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Duration   /dˈʊrˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Duration

noun
1.
The period of time during which something continues.  Synonym: continuance.
2.
The property of enduring or continuing in time.  Synonym: continuance.
3.
Continuance in time.  Synonym: length.  "He complained about the length of time required"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Duration" Quotes from Famous Books



... The duration of the current is at the will of the operator who works the sending-key, and it is plain that signals can be made by currents of various lengths. In the "Morse code" of signals, which is now universal, only two lengths of current are employed— namely, a short, ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro

... consequently when he was reminded of the presence of Christmas he felt disposed to accord it a measure of consideration rather different from that with which several of its predecessors had met. Like Old Platte, he had regarded it as a good day to go on a "bust" and initiate a "drunk" of more or less duration, but just now he seemed as if inclined to take a different view of it. His eyes could take a clearer and healthier view of the past than he had for a long time had, and its old memories and scenes flocked up before him now, bright through the dim mist that time had cast ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... service was over Reuben had made up his mind. He would speak to Ruth after church, and at least decide his own chances. The vicar's sermon was brief, for the good man had no rival, and could afford to please himself; but its duration, short as it was, gave Reuben ample time to be rejected and accepted a score of times over, and to gild the future with the rosiest or cloud it with the most tempestuous of colors. The Earl of Barfield, according to his custom, had arrived late, and it comforted Reuben ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... period of our summer, although comparatively slight and of short duration, is nevertheless felt by some people to be extremely oppressive, but this is mainly due to the practice of eating much animal food or fatty matters, conjoined as it often is with the habit of drinking freely of fluids containing more or less alcoholics. ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... throughout his life a fervent admirer of Sir Walter, and I think Mr. Wedmore, in his passage on the subject, distinctly undervalues both the character and the duration of this esteem. Balzac was far too acute to commit the common mistake of thinking Scott superficial—men who know mankind are not often blind to each other's knowledge. And while Mr. Wedmore seems not to know any testimony later than ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac

... every visit he paid her added to his amused, charmed sense that it was a miracle and that his extraordinary old friend had seen things he should never, never see. Those were just the things he wanted to see most, and her duration, her survival, cheated him agreeably and helped him a little to guess them. His appreciation of the actor's art was so systematic that it had an antiquarian side, and at the risk of representing him as attached to an absurd futility it must be said that he had as yet hardly known a ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... Strike an object in an exhausted receiver, and it produces no sound, because no air is there; touch a ringing glass, and the sound stops, because there is no vibration; take away the rhythm of the simplest air by changing the duration of the notes that compose it, and you render it obscure and unrecognizable, because you have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... could never tell whether the amazing strange voyage that followed was of long or of short duration; whether it occupied three days or ten days. For conceive, if you choose, two people of flesh and blood moving and living continually in all the circumstances and surroundings as of a nightmare dream, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... figure."—Blair's Rhet., p. 155. "Whether the author had any meaning in this expression, or what it was, [it] is not easy to determine."—Murray's Gram., Vol. i, p. 298. "That warm climates should accelerate the growth of the human body, and shorten its duration, [it] is very reasonable to believe."—Ib., p. 144. These also need the pronoun, though Murray ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... 1612;[23] but though the controversy was carried on in the language of mutual respect and esteem, it put an end to the friendship which had existed between the two astronomers. In these letters Galileo showed that the spots often dispersed like vapours or clouds; that they sometimes had a duration of only one or two days, and at other times of thirty or forty days; that they contracted in their breadth when they approached the sun's limb, without any diminution of their length; that they describe circles parallel ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... a speaker in this or any other country had more powerful incentives to exertion; a subject, the determination of which involved the most important interests and even duration of the Republic—competitors unequaled in reputation, ability, or position; a name to make still more renowned or lose forever; and an audience comprising, not only American citizens most eminent in intellectual greatness, but representatives of other nations where the ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... was in Dublin at that time, and remembers the city being thrown into a state of great excitement by the foregoing intelligence. The alarm was, however, of short duration, as the citizens of the Irish capital were better acquainted with the disposition of the people, and the probability of their sustaining a close contest with the troops. Besides, there existed confidence ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the innocent creature stood still and eat, while I tied it up; all unconscious till it tumbled neck and heels into the pan, producing a start and scatter of brief duration. Kate had left the wagon, and was shaking with laughter over this extraordinary goodness on the turkeys' part, and before long our basket was full of struggling, kicking, squeaking things, "werry promiscuous," in Mr. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... is in answer to an objection against my last argument of the souls Immortalitie, viz. divine goodnesse, which I there make the measure of his providence. That ground limits the essence of the world as well as its duration, and satisfies the curiositie of the Opposer, by shewing the incompossibilitie in the Creature, not want of goodnesse in the Creatour to have staid the framing of the Universe. But now roused up by a new ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... the passage of the septennial Act (1716), extending the duration of Parliament from three years, which was the longest time that body could sit (SS439, 517), to seven years (since reduced to five years).[2] The object of this change was to do away with the excitement and tendency to rebellion at that time, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... the festival of Easter fresh ground must be broken in order that the 'Passion' might be fittingly set forth, and, in fact, we know that both stories in full detail eventually found a place in the more ambitious churches, any difficulty due to their length being overcome by extending the duration of the festivals. Then a time came when, even as St. Matthew was anxious to lay the foundations of his Gospel firm and sure in the past, so some writer of Bible plays desired to preface his life ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... two changes since leaving New York City, but each stop had been less than an hour in duration; so to these boys so used to outdoor activities it felt as if the whole journey had been continuous. They were bound for a small town which in years gone by had been known as Steerville, but the name of which since the oil boom had been changed ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer

... heard all this, became aware that in talking about a month she had forgotten herself. She had been accustomed to holidays of a month's duration, and to honeymoon trips fitted to such vacations. A month was the longest holiday ever heard of in the chambers of the Adelphi, or at the house in Onslow Crescent. She had forgotten herself. It was not to be the lot of ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... contributed with his army corps to the capture of the town. When he appeared before the Emperor, the latter burst out in harsh and severe reproaches regarding the affair at Laon; but his anger was not of long duration, and his Majesty soon resumed towards the marshal the tone of friendship with which he habitually honored him. They held a long conference, and the Duke of Ragusa remained to dine ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... doctrine of Judaism is God's omnipotence. Weakness would be a defect. Hence God can do everything except the contradictory. His power is infinite not merely in duration, but also in intensity. From Aristotle's proof of the necessity of an immovable mover as based upon the eternity of motion (p. 256 f.), we gather only that God's power is infinite in duration; whereas our doctrine of creation ex nihilo shows that there is no relation at all between God's ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... so profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the duration ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... myself I will gladly communicate to you; for, being fully conscious that my undertaking far exceeds the measure of human capabilities and their earthly duration, I should like to deposit many things with you, and thereby not only preserve ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... this demonstration will clearly appear, provided we consider the nature of time, or the duration of things; for this is of such a kind that its parts are not mutually dependent, and never co-existent; and, accordingly, from the fact that we now are, it does not necessarily follow that we shall be a moment afterwards, unless some cause, viz., that which first produced ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes

... a long discussion as to the meaning of the phrase "the day after to-morrow." Despard asserted that it meant the same as eternal duration, and insisted that it must be so, since when to-morrow came the day after it was still coming, and when that came there was still the day after. He supported his theory with so much earnestness that Thornton, after listening for a while, took the trouble to go heavily and at length into the ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... written (Deut. 18:10, 11): "Neither let there be found among you . . . any one that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune tellers": and it is stated in the Decretals (26, qu. v, can. Qui divinationes): "Those who seek for divinations shall be liable to a penance of five years' duration, according to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... each blow that he struck, and each man that felt the weight of his weapon was out of the fight for that day at least. Many of those that he came in contact with had to be carried from the field for surgical aid. In the battle, which was spirited, but short in duration, nine men had their skulls broken, and many others were seriously injured in other ways. The severe treatment of the mob by the Danites ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee

... pause: he was no more descending; for a time of indeterminate duration, an age of anguish, he seemed to float without motion, suspended in frigid purgatory. Against his ribs something hammered like a racing engine. In his ears sounded a vast roaring, the deafening voices of a thousand waterfalls. His head felt swollen and enormous, on the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... under subsection (b)(3)(C), including the participants, goals, and amount and sources of funding; and (2) a list of international cooperative activities underway, including the participants, goals, expected duration, and amount and sources of funding, including resources provided to support the activities in lieu of direct funding. (f) Animal and Zoonotic Diseases.—As part of the international cooperative ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

... of its cost, hydrogen is but little used for commercial purposes. It is sometimes used as a material for the inflation of balloons, but usually the much cheaper coal gas is substituted for it. Even hot air is often used when the duration of ascension is very short. It has been used also as a source of heat and light in the oxyhydrogen blowpipe. Where the electric current is available, however, this form of apparatus has been displaced almost entirely by the electric light ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson

... always,' that points to perpetual, unbroken duration in time, and through all changing circumstances which might threaten a less stable and deeply-rooted tranquillity. And then, 'by all means,' as our Authorised Version has it, or, better, 'in all ways,' as the Revised Version reads, the reference being, not so ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... to her with a fearful intensity of passion which increases day by day. In the earliest stage of their acquaintance but few interviews were granted; but after the first week the separations were of shorter duration, and now there is scarce a day on which the prince is not with her. Whole evenings pass without our even seeing him, and when he is not with her she appears to form the sole object of his thoughts. His whole being seems metamorphosed. He goes about as if wrapped in a dream, and nothing ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... little suspecting that she has seen me for the last time. I am free. I have had the courage, in an interview of two hours' duration, not to betray my intention. And O Wilhelm, ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... people of Vienna, owing to the incessant duration of these gloomy shadows, had become very grave, and loudly and softly denounced Minister Thugut as the author and instigator of all the evils that were menacing Austria. In fact, Baron Thugut was still the all-powerful minister; ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... history, or in marbles, which shall leap emulously from their quarries to form such monuments of pride as you have just beheld; but they are miserably deceived; their existence ends at the instant they expire, and their fame, however deeply engraven on brass and marble, cannot have a longer duration than that of a brief moment when compared with eternity! I myself, TIME, consume and utterly annihilate all those structures which have vanity for their base; the works which are founded on virtue are not subject to my jurisdiction. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various

