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Lapse   Listen
noun
Lapse  n.  
1.
A gliding, slipping, or gradual falling; an unobserved or imperceptible progress or passing away,; restricted usually to immaterial things, or to figurative uses. "The lapse to indolence is soft and imperceptible." "Bacon was content to wait the lapse of long centuries for his expected revenue of fame."
2.
A slip; an error; a fault; a failing in duty; a slight deviation from truth or rectitude. "To guard against those lapses and failings to which our infirmities daily expose us."
3.
(Law) The termination of a right or privilege through neglect to exercise it within the limited time, or through failure of some contingency; hence, the devolution of a right or privilege.
4.
(Theol.) A fall or apostasy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lapse" Quotes from Famous Books



... They lapse into silence, during which Jack's cigar glimmers from the twilight corner where Clive's bed is; whilst Clive wafts his fragrance out of the window where he sits, and whence he has a view of Lady Anne Newcome's windows to the right, over the bridge across the little rushing ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... from bullets of moderate size and low velocity do not cause more than a temporary loss of consciousness, and the subjects are seen by the surgeon, after the lapse of half an hour or more, apparently sound of mind. These are the cases in which the ball has lost its momentum in passing through the skull, and has consequently done little damage to the brain-substance, excepting ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... great majority of cases this protection is absolute, and only in a very few does it leave the subject susceptible to small-pox, materially modified. The protection it affords against small-pox is found to diminish after the lapse of an indefinite number of years, and hence it is important to be re-vaccinated once or twice, for instance, after an interval of five years. Between the second and third months of infancy is the best period for vaccination, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... heartily. The speaking against the measure was far more effective than that in its favour. Indeed, at this distance of time I can only recall one speech by a supporter of the Bill which impressed itself so strongly upon me as to remain fresh in my memory after the lapse of more than thirty years. That was the speech of Dr. Connop Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David's, who was courageous enough to stand against his brethren, and to prefer the claims of justice to those of the Establishment in which he was a leading figure. On the other hand, two at least ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... the urgency of taking the tide as it serves. There was no lagging, like Chauncey's, to fetch up heavy schooners; and the campaign was decided in a month, instead of remaining at the end of three months a drawn contest, to lapse thenceforth into a race of ship-building. Had the "Niagara" followed closely, there could have been no doubling on the "Lawrence"; and Perry's confidence would have been justified as well as his conduct. The latter needs no apology. Without the help of the "Niagara," the "Detroit" was reduced to ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... any subject are frequently found, not in the books written upon it, but in the files of current periodicals, or in those of former years. It is especially to be noted that the book may frequently lose its adaptation and usefulness by lapse of time, and the onward march of science, while the article is apt to reflect the latest light which can help to ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... who demonstrated that within certain fixed limits the eccentricities and places of the aphelia of Saturn and Jupiter are subject to constant variation, and he calculated that after a lapse of about thirty thousand years the elements of the orbits of these two ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... been deeply impressed with the affability of the emperor. They returned home, taking with them his assurance that their time-honored usages should be respected, and that Joseph himself would be the guardian of their ancient rights. He merely desired to free them from "certain abuses which in the lapse of time had crept into their constitution." To this end he promised that an imperial delegation should visit Brussels to consult with ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... with a flannel dipped in sweet oil, and afterwards in spirits of wine, may be tried. Waiters of 'papier mache' should be washed with a sponge and cold water only, and dredged with flour while damp. After the lapse of a few minutes the flour must be wiped off, and the article polished with ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... associates, sought an asylum under Britain's Crown in this, the then wilderness of Canada, which now stands as one of the most flourishing provinces of our beloved Sovereign. In that then wilderness the flag of England was unfurled, and after the lapse of one century, and on the commencement of another, that flag floats triumphantly over this loyal Canadian land. Those first settlers were our first militiamen, under our first and venerated Governor, Sir John Graves Simcoe, in the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... eastern side there are many noble eminences, and on the west, along which we drove, there is a part of the way a lovely wood, and nearly the whole distance a precipitous range of lofty cliffs, descending sheer down without any slope, except what has been formed in the lapse of ages by the fall of fragments, and the washing down of smaller stones. The declivity thus formed along the base of the cliffs is in some places covered with trees or shrubs; elsewhere it is quite bare and ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... some differences between them, which, or some of which, observable at first, grew more distinct in the lapse of years, in their places of nativity, in their temperaments, in their intellectual traits, and in their politics. Both were partly of Gallic descent; but here they differed as in other things. Tazewell ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... enough. In confessing this, they would, they think, be confessing that their sons and brothers and fathers had perished miserably in a causeless struggle on which they ought never to have entered, and this, of course, would look like a slur on their memory, and their memory is still, after the lapse of twelve years, very sacred and very dear. I doubt if many people at the North have an adequate notion of the intensity of the emotions with which Southerners look back on the war; and I mean tender and not revengeful or malignant emotions. The losses ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... after the lapse of centuries of murder, rapine, and robbery on the high seas, did the Pirate City receive a fatal blow, from which it never completely recovered. It revived a little, indeed, in after years, and made ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... skill, was a closed book. He regarded them as he regarded himself, with a kindly cynicism. He never forgot that his own trouble could and would have been avoided had it not been for woman's vanity and consequent cruelty. The unwholesome three had shared his moral lapse with wide-open eyes, and were in no sense victims of his; but, disregarding their responsibility, they had, from sheer jealousy, wrecked his past, and, to their own surprise, had wrecked themselves as well. They were of those who act first ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... remains the most popular of all, the one least likely to suffer by the lapse of time, and the last probably to reach oblivion, because it appeals to young Americans in the whole nation, is his "Boys of '76." The first lore to which Carleton listened after his infant lips had learned prayer, and "line upon line, and precept ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... After the lapse of a few moments, he came to her, saying, "O Tulee, do you think she's going to die? Couldn't ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... overpowering force of this tangible picture aroused me from my half sleeping state, and I at once recognized that the image, so nearly an hallucination, was but a visibly symbolic embodiment of my thought content that had been allowed to lapse as a result of my fatigue. The symbol is easily recognized as such. The extension into the dark sea corresponds to the pushing on into a dark problem. The blending of atmosphere and water, the imperceptible gradation from one to the other means that with ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... of eight leaves in the solution and in the water were compared after the lapse of 24 hrs., they undoubtedly differed much in appearance. The few tentacles on the leaves in water which were inflected had after this interval re-expanded, with the exception of one leaf; and this presented ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... destroy those who were so unfortunate as to become the objects of royal or ministerial enmity. The king, if he could not make the law, could still appoint the judges of the law; and the right of interpretation was hardly less powerful than the power of legislation. Even when, after a lapse of time, the judges became in a great measure independent of the crown, still it was not until many years later, when the voice of an outraged people became more terrible to them than the frowns of kings or ministers, that those accused ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... Lord Derby's declaration in the House of Lords that although he had omitted the term of suzerainty, the substance thereof remained. It would have been more correct to have said that owing to the lapse of suzerainty the South African Republic no longer fell under the head of a semi-suzerain State, but that it had become a free, independent, sovereign international State, the sovereignty of which was only limited by the restriction contained in Article 4 of the Convention. Sovereignty need ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... hand and had bent over him with a wonderful light in her eyes, but the very effort he made to rise up and grasp her hands, and learn if indeed it were a creature of flesh and blood, had resulted in a lapse back into unconsciousness, and he was silent as to the vision even to Griffeth, lest perchance he should have to learn that it was but a fevered dream, and that there was no Gertrude within the castle ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... we sat down to our tete-a-tete dinner. Such a dinner! Even after a lapse of all these years I am unable to think of it without a shudder. Half famished though we were, we could not do much more than look at the greater part of the dishes which were set before us; and the climax ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... light of day. Elodie knew the resolution to be right and honourable; but, despairing of a marriage that seemed impossible from every point of view and loath to outrage the prejudices of society, she contemplated in her inmost heart a liaison that could be kept a secret till the lapse of time gave it sanction. She hoped one day to overcome the scruples of a lover she could have wished less scrupulous, and meantime, unwilling to postpone some necessary confidences as to the past, she had asked him to meet her for a lover's talk in a lonely ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... sure I do," promptly. "I have stepped to the time of convention so much that a lapse once in a while is a positive luxury. But Mrs. Coldfield had given me a guaranty before I addressed you, so the adventure was only ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... in my ears. I was conscious that I had used it in the manner of the select circles of Harlansburg, and I was angry that, though knowing better, I had let myself lapse into the ways of a manikin. When I had spoken of Joe Hicks it was from my heart; I had forgotten my hands, and Penelope and I had laughed together. When I spoke of Gladys Todd my voice was tainted with apology. Inwardly ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... with intent to remain there, and their children, the issue of a marriage contracted there after their return, and who have never been in the United States, have laid claim to our protection when the lapse of many years had imposed upon them the duty of military service to the only government which had ever ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... regard by their high appreciation of him and his mission, accounts for the many visits he made among them, and his devotion to their spiritual welfare. Nor was his work evanescent. The seal of his influence was so deeply impressed upon their affections and memories that to-day, after the lapse of fifty years, its stamp is almost as fresh as when first made. Nor is this a matter of wonder or surprise. The sermons I have set in order were substantially preached by him and other ministers, mostly led into that section by him; and the power of such discourses, ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... bird or animal killed by a hawk can be found, a good plan is to allow it to remain, surrounding it also with concealed traps, as they usually return to finish their meal, and that sometimes after the lapse of days. ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... he was elected a member of the Academy, and later became librarian to Louis Napoleon; his novels, of which "Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre" and "Sibylle" are the most noted, are graceful in style, and reveal considerable dramatic force, but often lapse into sentimentality, and too often treat of indelicate subjects, although in no ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... be not envious. If we envy others, they, in turn, will envy us. The evils of envy know no limit. If others excel us in intelligence, it gives us no pleasure; if they surpass us in ability, we are envious. Therefore it is not until after the lapse of five hundred years that we at last meet with a wise man, and even in a thousand years we hardly obtain one sage. But if wise men and sages be not found, how shall the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... Lost in the lapse of time, the Druid's lore Hath ceased to echo these rude rocks among; No altar new is stained with human gore; No hoary bard now weaves the mystic song; Nor thrust in wicker hurdles, throng on throng, Whole multitudes are offered to appease Some angry god, whose ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various

... whose name I am familiar, should approve of my work. I entirely agree with what you say about each species varying according to its own peculiar laws; but at the same time it must, I think, be admitted that the variations of most species have in the lapse of ages been extremely diversified, for I do not see how it can be otherwise explained that so many forms have acquired analogous structures for the same general object, independently of descent. I am very glad to hear that you have been arguing against Nageli's law of perfectibility, which ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... defence could not be pleaded was formerly fixed by imperial constitutions at five years; but it has been reduced by our constitution, in order to save creditors from a more extended risk of being defrauded of their money, so that now it cannot be advanced after the lapse of two years from the date ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... three hundred years, if not more, before the country even began to be Christianised, yet he is never spoken of as anything but a great hero, from which one of two things would follow, either that the apotheosis of heroes needed the lapse of centuries, or that, during the first, second, third, and fourth centuries, the historical conscience was so enlightened, and a positive definite knowledge of the past so universal, that the translation of heroes into the divine clans could ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady

... yourself on an equality with a man in such a case as Van Dorn's by calling him out. His life belongs to the aggrieved husband, and "shooting down" is universally esteemed the correct thing, even if it takes place after a lapse of time, as in the affair between General Van Dorn and ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... to the history of the Ilbert Bill, a measure under which Lord Ripon's Government proposed to give native magistrates jurisdiction over Europeans in certain circumstances. I was at the time (1882-83) Financial Member of the Viceroy's Council. After a lapse of thirty years, there can, I think, be no objection to my stating my recollections of what occurred in connexion with this subject. I should, in the first instance, mention that the association of Mr. (now Sir Courtenay) Ilbert's name with this measure was purely accidental. ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... the dark, when lying awake at night; he used a board with prominent lines of wood, such as is adopted by the blind. It is very important that what is written should be intelligible to a stranger after a long lapse of time. A traveller may die, and his uncompleted work perish with him; or he may return, and years will pass by, and suddenly some observations he had made will ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... persons being rescued alive from the ruins after a lapse of three, four, and even five days, and one on the seventh day after interment. Those who were thus rescued all declared that their ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... enough!" she had said; ay, distinct it was; and so engrossingly intense became the thoughts thronging in her mind, bewildering succession, that Isabella sat motionless, her brow leaning on her hand, wholly unconscious of the lapse ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... And, indeed, he had a most amazing disposition to lapse into tears The disposition was never near to mastering him, ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... wind. Tossed the great deep, smit by Poseidon's hands For a grace to strong Achilles. All the winds Swooped on the waters. Prayed the Dardans all To Achilles, and a man to his fellow cried: "Great Zeus's seed Achilles verily was; Therefore is he a God, who in days past Dwelt among us; for lapse of dateless time Makes not the sons of Heaven to ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... terrestrial birds, and reptiles being common to all, while a large number more are of closely allied forms. Now, geology has taught us that this representation by allied forms in the same locality implies lapse of time, and we therefore infer that in Great Britain, where almost every species is absolutely identical with those on the Continent, the separation has been very recent; while in Sumatra and Java, where a considerable number of the continental ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... an event, too, which could conceivably colour the whole "sentiment of existence" in a simple and sensitive character. But all these preliminary moods and stirrings of spirit were rather obscure at the time, and they do not appear clearer to me now after the lapse of so ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad

... view, there are many languid thinkers who lapse into a forlorn belief that if this or that man had never lived, or if this or that other man had not ceased to live, the country might have gone on in peace and prosperity, until its felicity merged in the glories of the millennium. If Mr. Calhoun had never proclaimed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... our belief that the lapse of time has probably destroyed the title. There is no annexed trust, on William's part, to hold for his brother's use, and the length of undisputed, or what we lawyers call adverse, possession—something like an hundred years or more—seems to make it impossible for my friends ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... sleepily from the depths of his chair. Then his eyes wandered to the clock, and he sat up with an effort. "Splendid, dear old top," he remarked. "And since it is now one minute past twelve, let's have a spot to celebrate your lapse from virtue." ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... this lapse of time, the Judge even tolerates the scapegrace. Emily does, it is very evident, and as she has never since swerved in her warm friendship with the wild girl who arranged the masquerade, she is not at all likely ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... concern, and she would be sound enough; her speculations would defend themselves, her advice be worth a following. Endow the San Reve with a personal interest, the more if that interest were one mixed of love and jealousy, and her reason, if that be its name, would go blind and deaf and lapse into the merest frenzy of insanity. She would hasten to believe the worst and disbelieve the best. Under spell of jealousy, the San Reve would accept nothing that told in her own favor; and just now, despite an outward serenity—for, though sullen, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... Conqueror." Now history says that the mother of the Conqueror was Arlette or Arlotte, the daughter of a tanner at Falaise. We know how scrupulous the Norman nobility were in their genealogical records; and likewise that in the lapse of time mistakes are perpetuated and become history. Can history in this instance be wrong? and if so, how did the mistake arise? I shall feel obliged to any one who can furnish ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various

... truth, no one can now travel through the more frequented tracts, without being offended, at almost every turn, by an introduction of discordant objects, disturbing that peaceful harmony of form and colour, which had been through a long lapse of ages ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... check of the Parliament. Three years at the most were to elapse between the assembling of one Parliament and another, and, once met, it could not be prorogued or dissolved for five months. Laws could not be made nor taxes imposed but by its authority, and after the lapse of twenty days the statutes it passed became laws, even though the Protector's assent was refused to them. The new Constitution was undoubtedly popular; and the promise of a real Parliament in a few months covered the want of any legal character in the new rule. The ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... a museum. Whatever of strange, grotesque, and curious, Calmadys of past generations had collected in their wanderings, by land and sea, found lodgment here. It was a home of half-forgotten histories, of valorous deeds grown dim through the lapse of years; a harbour of refuge for derelict gods, derelict weapons, derelict volumes, derelict instruments which had once discoursed sweet enough music, but the fashion of which had now passed away. The somewhat obsolete sentiment of the place harmonised with ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... palace remain matters of as clear knowledge as those of some such tragedy as the recent taking off of the Servian king and queen. The annals are so explicit that no veil of uncertainty hangs between us and the lapse of Anne Boleyn from the throne to the scaffold; we see Catherine Howard as in an instantaneous photograph escaping from her prison-chamber and running through the gallery to implore the mercy of Henry at mass in the chapel, and, as if a phonograph ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... have also shown a disposition to attend the several meetings for instruction. The claims of temperance have likewise led to an organized effort, and if the pious and gentle Mr. Laird were permitted once again to visit the place, after a lapse of seven years, he might fervently exclaim, in the language of the Gospel, "What ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... it: but here they repeat their eternal refrain that, after a lapse of time, the demand for the product having increased in proportion to the reduction of price, labor in turn will come finally to be in greater demand than ever. Undoubtedly, WITH TIME, the equilibrium will ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... After a lapse of thirty years since the above was written, I have been requested by my publishers to make some preparation for a new and revised edition of my poems. I cannot flatter myself that I have added much to the interest ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... two mighty masters of the choric hymn into the highest regions of poetry; his lyric style is bold, impetuous, abounding in verve and brilliance, yet without the high-flown inspiration ever involving a lapse from good taste. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... fire on this sad rainy evening, after the lapse of twenty years, shudders as he recalls the blackened pall that seemed ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... pretensions. In certain extreme cases, which it might seem invidious to specify more explicitly, it is not easy to discover any specific reasons for the maintenance of a national establishment, apart from the vindication of certain national pretensions which would quietly lapse in the absence of a national establishment on whom their ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... her fondly. It was obvious to the subaltern that after their five years of married life they were lovers still. Frank looked at them a little enviously. He wondered would it be so with Violet and him after the same lapse of time; for the sight of their happiness sent his thoughts flying to ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... straits, I saw that the storm was over, and decided to return to the Chenaux in the afternoon, leaving word with my half-breeds to have the sail-boat in readiness at three o'clock. The sun was throwing out a watery gleam as, after the lapse of an hour or two, I walked up the limestone road and entered the great gate of the Agency. As I came through the garden along the cherry-tree avenue I saw Jacques sitting on that bench in the sun, for this was his ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... record, however rude, of the lapse of time implies some knowledge of the celestial motions, by which alone time can be accurately measured, and some advancement in the arts of civilized life, which could be attained only by the accumulated experience of many generations (see TIME). Before the invention of letters the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... profound darkness, and were it not for the record of their strength and greatness which we find in the Scriptures, we should scarcely credit the few traditions which the Greeks have preserved to us. After the lapse of two thousand five hundred years, a mere chance has thrown their history in our way, and we have now their deeds chronicled in writing ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... see so much in mere vulgarities of opinion, and though she uttered as few words as possible, conversing only in sad smiles and headshakes and in intercepted movements toward the door, she happened, in some unguarded lapse from her reticence, to use the expression that she was disappointed in him. He caught at it and, seeming to drop his field-glass, pressed upon her with ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James

... say that a victory was thus gained, for it was not victory that was sought. But we may say that something far better than a victory was attained, in that a great principle was accepted. Nor has the lapse of time raised any doubt as to the rightfulness and wisdom of the acceptance. [Footnote: It is worth while to state the steps by which ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut

... the joints of his armor are not open to this thrust? "The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened is in the logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent. A man ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... precious. Certain scientific researches have demonstrated that nobles, formerly distinguished for the length of their hair, used no other remedy than this; their method of preparation, which had been lost in the lapse of ages, has been intelligently re-discovered by A. Popinot, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... lapse of two hours the harbor of Ashtabula came in sight, and at about 10 o'clock we approached Fair Point. The noon-tide of the summer day was past, as we were made acquainted with the fact, that the rising towers and pinnacles, to be discerned in the distance on our left, pertained ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... the live sea, By working, marrying, breeding Shoreham Town, Breaking the sunset's wistful and solemn dream, An old, black rotter of a boat Past service to the labouring, tumbling flote, Lay stranded in mid-stream: With a horrid list, a frightening lapse from the line, That made me think of legs and a broken spine: Soon, all-too soon, Ungainly and forlorn to lie Full in the eye Of the cynical, discomfortable moon That, as I looked, stared from the ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley

... already defined labour to be the Contest of the life of man with an opposite. Literally, it is the quantity of "Lapse," loss, or failure of human life, caused by any effort. It is usually confused with effort itself, or the application of power (opera); but there is much effort which is merely a mode of recreation, or of pleasure. The most beautiful actions of the human body, and the highest results of the human ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... After a lapse of twenty-six years the Commons ventured again. This time the queen replied that she hoped her dutiful and loving subjects would not take away her prerogative, which is the choicest flower in her garden, ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... after the lapse of many years, he died, there was great grief among the people, and his body was laid out in his own room, and the people were permitted to come and look upon his ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... women of intensely emotional nature, it sometimes happens that a day of keen and torturing suspense, or a night's vigil of great anguish, mars and darkens a countenance more indelibly than the lapse of several ordinary monotonous years; and as Madame Orme sat in her reception-room at one o'clock on the following afternoon, awaiting the visit of the minister, the blanched face was far sterner and prouder than when yesterday's sun rippled ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... Poplicola's life was the most eminent amongst the Romans, as well for the greatness of his virtue as his power, and also since his death many amongst the distinguished families, even in our days, the Poplicolae, Messalae, and Valerii, after a lapse of six hundred years, acknowledge him as the fountain of their honor. Besides, Tellus, though keeping his post and fighting like a valiant soldier, was yet slain by his enemies; but Poplicola, the better ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... modes of thought and peculiarities of character, so that they remained unconquered in the loftier aspect of the case. The characteristics of the Dutch of New Netherland were so indelibly stamped, that, after a lapse of more than two centuries, they are still marked features ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... argument is not far to seek. If the Church means to allow the Common Prayer, which hitherto has been regarded as a liturgy, to lapse into the status of a directory; if, in other words, she is content to see her manual of worship altered from a book of instructions as to how Divine Service shall be performed into a book of suggestions as to how ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... the neural flow," explained the little man proudly. "Helps tap the unused eighty per cent. The pre-symptomatic memory is unaffected, due to automatic cerebral lapse in case of overload. I'm afraid it won't do much more than cube his present IQ, and an intelligent idiot is still an ...
— Teething Ring • James Causey

... shape a sigh for thee! O'er the waves, among the flowers, Through the lapse of odorous hours, Breathes a lonely, longing sound, As of something sought, unfound: Lorn are all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... Should I lapse to what I was Ere we met; (Such can not be, but because Some forget Let me feign it)—none would notice That where she I know by rote is Spread a strange and withering change, Like a drying of ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... afford to pay for the privilege. Charitable education was extended to but a few, for a short time, while, under the freedom allowed, many communities made but indifferent provisions or suffered their schools to lapse. Under the primitive conditions of the time the interest even in religious education often declined almost to the vanishing point. So lax in the matter of providing schooling had many communities become that the second Provincial Assembly, sitting in Philadelphia, in 1683, passed an ordinance ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... summed up in a new article of confederation. Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland had fixed the date at which the grant was to take effect, while Rhode Island provided that it should not expire until after the lapse of twenty-five years. The grant by New Hampshire allowed the power to be used only in one specified way,—by restricting the duties imposable by the several states. The grants of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia were not ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... one night in history, the music of another tribe had come to Taai. It just escaped being an authentic "tune." How it escaped was indefinable. The sophisticated ear would almost have it, and abruptly it had got away in some provoking lapse, some sudden and bizarre disintegration of tone. And the drumbeat, bringing it back, ran like a fever pulse ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... been proposed. After visiting many of them, and examining also coral reefs that fringe islands and continents, he offered a theory which for simplicity and grandeur strikes every reader with astonishment. It is pleasant, after the lapse of many years, to recall the delight with which one first read the 'Coral Reefs'; how one watched the facts being marshalled into their places, nothing being ignored or passed lightly over; and how, step by step, one was led to the grand conclusion of wide oceanic subsidence. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... which the sufferer applied to his wounded members healed the bruises in a few days, and he was again in condition to pursue his wonted sports and pleasures. After the lapse of a week, as the patient exhibited no further signs of the malady, the watch was discontinued; but Mr. Presby was too enthusiastic in the cause of science to abandon the case so soon. He sat up in his chamber till midnight, with his ears wide open, to catch the slightest indication of a movement ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic

... find Stesimbrotus, of Thasos, actually inventing that unnatural and abominable falsehood of Perikles's intrigue with his own daughter-in-law. So hard is it to discover the truth, because the history of past ages is rendered difficult by the lapse of time; while in contemporary history the truth is always obscured, either by private spite and hatred, or by a desire to curry favour with the chief ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... God at the exodus did not prevent that nation from repeated lapse into paganism, and acts of open disobedience to the Theocratic law. Still less were they debarred thereby the mere oriental customs of imparting moral instruction in secret associations, or the pursuit of science ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... war indemnity claims, bankruptcy, and utter ruin of present holders, &c., will fall into the hands of our Government when the war is over, and these will be especially the poorer farms. But yet probably as years pass they will tend to lapse once more into Dutch hands, for it is difficult to believe that men of our race will ever submit to such a life of absolute stagnation. In dealing with the future of the country, it will always be a point that will have to be borne in mind, that the natural ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... pregnant earth spontaneously producing gold and silver from baser things after a definite number of lunations. Already, however, in the doctrine of the transmutation of metals, it was perceived that to Nature the lapse of time is nothing—to man it is everything. To Nature, when she is transmuting a worthless into a better metal, what signify a thousand years? To man, half a century embraces the period of his intellectual activity. The aim of the cultivator of the ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... the spirit of earth's great ones, just as the cellar of the king holds wines growing more precious with the lapse of years. From time to time God sends to earth some man with a supreme gift called genius. Passing through our life and world, he sees wondrous sights not beholden of our eyes, hears melodies too ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... directly out from the axis of the earth, but the photograph shows that it is not so located. The variation is known astronomically to be 1-1/4 deg. There is a slight irregularity in the position of the earth's axis, but the changes are so slow as to be noticed only by the lapse of a thousand years. Five thousand years ago the pole star was Draconis, and in eighteen thousand years it will be Lyrae. We have direct evidence of the change of the earth's axis in one of the Egyptian pyramids where an aperture marked ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... "and through lapse of time the twofold characteristics of their progenitors have become blent." See Timoth. Gaz. ap. Schneid. ad loc. for an ancient ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... affecting the wealthy and influential classes, and giving colour to the Brahmins' accusation that we intended to upset the religion and violate the most cherished customs of the Hindus, was Lord Dalhousie's strict enforcement of the doctrine of the lapse of property in the absence of direct or collateral heirs, and the consequent appropriation of certain Native States, and the resumption of certain political pensions by the Government of India. This was condemned by the people of India as grasping, and as an unjustifiable interference with ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... cede some valuable territory to the King of Sardinia. By a secret article, Malta was to remain ten years under British government before the exchange took place. On the acceptation or refusal of these terms, peace or war was to be determined. A week only was allowed for a reply; and at the lapse of that time, no reply being given—Napoleon wishing still to prolong the discussion—the British ambassador, in compliance with his instructions, declined all further negociations, and prepared to quit Paris, which he did on the 12th of May. Orders were immediately issued ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... expenses if I would accompany him. The temptation of seeing one from whom there had been an eight years separation made my cousin's entreaties irresistible, and I yielded, receiving from him all the devoted attendance his kind nature could dictate. So, after the lapse of so many eventful years, I turned my face westward. I spent the winter at the home of my brother, and shall never forget his kindness and that of his family, as well as other residents of Pecatonica, who did so much to lighten ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... enterprising man, at finding his plans unopposed by authority, Mr. Underwood had been delighted with his rectory ready consent to whatever he undertook, and was the last person to perceive that Mr. Bevan, though objecting to nothing, let all the rough and tough work lapse upon his curates, and took nothing but the graceful representative part. Even then, Mr. Underwood had something to say in his defence; Mr. Bevan was valetudinarian in his habits, and besides—he was in the midst of a courtship—after his ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... what with the inspection of these articles, and the comments each provoked, the coral rested in peace on the dresser till Mrs. Mivers, when just about to renew her inquiries, was startled by the sound of the Dutch clock striking four,—a voice which reminded her of the lapse of time and her own dinner-hour. So, with many promises to call again and have a good chat with her humble friend, she took her departure, amidst the blessings of Becky, and the less noisy, but not less ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that branch of wrongs. I now communicate what has since passed on that subject. The Senate will judge whether the prospect it offers will justify a longer suspension of that portion of indemnities conceded by Spain should she now take no advantage of the lapse of the period for ratification. As the settlement of the boundaries of Louisiana will call for new negotiations on our receiving possession of that Province, the claims not obtained by the convention now before the Senate may be incorporated into ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson

... read," and he handed it to Gen. Smuts, who was across the table, and said, "General, this is of the utmost importance and interest, and you ought to read it right away." Gen. Smuts read it immediately, and said he thought it should not be allowed to lapse; that it was of the utmost importance. Mr. Lloyd George, however, said that he did not know what he could do with British public opinion. He had a copy of the Daily Mail in his hand, and he said, "As long as the British press is doing this kind of thing how can you expect me to be sensible about ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt

... request, was started shortly after the Regiment was disbanded. For the delay in publishing it, I must plead the great mass of inaccuracies which had to be corrected and verified, entailing a considerable amount of correspondence and consequent lapse of time. It has been compiled from Official Diaries and Forms, and from a Diary kept by Lieut.-Colonel J. Younger, D.S.O., without whose assistance it would ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... offended with me; that is plain enough. But when I part with a young lady on good terms, and after a lapse of years, during which we neither meet nor correspond, she asks me how I dare speak to ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... true religionist, with the reverential sentiment largely developed, and an order of mind that impelled itself powerfully along the track of a creed, and wore its passage continually deeper with the lapse of time. In no state of society would he have been what is called a man of liberal views; it would always be essential to his peace to feel the pressure of a faith about him, supporting, while it confined him within its iron framework. Not the less, however, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... missing schooner Ipecacuanha. He gave such a strange account of himself that he was supposed demented. Subsequently he alleged that his mind was a blank from the moment of his escape from the Lady Vain. His case was discussed among psychologists at the time as a curious instance of the lapse of memory consequent upon physical and mental stress. The following narrative was found among his papers by the undersigned, his nephew and heir, but unaccompanied by any ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... years, thrown carelessly upon the floor, were the sole garniture of this execrable chamber. Anthony glanced around with feelings of an uncontrollable disgust, and all his boyish antipathy to the place returned. The lapse of nearly twenty years had not improved the aspect of his old prison-house, and he was now more capable of appreciating its revolting features. The harsh words, and still harsher blows and curses, which he had been wont to receive from the miser and his sordid associate, ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... important fact for the average man to take into consideration is that, whereas he naturally gets considerable out-of-door exercise in summer, he allows it to lapse in the winter. Such a decided change in the amount of exercise is dangerous and should be avoided by taking regular gymnasium exercise. Even though a gymnasium is not elaborately equipped, use can be made of such games as hand-ball, volley-ball and ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... mortal terror lest any indiscretion on her part would put a stop to this annual lapse into such delightful immoralities, held her peace in spite of her desire to spread abroad the beauties which she had beheld. She had a feeling that all the participants in the pantomime must of necessity be rather ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... till the end of her life she never ceased to repent, bitterly and with tears, for having at the age of twelve allowed an older sister to dress her prettily, and blanch her hair after the fashion of the day. The reason for this terrible lapse, as she told her confessor, was simply a delight in beautiful things—but she always looked back ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... Scripture. His journals, interesting even to the common reader, are peculiarly interesting to the Methodist: for they contain the whole history of that singular polity which, weak and despised in its beginning, is now, after the lapse of a century, so strong, so flourishing, and so formidable. The hymns to which he gave his imprimatur are a most important part of the public worship of his followers. Now, suppose that the copyright of these works should belong to some person who holds the memory ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... be the effect of his information upon her mind, nor what would be her opinion of his conduct. He was in a state of exasperating uncertainty about her views. The only thing of which he was sure was her love and respect for truthfulness; he did not know whether she would ever forgive any lapse from it. "Though, if it comes to that," he said to himself, as he finished his morning toilet, "she ought to be as angry with Stretton as she is with me; for he took her in completely, and, as for me, I only held my tongue. I suppose she will say that 'the motive was ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... Time has been! Full eighteen summers you have seen, And yet they seem a day? Whole years, collected in Time's glass, In silent lapse how soon they pass, ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte

... that other law which bears the name of the law of Helmholtz, the use of which is to give us an expression, not for the final value of the current, but for its value at any short time, t, after the current has been turned on. The strength of the current after a lapse of a short time, t, cannot be calculated by the simple process of taking the electromotive force and dividing it by the resistance, as you would calculate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various

... period, or group, is felt as a unit. "Of the number and relation of individual beats constituting a rhythmical sequence there is no awareness whatever on the part of the aesthetic subject....Even the quality of the organic units may lapse from distinct consciousness, and only a feeling of the form of the whole sequence remains." Yet the slightest deviation from its form is remarked. Secondly, every variation creates not only a change in its own unit, but a wave of disturbance all along ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... opinion that much of this might be accomplished "within two generations." Social improvement is always very slow. How extremely tardy has been the progress of civilization! How gradually have its humanizing influences operated in elevating the mass of the people! It requires the lapse of generations before its effects can be so much as discerned: for a generation is but as a day in the history of civilization. It has cost most nations ages of wars, before they could conquer their right of existence as nations. It took four centuries ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... et amicitiae et similium junctarumque Camoenarum; quod utinam neque mors solvat, neque temporis longinquitas!" "Double is the bond which binds us—friendship, and a kindred taste in poetry. Would that neither death nor lapse of time could ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... while it is struggling with obstacles, just where it is encumbered with incongruities. It deals, to use the language of science, not with normal types but with abnormal specimens; to use the language of old philosophy, not with what nature is striving to be, but with what by some lapse ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... imbecility do resemble that phase of insanity known as dementia—a reversion to the original mental state of childhood—in reality a form of second childhood. But the states are not identical, although one may lapse into the other. One is defect, the other disease; the imbecile in the former being the counterpart of the dement in the latter, just as the moral imbecile is ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner

... liberty it sprang forward, and leaped up and caressed him like a dog. Its master, however, left it with its keepers, and three years passed away before he paid another visit to the menagerie. Notwithstanding this lapse of time, the wolf again recognized him, and exhibited the same marks ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... caught by the envelope that Spennie had dropped. A momentary lapse from the jovial and benevolent was the result. His fussy little soul ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... in the days of witchcraft, virtually nothing was known of hysteria, epilepsy, the varied forms of insanity, hallucination, hypnotism, or of the possibilities of mal-observation and lapse of memory: while such a matter as first-hand circumstantial evidence seems to have been lost to sight entirely. If any mental or extraordinary physical disturbance took place, if the witch went into a trance and described things ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... has recorded the story of his people and given a grammar of their language; thus producing a work whose immense value, as an account of a race and a language already passing into oblivion, will become even more inestimable with the lapse of time. ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird

... calamagrostis, agrostis, etc., which rear their handsome spikes and panicles above your waist. Making your way through the fertile wilderness,—finding lively bits of interest now and then in the squirrels and Clark crows, and perchance in a deer or bear,—after the lapse of an hour or two vertical bars of sunshine are seen ahead between the brown shafts of the pines, showing that you are approaching an open space, and then you suddenly emerge from the forest shadows upon a delightful purple lawn lying smooth ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... her song, hands on hips, she scrutinised her audience, bestowing little smiles on her particular admirers. She could not have been in her best form, because when about to start her third verse she suffered a lapse of memory, hesitated, and started the fourth. This passed unnoticed by her audience, who gave her a vociferous ovation at ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... force of all personal and social life; a panic is its end—a lapse to the level of the beast of the field whose life is ruled ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... Grange, thus rendering justice after the lapse of two centuries, and restoring the inheritance of her fathers ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... need of hounds; but, in another century, his people, turning their backs on Virginia affluence to invite the hardships of pioneer life, had brought with them certain of the cavaliers' instincts. A hundred years in the stagnant back-waters of the world had brought to their descendants a lapse into illiteracy and semi-squalor, but through it all had fought that thin, insistent flame of instinct. Such a survival was the boy's clinging to his hounds. Once, they had symbolized the spirit of ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... department of Somme, found a human jawbone fourteen feet beneath the surface. It was the first fossil of this nature that had ever been brought to light. Not far distant were found stone hatchets and flint arrow-heads stained and encased by lapse of time with a ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... character. Their choice of objects for barter was determined by the smallness of their bulk and weight in comparison with their value. The Egyptians on the one side were provided with stocks of beads, ornaments, coarse cutlery, strong perfumes, and rolls of white or coloured cloth, which, after the lapse of thirty-five centuries, are objects still coveted by the peoples of Africa. The aborigines paid for these articles of small value, in gold, either in dust or in bars, in ostrich feathers, lions' and leopards' ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the hymn by going on with the rest of it, and making you smile at its childish miracles and portents; but I should only do a foolish thing, by turning your minds away from the broad fact that St. Bridget, or various persons who got, in the lapse of time, massed together under the name of St. Bridget, were ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... Even now, after the lapse of fifteen years, Mrs. Tiralla's heart swelled with bitterness when she lay awake at night and thought of the way she had been treated. Her mother had begged and implored her with tears in her eyes. "We shall then be out of ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium—the bitter lapse into every-day life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... has come to pass. The highest greatness surviving time and storm is that which proceeds from the soul of man. Monarchs and cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of courts and the circumstance of war, in the gradual lapse of time disappear from sight; but the pioneers of truth, the poor and lowly, especially those whose example elevates human nature and teaches the rights of man, so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser

... will again bestow a passing glance upon this happy family after the lapse of some twenty years. We find Dr. Winthrop now past the meridian of life, surrounded by an interesting family of sons and daughters, whom he is endeavoring to train for spheres of usefulness in this life, as ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell

... acres. Hutton gives it as 30 acres, and describes a third embankment. The present outer vallum was 330 yards long by 228 wide, and the interior camp 187 yards long by 165 wide. The ancient vallum and fosse have suffered much by the lapse of time, by the occupiers partially levelling the ground, and by the passing through it of the Worcester and Birmingham canal, to make the banks of which the southern extremity of the camp was completely destroyed. Some few pieces ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... serape over her shoulders, sat down in a rocking-chair by the side of the bed and closed her eyes. For what seemed to her a lapse of hours, although in reality it was less than five minutes, she tried to induce a clever counterfeit of sleep, but unable longer to deprive herself of another look at her prize she opened her eyes and gazed at Bob McGraw. To her almost childish delight ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... saved by the Abbe de la Rue and M. P. A. Lair, of Caen. What I wish to inquire is, firstly, who was Charles Chadwick, Esq.? and secondly, supposing that he is no longer living, which I think from the lapse of time will be most probable, does any one know what became of the tiles which he had received ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various

... studies of Miles and Phil, but had to give them up as useless, lacking strength and opportunity for the endeavour. But the long winter would make up for the neglect of the short summer, and she left off worrying over their lapse into ignorance, contenting herself with reading to them on Sundays, and, what was more important still, making ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... within Iago's intrigue. 'Long Time' is required simply and solely because the intrigue and its circumstances presuppose a marriage consummated, and an adultery possible, for (let us say) some weeks. But, granted that lapse between the marriage and the temptation, there is no reason whatever why more than a few days or even one day should elapse between this temptation and the murder. The whole trouble arises because the temptation begins on the morning after the consummated marriage. Let some three weeks elapse between ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... the condition and loses the virtues of freeman, in proportion as he accustoms his thoughts to view without anguish or shame his lapse into ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... involved no "twilight zone" of dispute as to law, in which the "system" and the "ring" could hide. Every Government man knew the evidence was plain and complete in these cases: yet they were pigeon-holed, let lapse for the Statute of Limitations ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... mistake he was thought to have committed was condoned by amicable treatment, neutralized by the virtual indorsement of the government in the instructions of the 25th of September, and obsolete as a ground of quarrel by lapse of time. The question about which the misunderstanding, if such it deserves to be called, had taken place, was no longer a possible source of disagreement, as it had long been settled that the Alabama case should only be ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... universal acceptance. It is not so obviously true as to preclude challenge and argument. It is my purpose very briefly to examine the statement and from the conclusion reached connect the same with the thought of a beautiful proverb that has come down to us thru a long lapse of years—Noblesse Oblige—our ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... the best sense it may be said that you do get it; for it is the general impression of the various scenes through which the expedition leads the travelers that is left upon the mind, not those accurate details of a single one of them which the lapse of a year might render inaccurate. It is to the credit of the work therefore than one gains from it little specific knowledge. In its place are the reflections both wise and witty upon life, upon the characters of the men that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... superintendent for Mr. Gillespie and was informed that that gentleman could probably be found at the temporary building in the adjoining street. Thither, therefore, I went, sure that after so great a lapse of time Jerry must pardon my interest and intrusion. I was not surprised to discover that Mr. John V. Gillespie was no less a person than Jerry himself, who was at the moment of my arrival busily engaged with a Scoutmaster, ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... into the debate on behalf of the position and principles of their party, which of course differed from those of both Brown and Douglas. The discussion was continued to a late hour, and finally came to an end through mere lapse of time, but not until an irreparable schism in the Democratic party had ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... at what had just happened: for, on the one hand, he was at last rid of a distinctly uncongenial acquaintance, which had been almost thrust upon him in the first instance, and which had proved ever more uncongenial and unwelcome with the lapse of time; while, on the other hand, he fully recognised that he had made for himself a vindictive and implacable enemy who, although not very formidable or dangerous just then, might at any moment become so. ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... exhausted all the sorrow of those around him, a grief flowing less from affection than fear. Aged men will show his tombstone; mothers haste with their infants by it; children shrink from the name upon it, until in time his history shall lapse and be forgotten by all except the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... Helen Sprague, surely! Yes! I remember now. Why, Helen?" and I stepped forward and grasped her hand. "I am both glad and sorry to see you. To think that, after the lapse of fifteen years, we should meet thus! How in the world is it that fortune has been so unkind to you? I remember hearing it said that ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur

... three reasons," replied Athos. "The first, that we have not finished breakfast; the second, that we still have some very important things to say; and the third, that it yet wants ten minutes before the lapse ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... which one is shining.[1] And this act of the heavens came to my mind when the ensign of the world and of its leaders became silent in its blessed beak; because all those living lights, far more shining, began songs which lapse and fall from out ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri

... difference in the species is no doubt imputable in no small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale; his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances where, .. after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale again rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this is obvious. Gases are generated in him; he swells to a prodigious magnitude; becomes a sort of animal balloon. A line-of-battle ship could ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... devils or deities moulding, or at least ruling, matter from without. And, indeed, the nearest approach they made to the more genuine Pantheism of modern times was the conception of a world emanating from and projected outside Brahma, to be re-merged in him after the lapse of ages. Now, if I am right in my definition of Pantheism as absolutely identifying God with the Universe,[3] so that, in fact, there cannot be anything but God, the inconsistency here noted must be regarded as fatal to the genuineness of the Indian or indeed ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton

... those questions which had produced on me the impressions of the Lyapinsky house, and the census; but when I attempted to take account of them and to demonstrate them, it turned out that the knife would not cut, and that it must be whetted. And it is only now, after the lapse of three years, that I have felt that my knife is sufficiently sharp, so that I can cut what I choose. I have learned very little that is new. My thoughts are all exactly the same, but they were duller then, and they all scattered and would not unite on any ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... we write actual disestablishment had occurred, when the town ceased—as a town—to pay the salary of Priest Ware, as the minister was called. The father of Jethro Bass, Nathan the currier, had once, in a youthful lapse, permitted a Baptist preacher to immerse him in Coniston Water. This had been the extent of Nathan's religion; Jethro had none at all, and was, for this and other reasons, somewhere near the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... such unlike events as Saunders McClellan's lapse from sobriety, the death of Elder Duncan, and the trespass of McCakeron's cows could have any bearing upon one another? Yet from their concurrence was born the most astounding hap in the Zorra chronicles. Even if Elder McCakeron had paid Neil's bill of damage instead of remarking ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... which may play one State against another, to prevent their growing importance, and to serve their own interested purposes. For, according to the system of policy the States shall adopt at this moment, they will stand or fall; and, by their confirmation or lapse, it is yet to be decided, whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered as a blessing or a curse:—a blessing or a curse, not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... should rise up against the King foes from out of his own household, as, indeed, will be shown hereafter. Yet for a while all things went peaceably. First the King got himself great renown in a war with the men of Veii, with whom the truce had expired by lapse of time. These he put to flight with great slaughter, and so returning to Rome was manifestly acknowledged not by the Senators only, but was also ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church

... a lapse of half a century, my master's heresies of the year 1828 have become the orthodox principles of the year 1878. Thinking the subject over in his own independent way, he had arrived at the conclusion that there were many employments reserved exclusively for men, which might with perfect ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... in 1562, enacting, that all who had ever graduated at the Universities or received holy orders, all lawyers, and all magistrates, should take the oath of supremacy when tendered to them, on pain of forfeiture and imprisonment during the royal pleasure. After the lapse of three mouths, the oath might again be tendered to them; and if it were again refused, the recusant was guilty of high treason. A prospective law, however severe, framed to exclude Catholics from the liberal professions, would have been mercy itself compared with this ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... careful not to say so to him, for fear of blows; and Lily knew that, if ever she received them once, twice, without returning them, it was all up with her, she would lapse under the yoke again, it would become a habit: there would be nothing for it but to leave her husband, if she wished to avoid slaps, just as she had left her ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... commonly in use; and it is possible that had one of Christopher's colonial ancestors appeared at the moment in Jacob Weatherby's log barn it would have been difficult to convince him that between his death and his resurrection there was a lapse of more than two hundred years. He would have found the same square, pen-like structure, built of straight logs carefully notched at the corners; the same tier-poles rising at intervals of three feet ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... lived and died the eminent Dr. More: thus set this bright and illustrious star, vanishing by degrees out of our sight after, to the surprise and admiration of many, (like that which was observed in Cassiopeia's chair,) it had illuminated, as it were, both worlds so long at once." At the lapse of many years I have not forgotten the impassioned fondness with which the late and most lamented Robert Southey dwelt upon the memory of the Cambridge Plato, or the delight with which he greeted some works ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts



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