"Relaxation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stimulant of the younger ones, who thirsted to acquire some glory which they might recount, with the attractive quackery peculiar to soldiers; these inflated and pompous narratives of their exploits being moreover indispensable to their relaxation when no longer under arms. To this must certainly be added, the hope of plunder; for the exacting ambition of Napoleon had as often disgusted his soldiers, as the disorders of the latter tarnished his glory. A compromise was necessary: ever since 1805, there was a sort of mutual understanding, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... contrast to his paradise of imaginings and of studious hours; he either craves, like God, the seventh day of rest, or with Satan, the pleasures of hell; so that his senses may have free play in opposition to the employment of his faculties. Byron could never have taken for his relaxation to the independent gentleman's delights of boston and gossip, for he was a poet, and so must ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... out from under his knee at the first relaxation of pressure. Her hand scooped up the knife, and she came charging toward him, her mouth a taut slit across half-bared teeth. Gordon rolled out of her swing, and brought his foot up. It caught her squarely under the chin, and she ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... movement, in perfect time to his song. In a few moments all are bobbing up and down, with the onward side-shuffling movement, and the real dance is on. This continues according to the will of the leader. When his voice gives a sudden drawling drop that dance ends. There are a few minutes for relaxation and breath, and then he lines out a new song, with new syllables, and a new dance begins. This continues practically all night, the dance-leader showing his memory power or his composing genius by the number of new songs he introduces. I have counted as many as thirty to forty ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... our gullibility, as displayed in the question of passports for Alsace-Lorraine. A section of the European Press, well primed for the purpose (the Guelph funds not having been restored, so far as we know, to their proper owner), continues unceasingly to implore William II to consent to a relaxation of the regulations in regard to these passports. The idea is, that when our credulous fools come to learn that this relaxation has been granted, there will be absolutely no limit to their enthusiasm for him. Already they speak of him ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... little relaxation from the strain will do all of the team good. Some of the other fellows are going to come in a bunch, ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... of terror; but what meant the glad light that leaped up in her eyes, the quick flush staining her wan cheek, the triumphant smile curving lips that a moment before might have belonged to Guercino's Mater Dolorosa, the relaxation of figure and features, the unmistakable expression of intense relief ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... declaration. Pleyel rallied him with great levity on his behaviour. He listened to his friend with calmness, but without any relaxation ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... people. The frivolous and dissolute who remained required every year stronger and stronger stimulants. Thus the artists corrupted the spectators, and the spectators the artists, till the turpitude of the drama became such as must astonish all who are not aware that extreme relaxation is the natural effect of extreme restraint, and that an age of hypocrisy is, in the regular course of things, followed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... difficult to understand what is the genuine public feeling on this entangled question; for with all the demonstrations in favor of freedom in the North, there does not appear in that quarter to be any practical relaxation of the usages which condemn persons of African descent to an inferior social status. There seems, in short, to be a fixed notion throughout the whole of the States, whether slave or free, that the colored is by nature a subordinate race; and that, in no ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... into one another without any apparent difference. Mr. Rand has contrived three or four different machines for making the reeds with dispatch and precision; and if the difficulty of keeping the strings, which are undergoing a constant relaxation, in perfect unison with the reeds can be overcome, I see nothing to prevent the most complete and ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... fills all the veins, and forces the air contained in them to the back and to the belly that is below it, the breast being thereby more heated, thence sleep arises, but if everything that is airy in the breast forsakes the veins, then death succeeds. Plato and the Stoics, that sleep ariseth from the relaxation of the sensitive spirit, it not receiving such total relaxing as if it fell to the earth, but so that that spirit is carried about the intestine, parts of the eyebrows, in which the principal part has its residence; ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... by much bustle and excitement, those which immediately succeeded, were no less remarkable for their utter inactivity and repose. With the surrender of the fortress vanished every vestige of hostility in that remote territory, enabling the sinews of watchfulness to undergo a relaxation, nor longer requiring the sacrifice of private interests to the public good. Scarcely had the American prisoners been despatched to their several destinations, when General Brock, whose activity and decision, were subject of universal remark, quitted his new conquest and again hastened ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... gurgle to his horse, seemed lost in an ageless calm. His gaze was fixed upon some indefinite portion of the horse's back and he drove leaning forward in an attitude of complete bodily and mental relaxation. If his guest wished conversation it was apparent that he must ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... became more insidious and alluring. As the colony became established beyond the fear of failure, and life fell from an artificial and self-conscious venture to be but a natural experience, as wealth increased and opportunities for relaxation and idle amusement multiplied, the elemental instincts of human nature, stronger than decrees of state, would not be denied. During the third decade after the founding, the Christmas festival found its way into the colony, and "dancing in ordinarys upon the marriage of some person" ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... has been that men may, after a drinking bout, or after they wake from sleep or when in need of relaxation from the pressure of business, take up this light literature, and not only expunge the traces of antiquated books, and obtain a new kind of distraction, but that they may also lay by a long life as well as energy ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the wine was old, and oh! the rest was sweet! Nothing fills one with so exquisite a weariness as a day spent in good resolutions and great thoughts. There is something perilously sensuous in the relaxation of one's muscles, both of mind and body, after a day ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... she was helping some Southern slave to escape. It would have been a nice question whether, in her heart of hearts, for the sake of this excitement, she did not sometimes wish the blacks back in bondage. She had suffered in the same way by the relaxation of many European despotisms, for in former years much of the romance of her life had been in smoothing the pillow of exile for banished conspirators. Her refugees had been very precious to her; she was always trying to raise money for some cadaverous ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... statesman and financier; distinguished for his services when in office in the relaxation of restrictions ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... it is his vice," returned the gentleman with the pearl stud. "It is his one dissipation. He is noted for it. You, as a stranger, could hardly be expected to know of this idiosyncrasy. Mr. Gladstone sought relaxation in the Greek poets, Sir Andrew finds his in Gaboriau. Since I have been a member of Parliament, I have never seen him in the library without a shilling shocker in his hands. He brings them even into the sacred precincts of the House, and from the Government benches ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... fatigues of this contest with Ghent, followed a period of relaxation for the Burgundian nobles at Lille, where a notable round of gay festivities was enjoyed by the court. Adolph of Cleves inaugurated the series with an entertainment where, among other things, he delighted ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... No! for He has given us other wants than those of eating and drinking. Even in our humble condition, does not beauty require some little ornament? Does not youth require some movement, pleasure, gayety? Do not all ages call for relaxation and rest? Had you gained sufficient wages to satisfy hunger, to have a day or so's amusement in the week, after working every other day for twelve or fifteen hours, and to procure the neat and modest dress which so charming a face might naturally claim—you would never have asked for more, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... striking with these sensible scourges, against which he dares not rebel nor murmur. Hence all things befall him alike; and he goes with the same mind to the shambles and to the fold. His recreations are calm and gentle, and not more full of relaxation than void of fury. This man only can turn necessity into virtue, and put evil to good use. He is the surest friend, the latest and easiest enemy, the greatest conqueror, and so much more happy than others, by how much he could abide to be ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... see Mrs. Esdaile," he answered, with no relaxation of his cold and grave manner; "I came ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... there is no relaxation of effort to bring about the desired end. On the contrary, his words inspire them to renewed ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... also declined to hold any intercourse even with his most familiar friends save on a highway, or in some plain or forest where the means of escape were easy; and when hunting, a sport to which he was passionately attached, and which was at that period the only relaxation he could enjoy with safety, he caused videttes to be stationed upon the surrounding heights, who were instructed to apprise him by a concerted signal of the approach ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... enough about the game at least to respond to his enthusiasm. If he fishes, encourage him and try to learn why such a simple sport thrills him. If baseball is his game, do not disdain his choice for an afternoon's relaxation; if he wants you to join him, go and learn enough to enjoy the game with him; if he wants to go with men friends, encourage him, and do not fear this means his love is cooling! (Romance thrives on occasional separations, even occasional vacations from marriage.) Be interested in his doings, ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... was no idler in the affairs of his ranch or of the town. Few city men were so busy. His everlasting talk was incidental, like the babbling of a brook which, however, keeps steadily flowing on; and the stored scholarship of his mind was supplemented by long evenings with no other relaxation but reading. Now as he went down the path he broke into song; and when the Doge sang it was something awful, excusable only by the sheer happiness ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... answered to it on the twenty-eighth of November, of the said year, 585. That answer was to accept the said missions non ex votis charitatis, but with the obligation of in se et justitia; and in regard to being visited, they say that, inasmuch as the obstacles of their disturbance and relaxation of discipline were always to be found, which induced the apostolic see to exempt them from the visits of the ordinaries—which obstacles would be more and greater in the Yndias, if authority were given for it—they would not refuse the reverence, respect, and submission due to the bishops, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... returned to England again in the following September, her failing health was painfully apparent to all. Yet her unconquerable energy struggled against her sufferings, and she would permit herself no relaxation. In vain her husband and her good friend Lablachc remonstrated. A hectic, feverish excitement pervaded all her actions. She was engaged to sing at the Manchester Musical Festival, and at the rehearsals she would laugh and cry hysterically ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... man is obliged to study many arts," he said, carelessly, when Sir Oswald complimented him on his musical powers. "My life has been one of laborious industry; and the cultivation of music has been almost the only relaxation I have allowed myself. I am not, like Lady Eversleigh, a musical genius. I only pretend to be a patient student of ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... for such as mean to enjoy Paris to its full extent, which will require a considerable degree of exercise, I must recommend the visiter a chymist and druggist on whom he may rely, where he may find the means of re-establishing any relaxation of strength or other malady to which all human nature is ever prone. There are innumerable establishments of this nature in Paris, and especially of those who announce English medicines, but the one ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... own after-annoyance and shame, whenever he remembered it, Eustace flung himself face downwards on the ground and fairly sobbed. What fear for his own safety and all the horrors he had gone through had no power to do, the relaxation of this tension ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... the alternations of hope and fear among the friends and enemies of the Union. But notwithstanding the seriousness of the times, there was a goodly measure of real social life. Human nature demanded some relaxation from the dreadful strain and burden of the great conflict, and this was partially found in the levees of the President and Cabinet ministers, and the receptions of the Speaker, which were largely attended and greatly enjoyed; and this enjoyment was doubtless much enhanced by the peculiar ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... these poisonous weeds of speech not only tended to degrade plain veracity in the popular mind, but were themselves parents of immoral evasions, for it was the teaching of some Rabbis, at all events, that an oath 'by heaven' or 'by earth' or 'by Jerusalem' or 'by my head' did not bind. That further relaxation of the obligation of truthfulness was grounded on the words quoted in verse 33, for, said the immoral quibblers, 'it is "thine oaths to the Lord" that thou "shalt perform," and for these others you may do as you like' Therefore our Lord insists that every oath, even these ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... and writings of Prior may exemplify a sentence which he doubtless understood well when he read Horace at his uncle's, "The vessel long retains the scent which it first receives." In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college. But on higher occasions and nobler subjects, when habit was overpowered by the necessity of reflection, he wanted not wisdom as a statesman, or elegance ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... between the skin and the central skeletal axis of the body. These myotomes enable it to swim rapidly with characteristic serpentine undulations of the body, the movements being effected by the alternate contraction and relaxation of the longitudinal muscles on both sides. Apparently correlated with this peculiar locomotion is the anatomical fact of the alteration of the myotomes on the two sides. Symmetrical at their first appearance in the embryo, the somites (from which the myotomes are derived) ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... dispensation but of commutation, when there occurs something better to be done for the common good, in which case the matter would seem to belong chiefly to the power of the Pope, who has charge over the whole Church; and even of absolute relaxation, for this too belongs in general to the Pope in all matters regarding the administration of things ecclesiastical. Thus it is competent to any man to cancel an oath made by one of his subjects in matters that come under his authority: for instance, a father may annul his daughter's oath, and a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... perspiration, but restrain all other evacuations. When its operation is over, the pain, and other symptoms which it had for a time abated, return; and generally with greater violence than before, unless the cause has been removed by the diaphoresis or relaxation which it occasioned. ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... description of it as the most magnificent secular edifice in Italy seems odd with the Ducal Palace so near. They do not, however, conflict, for the Ducal Palace 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 ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... the tasks were plied until half-past one, when a baked leg of mutton, with potatoes to correspond, were served in the kitchen. The meal over, and the young ladies having enjoyed the additional relaxation of washing their hands, the work began again, and was again performed in silence, until the noise of carriages rattling through the streets, and of loud double knocks at doors, gave token that the day's work of the more fortunate members of society ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the tormentors were introduced with their various instruments of torture; and many a dismal tragedy in that mode of human suffering was conducted in the sacred presence during the emperor's hours of amiable relaxation. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... good archbishop would have submitted to a cardinal's hat and circumcision at the same time to secure the good things of this world and of those in the world to come. History also relates that his most Christian majesty, Henry III, of France, as a relaxation to the interminable squabble between two Christian religious factions which were rending France, and which in the end cost him his life, actually wrote a letter to the Sultan, asking the favor to be allowed to stand as godfather at the circumcision of his son. When ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... I knew what her mother would say. I also knew, or thought I knew that Phillida needed the mental relaxation which comes from having one's own way. In her mood, no one else's way, however, wise or ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... always allowed us plenty of time for relaxation and enjoyment, besides permitting us to fish overboard, which some commanders would ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... felt as happy as the "Christian Pilgrim" when he had been relieved of his burden. It would, probably, be wrong to say that the lordly Highlander, the impetuous son of Erin, or the proud and independent Englishman, who vied with each other in feats of sumptuous hospitality during these periods of relaxation, did much better on the score of moral responsibilities. They broke, generally, nine out of the ten commandments without a wince, but kept the other very scrupulously, and would flash up and call their companions to a duel who doubted ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... being bent on the relaxation most congenial to one's soul, it is possible to push one's disregard for convention too far: as is seen in the case of another, though of an earlier generation, in the same establishment. In his office there was the customary "attendance-book,'' wherein the clerks were expected ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... by a change of the thought habit each day, by relaxation, by sleep, and by suggestions ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... daily grind of newspaper work, it might seem odd that relaxation is sought in "more reading"—but it has been my experience, and that of many of my co-workers. I find, that the relief from the high tension of our trade comes from the change in the character of what we read, rather than in "something else," such as physical ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... what a society this was! The very list of names of Franklin's friends is an inspiration. With the scientists of the day he continued to discuss philosophic questions; and with the great ladies of society he could find relaxation from his graver cares. Chess still absorbed more of his time than his conscience approved, and there are several well known stories of him in connection with that game. Once when playing with the old Duchess of Bourbon, the lady happened to put ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... a nightmare and making no progress I made my way home, only to learn from Hallam,—who lived on the same floor,—that Tom had inconsiderately gone to Boston for the evening, with four other weary spirits in search of relaxation! Avoiding our club table, I took what little nourishment I could at a modest restaurant, and restlessly paced the moonlit streets until eight o'clock, when I found myself in front of one of those low-gabled colonial houses ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a loud march. There was an interval of relaxation for the audience, to move, look ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... urged, and with great plausibility, that there may be Intromission without fraud; which, however true, will by no means justify an occasional and arbitrary relaxation of the law. The end of law is protection as well as vengeance. Indeed, vengeance is never used but to strengthen protection. That society only is well governed, where life is freed from danger and from suspicion; where possession is so sheltered by salutary prohibitions, that violation is prevented ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... to soft beds, especially for young children and feeble adults, could softness be secured without much heat and relaxation of the system. On the contrary, it is certainly desirable, in itself, to have the bed so soft that as large a proportion of the surface of the body may rest on it as possible. But I consider hardness as a much smaller ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... detail, but no essential change of method, British shipping and seamen continued to be "protected" against foreign competition down to and beyond the War of 1812. In this long interval there is no change of conception, nor any relaxation of national conviction. The whole history affords a remarkable instance of persistent policy, pursued consecutively for five or six generations. No better evidence could be given of its hold upon the minds of the people, or of the serious nature ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... course not!" agreed Georgiana to this decidedly boyish speech. She realized suddenly how quickly the sense of relaxation from care was beginning to show in her husband. Her hand within his arm gave it a warm little squeeze. "That couldn't be expected. To be torn apart, at any and all hours, and kept apart day after day, just when we most want to be together—and then to come down to a big ship and know ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... this order shall prevent the relaxation of the provisions of this order in respect of the merchant vessels of any country which declares that no commerce intended for or originating in Germany, or belonging to German subjects, shall enjoy the protection of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... nights and days were regulated in a perfect order—making statements of account for nine hours on five days of the week and four on Saturdays. Three evenings for the Poly. Gym. One for the Swimming Bath. One for sprinting. One (Saturday) for rest or relaxation after the violence of Rugger. One (Sunday) for the improvement of the mind. On Sundays he was very seldom good ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... she is never well; she is almost forgetting what is the sensation of health; she is anaemic and apprehensive; she has nervous headaches and neuralgia; she can have no pleasure, no amusement whatever; her only relaxation is taking her temperature; her only diversion a prayer meeting. She is cooped up in a Chinese house in the unchanging society of a married couple—the only exercise she can permit herself is a prison-like walk along the top of the city at the back of the mission. Her ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... case of his death, it might be known from what quarter the blow came, and that none might dare to accuse the protestants of this crime. The probable death of this general produced a small degree of relaxation on the part of their enemies, and some calm; but the mass of the people had been indulged in licentiousness too long to be restrained even by the murder of the representative of their king. In the evening they again repaired to the temple, and with hatchets broke open the door; the dismal noise ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... a garden in the glen. The latter was formed that I might gather home to it, when in musing moods among the mountains, the wild-flowers, in order to their cultivation, and my having something more of a possessory right over them. It formed a contrast to the scenery around, and lured to relaxation. Occasionally 'the lovely of the land' brought, with industrious delight, plants and flowers, that they might have a share in adorning it. Even when I was from home it was, upon the whole, well attended to; for although, according to taste or caprice, changes were made, yet I readily ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... studying different nationalities that it is fairly easy for the French and Spanish people to learn this relaxation of jaw and the opening of the throat, but the English-speaking people generally talk with the throat half shut and even talk through half-shut teeth. Sometime, when you are talking rapidly, suddenly put your ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... camel's pace; one thing, and one thing only, having so far saved her from the utter dissolution of fatigue, and that being when, urged by their master's voice, the three animals had broken into a gentle trot, ending in a pace which literally took away the girl's breath; but even that relaxation had had to be abandoned as the nature of ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... way to her inclination to stay at home; for her reason told her that it would be injurious both to herself and her sisters, to give up her accustomed walk. She could not expect to keep up her vigour of mind and body without exercise and relaxation, and it would be wrong to deprive the children of her society in their rambles. A greater temptation still was to sit up late: the quiet hour at night was precious to her; it was the only time she could give to the formation ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau
... drives and wide-reaching views from the hill-tops were to her a perpetual delight. At this place a house was bought, and there was a project of giving up the London residence and of visiting the city only for occasional relaxation. This project was not carried out, for soon after their return from Witley in the autumn of 1878, Mr. Lewes was taken ill, and died in November. His death was a great blow to Mrs. Lewes, and he was deeply mourned, so much so as to seriously ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... indeed was as gloomy as ever, the wind blew a perfect hurricane, while the thick mist and spray which flew over the deck wetted every one to the skin. As the hours went by there was no relaxation for the hard-worked crew. The seamen and marines, engineers, and stokers, as well as the officers, laboured away with ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... His greatest relaxation was in a mountain excursion or a pic-nic by the side of one of the lakes, tarns, or streams; and these parties, of which he was the life and soul, will long live in the recollections of those who shared them. An excellent pedestrian (thinking ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... minister an account of the smallest details: It is not rare to see them leaving the council room overcome with fatigue, due to the long interrogatories to which he has subjected them; he appears not to have noticed, and talks about the day's work simply as a relaxation which has scarcely given his mind exercise." And what is worse, "it often happens that on returning home they find a dozen of his letters requiring immediate response, for which the whole night scarcely suffices." The quantity ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Commodore) favours complete relaxation when in from a trip. In the evenings there are parties, for which there are always ladies, and I find it is necessary to have a "smoking."[1] I went to the best tailor to buy one, and found that I must have one made at the damnable price of ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... receive impressions of sublimity when you are alone, in a silent region, with a black sky above and giant cliffs all round; with a sense still in your mind, if not of actual danger, still of danger that would become real with the slightest relaxation of caution, and with the world divided from you by hours of snow ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... who was holding her hair back where it escaped the comb, smiled too, and evidently considered that the relaxation of Margaret's buttered features was equivalent ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... requested me to bring forward immediate evidence as to your identity, and the presence of Mr Cophagus is necessary, I propose that we start for Reading to-morrow at nine o'clock. I have a curiosity to go down there, and having a leisure day or two, it will be a relaxation. I wish to see my old acquaintance Timothy, and your shop. Answer ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... myself up to those affairs; it is not, Monsieur, as if I had your leisure to employ all the little preliminary arts of creating la belle passion. Non, Monsieur, I go to church, to the play, to the Tuilleries, for a brief relaxation—and me voila partout accable with my good fortune. I am not handsome, Monsieur, at least, not very; it is true, that I have expression, a certain air noble, (my first cousin, Monsieur, is the Chevalier de Margot) and ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... into the shower-shave unit, trying to relax, to collect his racing thoughts. Above all, he tried to stay the fear that burned through his mind, driving him to panic and desperation. The memory of the last hellish night was too stark to allow relaxation—the growing fear, the silent, desperate hunt through the night; the realization that their numbers were increasing; his frantic search for a hiding place in the New City; and finally his panic-stricken, pell-mell flight down into the alleys and cobbled streets ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... required Alfred's attention. A little girl, carrying a billy-can of water, stood by the stepping stones, and smiled shyly as we passed. Alfred waved her a salute quite as though he were an ordinary human being. I felt comforted. He had his moments of relaxation evidently, and his affections ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... in the warmth of her cheek, the tremble of the soft hands, the relaxation of her whole body. And a kind of solemn exultation filled his soul. Except the youthful episode with Alice Royall, he had never sincerely cared for any woman, and he was very glad he could give Doris the first ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... may have found in such honors as time and ripening years brought to him, his chief joy and relaxation lay in travel. When worry and overwork began to tell upon him, he would betake himself to shore or mountains. Upon several occasions he visited Europe, and in 1859 made a tour of the world. At length, in 1876, he gave up active ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... "would give his unresting brain an hour's relaxation, and release himself from disappointment and vexation and the severe toil and anxiety of which his life is overfull, he would go out hunting with the bold youth or would have the handsome, good-hearted boy into his own room. The sight of the Bithynian's beauty delighted ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Nothing was sacred from that mimic any more than from a sapper. He showed us Osman Digna's little ways, and gave ghastly imitations of trials, mutilations and executions by hanging in the Mahdist camps. And these things were for relaxation, though maybe they served as a reminder of the dervishes' brutal rule. There were vexations and jokes of another sort for Major Girouard and those held tightly responsible for the rapid construction and regular running of the material trains, as indeed all trains ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... objects. What advantage or harm there may be in sharpness, ruggedness, or quaintness in the dealings or conversations of men; precisely that relative degree of advantage or harm there is in them as elements of pictorial composition. What power is in liberty or relaxation to strengthen or relieve human souls; that power, precisely in the same relative degree, play and laxity of line have to strengthen or refresh the expression of a picture. And what goodness or greatness we can conceive to arise in companies of men, from chastity of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... stood thus, slightly swaying, and then instinctively Jack, gagging a little now, felt the minutest relaxation of the arm. Quick as thought he changed the position of his right leg, bringing into play the leverage of his hip. He twisted suddenly sideways, his neck slipping around in the encircling arm. His hand closed upon the back of a thick, ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... ride in that long skirt?" asked Shefford. How strange it seemed that his first words to her were practical when all his impassioned thought had been only mute! But the instant he spoke he experienced a relief, a relaxation. ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... have said, it must not be supposed that fighting was the normal occupation of Cat Alley. It was rather its relaxation from unceasing toil and care, from which no to-morrow held promise of relief. There was a deal of good humor in it at most times. "Scrapping" came naturally to the alley. When, as was sometimes the case, ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... Sally. Following the Revolution two of Washington's aides-de-camp, Colonels Smith and Humphreys, the latter a poet of some pretensions, spent considerable time at Mount Vernon arranging the General's military papers. One afternoon Smith strolled out from the Mansion House for relaxation and came upon Sally, then in her teens and old enough to be interesting to a soldier, milking a cow. When she started for the house with the pail of milk the Colonel gallantly stepped forward and asked ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... This relaxation in his manner flattered and pleased me. He now perceived me to be somebody; my half-offended vanity was appeased, and I accepted his ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... fur; or, contrariwise, that a charge of a colour must rest on a field that is of a metal or fur,—that is, that metal be not on metal, nor colour on colour. This rule is modified in the case of varied fields, upon which may be charged a bearing of either a metal or a colour: also, apartial relaxation of the rule is conceded when one bearing is charged upon another, should the conditions of any particular case require such a concession. This rule does not apply to bordures, nor very stringently to ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... which had been left open. Mamma Delobelle was lying back in her chair in the careless attitude of long-continued fatigue, heeded at last; and all the scars, the ugly sabre cuts with which age and suffering brand the faces of the old, manifested themselves, ineffaceable and pitiful to see, in the relaxation of slumber. Desiree would have liked to be strong enough to rise and kiss that lovely, placid brow, furrowed by wrinkles which did ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... done jestingly are not directed to any external end; but merely to the good of the jester, in so far as they afford him pleasure or relaxation. But man's consummate ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... was at the door; for their sustenance must be drawn from their own acres. They could not look back for aid, as the towns below were in the same condition. Women and children were not exempt from laborious toil. Of relaxation there was little, and recreation was unthought of. Even parental love was constrained and formal. Children were born into a cold and cheerless atmosphere, and it is not to be wondered at that they grew up hard and austere men and women, whose chief or only solace was the hope of an eternity ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... bludgeon to Tarzan's assistance and Numa's undoing. A single terrific blow upon the flattened skull of the beast laid him insensible and then as Tarzan's knife found the wild heart a few convulsive shudders and a sudden relaxation marked the passing ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the invisible Kingdom of Spirits, have given the Token of my sudden Departure, and you say true, I shall be with you by and by. Which he was enabled so assuredly to assent to, upon the advantage of the relaxation of his Soul now departing from the Body: Which Diodorus Siculus, lib. 18, notes to be the Opinion of Pythagoras and his followers, that it is the privilege of the Soul near her Departure, to exercise a fatidical Faculty, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... dusty road of the historian, and entice him to turn aside, and refresh himself from his wayfaring. But I trust it will be found that I have always resumed my staff, and addressed myself to my weary journey with renovated spirits, so that both my readers and myself have been benefited by the relaxation. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... greatly impaired. In Ireland popular feeling is always against creditors, and it would be very hard indeed either to execute a writ of ejectment or a seizure of goods. If the sanction of the law is weakened, public respect for it is lessened, and the result will be a general relaxation of the bonds which draw society together. There is nothing in the antecedents of the Home Rule Party to make one suppose that it contains the materials of a good and ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... father in his afternoon walks round Edinburgh —a relaxation so very desirable after hours of close attention to artistic work. They took delight in the wonderful variety of picturesque scenery by which the city is surrounded. The walks about Arthur's Seat ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... engagements have withdrawn me from my private affairs during the past two years, and the few weeks of interval between the last and the next session of Congress are equally insufficient for the attention my business requires and for the relaxation of public labors which impaired health demands. I am, dear sir, with great respect, you friend ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... downhill toward the lights, unaware that there were some gaps in his picture of the total scene. For example, these lights could be detected by aircraft overhead. The fact did not occur to Lockley. He was not given pause by the relaxation of the enemy's disguise so far as air observation was concerned. He didn't think ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... now become his only relaxation; it acted on his nerves as an opiate, soothing his fears and helping him to think. But he had been overdoing it, and it was that which now made him feel so "jumpy," so he assured himself, when he found himself ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... astonishment, that it was from Stirling. It was very terse, but it informed him that Miss Stirling and her friends purposed camping among the islands of one of the eastern lakes, which was then a rather favorite means of relaxation with the inhabitants of Toronto and Montreal. Stirling desired him to accompany the party, on terms which appeared very satisfactory, and added that if he were acquainted with another man likely to make an efficient camp attendant he could bring ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... desired, care being had for the necessary duties of the ships. Since quitting London, we had been prisoners, with the short interval of our former visit to this place, and it was now deemed wisest to give the people a little relaxation. To all this, I was advised by Marble; who, though a severe, and so often seemingly an obdurate man, was in the main disposed to grant as much indulgence, at suitable moments, as any officer I ever sailed with. There was an ironical ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... larynx to the nasal cavity. The size of the opening into the nasal chamber is controlled by the soft palate and is frequently entirely closed. The size of the pharynx is varied by the contraction and relaxation of the circular muscles in its tissue; when swallowing its walls are in contact. The pharynx acts as does the expanding tube of brass instruments. It increases the force and depth of the tone waves. The wider the pharynx ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... bravado outside, and I babied him to his heart's content, feeling sure that it was the first time in all his dozen years that this child's right had come to him. But he did not allow these private seasons of relaxation, which he trusted me not to betray, to interfere with his double character of knight of prowess with Madge, and of Broncho ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... week, his life would be a round of work, and probably make him the proverbial "dull boy." All the busy working-days are so filled with the various duties that when evening comes and dinner is over the tired worker has little inclination for reading or any other relaxation, the thought of that early bell which rouses him before sunrise makes him take advantage of every hour's sleep he can. At an hour when the townman is thinking of beginning the evening's amusement at theatre or concert, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... spent in this abode of the dead, without rest or sleep. The attempt to obtain either would have been sheer madness, for the least mis-step, the least unguarded motion, or a slight relaxation of the firm grasp by which I held on to the shelves, would have plunged me headlong into the dark water, from which escape would have been impossible. For thirty hours I had not tasted food, and my limbs, mangled and badly swollen, were so stiff with long standing, that, when ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... inaugurate for him a new life of pleasure, and to estrange him still more from his unhappy Queen, shut up with her prayers and her tears in her own room, with her tapestry, her books of history, and her music for sole relaxation. "The most innocent pleasures," Queen Marie wrote sadly at this time, "are not ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... Reist farmhouse was an ample meal. By that time the hardest portion of the day's labor was completed and the relaxation from physical toil made the meal doubly enjoyable. Millie saw to it that there was always appetizing food set upon the big square table in the kitchen. Two open doors and three screened windows looking out upon green fields and orchards made the kitchen a cool refuge ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... the foliage grew more intense and burned afar like flame. The settlers lightened their work and most of them now spent a large part of the time in hunting, pursuing it with the keen zest, born of a natural taste and the relaxation from heavy labors. Mr. Ware and a few others, anxious to test the qualities of the soil, were plowing up newly cleared land to be sown in wheat, but Henry was compelled to devote only a portion of his time to this work. The ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... covered the electric burners. The girls, too, were no longer clad in dark blue as in a uniform, but shone forth in blouses of brilliant hues, pink, blue, red, and white alternating gaily, with an occasional green or yellow to add to the variety. There was in the atmosphere an indefinable air of relaxation, of rest after labour, which added tenfold to the brightness of the scene. What if on each plate there was only a morsel of fish, not half enough to satisfy clamourous appetites, there was unlimited bread and jam to follow, and ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... not of the soul. But when, after two years passed beside you, you had seen by my conduct that I was an honorable woman; when, without ever accepting a pleasure, I devoted myself to the care of the house and your comfort without other relaxation than the study of my art; and when, above all, I sacrificed to you that modesty you had seen me defend with such energy,—then you were cruel not to comprehend, and never, never will your imagination tell you what I have suffered, and all the tears ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... truthfulness, Carleton won not only Grant's personal friendship, but obtained a pass signed "U. S. Grant," which was good in all the military departments of the country, with transportation on all government trains and steamers. In hours of relaxation, Carleton was probably as familiar with Grant as was any officer on the general's own staff. Carleton profoundly honored and believed in Grant as a trained, regular army officer who could cut loose from European traditions and methods, and ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... so easily satisfied in such a momentous concern, for the principal aim of the intrigue was to make her necessary to his interested views, and even, if possible, an associate in the fraudulent plans he had projected upon her father; consequently he considered this relaxation in her virtue as an happy omen of his future success. All the obstacles to their mutual enjoyment being thus removed, our adventurer was by his mistress indulged with an assignation in her own chamber, which, though contiguous to that of her stepmother, was ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... Oswald feels some relaxation of tense dread. He begins to take a less somber view of the situation. Possibly his missing hat had been found and identified. Perhaps the London public thought both had been drowned. Might it not be that no search was made for him, his death being conceded? ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... in the person of Prof. Hjalmar Oehrwal who has discussed in his essays native and foreign discoveries in the field of psychology. One of his conclusions is that the so-called technical exercises, gymnastics, manual training, sloyd, and the like, are not, as they are erroneously called, a relaxation from mental overstrain by change in work, but simply a new form of brain fatigue. All work, he finds, done under conditions of fatigue is uneconomic whether one regards the quantity produced or its value as an exercise. Rest should be nothing more than rest,—freedom to do only ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... laryngoscope many ladies who had the habit of singing the chest-tones too high, and, without exception, I have found their throats in a more or less diseased condition. Laryngitis, either alone or complicated with pharyngitis, relaxation of the vocal ligaments, and sometimes paralysis of one of them, are the most frequent results of this bad habit. If a singer is afflicted with catarrhal trouble, it is always aggravated by ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... that conservative but persevering people is calculated to blind us to the operation among them of deep-seated and active influences. Hardly till 1815 can we discover in England any fervor, much less efficiency, in the demand for an extension of popular rights and relaxation of the grasp of privilege. Irish manufactures continued to be distinctly and rigidly repelled from competition with English by formal statute; Jewish and Catholic disqualification was maintained; the game-laws ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... determined, in the autumn of 1844, to accept a liberal offer of Messrs. Greeley and McElrath, to become a constant contributor to the New York Tribune. But before entering upon her new duties, she found relaxation, for a few weeks, amid the grand scenery of the Hudson. In October, she writes ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... responsibility. Illness is always the answer, whenever we venture to doubt our right to our mission, whenever we begin to make things too easy for ourselves. Curious and terrible at the same time! It is for our relaxation that we have to pay most dearly! And should we wish after all to return to health, we then have no choice: we are compelled to burden ourselves more heavily than we had been burdened ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... Musalli. The Sikh Mazhbis, who are the descendants of sweeper converts, have done excellent service in our Pioneer regiments. The Hindu of the Panjab in his avoidance of "untouchables" has never gone to the absurd lengths of the high caste Madrasi, and the tendency is towards a relaxation ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... is a relaxation from the interminable monotony. It means that we shall exchange the old mud, in which we have been living, for new mud which may be better. Months of work and preparation have led up to it; then one morning at dawn, ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... character, and he soon arrived at a just estimate of people, and of the motives of those with whom he came into contact. He did not make many new friends, and the people who knew him well, and with whom his holidays or hours of relaxation were passed, were confined to those he had known for many years. He always impressed one with a deep sense of decency in conversation and conduct; one felt in talking to him how impossible it would be to drift into the easy-going discussion of questions ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... conduct is wrong in itself, and has a tendency to impair confidence in the administration of justice, which ought not only to be pure but unsuspected. A judge will do right to avoid social intercourse with those who obtrude such unwelcome matters upon his moments of relaxation. There is one thing, however, of which gentlemen of the Bar are not sufficiently careful,—to discourage and prohibit their clients from pursuing a similar course. The position of the judge in relation to a cause under such circumstances ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... him a relaxation and a rest. He knew the science of composition, and was familiar in detail with the best work ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... hand, and their numbers were divided and destroyed in foreign warfare. But the nations of the East had been taught to trample on the successors of the prophet; and the blessings of domestic peace were obtained by the relaxation of strength and discipline. So uniform are the mischiefs of military despotism, that I seem to repeat the story of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... awhile now," he said at last, and led the horse to one side, where a level space made it possible for them to dismount and stretch themselves on the ground to give their weary limbs the needed relaxation. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the physician in charge, "our guests find relaxation from past mental worries by devoting themselves to ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... to men of other vocations adopting farming as an avocation if they can afford it. It is a rational form of pleasure for wealthy people, and one in which they can often be of great service. This cannot be said of all forms of relaxation. Wealthy men have been of special service to the cause of agriculture by promoting the breeding of improved live stock. Men in other callings should clearly understand, however, that if they have a farm merely as a place to spend a week end, that they may expect to ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... its powers, and exhibits an unusual energy, both in its operations and in its communications by language. On the other hand, even the greatest men have their moments of remissness, when to a certain degree they forget the dignity of their character in unreserved relaxation. This very tone of mind is necessary before they can receive amusement from the jokes of others, or what surely cannot dishonour even a hero, from passing jokes themselves. Let any person, for example, go carefully through the part of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... have been exploited with equal indifference by the Prussian dynasty. The attitude of Frederick the Great to religion is characteristic of the Hohenzollern attitude. Frederick the Great was surrounded by a band of French, Swiss, and Scottish Atheists. His main relaxation from the cares of State was to bandy cynical and obscene jests on Christianity with the Table Round at the private supper-parties of Potsdam. But his royal hatred and contempt for all positive religion did not prevent him from cordially inviting the Jesuits to his ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... wife of a popular physician in that city presided, and on November 11, the last demonstration of that year was convened in the Albert Hall, Nottingham, where Mrs. Lucas took the chair. The following year saw no relaxation in these efforts. The Birmingham demonstration took place on February 22, 1881. It was a most inclement night and great fears had been entertained that it would prove a failure, but nothing had power to keep the crowds of women away or to lessen their enthusiasm. Mrs. Crosskey, the wife ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the unfortunate man home, fed, and clothed him, and Butler began to recruit from his wounds and torture. But the relenting of the savages was only transient and momentary. After five days they repented of their relaxation in his favor, reclaimed him, and marched him to Lower Sandusky to be burned there, according to their original purpose. By a fortunate coincidence, he there met the Indian agent from Detroit, who, from motives of humanity, exerted his influence with the savages for his release, and took him ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... had heard a great deal. Marshall and the Marquise were in the habit of reading him in moments of relaxation, they had marked their favourite passages, so he came to me highly recommended. Nevertheless, I made but little progress in his poetry. His modernisms were out of tune with the present strain of my aspirations, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... were all the literature to be found in the party, as books are heavy and weight was to be avoided. At times some of the men amused themselves by diving under the boats, swimming around and ahead of them, or surprised a coyote on the bank with a rifle-shot, and otherwise enjoyed the relaxation we had well earned by our toil in Red Canyon. The river was smooth and deep and about six hundred to eight hundred feet wide. At the very foot of the valley we made a camp under the shadow of that magnificent and unrivalled portal, the Gate ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... Corruption and red tape continue to handicap its business environment. Inflation rose in 2007 for the first time in eight years, driven in part by the depreciation of the currency, rising energy costs, a nation-wide drought affecting food prices, and a relaxation of fiscal discipline. Romania hopes to adopt ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... But relaxation was brief. A familiar high-pitched voice cut suddenly into his consciousness. Oh, oh, he thought. Here ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... nerves which is wasteful and disagreeable. The feeling rouses the contraction, the contraction more feeling; and so the Intolerance is increased in cause and in effect. The immediate effect of being willing, on the contrary, is, of course, the relaxation of such contraction, and a ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... propriety of it mingled with the general gratification. There was a feeling of ease among them, too, of the indefeasibly won, which the event is apt to bring even when the surgeon-lieutenant-colonelcy is most strikingly deserved. With no strain imaginable one could see the relaxation. ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... Baby must have relaxation, Let the world go wrong or right. Sleep, my darling—leave Creation To its chances ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... squeezed out," says Carlyle somewhere, in his rough and summary fashion. Are these judgments correct? Was Washington really, with all his greatness, dull and cold? He was a great general and a great President, first in war and first in peace and all that, says our caviler, but his relaxation was in farm accounts, and his business war and politics. He could plan a campaign, preserve a dignified manner, and conduct an administration, but he could write nothing more entertaining than a state paper or a military report. He gave himself up to great affairs, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... for a time, into cheerful and amusing trains of thought. So far as my experience of life goes, I have never found that the cause of morality and religion was promoted by sternly checking the tendencies of our nature to relaxation and amusement. If mankind be too ready to enter upon pleasures which are dangerous or questionable, it is the part of wisdom and of prudence to supply them with sources of interest, the enjoyment of which ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... essentially different, would endanger the laws and institutions of either province; and that there would thence result well-founded apprehensions respecting the stability of those laws and institutions, fatal doubts of the future lot of these colonies, and a relaxation of the energy and confidence of the people, and of the bonds which so strongly attached them to the mother country. The resolutions of both Houses were embodied in addresses to the King and Parliament of Great Britain. Those to the King the Governor was requested ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... extra size and with arms. This he had kicked back against the wall of the house, so that his short legs did not reach the floor, the big carpet-slippered feet finding rest on the rung of the chair. His attitude was one of relaxation. The face, broad, flat, small of eye and wide of mouth, did indeed suggest the clown countenance; yet there was in it, and in the whole personality, something of the Eastern idol, the journeyman attempt of ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... dusk when his arms were about her, she was no longer child, relative, or statue. She was woman, vibrant woman. Tensed muscles and a little stifled moan. And an emotional sob, maybe, or a tear glistening on her cheek. Relaxation, and a strange, easy dignity. With her arms about her white knees, her little head upraised, thoughts seemed to be going and coming from her like bees in and out of their straw skep. And often ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... the face; at other times, when I have put my hand behind my back, it has stuck there until, with the other hand, I have seized the contracted muscles, and warmed the part affected with the natural heat, till, relaxation taking place, I was able to get it back. Another nasty thing is the blindness which I have already described, and which attacked another of our party in a manner exactly similar to my complaint. He, like myself, left Africa with a misty veil floating ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Relaxation and facility, methinks, wonderfully honour and best become a strong and generous soul. Epaminondas did not think that to take part, and that heartily, in songs and sports and dances with the young men of his city, were things that in any way derogated from the honour ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... their hand. We have never realized, they have never known, that their great need—given the work that is wrung from them and the degradation in which they are forced to live—is a craving for amusement and relaxation. Amusements for this class are not provided; they can laugh, they rarely do. The thing that they seek—let me repeat: I cannot repeat it too often—in the minimum of time that remains to them, is distraction. They do not ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... came up with the group, and as they turned at the sound of his footsteps, he could see that the object of their remarks was a man lying face downward on the flagging, and his attitude of relaxation showed that death had ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... for greatness, felicity, and renown, excelling any hitherto attained by any nation, if, standing firmly on the continent, we lose not our grasp on either ocean. Whether a destiny so magnificent would be only partially defeated, or whether it would be altogether lost by a relaxation of the grasp, surpasses our wisdom to determine, and happily it is not important to be determined. It is enough, if we agree, that expectations so grand, yet so reasonable and so just, ought not in any degree to be ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Roosevelt was not himself a humorist, and his writings give little evidence of his possession of the faculty. Lincoln, now, was one of the foremost American humorists. But Roosevelt was too strenuous for the practice of humor, which implies a certain relaxation of mind: a detachment from the object of immediate pursuit: a superiority to practical interests which indulges itself in the play of thought; and, in the peculiarly American form of it, a humility which inclines one to laugh at himself. Impossible to fancy T. R. making the answer that Lincoln ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... fabrics they weave, the merchandise they barter, are designed for spiritual ends; that so believing, their daily lot may be to them a sphere for the noblest improvement. That which we do in our intervals of relaxation, our church-going, and our book-reading, are especially designed to prepare our minds for the action of Life. We are to hear and read and meditate, that we may act well; and the action of Life is itself the great field for spiritual improvement. There is no ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... for even in his youth Mr. Ticknor showed many of those traits which most clearly marked him in after life; among others, an intelligent, unimaginative, but also unmalicious observation of his kind for his relaxation, and for his work in life warm devotion to the study of letters. How scanty were the opportunities in this way at that period may be seen from his difficulties in getting any knowledge of German after his graduation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... latter stages, and the various hemorrhages are the forms of disease in which it is most commonly used." Also valuable as "an application to indolent ulcers, an injection in gleet and leucorrhea, a gargle in relaxation of the uvula and aphthous ulcerations of the throat." The other plant sometimes used with it is ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... strictly and promptly to account. Nothing should be presumed against them; but if, with the requisite facilities, the public money is suffered to lie long and uselessly in their hands, they will not be the only defaulters, nor will the demoralizing effect be confined to them. It will evince a relaxation and want of tone in the Administration which will be felt by the whole community. I shall do all I can to secure economy and fidelity in this important branch of the Administration, and I doubt not that the Legislature ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... since the commencement of this history, than to digress, more than necessity required, from the course of narration; and, by embellishing my work with variety, to seek pleasing resting-places, as it were, for my readers, and relaxation for my own mind: nevertheless, the mention of so great a king and commander, now calls forth to public view those silent reflections, whom Alexander must have fought. Manlius Torquatus, had he met him in the field, might, perhaps, have yielded to Alexander in discharging military ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... a scene is now acting upon the great theatre of the world, and as the chief performer has recently closed one of the acts with a very important incident, it may, by many be considered as a relaxation, to employ a few minutes in taking a concise view of our own little theatre; the leader of which has also so lately ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... involved, Thorpe committed an indiscretion. It may be; but if so, it was practically an inevitable indiscretion. Strong, reticent characters like Thorpe's prove the need from time to time of violating their own natures, of running counter to their ordinary habits of mind and deed. It is a necessary relaxation of the strenuous, a debauch of the soul. Its analogy in the lower plane is to be found in the dissipations of men of genius; or still lower in the orgies of fighters out of training. Sooner or later Thorpe was sure to emerge ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... long that not only were afternoon drills escaped, but dress parade as well. It was not, in fact, much before supper time that the rain stopped and the sun came out briefly. But the brief period of relaxation had been appreciated hugely throughout camp. Three quarters of the cadets under canvas had found time for at least a ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... the eleven-fifty limited to-night," he explained, "and there are several things I've got to see to first." In voluntary relaxation from work he slipped down in the big chair until his head rested on the back. Thereafter for a long time, for longer doubtless than he realized, he sat so, looking at the other man; not rudely or unpleasantly, but with the old, absent, analytical expression large ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... free and playful." The grave and disciplined court of Louis XIV became at the end of the century, under the smiles of the youthful queen, the most seductive and gayest of drawing-rooms. Through this universal relaxation, a worldly existence gets to be perfect. "He who has not lived before 1789," says Talleyrand at a later period, "knows nothing of the charm of living." It was too great; no other way of living was appreciated; it engrossed man wholly. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to such a degree, as to preserve the body in health; but if it continue for a considerable time to be much warmer than this temperature, the consequence must be, from the laws already laid down, an exhaustion of the excitability, and a consequent relaxation and debility; for, when the excitability has been exhausted by the violent application of heat, long continued, the common stimulant powers which support life, cannot produce a sufficient effect upon it, to give to the body that tone ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... for him, long and long; but he never came again; and within a week, his mangled body lay in a little chapel-yard; and if the priests only said a quarter of the prayers they took the money for, God knows they can have no throats left; only a relaxation. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... had had very little fun for some time, and I felt as if a little relaxation would do me good. An Irish M.P. was coming to speak during that evening about the advantages of Home Rule, and although I thought Home Rule meant the disruption of the Empire and many other things, I wanted to hear what this man had to say, and to see if anything exciting happened. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... before his imperious will. To this great man Franklin had failed to gain access, not so much from the minister's disdain of the colonial agent, as from his engrossing cares and duties. He had no time, indeed, for anybody, not even the peers of the realm,—no time for pleasure or relaxation,—being devoted entirely to public interests of the greatest magnitude; for on his shoulders rested the government of the kingdom. What was the paltry dispute of a few hundred pounds in a distant colony to the Prime ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... reaction, after eating too quickly—and I should like to meet the healthy man who would not eat quickly under those circumstances—and also the relaxation from the inconceivable strain of so many weeks of ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... and all the region round about. There were smoking-concerts galore—more or less good of their kind—and, failing sporadic forms of pastime, there were numerous bars—and barmaids, all of which counted for something in the relaxation of the forty thousand inhabitants of Johannesburg—mostly brokers. We are forgetting. There were other phases of nocturnal excitement, more or less of a stimulating nature—frequent rows, to ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... the joking way, but I really mean it. I don't forget how much of the animal is still in us. Of course one wants relaxation. But I don't want to look on while animals feed. Recovery after hard intellectual work means, in your sense, the return for some hours to animal life. Now I prefer the painful ascent of mankind to the comfortable, backward slide into animal nature. If I wished to pose as a statue ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau |
