it might lessen their happiness, was the greatest service he ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... returned Alice, who did not care to lessen the effect of her communication by mentioning her promised return for a season. "—It ain't likely," she added, "as a heiress is a goin' to act the ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... you propose, the course you have marked out, accomplish your purpose? Will it stop discussion? Will it lessen it in the slightest degree? Can you not profit by the experience of the past? Can you prevent an agitation of this subject, or any other, by any constitutional provisions? No! Look at the details ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... he tore his coat. She said, as he passed out on the jump his coat caught on a nail, but it didn't lessen his speed ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... longed for some word, some sign from her mother, but none came. It was too soon to ask for her forgiveness yet. It was too much to ask, for it would be only asking for comfort for herself, it would not lessen the pain she had given to others. Nothing could do that, nothing, at least, but time, and ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the purpose of carrying out numerous costly experiments. The Count selected Friedrichshafen, on the shores of Lake Constance, as his head-quarters. He decided to conduct his experiments over the calm waters of the lake, in order to lessen the effects of a fall. The original shed was constructed on pontoons, and it could be turned round as desired, so that the air-ship could be brought out in the lee of any wind from whatsoever quarter ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... the city, whither the mayor and citizens had gone to meet him,(472) he was welcomed by the Recorder. There was some talk of presenting the king with a gift either of money or plate,(473) but the proposal fell through. "We tender to you," said Sir Thomas Gardiner, "no formal present; it would but lessen us; I am sure whatever it were it would be far ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... get out of it; but his father's command was sacred, and for years he had been bound by his father's word. Escape was utterly impossible. The entrance of the clergyman, who seemed more intent on the luncheon than any thing else, did not lessen Guy's feelings of repugnance. He said but little, and sank into a fit of abstraction, from which he was roused by a message that the General would like to see him. He hurried ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... tried to lessen Napoleon's hostility," said Alexander, shrugging his shoulders. "But my efforts were unsuccessful. He insists on Hardenberg's removal, and I cannot but advise your majesty, urgently, to comply. I cannot conceal from you that the Emperor Napoleon has declared to me to-day, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... done or said; it is something that you are—you are too religious. Now I like a woman to be religious, and I think your piety one of your greatest charms; but then, like all other good things, it may be carried too far. To my thinking, a woman's religion ought not to lessen her devotion to her earthly lord. She should have enough to purify and etherealise her soul, but not enough to refine away her heart, and raise her above all ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... them again and sink away into a heavier sleep or stupefaction. It seemed the latter, and as Mrs. Crawford could not herself go for a physician, and as no one came down the lane that evening, she sat all night, by Jerrie's bed, bathing the feverish hands and trying to lessen the lump on the forehead, which, in spite of all her efforts, continued to swell until it seemed to her it was as large ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... from the window so that all four could find place about it, the master with his book and the three apprentices each with his repairing job. The lamp hung over the table, and smoked; it managed to lessen the darkness a little. The little light it gave was gathered up by the great glass balls which focussed it and cast it upon the work. The lamp swayed slightly, and the specks of light wriggled hither and thither ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... said Tinville, to whom Dumas chucked the scroll,—"grant the prayer by all means; so at least that it does not lessen our bead-roll. But I will do Henriot the justice to say that he never asks to let off, but to put on. Good-night! I am worn out—my escort waits below. Only on such an occasion would I venture forth in the streets at night." (During the latter part of the Reign of Terror, Fouquier rarely stirred ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... roped bed. A feeling of thanksgiving swept over her—she was his protector. She had not thought of asking about his crime. Of course he was fleeing from the law, but he could have done nothing that would lessen her desire to aid him. If he had murdered, then it was necessary that he should; if he had stolen, it was the common lot of all men in need. The one thing to do was to keep him from the clutches of the law. She felt herself getting drowsy, and soon the even breathing of the squatter and the student ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... unamiable; for, in the very short scenes in which the Octavia of Shakespeare appears, she is placed in rather an interesting point of view. But Dryden has himself informed us, that he was apprehensive the justice of a wife's claim upon her husband would draw the audience to her side, and lessen their interest in the lover and the mistress. He seems accordingly to have studiedly lowered the character of the injured Octavia, who, in her conduct towards her husband, shews much duty and little love; and plainly intimates, that her rectitude ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... practically immune to the blight (Endothia parasitica.) Easily blighting varieties of choice American chestnuts may be grafted upon these blight resistant stocks in orchard form if my experiment proves to be a success. It will not lessen the vulnerability of the American chestnut, but dwarf trees will be within reach of the horticulturist's pruning knife and spray outfit. Orchards of fine varieties of the common chestnut may perhaps be maintained in this way until the present ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... lay the most serious strategical objection to the convoy system. It was sought to minimise it by giving the convoys a secret route when there was apprehension of squadronal interference. It was done in the case just cited, but the precaution seemed in no way to lessen the anxiety. It may have been because in those days of slow communication there could be no such certainty that the secret route had been received as there ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... unequal, with the top 20% of income earners accounting for 55% of income. Trade with the US and Canada has nearly doubled since NAFTA was implemented in 1994. Mexico is pursuing additional trade agreements with most countries in Latin America and has signed a free trade deal with the EU to lessen its dependence on the US. The government is pursuing conservative economic policies in 2000 to avoid another end-of-term economic crisis, but it still projects an economic growth rate of 4.5% because of the strong US economy ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... left himself defenseless. On the contrary, he had provided for this precise contingency by leaving McGrath's fireman in mechanical command on the Rosemary. If Winton should attempt to build around the private car, the fireman was to wait till the critical moment: then he was to lessen the pressure on the automatic air-brakes and let the car drop back down the grade just far enough to block ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... that the very size and suddenness of the disaster served in a measure to lessen its evil effects; for the burning of seven hundred buildings, the entire business portion of Richmond, all in the brief space of a day, was a visitation so sudden, so stupefying and unexpected as to overawe and terrorize even evildoers. Before a new danger could arise help ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... employs 20% to 25% of the labor force but produces only 8% of GDP. Trade with the United States and Canada has nearly doubled since NAFTA was implemented in 1994. Mexico is pursuing additional trade agreements with most countries in Latin America and with the European Union to lessen its dependence on the United States, which accounts for 80% ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... anxious horror to the bravest hearts; Yet do their beating breasts demand the strife, And thirst of glory quells the love of life. No vulgar fears can British minds control: Heat of revenge and noble pride of soul O'er look the foe, advantaged by his post, Lessen his numbers, and contract his host; Though fens and floods possessed the middle space, That unprovoked they would have feared to pass, Nor fens nor floods can stop Britannia's bands When her proud foe ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... excommunication, with the very sight of which they sink men's souls beneath the bottom of hell: which yet these most holy fathers in Christ and His vicars hurl with more fierceness against none than against such as, by the instigation of the devil, attempt to lessen or rob them of Peter's patrimony. When, though those words in the Gospel, "We have left all, and followed Thee," were his, yet they call his patrimony lands, cities, tribute, imposts, riches; for which, being enflamed with the love of Christ, they ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... and receive the reward of your judicious choice; you are going to be a great Queen. I hope the throne will not lessen your virtue, nor make you forget yourself. As for you, ladies," said the fairy to Beauty's two sisters, "I know your hearts and all the malice they contain. Become two statues: but under this transformation, still retain your reason. You shall stand ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... all: I have not the remotest idea what mysterious thing you did to me last night, but this I know, that you have imparted to me a something that I have never hitherto possessed. I feel this morning a buoyancy of spirit that it seems to me no amount of disappointment could damp or lessen for a moment, and I have a belief in myself so complete, so boundless, that I feel I cannot help but be successful in this new venture of mine upon which ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... Desdemona. Coleridge, and still more the American writers, regard her love, in effect, as Brabantio regarded it, and not as Shakespeare conceived it. They are simply blurring this glorious conception when they try to lessen the distance between her and Othello, and to smooth away the obstacle which his 'visage' offered to her romantic passion for a hero. Desdemona, the 'eternal womanly' in its most lovely and adorable form, simple and innocent as a child, ardent with the courage and idealism of ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... Bagehot's volume is devoted to. Some permanent and skilled authority to rule the bank is the principal novelty suggested; but the French plan will not do for England. The direct appointment of a governor by the Crown would not lessen the difficulty. The American law, saying that each national bank shall have a fixed proportion of cash to its liabilities, Mr. Bagehot considers one of many reforms which the English could not adopt if they would: "in a sensitive state of the British money-market the near approach to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... mistaken, as she drew back, and, in the sweetest manner possible, declined to accept the present. I saw that Opportunity's having just adopted a different course added very much to her embarrassment, as otherwise she might have said something to lessen the seeming ungraciousness of the refusal. Luckily for herself, however, she had a gentleman to deal with, instead of one in the station that my uncle Ro had voluntarily assumed. When this offering ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... second occasion I came off victor, much to my surprise. How I managed to beat my opponent I never could understand. Anyhow the victory gave me a better standing in the school, though it did not lessen in the least my hatred of the battles that raged periodically with other schools. I never had to fight again except as an unwilling participant in ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... of colour, scent and form. He gets not more but less beauty when he must sit in a class and answer formal questions. "Must we talk about them before we take the flowers home?" asked a child one day; "they are so pretty." Clearly, the "talk" was going to lessen, not to deepen the beauty. And animals? The child plays with cat and dog, he feeds the chickens, the horse and the donkey, he watches with the utmost interest caterpillar, snail and spider, but he does not want to be asked questions about them—he ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... at the pumps and worked by relays. Amidst the rush of the waves over the ship it was difficult to work advantageously, but they toiled on. Still, in spite of their efforts, the leak seemed to have increased, for the water did not lessen. With their utmost exertion they could do little more than hold ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... word to close or to suspend her fatal shears;—but the moment his vote is cast, he becomes the serf of circumstance, at the mercy of the white-livered representative's cowardice, or the venal one's itching palm. Our only safety, then, is in the aggregate fidelity to personal rectitude, which may lessen the chances of representative dishonesty, or, at the worst, constitute a public opinion that shall make the whole country a penitentiary for such treason, and turn the price of public honor to fairy-money, whose withered leaves but mock the possessor with the futile memory ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... and dropped one plan after another as she walked through the night. Then, as she sat in despair, she had an inspiration. The fireplace was kept, after the common American way, full of unremoved wood ashes. It suggested a resource. To lessen the size of the package she hastily removed the many envelops of the contained papers and also the thick double outside cover. Then she tied them together, raked away the newly made fire, and setting the lessened package on ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... Nenila Makarievna came down into the drawing-room. Tea was brought in. Mr. Perekatov made his dog jump several times over a stick, and then explained he had taught it everything himself, while the dog wagged its tail deferentially, licked itself and blinked. When at last the great heat began to lessen, and an evening breeze blew up, the whole family went out for a walk in the birch copse. Fyodor Fedoritch was continually glancing at Masha, as though giving her to understand that he would carry out her behests; Masha felt at ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... I visit the CENTRAL MUSEUM OF THE ARTS, the more am I inclined to think that such a vast number of pictures, suspended together, lessen each other's effect. This is the first idea which now presents itself to ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... neighbors, "Providence must take its chance." And these are still further, and most uncouthly, confounded by the admixture of the ancient heathen notion of fate, reduced from its philosophy to its dregs. In many instances, however, this last obtains such a predominance, as to lessen the confusion, and withal to preclude, in a great measure, the sense of accountableness. In neither of these rude states of the understanding, (that which confounds Providence and chance, and that which sinks in dull acquiescence to something obscurely imagined like fate,) is there any ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... toward the Doctor's tent, my intense distaste for the work offered me seemed to lessen. Perhaps the night air had some effect on me; perhaps the general's parting words had soothed me; perhaps the mystery attaching to the council of war, so to speak, had exaggerated my fears at first, and ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... granting to congress the power to regulate commerce "with the Indian tribes," it was intended to lessen the dangers of war. Murders and war had been provoked by the improper conduct of some of the states. It was believed, that, by a uniform policy, difficulties would be more likely to be prevented; and ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... of public affairs, has always been the policy of our government. Even during the war of 1812, when it was attempted to raise a revenue by letter postage, the postage on newspapers was not raised. No proposition whatever, to increase the cost, or lessen the facility of the circulation of newspapers by mail, would be sanctioned by the people, under any conceivable exigency of ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... of corn in twain, Salina was left defenceless, with nothing but her two hands to fight with; but she plied these with great vigor, leaving long, crimson marks upon her assailant's cheeks with every blow, till, in very self-defence, he was compelled to lessen the distance between her face and his, thus receiving her assault upon ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Torgau; but so mournful, so menacing was his position on every side, that even the victories which had driven his enemies from Saxony, and at least assured him his winter quarters, brought him no other advantages, and did not lessen the dangers which threatened him. His enemies stood round about him—they burned with rage and thirst to destroy utterly that king who was always ready to tear from them their newly-won laurels. Only by his complete destruction could they hope to quench ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... have inflicted, and from the ruinous expenses caused by their wars with these persistent enemies. No less do the Indians suffer from the exactions levied upon them for the public works and defense; but the home government attempts to lessen these burdens, and protect the natives from oppression. The missions of the Jesuits are reported as making rapid progress; and statistics of the work conducted by them and by the other religious orders give a view of the general missionary ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... "Deep Springs" were only a matter of surmise. It had certainly served the purpose of reviving interest in the treasure hunt and mysterious rumors of a cave in which a robber band had hidden booty did not lessen it. ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... time she recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her earliest teens, and later as a young woman. The recognition did not lessen the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant; ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... before any change came. The deafening peals of thunder seemed as though they would never lessen in tone. The night-like heavens seemed as though no sun could ever hope to penetrate them again. And the streaming rain—was there ever such a deluge since ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet; And Death is beautiful as feet of friend Coming with welcome at our journey's end. For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied, A nature sloping to the southern side; I thank her for it, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... casualties during the afternoon included one who could ill be spared. A direct hit with a shell on "C" Company Headquarters wounded C.S.M. Angrave in the back. He died a few days later. One of the original Territorials, he had served with us the whole time, and even four years of France had failed to lessen his ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... and the concussion put them all in darkness; but they soon had the lamps re-lit and were back in among the thick volumes of powder smoke, groping about and shading their lamps and peering in to see what their shots had done to lessen the barrier between them and their ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... a time, when it grew cool enough to walk, he came out into the sunshine and started off towards the steep rock pathway that leads to the summit of the Acropolis Hill, following an impulse to seek comfort in the fresh hopefulness of a height, and to lessen the pain in his heart by looking out across a world still living and loving and striving. So he climbed on up the winding pathway, enfolded with mystery and romance concerning the feet that trod it in the far-off centuries, and made his way between the mighty natural boulders ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... and bound it closely; the sleeves, cut short near the shoulder, and bordered with intersecting lines of gold, red, and blue, exposed his round, strong arms, the left furnished with a large metal wristband, meant to lessen the vibration of the string when he discharged an arrow from his triangular bow; and the right, ornamented by a bracelet in the form of a serpent in several coils, held a long gold scepter with a lotus bud at the end. The rest of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... minimal and government finances are relatively sound. Oil finds close to the Islands give hope for economically recoverable deposits, which could eventually lay the basis for a more diversified economy and lessen dependence on Danish economic assistance. Aided by a substantial annual subsidy (about 15% of GDP) from Denmark, the Faroese have a standard of living not far below ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... absolutely reached, and the art of healing, as it is described in books, is far beneath the practical experience of a skilful, thoughtful physician." Some of his other medical aphorisms are worth noting. "At the beginning of a disease choose such remedies as will not lessen the patient's strength." "When you can heal by diet, prescribe no other remedy, and, where simple remedies suffice, ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... averted their glance.... She had to get out of the bed in the presence of the two watchmen. This precaution was so that she might not attempt to take her life. She even asked the lawyer to remain in the cell as though in this way she wished to lessen the annoyance ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... introducing his lady to several of those damsels who had but a few days before themselves hoped to win his heart. Indeed the arrival of Mrs. Bolt, though it brought things to a more legitimate platform, did not in the least lessen his material responsibilities. Mrs. Bolt must have more fashionable apartments; there was that splendid diamond bracelet at Peppers'? she must have that rich honitan cape and accompaniments at Stebbin's? drawing-room day was approaching, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... but the assembly looked upon these aspirations and upon the compliments to the Montreal representatives as a false and scandalous and malicious libel, highly and unjustly reflecting upon His Majesty's representative and on both Houses of the Provincial Parliament, and tending to lessen the affections of His Majesty's subjects towards the government of the province. A committee of inquiry was appointed, and reported that the libellers were the printer of the Gazette, Edward Edwards, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Empress Augusta School. His chivalrous character and his conscientious impartiality made him respected and popular with his French and English fellow sufferers and the German Hospital Staff. Gratefully he acknowledged what the surgical art of assistant-surgeon Dr. Meyer had done to lessen his sufferings, and the loving care the German nurses, male and female, had bestowed on ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... prince appointed; unimportant under Hojo; Fujiwara, then Imperial princes, appointed; Ashikaga in Northern Court; powers transferred to kwanryo; under Tokugawa; minister gets power; separated from ministerial council; Chinese classics lessen power; court of last appeal; Imperial rescript to; power ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... condition of life overnight and threatened the very existence of nations naturally dwarfed the individual into nothingness, and the existing interest in the common welfare left practically no room for personal considerations. Then again, at the front, the extreme uncertainty of the morrow tended to lessen the interest in the details of to-day; consequently I may have missed a great many interesting happenings alongside of me which I would have wanted to note under other circumstances. One gets into ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... would change now and then an Ounce of Gold, and could get for it no more than 10 or 11 Dollars for a Mindanao Ounce, which they would not part with again under 18 Dollars. Yet this, and the great prices the Mindanaians set on their Goods, were not the only way to lessen their stocks; for their Pagallies and Comrades would often be begging somewhat of them, and our Men were generous enough, and would bestow half an Ounce of Gold at a time, in a Ring for their Pagallies, or in a Silver Wrist-band, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... secretary, soon became aware of Wilson's scrutiny, and after regarding him fixedly for a moment seemed suddenly to recognize him in turn, and also to realize at the same time the import of his presence there, which, apparently, did not tend to lessen ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... street. Errand for Clement. The will, the will! I think of nothing else. Is it safe where it is? No peace of mind till to-morrow. Clement better this afternoon. Says he must live till Carlos gets back; not to triumph over him, but to do what he can to lessen his disappointment. ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... murmured, looking down the track. She stood beside the horse with one hand resting on her girdle. Around the hand that held the bridle her quirt lay coiled in the folds of her glove, and, though seemingly undecided as to what to do, her composure did not lessen. As she looked at the wreckage, a breath of wind lifted the hair that curled around her ear. The mountain wind playing on her neck had left it brown, and above, the pulse of her ride rose red in her ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... the sovereign's influence in the towns, and to lessen the power of the Gilds, Philip established in Holland, and so far as he could elsewhere, what were called "vaste Colleges" or fixed committees of notables, to which were entrusted the election of the town officials and the municipal administration. These bodies were composed of a number ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... him that he was to blame for the whole situation; that, if he hadn't run amok, she would be jogging contentedly along the path of ancestral Calvinism. Moreover, the fact that there is more than a grain of truth in her contention doesn't lessen the sting that it has left behind. Now, as a natural consequence, the strain over, he is letting go entirely. He is made like that. Unless we want him to go to pieces utterly, we shall either have to invoke the aid of circumstance, or else bring him ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... sides; sunlight and firelight mingled to wash Mr. Wicker in their joined apricot glow. Added to this, the two chairs—Chris's and Mr. Wicker's—were not more than four feet apart. Chris hunched forward yet a little more to lessen this space and watch for any movement, however swift. He had seen magicians ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... there against the wall. Yes—Fritz. And he was savagely rejoicing in the effect she was making upon the audience, because he thought, hoped, that it would lessen the triumph of the woman who ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... Indeed, the novelty, and perhaps the pleasant country air, seemed to revive them, and lessen the fever. They even walked about the garden when we arrived there, and began to make bouquets of flowers, but before I left, the reaction had come and they ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... among ourselves, also surround the opium question in the East. It is their liquor. China grows most of what she consumes, and I believe would grow it all if the Indian drug was not admitted. Its exclusion by the Chinese would not therefore seriously lessen its use. Still it places England in a false position before the world to enforce its admission by treaty stipulations. The sum involved to the Indian revenue exceeds seven millions sterling per annum ($35,000,000); that is the net yearly profit made out of the growth of the poppy. ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... everything, even down to my talk with the Governor. I did not lessen the risks and hardships, and I gave him to know that his companions would be rough folk, whom he may well have despised. He heard me out with his eyes fixed on the ground. Then suddenly he raised a ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... went maybe too far urging him not to lessen so much food the way he did. I only thought to befriend him. But now he is someway upset and nothing will rightly smooth him but to be thinking upon his next meal; and what it will be I don't know, unless ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... a clearly legal right to assemble, and we can not know in advance that their action will not be lawful and peaceful, and if we wait until they shall have acted their arrest or dispersion will not lessen the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... music of one of the sweetest passages in Shakespeare. But it must be acknowledged of Thackeray that, fond as he is of this branch of humour, he has done little or no injury by his parodies. They run over with fun, but are so contrived that they do not lessen the flavour of the original. I have given in one of the preceding chapters a little set of verses of his own, called The Willow Tree, and his own parody on his own work. There the reader may see how effective a parody may be in destroying the sentiment ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... saw no relaxation in these efforts. The Birmingham demonstration took place on February 22, 1881. It was a most inclement night and great fears had been entertained that it would prove a failure, but nothing had power to keep the crowds of women away or to lessen their enthusiasm. Mrs. Crosskey, the wife of Dr. Crosskey, one of the most respected of the Birmingham Liberal leaders, presided. The next was in St. George's Hall, Bradford, on November 22, and here again Mrs. McLaren took ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... had composed his sentences," says Cousin, "he talked them over before or after dinner, or he sent them at the end of a letter. They were discussed, examined, and observations were made, by which he profited. One could lessen their faults, but one could lend them no beauty. There was not a delicate and rare turn, a fine and keen touch, which did ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... deep-set sentiment did not lessen. It grew even stronger, and in exile it became a passion. It is illustrated by the songs of deep regret and affection Columba made in Iona, from whose rocky shores he looked day after day towards the west while the mists rose over Ireland. ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... that he would wish the farm out of the question, for he is too fond of hunting and his pleasure to quit it.... He does his utmost to remove me from your service, insinuating many things against me which are not true; but this does not lessen my zeal in ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... Means to repair the Losses of the Nation, and retrieve its Strength and Character. Now all Remembrance of its many disheartening Miscarriages was soon lost in the Glory of his Conquests. The chief Motive of this War, was to lessen the vast Acquisitions of the Emperor of the Maregins. His Daughter the Queen of Ghinoer, who was an aspiring, lofty, and resolute Princess, in contempt of the many Treaties made to prevent it, insisted that her Sex did not exclude ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... to do his own court of interest there much good. I hope our manifesto's being disperced at London, will have good effect; and I long to see what the prints call the Pretender's declaration, and the declaration of the people of England. The run upon the bank, I hope, will not lessen. The public credit must not be once ruined to make it raise again, and I hope that time may be sooner than we think of. We have rainy weather, but that is an inconveniencie to the enimie as well as to us. My humble service ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... hearts around this little grave need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is and is to be tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. We know that through the common wants of life—the needs and duties of each hour—their griefs will lessen day by day, until at last this grave will be to them a place of rest and peace—almost of joy. There is for them this consolation. The dead do not suffer. And if they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... of the principles involved in the inquiry, whether it will be proper to re-charter the Bank of the United States, requires that I should again call the attention of congress to the subject. Nothing has occurred to lessen, in any degree, the dangers which many of our citizens apprehended from that institution, as at present organized. In the spirit of improvement and compromise which distinguishes our country and its institutions, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... completely democratic as that here described has not often been found in connection with a very high and complex civilization. In contemplating these old mountain villages of New England, one descries slow modifications in the structure of society which threaten somewhat to lessen its dignity. The immense productiveness of the soil in our western states, combined with cheapness of transportation, tends to affect seriously the agricultural interests of New England as well as those of our mother-country. There is a visible tendency for farms to pass into the ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... the latter's cell, "when there entered upon them the emperor's great ambassador, accompanied with many gentlemen of Spain, and demanded of the Father how he durst be so bold to take upon him to intermeddle in so great and weighty a matter, the which did not only lessen and enervate the pope's authority, but was noyful and odious to all Realms Christened."[267] Omnibow being a man of some influence in Venice, the ambassador warned him on peril of his life to deal no further with such things: there was not the slightest chance that the King of England ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... smouldering, with sudden roar Leaped on a cedar and smothered it with light And terror. It had left the portage-height A tangle of slanted spruces burned to the roots, Covered still with patches of bright fire Smoking with incense of the fragrant resin That even then began to thin and lessen Into the gloom ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... that, in procuring his liberty, he had used neither violence nor corruption. He solemnly protested that his public conduct had been blameless, and that the persecution he had suffered would never lessen his attachment to ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... maintaining a government it is the privilege and duty of those who are about to associate together for that purpose to modify and limit the rights or wholly exclude from the association any and every species of persons who would endanger, lessen or in the least impair the enjoyment of these rights. We have seen that the application of this principle limits the rights of our sons, modifies the privileges of our wives and daughters, and would not be unjust if it excluded the ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... Malthus failed to anticipate the future. Malthus believed that "moral restraint" would lessen the marriage rate, but would have no direct effect on ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... not," replied Katherine, after a pause for consideration. "He might think we suspected him, which would be bad from a business point of view. Then he would be certain to tell the thief, and that would lessen ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... be so particular and vain as not to undertake the pleading of the smaller kind of causes, as beneath him, or as if a matter of less consequence should in any respect lessen the reputation he has acquired. Duty indeed is a just motive for his undertaking them, and he should wish that his friends were never engaged in any other kind of suits, which in the main are set off with sufficient eloquence when he has ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... these spectators render help in this time of need? Could nothing have been done when they saw us sink together, again and again? Within fifty yards there was a boat, with boat-hooks and staves, and could no use have been made of these, to lessen, the peril in which myself and the drowning youth were placed? I am convinced that great numbers of people are drowned through spectators not making a little effort at the time. ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
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