... Tecumseh, "my fleet has whipped the Americans, but the vessels being much injured, have gone into Put-in Bay to refit, and will be here in a few days." This deception, however, upon the Indians, was not of long duration. The sagacious eye of Tecumseh soon perceived indications of a retreat from Malden, and he promptly enquired into the matter. General Proctor informed him that he was only going to send their valuable property up the Thames, where ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... pause of about a minute's duration, and then the lions' cry was heard again a little more distant, but coming nearer and nearer; and still the fire would not burn, but kept on emitting a dense blinding smoke, which hid one great beast from Dick's eyes, where he had distinctly seen the animal creeping along towards them. ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... into our view only that particle of our duration which is terminated by the grave, it will be found that we cannot enjoy one part of life beyond the common limitations of pleasure, but by anticipating some of the satisfaction which should exhilarate the following years. The ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... I were a deputy, it is probable that I should be like the rest; instead of thinking of such matters I should think of nothing but calculating the probable duration ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... whatever, but drank some water; she died in six weeks."[1] This case gives us some idea of this terrible practice; we see that they were sometimes allowed to drink water, which explains the extraordinary duration of some ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... work is concerned, the village boy is likely to be overlooked, as promising little toward the immediate financial support of the church and the increase of membership. In the brief interval of two years—the average duration of the village pastorate—it does not seem practicable for the minister to go about a work which will require a much longer time to produce those "satisfactory results" for which churches and missionary boards clamor. A revival effort which inflates the membership-roll, strenuous and ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... a silence of some duration. Jake's brows were slightly drawn. He spoke at last, slowly and softly as his manner was. "Are you suggesting that—Captain Larpent's ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... sun. Science settled that point finally for them, at length, and then it was all right,—when there was no use in disputing the fact any longer. By and by geology began turning up fossils that told extraordinary stories about the duration of life upon our planet. What subterfuges were not used to get rid of their evidence! Think of a man seeing the fossilized skeleton of an animal split out of a quarry, his teeth worn down by mastication, and the remains of food still visible in his interior, and, in order to get rid of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... caused by circumstances beyond the control of those charged with its support. Its welfare and comfort are the objects of his constant and earnest solicitude; and no effort has been spared to provide for its wants. It is hoped that the exertions now being made will render the necessity but of short duration: but the history of the army has shown that the country can require no sacrifice too ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... of warmth remain; a slight color lingers within the centre of the cheek; and, upon application of a mirror to the lips, we can detect a torpid, unequal, and vacillating action of the lungs. Then again the duration of the trance is for weeks—even for months; while the closest scrutiny, and the most rigorous medical tests, fail to establish any material distinction between the state of the sufferer and what we conceive of absolute death. Very ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... a girl of nineteen, called Lucie, who was highly hysterical, having daily attacks of several hours' duration. She was also devoid of the sense of pain or the sense of contact, so that she "lost her legs in bed," ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead

... without a stain upon his character. As soon as he had warmed to his work he would be followed by a third player, and so on until the standing room around the desk was completely filled with a great cloud of witnesses. The duration of the game varied, of course, considerably. On some occasions it could be played through with such success, that the master would enter into the spirit of the thing, and do his best to book the names of all offenders at one and the same time, a feat of no ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... mind, Where then are those men? Nowhere, or nobody knows where. For thus continuously thou wilt look at human things as smoke and nothing at all; especially if thou reflectest at the same time that what has once changed will never exist again in the infinite duration of time. But thou, in what a brief space of time is thy existence? And why art thou not content to pass through this short time in an orderly way? What matter and opportunity [for thy activity] art thou avoiding? For what else are all these things, except exercises for the reason, when it has viewed ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

... deal with all of Polly's freaks and whims. And her endless patience and devotion were well rewarded, for Polly adored her pretty, bright little mother with all the fervor of her being. There were times, it is true, when Polly rebelled against all restraint; but such moments were of short duration, and, for the most part, she yielded easily to the pleasant, firm discipline which made duty enjoyable, and punishment the necessary result of wrong-doing, a result as hard for the mother to inflict as for the child to bear. In her gentler moods, Polly ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... remain away from that country, though he persisted, long after the old regime was as dead as the Ptolemies, in believing it merely suspended, and the Revolution a lamentable accident of vulgar complexion, but happily temporary duration. The Marquis de Senanges, who affected the style regence, and was the politest of infidels and the most refined of voluptuaries, got on indifferently in inappreciative foreign parts; but the members of his ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... alleviation of the sufferings of mankind,—have they been able to confine their vision more absolutely to the strictly useful? I fear they are the worst offenders of all. For if the astronomer has set before us the infinite magnitude of space, and the practical eternity of the duration of the universe; if the physical and chemical philosophers have demonstrated the infinite minuteness of its constituent parts, and the practical eternity of matter and of force; and if both have alike ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... flooding, landslides, drought, and famine depending on the timing, intensity, and duration of ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... of fruition. No gratifications, but especially not those that address themselves only to the senses, and pamper this brittle, worthless mansion of the immortal mind, are calculated to entertain us for any long duration. We need something to awaken our attention, to whet our appetite, and to contrast our joys. Happiness in this sublunary state can scarcely be felt, but by a comparison with misery. It is he only that has escaped from sickness, that is conscious of health; it is he only that has shaken off ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... to attend Rowena's marriage; Dreda's coming out; and inspect the progress of her youngest pupils. A few tears were shed when the hour of parting actually arrived, but there was no bitterness in them on either side, nor were they of any long duration. ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... these points. They have no respect for the wisdom of others; but they pay it off by a very full measure of confidence in their own. With them it is a sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things, because it is an old one. As to the new, they are in no sort of fear with regard to the duration of a building run up in haste; because duration is no object to those who think little or nothing has been done before their time, and who place all their hopes in discovery. They conceive, very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous, and therefore they ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... including myself as chaplain and district minister of Victoria, my wife and servants, to this far-off island, calling at Honolulu by the way, cast anchor off Clover Point, so terminating a voyage of about six months' duration from London. The next day, having moved to the inner harbor, we made our first acquaintance with several Victorians, who came on board to give us and our compagnons de voyage a cordial welcome. That same morning we received an invitation from His Excellency Governor Douglas ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... what she had seen. But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours' duration, I experienced no fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my door in the course of it, to ask if I was safe and tranquil: and that was comfort, that was ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... been fairly settled in my new house, I thought very little more about the matter, and was beginning to enjoy the calm, quiet life which I so much loved, as nobody had meddled with me for upwards of three weeks. But, alas! this felicity was to be but of short duration. The election of a member of Parliament came on, and I had a vote—but I had determined to make no use of it; for, being but little of a politician, and, above all things, desiring to be on good terms with everybody, whatever might ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... Metropolitan German Company was Marianne Brandt, whose influence in creating new ideals and developing new tastes among the opera-goers of New York was even greater than that of Mme. Materna, because her powers were no less and her labors of longer duration. She came here after having won praise from the critics of London, where she had sung at the first performance in England of "Tristan und Isolde" at Drury Lane in 1882. That was ten years after she had effected her London dbut. The principal Coloratursngerin of the company ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... is most difficult to imagine where the checks fall—though generally, no doubt, on the seeds, eggs, and young; but when we remember how impossible, even in mankind (so much better known than any other animal), it is to infer from repeated casual observations what the average duration of life is, or to discover the different percentage of deaths to births in different countries, we ought to feel no surprise at our being unable to discover where the check falls in any animal or plant. It should always be remembered, that in most cases the checks are recurrent yearly ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various

... who respected genius or intellect in any shape or form, said that it was no trouble at all, the camp was very dull and the boys were always glad to have someone come round. Then, after a brief comparison of opinions concerning the probable duration of the weather which had arrived, they bade each other good night, and the darkness ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... into the truth of the matter himself. As soon as he had made the experiment, he was satisfied; and, though he fancied that fame did not exceed the truth, yet this intrigue began in such a manner, that it was generally believed its duration would be short, considering, the fickleness of both parties, and the vivacity with which they had engaged in it: nevertheless, no amour in England ever continued ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... economic exigencies of today, than to have been definitely supplanted by a habit of mind that is in full accord with these later-developed exigencies. The predatory and quasi-peaceable stages of economic evolution seem to have been of long duration in life history of all the chief ethnic elements which go to make up the populations of the Western culture. The temperament and the propensities proper to those cultural stages have, therefore, attained such a persistence as to make ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... Purgatory rejected along with it the doctrine of the Intermediate State, since, virtually, Purgatory and the Intermediate State had been regarded as practically one and the same thing, as indeed they were in duration conterminous. In rejecting the one therefore, men unhappily but almost naturally rejected ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson

... charity and indiscriminate filth and neglect began all over again. The gentleman who had given them shelter thought they ought to have another trial. They had had six years' trial already, but this last one was of short duration. In four months their champion returned to say that the Charity Organization Society was right and he was wrong; that he had found Gamma drunken, lazy, and insolent; and that the children raised under his influence must become paupers and ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... to long stories (for which, by-the-bye, I am giving you large credit) is common, I fancy, to most sailors, and the Greeks have it to a high degree, for they can be perfectly patient under a narrative of two or three hours’ duration. These long stories are mostly founded upon Oriental topics, and in one of them I recognised with some alteration an old friend of the “Arabian Nights.” I inquired as to the source from which the story had ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... and seas, and stormy skies, for several weeks. Short intervals, from time to time, occurred, when the clouds would break away, and the sun appear; but these intervals did not liberate the fleet from its confinement, for they were not long enough in duration to allow the sea to go down. The surf continued to come rolling and thundering in upon the shore, and over the sand-bars at the mouth of the river, making destruction the almost inevitable destiny of any ship which should undertake to ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... and then, conscious for the first time in his life that he had been assigned to an independent command, though it was likely to be of brief duration, he sent for the two sergeants of his platoon, and sent them forward as scouts, with two privates ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... of all others. It is a noble characteristic and is worthy of imitation of any age. And when we look at it in one particular aspect, it is still magnified, and grows brighter and brighter the more we reflect upon its eternal duration. What will she not do, when her word as well as her affections and LOVE are pledged to her lover? Everything that is dear to her on earth, all the hospitalities of kind and loving parents, all the sincerity and loveliness of sisters, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... not!" indignantly. "I don't suppose he knows Worth and I are acquainted." I could have smiled at that. There were detectives' reports in Dykeman's desk that recorded date, hour and duration of every meeting this girl had had with Worth and with myself. Besides, Cummings knew. It must have been through Cummings that she learned what was about to take place in Dykeman's private office. ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... Rome, who were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the field, or to suppose that a being for whose dignity they entertained the most sincere admiration could be limited to a spot of earth, and to a few years of duration. But reason could not justify the specious and noble principles of the disciples ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... for it measured no less than fourteen miles "as the crow flies," and about five-and-twenty as the hounds ran. The time occupied had been close on seven hours. There had of course been several checks; but so strong had been the scent of this hart that, in spite of two "lets" of some twenty minutes' duration, the pack had been able to hunt their quarry to the bitter end. Only two men had seen the end. The pride and chivalry of Warwickshire, mounted on their high-priced Flanders mares, their Galway nags, and their splendid Barbaries, had been hopelessly ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... this place might be of some duration, we for the first time pitched our tents on shore. Our morning and evening devotion was attended by the whole party; and on Sundays we read the Litany, and conducted the service in the usual way, which proved to us and our Esquimaux of great ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch

... stripes was the least they could expect, while the leaders were in imminent danger of the gallows. But considerations other than those of strict justice according to law determined their fate, and made their suspense of short duration. It was well enough to use threats to intimidate rebels, but in an insurrection with which so large a proportion of the people sympathized partly or fully, severity to the conquered would have been ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... had such a dulcifying tendency, that, although two causes of delay occurred, each of much more serious duration than that which had drawn down his wrath upon the unlucky Mrs. Macleuchar, our Antiquary only bestowed on the delay the honour of a few episodical poohs and pshaws, which rather seemed to regard the interruption of his disquisition than the retardation ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... misinterpreting my eagerness to be employed, had by this time enlisted me into full service in the sick-room. After the first hint of surprised gratitude, she betrayed no feeling at all, but bound me severely to my task. We took the watching turn and turn about, in spells of three hours' duration. I was held committed, and could not desert without a brand on my conscience. The disgusting feature of this is that I was almost glad of it, at the same time longing to run, and feeling that this, in ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... are a symptom of chronic proctitis of fifteen, twenty or more years duration. Proctitis (inflammation of the anus or rectum) and periproctitis (inflammation of the connective tissue about the rectum) are by no means uncommon inflammatory processes. The mucous membrane like the skin is liable to injury or poisons and especially so at the orifices of the body. ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... Rabbis made the 'dies Messiae' part, that is, the consummation of this world, the conclusive Sabbath of the great week, in which they supposed the duration of the earth or world of the senses to be comprised; but all agreed that the 'dies', or thousand years, of the Messiah was a transitional state, during which the elect were gradually defecated of body, and ripened for the ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... axiomatic truth. I confess that I have a certain difficulty in accepting this dogma. For the Stoics were notoriously materialists and pantheists of the most extreme character; and while no strict Stoic believed in the eternal duration of the individual soul, some even denied its persistence after death. Yet it is equally certain, that, of all gentile philosophies, Stoicism exhibits the highest ethical development, is animated by the most religious spirit, and has exerted the profoundest influence upon the ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... of a month's duration being made upon the invitation, "If you visit B—-, I hope that you will not forget that I reside there, and will be very happy to see you." Yet, even where friends are not newly made, but of long standing, it is best not to pay visits unless by special invitation. A ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... they were no doubt like ourselves, I thought, come to consult the oracle of Bagley, or, perhaps, were the daughters of some respectable farmer who owned the adjoining land. All these doubts were, however, of short duration; for Tom Echo no sooner caught sight of their faces, than away he bounded towards them like a young colt in all the frolic of untamed playfulness, and before I could reach him, one of the ladies was rolling on the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... at Aulis, but the goddess Artemis, displeased with the boastful language of Agamemnon, prolonged the duration of adverse winds, and the offending chief was compelled to appease her by the well-known sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia. They then proceeded to Tenedos, from whence Odysseus and Menelaus were dispatched as envoys to Troy, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... but was brought to Rome at so early an age as to belong almost equally to both nationalities. His poverty [17] did not secure him from persecution, Sejanus, ever suspicious and watchful, detected the political allusions veiled beneath the disguise of fable, and made the poet feel his auger. The duration of Phaedrus's career is uncertain. The first two books were all that he published in Tiberius's reign; the third, dedicated to Eutychus, and the fourth to Particulo, Claudius's favourite, clearly show that he continued to write over a considerable time. The date of Book V. is not mentioned, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... into its crater and there extinguishing it. The means were not fortunate; for war and aggression are inappropriate measures for arresting an evil which lies wholly in the human passions, excited in a temporary paroxysm, of less duration as it is the more violent. Time is the true remedy for all bad passions and for all anarchical doctrines. A civilized nation may bear the yoke of a factious and unrestrained multitude for a short interval; but these storms soon pass ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... perception are part, and the only empirically knowable part, of the actual subject-matter of physics, and are themselves properly to be called physical; that purely physical laws exist determining the character and duration of objects of perception without any reference to the fact that they are perceived; and that in the establishment of such laws the propositions of physics do not presuppose any propositions of psychology or even the existence of mind. I do not know whether ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... by the chief and remain in power some days, at least till the chief appoints a successor; they seem to be a sort of constable or sentinel, since they are always on the watch to keep tranquillity during the day, and guarding the camp in the night. The short duration of their office is compensated by its authority: his power is supreme, and in the suppression of any riot or disturbance no resistance to him is suffered: his person is sacred, and if in the execution of his duty he strikes even a chief of the second ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... without any pretence of trial by jury or publicity of procedure or evidence. Though it was urgently necessary that production should be increased by the most scientific organization and economy of labor, and though no fact was better established than that excessive duration and intensity of toil reduces production heavily instead of increasing it, the factory laws were suspended, and men and women recklessly over-worked until the loss of their efficiency became too glaring to be ignored. Remonstrances and warnings were met either with an accusation of pro-Germanism ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... exhibited a good deal of manner and less actual sorrow than might have been expected; but Brendon discovered that she had only known Robert Redmayne for half a year and their actual engagement was not of much more than a month's duration. Miss Reed was dark, animated, and commonplace of mind. Her ambition had been to go upon the stage and she had acted on tour in the country; but she declared that theatrical life wearied her and she had promised her future ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... state the people are divided into certain classes, and on the way in which this division is carried out depend the duration of a democracy and its prosperity. Election by lot is the democratic method; election by choice the aristocratic method. Determination by lot allows every citizen a reasonable hope of serving his country; but it is a defective measure, and it is by ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... to their arms, and awaited an attack; the commandant passed along their line, smiling to them, and then placed himself with his officers, a little in front of it. Silence fell once more, but it was of short duration. Three hundred or more Chouans, their clothing identical with that of the late recruits, burst from the woods to the right with actual howls and planted themselves, without any semblance of order, on the road directly in front of the feeble detachment of the Blues. The ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... both have been since engaged in the great political cause of Bubbleburgh and Bitem, a summary case, and entitled to particular despatch; but which, it is thought, nevertheless, may outlast the duration of the parliament to which the contest refers. Mr. Halkit, as the newspapers informed me, acts as agent or solicitor; and Mr. Hardie opened for Sir Peter Plyem with singular ability, and to such good purpose, that I understand he has since had fewer play-bills and more briefs in his pocket. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... no proportion to the other. 'Tis too late to be ambitious. The great mutations of the world are acted, or time may be too short for our designs. To extend our memories by monuments, whose death we daily pray for, and whose duration we cannot hope without injury to our expectations in the advent of the last day, were a contradiction to our beliefs. We, whose generations are ordained in this setting part of time, are providentially taken off from such imaginations; and being necessitated to eye the remaining ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... girls. Close by rose a pile of beechwood clogs, tops and boxwood flutes. Here the shepherds chose their instruments, trying them by blowing a note or two. How new it all was to me! What a lot of things there were to see in this world! Alas, that wonderful time was of but short duration! At night, after a little brawling at the inn, it was all over; and the village returned to ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... Canada there was no municipal government. True, an unlucky experiment had been made in 1663, under the governor Mezy, when a mayor and two aldermen were elected at Quebec. But their enjoyment of office was of brief duration; in a few weeks the election was declared void, It was then determined to nominate a syndic to represent the inhabitants, and on August 3 Claude Charron, a merchant, was elected to the office; but, as the habitants ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais

... before Fanny made answer. There was a wild strife in her spirit. But the tempest was of brief duration. Scarcely a perceptible tremor was in her voice, as ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur

... the treaty of amity and of commerce between Russia and Denmark, and find that the chief principles of the Marine Convention are inserted into it word for word. The treaty is limited to twelve years, which will probably be the term fixed for the duration of all their commercial treaties. That with Great Britain was limited to twenty, a term it would seem sufficiently short to provide for the changes, which time and accidents may introduce into the affairs of empires. You will easily conjecture from some of my letters, the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... alive; but while I regard the smallest sin as infinitely loathsome, I do not believe that any being, never good enough to see the essential ugliness of sin, could sin so as to deserve such punishment. I am not now, however, dealing with the question of the duration of punishment, but with the idea of punishment itself; and would only say in passing, that the notion that a creature born imperfect, nay, born with impulses to evil not of his own generating, and which he could ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... more closely associated with the mother than with the father. She brings it into the world, suckles it, and watches over it; in the primitive times, even if promiscuity was not prevalent, marriages were of short duration and divorces frequent, wherefore the male parentage would be so constantly in doubt that the only feasible thing was to name the children after their mothers. For our purposes, fortunately, this knotty problem of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... not of long duration, however, for in about half an hour's time, the destroyer slowed down and Desmond's host vanished. When he reappeared, it was to ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... were over, and there was nothing to show that our inspirations in regard to the duration of the siege might yet prove to be substantially true. No immediate prospect of relief was observable, and our thoughts mechanically took a gloomy turn. How sanguine we had been, to be sure. Hardened sinners there were, of course, to sing that fine old chorus, "I told ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... more than a few seconds. They are named in the Maravi tongue "shiwo", and in that of the people of Tete "shitakoteko", or "shivering". This agrees exactly with what has taken place in the coast of Mozambique—a few slight shocks of short duration, and all appearing to come from the east. At Senna, too, a single shock has been felt several times, which shook the doors and windows, and made the glasses jingle. Both Tete and Senna have hot springs in their vicinity, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... Brunswick. Because of this, more stringent embargo laws were passed, and finally, in 1809, a "Force Act," to compel obedience. But smuggling went on so openly that there was nothing to do but use troops or lift the embargo. In February, 1809, accordingly, the embargo laws, after fourteen months' duration, were repealed. Instead of them the Republicans enacted a Non-intercourse law which allowed the people to trade with all nations except ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... their mirth, which, however, was not of very long duration, we must follow Sailor Bill and the ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... thoroughly broken down; but the intense excitement of the time denied us repose. After an unquiet slumber of some three or four hours' duration, we arose, as if by preconcert, to make ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... camp behind had been looted and burnt, and the stockade pulled down. The guns had failed to penetrate this, and the defenders were only driven out at the point of the bayonet, after a fight of two hours' duration. ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... without considering or anticipating anything, to avoid upsetting his wife, and on the contrary to soothe her and keep up her courage. Without allowing himself even to think of what was to come, of how it would end, judging from his inquiries as to the usual duration of these ordeals, Levin had in his imagination braced himself to bear up and to keep a tight rein on his feelings for five hours, and it had seemed to him he could do this. But when he came back ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... nor gold, nor velvet hangings, were visible any longer, nothing but walls of a dull gray color, which the increasing gloom made darker every moment. And yet the bed still continued to descend, and after a minute, which seemed in its duration almost an age to the king, it reached a stratum of air, black and chill as death, and then it stopped. The king could no longer see the light in his room, except as from the bottom of a well we can see the light of day. "I am under the influence of some atrocious dream," he ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... life appears to contract by some mental process. That long, slow agony of ten years' duration can be brought to memory to-day in some few phrases, in which pain is resolved into a mere idea, and pleasure becomes a philosophical reflection . . . When I left school, my father submitted me to a strict discipline; he installed me in a room near his own study, and I had to rise at five ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... insolence, which was consummate, obtained for himself the glory of a night's imprisonment instead of a lecture." The third attack occurred on a Wednesday ensuing, while Lord Sidmouth was attending the Cabinet dinner. It was feeble, and of brief duration; and as no further annoyance was anticipated by the police officers, the narrator, who had been left in charge, retired to his lodgings in the same street. Shortly afterwards he heard the mob returning, and hastened ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... such tempests were of but short duration, and yet it seemed to him as if already half a day had been spent in ...
— Dick in the Desert • James Otis

... pack up your traps"— "Collige sarcinas"—"Squire, you're wanted:" these dreadful citations were inevitable; come they must; but surely, as everybody thought, not in the eighteenth, or, perhaps, even the nineteenth century. Diis aliter visum. My grandfather, built for an Aeonian duration, did not come within hail of myself; whilst his gentle partner, my grandmother, who made no show of extra longevity, lived down into my period, and had the benefit of my acquaintance through half a dozen years. If she turned this piece of good fortune ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... courses of his studies; but when they were over, he returned to his country, and, forgetting his engagement to Jovita, he there married a lady of property. The others never even attained to this degree of love-making, they never got farther than fancies, or flirtations of a fortnight's duration. Trifling attentions were paid, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... aboard the transports. Punctually at the hour advised we trooped aboard the ships that were to convey us across the water. There was very little accommodation for men, but they squeezed in and made the best of the situation. The trip across was not as comfortable as it might have been, but its duration was so brief that the discomfort was scarcely worth serious thought. The transports cast anchor off the harbour early the following morning, but it was not until late in the afternoon that they were berthed alongside the wharf. Scarcely had the transports touched the wharf-side when ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss

... He was not a frequent caller, for he was also a ranchman, living about forty miles north and west on the Frio River, but was in the habit of bringing his family down to the Nueces about twice a year for a visit of from ten days to two weeks' duration. But this time, though we had been expecting the family for some little time, he came alone, remained over night, and at breakfast ordered his horse, as if expecting to return at once. The two ranchmen were holding a conference in the sitting-room when a Mexican boy came to me at the corrals ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... persevered in after the period of its necessity has passed. When parents find that, by sending three or four children out to the mills or into the mines, they can get eighteen or twenty shillings a-week without doing any thing themselves, they soon come to abridge the duration and cost of education, in order to accelerate the arrival of the happy period when they may live on their offspring, not their offspring on them. Thus the purest and best affections of the heart are obliterated on the very threshold of life. That best school of disinterestedness and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... declared war on me. Perfidy whose like history does not know was committed by the Kingdom of Italy against both allies. After an alliance of more than thirty years' duration, during which it was able to increase its territorial possessions and develop itself to an unthought of flourishing condition, Italy abandoned us in our hour of danger and went over with flying colors into the camp ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... a very long time, as he sat there. It might have been an hour—he could only hazard a guess. Not one of the men in the car had spoken a word. But to Jimmie Dale, the car itself, the ride, its duration, these three strange companions, were for the time being extraneous. Even that sick giddiness in his head had, at least temporarily, gone ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... to their cribs, and gaze upon them sleeping with the reverence of an old devote kneeling before the shrine of her most efficacious saint. Then he would go forth, and return with a present for his wife, bearing an exact proportion in value to the extent and duration of the past misdemeanor; so that her jewel-case and writing-table soon became as prettily suggestive as the votive chapel of Notre Dame des Dunes. Very unnecessary were these peace-offerings; for that dear little woman never ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... The old International has broken into three principal groups: the avowed social-patriots, who, during the entire duration of the imperialistic war between the years 1914 and 1918, have supported their own bourgeoisie; the minority Socialists of the 'Center,' represented by leaders of the type of Karl Kautsky, and who constitute a group composed of ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... it is nevertheless true, that during this short march of six miles a greater number of soldiers dropped out of the ranks, and fell behind from fatigue, than I recollect to have seen in any march in the Peninsula of thrice its duration. The fact is that the men, from having been so long cooped up in ships, and unused to carry their baggage and arms, were become relaxed and enervated to a degree altogether unnatural; and this, added to the extreme sultriness of the day, which exceeded anything we had ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... fatal effects above as well as below the freezing point. A continued moderate cold has the same consequences as a severe cold of short duration. When very intense, as in the north, it sometimes acts on the organism so briskly as to depress and destroy its powers with astonishing rapidity. As the action of cold is most frequently slow and death does not take place until after several hours' ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... long duration: to connect, therefore, the symptoms which occur in its later stages with those which mark its commencement, requires a continuance of observation of the same case, or at least a correct history of its symptoms, even for several years. Of both these advantages ...
— An Essay on the Shaking Palsy • James Parkinson

... was only of brief duration. It speedily appeared that the two extortioners had abundant assistance at hand to carry out their infamous design. A whistle was sounded by Sir Giles; and at the call the cottage door was burst open by some half dozen of the myrmidons, headed by ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... saying that he expected his term as caretaker of the Scarford property to be of short duration. He had dropped in at the real estate office and had there been told that arrangements for the leasing of the mansion, furniture, and all, were practically completed. The new tenant would move in within a fortnight, he was almost sure. Mr. Ginn, personally, would be glad of it, for it was "lonesomer ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... kindness, and the habit of which constitutes a sweet and loving nature. And this leads me to the third, and most important reflection, namely, that the soul's infinite capacity of pain and of joy, through an infinite duration, does really, on the most high-flying notions of love and justice, make my own soul and the most anxious care for the character of its future fate, an object of emphatic duty. What can be the object of human virtue but the happiness of sentient, still more of moral, beings? But an infinite duration ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... supernatural had obtained in the world, and speculating relative to the "beginnings of things," were necessarily confined to the contemplation and study of nature, the elements of which they believed to be self-existent and endless in duration; but, being wholly without knowledge of her inherent forces, they explained her manifold processes by conceiving the idea that she was animated by a great and inherent soul or spirit, emanations from which impressed all her parts with life and motion. ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... in America. I was much struck with the simplicity of the Morse alphabet, and with the fact that it could be read by sound. Instead of having the dots and dashes recorded on paper, the operators were in the habit of observing the duration of the click of the instruments, and in this way were enabled to distinguish ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... There is a like discrepancy in the views on the possibility of its diffusion by drinking water, on the influence of conditions of soil, on the question whether the dejecta contain the poison or not, and on the duration of the incubation period. No progress was possible in combating the disease until these root questions of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various



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