"Feeble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... detention and, where necessary, the isolation of all persons known to be, or suspected of being infected, and advocated the adoption of the report system in regard to early preventive treatment. The importance of early marriage was urged. Other measures recommended were the custodial care of the feeble-minded, and State control of ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... but it would be preposterous to assume that General Joubert thinks he can reduce British troops to submission or bring about an evacuation by such feeble means. Sir George White has, from humane motives, yielded points to his adversary which most of us would have thought worth fighting for, but he is every inch a gallant soldier, as we who have watched him under heavy fire all know full well, and nobody here needs to be assured that he will never ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... compositions in the history of English verse. Collins' most current ode, though by no means his best one, "The Passions," abounds in those personifications which, as has been said, constituted, in eighteenth century poetry, a sort of feeble mythology: "wan Despair," "dejected Pity," "brown Exercise," and "Music sphere-descended maid." It was probably the allegorical figures in Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," "Sport that wrinkled ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... who obviously aggravated the spirit of the Grumblers, that the event proved that his apprehensions were well founded. It was, indeed, natural for an experienced officer who had served under Marlborough, to view with dissatisfaction and suspicion the feeble and tardy movements of Lord Mar. Yet a hearty well-wisher to any cause would have abstained from infusing distrust into those counsels which, whether wise or foolish, were destined to guide the adherents of the party. A man of honour will enter, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... in our silver cell that if the molecular conditions of the anterior and posterior surfaces were exactly similar, there would be no current. In practice, however, this is seldom the case. There is, generally speaking, a slight difference, and a feeble current in the circuit. It is thus seen that there may be an existing feeble current, to which the effect of light is added algebraically. The stimulus of light may thus increase the existing current of darkness (positive variation). ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose
... I am going into action once more in the Salvation War, and I believe, feeble as I am, God is going to give me another good turn, and another ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... above the water a short way out at sea, and the two men made feeble motions with arms and legs, while their eyes exchanged ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... conceptions,[8] but relatively more boys are born from cold-weather conceptions. Professor Axel Key has shown from statistics of 18,000 Swedish school children that from the end of November and the beginning of December until the end of March or the middle of April, growth in children is feeble. From July-August to November-December their daily increase in weight is three times as great as during the winter months.[9] This is evidence in confirmation of a connection between maleness, slow growth, and either ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... observed the feeble beginnings of this movement only a decade ago, and has witnessed its growth to the present nation-wide system, promoting plans for national organizations for cooperative marketing, he appreciates the power of science, education, and organization as new forces in the life of the ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... painter, who was to be really great, who did not in his youth paint with intense effort and delicacy of finish. The handling here is much too broad; and the faces are, in many instances, out of drawing, and very opaque and feeble in colour. Nor have they in general the dignity of the countenance of the thirteenth century. The Dante especially is ill-conceived—far too haughty, and in no wise noble or thoughtful. It seems to ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... of three. Some of the efforts made {188} on both sides to bring up the numbers on this occasion remind one of Hogarth's picture of the "Polling Day," where the paralytic, the maimed, the deaf, and the dying are carried up to record their vote. Men so feeble from sickness that they could not stand were brought down to the House wrapped up like mummies, and lifted through the division. Walpole seems to have surpassed himself in the speech which he made in his own defence. At ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... member of the body by the application of snow. Heat is also drawn out of a burned hand by holding it close to the fire, then gradually drawing it away. The following experiment will show how a comparatively feeble electric current can undo the work ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... money an' all the offices an' all the everythin',—all that they've made an' all that we've made for fo' hundred years,—an' they sho'ly would look out for her. If she don't get this school, there's probably a dozen others she can get at the North. An' another thing: she is gettin' rather feeble, an' it 'pears to me she's hardly able to stand teachin' so many child'n, an' a long rest might be the best thing in the ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... the devotions of any society or individual. Let these laws be put in execution without fear, favour or affection. But for the rest, let religion take care of itself—it needs no assistance from the feeble ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... the faint stirring of his heart. It was so feeble, the throbs were so far apart, yet they meant life,—life that might flush his cheeks again, and might yet bring him back to her, into her arms. He was breathing, too; breaths so faint that she hardly dared to believe in their reality. And presently she realized ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... which naturally ensued from it; at all events, in the course of ten or eleven months the St. John's dancers were no longer to be found in any of the cities of Belgium. The evil, however, was too deeply rooted to give way altogether to such feeble attacks. ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... oblongata, which principally contribute to move the heart and arteries; whence in the lethargic or apoplectic stupor the pulse is slow as in sleep, whereas in nervous fever the pulse is very quick and feeble, and ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Cecil uttered a feeble yelp as the calf came racing past, waved his arms, and executed a few mild steps towards him—attentions which but served to accelerate the Shorthorn's flight. He went by the city lad like a meteor, rendering useless a wild run by Wally, who was just too late to head him. Murty O'Toole ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... but it needs not that every one should be able to swing a heavy mace and hold his own in a melee. There are many posts at court where one who is discreet and long- headed may hold his own, and gain honour, so that he be not a mere feeble weakling who can be roughly pushed to ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... constant support they must fall to disuse. Statutes serve to record the rights of a people, and speak the intention of parties to defend what the letter of the law has expressed; but without the vigour to maintain what is acknowledged as a right, the mere record, or the feeble intention, is ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... I shall never forget the expression which flashed into those glorious eyes; but, seeing me intolerant of her appeal, she drew back and quickly turned her head aside. Even in this hour of extremity, of impotent wrath, I could find no contempt in my heart for her feeble hypocrisy; with all the old wonder I watched that exquisite profile, and Karamaneh's very deceitfulness was a salve—for had she not cared she would ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... sweet ease in restless misery! The captive's liberty, and his freedom's song! Balm of the bruised heart! man's chief felicity! Brother of quiet Death, when Life is too too long! A Comedy it is, and now an History; What is not sleep unto the feeble mind? It easeth him that toils, and him that's sorry; It makes the deaf to hear; to see, the blind; Ungentle Sleep! thou helpest all but me, For when I sleep my soul is vexed most. It is Fidessa that doth master thee If she approach; alas! thy ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... namby-pamby University voice was concerned to get information. He asked endless questions, chiefly of Gilkison, who was the only one who really understood his language. I thought I had never seen anyone quite so fluent and so futile, and yet there was a kind of feeble violence in him like a demented sheep. He was engaged in venting some private academic spite against society, and I thought that in a revolution he would be the class of lad I would personally conduct to the nearest lamp-post. And all the while Amos ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... ones? Redruff flew to the nearest bank, hastily gathered a few red hips to Stay his gnawing hunger, then returned to the prison-drift and clucked and stamped. He got only one reply, a feeble 'peek, peete,' and scratching with his sharp claws on the thinned granular sheet he soon broke through, and Graytail feebly crawled out of the hole. But that was all; the others, scattered he could not tell where in the drift, made no reply, gave no sign of life, ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... who had done your country this sarvice, you would have spoke as mealy-mouthed of it as if butter wouldn't melt in it. "I flatter myself," you would have said, "I had some little small share in it." "I have lent my feeble aid." "I have contributed my poor mite," and so on, and looked as meek and felt as proud as a Pharisee. Now, that's not my way. I hold up the mirror, whether when folks see themselves in it they see me there or ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... more plays are successfully adapted from French into English than vice versa." This sounded thrilling, but after finishing his article the reader was about in the humour of a person who has been promised "an awfully rippin' new story" and receives a feeble "chestnut." ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... shore, we are under the necessity of wading through the river as we drag the boats. This soon makes our feet tender, and sometimes occasions severe falls over the slippery stones; and the men by being constantly wet are becoming more feeble. In the course of the day the hunters killed two deer, some geese and ducks, and the party saw antelopes, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... log actually was carried by Marius and Esperit; but the tottering old man clasped its forward end with his thin feeble hands, and its hinder end was clasped by the plump feeble hands of the tottering child. Thus, the four together, they brought it in through the doorway and carried it thrice around the room, circling the supper-table and the lighted candles; and then, reverently, it was laid before the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... ill after what Mr. Gresley called "his immersion," but for some days he remained feeble and exhausted. Sybell quite forgot she had not liked him, insisted on his staying on indefinitely at Wilderleigh, and, undaunted by her distressing experience with Mr. Tristram, read poetry to Hugh in the afternoons and ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... occupied, perhaps, about the good of the country; the sisters are engrossed in a round of other interests. All the members of such a family live disunited, forgetting one another, bound together only by some feeble tie of memory, until, perhaps, a sentiment of pride or self-interest either joins them or separates them in heart as they already are in fact. Modern laws, by multiplying the family by the family, has created ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... a somewhat feeble, white haired old man but received them very graciously and was much interested in the story. Turning to his book he refreshed his memory. Yes, there was the birth of the child. The mother he put down as rather delicate. A note some time after substantiated ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... there—at least it does not affect the fact that Wordsworth is a first-rate man, and a fine preacher. I dare say you know he is a nephew or grand-nephew of the Poet. He is a most venerable old man, and worth looking at, merely for his exterior. He is so feeble with age that he can with difficulty climb the three short steps that lead into the pulpit; but, once in the pulpit, it is another thing. There is no feebleness when he begins to preach. He is one of the last voices of the old ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... advance began, it was rapid. No opposition was experienced by the way, until the column arrived within a few hours' march of Candahar; and then the enemy's attack was feeble, and easily repulsed. On the 9th of January, General Stewart ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... often feeling of the helpless hands, And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek— From all a closer interest flourished up, Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears By some cold morning glacier; frail at first And feeble, all unconscious of itself, But such as gathered colour day ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... already disheartened, by the defeat they had seen inflicted upon the Wongee's army and, after a feeble resistance, fled to a second line of stockades in the jungle to their rear. The troops, however, pressed so hotly upon them that they were unable to make any effectual opposition here. Numbers fell, while endeavouring to pass through the narrow entrances of the work; and ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... by the dinner bell rang, and Ruth and I entered the dining hall together, where we found Mr. Inch, still stately and upright, but growing very feeble. ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... at such a moment that "I cannot withhold from you the extreme anxiety and astonishment which the protracted and fatal delay of the squadron has excited in the mind of the President;" and on the 5th, "the known detention of the squadron at Sackett's Harbor until the 27th ultimo, the very feeble and precarious state of your health, the evils which have already resulted from delay," etc., "have induced the President, though with extreme reluctance, and undiminished confidence in your zeal and capacity, to order Commodore Decatur to proceed to Sackett's Harbor and take upon ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... may be safely said that those nations who planted their feeble colonies on these shores, from which we have spread so widely, have profited far more from the independence of the American republics than they would have profited if their unwise system of colonial government had been continued. In the establishment of these ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... was all the time advancing, the feeble breeze urging her progress, which was helped also by her lurching through the heavy following swell that prevailed. Before Blackwood could leave her, a shot passed through the main-topgallantsail, and the rent proclaimed to the eager eyes of the foes that ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... been unpaid for two years, and the old man was getting pretty feeble; so, after the boy was killed, I realized that was the end of the Farrel dynasty and that the mortgage would never be paid. Consequently, in self-protection, I foreclosed. Of course, under the law, Don Miguel had a year's grace in which to redeem the property, and during that year I ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... grace that produced the best impression. Charles X. was an excellent horseman; he presented the figure and air of a young man. The contrast naturally fixed in all minds, between his vigorous attitude and that of his predecessor, an infirm and feeble old man, added to the general satisfaction. The houses were decorated with white flags spangled with fleurs-de-lis. Triumphal arches were erected along the route of the sovereign. The streets and boulevards were strewn with flowers. At the ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... in the path, and tried to thrust his blazing faggot into the monster's eyes, as she had done. He was not quick enough. The monster threw up its muzzle, dodging the stroke, and the next moment it had struck down its feeble adversary and crushed his head between ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... energy in execution, and to impose upon the executive a sense of responsibility. If the executive power were vested in a number of persons, the differences and jealousies sure to arise, and the absence of responsibility, would result in a feeble administration, which is but another name for a ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... "CROATAN" inscribed on the bark of a tree. It was the name of an island further down the coast; and had White gone thither, he might even yet have found the lost. But he was a man unfitted in all respects to live in that age and take part in its enterprise. He was a soft, feeble, cowardly and unfaithful creature, yet vain and ambitious, and eager to share the fame of men immeasurably larger and worthier than he. He could draw pictures, but he could not do deeds; and now, after having deserted those to whom he had been in honor bound to cleave, he pleaded ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... arbutus-tree in a meadow of camas. He was shockingly stiff and every movement pained him. But he managed to gather and smoke some dry arbutus-leaves and eat a few camas-bulbs. He was astonished to find his hair very long and matted, and himself bent and feeble. "Tamanoues," he muttered. Nevertheless, he was calm and happy. Strangely, he did not regret his lost strings of hiaqua. Fear was gone and his ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... she help being, with her evident experience? She knew that round her whole form swam a delicious, invisible sphere, a distillation that her veriest self sent forth, as gardenias do their perfume, moving where she moved and staying where she stayed, and compared with which wine was a feeble vapor for a ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... was so feeble and alarming, and his face so thin, that it quite shocked her softening heart, and gazing upon him she said, 'You must get well—you must! I have been hard with you—I know it. I will ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... Aylmer," said she, with a feeble attempt at a smile, "have you any recollection of a dream last night ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... will go up." Little Red Riding Hood pulled the bobbin, and the door went open. When she came into the room, the wolf hid himself under the bedclothes, and said to her, trying all he could to speak in a feeble voice: "Put the basket on the stool, my dear, and take off your clothes, and come into bed." Little Red Riding Hood, who always used to do as she was told, straight undressed herself, and stepped into bed; but she thought it strange to see how her grandmother looked in her nightclothes, ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... for ever!" the enthusiastic cheering as we drove along; the occasional groans and hisses, which were too feeble to depress our spirits; the flags; the music; the bustle; Edward's heightened colour and animated countenance; the interest felt and expressed by all those about us; the eagerness of contest; the anxiety for success; the anticipated triumph over the enemy—all this ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... jetties that the channel through the shoal at the head of the South Pass is now twenty-two feet deep, and that the least width at which twenty feet depth is found is one hundred and ten feet. The principal works to improve this shoal were constructed during the last six months. The low stage and feeble current of the river has delayed their effect until the recent flood from the Ohio reached them, and the problem of deepening the shoal has been fully solved by the rapid scouring away of the obstruction. It is stated that the channel is quite straight ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... cultivate an attitude of indifference in such cases? A ruffian cruelly beats his horse, the poor beast that has rendered him faithful service for many a day, but is feeble now and sinks beneath its load. With curses and the sharp persuasion of the lash, the merciless driver seeks to force the animal to efforts of which it is plainly incapable. Can we stand by and witness such a scene ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... sun is glowing as a brand; And faint before the parching heat, The strength forsakes the feeble feet: "Thou hast saved me from the robbers' hand, Through wild floods given the blessed land; And shall the weak limbs fail me now? And he!—Divine one, nerve ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and regulars landed without molestation, and captured the feeble forts with the loss of but twenty killed. The Acadians agreed to take the oath of fidelity, but stipulated not to be forced to bear arms against their own countrymen. General Charles Lawrence, the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, replied to ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... How feeble are written words to convey ideas at times! If you could have obtained one glance of Rose and Jeff at that moment, reader, words would not be required. No peony ever blushed like that Rose—to say nothing of the blank amazement in those wide blue eyes. Jeff, still ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... the corpse—but not the tranquil statue I had seen it last. Its knees were both raised, and one of its little hands drawn up and clenched near its throat, as if in a feeble but agonised struggle to force up the superincumbent mass. The eyes, that I had last seen closed, were now open, and the face no longer serenely pale, but ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... wherever her power is not cramped, she still exercises that power to the destruction of all who oppose her unrighteous usurpation. All the blood shed by all other christian sects, is no more in comparison to that shed by the papacy, than the short lived flow of a feeble rill, raised by the passing tempest, to the deep overwhelming tide of a mighty river, which receives as tributaries, the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... and perhaps rather feeble than unskilful. Their chief manure is seaweed, which, when they lay it to rot upon the field, gives them a better crop than those of the Highlands. They heap sea shells upon the dunghill, which in time moulder into a fertilising substance. When they find a vein ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... like a woodpecker; he launches out into the air, taking insects on the wing like a flycatcher; he clings like a chickadee to the under side of twigs, or hovers in front of a heap of insect eggs, presenting a feeble imitation of a hummingbird. These modes of feeding represent many different families ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... of Agapita, who seems to have been a woman of feeble intellect as well as an unfaithful wife.] The petition of her husband Basilius (vir Spectabilis) sets forth that, influenced by seducers, and from the levity so natural to woman, she for no good reason quitted her own home. Her own petition confirms this; and she states that, while ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... we should conceive ourselves to be superior to the universe? Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is only a feeble ray that has issued from Nature; a tiny atom of that whole which Nature alone shall judge. Is it fitting that the ray of light should desire to alter ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the most horrifyingly devastating fury any man there had ever seen, the frightful thing expired and Hilton said: "That was just a kind of a firecracker. Just a feeble imitation of the first-stage detonator for what we'll have to have to crack the Stretts' ground-based screens. If the skipper and I had taken time to take the ship down to the shops and really work it over we could have put on a show. Was this enough so ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... Modesty's my forte, And Pride my feeble:[741]—let us ramble on. I meant to make this poem very short, But now I can't tell where it may not run.[no] No doubt, if I had wished to pay my court To critics, or to hail the setting sun Of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... bright and glad, but not for me; My heart is dead to all but pain and sorrow; No care nor hope have I in all I see, Save from the fear that I may starve to-morrow. Alas, for you, poor famishing, patient wife, And pale-faced little ones! Your feeble cries Torture my soul; worse than a blank is life Beggared of all that makes that life a prize: Yet one thing cheers me,—is not life the door To that rich world where no ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... of life! We are next to see them labouring; and this for the benefit of those to whom they are under no obligation, by any law either natural or divine, to obey. We are to see them, if refusing the commands of their purchasers, however weary, or feeble, or indisposed, subject to corporal punishments, and if forcibly resisting them to death: we are to see them in a state of general degradation and misery. The knowledge which their oppressors have of their own crime, in having violated the rights of nature, and ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... stung by the torturing consciousness of what might have been, by the recollection of what had been. Or did they fall exhausted, fainting, to die, or to undergo decapitation to insure that such exhaustion should not open even a feeble possibility of escape, there too, he saw himself sinking, borne down by the sheer blank hopelessness of fate, taking refuge in the Dark Unknown, his end the grave of the suicide. It was himself or them, and he preferred that it should be them. ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... the room was a middle-aged man, of striking appearance. In face and person he seemed worn and feeble. He walked with a slight stoop; his cheeks were hollow and slightly flushed, and his brow was furrowed by lines which would have appeared deep even in a much older man. But as soon as he began to talk his face lit up, his eyes sparkled, and there was ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... of 1901 passed 116 bills, a number being of special interest to women. Among these was one establishing truancy schools; another for the care of the feeble-minded; several humane society bills; a measure permitting the State Board of Charities and Corrections to investigate private charitable institutions; a bill for an eight-hour day; one for the preservation of forest trees; one for a bi-weekly pay-day, and an ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... One form, easily recognized, is what is commonly called "mental deficiency." By this we mean not merely the kind of mind found in idiots and imbeciles, but that which appears in morons and other "high grade" mental weaklings. Such mental weakness, or feeble-mindedness, is especially dangerous to society because it often afflicts people who are physically strong and attractive, and who are eager to marry. When such persons marry, they exercise little self-control and are likely to have large families. In this respect they are unlike ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... possessed with this conviction gives us at least a determinate point of view, and enables us to appeal a case of taste to a court of final judicature, whose decisions are guided by immutable principles. When we hear of certain productions, that they are feeble in design, but masterly in parts, that they are incoherent, to be sure, but have great merits of style, we know that it cannot be true; for in the highest examples we have, the master is revealed by his plan, by his power of making all accessories, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Weak and feeble states like those of Central America may not feel themselves able to assert and vindicate their rights. The case would be far different if expeditions were set on foot within our own territories to make private war against a powerful nation. If such expeditions ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... was bandaged up, and when 'e come in he walked feeble-like and spoke in a faint sort o' voice. Smith, the landlord, got 'im a easy-chair and a couple of pillers out o' the parlour, and Bill sat there like a king, telling us all his sufferings and wot it ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... wearing a stern and serious visage. "Is this, then," she said, "the fruit of all my labors? Is it for this that I fed you on the marrow of bears and lions, that I taught you to subdue dragons, and, like Hercules, strangle serpents in your youthful grasp, only to make you, by all my cares, a feeble Adonis? My nightly watchings of the stars, of the yet warm fibres of animals, the lots I have cast, the points of nativity that I have calculated, have they all falsely indicated that you were born for greatness? Who could have believed that you would ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... wild animals, which, if advantageous to the species, might have given rise, through natural selection, to new instincts. But I am well aware that these general statements, without the facts in detail, can produce but a feeble effect on the reader's mind. I can only repeat my assurance, that I do not speak ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... steeped in luxurious heat, by and by falls asleep and dreams sweetly until his chilblains or the snapping fire awakes him, and he pulls himself up and goes forth yawning to give his team their last feed, his lantern throwing a feeble gleam on the snow as he makes his way to the stable. Having completed his task, he pats the sides of those he loves best by way of good-night, and leaves them to their fragrant meal. And this kindly action on his part suggests one of the best passages of the poem. Even old well-fed Dobbin ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... the countess with her griefs, and the latter helped her with food, clothing, and in other ways. "One day nothing remained in the house to eat but a single crust. F. was ill. His wife, who was also ill and feeble, went off to work. On her return she found no bread. Some one had come along begging 'Khristi radi' [for Christ's sake], and F. had given him the crust,—with absolute consistency, it must be confessed. This was the end. There was a scene. The wife went back to her friends. F. also ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... operations against Russia, has since been called the Crimean. Forty years had passed since Waterloo and war was an exciting novelty for British youth. England plunged into it with enthusiasm, but the feeble and incompetent prosecution of the campaign against Sebastopol, with the mismanagement of commissary and hospitals, evoked a storm of opposition, before which the Aberdeen ministry collapsed. Lord Palmerston was the natural choice of Queen and nation to succeed ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... Count had been accustomed to that taunting and sarcastic voice, but this feeble joke at such a moment was more than ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... warship's deck and then vanished. Still the man stood there watching, a puzzled, anxious look coming into his face. Quickly the light reappeared—two flashes, a pause, two flashes, a pause, and then a single flash. It was such a light as might have been made by a pocket torch, a feeble ray barely strong enough to carry to the adjacent shore, a light that if it had been flashed from some sheltered nook by the boat davits might not even have attracted the attention of the officer on the bridge nor of the ship's watchmen. Manifestly it was a signal ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... had noted quite a good-sized log lying near by, used by the vagrants in their seclusion to chop their firewood on. And Paul had decided that this log would make an admirable battering ram. The door was old and feeble, so that one good slam would doubtless hurl it back, and give them ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... Miss Letitia Jane Morkin added their feeble trebles to the hurrahs with which Mr. Poletiss, in his George the Third fashion, meekly hailed the advantages to be derived from ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... death. No sooner had that thought suggested itself to his mind, than he acted upon it, for he knew that his moments were few; already he felt the cold hand of death upon him. He took a piece of chalk from his pocket, and with a feeble hand traced the following words upon the iron door of ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... weaker, she fell into a low fever, was at times even delirious, and I began to fear that, unless help speedily came, a calamity was imminent, which for me personally would be worse than the quenching of Quipai. And when we were at the last extremity, mad with thirst and feeble with fasting, help did come. One morning at daylight Yawl sighted a sail—a large vessel a few miles astern of us, but a point or two more to the west, and on the same tack as ourselves. We altered the sloop's course at once so as to bring her across the stranger's bows, ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... wife above the feeble embers hovered, And wrung her toil-hard hands; She knew there was no help for their starvation, No ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... unsated lives, they are either knaves or fools. They will find that knowledge uncontrolled by a purified spirit and a reinforced will is already teaching men not how to be good, but how to sin the more boldly with the better chance of physical impunity. "Philosophy," says Black, "is a feeble antagonist before passion, because it does not supply an adequate motive for the conflict."[37] There were few men in the nineteenth century in whom knowledge and virtue were more profoundly and completely joined than in John Henry Newman. But did that subtle intellect ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... The next day the whole city resounded with the fame of the so-called assassination. The government offered immense rewards for the discovery of the murderer. Since that time I hold my life, fortune and honor by the feeble tenure of Don Carlo's silence. His power over me is very great. I distrust him much. Unknown to but very few, I have a yacht lying at a little estate in a rocky nook at Point Yerikos, in complete order to sail at any moment. On board ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... most: But to your service I bequeath my ghost; Which, from this mortal body when untied, Unseen, unheard, shall hover at your side; Nor fright you waking, nor your sleep offend, But wait officious, and your steps attend. How I have loved—excuse my faltering tongue! My spirit's feeble and my pains are strong: This I may say I only grieve to die, Because I lose my charming Emily. To die when heaven had put you in my power! Fate could not choose a more malicious hour. What greater curse could envious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... family lives is poorly built and too small. Frequently old houses are set aside as too far gone for any except Negro tenants. In many instances these dilapidated houses contain germs of disease which it is practically impossible for the young and the feeble to withstand. The food, fuel, clothing and general comforts of a family thus housed are insufficient. Food plays too large a part in the havoc made by death among Negroes. In many instances, there is great ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... asked Mr Tippet, seating himself on his bench, or rather on the top of a number of gimblets and chisels and files and pincers that lay on it; "what would you say now to sitting from morning till night in a dusty ware-room, where the light is so feeble that it can scarcely penetrate the dirt that encrusts the windows, writing in books that are so greasy that the ink can hardly be got to mark the paper? How would you like ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... were a jolly little couple, as unconcerned about their environment as Robinson Crusoe after five years on his island. Soon the father came home. I can see him still—the vacant brown face of a very feeble-minded half-breed, ragged and tattered and almost bootless. He was carrying an aged single-barrelled boy's gun in one hand and a belated sea-gull in the other, which bird was destined for the entire evening meal of the family. A half-wild-looking ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... When I thought her quite out of hearing, I stole from my retreat and entered the barn. It was of course as dark as Erebus, but thanks to being a smoker I was as well provided with matches as she had been, and having struck one, I held it up; but the light it gave was very feeble, and as I did not know just where to look, it went out before I had obtained more than a cursory glimpse of the spot where I was. I thereupon lit another; but though I confined my attention to one place, namely, the floor at my feet, ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... Would the strong natural affection nature had implanted there, so cruelly crushed out, now nearly if not quite dead, arise anew to life, and grow stronger than this repulsion? That is the question to be answered now. Ah! if there were but a spark remaining, were it only a poor, feeble, smouldering flame, it would have the power, she felt, to light her to higher and better things. With a thrill of pure maternal love, a stranger to her heart, whose holiest impulses, deadened by reckless indulgence, have degenerated into instincts, she folds the little form closer to her, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and a round table, and an attenuated old poker and tongs were, however, gathered round the fire-place, as was a saucepan over a feeble sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese and bread, and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was there. He did not need to turn his head to enjoy the sight of her with gross material vision. Every tight-strung fibre of his being told him of her nearness, in ways compared with which sight and sound and touch are gross and feeble travesties of communication. Their spirits surely reached out and touched in that silent communion ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... statistics some astronomers have put forward the theory that the stars in space are divided into two classes, which are not in reality closely related. The one class consists of intensely luminous stars and the other of feeble stars, with little or no transition between the two classes. If the parallax stars are arranged according to their apparent proper motion, or even according to their absolute proper motion, a similar bipartition is revealed in their ...
— Lectures on Stellar Statistics • Carl Vilhelm Ludvig Charlier
... morning, after sitting in that heat for eleven hours! He spoke above an hour and a half, with scarce a bad sentence: the most admired part was a comparison he drew of the two parts of the new administration, to the conflux of the Rhone and the Saone; "the latter a gentle, feeble, languid stream, languid but not deep; the other a boisterous and overbearing torrent; but they joined at last; and long may they continue united, to the comfort of each other, and to the glory, honour, and happiness of this nation!" I hope you are not mean-spirited ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... near at hand, while their petitions went up also for those loved ones at a distance. They knew that the all-seeing eye of the God of mercy could follow them, that His far-reaching hand could protect them, and that, feeble as were their petitions, He heard and would grant them if He ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... feeble hand; Zerviah took it; Scip spoke no more. The nurse held the negro's hand a long time; the lamp went out; they sat on in the dark. Through the flapping wooden shutter the stars ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... this head scholar was eighteen Lorenzo died. The son of Lorenzo continued his father's work in a feeble way, for Piero de Medici was a good example of the fact that great men seldom reproduce themselves after the flesh. Piero had about as much comprehension of the beautiful as the elder Buonarroti. He thought that all these young men who were being ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... lung plague has never been determined. Various investigators have from time to time claimed the discovery of the specific organism of the disease, but it was not until 1898 that Nocard and Roux, by an ingenious method of cultivation, succeeded in obtaining a very feeble growth of an exceedingly minute microorganism. With these cultures the disease ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... it is by no means improbable that they were effected without much difficulty. The disorders of the Church imperatively called for some strong remedy; and it perhaps occurred to not a few that a distracted presbytery, under the presidency of a feeble old man, was but ill fitted to meet the emergency. They would accordingly propose to strengthen the executive government by providing for the appointment of a more efficient moderator, and by arming him with additional authority. The people would be gratified by the change, for, though in ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... different types of thinking. It may be they exist and we aren't equipped to detect them. They may be around us all the time, aware of us and our puerile thoughts, but so superior to us in every way that they don't think it worth while even to consider our feeble cogitations." ...
— The Unthinking Destroyer • Roger Phillips
... feeble attempts to egg on Hughson. The honest teamster was but a lukewarm lover. His point of view was that the girl looked down upon him, and this chilled his passion. He had come to own his teams now. He never drove them. He was a capitalist, an employer ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... father's house and explain all; and then her father and brothers will come back with you, if need presses more sorely, and help us to transport thither the poor lady. I will sit by her the while, and by plying her with cordials and such food as she can swallow, strive to feed her feeble strength; and if the flames seem coming nearer and nearer, I will make shift to dress her in such warm and easy garments as are best suited to the journey she may have to take. And I will trust to you to be back to save us ere the danger be ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... genius, granted; but he was more toward the "special" than the "general" side of the spectrum. His grasp of nuclear physics was far and away beyond that of any other scientist of his day; his ability to handle political and economic relationships was rather feeble. ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... again after he had crossed the river, but soon his mules grew too feeble to make anything like their normal speed. We passed them for good and all a few days farther on, and were far ahead when we ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody) |
