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Little by little   /lˈɪtəl baɪ lˈɪtəl/   Listen
Little by little

adverb
1.
A little bit at a time.  Synonyms: bit by bit, in stages, piecemeal.
2.
By a short distance.  Synonyms: by inches, by small degrees.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Little by little" Quotes from Famous Books



... of a thread. Indeed, they had come to talk so every night. At first it had been a few words only, and Silvia's unconsciousness and her sincerity in her intention to follow her mother's will had imposed silence on the young man. But little by little he had ventured, and she had understood; and within the last week there had been no concealments between them, though Silvia still resisted all his prayers to change her resolution and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various

... entertainment. 'It's splendidly done,' they say, when you've laid bare a little of the boundless misery. 'It's quite Russian. Of course it's not real at all, at any rate not here at home.' But you always make a mark on some one or other, and little by little the food after all becomes bitter to their taste, I think. Perhaps some day I shall be lucky enough to write in such a way about the poor that no one can leave them out. But you yourself—what's your attitude toward matters? ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... comer. But the simians will attain to a fine descrimination in love, and this will be their path to the only spiritual heights they can reach. For, in love, their inmost selves will draw near, in the silence of truth; learning little by little what the deepest sincerity means, and what clean hearts and minds and what crystal-clear sight it demands. Such intercommunication of spirit with spirit is at the beginning of all true understanding. It is the beginning of silent cosmic wisdom: it may lead to ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... with farm truck, so that folks came from all about to buy them and doctors too, for such things weren't sold so much in shops in those days as they are now, and so this place came to be called the Herb Farm. After that it was sold off, little by little, until the garden, wood lane, and orchard is about all ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... that had elapsed since the Treaty of Arras, there had been great changes in France in the character both of the realm and of the ruler. Little by little the latter had proved himself to be a very different person from the inert king of Bourges.[8] Old at twenty, Charles VII. seemed young and vigorous at forty. Bad advisers were replaced by others better chosen and his administration ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... Pompadour, and break Machault on the wheel,"—and already a boy of twelve, one Joseph Guillotin, was running about the streets of Saintes yonder. So the commoners flocked to Cazaio in the Taunenfels until, little by little, he had gathered an ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... for a time, and Zoroastrianism thought itself triumphant. But a foe is generally most dangerous when he is despised. Magism, repulsed in its attempt to oust the rival religion, derived wisdom from the lesson, and thenceforth set itself to sap the fortress which it could not storm. Little by little it crept into favor, mingling itself with the old Arian creed, not displacing it, but only adding to it. In the later Persian system the Dualism of Zoroaster and the Magian elemental worship were jointly professed—the Magi ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... cold, and I am not sorry, but glad; for in my roots I feel warmth and life, and I know that a store of greenness and beauty is shut up safe in my small brown buds. Day and night go again and again; little by little the snow melts all away; the ground grows soft; the sky is blue; the little birds fly over crying, "It is spring! it is spring!" Ah! then through all my twigs I feel ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... From Christ, and not from any created being, comes all goodness in man or angel. Comes from Christ? It were more right, and more according to St. Paul's own words, to say, that all goodness is Christ; Christ dwelling in a man, Christ forming himself in a man, little by little, step by step, as he grows in grace, in purity, in self-control, in experience, in knowledge, in wisdom, in strength, in patience, in love, in charity; till he comes to the stature of a perfect man, to the measure of the ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... pint stock, one ounce butter, one ounce flour, yolks of two eggs, few drops of lemon juice, one half pint whipped cream. Mix veal and butter together in a saucepan, add flour, then by degrees the stock (hot) just boil up. Mix yolks and add little by little the cream, a few drops of cochineal, salt and pepper, pour over this the contents ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various

... from a fate worse than death, so I set myself to hunt this man down. And here I found that I could accomplish two objects at one stroke. I found that the man was playing into my hands. I followed him in disguise. Little by little I gained the knowledge of his secrets, enough to send him to State's prison, and more than enough. But one thing was wanting. For that I waited; for that I breathed the same air with creatures whom my soul loathed, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... a candle. It was not a pleasant experience, with clumsy stupid men who, however, did their best, all finally taking to the water, wading and pushing the boat, constantly emitting loud, hoarse cries to encourage themselves; and thus we progressed little by little. What with the faint light of the candle, the constant rush of water, and the noise of the rapids, though not dangerous in the day time, the situation demanded calmness. Moreover, there was the possibility of an ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... settled down to outride him; he heard their scurry and jingle behind, and for a minute or two they held their own, but little by little he forged ahead, and they began to shoot at him from their saddles. One of them, however, had not wasted time in shooting; Jack heard him, always behind, and now he seemed to be drawing nearer, steadily but slowly closing up the ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... their power. Undressing, a few hours earlier, she had lived again, in exquisite and delicious alarm, through the last minute of her talk with Mr. Cannon; she had gone to sleep while reconstituting those instants. But now their memory left her indifferent, even inspired repugnance. And her remorse little by little lost its ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... learnt little by little, and each new thing we know is a step onwards. So this figure of the shivering boy marks a higher step of the golden ladder of Art than any that had been touched before. And this alone would have made the name of Masaccio worthy to ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman

... rooms and passages, and at last there comes a crash, a great cloud of dust rises, and the home that had been the shelter of generation after generation finds its grave in its own cellar. Only the chimney remains as its monument. Slowly, little by little, the patient solvents that find nothing too hard for their chemistry pick out the mortar from between the bricks; at last a mighty wind roars around it and rushes against it, and the monumental relic crashes down among the wrecks it has long survived. So dies a human habitation left to natural ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... by bit, of the work that the Americano had accomplished—the Americano whom he, Luigi, had nearly slain. Slowly, slowly, he understood that the "Little Devil" mine had been re-christened "The Paradise"—not by the nobles who owned it, but by the people who worked in it. And then little by little the resentment, the bitterness, the grievances of his long, hard life turned him against the Duke Scorpa just as his realization of what Derby was doing won him over to ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... council, during the period of national reorganization in the latter part of the reign, of these humble councillors. "And it was, above all, the people of France themselves," says M. Funck-Brentano, "who, in the midst of all the secular struggles, acquired, little by little, the sentiment of its unity, of the common solidarity of the public welfare. The day on which they were found grouped, admirable in their energy and devotion, around the royal throne which, for them, was the concentrating point of these sentiments, the cause ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... the latter declined and took the great pioneer home with him; but Boone himself was given by Hamilton a horse and trappings, with silver trinkets to give to the Indians. At Little Chillicothe, Boone was kindly treated by Black Fish, and little by little his liberty was extended. June 16, while the family were making salt on the Scioto, preparatory to another expedition against Boonesborough, Boone escaped on the horse given him by Hamilton. After many curious adventures, in the course of which he swam the Ohio, he safely reached Boonesborough, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... course of time, and several large cities claimed to possess one or other of the limbs of his body. The various episodes in the life of the god were made the subject of solemn representations in the temple, and little by little the performance of the obligatory and non-obligatory services in connection with them occupied, in certain temples, the greater part of the time of the priests. The original ideas concerning the god were forgotten and new ones grew up; from being the example ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... preserved thousands from want but furnished leisure for others to study. It had a tendency to distribute the luxuries of manufactured {363} articles, and to quicken the activity of the mind by giving exchange of ideas. Little by little the mariners, plying their trade, pushed farther and farther into unknown seas, and at last brought the products of every clime in exchange ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... old religions, and worshiped the gods of their nations. Their feelings and sentiments were all in favor of idolatrous worship. These influences Solomon withstood for a long time. His heart held true to God; but these influences kept on working. He was in daily contact with them, and little by little they gained a hold upon him; consequently we read, "It came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... authority had been shaken by Rizzio's influence, it was entirely upset by Bothwell's. The great nobles, following the favourite's example, no longer rose in the presence of Darnley, and ceased little by little to treat him as their equal: his retinue was cut down, his silver plate taken from him, and some officers who remained about him made him buy their services with the most bitter vexations. As for the queen, she no longer even took the trouble to conceal her ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Little by little he realized this change in her, and was touched with the wonder of it. He had never had any great self-love either as man or scholar, and the thought of this fine, self-sufficient womanly soul centering all its interests on him was humbling. Each moment his responsibility deepened, ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... big feet uneasily and little by little crept forward to look at the flapping bit of sail cloth. Slowly his courage returned to him. He hadn't been afraid at all, he declared, but just sort of shook up, seeing the thing all of a sudden that way. Kendric passed on as though nothing had happened, ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... little by little his dead wife grew to be a tender, vague memory in the bookbinder's mind. One night he tried in vain to recall Clotilde's features; after this experience, he told himself that perhaps he might be able to discover the mother's lineaments in the ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... of attendant tugs sent their tow-ropes aboard, so as to check and guide the unwieldy leviathan in her progress through the deeper channels of the harbour which ships of heavy draught have to take to get out to sea; and "going easy," little by little, with an occasional stop, as some impertinent craft or other got into the fairway, they ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... fair spring days went on with the speed with which all happy days fly by, and little by little the Culm people began to talk among themselves of the—to them—great event which was to take place so soon. Noll overheard one old fish-wife say, "We ben't slick 'nough for new housen; ther'll hev to be great scrubbin' ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord

... their conversation in full. He addressed a great many remarks to Bessie Alden, and finally turned toward her altogether, while Willie Woodley entertained Mrs. Westgate. Bessie herself said very little; she was on her guard, thinking of what her sister had said to her at lunch. Little by little, however, she interested herself in Lord Lambeth again, as she had done at Newport; only it seemed to her that here he might become more interesting. He would be an unconscious part of the antiquity, the impressiveness, the ...
— An International Episode • Henry James

... modest foundation the curriculum slowly grew; new professorships were added from time to time as they became imperatively necessary, so that little by little opportunities developed for the leaven of the new spirit in education to work. In 1843 the Rev. Edward Thomson, afterwards President of Ohio Wesleyan University, was appointed Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. He only stayed one year; and was succeeded by the Rev. ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... the school—disciplined it through kindness—and here, again, the inspiration may be traced to the Mothers' Club and the kindergarten, for it was in the kindergarten that the first real attempt was made to bring this school into closer relations with the home by home visiting. Little by little the example told on the grade teachers, who went to see the children when they were absent; nor was it long before a custom grew up in the school, by virtue of which a teacher who wished to visit one absent child, might pick her own time to make her visit. If perchance the psychological ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing

... of the Seven Golden Cows heard the sad news, he became white with rage, and in his fury he wanted to give his servants a thousand lashes for not having taken better care of the animals. But his wife calmed him little by little, then: "My husband, give back to Teenchy Duck this purse you have taken, or else we shall ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... modesty of her glance. And was there ever such a truly virginal brow, such a natural classic elegance in the wave of the hair and the arch of the forehead? I have studied her; I may say I know her. I have absorbed her little by little; my mind is stamped and imbued, and I have determined now to clinch the impression; I shall at last invite her to ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James

... few moments in silence, but then I took my share of the conversation. I wish you could have seen the old man's face light up little by little, as I showed him that to a person who understood the politics and condition of the mercurial country with which he had ignorantly attempted to trade, his condition was not near so bad as he thought it; that though one ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... for something to eat. The poor, dumb lips, if gifted with speech, could not have uttered a prayer half so eloquent, so touching. Could the mother, Mrs. Pike, have been present, it would have broken her heart to see her patient babe dying slowly, little by little. Starvation had dried the maternal breasts long before Mrs. Pike went away, so that no one can censure her for leaving her baby. She could only have done as Mrs. Murphy did, give it the plain, coarse gruel, and watch it die, day by day, ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... Comedy, tragedy, character, plot—there seemed nothing in life but the writing of tales—watching, listening, dreaming, finding, then becoming deeply excited, feeling them grow inside of you, planning them out and writing them off, then working them over and over and over, little by little building them up. What a rich absorbing life for a fellow, and for me it still lay all ahead. I had used but twenty-two years of my life, there were fifty left to write in, and what couldn't you write ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... eastern quarter proclaimed the advent of the "sweet regent of the night." Leslie's island lay full in the wake of the rising orb; and for nearly half an hour the catamaran scudded along within the shadow of the peak, which stretched dark and clear-cut far over the ocean ahead of her. Little by little the shadow shortened, however, and by-and-by the catamaran slid over the edge of it as the gleaming disc emerged from behind the northern edge of the peak, and flooded the whole of the sea to the eastward with dancing streaks of glittering ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... Little by little his anger cooled, his shame died out of him, and he began to wonder curiously what manner of man this was whose words had so stirred his wife. Wondering he fell asleep, nor did he awaken ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... fire which he had pictured. It was simply a coppery glow, marvelously delicate, molding her face. She went to a great full-length mirror. She raised her head for one instant to look at her image, and then she bowed her head again and placed her hand against the edge of the mirror for support. Little by little, through the half light, he was making her out and now the curve of this arm, from wrist to shoulder, went through Andrew like a phrase of music. He stepped out from behind the curtain, and, at the sound of the cloth swishing back into place, ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... tempest subsided, but the clouds returned after the rain, and I sat on in a deep melancholy, my mind in a state of suspense. Then little by little the old influence began to re-assert itself, and it was as if one was standing there by me, one who was always calm, who saw all things clearly, who regarded me with compassion and had come to reason with me. "Come now," it appeared to say, "open your eyes once more to the sunshine; let ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... Little by little the mists of superstition and error, incident to barbaric times, are being dispelled by the genial light of a brighter day. Even now, genteel ignorance is not esteemed the acme of feminine perfection, except by those theorists who would degrade woman mentally, that they themselves ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... of placid spectators on the beach; and with a special and natural animosity, the boys of his own age. But presently a light air sprang up, and filled the sails, and fainted, and filled them again; and little by little the Regent fetched way against the swell, and clawed off ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... untiring, courageous, human idea, that separates gladness from sorrow. Of this idea it is helpful to speak, and as often as may be; not with the view of imposing our own idea upon others, but in order that they who may listen shall, little by little, conceive the desire to possess an idea of their own. For in no two men is it the same. The one that you cherish may well bring no comfort to me; nor shall all your eloquence touch the hidden springs of my life. Needs must I acquire my own, in myself, by myself; ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... my store. But when little was left to me of my substance, I repented of my evil courses and toiled and laboured hard by day and night to increase my remaining stock of money. It is truly said, "After waste cometh knowledge of worth." Thus little by little I got together fourscore camels, which I let on hire to merchants, and thus I made goodly gain each time I found occasion: moreover I was wont to engage myself together with my beasts and on this wise ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... with the cries and groans of wounded men were alone heard. Over and over again the English knights drew back a little so as to gain speed and impetus, and flung themselves on the Scottish spears, but ever without effect, while little by little the close ranks of the Scotch pressed forward until, as the space between their front and the brook narrowed, the whole of the English divisions became pent up together, more and more incapable of using their strength to advantage. The slaughter in their front divisions had ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... it natural. Look at a man who's growing old; notice how very gracefully and gradually he does it. Take my hair—your aunt says she can't tell the difference from month to month. And there it is, or rather isn't—little by little." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Dium, in Athos, revolted from the Athenians to the Chalcidians, and the Lacedaemonians settled affairs in Achaea in a way more agreeable to the interests of their country. Meanwhile the popular party at Argos little by little gathered new consistency and courage, and waited for the moment of the Gymnopaedic festival at Lacedaemon, and then fell upon the oligarchs. After a fight in the city, victory declared for the commons, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... and lengthened into minutes. Little by little, the cold, gray light of the snowy morning was creeping into the room, dimming the lamplight to pale yellow streaks and filling the place with a chill, forbidding gloom. The stillness was so absolute that Thayer could hear his watch ticking in his pocket, could hear the beating of his own heart. ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... speaking a kind word for Ferrers, wishing vainly that what he had said could be undone. He felt more than ever the necessity of keeping a watch over his heart and tongue, and almost inclined to despair of ever overcoming the many stumbling-blocks in the way of attaining to holiness. Thus, little by little, is the evil of our hearts disclosed to us, and the longer the true Christian lives, the less he finds to be satisfied with in himself; not that he is further removed from holiness, but he has more sight given him to know what he really is by nature—and the ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... the other parts of the Union. By the end of 1829 over a thousand temperance societies were in existence. The distilling and importation of spirits fell off immensely. It became fashionable not to drink, and little by little drinking came to ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... she put the oars in the rowlocks, and sat down to scull. At the same moment Gerard sprang from the bank into the stream, and began swimming towards the boat. Kathleen strained at the oars, and little by little the distance between them increased, although ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... Little by little this tendency to ineffectual quibbling disappeared. In his mind's eye he saw the panorama of the Church with its hereditary influence on humanity through the centuries. He imagined it as imposing and suffering, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... commander was at his wits' end. It was clear that the ships could not cross the lake, and the only thing to be done was to transport the army across little by little in the ships' boats, and make a landing in that way. But to do that while Lieutenant Jones and his gun-boats were afloat was manifestly impossible. If it had been attempted, the little gun-boats, which could sail anywhere ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... saw the Sun take off his leggings and his eyes glittered with greed as he saw their owner fold them and put them under his head as he had always done. Then he waited a while before creeping closer. Little by little the old rascal crawled toward the lodge, till finally his head was inside the door. Then he waited a long, long time, even after the Sun ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman

... aim be, that the child shall little by little receive impressions so clearly that he will recognize them when they appear again, and that he shall, after a time, know these impressions by their names. It is nothing but play after all, but it is in this childish play ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... of feudal society rather than of the nation which was forming itself little by little around the lords, convoked at Amiens all his vassals great and small, laic or cleric, placing all his strength in their cooperation, and not caring at all to associate the country itself in the affairs of his government. Edward, on the contrary, while equipping his fleet ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Little by little this first dash relaxed, and presently he had resumed his sober gait and begun to piece together, out of the confused report of his senses, some theory of the occurrence. But the occasion of the sounds and stench that had so suddenly assailed him, and the strange conjunction of fugitives ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... formed little by little round the Island of Bombay, ceded to England by the King of Portugal as the dowry of the Infanta Catherine of Braganza. The Portuguese were the first to occupy these parts; in 1498 they arrived at Calicut with Vasco de Gama, and five years ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant

... others, from which answer it was understood that, in case the ship went down, he was confident of his own strength and dexterity. The rest of our men—it may be seen what sort of men they were—seeing that the vessel was settling little by little, and that the enemy did not cease to serve their guns, huddled together in fright as they saw their ship filling with water—a state of affairs which would make others undertake not only the exploit of boarding the ship and mastering it, but even more difficult enterprises. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... gentle woman, and though she did not like Karl much at first, she took him in hand, and, little by little, obtained a great influence over the wild creature. As his fine poetic nature gradually revealed itself, she began to mother him. They were often seen walking out together, and as soon as the snow was firm, they used to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... him, as to most young men, the experience of a passionate love for a beautiful girl. All the deep wells of tenderness in Hosea's loving heart were hers, and she became his wife. For a time they were happy; then little by little it became clear that this woman, Gomer, did not really love him as he loved her. She only wanted his money. And when she could get nothing more from him, or could get more elsewhere, she left him. She was like the woman in Kipling's poem, "The Vampire," "she did not ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting

... cited as proving the priority of Palma in the development of the full Renaissance types and the full Renaissance methods of execution. There can be small doubt that this particular theory of the indefatigable critics, to whom the history of Italian art owes so much, will little by little be allowed to die a natural death, if it be not, indeed, already defunct. More and more will the view so forcibly stated by Giovanni Morelli recommend itself, that Palma in many of those elements of his art most ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips

... ice-block upon which they were gathered was set free in the current. The situation was one of the greatest peril. The entire expedition, men and dogs together, with their most important sledge, was adrift. But the oars and mast and the pole of the tent were had from the whaleboat, and little by little they ferried themselves across. The gap was bridged again and the ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... past. But I knew now that return was impossible until I had circled all the dreadful round; and already I felt again the burning of that desire that pricked and drove me on,—not back, for that was impossible. Little by little I had learned to understand, each step printed upon my brain as with red-hot irons: not back, but on, and on—to greater anguish, yes; but on, to fuller despair, to experiences more terrible,—but on, and on, and on. I arose again, for this ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... little things which had been puzzling to him in his previous life, but it brought with it a baffling, passionate sense of having been fooled and duped—not a condition of things which was easy for him to support. Little by little the whole story became clear to him. For, when he flung out of the Red House after Margaret's departure, in a tumult of rage and shame, announcing his determination to go to the devil, he did not immediately seek out the Prince of Darkness: he only went to his ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... college. After finishing his studies here, he goes to study medicine at Rouen, in a fourth-story room overlooking the Seine, which his mother rented for him, in the house of a dyer of her acquaintance. Here he studies his medical books, and arrives little by little, not at the degree of doctor of medicine, but that of health officer. He frequented the inns, failed in his studies, but as for the rest, he had no other passion than that of playing dominoes. This is ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various

... you under. (Walks up and down by the door.) How warm and cosy our home is, Nora. Here is shelter for you; here I will protect you like a hunted dove that I have saved from a hawk's claws; I will bring peace to your poor beating heart. It will come, little by little, Nora, believe me. Tomorrow morning you will look upon it all quite differently; soon everything will be just as it was before. Very soon you won't need me to assure you that I have forgiven you; you will yourself feel the certainty that ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen

... Little by little, but without loss of time, her perspicacity penetrated the disguises, although not to the motives that impelled the plotters. She centered her thoughts on the old, white-locked pianist, who silently listened to all the parties and was tolerated even when the piano was closed; he was taciturn, ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... forty, but every married man is "Old Man" in the West—was ready to work at any honest calling from logging or sluicing to grading and muling. He was strong and steady, his wife was steady and strong. They saved their money, and little by little they got the small ranch-house built and equipped; little by little they added to their stock on the range with the cattle of a neighbour, until there came the happy day when they went to live on their own ranch—father, mother, and fourteen-year-old Josh, with every prospect of making it pay. ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... the period of promise. During the second—which extends from 1853 to 1860—there is still much to praise in the conduct of the Emperor, although many of his actions are unworthy of his early career. From 1860 to 1868 he seems little by little to have thrown off all restraint, until he became remarkable for reckless and wanton cruelty. His principal wars during the second period were with Dejatch Goscho Beru, governor of Godjam; with Dejatch Oubie, whom he conquered, ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... And cautiously, little by little, he opened the door; and, holding the lantern over his head in the narrow slit, he peeped in—frowning and pale—with one eye, as if he expected something to fly in his face. He closed the door without ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... man to keep it. He was sufficiently prudent to run no risk and to avoid speculation. He was sufficiently frugal not to waste his substance on riotous living, and he was naturally of a placid temperament, so that he was satisfied to silently and gradually accumulate little by little. His knowledge of farming, imbibed from his father, extended into every detail. If he seldom touched an implement now, he had in his youth worked like the labourers, and literally followed the plough. He was constantly about ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... bumped the cars ahead, little by little as the track advanced; men on the train carried ties and rails forward, filling the front cars as fast as they were emptied; long lines of laborers on the ground passed to and fro, burdened going forward, returning empty-handed; the rails and the shovels and the hammers ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... Later on, little by little, laws were established, not arbitrarily, but laws resulting from a long experience, and during all the sixteenth century admirable music was written, though deprived of melody, properly speaking. Melody was reserved for ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens

... man has certain domestic, political, and religious functions to perform: let him learn how best to perform these. Under this system there was little room for accomplishments or for purely intellectual pursuits. Little by little, however, such liberal elements, artistic and philosophical, struggled into the sphere of Roman education, but never to the extent or with the intellectual effect which belonged to them in Greece. Even by A.D. 64 the education of a Roman boy was very narrow, ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... had come to New England, and the ship of slavery had landed in Virginia. These centuries had given ample time for the development of the real genius and influence of liberty and free labour in the civilization of the North, and of slave labour upon the institutions of the South. Little by little the merchants, manufacturers and professional classes of the North had come to feel that a free and educated working class produces wealth more cheaply and rapidly than slave labour, and that the working people of America must be educated ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... Jerky, little by little, Wilfred sketches out the answer. Army life wasn't what he'd expected. Not at all. He was sore on the whole business. He'd been let in for it, that was all. It wasn't so bad for some of the fellows, but they'd been lucky. As for him—well, he'd come here to learn to be an ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... The husband calmed down, little by little, and contented himself with pacing from one end of the sala to the other like a wild ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... pick it off little by little with a hairpin or a pair of scissors or something." Miss Eyester spoke both ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... had not changed so much but that, little by little, its influence had come over Romarin again; and as the clock a street or two away had struck seven he had stood, his hands folded on his stick, first curious, then expectant, and finally, as the sound had died away, oddly satisfied ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... gratitude for the life she had bestowed had made the mistress paramount of his soul, to give much heed to any one but herself; and it was only by dint of hard questioning that Roland drew from him, little by little, an account of the causes which had kept him in the vicinity of the travellers, and finally brought him to the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... of dull action, wearing out the victim so slowly that he dies after long suffering; others violent and so quick, that they kill like a flash of lightning, leaving not even time for a single cry. Little by little Sainte-Croix became interested in the ghastly science that puts the lives of all men in the hand of one. He joined in Exili's experiments; then he grew clever enough to make them for himself; and when, at the year's end, he left the Bastille, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Little by little things began to improve, and the king and queen of the islands were always ready and eager to do all they could to benefit the poor lepers and to carry out Father Damien's wishes. Regular allowances ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... her in the field of his glasses. He saw her little by little reveal herself in clearer outline, he saw her grow on the surface of the sea, and then give definite shape to her smoke wreath, as it mingled with a few curls of steam on the clear ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... follow his thoughts, and they went often to the Harleys. Storri had the Harleys ever on his mind; each day served to intensify his hatred for Mr. Harley, and to render more sultry that passion for Dorothy which was both love and hate. Little by little his lawless imagination suggested methods by which he might have revenge on Mr. Harley and gain possession of Dorothy; and the methods so suggested, like the ingenious cogs of a wheel, mashed into that other enterprise of gold ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... me to keep my eyes fast shut to prevent them from being blinded by almost continuous vivid flashes of lightning. Injured, and sore all over, but warm and dry—surely dry; nor was it lightning that dazzled, but firelight. I began to notice things little by little. The fire was burning on a clay floor a few feet from where I was lying. Before it, on a log of wood, sat or crouched a human figure. An old man, with chin on breast and hands clasped before his drawn-up knees; only a small portion ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... of tint. He seized them at once with a kind of thirstiness, and learned five different colors in a single lesson; during the following days he took nearly all the objects of the series which he had at first despised, and little by little mastered them all. ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... "Little by little the central point is abandoned, they no longer approach it, and disappear in the sky, drawn by their fancy toward another point which they will ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi

... Churton never changed. That first morning when she had, so to speak, looked over her pupil's mind, seeking to discover her natural aptitudes, was a type of all the succeeding days when they were together at their studies. The girl's fears were quickly allayed; while Mrs. Churton more slowly and little by little got over her unjust suspicions. And the result was that with the exception of little petulant or passionate outbreaks on the part of Mr. Churton, mere tempests in a tea- cup, a novel and very welcome peace reigned at Wood End House. Between mother and daughter there was only one quarrel more—the ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... And, little by little, he dragged from her the story of her relations with Kittredge, going back to their first acquaintance. This was in New York about a year before, while she was there on business connected with some property deeded ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... hand upon every department of religious thought and life. So that, after a few centuries of prosperity in India, Islam began to forget its narrow bigotry and uncompromising severity and fraternized more or less with the religion of the country. Little by little a latitudinarianism crept in, which found its culmination in that remarkable man, Akbar the Great, who entertained the teachers of all faiths and encouraged a fearless discussion of their respective merits. Dr. Wherry writes: "The tolerance of Akbar, ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... pierdan la costumbre. Cartas de los Rev Padres Observantes Number 7 manuscript. [Our negroes of the River Caura say, when they confess, that they know it is sinful to eat human flesh; they beg to be permitted to break themselves of the custom, little by little: they wish to eat human flesh once a month, and afterwards once every three months, until they feel they have cured themselves of the practice.]) If the government of the mother-country, instead of dreading ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... Little by little, however, the querulous protests of the passengers began to weary him. Also, he had been receiving terse memoranda from the Chief Engineer that the coal was getting low in the bunkers and that something ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... boss at loading time, now learned that they might loiter so long as "Muvver Jim" was "hikin' it round for the kid." It was Polly who had dubbed big Jim "Muvver," and the sobriquet had stuck to him in spite of his six feet two, and shoulders that an athlete might have envied. Little by little, Toby grew more stooped and small lines of anxiety crept into the brownish circles beneath Jim's eyes, the lips that had once shut so firmly became tender and tremulous, but neither of the men would willingly have gone back ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo

... Lincoln in type, physically, and in some sort, mentally. He heard the harrowing tale of terrible crime, robbery, and torture, inflicted on poor harmless Hoag by these two ghouls in human shape; he listened, at first shocked, but little by little amused. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... this; but it appears to us that he who had painted the great Crucifixion of the chapter-house might well have done at the same time this fresco. It is a compendium of all his technical qualities and feeling, and demonstrates how little by little he succeeded, while still preserving his own spirit, in reaching the real in art, and giving it life in a manner all his own. But in comparing the pictures of the chapel of Pope Nicholas V. in Rome, with this fresco, ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... turn his back on his errors, as a man should? Did he not live with you from that time, lovingly and blamelessly, all his days? Did he not become a benefactor to the whole district? And did he not help you to rise to his own level, so that you, little by little, became his assistant in all his undertakings? And a capital assistant, too—oh, I know, Mrs. Alving, that praise is due to you.—But now I come to the next great ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen

... me. It was as if a hand unseen had taken my hand—had raised it, little by little—had left it, pointing to the thin brown path that wound toward me under ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... would say, "I stopped loving you because you are old." And to that would come her own terrible assent: "I had no right to marry him—he was only nineteen. I had no right..." (Thus did that new-born sense of her own complicity in Maurice's sin raise its feeble voice!) And little by little the Voice became stronger: "I didn't make him happy not because I was old, but because I was selfish...." So, in alternating gusts of anger and fear, and outraged pride,—and self-forgetting horror for Maurice,—her soul began to awake. Again ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... and over again, did the frail woman make her request: so many times, indeed, and at last so fervidly, that her excitement grew, and tears came. Little by little she drooped towards the floor. Her face shone wet in the candle-light; and she clutched at the little shelf below the ikon, where a handful of flowers stood in a silver ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... not make sure; sound is twisted around amazingly in fog, and little by little the calls grew fainter. I was tired out already, and my useless right arm ached with the hard usage it had lately received. In the next few minutes, while my chin sank lower and lower in the water, I thought of about every incident ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson



Words linked to "Little by little" :   by inches, by small degrees, in stages



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