"Lessen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... imagination reconstructed a tragedy, a tragedy of life singularly close to the truth as he later came to learn it, a story not at all calculated to lessen his interest ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... boy? Would you think to lessen the peril by tampering with the things of the Evil One; by casting aside those rules and doctrines in which you both have been reared, and consorting with the subverters of the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a sort of fatality with regard to all those who had any power of doing her mischief either with her husband or the Court. The Duc de Vauguyon, the Dauphin's tutor, who both from principle and interest hated everything Austrian, and anything whatever which threatened to lessen his despotic influence so long exercised over the mind of his pupil, which he foresaw would be endangered were the Prince once out of his leading-strings and swayed by a young wife, made use of all the influence which old courtiers can command over the minds ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... what Bonaparte had expected, did not avail to lessen the contempt he entertained for the heads of the Government, nor to change his conviction of their envy and mistrust of himself. To their alleged affection he made no return. Bottot assured the hero of Italy of "the Republican docility" of the Directory, and touched upon the reproaches ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... it had been agreed they should find some one with a message from Eve, who, together with Adam, was in hiding on board the vessel Captain Triggs had spoken of. But instead of the messenger Eve herself arrived, having ventured this much with the hope of hearing something that would lessen Adam's despair and grief at learning the fate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... cry lamentably. His mother caressed him with her gentle hands. Already his suffering was less acute. But he went on weeping, for he felt it still near, still inside himself. A man who suffers can lessen his anguish by knowing whence it comes. By thought he can locate it in a certain portion of his body which can be cured, or, if necessary, torn away. He fixes the bounds of it, and separates it from himself. A child has no such illusive resource. His first encounter with suffering is more tragic ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... confidence in God which you place in His guilty creatures, and you will not lean on a broken reed. Father O'Rourke, you, too, witness my disgrace, but not my punishment. It is pleasant, no doubt, to have a topic for conversation at your Conferences; enjoy it. As for you, Margaret, if society lessen misery, we may be less miserable. But the band of your order, and the remembrance of your vow is on your forehead, like the mark of Cain—tear it off, and let it not blast a man who is the victim of prejudice still, nay, of superstition, as well as of guilt; tear ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... taken place in him cannot lessen his love for his neighbors; on the contrary, that change can only intensify love in his heart. But I am afraid you do not understand me. Won't you have some tea?" she said, with her eyes indicating the footman, who was handing ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and fluency without culture; his learning had not educated his perceptions: it was an implement serving to slash others rather than to polish himself. I have said that at first sight he was immense; but as I studied him he began to lessen under my scrutiny. His depth was a false perspective painted ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... you must, the privilege of others to differ from you in religious sentiment, you should not allow that difference to be a matter of offence. It should be no disparagement in your view, nor lessen them in your estimation. However great you may consider the errors of your neighbors, if you are satisfied they are sincere, you should respect them for their sincerity! Hypocrisy, in every form, should be denounced. Those who profess to believe what they do not, or to ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... breast soften the pain of the gaping wound in our own? Or does the blood which is welling from another man's side stanch that which is pouring from our own? Does the general anguish of our fellow-creatures lessen our own private and particular anguish? No, no, each suffers on his own account, each struggles with his own grief, each sheds ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one? Is no concession proper, but that which is made from your want of right to keep what you grant? Or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the exercise of an odious claim, because you have your evidence-room full of titles, and your magazines stuffed with arms to enforce them? What signify all those titles, and all those arms? Of what avail ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... pleaded Gustave, in nowise alarmed by Diana's silence, which seemed to him only the natural expression of a maidenly emotion. "Tell me that you will give me measure for measure; that you will love me as my mother loved my father—with a love that trouble and poverty could never lessen; with a love that was strongest when fate was darkest—a star which the dreary night of sorrow could not obscure. I am ten years older than you by my baptismal register, Diane; but my heart is young. I never knew what love was until I knew you. And yet ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... irksome, presently join in when the question is to make out the moral import of a good or bad action that has been related, and they display an exactness, a refinement, a subtlety, in excogitating everything that can lessen the purity of purpose, and consequently the degree of virtue in it, which we do not expect from them in any other kind of speculation. In these criticisms, persons who are passing judgement on ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... for her privations, had admired and imitated her patient endurance; and now to think that it was too late, to think that she had gone, and it would never be in Beth's power to brighten her life or lessen the hardship of it! That was all she thought of. Every week since her marriage she had sent her mother a long, cheerful, amusing letter, full of pleasant details—an exercise in that form of composition; but ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... find him patiently screening the entire beach, sifting out the most perfect stones and eventually, by gradual exclusion, reaching the long-sought-for pebble; and the mere fact that in this search years might be taken, would not lessen his ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... high-blooded youth from the cow ranches, of about the Kid's own age and possessed of friends and champions. His blunder in missing the Kid's right ear only a sixteenth of an inch when he pulled his gun did not lessen the indiscretion ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... subtler sides to this subject, and it is of these I fain would speak. We are apt to blunt our literary sense by reading far too much, and to lessen our capacity for getting the great delights from books by making reading into a routine and a drudgery. Of course I know that reading books has its utilitarian side, and that we have to consider printed ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... A-LEE. The extreme of the movement, by which it is intended to throw the ship's head up suddenly into the wind, in order to go about, or to lessen her way to ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... declared that woman is but the nurse to her own offspring. Neither is it remarkable at this stage in the human career, as women had lost their position as heads of families, and as they were no longer recognized as of kin to their children, that man should have attempted to lessen the importance of the female element ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... Heinrich began to grow impatient, for his attempt at corrupting the garrison showed that negotiations were not without their dangers. Stout Baumstein, captain of the gate, was the man whom Heinrich most desired to purchase, for Baumstein could lessen the discipline at the portal of Schloss Eltz without attracting undue attention. But he was an irascible German, whose strong right arm was readier than his tongue; and when Heinrich's emissary got ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... indeed, great cause for fear. The DUNCAN was out of her course, and rushing toward the Australian coast with a speed which nothing could lessen. To John Mangles it seemed as if a thunderbolt were driving them along. Every instant he expected the yacht would dash against some rock, for he reckoned the coast could not be more than twelve miles off, and ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... Gertrude broke in. "Mr. Prescott only wishes to lessen your anxiety, but he's convinced of what ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... in the least dampen his joy over the glorious victory at Augsburg nor lessen his praise of the splendid confession there made. In the above-mentioned letter of June 27 he identifies himself fully and entirely with the Augustana and demands that Melanchthon, too, consider it an expression of his own faith, and not merely of ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... larn us nothin' and iffen you did larn to write, you better keep it to yourse'f, 'cause some slaves got de thumb or finger cut off for larnin' to write. When de slaves come in from de fields dey didn't larn nothin', they jus' go to bed, 'lessen de moonshine nights come and dey could work in de tobacco patch. De marster give each one de little tobacco patch and iffen he raised more'n he could use he ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... this deep-set sentiment did not lessen. It grew even stronger, and in exile it became a passion. It is illustrated by the songs of deep regret and affection Columba made in Iona, from whose rocky shores he looked day after day towards the west while the mists rose over ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... air-tight houses. But in our latitude, comfort requires that rooms which are to be occupied by children in the winter season, be made very close. The dimensions of rooms are, moreover, frequently narrowed, that the warm breath may lessen the amount of fuel necessary to preserve a comfortable temperature. It is true, on the other hand, that the quantity of air which children breathe is somewhat less than I have estimated. But the derangement resulting from breathing impure air, in their case, is greater than in the case of ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... commonly met with than the former, and so consequently strikes us less. Add to this, that there may a Suspicion arise, that the Passion of Love in a direct Manner may be more sensual than in those Branches which I have mention'd; which Suspicion is sufficient to take from its Dignity, and lessen our Veneration for it. Of all Shakespeare's Tragedies, none can surpass this, as to the noble Passions which it naturally raises in us. That the Reader may see what our Poet had to work upon, I shall insert the Plan ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... have the heart to be happy when one sees so much suffering? There can only be happiness in trying to lessen it and ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... grudgingly—a lightweight like Kyla ran less risk on an acrobat's bridge than in that kind of roaring current. That did not lessen my annoyance; and Regis Hastur's interference, and the foolish grin on the girl's face, made ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... stopped suddenly in front of the chestnut-tree, amazed at what he saw beneath it. His mild eyes gazed blankly at Charles through his spectacles, gathering a pained expression as they peered over the top of them, which did not lessen when they fell ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... de man, an' Uncle Sam done got de pistol pinted his way, an' goin' to pull de trigger, lessen Bill gits off his perch, like dat woman Jezebel dat sassed ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... to Caesar he sought for no other reward than Caesar's friendship, and his services to him brought with them their own return. Indeed, through his friend he suffered loss, for one of Caesar's laws robbed him of a part of his estate, as he tells us, but this experience did not lessen his affection. How different his attitude was from that of others who professed a friendship for Caesar! Some of them turned upon their leader and plotted against his life, when disappointed in the favors which they had received at his hands, ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... not take our lesson from the legend of the robin that plucked a thorn from the Savior's brow, and thus sought to lessen his pain, rather than from the story of the disciples, who slept and failed to give the help which the Lord sought from their love? Thus can we strengthen those whose burdens are heavy, and whose ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... that gave her a new insight into Ditmar, reverently he took the picture from her hand and placed it back in the drawer. She was stirred, almost to tears, and moved away from him a little, as though to lessen by distance the sudden attraction he had begun to exert: yet she lingered, half leaning, half sitting on the corner of the big desk, her head bent toward him, her eyes filled with light. She was wondering ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... before this Committee cast considerable light upon her doings, and the principles upon which she acted. There is no exaggeration, no braggadocio, no flourish of philanthropy,—simply a straightforward story of quiet but persistent endeavors to lessen the human misery within the walls of the prison at Newgate; for, hitherto, her efforts had been confined ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... this man would subsidise him as an interesting struggler. The only character in which he could expect it would be that of Francie's accepted suitor, and then the liberality would have Francie and not himself for its object. This reasoning naturally didn't lessen his impatience to take on the happy character, so that his love of his profession and his appreciation of the girl at his side now ached together in his breast with the same disappointment. She saw that her words had touched him like a lash; they made him for ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... symptoms being observed by Mrs Nickleby, were at once set down by that acute lady as being caused and occasioned by violent love. But, although she was in no small degree delighted by this discovery, which reflected so much credit on her own quickness of perception, it did not lessen her motherly anxiety in Kate's behalf; and accordingly, with a vast quantity of trepidation, she quitted her own box to hasten into that of Mrs Wititterly. Mrs Wititterly, keenly alive to the glory of having a lord and a baronet among her visiting acquaintance, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... up smoking hot, they were so good that Joe forgot his damaged ear, and Harry recovered his spirits. After a course of fish and bread, a can of peaches was opened for dessert, and then followed a good long rest. By three o'clock the heat began to lessen, and the Whitewing started on her way with a better breeze than she ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... them worth twice as much, for butter and milk, as they are now. Always milk as quickly as possible, and without stopping, after you commence, and as nearly as possible at the same hour of the day. Leaving a teacupful, or even half that quantity, in milking each cow, will very materially lessen the products of the dairy, and seriously injure the cows for future use. Great milkers will yield considerable more by having it drawn three times per day. The quantity of milk given by a cow will never injure her, provided she be well fed. As it takes food to make meat, so it does also to make ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... to ease the hawser as much as possible, Captain Barrington, when he had noted the drop of the barometer, had ordered a "bridle," or rope attachment, placed on the end of the cable, so as to give it elasticity and lessen the effect of sudden strains, but the mountainous seas that pounded against the blunt bows of the Southern Cross were proving the stout steel strand to ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... joined the World Trade Organization in February 1999. Preparing for EU membership continues as a top foreign policy goal. The current account and internal government deficits remain major concerns, but the government's efforts to increase efficiency in revenue collection may lessen the budget deficit. ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... done de overseein' at his place hisself, and he never had no hired overseer. Nobody never got a lickin' on our plantation lessen dey needed it bad, but when Marster did whup 'em dey knowed dey had been whupped. Dere warn't no fussin' and fightin' on our place and us all knowed better'n to take what didn't b'long to us, 'cause Old Marster sho' did git atter Niggers what stole. If one Nigger did kill another ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... foes we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of ...
— Inaugural Presidential Address - Contributed Transcripts • Barack Hussein Obama
... artificial sleep does more harm to a delicately poised brain, than insomnia. However, opinions differ. But there is no question that your experiment of to-night must not be repeated. I have given him stuff to take during his homeward journey which will tend to calm him, lessen the fever, and clear his mind. ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... ample scope, while the sufferings of my father's household were intensified. I am not naturally cruel—far from it. They little knew how much pain their sufferings caused me; how earnestly I endeavoured to lessen or neutralise the nuisances which the pursuit of science entailed. But I could not consume my own smoke, or prevent explosions, or convert bad and suffocating odours ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... describe a regular tour through this country, taking the different scenes in the most favourable order; but after some progress had been made in the work it was abandoned from a conviction, that, if well executed, it would lessen the pleasure of the Traveller by anticipation, and, if the contrary, it would mislead him. The Reader may not, however, be displeased with the following extract from a letter to a Friend, giving an account of a visit to a summit of one of the highest ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... destroyed her own character, and he would not, by a vain attempt to restore what never would be restored, be affording his sanction to vice, or in seeking to lessen its disgrace, be anywise accessory to introducing such misery in another man's family, as ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... confusion. Sid and Ida came in for a number of rather angry glances, for the mishap seemed to be due entirely to their thoughtless conduct, and that their runabout had been the most damaged did not appear to lessen their offense. ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... right which their relative situations admitted; but farther than that he would not go. Maria had destroyed her own character; and he would not, by a vain attempt to restore what never could be restored, be affording his sanction to vice, or, in seeking to lessen its disgrace, be anywise accessory to introducing such misery in another man's family as he had ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... liquidate all the debts now existing on chapels, without any increased exertions on the part of the friends. The plan, if entered into, which I humbly trust it will be, will do away entirely with begging cases, will not require the minister to leave his church, will lessen the calls on his people, will enable them to raise their ministers' incomes, and eventually confer much happiness on the churches, and relieve them from pressing difficulties; whereas the systems now adopted are very inefficient, ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... keep moving," Stephan explained. "Of course, it might be possible for us to join forces, but then we should greatly lessen our effectiveness." ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... serene over the result. As the Lord sent upon us an ass in the shape of a preacher, and a rainstorm, to lessen our vote in New York, I am disposed to feel resigned to the dispensation of defeat, which flowed ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... rush of tears blinded her; she drew her breath hard. What if she were to go to Father Honore and tell him something of her trouble? Would it help? Would it ease the intolerable pain at her heart, lessen ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... hear it, sir; and please clear your mind of the idea that you have ceased to be welcome. Your presence and that of Miss Fregelius will lessen, not increase, my trouble. I should be lonely in this great place with no company but that of my ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... She honours the fair Boon with fair adorning, And graces that bespeak a gracious breeding, Can gracious Nature lessen Nature's Graces? If taught by both she betters both and honours Fair gifts with fair adorning, know you not There is a beauty that resides within;— A fine and delicate spirit of womanhood ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the earth which might interfere with the intercommunication of light, would lessen the brilliancy of the light, at the earth-extremity of the cone-space; and the deficiency thus produced would disclose to an observer at the earth all the appearances of a spot upon the