"Lighten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... got out. They jacked up the rear wheels of the trailer, then started to unload. By so doing, they had a perfect reason for being there. If a police car came along, they had only to explain that they had broken an axle and were replacing it, and that they had taken out part of their cargo to lighten the load until repairs ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... what shall be. We fold our arms, stand upon the petty and steep cragstone, which alone looms out of the Measureless Sea, and say to ourselves, looking neither backward nor beyond, "Let us bear what is;" and so for the moment the eye can lighten and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... haud by the real hawlit Airshire breed—and I have promised him a cheese; and I wad wuss ye, if Gowans, the brockit cow, has a quey, that she suld suck her fill of milk, as I am given to understand he has none of that breed, and is not scornfu' but will take a thing frae a puir body, that it may lighten their heart of the loading of debt that they awe him. Also his honour the Duke will accept ane of our Dunlop cheeses, and it sall be my faut if a better was ever yearned in Lowden."—[Here follow some observations respecting ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... just now, dear Frank," she continued, "if you could lighten my task. You could do more than that—you could take a load off my heart, ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... privato incommodo publicoque, populo Romano liceret: i. e. that both himself and the Roman people may get over the evil consequences of the jealousy of the gods with as little detriment as possible to either: populi Romani seems preferable here: i. e. "that it might be allowed to lighten that jealousy, by the least possible injury to his own private interest, and to the public interests of the Roman people." There were certainly two persons concerned in the invidia and incommodum here, Camillus himself, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... I marry? In mercy's name, in the form of my brother was I not born? Are wife and child to be given to him, and love to be taken from me with scorn? It is not for them that I plead, for theirs are the only voices that break my sorrow, That lighten my pathway, make me pause 'twixt the sad to-day and grim to-morrow. The Sun and the Sea are not given to me, nor joys like yours as you flit together Away to the woods and the downs, and across the endless acres of purple heather. But I've ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... not only of things that seem evil, but of those that have the appearance of good. For we either inquire into the nature of the thing, of what description, and magnitude, and importance it is—as sometimes with regard to poverty, the burden of which we may lighten when by our disputations we show how few things nature requires, and of what a trifling kind they are—or, without any subtle arguing, we refer them to examples, as here we instance a Socrates, there a Diogenes, and then again ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Success, whenever they saw them in motion. At eleven in the forenoon of the 30th they carried out the remains of their best bower-cable, with two lower-deck guns, which they dropped right a-head in five fathoms water. They now cleared the hold, ready to start their water to lighten the ship; got their upper and lower-deck guns forwards, to bring her by the head as she hung abaft on the rocks, and kept two guns constantly firing from the stern-ports at the enemy's battery, but could not get them to bear. During the last twenty-four hours they had fortunately only ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... breast. O'er our chill limbs the thrilling terrors creep, Th' entranc'd passions still their vigils keep; Whilst the deep sighs, responsive to the song, Sound through the silence of the trembling throng. But purer raptures lighten'd from thy face, And spread o'er all thy form a holier grace; When from the daughter's breast the father drew The life he gave, and mix'd the big tear's dew. Nor was it thine th' heroic strain to roll, With mimic ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... scarcely reached my berth a-head, mistress, when a heavy sea struck us on the starboard quarter, almost throwing us on our beam-ends. I could hear the rushing of the coals below, as they settled on the larboard side; and though the master set us full before the wind, and gave instant orders to lighten every stitch of sail,—and it was but little sail we had at the time to lighten,—still the vessel did not rise, but lay unmanageable as a log, with her gunwale in the water. On we drifted, however, along the south coast, with little expectation save that every sea would ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... know to be blasphemy, as I shall prove clearly anon, as also I have already. And therefore, to take thee of from this, I shall say, that Christ as he is a mediator, a Man between God and man, so he doth not lighten every man that comes into the world, though as he is God he doth. And this is manifest, where he often, (as he was Man) saith, These things are spoken to them that are without in parables; "that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand," (Luke 8:10). And again, where ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the Congress: In these anxious times of rapid and stupendous change it will in some degree lighten my sense of responsibility to perform in person the duty of communicating to you some of the larger circumstances of the situation with which it is ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... to lighten the boy's heart he opened a box and took out a mouth-organ. He held it so the light sparkled on its shiny side. Then he put his pipe in his pocket and began to dance and play lively music. Step and tune quickened. The bulky figure was flying up and down above a great clatter of big boots, ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... forth—the cruiser, the British cruiser, gives chace—and then begin those scenes of horror, surpassing all that the poet ever conceived, whose theme was the torments of the damned and the wickedness of the fiends. Casks are filled with the slave, and in these they are stowed away; or to lighten the vessel, they are flung overboard by the score; sometimes they are flung overboard in casks, that the chasing ship may be detained by endeavours to pick them up; the dying and the dead strew the ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... separately than that neither should survey any of it. If both feel that in any real sense that is "their district," then they ought both to survey it all; for to call a district mine which I have not even surveyed and do not know even by sight is absurd; but it would lighten their labour and help their mutual understanding if they ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... necessary, though she had toiled always with the manner of a lady. Even to-day it was a part of her triumph that this dignity was so vital a factor in her life that there was none of her husband's laughter at circumstances to lighten her burden. To her the daily struggle of keeping an open house on starvation fare was not a pathetic comedy, as with Gabriel, but a desperately smiling tragedy. What to Gabriel had been merely the discomfort of being poor when everybody you respected ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... laughter, declared that he had shown more presence of mind during the emergency than any of us; for, brandishing his whisky flask, he declared that while his horse was in the flurry it occurred to him that the best thing he could do was to lighten the load, and he had therefore, with incredible presence of mind, drunk up all ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... grief at the death of his mother was great, but it was nothing compared to that of the King, his father, who was quite inconsolable for the loss of his dear wife. Neither time nor reason seemed to lighten his sorrow, and the sight of all the familiar faces and things about him only served to remind ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... difficulties in seeing why it should. The parish in which I live makes me pay my share for the paving and lighting of a great many streets that I never pass through; [230] and I might plead that I am robbed to smooth the way and lighten the darkness of other people. But I am afraid the parochial authorities would not let me off on this plea; and I must confess I do not see ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... humble lot; no honour must seem to high for her to strive for; she must go with me gladly a-viking; war-weed must she wear; she must egg me on to strife, and never wink her eyes where sword-blades lighten; for if she be faint-hearted, scant honour will befall me." Is it not ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
... she moves over the combs, smooth and brush her beautiful plumes, offer her food from time to time, and in short do all that they possibly can to make her perfectly happy; while too often children treat their mothers with irreverence or neglect, and instead of striving with loving zeal to lighten their labors and save their steps, they treat them more as though they were servants hired only to wait upon every whim ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... Anklebone hid himself amid the thickest briars and thorns, and the King was so determined to have the tiny piper, that he did not care for scratches. At last the King was successful, but no sooner did he take hold of Little Anklebone than the clouds above began to thunder and lighten horribly, and from below came the lowing of many does, and louder than all came the voice of the little piper ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... it of the fact that a young lady visitor is stopping at So-and-so's. The district incontinently throws itself at her feet, and worships Beauty in her person. Each of the few married ladies round invites the stranger to come and stop with her, after a bit, and to lighten her heavy load of solitude, and her craving for a companion of her own sex. And Miss Ada finds it impossible to refuse these invitations; and so the district entraps her, and keeps ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... win Clarissa from her sad thoughts, and with the common masculine idea, that a little superficial liveliness of this kind can lighten the load of a ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... their reasonable welfare. A deputation went to Holland to tell the directors that they could neither farm nor trade with profit unless the burdens were lightened; the directors thought otherwise, and the consequence was that devices were practiced to lighten them illicitly. This added to the interest of life, but subverted the welfare of the state. Where political rights are not secured to all men by constitutional right, those who are unable to get them by privilege, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... had a huge camp-fire tended by the Bishop's numerous children. Near by was a smaller fire over which the good man's four wives, able-bodied, glowing, and cordial, cooked the supper. In little ways they sought to lighten his sorrow or to put his mind away from it. To this end the Bishop contributed by pouring him drink from a ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... hours of gladsome mirth, Round some warm and welcome hearth, In the halls of keen debate, And the pomp and pride of state, Cheer his spirit with love's beams Lighten up his midnight dreams; In his wanderings free and wild, Father, ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... half-hour's self-examination with her face in the pillow Esther began to wonder if she had not been foolishly apprehensive and whether it were not possible that half her fears were bogies. The weight began to lighten, she breathed more freely. Looking over the rim of the sheltering pillow the ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... task is the resumption of our onward, normal way. Reconstruction, readjustment, restoration all these must follow. I would like to hasten them. If it will lighten the spirit and add to the resolution with which we take up the task, let me repeat for our Nation, we shall give no people just cause to make war upon us; we hold no national prejudices; we entertain no spirit of revenge; we do not hate; we do not covet; ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... fire is so much duller to him than to a woman." And always, when Nancy reached this point in her meditations—trying, with predetermined sympathy, to see everything as Godfrey saw it—there came a renewal of self-questioning. Had she done everything in her power to lighten Godfrey's privation? Had she really been right in the resistance which had cost her so much pain six years ago, and again four years ago—the resistance to her husband's wish that they should adopt a child? Adoption was more remote from the ideas and habits ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... the present comfort and pleasure of his friends, but of their highest and best good. Too often human friendship in its most generous and lavish kindness is really most unkind. It thinks that its first duty is to give relief from pain, to lighten burdens, to alleviate hardship, to smoothe the rough path. Too often serious hurt is done by this over-tenderness ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... Most gladly would I enter upon the task, did it promise even a small return. How happy would it make me if I could lighten, by my own labour, the burdens that press so ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... gaining upon us by having one pump constantly going. As there were only four of us, this was severe labour; but we endeavoured to keep up our spirits, and looked anxiously for daybreak, when we hoped to lighten the brig ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... in the context, and affirmed by Matthew, it is he that should bring light to the Gentiles. There is only one who is himself "a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel." (Luke ii. 32.) He said of himself: "I am the light of the world." ...
— The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism • S. E. Wishard
... slender, muscular legs that marked the Asian stock of their mounts. Iddilcar had provided well for all emergencies; but Sergius felt some anxiety lest a chance glimpse of his face might lead to detection. The sky in the east was already beginning to lighten, and there were more men of the escort than he had anticipated. Speech would be fatal; therefore he strode quickly out, took the bridle of one of the horses from the man who held it, and swung himself ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... they were at the top of the mountain, there was nothing to be seen. But soon the sky in the east began to lighten and grow pink, then the fog that lay below them began to melt away, and, as the sun rose, they saw the full wonder of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... altogether false. She had fallen from a dizzy height, but she had found something of rest and security in the valley below. And as prisoners cut off from all the larger interests of their lives pet the plants and creatures which chance to lighten their captivity, so did Sissy begin to take pleasure in little gayeties for which she had not cared in old days. She could sleep now at night without apprehension, and she woke refreshed. There was a great blank in her existence where the thunderbolt fell, but the cloud which hung so blackly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... progress, to pass over a word, a line, or even more lines than one. As has been explained before, the eye readily moves from one ending to a similar ending with a surprising tendency to pursue the course which would lighten labour instead of increasing it. The cumulative result of such abridgement by omission on the part of successive scribes may be easily imagined, and in fact is just what is presented in Codex B[263]. Besides these considerations, the passages which are omitted, ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... the Irish peasantry. Of the first of these combinations in the southern counties, a cotemporary writer gives the following account: "Some landlords in Munster," he says, "have let their lands to cotters far above their value, and, to lighten their burden, allowed commonange to their tenants by way of recompense: afterwards, in despite of all equity, contrary to all compacts, the landlords enclosed these commons, and precluded their unhappy tenants ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... manure is not obtainable, substitute bonemeal. Use the fine meal, in the proportion of a pound to each yard square of surface. More, if the soil happens to be a poor one. If the soil is heavy with clay, add sand enough to lighten ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... firm of ship repairers on the Islands. The most Mr. Fordyce could do for us was to find workmen, and a schooner to take part of our cargo and lighten us sufficiently to get at the leaky rivets. Old Jock had to set up as a master shipwright and superintend the repairs himself. And who better? Had he not set Houston's leg as straight as a Gilmorehill ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... the instructions of dreams, wherein often we see ourselves in masquerade,—the droll disguises only magnifying and enhancing a real element and forcing it on our distinct notice,—we shall catch many hints that will broaden and lighten into knowledge of the secret of nature. All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light; ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... I said, "as thy father in the flesh and in the spirit, Yasha, what aileth thee? Do not kill me; explain thyself, lighten thy heart! Can it be that thou hast ruined some Christian soul? If ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... blooming beauty all her own. 'I hoped,' he cried, 'Before your eyes I should have died; But, ah! too deeply I have won your hate; Nor should it be surprising news To me, that you should now refuse To lighten thus my cruel fate. My sire, when I shall be no more, Is charged to lay your feet before The heritage your heart neglected. With this my pasturage shall be connected, My trusty dog, and all that he protected; And, of my goods ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... the first attempt; we even essayed a dreaded ford before we outspanned. But we did not win our stake. Not till we had knocked under, and outspanned once more did we struggle through. The lady of the wagon waded barefoot to lighten it, she even helped to coax a wheel up the further bank. At last we were saved from relapse. But that night our travelers' joy flickered and faded. We stuck grimly at a crossing; stuck at a mean little stream; there we found odds against us, both rocks ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... a child's face lighten again On the twilight of older faces; Till a child's voice fall as the dew On furrows with heat parched through And all but hopeless of grain, ...
— A Dark Month - From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... instincts rebel, we may truthfully teach her that there is no antagonism between her body and her brain, and that, for the good of the race, she ought systematically to develop both, we remove all stumbling blocks from her way, we lighten her burdens, we make her brave to endure, because our teachings correspond with all her preconceived ideas of justice ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... had but just left her, and now returned to her side. What greater proof of love could she have? The favouritism of the Go-Tayu found favour for her lover's presence. Seated together she soon noticed his gloom, which all her efforts failed to lighten. Somewhat nettled she showed displeasure, charged him with the fickleness of satiation. Then he took her hands, and told her that this was the final interview. His dissipated life, the discovery of their relations, had so angered his father that under sentence ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... to feel that I could call upon you for help. I began to relax. Something whispered to me that I was no longer utterly alone. Oh, you will never know what it is to have your heart lighten as mine—But I must control myself. We are ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... towers he came, And scorned delay, and put all else aside, Thundering in arms, and glorying in his pride. As Athos huge, as Eryx huge he shows, Or huge as Father Apennine, whose side Roars with his nodding oaks, when drifted snows Shine on his joyous crest, and lighten on his brows. ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... going away helped Decherd. By this time he had to lighten cargo somewhere. We don't know about his first relations with Mrs. Ellison, and we don't know just how he got rid of her. Perhaps he didn't quite want to dispense with Mrs. Ellison, since he might ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... could not carry all the hands we needed; so, to lighten her, we put some into the boats and towed them astern. In the dark, one of the boats was capsized; but all in it, except one poor fellow who could not swim, were picked up. His loss threw a gloom over us all, and added to the chagrin ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... is evident that some on board the Danish ships must have recognized us, and that they were anxious to escape rather than fight. They draw so little water that they would not be afraid of the sandbanks off the mouth of the river, seeing that even if they strike them they can jump out, lighten the boats, and push them off; and once well out at sea it is probable that they may get clearer weather, for Siegbert tells me that the fog often lies thick at the mouths of these rivers when it is clear enough in the ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... take up; and now that he is fainting under it, be Thou his stay, and do Thou succor him that is tempted! Let his manifold infirmities come between him and Thy judgment; in wrath remember mercy! If his eyes are not opened to all Thy truth, let Thy compassion lighten the darkness that rests upon him, even as it came through the word of thy Son to blind Bartimeus, who sat ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... my dear Annie was, indeed, to me a bitter pang, but 'the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.' In the quiet hours of the night, when there is nothing to lighten the full weight of my grief, I feel as if I should be overwhelmed. I have always counted, if God should spare me a few days after this Civil War has ended, that I should have her with me, but year after year my hopes go out, and ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... it with a simple artificial creation of the understanding, whilst on their part the subject classes cannot help receiving coldly laws that address themselves so little to their personality. At length society, weary of having a burden that the state takes so little trouble to lighten, falls to pieces and is broken up—a destiny that has long since attended most European states. They are dissolved in what may be called a state of moral nature, in which public authority is only one function more, hated and deceived by those who think it necessary, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... sand of the first broad hill, we found the travel easy enough to allay our fears. The two skydsbonder, or postillions, who accompanied us, sat upon our portmanteaus, and were continually jumping off to lighten the ascent of the hills. The descents were achieved at full trotting speed, the horses leaning back, supporting themselves against the weight of the carrioles, and throwing out their feet very firmly, so as to avoid the danger of slipping. ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... semi-circles at every step, or cutting other capers in rhythm to show their fellows and the gallery that the strain of the cotton bales, the grain sacks, the oil barrels and the timbers merely loosen their muscles and lighten their spirits. ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... sight have I had of sister of thine, O maiden unnamed; for thy face is not mortal, nor thy voice of human tone; O goddess assuredly! sister of Phoebus perchance, or one of the nymphs' blood? Be thou gracious, whoso thou art, and lighten this toil of ours; deign to instruct us beneath what skies, on what coast of the world, we are thrown. Driven hither by wind and desolate waves, we wander in a strange land among unknown men. Many a sacrifice shall fall by ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... I'll need something new," I said hurriedly; "I meant to ask your advice. Nothing very costly," I was reluctantly adding. But at that moment an inspiration came to lighten ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... summer unless your land is poor, when a light ploughing in September will do. Either let the land lie fallow every other year or else let spelt follow pulse, vetches or lupine. Repetition of one crop exhausts the ground; rotation will lighten the strain, only the exhausted soil must be copiously dressed with manure or ashes. It often does good to burn the stubble on the ground. Harrow down the clods, level the ridges by cross ploughing, work the land ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that was specially unattractive. It was a sallow, flat face, and the strange eyes did nothing to lighten it. They were dead, lustreless eyes. They had a coldness in them that reminded me of the icicle eyes of the crocodile, and, curiously, I associated that reptile's notions of fair warfare with Leith as I looked at him. That sullen ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... smell was different from this; just so strong, but different, and if my memory sarves me—even wuss. And if 'twas a whale, the gulls'd be swarmin' about un, fillin' the air wi' their cries, but I don't hear a sound. And, as to seein'—well, I wish 'twould come on to lighten a ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... rest had been gravely discussed by the other two partners more than once during the year; but the mere suggestion of it put him into such a tantrum that they let it drop, trusting to a redistribution of the work of the office to lighten somewhat Penn's burden. So all the fashionable divorcees—hitherto Bentnor's specialty—were turned over to the junior partner, as a ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... portrait; but let it be soon, for I embark before sunset. I shall like to remember you. As to Caesar's sufferings, they are so severe, your tender soul would not wish your worst enemy to know such pain. My art has few means of mitigating them, and the immortals are little inclined to lighten the load they have laid on this man. Of the millions who tremble before him, not one prays or offers sacrifice of his own free-will for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... is so gay and light, and this so serious and stately. The cherubs with their garlands are a relaxation, like a smile on a grave face; yet the total effect is rather calm thoughtfulness than sternness. The living statues on the coping help to lighten the structure, and if one steps back along the Riva one sees a brilliant column of white stone—a chimney perhaps—which is another inspiriting touch. In the early morning, with the sun on them, these statues ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... unconscious. Indeed, one callous fellow, who had been using her body as a footstool, said that she must be dead, and had better be thrown overboard, as it would lighten ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... Nothing, nothing, Ritta. Though gold's the standard measure of the world, And seems to lighten everything beside. Yet heap the other passions in the scale, And balance them 'gainst that which gold outweighs— Against this love—and you shall see how light The most supreme of them are in the poise! I speak by book and history; ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... one could not see where danger might be coming from! You might be torn in pieces, carried off, or swallowed up, without even seeing where to strike a blow! Every possible excuse he caught at, eager as a self-lover to lighten his self-contempt. That day he astonished the huntsmen—terrified them with his reckless daring—all to prove to himself ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Indians, which is compared to that of white mulattoes, early attracted the attention of the Jesuit missionaries, and has often been commented on by travellers. While it is true that hybridy has done much to lighten the color of many of the tribes, still the peculiarity of the complexion of this people has been marked since the first time a European encountered them. Almost every shade, from the ash-color of the Menominees through the cinnamon-red, copper, ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... threw each her ingredient on the building itself, and the gray pall began to lighten, a bright, new-painted front shone forth. Inside, the single bulbs blacked out for an instant, and then a soft light showed through curtained windows, a bright new scene ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond
... began to rise, and the collar was finished off with most triumphant success. John watched the change, and, though a lord of creation, abased himself to take compassion on the weaker vessel, and was seized with a great desire to lighten the homely tasks that tried her strength of body and soul. He took a comprehensive glance about the room; then, extracting a dish from he closet, proceeded to imbrue his ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... Commission, that their leading idea is to simplify the system and reduce the number of taxes; to shift them from the producer to the consumer, and thus stimulate the creation of wealth; to diminish charges, and at the same time lighten the weight of the impost as it falls on the consumer. Another leading idea is to transfer a portion of our burdens to the foreign consumers of cotton, and at the same time stimulate our manufactures, and the production of cotton, by a remission of the tax on cloth exported; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... much better to devise more innocent amusements to lighten the miseries of European soldiers in India than to be worrying them every hour, night and day, with duties which are in themselves considered to be of no importance whatever, and imposed merely with a view to prevent their having time to ponder on these miseries.[32] But all extra and useless ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... I knew all about this voyage of Roswell's," she added, aloud; for she was perfectly certain that there was something to be told that, as yet, the deacon had concealed from her. "It might relieve your mind, and lighten your spirits of a burthen, to ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... should be to help the free peoples of the world, through their own efforts, to produce more food, more clothing, more materials for housing, and more mechanical power to lighten their burdens. ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... anchors, sending out both our boates, wherein were many Musketeers, and some English and Dutch Renegadoes, who came aboord home at their Conge, and found three pieces of Ordnance, and foure Murtherers: but they straightway threw them all over-boord to lighten the ship, and so they got her off, being laden with Hides, and Logwood for dying, and presently sent her to Algier, taking nine Turkes, and one English Slave, out of one ship, and six out of the lesse, which we ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... I told you, it is the only thing that will cleanse your heart of bitterness and leave it free for the tenanting of a great and holy love. Next, I think they honestly made every effort to find your mother, and are now growing old in despair you can lighten, and you owe it to them and yourself to do it. Lastly, for my sake. I've tried everything I know, Ruth, and I can't make you love me, or bring you to a realizing sense of it if you do. So before I saw that chest I had planned to harvest my big crop, ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... love, take advantage of His children and, when they give all to Him, lay heavy and grievous burdens on them because He can? Just as you, when your boy yielded, would love him all the more and do all you could to make life pleasant even if there were some hard things in it, so God seeks to lighten the load His consecrated children must bear. To abandon yourself to God is an act of highest intelligence ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... accompanies the expedition," chuckled Jack. "Only remember, if we have to throw out anything to lighten ship, Buttsy goes first—even before we are obliged to dispense with ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... unalloyed happiness; in the next instant she shrank back appalled from the unusual expression that reigned in his countenance. The sternness of battle yet sat on his brow; his eye was fixed and severe. The smile of affection that used to lighten his dark features on meeting his mistress, was supplanted by the lowering look of care; his whole soul seemed to be absorbed in one engrossing emotion, and he proceeded at ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... from Lu, and prospects brightened. A year later Confucius was appointed governor of a town. So great was his success as governor that before long he was promoted to be Superintendent of Works, and then to be Chief Criminal Judge. He won great influence with his master, and did much to lighten the general misery. He so strengthened the power of the duke that neighbouring states grew jealous. To sow dissension between duke and minister the men of Ch'i sent the duke a gift of singing girls. Such joy they gave him that for three days no court was held. On this Confucius ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... sadness, and who instead of yielding to bitter repining would try to make others happier. If he heard of a sorrow or a distress, his thought was no longer how to put it out of his mind as soon as he might, but of how he might lighten it. So his heart grew wider day ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... mental anxieties seem to be for ever torturing every nerve and fibre of his body, and yet with all this exquisite sensitiveness to the suggestions of the mind, he is grossly improvident. I recollect, for instance, that when setting out upon this passage of the Desert my Arabs, in order to lighten the burthen of their camels, were most anxious that we should take with us only two days’ supply of water. They said that by the time that supply was exhausted we should arrive at a spring which would furnish us for the ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... talk seriously of late. That's why I brought you some Nonsense Fish, to lighten your ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... complained; she was quite willing to be all that she had been until such time as Isaac and Dora, Cassie and little John should be old enough to care for themselves, and also to lighten some of her domestic burdens. She had never reckoned upon any other manner of release. In fact her youthful mind was not able to contemplate the possibility of any other manner of change. But the good women of Patsy's neighbourhood were not the ones to let ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... contrary course should be pursued, it may happen that the revenue of 1834 will fall short of the demands upon it, and after reducing the tariff in order to lighten the burdens of the people, and providing for a still further reduction to take effect hereafter, it would be much to be deplored if at the end of another year we should find ourselves obliged to retrace our steps and impose additional ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... is within you a new light, a dream of some great work to be accomplished for your fellow-men, a hope that shall lighten the burdens of the weary and oppressed, take heed how you deal with the most precious blessing of God. All good things are of His giving; and of His giving is the new birth. If you have found the way of sacrifice, the way ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... follow the ruts which the wheels of his waggon had made then, and which would be in all probability deepened by the summer rains. Our means of transport were chiefly carts and trolleys, on which we also put our bedding to lighten the burden of ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... test her sail-carrying powers light as she was, urging that though we should start well down in the water, she would lift as our provisions grew short; and it was desirable to know by experiment beforehand how far we could lighten ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... royally-furnished chamber, pleasantly overlooking the river Eden and the adjoining country, that about a week after the events narrated in the preceding chapter, King Edward reclined. His couch was softly and luxuriously cushioned, and not a little art had been expended in the endeavor to lighten his sufferings, and enable him to rest at ease. The repeated contraction of his countenance, however, betrayed how impotent was even luxury when brought in contact with disease. The richly-furred and wadded crimson velvet robe could not conceal the attenuation of his once ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... to stay at home with? is it more a woman, or a wild cat? alas! it is the face of the wife of his youth, that once smiled upon him. It can smile no longer. What comforts can it share? what burthens can it lighten? Oh, 'tis a fine thing to talk of the humble meal shared together! But what if there be no bread in the cupboard? The innocent prattle of his children takes out the sting of a man's poverty. But the children of the very poor do not prattle. It is none of the least frightful features in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... appears to have been inclined to an opinion like this. It will be long, however, before this question becomes vital in America. Girard College must continue for generations to weigh heavily on Philadelphia, or to lighten its burdens. The conduct of those who have charge of it in its infancy will go far to determine whether it shall be an argument for or against the utility of endowments. Meanwhile, we advise gentlemen who have millions to leave ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... have been provided at too infrequent intervals to affect the general result. The fact is, however, that Coleridge's own theory of his duty as a public instructor was in itself fatal to any hope of his venture proving a commercial success. Even when entreated by Southey to lighten the character of the periodical, he accompanies his admission of the worldly wisdom of the advice with something like a protest against such a departure from the severity of his original plan. His object, as ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... repel. How Gravitation by immortal laws Surrounding matter to a centre draws; 30 How Heat, pervading oceans, airs, and lands, With force uncheck'd the mighty mass expands; And last how born in elemental strife Beam'd the first spark, and lighten'd into Life. ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... provided that my own heart acquitted me, and that I am guilty of no other crime than this accidental one, which fate, and not my own will and trespass, imposes on me. Love allows itself neither to be given nor taken, and when it cannot command fortune, it can at least lighten misfortune. More I cannot tell you, my brother, and what is the use of words? Only depend on what I assure you, I will never be faithless to my honor nor my love. You may think," continued she, proudly and passionately, "that my love is a crime, but never that I could love unworthily, or that I could ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... by work, they never shirked any task, never turned from any drudgery, that could lighten the load of another. Dear hands! how many blood-stained faces they have washed, how many wounds they have bound up, how many eyes they have closed in dying, how many bodies they have sadly yielded to the ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... one of the most singular of the phenomena of the Egyptian desert in front of them, though the ill-treatment of their companion had left them in no humour for the appreciation of its beauty. When the sun had sunk, the horizon had remained of a slaty-violet hue. But now this began to lighten and to brighten until a curious false dawn developed, and it seemed as if a vacillating sun was coming back along the path which it had just abandoned. A rosy pink hung over the west, with beautifully delicate sea-green tints along the ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... downcast looks that you have not recognised the true nature of your responsibility as citizens of time. What is care? impiety. Joy? the whole duty of man. Here is an opportunity of duty it were sinful to forego. With a word, I could lighten your hearts; but I prefer to quicken your heels, and send you forth on your ingenuous errand with happy faces and smiling thoughts, the physicians of your own recovery. Fiddlers, to your catgut! Up, Bertrand, and show them how one foots it in society; forward, girls, and choose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... patriotic clergymen abundant opportunities for sermons. "Does Mr. Wiberd preach against oppression?" anxiously inquired John Adams in a letter to his wife. The answer was decisive. "The clergy of every denomination, not excepting the Episcopalian, thunder and lighten every Sabbath. They pray for Boston and Massachusetts. They thank God most explicitly and fervently for our remarkable successes. They ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... in it after all," he murmured. "But that does not lighten my load here;" and he pressed his ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... "And if this should lighten the toil of men," said Similarity 5-0306, "then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist save in toiling for ...
— Anthem • Ayn Rand
... before wines and spices! precious and costly though they be," said the master; "we must lighten the boat of all, save a little needful food and water; linger not, my children, therein lies our ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... suddenly saw the surface of the sea violently agitated just below us. I immediately seized a large sack of sand, but had not time to throw it over before we were all in the water, gallery and all. In the first moment of fright, we threw into the sea everything that would lighten the balloon—our ballast, all our instruments, a portion of our clothing, our money, and the oars. As, in spite of all this, the balloon did not rise, we threw over our lamp also. After having torn and cut away everything that did not appear ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... widow rose from her sleepless cot; and from that lucky trait in our nature which makes one extreme follow another, she set about her toil with a lighten'd heart. Ellis, the farmer, rose, too, short as the nights were, an hour before day; for his god was gain, and a prime article of his creed was to get as much work as possible from every one around him. In the course of the day Ellis was called upon by young Langton, and never ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Poesy might wake her heav'n-taught lyre, And look through Nature with creative fire; Here, to the wrongs of fate half reconcil'd, Misfortune's lighten'd steps might wander wild; And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds, Find balm to soothe her bitter—rankling wounds: Here heart-struck Grief might heav'nward stretch her scan, And injur'd ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... heavy before they endeavour to shake them off, yet it will by no means follow, that they do not sometimes mistake the cause of their miseries, and impute their burdens to the cruelty of those whose utmost application is employed to lighten them. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... keep your pistols out of the water, and dump the gear in the brush. Rajah will hold her steady while we lighten her a bit, and then we'll drag her in with ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... playfully pretentious language, he told the workingmen the story of how in various foreign countries the people strove to lighten the burden of their lives. The mother loved to listen to his tales, and carried away a strange impression from them. She conceived the shrewdest enemies of the people, those who deceived them most frequently and most cruelly, as little, big-bellied, red-faced ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... Berthelot, would suffice. The best form is such as I have shown in Fig. 1. A concave disk of sheet-brass, made to conform to the shape of the bottom of the cell, with a narrow rim turned up all around, of about 0.02 inch thickness, is liberally perforated with holes to lighten it, and to give free passage to water. The concave form causes the streams of water, produced by slightly raising and lowering the agitator, to take a radial direction downward or upward, so as to cross each other and promote rapid mixing. By a slight modification ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instil faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... the Eternal Light and Sun of Righteousness, come and lighten those that sit in darkness, and in the shadow ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... the various columns impeding each other, taking wrong ways and losing priceless hours while thousands of inexperienced boys, footsore, drenched and shivering yet keen for the fight, ate their five-days' food in one, or threw it away to lighten the march, and toiled on in hunger, mud, cold and rain, without the note of a horn or drum or the distant eye of one blue scout to tell ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... as possible, to lighten the bows; a huge wave broke upon the ledge, and drenched us with spray, but the yawl still grated ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... After sermon he and I walked away down the river side to see what we could see. After a while a light hove round the last bend, then a green light, then the red light, then came the three lights of the steamer! We listened. It was the high-pressure engine of the steam launch which is used to lighten the deep-sea steamers before coming up the narrow river. Fifteen minutes more and she was at the landing stage. A friend went on board. Miss Prankard was on board the Taku, which was still outside the bar, ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... that it grew. For days he cherished his sense of injury and wrong, until it became large and took a good hold upon him. Then, all at once, for no reason that one can give, a change came, and his mind, as if smitten by a gust of wind, began to veer about, to stir and lighten. Why, he suddenly asked himself, was it that Julia would not sell the bulb? Because—the answer was so absurdly simple he wondered it had not occurred to him before—because it was the Van Heigens' present, and one cannot sell presents. He perfectly understood ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... refuge for his own work and his own hobbies, but a centre of light and warmth where all his parishioners might come and find a welcome. He was one of the first to start 'Penny Readings' in his parish, to lighten the monotony of winter evenings with music, poetry, stories, and lectures; and though his parish was so wide and scattered, he tried to rally support for a village reading-room, and kept it alive for ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... Jerseyman did not meet with good fortune. In chasing a Tripolitan vessel which was discovered near the harbor, the "Philadelphia" ran upon a reef, and there stuck fast. Everything was done that could be done to get her off; even the cannon were thrown overboard to lighten her, but it was of no use. She was hard and fast; and when the people of Tripoli found out what had happened, their gunboats came out of the harbor, and the "Philadelphia" was captured, and all on ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... which had been but ashes revived again, a living altar, crowned afresh with flowers, and prophetic of the thank-offerings of harvests. Or it might be that a great discoverer had added a new world to the domain of human happiness, by some invention which should lighten the toils and multiply the innocent satisfactions of mankind. Or had virtue and intelligence won some signal victory over barbarism and ignorance, and blessed with liberty and knowledge regions long abandoned to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... gold. Perhaps she went to Vauxhall with it in her muff, and shook it triumphantly at some middle-aged lady of her acquaintance. Perhaps she lived long enough to see one great novel after another break forth to lighten the darkness of life. She must have looked back on the pompous and lascivious pages of Eliza Haywood, with their long-drawn palpitating intrigues, with positive disgust. The English novel began in 1740, and after that date ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... for a time. "So far as I can judge, Smallways," he said, "the Prince will probably want to throw you overboard—next time he thinks of you. He certainly will if he sees you.... After all, you know, you came als Ballast.... And we shall have to lighten ship extensively pretty soon. Unless I'm mistaken, the Prince will wake up presently and start doing things with tremendous vigour.... I've taken a fancy to you. It's the English strain in me. You're a rum little chap. I shan't like seeing you whizz down the air.... You'd better ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... the rebellious States, and to devote the proceeds of their sale to actual settlers to the payment of the national debt, is worth consideration. Texas alone, on whose public lands our assumption of her indebtedness gives us an equitable claim, would suffice to secure our liabilities and to lighten our taxation, and in all cases of land granted to freedmen no title should vest till a fair price had been paid,—a principle no less essential to their true interests than our own. That these people, who are to be the ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... drew with her pencil four little upright lines on the paper, representing the relative natural weight of the four fingers. "The fifth finger," she said, "figures very little in scale or passage playing. By correct methods of study the pupil learns to lighten the pressure of the stronger fingers and proportionately increase the weight ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... together with John Bampton, Robert Washborne, and Robert Lion, came late on Whitsunday night to Azafi. Having written in my letter, that I would not land till I knew the kings pleasure, I remained on board till their arrival; but I caused some of the goods to be landed to lighten the ship. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... ready, we bid adieu to No Man's Island, and set sail for Honolulu, feeling as if we had been set free from a prison. We were on the way home now, and that was enough to lighten our hearts. We were three weeks getting to Honolulu; and had to remain there two months. We wanted an American ship homeward bound, to take passage on. But as none came, we shipped on board the British ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... that some cruel, cruel wound, Should pierce your Highland laddie, and all your hopes confound!" "The pipe would play a cheering march, the banners round him fly; The spirit of a Highland chief would lighten in his eye; The pipe would play a cheering march, the banners round him fly, And for his king and country dear with ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Frederick, after my own heart, such as you know I should like—neat, young, fairly educated, modest, patient; one with whom I may joke and play, and yet be serious; to whom I may babble and talk, mixing hearty fun and kisses together; one whose presence will lighten my anxiety and soften the tumult ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Wayne and Paul Jones served to lighten the gloom caused by the defeat of General Lincoln in his attempt to recapture Savannah, and by the depressed condition of American finances, which made it difficult to carry on the war. It was the earnest desire ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... peeping at us from his hiding-place behind the screen. The look of amazed perplexity which was on his big red face struck me with such a keen sense of the incongruous that it was all I could do to keep from laughter Apparently the sight of us did nothing to lighten the fog which was in his brain, for he stammered out, in what was possibly intended for ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... the fulness thereof. All this glorious earth, with its trees and its flowers, its sunbeams and its storms, is MINE. I made it—I can do what I will with it. All the mysterious laws by which the light and the heat flow out for ever from God's throne, to lighten the sun, and the moon, and the stars of heaven—they are mine. I am the light of the world—the light of men's bodies as well of their souls; and here is my proof of it. Look at Me. I am He that "decketh Himself with light as it ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... for Carson Chalmers to play the Caliph. But on that night he felt the inefficacy of conventional antidotes to melancholy. Something wanton and egregious, something high-flavored and Arabian, he must have to lighten his mood. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... happiness of the land, owing to the Jubilee of a gert Queen? Coourse we knaw. But't is poor wisdom to talk 'bout the blackness of a cloud to them as be tryin' to find its silver lining. If you caan't lighten trouble, best to ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... fallen into such a condition of things with Mr. Houghton's wife, that were the truth to be known, he would be open to most injurious proceedings. To him the love affair with another man's wife was more embarrassing even than pleasant. Its charm did not suffice to lighten for him the burden of the wickedness. He had certain inklings of complaint in his own mind against his own wife, but he felt that his own hands should be perfectly clean before he could deal with those inklings magisterially and maritally. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... heavy if the hills are specially prepared. When only heavy soil is available, the earth where the seeds are to be planted should be thoroughly pulverized and mixed with fine, well-rotted manure. A sprinkling of leafmold or chip-dirt will help to lighten it. On this hill from ten to fifteen seeds may be sown, thinning to four or five vines when ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... in a regular fix, I cut a stick, and began whittling and whistling, to lighten my sorrows, till at last I perceived at the bank of the river, and five hundred yards ahead, one of those large rafts, constructed pretty much like Noah's ark, in which a Wabash farmer embarks his cargo of women and fleas, pigs and chickens, corn, whisky, rats, sheep, and stolen niggers; ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... all our corn, and made a clear hole of the prize. At 9 P.M. it began to thunder & lighten very hard. Our sloop received great damage from a thunderbolt that struck our mast & shivered it very much, besides tearing a large piece off the hounds. As it fell, it tore up the bitts, broke in the hatch way, and burst through both our sides, starting the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... ready to get along without him, he decided to stay with me. I would not have the Ning-yuean men discharged if they wished to go on with me to Ya-chou and Chengtu, as first arranged but I was sure that by hiring two or three extra coolies, so as to lighten the loads, they could get along; nor did the chairs present any real difficulty. We would walk when the trail was bad, and surely they could be taken empty wherever pack-coolies went. So it proved, ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... sea, and furnished with a cock to open and shut it.—Blowing-off is the act or operation of using the blow-off-pipe to cleanse a marine steam-engine of its brine deposit; also, to clear the boilers of water, to lighten a ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... shake them off. A taste of public life is fatal to most men, and the desire to feed from the public crib goes right to the bone. It is like a cancer, and it is removed only with grave danger to the afflicted. Everything, therefore, which may lighten our burdens and tend to relieve the situation should be the aim and study of our constituents. ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... be shared by the other. So they paused, and, as was in keeping with their characters, Peter took speech in hand, while John stood by assenting. Purposed devotion is well delayed when postponed in order to lighten misery. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... believed that by thus changing the route they would be able to reach their destination more quickly. They also thought that they would find better grazing for their stock. After they had crossed the mesa, the route became more rugged and more precipitous, so, in order to lighten the wagon-loads, one by one many articles ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... closely kindred in signification, and have been often interchanged in usage. But, in strictness, to allay is to lay to rest, quiet or soothe that which is excited; to alleviate, on the other hand, is to lighten a burden. We allay suffering by using means to soothe and tranquilize the sufferer; we alleviate suffering by doing something toward removal of the cause, so that there is less to suffer; where the trouble is wholly or chiefly in the excitement, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... men fell on their packs and began to lighten them, throwing away all that was not necessary, and much that was. Many of them abandoned the new overcoats that had been served out at the railhead; others cut off the skirts and made the coats into ragged jackets. Captain Maxey was horrified at these depredations, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... must sport the while. And sport, Sweet Maid, in season of these years, And learn to gather flowers before they wither; And where the sweetest blossom first appears, Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures thither. Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air, And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise; Pity and smiles do best become the fair; Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise. Make me to say when all my griefs ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... inhabitants, and show them that the conditions of life are not altogether altered. We want them to trust us and to think of us as friends. I am sure you will help us in this. Nothing like good wine and a jovial host to set men's tongues wagging in a friendly fashion, and lighten their hearts of any load of fear ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... There was nothing very dreadful in the disclosure. Carlyle was a much safer acquaintance for the other sex than Robert Burns, whose conversation carried the Duchess of Gordon off her feet, and Mrs. Carlyle's jealousy was not of the ordinary kind. Still, the incident was not one of those which lighten a biographer's responsibility. Froude has himself explained, in a paper not intended for publication, the light in which it appeared to him. "Intellectual and spiritual affection being all which he had to give, Mrs. Carlyle naturally looked on these at ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... have reconciled yourself to this liberal way of thinking; you will find many inferior advantages resulting from it, which at first did not enter into your consideration. In particular, it will greatly lighten your labours, to follow the public taste, instead of taking upon you to direct it. The task of Pleasing is at all times easier than that of Instructing: at least it does not stand in need of painful research and preparation; and may be effected in ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe |
