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Less  conj.  Unless. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Less" Quotes from Famous Books



... propitiate their fishing-nets, and persuade them to do their office with effect, married them every year to two young girls of the tribe, with a ceremony more formal than that observed in the case of mere human wedlock. [ 1 ] The fish, too, no less than the nets, must be propitiated; and to this end they were addressed every evening from the fishing-camp by one of the party chosen for that function, who exhorted them to take courage and be caught, assuring them that the utmost respect should be shown to their bones. ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... Legislative Council passed a new Gold-fields Act, which greatly reduced the fees for diggers' licenses, while it substantially increased those demanded for permission to open stores at the gold-fields. It also provided for the grant of leases of auriferous lands, at a royalty of not less than 5 per cent., and gave legal sanction to the customs regarding the "claims" of diggers, which had gradually grown up to regulate the rival interests of neighboring miners. Offences against the act were to be decided upon by the magistrates; but the accused might demand a court of at least ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... those sentiments which are called by romancers "lawless passions." That she should seem to wish to get rid of him would help him to think more lightly of her, and to be able to think more lightly of her would make her much less perplexing. But Daisy, on this occasion, continued to present herself as an inscrutable combination ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James

... tin top, or the shine of it, or its one little tin toe, was its voice. The very moment that it began to dance it began, too, to sing in a sweet, cheerful humming kind of way. And it kept on singing as long as it kept on dancing, and its voice was never less sweet ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

... sentinel, Mrs. Flynn's words ringing in his ears to reproach him—"I'll do by her as you would do by your own, sir." Night after night it was the same, and Rosalie heard his footsteps and listened and was less sorrowful, because she knew that she was ever in his thoughts. But one day Mrs. Flynn came to him in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... threatened to be very stormy. The clouds came driving across the sky, and a gale began to blow, such as is rarely seen in those latitudes. It gave us rest, however, for the natives are not fond of venturing out in such weather, and we had less fear of being attacked. During the night we were aroused by hearing a gun fired. We peered out seaward through the darkness; another gun was heard, and a flash was seen. It was evidently from a vessel in distress. It was just before daybreak. The dawn came and revealed to ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... you'll get over this, perhaps not entirely, but you'll get over it!" He smiled, and added, tapping Nikolay on the back: "Why, man, this is a children's disease, something like measles! We all suffer from it, the strong less, the weak more. It comes upon a man at the period when he has found himself, but does not yet understand life, and his own place in life. And when you do not see your place, and are unable to appraise your own value, it seems that you ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... There is, in fact, a certain lack of decision apparent in the acts of the gang. But he loves her also, his scruples weaken and, as Mlle. de Saint-Veran refuses to be touched by a love that offends her, as she relaxes her visits when they become less necessary, as she ceases them entirely on the day when he is cured—desperate, maddened by grief, he takes a terrible resolve. He leaves his lair, prepares his stroke and, on Saturday the sixth of June, assisted by his accomplices, ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... some near relation. Over the greatest part of Asia, and some parts of Africa, women are guarded by eunuchs, made incapable of violating their chastity. In Spain, where the natives are the descendants of the Africans, and whose jealousy is not less strong than that of their ancestors, they, for many centuries, made use of padlocks to secure the chastity of their women; but finding these ineffectual, they frequently had recourse to old women, called Gouvernantes. It had been discovered, that men deprived ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... reporter and Larmy asked the "father" one night if it could get us connected with Mr. Hedrick. It said it would try; it needed help. And there appeared another personality with which they were more or less familiar, called the Jew. The Jew claimed to be a literary man, and said it would act as receiver while the father acted as transmitter on Hedrick. Then they got this one-sided telephonic conversation in a thick, wheezy voice that was ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... and the Columbian Star, a weekly journal (1822). From the first the attempt to rouse the denomination to organized effort for the propagation of the gospel met with much opposition, agents of the Convention being looked upon by the less intelligent pastors and churches as highly-paid and irresponsible collectors of money to be used they knew not how, or for purposes of which they disapproved. The fact that Rice was unduly optimistic and allowed the enterprises of the Convention to become almost hopelessly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... distinguished by many remarkable qualities, lived now in the English lake-country; and it was no fault of hers that this home was no longer her son's. But what mainly had closed it to him was undoubtedly not less the secret of such liking for him as Dickens had. Fletcher's eccentricities and absurdities, often divided by the thinnest partition from the most foolish extravagance, but occasionally clever, and always ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... correspondence—after a fashion. That signified nothing, she would have had you understand; so were Charlie and Victorine, so were—oh!—every girl wrote to somebody at the front; one could not do less and be a patriot. Some girl patriots had a dozen on their list. Some lads ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... Less than two minutes later, Sir Marmaduke reappeared in the doorway. His face was a curious color, and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead, and as he came forward he would have fallen, had not one of the men stepped quickly up to him and ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... wanted to hold off the review until February 1951 by which time he thought adequate data would be available from the Far East Command. His recommendation was approved, and the matter was returned to the same group which had so firmly rejected integration less than a ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... gaining recognition from all the chiefs except those about Santa Cruz, but his actual control over them is still very slight. He has been a consistent friend of the Americans, but has jealously guarded his people against outside influences, so that they are much less affected than those of other districts. For this reason we shall, in this paper, use Cibolan as a type settlement, but where radical differences occur in other ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... it accordingly. Some of these imprudent men would fulminate the vengeance of Heaven, for what they conceived political, instead of moral errors. The prisoners respected some of these reverend gentlemen highly, while they despised some others. The priesthood, however, have less hold on the minds of the people of the United States, than of any other people ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... in the second class, where one is often alone, somebody would suddenly attack her with a knife. But now I understand quite well, for of course she could not tell Mother the truth and Father still less. And in winter and spring there are really often no passengers to speak of on the Metropolitan, ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... as well as a less disputable proof of solar radiative intensity than any mere estimates of temperature, was provided in some experiments made by Professor Langley in 1878.[724] Using means of unquestioned validity, he found the sun's disc to radiate 87 times as much heat, and ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... rose that the stone takes from a thousand years of Italian sunsets is not bad; but the black blur on the surfaces of St. Paul's lends wall and dome and pillar a depth of shadow which only the electric glare of tropic suns can cast. The smoke enriches the columns which rise, more or less casually as it seems, from the London streets and squares, and one almost hates to have it cleaned off or painted under on the fronts of the aristocratic mansions. It is like having an old picture restored; perhaps it has to be done, but it is ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... more satisfactory. During the period, in question, the Duke had not been away from the Capital for over three days at any one time, and none of his suite had been absent longer than a week. Nevertheless, I was none the less positive that there had been some sort of communication between Madeline Spencer, in America, and the Duke of Lotzen, in Valeria, in response to which she ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... reached the rice-mill of Commodore Richard Lowndes. A little further on, and situated in a noble grove of live-oaks, which were draped in the weird festoons of Spanish moss, on the upland arose the stately home of the planter, who still kept his plantation in cultivation, though on a scale of less magnitude than formerly. It was, indeed, a pleasant evening that I passed in the company of the refined members of the old commodore's household, and with a pang of regret the next day I paddled along the main canal of the lowlands, casting backward glances at the old house, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... an evil. When God made tobacco and pronounced it good, He did not mean for it to go into the mouth of any man or woman, much less into the mouths of children. Tobacco is a deadly poison; and the constant use of any poison must injure the body of the one who uses it. When it has sapped the strength from both the mind and the body, it leaves ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum

... the tribute was no longer PHOROS, but SYNTAXIS, or "contribution." The confederacy, which ultimately numbered 70 cities, was chiefly organised through the exertions of Chabrias, and of Timotheus the son of Conon. Nor were the Thebans less zealous, amongst whom the Spartan government had left a lively feeling of antipathy. The military force was put in the best training, and the famous "Sacred Band" was now for the first time instituted. This band was a regiment ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... cash capital had dwindled to the sum of two pounds, ten shillings, eight-pence, and would have been much less had he paid for his lodging in advance. But he considered his trunks ample security for the bill, and dared not wait the hour when shopkeepers begin to take down shutters and it becomes possible to realize ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... conveniences had, however, hardly kept pace with the increase in numbers. The French region was, for better or worse, homogeneous, and Quebec formed a social centre of some distinction, wherein the critical M'Taggart noted less vanity and conceit than was to be met with in the country.[19] But further west, British observers were usually something less than laudatory. The municipal franchise in the cities of Lower Canada, being confined to the possessors of real estate, shut out from civic management the more enterprising ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... two hours were spent in dancing to Cameron's reels, in which all, with more or less grace, took part till the piper declared ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... charge from the date of Schrank's arrest to the present date, we learn that he was a quiet, pleasant man, well-behaved in all respects, and fastidious as to dress and food, uniformly cheerful and happy. It was noticeable that he showed much less concern or anxiety as to his fate than the average prisoner. This is also corroborated by the examination of a detective ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey

... None the less he worked well, and the planter wondered. Deesa had vagabonded along the roads till he met a marriage procession of his own caste and, drinking, dancing, and tippling, had drifted past all knowledge of ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... reign of one king. Rameses reigned some sixty years, and his great victory over the Kheta was five years after his coronation, so perhaps sixty years is the longest we can give for the construction of the temple, and it was probably much less. The story goes that in this great battle the king, cut off from his men and alone in the midst of a hostile army, performed prodigies of valour; he slew and hewed right and left until he sent the greater part of the Syrian army flying before him; all this is recorded ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... it seemed impossible to hold on any longer, and when the forest on either side had become river too, the rain ceased as suddenly as it had begun, the wind dropped, and the clouds began to pass away, while in less than an hour the sun was shining brightly down, and huge clouds of steam floated over the ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... from dull despair to buoyant hope had been so sudden: it had all happened in less than ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... stood next to his friend the Grand Marshal. He was presented by that great officer, and received most graciously. For a moment the room thought that his Royal Highness was about to speak; but he only smiled. Madame Carolina, however, said a great deal; and stood not less than sixty seconds complimenting the English nation, and particularly the specimen of that celebrated people who now had the honour of being presented to her. No one spoke more in a given time than Madame Carolina; and as, while ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... the United Kingdom, under the lights of the United Presbyterian Kirk, Free Kirk, Episcopalian Church, and The Kirk, not to mention a large and varied assortment of Dissenting Churches of more or less dubious orthodoxy, he is openly hostile to the introduction of Christianity into China. And nowhere in China is the opposition to the introduction of Christianity more intense than in the Yangtse valley. In this intensity many thoughtful missionaries see the greater hope of the ultimate ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... intelligence into the mysteries of God, the more he understands those things which God chooses to reveal to his creatures, the more liberally he believes. Let yourselves never think that you grow liberal in faith by believing less; always be sure that the true liberality of faith can only come by believing more. It is true, indeed, that as soon as a man becomes eager for belief, for the truth of God and for the mysteries with which God's universe is filled, he becomes all the more critical and careful. He will hot any ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks

... good to see him and his father together. They are just like chums. And Bessie—she isn't near so disagreeable and airy as she was. Hattie took her out of that school and put her into another where she's getting some real learning and less society and frills and dancing. Jim is doing well, and I think Hattie's real happy. Oh, of course, when we first heard that Mr. Fulton had got back, I think she was kind of disappointed. You know she always did insist we were going to ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter

... of a bull, the less faith you can put in one,' said our old cowherd to me one day when I recounted to him in Yorkshire my escape; 'and, saving your ladyship's presence,' he added, 'bulls are as given to tantrums as ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... Mink exclaimed with a horrid chuckle. "I was fishing for mice. And if you'd been a little less careful I'd ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey

... it is now satisfactorily demonstrated that these picked survivors of savage life are commonly suffering under the same diseases with their civilized compeers, and show less vital power to resist them. In barbarous nations every foreigner is taken for a physician, and the first demand is for medicines; if not the right medicines, then the wrong ones; if no medicines are at hand, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... through the wood, thick and thin, and more or less wet, to the distance I should think of three miles. By this time my clothes were all thoroughly soaked through, and I felt once more a gloom and wretchedness; the recollection of which makes me shudder at this distant day. My young friends in this highly favoured Christian country, surrounded ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington

... though neither of the guests suspected it. Shelby was diverted by Mrs. Van Dam's unimagined vivacity; while his wife had no immediate room for any impression save satisfaction that this autocrat, who held that punctuality should be the politeness of democracy no less than princes, had been caught napping. It was clear that she meant to bury the hatchet, and Cora, with her own point carried, saw no reason why she should not add a shovelful of symbolic earth herself. Thus, ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... delight in them, so here, I have to oppose the contrary position, that their strangeness is the cause of it. For neither familiarity nor strangeness have more operation on, or connection with, impressions of one sense than of another, and they have less power over the impressions of sense generally, than over the intellect in its joyful accepting of fresh knowledge, and dull contemplation of that it has long possessed. Only in their operation on the ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... imported. Industry, which consists mainly of garment production, boat building, and handicrafts, accounts for about 18% of GDP. Maldivian authorities worry about the impact of erosion and possible global warming on their low-lying country; 80% of the area is one meter or less ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... behold them now (If you look on me with charitable eyes) Tinctur'd in blood, blood issuing from the heart. Sir, I am sorry; when I look towards heaven, I beg a gracious pardon; when on you, Methinks your native goodness should not be Less pitiful than they; 'gainst both I have err'd; From both I ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... the rajah's men. They are tracking us by the marks we have left, and will overtake us in less than an hour." ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... his green fringed shoulder cape—lightly—only for one brief moment. Yonder was no coquetry, no caprice of audacity. There was a heart there as heavy as the cheek was pale. It was love and nothing less—the pitiful devotion of a lass in love whose lover marches on the morrow. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... the door, with his eyes fixed inquiringly on her. A man of a lower nature than his, or a man believing in Mercy less devotedly than he believed, would now have felt his first suspicion of her. Julian was as far as ever from suspecting her, even yet. "Do you wish to be alone?" he asked, considerately. "Shall I leave you for a ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... and unwillingly, but I wasted no time. With the help of the doctor and the scarf I had no difficulty in climbing up the rift, which afforded good foothold at the side, and in less than a minute I was beside Jimmy, breathing the fresh air and seeing the smoke rise up in a ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... for near twenty years; which I am confident will never diminish during my life. I am chiefly sorry, that by two cruel disorders of deafness and giddiness, which have pursued me for four months, I am not in condition either to hear, or to receive you, much less to return my most sincere acknowledgements, which in justice and gratitude I ought to do. May God bless you and your families in this world, and make you for ever ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... in that. There were three of them now; and Pelle had a feeling that he had a whole army at his back. The world had grown no smaller, no less attractive, by reason of the endless humiliations of the year. And Pelle knew down to the ground exactly where he stood, and that knowledge was bitter enough. Below him lay the misty void, and the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... as it probably may, that the author's Franciscans are curiously like the early Wesleyans, or in some respects even like a less respectable body of modern religionists, he can only reply "so they were;" but there was this great difference, that they deeply realised the sacramental system of the Church, and led people to her, not from her; the preacher was never allowed to ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... destruction, because they would still reserve to themselves the liberty wherewith CHRIST had made his people free, and not exchange it for one from Antichrist, restricted with his reserves and limitations; so that (as Mr. Shields tells us in his account of Mr. James Renwick's life), in less than five months after the toleration, there were fifteen most desperate searches particularly for him, both of foot and horse: and, that all encouragement might be given to any who would apprehend him, a proclamation ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... draw upon him for a specified sum for passage-money and outfit, and come out in the mail steamer following her answer. It was not a brilliant letter, but it was honest and straightforward. However, as Elsie had sailed for Melbourne before it reached England, it was of the less consequence ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... you must remember that it will be our loss as well as hers. Her property will rightfully come to us, and if she is robbed we shall inherit so much the less." ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger

... rule ended, and the Mexican empire and republic sent its first governor, Echeandia, he decided to make San Diego his home; so for the period of his governorship, though he doubtless lived at or near the presidio, the Mission saw more or less of him. As is shown in the chapter on Secularization, he was engaged in a thankless task when he sought to change the Mission system, and there was no love lost between the ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... tanning solutions made use of to these hides was less strong, and of a cooler temperature than usual, by which the time employed in the ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... causation are liable to be in this manner counteracted, and seemingly frustrated, by coming into conflict with other laws, the separate result of which is opposite to theirs, or more or less inconsistent with it. And hence, with almost every law, many instances in which it really is entirely fulfilled, do not, at first sight, appear to be cases of its operation at all. It is so in the example just adduced: a force ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... Kuenen, the most distinguished of all his contemporaries in this field, modified, as he himself declared, one of his own leading theories after reading Colenso's argument; and other Continental scholars scarcely less eminent acknowledged their great indebtedness to the English ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... were glad to lay down their cards and the women to cease talking of their friends' love affairs. All the world over it is the same, a soprano voice subjugating all other interests; soprano or tenor, baritone much less, contralto still less. Many came forward to thank her, and, a little intoxicated with her success, she began to talk to some of her women friends, thinking it unwise to go back into a shadowy corner with Owen, making herself the subject of remark; for though her love ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... declared the engineer emphatically. "Do that an' do a good job on her, an' she'll have shteam enough for thim fine big ingines av hers on thirty-two ton a day, an' less. An' have a care would ye buy her until she ships a new crank shaft. She's a crack in the web av the afther crank shaft ye could shtick a knife blade into. She may run for years, but sooner or later some wan'll have a salvage claim agin ye if ye neglect it now. An', for the love ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... they proceeded to increase the distance between them as rapidly as possible. Fearing to be overtaken and greatly outnumbered, the British leader retreated to Canada while the American leader was in a state of mind no less uneasy. Harrison promptly set fire to his storehouses and supplies at the Maumee Rapids, his advanced base near Lake Erie. Thus all this labor and exertion and expense vanished in smoke while, in the set diction of war, he retired some fifteen miles. In such a vast hurry were the ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... not been in a hurry I could have done the homeward part for less. If I had been twenty-five I would have gone steerage. But with time to spare for looking up a tramp I might have easily got to London as the only passenger for L20. If I had not stayed in New York and had had the time I could have cut ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... presented to the Prince last Saturday. Our friend remitted it to me the same day, and I have thought it deserving of a translation for your inspection. He inquired anxiously for good news from America, and I replied, that the situation of America was by no means critical, and that I was less anxious about ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... fifteen rubles a dozen) and made bandages of it for the dog. The aunts had never seen such men, nor did they know that his debts ran up to two hundred thousand rubles, which—he knew—would never be paid, and that therefore twenty-five rubles more or less made no appreciable difference in ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... have viewed the matter in the same light. Still, you held to the letter of your orders. You were placed there to give warning of the approach of any hostile body, and naught was said to you as to letting any man, still less any women, depart from the place. But indeed, how could I blame you? Since heaven itself has assoiled you. For assuredly it was not chance that placed on your arm the little trinket that, alone, could have saved your life from ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... gravel, sea-ice, blue-ice, or compacted snow suitable for landing wheeled, fixed-wing aircraft; of these, 1 is greater than 3 km in length, 6 are between 2 km and 3 km in length, 3 are between 1 km and 2 km in length, 3 are less than 1 km in length, and 2 are of unknown length; snow surface skiways, limited to use by ski-equipped, fixed-wing aircraft, are available at another 15 locations; of these, 4 are greater than 3 km in length, 3 are between 2 km and 3 km in length, 2 are between 1 km and 2 km in length, ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... few stories for Putnam's Magazine, for one of which he was paid ten dollars. One of the bright spots in this period of uncertainty was his attendance, at Springfield and Newport, upon the meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also became more or less acquainted with men who were afterwards governors of Massachusetts, or United States senators, with John ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... to make his characters more beautiful than any others; and generations upon generations of artists have been toiling from time immemorial with like emulation, so that through centuries and centuries of tire-less effort and study, the primitive hieroglyph or ideograph has been evolved into a thing of beauty indescribable. It consists only of a certain number of brush- strokes; but in each stroke there is an undiscoverable secret art of ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... "labour" of the boy or girl who is really wrapped up in a play of Shakespeare or is striving to express the growing sense of beauty in fitting forms of language, is no less truly spiritual discipline because it is felt not as pain but ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... host endeavours to fill up the time by sending the sherry round. The dinner is at length placed upon the table, and Mooto scuffles out of the room whilst his master is busy carving, lest he should be compelled to wait, an occupation less agreeable than that to which he returns, and which engages most of his time — sitting on an upturned box before the fire, and smoking his pipe. Here, piously thanking Vishnu and Brama for such good tobacco, he ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... what this remark meant, and caring less, answered with a cold stare, though inwardly he cursed the man for his fatuous impertinence. That done, he relapsed dully into his own thoughts, which were all of the house he had scurried from, terrified by Peter's cry, ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... growing less plain. They vanish. I see a door that seems To open; a ray of sunlight gleams From a window behind; a vision as fair As the flush of dawn is ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... authorship, but because of its superlative merit, and has alone maintained itself in general use. The versatility of the Reformer in adapting himself with such success to the needs of the young and immature is no less than extraordinary. Such a little book as this it is that reveals most clearly the genius of the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... "reliable squad" was important. As their ranks contained many convicts or men qualified for life terms, they were a dangerous and desperate lot. They responded at once and cheerfully to any duty call, and one "removal" per night would have probably been less than average for a boss-ruled city in those days. For this they received protection; that is, the police and the Courts were so completely in the scheme that it was sufficient, on the arrest of a "reliable," if the boss sent word to the judge or State's ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... still shining, the one they admitted had saved Silverdale rose up quietly at the foot of the table. The hand he laid on the snowy cloth shook a little, and the bronze that generally suffused it was less noticeable in his face. All who saw it felt that something unusual was coming, and Maud Barrington leaned forward a trifle, with a ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... architecture in existence. Other authorities ascribe the erection to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent, half-brother to William the Conqueror, who is described by Hasted as "a turbulent and ambitious prelate, who aimed at nothing less than the popedom." Later, in the reign of William Rufus, it was accounted "the strongest and most important castle of England." It was so important that Lambarde, in A Perambulation of Kent, says:—"It was much in the ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... liking him. It found him tender, infinitely human. And in return he found that this seemingly empty eddy into which he had drifted was teeming with life. He busied himself with small things, and found his outlook gradually less tinged with despair. When he found himself inclined to rail, he organized a baseball club, and sent down to everlasting defeat the Linburgs, consisting of cash-boys from Linden and Hofburg's ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... in England since England had a name. The truth of them remains in unfathomable shadow. But, sir, any one of them could be cleared up in five minutes' intelligent explanation. Pontius Pilate could have been saved his blunder by far, far, far less than five minutes of intelligent explanation. But—mark ye!—but who has ever heard five minutes of intelligent explanation? The complex interwoven mesh of life constantly, eternally, prevents people from giving intelligent explanations. You sit in the theatre, and you say to yourself: 'Well, ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... gates of the city, four miles off, could not, as was well known to both parties, delay the victors an hour. The capital of an ancient empire, now of a great republic, or an early peace, the assailants were resolved to win. Not an American, and we were less than a third of the enemy's numbers, had a doubt as ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... less good than his word, for when the Good Samaritan set sail with a favoring wind for the island of Jamaica, Master Harry found himself established as one ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... preserved in the British Foreign Office is the cancelled $15,000,000 check with which Great Britain paid the Alabama claims. That the British should frame this memento of their great diplomatic defeat and hang it in the Foreign Office is an evidence of the fact that in statesmanship, as in less exalted matters, the English are excellent sports. The real justification of the honour paid to this piece of paper, of course, is that the settlement of the Alabama claims by arbitration signalized a great forward ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... substance which they supposed to be the inner part of the pine-bark. Their drink is most probably water; for in their boats they brought snow in the wooden vessels, which they swallowed by mouthfuls. Perhaps it could be carried with less trouble in these open vessels, than water itself. Their method of eating seems decent and cleanly; for they always took care to separate any dirt that might adhere to their victuals. And though they sometimes did eat the raw fat of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the hills shot assaulting lances of crystal. Even the shadows were sharp and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be. Everything that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier, and everything was either handsome or ugly. There was no soft blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching glitter. The only things that held their ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... should remember Surrey as the first maker of it. For with very little change the rules which Surrey laid down have been followed by our best poets ever since, so from the sixteenth century till now there has been far less change in our poetry than in the five centuries before. You can see this for yourself if you compare Surrey's poetry with Layamon's or Langland's, and then with some of the blank verse near ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... desperately thin—was stretched from the eastern frontier of France across its northern provinces, to the very tip of Belgium at Ypres, and so across it to the sea. This line of men who burrowed their way in trenches—a force of less than one man to the yard—was yet a force of heroes. Unprepared though they were, unsupported, without a doubt because there were as yet no new armies to support them, without reliefs for the very same reason, and therefore dependent entirely upon themselves, they stemmed the German tide. Hopelessly ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... shrugging his shoulders. "I cannot sympathise with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... which identified the two men. Ofterdingen himself is now thought to be a creation of some poet's fancy; but the large part devoted to his adventure in the old poem which tells of the contest of minstrelsy led the mediaeval poets to attribute many great literary deeds to him, one of them nothing less than the authorship ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... judge turned pale, the sweat poured out of him, and taking out his purse he gave the doctor five dollars and asked him what he should do. The doctor felt his pulse, looked at his tongue, listened at his heart, shook his head, and then told the judge that he would be a dead man in less than sixty years if he didn't ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... conceal. This, however, was nothing compared with her dread of the great night when she thought of facing a whole roomful of people; but now, strange to say, all her tremors died away. She found it less difficult to recite before the crowd than at rehearsal; she forgot herself in the joy of her lines. That she recited even better, if anything, than when her Uncle had overheard her in the library is all ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... development are not less worthy of our best attention than their commercial results. Every river is a unit from its source to its mouth. If it is to be given its highest usefulness to all the people, and serve them for all the uses they can make of it, ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot

... Philippines, which are seven or eight times larger than are necessary for the number of fathers whom they contain. It remains to ascertain whether that is the case because the number of religious is at present less in Espana than it was one hundred and fifty or one hundred and eighty years ago; or whether those buildings were erected with the expectation and idea that they would some day be peopled and filled. I have been unable to learn which is ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... Ganglere: Which are the asas, in whom men are bound to believe? Har answered him: Twelve are the divine asas. Jafnhar said: No less holy are the asynjes (goddesses), nor is their power less. Then added Thride: Odin is the highest and oldest of the asas. He rules all things, but the other gods, each according to his might, serve him as children a father. ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre

... distance from all indecent familiarities with his courtiers. His superior eloquence and judgment would have given him an ascendant, even had he been born in a private station; and his personal bravery would have procured him respect, though it had been less supported by art and policy. By his great progress in literature, he acquired the name of BEAUCLERK, or the Scholar: but his application to those sedentary pursuits abated nothing of the activity and vigilance of his government; and though the learning of that age was ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... with Patrician dignity (as befitted their station), only condescending occasionally to utter unofficial words of cheer. But these utterances were taken for what they were worth, and the experience of four months had taught us to estimate their value at rather less than nothing. When, therefore, towards two o'clock in the afternoon the unfolding of a tale descriptive of an approaching body of eight thousand cavalry had begun, we derisively snapped our fingers at the story. With amazing ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... pick up a cask of fresh water, and, guarded by the barefooted, red-capped soldiers, drag his chains back to the prison. Now, only the boat's-length from them, he saw the sheer face of the fortress, where it slipped to depths unknown into the sea. It impressed him most unpleasantly. It had the look less of a fortress than of a neglected tomb. Its front was broken by wind and waves, its surface, blotched and mildewed, white with crusted salt, hideous with an eruption of dead barnacles. As each wave ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... the approach of her visitor, her eyes turned towards the door—fiery eyes filled with such ardent watchfulness as seemed to burn the very air. The eyes of a hawk gleaming on its prey,—the eyes of a famished tiger in the dark, were less fraught with terrific meaning than the eyes of Ziska as she listened attentively to the on-coming footsteps through the outside corridor which told her that Gervase ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... back a little vaguely, as if not seizing his allusion, and being content to let it drop into the store of unexplained references which had once stimulated her curiosity but now merely gave her leisure to think of other things. But her smile was no less lovely for its vagueness, and indeed, to Ralph, the loveliness was enhanced by the latent doubt. He remembered afterward that at that moment the cup of life seemed to ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... certainly, will that solution agree in appearance or substance with the more or less crude conceptions which have been put forth by most of the opponents of Messrs. ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... as by that means some idea might be gained of the extent of the island; and since any considerable spring or stream must find its way to the sea, we should also be more likely to discover water, than by pursuing the other course. Along the southern shore, the land was lower and less uneven than in the opposite direction, and held forth a slighter prospect of springs or streams. The difficulty of holding a straight course through the forest, where we should be without any means ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... him on such occasions to remain as a guard outside the stockade which contained her treasures. After reading him a severe lecture on this flagrant abandonment of his trust, enforced with great seriousness and an admonitory forefinger, she was concerned to see that the animal appeared less agitated by her reproof than by some other disturbance. He ran ahead of her, instead of at her heels, as was his usual custom, and barked—a thing he rarely did. Presently she thought she discovered ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... herself. She might have made the attempt, but it would have been a failure. She could fall in love with a Master of Ravenswood in a novel, but would have given herself by preference,—after due consideration,—to the richer, though less poetical, suitor. Of good sterling gifts she did know the value, and was therefore contented with her lot. But this business of being married, with all the most extravagant appurtenances of the hymeneal altar, was ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... the exact relationship between us and the death-realm of the afterwards we shall never know. But this relation is none the less active every moment of our lives. There is a pure polarity between life and death, between the living and the dead, between each living individual and the outer cosmos. Between each living individual and the earth's center passes a never-ceasing circuit of magnetism. It is a ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... still more pathetic in these sturdy and workmanlike essays in unaided criticism. Still more solitary her work became, in July, 1874, when her only sister, Aru, died, at the age of twenty. She seems to have been no less amiable than her sister, and if gifted with less originality and a less forcible ambition, to have been finely accomplished. Both sisters were well-trained musicians, with full contralto voices, and Aru ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... he had only done his duty, that David and Anna would come back, and that, in the meantime, Louisa was less a comfort to him, in his trouble, than she had ever been before. It was, of course, his trouble; it never occurred to him that Louisa's heart might have been breaking on its ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... pure and unabridged text is the primary object of the series, and the books will be carefully reprinted under the direction of competent scholars from the best editions. In a series intended for popular use not less than for students, adherence to the old spelling would in many cases leave the matter unintelligible to ordinary readers, and, as the appeal of a classic is universal, the spelling ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... on his judicial circuit, he was not an imposing figure. There was little in his boyish face to command attention, except his dark-blue, lustrous eyes. His big head seemed out of proportion to his stunted figure. He measured scarcely over five feet and weighed less than a hundred and ten pounds. Astride his horse, he looked still more diminutive. His mount was a young horse which he had borrowed. He carried under his arm a single book, also loaned, a copy of the criminal law.[43] His chief asset was a ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... tomb," said Honorius. "On excavating this passage the workmen struck upon it, so they stopped and walled up the place and carried on their excavation around it. It was not from the fear of disturbing the tomb, but because in death, no less than in life, the Christian desires to follow the command of his Lord, and 'come out from among them ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous

... his royal brother and overlord to restore Bel Merodach to Babylon. Ashur-bani-pal hesitated for a time; he was unwilling to occupy a less dignified position, as the representative of Ashur, than his distinguished predecessor, in his relation to the southern kingdom. At length, however, he was prevailed upon to consult the oracle of Shamash, the solar lawgiver, the revealer of destiny. The god was accordingly ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... upon a method of making money, which, if it had been carried into operation on the high seas, would in all probability have been called by its right name, and incurred the penalty of the gallows—as piracy. Ought it then to be deemed less criminal because transpiring on the free soil of the American Republic? I think not. Nor was it less censurable ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward

... In less than twenty minutes the steamer whistle shrieked. Nig bounded out of the A. C., frantic at the repetition of the insult; other dogs took the quarrel up, and ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... things little Pauline remembered and pondered as she sat in her low chair looking into the fire. She did not do so in the consecutive form or the big words which we have just employed, but her remembrance was none the less vivid and her perplexity none the less keen, for all the phases of her father's mental life were well known to her in those simple intuitive ways which are peculiar to women. She concluded by asking herself ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... this strange world, made a hopeless riddle to him, he might, if he had had a less intense nature, have sat weaving, weaving—looking towards the end of his pattern, or towards the end of his web, till he forgot the riddle, and everything else but his immediate sensations; but the money had come to mark off his weaving into periods, and the money ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... benches. At the latter laboured quite a company of girls and some men. The former were drabby-looking creatures, stained in face with oil and dust, clad in thin, shapeless, cotton dresses and shod with more or less worn shoes. Many of them had their sleeves rolled up, revealing bare arms, and in some cases, owing to the heat, their dresses were open at the neck. They were a fair type of nearly the lowest order of shop-girls—careless, ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... "scientific" socialist had a lofty scorn for any less dogmatic philosophy than his own or for any less sweeping social change than that he expected. Moderate social reform to him was but temporizing; indeed, it was evil, inasmuch as it helped to postpone the inevitable, but in the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... means many things. It means first and foremost an understanding of human nature; a realization that the great shortcoming of industry has been that it held, as organized, too little opportunity for a normal outlet to the normal and more or less pressing interests and desires ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... the paste, pour in the water, stirring it into the paste at the same time with the other hand. When sufficiently moist to adhere in the shape of a ball, roll out to the required thickness. If cooked in a basin the pudding will require to boil for at least three hours; if in a cloth, less time ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich

... a great machine given to man to be fashioned to his purpose. The more he works it, the better it feeds him, because each step is but preparatory to a new one more productive than the last—requiring less labour and yielding larger return. The labour of clearing is great, yet the return is small. The earth is covered with stumps, and filled with roots. With each year the roots decay, and the ground becomes enriched, while the labour of ploughing is diminished. At length, the stumps disappear, and ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... pope, but also to convey to Alexander and Caesar the title of Venetian nobles, and to inform them that their names were inscribed in the Golden Book—a favour that both of them had long coveted, less far the empty honour's sake than for the new influence that this title might confer. Then the pope went on to bestow the twelve cardinals' hats that had been sold. The new princes of the Church were Don Diego de Mendoza, archbishop of Seville; Jacques, ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... did not continue but seven years, the entire period was not less than twenty-five and may have been as much as fifty-one years. The period marks a new era in Biblical history. Instead of the experiences of Nomadic or semi-Nomadic tribes, a people with a fixed abode and with a growing body of customs and ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... showing the faintly generous rounding of maturity, was warm in colouring, with dark eyes, well shaded and languorous; her full lips betrayed their beauty in a ready and fascinating laugh; her voice was a rich, warm contralto; and her speech bore just a hint of the soft r-less drawl ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... lady, as you know, and though she will not part with the green leaf from her hand, one sees by the grey-goose down on her brows and her head, that she cannot be less than fifty-five. But so much pains does she take, by powder, to have never a dark hair in her head, because she has one half of them white, that I am sorry to see, what is a subject for reverence, should be deemed, by the ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... is most charming, and almost resembles a park. Many country houses lie scattered throughout this natural garden. The vegetation is here no less luxuriant than ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... said to be a characteristic of the northwestern division of Lancashire, but I think that there is good evidence for asserting that this strong provincialism was not confined, formerly, to the West-Midland dialect, much less to a division of any particular county. We find traces of it in Audelay's Poems (Shropshire), the Romance of William and the Werwolf,[35] and even in the Wickliffite ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... misfortune to be obliged to inform you of an event not less afflicting to the people of the United States than distressing to my own feelings and the feelings of all those ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... shall bestow on hin so sure a draught] [Thus the elder quarto, which I have followed in preference to the quarto 1609, and the folio 1623, which read, less intelligibly, ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... his turban, pulled the hair off his beard, and beat his head like a madman. We asked him the reason, and he answered, that he was in the most dangerous place in all the sea: a rapid current carries the ship along with it, and we shall all perish in less than a quarter of an hour. Pray to God to deliver us from this danger; we cannot escape it, if he do not take pity on us. At these words he ordered the sails to be changed; but all the ropes broke, and the ship, without any possibility of helping ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... on that fear grew less, and just at sunset one evening, as Ngati turned the shoulder of one of the mountains and stood pointing, Don set up a shout which Jem echoed, for there beneath them in a valley, and about a quarter of a mile from the shimmering ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... country, though Ben took the eldest up to Auckland, where he's being schooled with the best. But what bothers me is the girls. They're only half-castes, of course; I know that as well as you do, and there's nobody thinks less of half-castes than I do; but they're mine, and about all I've got. I can't reconcile my mind to their taking up with Kanakas, and I'd like to know where I'm ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... inducements to the earth to renew that fertility which, by the periodicity of the seasons, was at times temporarily suspended. It was only at a later period, when the struggle for existence had become less arduous, that the belief in the efficacy of magical rites decayed, and that in matters of religion the primitive Greeks "shifted from a nature-god to a ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... too often. When she was, they had to surface and proceed in normal space. But Lyad, not too surprisingly, turned out to be a qualified subspace pilot. Even less surprisingly, she already had made a careful study of the ship's controls. After a few hours of instruction, she went on shift with the Commissioner along the less rugged stretches. In this area, none of the ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... Mr. Pope had a sawmill on his place. The saw run perpendicularly up and down. He had a grist mill there too. I like to go to mill. It was dangerous for young boys. Mr. Pope's farm joined us on one side. Oxen was used as team for heavy loads. Such a contrast in less than a century as trucks are in use now. I learned about oxen. They didn't go fast 'ceptin' when they ran away. They would run at the sight of water in hot weather. They was dangerous if they saw the river and had to go down a steep bank, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... a fine writer, a skillful soldier, and a benevolent, judicious ruler. His "Meditations," which have made him known to posterity, are among the most delightful productions of the human intellect, while his private character seems to have been no less attractive than his writings. ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... of Venice, as his gondola shot into the open lagoon from the canal of Mestre. Not but that the aspect of the city itself was generally the source of some slight disappointment, for, seen in this direction, its buildings are far less characteristic than those of the other great towns of Italy; but this inferiority was partly disguised by distance, and more than atoned for by the strange rising of its walls and towers out of the midst, as it seemed, of the deep sea, for ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin



Words linked to "Less" :   more or less, shell-less, gill-less, inferior, slight, comparative



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