surface of the sun. The so-called spot, thus produced, might therefore not ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation Impunity pass with us for justice It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists Lessen the just value of things that I possess License of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs Lose what I have a particular care to lock safe up Loses more by defending his vineyard than if he gave ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... another. But James found the kingdom in great confusion from misgovernment, and the common people very much oppressed. He bravely set himself to reform matters, trying to relieve and protect the poor, and restrain and humble the rich and powerful. His most difficult labor was to lessen the power of the great nobles, who were in fact almost kings themselves, on their own estates, and fought against each other, and even against the king, upon the slightest provocation, and often without any. They rebelled against ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... still lingered. He was no longer Erik Dorn, man of words and mirror of nothings. He had said he loved her. Avoiding, of course, the direct remark. But he had indicated it rather definitely. It would undoubtedly lessen him to her, make him human. She had admired him because he was different. Now he was like everybody else saying an "I love you" to a woman. Perhaps he should unsay it. Again, a dreamy laugh. But it ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... rolled away, he ascended to the top of the tower, where he saw them lessen to spots on the road, and turn the corner out of sight. The chances of a rival seemed to grow in proportion as Paula receded from his side; but he could not have answered why. He had bidden her and her relatives adieu on her own doorstep, like a privileged ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Letters and Early Spring in Massachusetts, have been given to the public since his death, which happened in 1862. No one has lived so close to nature, and written of it so intimately, as Thoreau. His life was a lesson in economy and a sermon on Emerson's text, "Lessen your denominator." He wished to reduce existence ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... him with fit suggestions from which to fill up the moral being of the Ionian slave. Were the character of Myrrha scanned with this reference, while nothing could be discovered to detract from the value of the composition, a great deal would be found to lessen the merit of the poet's invention. He had with him the very being in person whom he has depicted in the drama, of dispositions and endowments greatly similar, and in circumstances in which she could not but feel as Myrrha is supposed ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... to the lower part of the large flap on the near side. This will leave the small flap on the near side loose, as in a man's saddle, and will allow liberty for the use of the spring bar. It will also lessen the friction against the habit and leg, by rendering the side of the saddle perfectly smooth, except the stirrup-leather. To lessen the friction from that I recommend a single thin strap, as broad as ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... I can see if the captain is ignorant or obstinate, and consequently likely to endanger me. I should then leave the coachman or captain, escape from those horses or that ship. I do not deny chance, I only lessen it, and instead of incurring a hundred chances, like the rest of the world, I prevent ninety-nine of them, and endeavor to guard against the hundredth. This is the good of having lived three ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... much to be said in favor of the President's point of view. Unquestionably the American people as a whole supported him in the belief that there ought to be some international agreement, association, or concord which would lessen the possibility of future wars. An international organization to remove in a measure the immediate causes of war, to provide means for the peaceable settlement of disputes between nations, and to draw the ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... relief. Thus impulses, feelings, and dispositions have been implanted in our nature, for the purpose of preventing and rectifying the evils of life. And as these have operated, so as to stimulate some men to lessen them by the exercise of an amiable charity, so they have operated to stimulate others in various other ways to the same end. Hence the philosopher has left moral precepts behind him in favour of benevolence, and the legislator ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... watching, death is inevitable. As to this the doctor has very mingled feelings. Sometimes he lacks courage, sometimes he is not sure enough to speak. A weak man fears that he will lose his patient and some quack be called in, and thus lessen the little chance yet left. Most of us can recall painful interviews in which a relative insisted on a definite opinion, which we were unable to give. As to cases where there is little or no doubt left, perfect frankness should be, and is, I think, our rule, but no one knows better, or as well ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... Court has been an invariable supporter of the Federal Constitution. During the early years of our government it was our firmest barrier against the efforts of the States to lessen the federal power. It has always maintained the balance of power between the ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... neighbourhood, enlarged upon the great expense they had incurred in erecting and supporting iron-works, by means of which great numbers of his majesty's subjects were comfortably supported. They expressed their apprehension, that should the bill pass into a law, it could not in any degree lessen the consumption of Swedish iron, which was used for purposes which neither the American nor British iron would answer; but that the proposed encouragement, considering the plenty and cheapness of wood in America, would enable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... that one hears another calmly assert that he is so-and-so or so-and-so, and in his next action, or next hundred actions, sees that same assertion entirely contradicted. Daily familiarity with the manifestations of mistaken brain-impressions does not lessen one's surprise at this curious personal contradiction; it gives one an increasing desire to look to one's self, and see how far these private theatricals extend in one's own case, and to throw off the disguise, as far as it is seen, with a full acknowledgment that there may be—probably ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... this cruel jest was not calculated to enhance her charms, and tried to lessen its effect. "Come, Timea," she said; "I only waited for you. Come and put ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... first, for Randolph to pick up his old life again; but his habitual earnestness and singleness of purpose stood him in good stead, and a vague rumor that he had made some powerful friends abroad, with the nearer fact that he had a letter of credit for a thousand pounds, did not lessen his reputation. He was reinstalled and advanced at the bank. Mr. Dingwall was exceptionally gracious, and minute in his inquiries regarding Miss Eversleigh's succession to the Dornton property, with an occasional shrewdness of eye in his interrogations which recalled to Randolph ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of the first day, reassuring as it had been to her, did not lessen the anxiety. Yet never before had they seemed to be bound together by such ties as knitted their very souls in this crisis. She tried with a devotion that was touching to impart to him some of her own strength ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... which hinge them to the lock-wall. Along the top of each lock-wall there runs an electric railway; four small electric locomotives will be coupled to a vessel as it enters the lock approach, and will tow it to its place. The vessel will not use its own steam. This will lessen the risk of its getting out of hand and ramming the lock-gate, an accident which has occurred on the big locks that connect Lake Superior with Lake Huron. So catastrophic would be such a mishap, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... failing in a difficult mission which the cardinal has entrusted me with this morning. I am compelled to conceal how little confidence I feel in myself in order not to lessen the good opinion his eminence is pleased to entertain ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... are carried away by the current of their own lives, you would realize from this one little thing how warmly they loved the lonely old father, who only lived in and for them—never a week passed without a letter from one of the boys. But then he on his side had never been weakly indulgent, to lessen their respect for him; nor unjustly severe, to thwart their affection; or apt to grudge sacrifices, the thing that estranges children's hearts. He had been more than a father; he had been a brother ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... still unknown captains, the latter, usually measured and formal in his language, wrote to him in these singularly strong words: "My regard for you, my dear Nelson, my respect and veneration for your character, I hope and believe, will never lessen." So, some years afterwards, but before he became renowned or had wrought his more brilliant achievements, an envious brother captain said to him, "You did just as you pleased in Lord Hood's time, the same ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... brought in. Mr. Perekatov made his dog jump several times over a stick, and then explained he had taught it everything himself, while the dog wagged its tail deferentially, licked itself and blinked. When at last the great heat began to lessen, and an evening breeze blew up, the whole family went out for a walk in the birch copse. Fyodor Fedoritch was continually glancing at Masha, as though giving her to understand that he would carry out her behests; Masha felt at once vexed with herself, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... discussions; his conceit made him impatient of its control; while the foreign traditions which he had brought with him from a foreign land saw in the great nobles who composed it nothing but a possible force which might overawe the Crown. One of his chief aims therefore had been to lessen the influence of the Council. So long as Cecil lived this was impossible, for the practical as well as the conservative temper of Cecil would have shrunk from so violent a change. But he was no sooner dead than James hastened to carry out his plans. The lords of the Council ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... has a tendency in all minds to lessen or destroy the power of those dictates of conscience which are honourable to us as moral agents; and it will counteract, so far as it goes, the salutary influence of those scriptural truths which still retain their hold upon the judgment ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... had sickened of the fell disease which so soon carried him off. He always declared that her tenderness to his wife and daughter at that time had been beyond all price, and it seemed as though his sense of obligation and gratitude did not lessen with time. ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the scenes, and to hear the conversation engaged in in the green-room. We expect to see some dirt, some grease-pots, stained ropes, and unpainted pulleys,—and, to tell the truth, we want to see these blemishes. They are encouraging. They lessen the distance between us and it by teaching us that even fairy-land knows no exemption from those imperfections which blur our ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... I was walking the previous day. They were only put on the day before. I happened to mention to a bootmaker at Durrington that my left heel had become jarred with walking. He recommended me to try rubber heels to lessen the strain, and he put them on for me. I had never worn them before, and found them very uncomfortable when I was walking along the marshes. They seemed to hold and stick in the ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... have ordered the locks to be broken that you may expel the inhabitants, and replace them with persons favorable to your own interests. If you propose to act thus against justice and mercy, you injure me, your chancellor, and lessen your own honor. I exhort you, therefore, to restore me the city which you have unjustly taken, and relieve the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... calmly all their drapery, but none of the savage desolation of the pyre in the Court of Honor. Beyond where the gracious pile of the Art Building stretched across the horizon the light clouds of smoke floated, a gray wreath in the night. The seething mass of flame began to abate, to lessen almost imperceptibly, exhausting itself slowly with deep groans like the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... whether his last affray with his persecutors was likely to lessen or increase their hostility, Jack Carleton gradually advanced from the lodge until he was close to the group playing on the large cleared space, while those by the river were much nearer his refuge ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... replied that, granting the whole protest, nothing in it lessened the force, or could lessen the force, of the voluntary and public exoneration of his partner. He therefore, once and for all, requested Mr Rugg's immediate aid in getting the business despatched. Upon that, Mr Rugg fell to work; and Arthur, retaining no property to himself ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... of the bourgeois relations of production,—an abolition that can be effected only by a revolution—but administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labor, but, at the best, lessen the cost and simplify the administrative work ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... that she was at home on Tuesdays from three to six, and implied that she was not at home on any other day. Mrs. Winstanley felt her dignity enhanced by this arrangement, and the Captain hoped thereby to put a stop to a good deal of twaddling talk, and to lessen the consumption of five-shilling tea, ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... is regarded as of still greater importance in facilitating the production of those staples, particularly Cotton, which now are supplied to the world chiefly by Slave Labor. The effect of this would be to lessen the profits of Slavery, to render in time the slave a burden to his owner, and thus furnish an irresistible motive to Emancipation. Africa possesses resources which, properly developed, must doubtless render her eventually a great, if not the greatest, producer of all the products of Slave Labor. ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... not killed the prophet also. 'Now if Voltaire had helped me to feel that,' said he, 'I could have seen some fun in it.' He loved the comedy which shows a hero human, and yet leaves him a hero, and the laughter which does not lessen love. ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into the United States for immoral purposes. In other words, the federal authorities are now restricted to cases where they are able to prove that the defendant imported the girl prior to the time she was found in his house of prostitution. This will very materially lessen the number of federal prosecutions, as it is extremely difficult in the vast majority of cases to show that the person in whose house the alien was found was in every instance responsible for her importation. It is to be hoped that Congress during its ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... each other. They had reached a spiritual nearness, a passion of surrender each to each, which touch of hand or lip could only at that moment have served to lessen. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... large proportion had the taste and the talent for art. When the Christians peopled the Catacombs the artist was here too, and his art was not unemployed. In these chapels, which to the population here were like what public squares are to the inhabitants of a city, every effort was made to lessen the surrounding cheerlessness. So the walls were in some places covered over with white stucco, and in others these again were adorned with pictures, not of deified mortals for idolatrous worship, but of those grand old heroes of the truth who in former generations had "through faith subdued ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... displaying the excellence of Milton, I have not made long quotations, because of selecting beauties there had been no end, I shall, in the same general manner, mention that which seems to deserve censure; for what Englishman can take delight in transcribing passages, which, if they lessen the reputation of Milton, diminish, in some degree, the honour ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... attempt at manufacturing any species of cloth in the North American provinces produced a resolution on the part of the House of Commons, [1710,] that "the erecting of manufactories in the colonies had a tendency to lessen their dependence on Great Britain." Soon afterward complaints were made to Parliament that the colonists were establishing manufactories for themselves, and the House of Commons ordered the Board of ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... Bills," without interference from the House of Lords, has been claimed and exercised by the House of Commons for several generations. The public was not slow to take the alarm. To be sure, several causes conspired to lessen somewhat the popular indignation. Among these were the inevitable expenses of the Chinese War, the certainty of an increased income tax, if the bill became a law, and the very small majority which the measure finally received in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... the shadows. The warm, red light that streamed from an uncurtained French window on the ground floor only deepened the uncertainty of everything. The man stepped warily, closing the gate behind him with stealthy care, and crept forward on tiptoe to lessen the sound of the crunching gravel beneath his heavy shoes. It was an undignified entry for an officer of the law who carried his authorization in his hand; but courage was not this man's strong point. His fear was lest he should meet tall, stalwart Dick Swinton, who, on a previous occasion ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... manner, showing that the action was instinctive, and not the result of experience." If, as Mr. Darwin remarks, it is a convenience for the aphides to have the sweet secretion removed, and that "they do not excrete solely for the food of the ants," the observation does not in any degree lessen the curious nature of the relationship which has become established between the ants and their neighbors, or the interesting features in ant life which have ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... feeling the subject to be one which could hardly be discussed between him and Miss Amedroz. He not unnaturally looked to be the heir of his aunt's property, and any provision made out of that property for Clara would so far lessen that which would come to him. For anything that he knew, Mrs Winterfield might leave everything she possessed to her niece. The old lady had not been open and candid to him whom she meant to favour in her will, as she had been ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... arrival in that city, he addressed a letter to the States General: he assured them, that, in procuring his liberty, he had used neither violence nor corruption. He solemnly protested that his public conduct had been blameless, and that the persecution he had suffered would never lessen his attachment to ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... barbarously. Thirdly, every slave family was exposed to the risk, on such occasions as the death or great impoverishment of its owner, of being ruthlessly torn asunder, and the fact that negroes often rebounded or seemed to rebound from sorrows of this sort with surprising levity does not much lessen the horror of it. Fourthly, it is inherent in slavery that its burden should be most felt precisely by the best minds and strongest characters among the slaves. And, though the capacity of the negroes for ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... rushing down the hill sides, but for 350 days out of the 365 they were completely dry. During this time the Staff were not idle. Pamphlets on the attack, written for trench warfare in France, were liberally issued, and preliminary instructions to lessen the contents of the final orders kept arriving daily. One's ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... East or West, however, your problem is more difficult. Only on the equator is a minute of longitude and a nautical mile of the same length. As the meridians of longitude converge toward the poles, the lengths between each lessen. We now have to rely on tables to tell us the number of miles in a degree of longitude at every distance North or South of the equator, i.e., in every latitude. Longitude, then, is reckoned in miles. The number ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us." It was not a delusion, it was a tremendous reality that they were dealing with. The fact that they but dimly conceived it does not lessen ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... never may,—on my account," said Frank. "And what troubles she may have,—as life will be troublesome, I trust that I may share and lessen." ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... them are fully set forth in the reports of the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. After a series of most deplorable conflicts—the successful termination of which, while reflecting honor upon the brave soldiers who accomplished it, can not lessen our regret at their occurrence—we are now at peace with all the Indian tribes within our borders. To preserve that peace by a just and humane policy will be the object of my earnest endeavors. Whatever may be said of their character and savage propensities, ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... Vivian," spoke up her father harshly. "If Miss Castleton desires to speak we will listen to her. I must advise you, Miss Castleton, that the extraordinary disclosures made by my daughter-in-law do not lessen your culpability. We do not insist on this confession from you. You deliver it at your own risk. I want to be fair with you. If Mr. Carroll is your counsel, he may advise you now to refuse to ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... known. But in September, 1836, was published a very remarkable document, which gives the assurance of law to the time and fact of this event, yet still, unless collated with another record, does nothing to lessen the mystery which had previously surrounded its circumstances. This document consists of two parts; the first, and principal, according to the logic of the case, though second according to the arrangement, being ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... ill; it did not deserve the name of sickness. It was only an indisposition, pure and simple,—an abscess in the armpit; that was all. Fagon, the boldest and most audacious of all who ever exercised the art of AEsculapius, decided that, to lessen the running, it was necessary to draw the blood to another quarter. In spite of the opinion of his colleagues, he ordered her to be bled, and all her blood rushed to her heart. In a short time the princess grew worse in an alarming fashion, and in a few ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... bigots," "Ulster deadheads," and assertions made that the opposition only proceeds from a few aristocratic Tory landlords. Hard words do us no harm; but abusive epithets will not lessen Ulster opposition. Indeed the more we are reviled by our opponents, the more we believe they recognize the futility of persuading us ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... us pretty closely how the change is likely to work? I don't want to decry a just indignation; on the contrary, I should like it to be more thorough and general. A wise man, more than two thousand years ago, when he was asked what would most tend to lessen injustice in the world, said, "If every bystander felt as indignant at a wrong as if he himself were the sufferer." Let us cherish such indignation. But the long-growing evils of a great nation are a tangled business, asking for a good deal more than indignation in order to be got rid of. ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... development of man's moral nature. If they succeed in their search—and I think they are sure to succeed—social duty would be raised to a higher level of significance, and the deepening sense of social duty would, it is to be hoped, lessen, if not obliterate, the strife and heart-burnings which now beset and disguise our social life.' I accept with gratification Dr. Tyndall's conclusions: to determine, examine, trace, calculate these social forces which exercise such a ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... most marvellous and beautiful talk with Johnny. They had talked right under his mother's nose, so to speak, and had settled everything. Yes—simply everything! They had told one another that their love was immortal, that nothing could touch it, nor lessen it, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... introduced, she is placed in rather an interesting point of view. But Dryden has himself informed us that he was apprehensive that the justice of a wife's claim would draw the audience to her side, and lessen their interest in the lover and the mistress. He seems accordingly to have studiously lowered the character of the injured Octavia who, in her conduct to her husband, shows much duty and little love." Sir W. Scott (in the same ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... saith, that repentance and remission of sins must go together, but yet remission is sent to the chief, the Jerusalem sinner; nor doth repentance lessen at all the Jerusalem sinner's crimes; it diminisheth none of his sins, nor causes that there should be so much as half an one the fewer; it only puts a stop to the Jerusalem sinner's course, and makes him willing to be saved freely by grace; and for time to come ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... also attended regularly the clinical wards in the hospital. Some of the cases distressed me a good deal, and I still have vivid pictures before me of some of them; but I was not so foolish as to allow this to lessen my attendance. I cannot understand why this part of my medical course did not interest me in a greater degree; for during the summer before coming to Edinburgh I began attending some of the poor people, chiefly children and women in ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... youth and age together meet, And life's divided moments share; This can't advance till that retreat, What's here increas'd, is lessen'd there. ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... he closed by no less an offer than saying he had the King's orders to propose to me the situation either of Chancellor of the Exchequer or Secretary of War,—the latter without a seat in the Cabinet, if I wished to lessen ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... generous themselves are deceived in the uncertain lottery of wedlock, the victim will struggle hard to maintain the delusion; but when the calculations of others are parent to the evil, a natural inducement, that comes of the devil I fear, prompts us to aggravate, instead of striving to lessen, the evil." ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... was getting better control of himself. Each little victory that he won, no matter how much anxiety it had caused, seemed to lessen the effort he had to put forth the next time. And Judd had escaped even the slightest injury. Football was not as rough as it looked and a fellow didn't get hurt every time he fell down. On top of this he was beginning to develop a fighting blood. He ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... broad land broad streams are flowing; in the very heart of the green woods there is cool, silent shade; by the borders of the sea, where the waves break with a low, musical murmur, there is a cooling breeze; but here in London on this bright June afternoon there is nothing to lessen the white, intense heat, and even the flowers exposed for sale in the streets are drooping, the crimson roses look thirsting for dew, the white lilies are fading, the bunches of mignonette give forth a fragrance sweet as the "song of the swan in dying," and the golden sun pours down ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... obscurity. The faint noise of the waves of the lake lapping on the shore beyond the creek, came to us distinctly through the night. John Hart and Nab Walker drew a little aside upon a higher ridge of rocks. As for me, I leaned close to the water to watch the agitation. It did not lessen. On the contrary it became momentarily more evident, and I began to distinguish a sort of regular throbbing, like that produced by a screw ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... They could send a controlled Tatar party to explore the ship, sure. But that wouldn't give them the technical reports they need. No, I think if they knew a wrecked Western Confederation ship was here, it would bring them—or enough of them to lessen the odds. We have to catch them in the open. Otherwise, they can hole up forever in ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... wont later to refer to the early members of the Community as "extinct volcanoes of transcendental nonsense and humbuggery." But no witty sallies of this sort are able to lessen in the popular mind the reverence with which this Brook Farm essay in idealism must ever be held. For this Community, when all is said, remains the most successful and the most interesting failure the world ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... although Valentinian was a man of undisguised ferocity, he nevertheless, at the beginning of his reign, in order to lessen the opinion of his cruelty, took all possible pains to restrain the fierce impetuosity of his disposition. But this defect increasing gradually, from having been checked for some time, presently broke out more unrestrained ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... the grading of the benefit is the desire to make it a more effective agency in attracting and holding members. If continuous membership carries with it constantly increasing insurance, the lapses in membership lessen. ...
— Beneficiary Features of American Trade Unions • James B. Kennedy
... and receive the reward of your judicious choice; you are going to be a great Queen. I hope the throne will not lessen your virtue, nor make you forget yourself. As for you, ladies," said the fairy to Beauty's two sisters, "I know your hearts and all the malice they contain. Become two statues: but under this transformation, still retain your reason. You ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... the system of paying for the fish as they are delivered lessen the curers' profit?-My experience, on the east coast at least, has been, that the free boats are much more independent than the others. The men seem to have a better class of boats, and better material generally, when ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... were profoundly influenced by English mediaeval traditions. That these mediaeval traditions derived ultimately from post-classical rhetoric and that they were for the most part later discarded as less enlightened and less sound than the critical ideas of the Italian Aristotelians does not lessen their importance in the history of English ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... prebends. He has given all the deaneries to foreigners, and cut down the number of resident canons. Why does the pope exercise greater power over the clergy than the emperor over the laity? Lord Jesus! either take away the pope from our midst or lessen the power which he presumes to have over the people." Such lamentations bore no fruit, and the simoniacal nomination of Reynolds was but the first of a series of appointments which robbed the episcopate of dignity and ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... coarctation|; abridgment &c. (shortening) 201; extenuation. subsidence, wane, ebb, decline; ebbing; descent &c. 306; decrement, reflux, depreciation; deterioration &c. 659; anticlimax; mitigation &c. (moderation) 174. V. decrease, diminish, lessen; abridge &c. (shorten) 201; shrink &c. (contract) 195; drop off, fall off, tail off; fall away, waste, wear; wane, ebb, decline; descend &c. 306; subside; melt away, die away; retire into the shade, hide its diminished head, fall to a low ebb, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... a great rage. I looked at my grandmother. Our eyes met. Their angry expression had passed away, but she looked sorrowful and weary—weary of incessant strife. I wondered that it did not lessen her love for me; but if it did she never showed it. She was always kind, always ready to sympathize with my troubles. There might have been peace and contentment in that humble home if it had not been ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... a law was passed that every man over the age of fourteen years, whether native or foreigner, rich or poor, was compelled to dig out and carry to Government depots, four pounds weight of locusts' eggs. It was supposed that this energetic measure would lessen their numbers. Many tons were collected and burnt, but, I assure the reader, no appreciable difference whatever was made in their legions. The young jumpers came, eating all before them, and their numbers seemed ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... above-mentioned idea of a triangle, which is made up of manifest, staring contradictions. That a man who laid so great a stress on clear and determinate ideas should nevertheless talk at this rate seems very surprising. But the wonder will lessen if it be considered that the source whence this opinion flows is the prolific womb which has brought forth innumerable errors and difficulties in all parts of philosophy and in all the sciences: but this matter, taken in its full ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... crime that made her lose your heart, will make me mistress of it? No, if by any action of hers the noble house of the Beralti be dishonour'd, by all the actions of my life it shall receive additions and lustre and glory! Nor will I think Myrtilla's virtue lessen'd for your mistaken opinion of it, and she may be as much in vain pursu'd, perhaps, by the Prince Cesario, as Sylvia shall be by the young Philander: the envying world talks loud, 'tis true; ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... rightly conducted, is a potent power in promoting the well-being of universal man. It is also a highly moral power—for it quickens mind everywhere, and puts in force those principles which tend to lessen human woe, and to exalt and dignify our common humanity. The daily press, for the most part, aims to correct error—whether senatorial, theological, or legal. It pleads in earnest tones for the removal of public wrong, and watches with a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... confederate with oppressors. So far, then, as the action of the church, or of its individual members, is to be reckoned among the events of the last two or three years, the abolitionists find in it nothing to lessen their ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... two galleons, one patache, and one galley—so ill-prepared that the almiranta galleon began to sink in the port. A few days after it had left this bay, it returned to port, because the pumps could not lessen the water, at great risk of the vessel's foundering. Thereupon the effort was made to prepare another ship to supply its lack; but so great unreadiness was found everywhere that that was impossible. In its stead sailed the other galley that had been left behind. Finally, as they did not meet ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... Stock to support it, and his Person was a good promising Security for the payment of any Obligation he could lie under to the Fair Sex. Hippolito, who at this time was our Aurelian, did not at all lessen him in appearing for him: So that although Leonora was indeed mistaken, she could not be said to be much in the wrong. I could find in my Heart to beg the Reader's pardon for this Digression, if I thought he would be sensible of the Civility; for I promise him, ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve |
