"Shortening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... theological dogmas a religious system obviously springs having for its object to hasten the purification of the soul, that it may the more quickly enter on absolute happiness, which is only to be found in absolute rest. The methods of shortening its wanderings and bringing it to repose are the exercises of a pious life, penance, and prayer, and more especially a profound contemplation of the existence and attributes of the Supreme Being. In this profound contemplation many holy men ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... him, you can get up to him quicker by making the whip a part of your arm, and reaching out very gently with the but end of it, rubbing him lightly on the neck, all the time getting a little closer, shortening the whip by taking it up in your hand, until you finally get close enough to put your hands on him. If he is inclined to hold his head from you, put the end of the halter strap around his neck, drop your whip, and draw very gently; he will ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... No shortening, however, takes place when the accent goes back to the antepenult (cf. contine), nor in words like aetas, mores, where the first syllable is long, nor even in abi, tene, tace, and the like, when the chief accent is weakened, i.e., where these words are pronounced ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... offices here. They said, moreover, that, if Longworth had five or six men who would go at work with a will, the whole affair would be finished in a week at most. They did not appear to be at all alarmed at the shortening time, but said everything depended upon the men Longworth was going to bring with him. If they were the right men, there would be no trouble. So, all in all, they advised me not to worry about it, but to communicate with Longworth, ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... services in mediation but wholly and clearly on the side of the North. He stated that if England did not feel free to offer mediation, she should at least show "such a consistent and effective demonstration of sympathy and aid" for the North as would help in shortening the war[96]. The British Consul at Boston wrote to Russell in much the same vein. So far, indeed, did these men go in expressing their sympathy with the North, that Lyons, on April 27, commented to Russell that these consuls had "taken the Northern War Fever," ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... to take tea with Mrs. Sykes on a pleasant September evening. The latter lady, as in duty bound, was highly pleased to see her dear friends, and forthwith ordered Hannah, her servant-girl, to make a batch of soda rolls, with a bit of shortening rubbed in, and just step over to Mrs. Frye's, and ask that good lady "if she would not be so very kind and obliging as to lend Mrs. Sykes a plateful of her nice, sweet doughnuts, as she had visitors come in unexpectedly, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... protecting blanket of ice. The warmer water remains unfrozen at the bottom, and the animals live on. (3) The risk of being washed away, e.g. to the sea, is lessened by all sorts of gripping, grappling, and anchoring structures, and by shortening the juvenile stages when the ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... much as it was in my nature to be offended, and I began to meditate apologies for shortening my visit at Ormsby Villa: but, though I was shocked by the haughtiness of Lady Geraldine, and accused her, in my own mind, of want of delicacy and politeness, yet I could not now suspect her of being an accomplice with her mother in any matrimonial designs upon me. From the moment ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... acquainted with the road, and can pass along it with ease, and perhaps even with the confidence and assurance of a man who sees perfectly well, but is at the same time incapable of avoiding accidental obstacles, of shortening his way, or taking the most direct course, and alike incapable of laying down any rules which he can communicate to others. This is the state of the artist of mere experience, however long the duration of his practice may have been, as the simple ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... "it has not been bad enough to justify me in disturbing you, thus far; nevertheless I am very glad to have your help now, as I believe there is no time to lose. Kindly keep her as she now is, dead before the wind, and I will get about the work of shortening ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... ei, with some diacritical sign to show that it was obscured. There is no long vowel or diphthong in English which cannot in some positions be pronounced short; and when hurried over between accents it is easy to see that there is nothing, except an obstacle of consonants, which can prevent the shortening of any syllable; for long and short are relative, and when you are speaking very slowly 'short' sounds actually occupy as much time as 'long' sounds do when you are speaking quickly. You have therefore ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... bonnet, from which there peeped out the oval face with the chestnut curls and the great blue eyes, which we saw in the picture at Bracefort Hall, with the name of Lady Eleanor underneath it. Dick and Elsie ran to her at once, and the Corporal shortening the horse's halter in one hand, drew himself up, ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... rest the end of the valve rod and its block are dropped till in a line with the eccentric rod; but when the machinery begins to work the block is gradually drawn up by the governor, diminishing the movement of the valve, and so shortening the period of steam ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... advance, and all transactions of the kind must close with this, if there should be any deviation from the strictest punctuality. Brammel attempted to apologise, and failed in the attempt, of course. He came home disgusted, shortening his journey by swearing over half the distance, and promising his partners his cordial forgiveness, if ever they persuaded him again to go to London ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... to be heaved. Crampley swore he did not know how to keep the ship's way, for we were not within a hundred leagues of soundings, and therefore he would not give himself the trouble to cast the lead. Accordingly we continued our course all that afternoon and night, without shortening sail, although the gunner pretended to discover Scilly light; and next morning protested in form against the captain's conduct, for which he was put in confinement, We discovered no land all that day, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... which you were yourself a part, you could regard it as possible by your own will. Everyone does, in fact, decide by this rule whether actions are morally good or evil. Thus, people say: "If everyone permitted himself to deceive, when he thought it to his advantage; or thought himself justified in shortening his life as soon as he was thoroughly weary of it; or looked with perfect indifference on the necessity of others; and if you belonged to such an order of things, would you do so with the assent of your own will?" Now everyone knows well that if he secretly allows himself to deceive, ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... hope wrecked; the relation also was dead and gone. Her money was now spent, and she had begged her way along the road, or through the lanes, she scarce knew whither, till the accident which, in shortening her life, had raised up a ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... from the side of the guide, yielding to pressure from that side and resisting pressure from the opposite direction; they recover intervals, if lost, by gradually opening out or closing in; they recover alignment by slightly lengthening or shortening the step; the rear rank men cover their file ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... all the aforesaid places have a yearly return, inhabiting for our staple some convenient place of America, about Sierra Nevada or some other part, whereas it shall seem best for the shortening of ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... reeds, or the great flooded concavity on which we had fixed our depot; but the sameness of vegetation, and the seemingly diminutive size of the timber in the distance, argued against any change for the better in the soil of the interior. Having taken the precaution of shortening the painter of the skiff, we found less difficulty in steering her clear of obstacles, and made rapid progress down the Morumbidgee during the first cool and refreshing hours of the morning. The channel of the river became somewhat less contracted, but still retained sufficient depth ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... symbolism came into Virginia's thought as she watched the swift and tireless wheels swallow the shortening distance between the heels of the flying pony and the gilded seat in which she sat. Vain was the attempt to outride progress. The rider pulled out, and as they passed him the girl found still greater ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... the first watch after the second dog-watch, and at two bells, or nine o'clock, in the evening, Mayo awoke and heard him give orders to "pinch her." He heard the sails flap, and knew that the men were shortening in readiness to lay to. He slipped on his outer clothing and went ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Dumas, in the present part of this volume, or others later) to demand, in a general History, very large space in dealing with them. I shall therefore endeavour to summarise my corrected impressions more briefly than in those other cases. This shortening may, I think, be justified doubly: in the first place, because any one who is enough of a student to want more can go to the other handling; and, in the second, because the only excellent way, of reading the books themselves, may be adopted with very unusual ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... five-shilling piece, which is called a bull in Latin, because it is round like a bull's head, he would file or clip to the value of five-pence, and from lesser coin in proportion. He was connected with a numerous gang, or set, of people, who had given up their minds and talents entirely to shortening.' ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... constitution. They obtained, at its commencement, all the amendments to it they desired. These reconciled them to it perfectly, and if they have any ulterior view, it is only, perhaps, to popularize it further, by shortening the Senatorial term, and devising a process for the responsibility of judges, more practicable than that of impeachment. They esteem the people of England and France equally, and equally detest ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... critic has seen in it the origin of the more gorgeous and full-mouthed, if not more accomplished and dexterous, rhythm in which Mr. Swinburne has written "Dolores," and the even more masterly dedication of the first "Poems and Ballads." The shortening of the last line which the later poet has introduced is a touch of genius, but not perhaps greater than Praed's own recognition of the extraordinarily vivid and ringing qualities of the stanza. I profoundly ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... looking down at the red rose upon his breast, he smiled instead, a little grimly, as he settled his feet in the stirrups, and shortening his reins, sat waiting, very patiently. Not so "The Terror." Patient, forsooth! He backed and sidled and tossed his head, he fidgeted with his bit, he glared viciously this way and that, and so became aware of other four-legged creatures like himself, notably of Sir Mortimer's powerful gray near ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... sort of chant. She was sitting beside his bed with a box in her lap, full of little dolls, which she was dressing. Every day since his accident she had been allowed to make him two visits,—one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. They helped wonderfully in shortening the long, tedious days for Jules. True, Madame Greville came often with broths and jellies, Cousin Kate made flying visits to leave rare hothouse grapes and big bunches of violets; Clotilde hung over him with motherly tenderness, and his uncle looked into the room many times a day ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Shortening sail, we came to an anchor not far from the Saint Vincent, among several other yachts. On the Gosport side we could see across the harbour, away to the dockyard, off the quays of which were clustered a number of black monsters of varied form and rig. Papa said—though ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... which he had made to Jupiter. On the return of the army to Rome, the soldiers, by his directions, cut down a small oak-tree, and trimming the branches at the top, and shortening them as much as was necessary for the purpose, they hung the weapons and armor of Acron upon it, and marched with it thus, in triumph into the city. Romulus walked in the midst of the procession, a crown of laurel upon his head, and his long hair hanging ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... part of the body too prominent anteriorly, render it less apparent by shortening the waist, by a corresponding projection behind, and ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... with his head bowed over his knitting, as if he were hastily shortening the very thread of time. The minutes went slowly by. He stopped his work and clasped his hands firmly together. I saw he had forgotten his guest, and I kept the afternoon watch with him. At last he looked up as if but a moment had passed of ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... found the time very tedious while August delayed about camp, punching new holes in his saddle-girth, shortening his stirrups, and smoothing kinks out of his lasso. At last he saddled the roan, and also Black Bolly. Mescal came out of her tent ready for the chase; she wore a short skirt of buckskin, and leggings of the same ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... could take advantage of his success, I sprang at his throat, grasped his sword-arm with my left hand, and, shortening my stump of a weapon, drove ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... organ, like the wing of the penguin, we have then a singular divergence from the ordinary vertebrate fin-limb. In the ichthyosaurus, in the plesiosaurus, in the whales, in the porpoises, in the seals, and in others, we have shortening of the bones, but no reduction in the number either of the fingers or of their joints, which are, on the contrary, multiplied in Cetacea and the ichthyosaurus. And even in the turtles we have eight carpal ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... more frequent the pains, the quicker it will be over. First confinements necessarily take longer, because the parts take more time to open up, or dilate, to a degree sufficient to allow the child to be born. In subsequent confinements, these parts having once been dilated yield much easier, thus shortening the time and the pains of this, the most painful, stage of labor. The average duration of labor is eighteen hours in the case of the first child, and about twelve hours with women who have already borne children. The time, however, is subject to considerable variation, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... the weather altered for the worse, and there was not a single fine day until the 20th. A strong east-southeast wind with falling snow prevailed. As the days were shortening rapidly, all were beginning to feel anxious ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... that station; and for the purpose of preserving it, to maintain peace. By remaining at peace ourselves, we best secure Portugal; by remaining at peace, we take the best chance of circumscribing the range and shortening the duration of the war, which we could not prevent from breaking out between France and Spain. By remaining at peace, we shall best enable ourselves to take an effectual and decisive part in any contest into which we may be ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... waking day, is by it made hated and hateful. It degrades the industrious man, thrilling with energy, into a work-shy slacker—for what else does it mean that all social conflicts culminate in the demand for a shortening of the hours of work? For the peasant, the research-worker, the artist, the working day is never long enough; for the artisan, who calls himself par excellence a "worker," it can never be ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... planet, must in the long sweep of time have changed its rate of rotation. Thus the seeming acceleration of the moon might be accounted for as actual retardation of the earth's rotation—a lengthening of the day instead of a shortening of the month. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... knelt down before his Majesty's knees, and the rest of the bishops knelt on either hand, and about him; and they did their homage together, for the shortening of ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... for which he had an affection that sprang from old associations and was capable of mysterious revivals and refreshments. Here he lingered late, till the snow was on the nearer hills, almost down to the limit to which he could climb when his stint, on the shortening afternoons, was performed. The autumn was fine, the lake was blue and his book took form and direction. These felicities, for the time, embroidered his life, which he suffered to cover him with its mantle. At the end of six weeks he felt he had learnt St. George's lesson by heart, ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... between the shoulder and elbow, swelling and shortening may give rise to deformity. Pain and abnormal motion are symptoms, while a grating sound may be detected, but manipulation of the arm for this purpose should be avoided. The surface is apt soon to become black ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... should be carried forward of the abdomen and the abdominal muscles given their best leverage by a slight bending forward from the hips. (Bending forward must not be done by any dropping of the chest, or shortening of the line at waist through relaxation.) This position must be light, active, ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... those of age; thy forehead wrapt in clouds, A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne A sliding car indebted to no wheels, And urged by storms along its slippery way; I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st, And dreaded as thou art. Thou hold'st the sun A prisoner in the yet undawning East, Shortening his journey between morn and noon, And hurrying him impatient of his stay Down to the rosy West. But kindly still Compensating his loss with added hours Of social converse and instructive ease, And gathering at short notice in one group The family dispersed ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... these are to be seen the forms of feelers, legs, and maxillae of the imago prefigured in the cuticle of the pupa (fig. 1 e). The pupa thus resembles the imago much more closely than it resembles the larva; even in the proportions of the body a relative shortening is to be noticed, and the imago of any insect with complete transformation is reduced in length as compared with the full-fed larva. Now these wings and other structures characteristic of the imago, appear in the pupa which is revealed by the shedding ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... of fact, the marked shortening of the menu is in informal dinners and at the home table of the well-to-do. Formal dinners have been as short as the above schedule for twenty-five years. A dinner interlarded with a row of extra entrees, Roman punch, and hot dessert is unknown except ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... immediately followed the grant by the Commons of a Return relating to Irish Lunacy accounts. From the meagre official summary we gather that the absence of reporters has at least the negative advantage of shortening speeches. In a very few days, however, the Prime Minister discarded reticence, admitting the gravity of the situation, the prevalence of street fighting, the spread of the insurrection in the West, the appointment of Sir John Maxwell to the ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... my wardrobe was rather dilapidated from constant hunting, and the limited number of clothes I had with me, I proceeded to mend my trousers, which were worn through just where it might naturally be expected they would first give way. This I could only do by shortening the legs of the garment. However, the end justified ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... not usually known. They stretch out and crook about here and there, penetrating the crevices of the soil wherever there is the least chance, and the matured portions begin to shorten, reminding one somewhat of an angleworm when one end has been stepped on. By this shortening process the top or crown of a dandelion or plantain is pulled down beneath the surface of ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... in troops on many parts of the shore, and some seemed desirous to come off to us in canoes, but they did not; and, probably, our not shortening sail, was the reason. From the South-west Cape, the direction of the coast is N. by W.; but the most advanced land bore from it N.W. by N., at which the land seemed to terminate. Continuing to follow the direction ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... apples. She did wonders with those apples and they added a big variety to our menus. Another saving was effected by buying suet which cost but a few cents a pound, trying this out and mixing it with the lard for shortening. As the weather became cooler we had baked beans twice a week instead of once. These made for us four and sometimes five or six meals. We figured out that we could bake a quart pot of beans, using half a ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... later Romans. They may, indeed, have perfected the system by grafting the column upon it, but it is at least probable that they took it in the first place from those who had practised it from time immemorial, from men who taught them the traditional methods of shortening and facilitating the labour of execution. The boundaries of Asia Minor "march" with those of Mesopotamia, and in the latter every important town had buildings of brick covered with domes. The Romans frequented the Euphrates valley, to which they were taken both by war and commerce; ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... well, little by little the thermometer beside the drug store's door showed rising-temperature levels as John stopped to look at it on the way to school. The long, northern shadows which the houses and apartments cast against the soot-grayed snow were shortening rapidly, and his paper route, so long patrolled in entire or semi-darkness, was now completed just as dusk ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... time the foreman had taken hold of the rope that held the most violent of the ponies, and was slowly shortening upon it. As he neared the pony's head a cowboy began whipping a ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... meat." Joel, extending an almost transparent hand toward his sister's caller, shook a bony forefinger in warning. "You're undermining your constitution. You're shortening your days by your inordinate use ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... one of them. He has told us that it is fitting that we should leave the question of life and death in the hands of the Almighty. If so, why is all Europe bristling at this moment with arms,—prepared, as we must suppose, for shortening life,—and why is there a hangman attached to the throne of Great Britain as one of its necessary executive officers? Why in the Old Testament was Joshua commanded to slay mighty kings? And why was Pharaoh and his hosts drowned ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... as a sea. It seemed like a vast frozen lake. The railroad which ran through this section ascended from the south-west to the north-west by Great Island, Columbus, an important Nebraska town, Schuyler, and Fremont, to Omaha. It followed throughout the right bank of the Platte River. The sledge, shortening this route, took a chord of the arc described by the railway. Mudge was not afraid of being stopped by the Platte River, because it was frozen. The road, then, was quite clear of obstacles, and Phileas Fogg had but two things to fear—an accident to the sledge, and ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... extended his huge hand stealthily toward her, as though to seize her. She shrank still further away. Akut's eyes were busy drinking in the humor of the situation—he did not see the narrowing eyes of the boy upon him, nor the shortening neck as the broad shoulders rose in a characteristic attitude of preparation for attack. As the ape's fingers were about to close upon the girl's arm the youth rose suddenly with a short, vicious growl. A clenched fist flew before Meriem's eyes ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the Bay of Isabella. It is a sad company that she carries; for in the cabin, deaf and blind and unconscious, there lies the heart and guiding spirit of the New World. He does not hear the talking of the waters past the Nina's timbers, does not hear the stamping on the deck and shortening of sail and unstopping of cables and getting out of gear; does not hear the splash of the anchor, nor the screams of birds that rise circling from the shore. Does not hear the greetings and the news; does not see bending over him a kind, helpful, and well-beloved ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is near ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... One of the many names of Japan is that of the Country Ruled by a Slender Sword, in allusion to the clumsy weapons employed by the Chinese and Koreans. See, for the shortening and lightening of the modern Japanese sword (katana) as compared with the long and heavy (ken) of the "Divine" (kami) or uncivilized age, "The Sword of Japan; Its History and Traditions," T.A.S.J., Vol. ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... made, they turn round again, and gallop off with equal speed; but forming a shorter circle, and, returning with a bolder and more threatening aspect, they approach much nearer, when they make another stand, and again gallop off. This they do several times, shortening their distance, and approaching nearer, till they come within a few yards, when most people think it prudent ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... long breath, and felt a mountain removed from my very soul, as the ship passed out of the range of the last gun in the little semi-circle. The soldiers were making gestures to us to indicate we were getting too far west for a good berth, but we heeded them not. Instead of shortening sail, the fore and main tacks were boarded, and the top-gallant-sails set. This revealed our intention, and the clamour on the shore even reached the ship. Preparations were making to get a piece of light artillery to bear ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... presence of heat. There are so many ways of making bread of this kind that a recipe is not necessary. The amount of salt to be added depends upon individual taste. Some like to set their yeast working in part potato, part flour. Others use milk instead of water. Some add shortening. And nearly all women believe that their own ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... pursued with raised tones. 'If ever ye slept well since these troublous times began, now ye may sleep well in the drowsy night. For now, in this my reign, are come the shortening years like autumn days. Now I will have such peace in land as cometh to the husbandman. He hath ingarnered his grain; he hath barned his fodder and straw; his sheep are in the byres and in the stalls his oxen. So, sitteth he by his fireside with wife and child, and hath no fear of winter. Such a ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... set forth, after a hack at his lessons, and turned to make his way across lots along a well-worn path, in this fashion cutting off several corners, and shortening the distance, which is apparently a thing desired by ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... Spring of this year, at a meeting of the electors of Southwark, 'instructions' had been presented to Mr. Thrale and his brother-member, of which the twelfth was:—'That you promote a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments.' Gent. Mag. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... and themselves attempting to inaugurate reforms. As in the case of labour, it would be obviously unfair to claim that the employer element was actuated by motives of self-interest alone; nor were their concessions due only to fear. Instances could be cited, if there were space, of voluntary shortening of hours of labour, of raising of wages, when no coercion was exerted either by the labour unions or the state; and—perhaps to their surprise employers discovered that such acts were not only humane but profitable! ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that rose to wrath; and when he persisted, she became alarmed and now only considered what best she might do for her own sake. Her work suffered and her friends perceived that all was not well with her. With the shortening days and bad weather, the meetings with Raymond became more difficult to pursue and she saw less of him. They had patched their quarrel and were friendly enough, but the perfect understanding had departed. They preserved a common ground ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... distinct from that of the general body is created, an enlightened legislator will endeavour by every possible method to diminish the operation of such interest. The first and most natural mode that presents itself is that of shortening the regular duration of this trust, in order that the man who has betrayed it may soon be superseded by a more worthy successor. But this is not enough; aware of the possibility of imposition, and of the natural tendency of power to corrupt the heart ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... tell St. Peter if they see among the damned any one from whom they have received any benefit, or of whom they have even heard any good. If the keeper of Heaven's gate is pleased with the generous action which the lost soul performed while on earth, he has the power of shortening the time of punishment, or can even pardon it altogether, and bid it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... producing depravity of heart or habits, for its pure plumes have a virtue about them that is a preservative against pollution; but in wearing out the frame, ruffling the temper, and depressing the spirits, and thus embittering as well as shortening a career that, even when most peaceful and placid, is often destined to be short and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... heard with a sort of terror the sound of her "man's work" to which she energetically applied herself. It meant the return of her strength, of her independence. It meant the shortening of her captivity. Before long spring would rush up the canyon in a wave of melting snow, crested with dazzling green, and the valley would lie open to Joan. She would go unless—had he really failed so utterly to touch her heart? Was she without passion, this woman with the deep, savage ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... her cooking," pronounced Winnie, through the screen door, where she had been drawn by the argument. "But I tell you this in all honesty, Jack Welles; Mrs. Hildreth puts too much salt in her oatmeal, to my way of thinking, and she skimps on the shortening in her ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... treated with purely kinematic concepts. It is the fact itself which concerns us here. In respect of it, note as a characteristic of modern text-books that they often simply use the term 'kinetics' (a shortening of kinematics) to designate the ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... and at last Striss, when perhaps the family name again sufficed. So with us, Doctor has familiarly become "Doc," and Captain, "Cap," until one might rather have no title at all. Mr. itself is a grotesque malformation of a better word, and Miss is a silly shortening of the fine form of Mistress. This, pronounced Misses, can hardly add dignity to the name of the lady addressed, though doubtless it cannot be disused till we are all of the Society of Friends. The popular ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... of the parish—with the exception of Francine. "Mr. Mirabel has made the best excuse he could think of for shortening his visit; and I don't wonder at it," she ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... emptyings bread. Very few could make it. I stirred flour, sugar and water together until it was a little thicker than milk, then set it aside to sour. When it was thoroughly sour, I put in my saleratus, shortening and flour enough to make it stiff. It took judgment to make this bread, but everyone thought ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... the Army Estimates, iii. 211. on the Acts of Uniformity, vii. 3. on the Relief of Protestant Dissenters, vii. 21. on the Petition of the Unitarians, vii. 39. on the Middlesex Election, vii. 59. on Shortening the Duration of Parliaments, vii. 69. on Reform of the Representation of the Commons in Parliament, vii. 89. on the Powers of Juries in Prosecutions for Libels, vii. 105. on the Repeal of the Marriage Act, vii. 129. on Dormant Claims of the Church, vii. 137. in the Impeachment ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... greater destruction indirectly, or by means of small but extremely well-directed blows to produce such paralysation of the enemy's forces, such a command over the enemy's will, that this mode of proceeding is to be viewed as a great shortening of the road? Undoubtedly a victory at one point may be of more value than at another. Undoubtedly there is a scientific arrangement of battles amongst themselves, even in Strategy, which is in fact nothing but the Art of thus arranging ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... to the north of Spencer's Gulf receiving Cooper's Creek and its many tributaries, and also the Diamantina and Herbert; their waters being dissipated by soakage and evaporation. Westward, again, there is little doubt that no system exists, the level nature of the country and intermittent rainfall shortening the existence of the creeks before they have time to unite their flood waters in ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... east of the latitude of Chicago, and north of the Ohio River, are from three hundred to five hundred and fifty miles nearer the Pacific at Puget Sound than at San Francisco,—due to greater directness of the route and the shortening of longitude. These on both lines are the approximate distances. The distance from Puget Sound to St. Louis is estimated—via Desmoines—on the supposition that the time will come when that line of railway ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... advantages of the American economy were never greater and it is small business that is creating virtually all new jobs and employment opportunities. Commercial technology and products are turning over on ever shortening cycles. Performance, especially in high-technology products, is improving and costs are being ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... and the days were shortening, but the weather was very fine—sharp frosts at night, though warm enough, yet bracing, with a bright sky and pure atmosphere during the day. Sometimes a light silvery mist or haze hung over the landscape. ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... be coming up with him, he saw no necessity for shortening sail, as he hoped that she would close with him before nightfall. By the time the sun went down she had got considerably nearer, and, satisfied that all was right, he stood on. The night came on much ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... have used shorter, others longer words or cries: they may have been more or less inclined to agglutinate or to decompose them: they may have modified them by the use of prefixes, suffixes, infixes; by the lengthening and strengthening of vowels or by the shortening and weakening of them, by the condensation or rarefaction of consonants. But who gave to language these primeval laws; or why one race has triliteral, another biliteral roots; or why in some members of a group ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... pulse-stirring throb, the strident notes of a reed-pipe joined in and the dancer, raised on her toes on the dais, began to sway languorously to and fro. And so she swayed and swayed with sinuously curving limbs while the drums throbbed out faster with ever-shortening beats, with now and then a clash of brazen cymbals that was torture to ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... and whiskey casks for drink, and which you offer your children and friends for drink; it is poison which you sell to your neighbors; it is producing the same effects as other poisons upon you and upon them; that is, it is undermining your constitutions, and shortening your lives and happiness. You would not dare thus to manufacture and distribute among the community calomel or arsenic, if these were in use, leaving it to every man to determine how large doses he should take. Yet it would ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... to eliminate from service all those who showed a relatively long time between the stimulus and reaction. This involved laying off many of the most intelligent, hardest-working, and most trustworthy girls. Yet the effect was the possibility of shortening the hours and of reducing more and more the number of workers, with the final outcome that thirty-five girls did the work formerly done by a hundred and twenty, and that the accuracy of the work at the higher speed was two thirds ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... were clear, unhesitating. It was a voice from a rock speaking! So utterly mistaken was she; and so completely Luttrell bent every nerve to the service of shortening the hour of misery. The appalling moment was then actually upon her. She had foreseen it—so she thought. But it caught her nevertheless unprepared as death catches ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... moved cautiously down the long corridor towards the green baize doors, fully aware that it was not the proper way upstairs. He pushed them, and they swung behind him with a grunt that repeated itself several times, lessening and shortening until it ended in an abrupt puffing sound—and he found himself in a chilly corridor of stone. It was very dark; the candle threw the shadow of his hand down the gaping length in front of him. He went stealthily a ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... British troops. There was still desperate fighting to do for many days, and the curve of the Ypres salient had been reduced to a narrow oblong stretching from Ypres to Grafenstafel and the Polygon Wood, and little more than half in breadth what it was in length. A shortening of the line was inevitable, and it was effected with great skill and little loss on 3-4 May. But heavy bombardment continued to take a dreadful toll of life until a final gas attack on the 24th concluded the German effort. ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... of fresh mushrooms, cut them in small pieces, mix them with half a pound of minced ham or bacon, season them with a teaspoonful of salt, and half a saltspoonful of pepper; spread them on a roly-poly crust made by mixing one pound of flour, half a pound of shortening, and a teaspoonful of salt, with about one pint of water: roll up the crust, tie it tightly in a floured cloth, and boil it about two hours in boiling stock, or salted water; serve ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... a shadow, a defence, The guardian of his fame, his guide, his staff, Leaned on so long he fell if left alone. I was his eye, his ear, his cunning hand, Love was my spur and longing after fame, But his the goading thorn of sleepless age That sees its shortening span, its lengthening shades, That clutches what it may with eager grasp, And drops at last with empty, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the fact here stated by M. Morel, and the report of M. Garella, by mentioning that the latter suggests the propriety of carrying the Canal over a hill 120 yards high, and thus shortening its length, rather than to adopt M. Morel's line of survey along the flat and low lands, which is the longest ...
— A Succinct View of the Importance and Practicability of Forming a Ship Canal across the Isthmus of Panama • H. R. Hill
... to shortening our canvas—a perilous task. When that was done, leaving only the topsails spread, Ludar bade us make good the hatches, and fall to and eat. Which we did, all but the poet, who, being either big with his ode, or misliking the wildness of the ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... crab meat; four tablespoonfuls shortening; two green peppers; one large onion; three tomatoes; one cupful milk; two tablespoonfuls flour; one teaspoonful Kitchen Bouquet, one teaspoonful salt, one-fourth teaspoonful pepper. Make a white sauce by melting half the shortening, add flour and when well mixed ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... time finished his third slice of toast and drunk up his tea, turned to his book. Esther remained greatly chilled and cast down. Was her advantage to be bought at the cost of shortening her father's life? Was her rich enjoyment of study and mental growth to be balanced by suffering and weariness on his part?—every day of her new life in school to be paid for by such a day's price ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... of the wire, and holding prisoners immobile. Then the infantry will follow to gather in the sheaves. Multitudinously produced and—I write it with a defiant eye on Colonel Newcome—properly handled, these land ironclads are going to do very great things in shortening the war, in pursuit, in breaking up the retreating enemy. Given the air ascendancy, and I am utterly unable to imagine any way of conclusively stopping or even greatly ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... the encasing in the cloth of all crosspieces and ribs of the surfaces; (3) a rearrangement of the wires used in trussing the two surfaces together, which rendered it possible to tighten all the wires by simply shortening two of them.' ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... Aquarius, he causes the days to increase to the length which they had when he was in Sagittarius. From Aquarius he enters Pisces at the time when Favonius begins to blow, and here his course is the same as in Scorpio. In this way the sun passes round through the signs, lengthening or shortening the days and hours ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... part, lessened the number of degrees, for the voyage from Guinea to Calicut is shown to be greater than they assert or show, because from the time those lands were discovered until now, the said Portuguese have been shortening and lessening the said distance. [This assertion is proved by the various discoveries eastward made by the Portuguese navigators from the time of the Infante Don Enrique, (Prince Henry the Navigator) namely, Cadamosto, the Venetian; Antonieto, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... climate, anything approaching to heavy pruning is regarded as an abomination, and the general opinion is now in favour of shortening back long drooping primaries, removing cross shoots and wood that is not likely to bear anything more, and thinning out overgrowths of new wood. The most luxuriantly wooded part of the plantation should be pruned first, and the sticky ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... immortal Kepler regard Napier "to be the greatest man of his age, in the department to which he had applied his abilities." Napier died in 1617. It is no exaggeration to say that this invention, by shortening the labors, doubled the ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... Egyptian archers—and in a moment dragged him to the ground, while his comrade in the chariot raised his spear to dispatch him. Jethro sprang forward with a shout of rage, and with a blow of his sword struck off the head of the spear as it was descending. Then shortening his sword, he sprang into the chariot, ran the man holding the bow through the body, ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... suddenly a shortening of the future; it was like something to look forward to. Winn nodded gravely, but he didn't seem to take the same comfort in it that Claire ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... percussion Kentuck by sawing off the breech-end of the barrel, rethreading it for the breech-plug, drilling a new vent, and fitting the lock with a flint hammer and a pan-and-frizzen assembly, and shortening the fore-end to fit. Rivers has a gunsmith over at Kingsville, one Elmer Umholtz, who does all his fraudulent conversions for him. I have an example of Umholtz's craftsmanship, myself. The collector who bought this spurious flintlock spotted what had been done, and squawked to the Rifle ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... season of the rose garden begins the first of April with the cutting out of dead wood and the shortening and shaping of last year's growth. With hardy roses the flowers come from fresh twigs on old growth. I never prune in the autumn, because winter always kills a bit of the top and cutting opens the tubular stem to the weather and ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... gun, a shotgun with a sawed off barrel. The shortening of the barrel served a double purpose. It made it possible for the gun to be hidden in the barrel, and it made of it, also, at close range, a far more dangerous and formidable weapon than it had been in ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... become reduced, while the teeth themselves tend to form a more even row. The canine or eye-teeth are relatively smaller in the gorilla than in primitive mammals; they are still smaller in the lower races of man; while in ordinary civilised man they do not project above the others. The shortening of the jaw is still proceeding, and, although in lower races of man the last molar or wisdom tooth is almost as large as the molars in front of it, in the higher races the wisdom tooth is much smaller and frequently does not develop at all, or ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... night the enemy made no attempt to renew the assault. With the dawn the worst of the task of shortening the line was accomplished, and the jaded men threw themselves down to rest, until every available position immune from rifle fire was covered with khaki and black figures sleeping the sleep ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... received occasional letters from home, but in the shifting life of the convict camp they had long since ceased to reach him, if indeed they had been written. For a year or two, the consciousness of his innocence had helped to make him resist the debasing influences that surrounded him. The hope of shortening his sentence by good behavior, too, had worked a similar end. But the transfer from one contractor to another, each interested in keeping as long as possible a good worker, had speedily dissipated any such hope. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... sent out to Australia already?' said Leonard—for a shortening of the eight years before his ticket-of-leave was the sole hope that had ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... highest heaven, came down to earth, assumed the form and garb of a Bhramin, and followed her silently, shortening the miles and smoothing the rough places, until she reached the bank of a deep and rapid stream. Here, as she sat down, faint and foot-sore, to nurse her babe, there came to her a grave and venerable pilgrim, who gently questioned her sorrows and comforted her with thrilling words, saying ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... modification of the radical or grammatical element, whether this affects a vowel or a consonant; reduplication; and accentual differences, whether dynamic (stress) or tonal (pitch). There are also special quantitative processes, like vocalic lengthening or shortening and consonantal doubling, but these may be looked upon as particular sub-types of the process of internal modification. Possibly still other formal types exist, but they are not likely to be of importance in a general survey. It is important to bear in mind ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... shortening days meant long cold nights. The soldiers in Moscow made camp-fires of the costly pieces of furniture that remained in the palaces, but those who were encamped on the plains outside had no fire at all in the long hours of darkness. Many ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... pupil who completes a course of six years in either being obliged to serve but one year with the colors. It is said that a large number of those who graduate in these schools do so for the sake of thus shortening their term of military service. I was present at an evening entertainment offered by the older students of one Gymnasium to the friends of the school. It was a rendering, in Greek, of the Antigone of Sophocles, with considerable adjuncts of scenery, costume, ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... when at the close of the business he bestowed upon her a judicious amount of praise and said that she had proved a great help to him, shortening his labor ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... was added the exclusive care of the master himself—a care which gave the boy the keenest delight, and which embraced every service from the drawing off of St. George Wilmot Temple's boots to the shortening of that gentleman's slightly gray hair; the supervision of his linen, clothes, and table, with such side issues as the custody of his well-stocked cellar, to say nothing of the compounding of various combinations, sweet, sour, and strong, the betrayal of whose secrets would ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... this is getting rather serious," said Dennis. "They're shortening their fuses for some reason or other, and we're just in the line of fire. I wish there was a safe spot where we could lie up until we see what it means. What's the matter with that building over there with the broken chimney shaft? The beggars ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... with his snow-goggles, in spite of the fact that he could not see with them, and that they allowed him to become snow-blind. The rest of us kept our sleeping-bags as they were, only lengthening or shortening them as required. We were all greatly pleased with the device for closing them — on the plan of a sack. Outside our bags we had a cover of very thin canvas; this was extremely useful, and I would not be without it for anything. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... Daughter, stand by! I know these insolent slips Of young nobility; they lack the stuff That makes us artists. What! to answer me! When next I drop a hint as to his colors, The lengthening or the shortening of a stroke, He'll bandy words with me about his error, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... St. Helena. This epoch is important, as making the beginning of a continued series of accusations, and counter-accusations, by which the last five years of Napoleon's life were constantly occupied, to the great annoyance of himself and all connected with him, and possibly to the shortening ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... twice as long to cook beans or other vegetables in that high altitude; that one must put more flour in the cake and not so much shortening or it would surely fall; that meat hung in the dry air would keep fresh indefinitely—but we had not tasted a bite of fresh meat since ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... on those of Virgil. Licences of versification are rare. The spondaic line, rarely used by Ovid, almost discarded by Lucan, but which reappears in Statius, is sparingly employed by Valerius. Hiatus is still rarer, but the shortening of final o occurs in verbs and nominatives, such as Juno, Virgo, whenever it suits the metre. His speeches are rhetorical but not extravagant, some, e.g., that of Helle to Jason, are very pretty. In ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... that Fall-pruning, or shortening-in the ripened wood of the vine, and summer-pruning, shortening in and thinning out the young growth, have one and all the same object in view, namely, to keep the vine within proper bounds, and concentrate all its energies for a two-fold object, namely, the production ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... foreshortenings of time are found in many playlets where the effect of an hour-or-more of events is compressed into the average twenty minutes. As an example of this perfectly safe use of shortening, note the quickness with which Harry returns to Miss Carey's apartment when he goes out to change into his regimentals. And as still safer foreshortenings, note the quickness with which Fred Saltus enters after Miss Carey goes to bed leaving Angela on the couch; and the quickness with which ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... conditions in the South are such as to necessitate a system of separate schools for whites and Negroes, and since this necessitates the establishment of a large number of extra schools, it inevitably results in the shortening of school terms and the cutting down of the salaries of teachers. I have found some Negro country schools in Alabama paying the teachers from twelve to fifteen dollars per month, and the length of the school term was only four months. In these cases I did not find the teachers ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... might be corrected by the removal of the article before the word "louder", or by the poetical contraction of "sympathy" into "symp'thy". The third line of the fourth stanza possesses only four feet. This may be an intentional shortening to give rhetorical effect, yet it mars none the less the symmetry ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... were going to tell your speech to that man," said Jo, rudely shortening her sister's ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... calendar above his table. How many days to Christmas? How much time might he spend in Freeford? How long before Christmas might he arrange to leave Churchton? The holidays at home loomed as a harbor of refuge. By shortening as far as possible the interval here and by lengthening as far as possible the stay with his family, he might cut down, in some measure, the imminent threatenings of awkwardness and constraint; then, beyond the range of anything but letters, he might study the unpleasant situation ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... expression of his eyes and the pose of his head are all in accord with the tone of his exclamation. When he tastes the plum he utters a series of ahs, and produces a kind of warble by prolonging some of his notes and shortening up others. We find in these examples, without doubt, that the articulate voice makes us better able to judge the meaning of the impressions that are moving the animal than inarticulate cries, or merely musical sounds. When Jaco met a child for whom he had a great ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... husbandry, being willing to starve themselves, so that they could starve out their oppressors. [4] In order to avoid the famine which menaced his little colony, Columbus was obliged to resort to coercive measures, shortening the allowance of food, and compelling all to work, without distinction of rank. These unpalatable regulations soon bred general discontent. The high-mettled hidalgos, especially, complained loudly of the indignity of such mechanical drudgery, while Father Boil and his brethren were equally ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... and struck the first or second day of February. So far I kept perfect reckoning; but after that I was not so exact, though I kept it as well as my perplexity would admit even then, till the days shortening ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... this time; started; stopped; and shortening his sight, which had been directed a long way off as seeking for enlightenment in the very heart of the approaching year, found himself face to face with his own child, and looking close ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... exhibits a smaller daily average is to be found in the fact that judges are now pronouncing shorter sentences than was the custom twenty years ago. We are not left in the dark upon this point; the judges themselves frequently inform the public that they have taken to shortening the terms of imprisonment. The extent to which sentences have been shortened within the last twenty years can easily be ascertained by comparing the committals to prison and the daily average of the quinquenniad 1868-72 with the committals and the daily ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... 'skew-jawed' one," pronounced Dimple. "I can never do anything with those on the parer. Pick out the ones that are perfectly round and smooth, and they will go all right. I wonder how much shortening I ought to put in. Does that look ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... with his delicate frame. It may be said that he passed through the forty-two years which made up the measure of his life in a chronic state of bodily infirmity. The fret and worry incidental to an ambitious parliamentary and official career doubtless also contributed their share to the shortening of ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... going!" Nina muttered, lacing high white buckskin shoes, with some shortening of breath. "Granny says a ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... Kind reader! the shortening space we have prescribed to our volume warns us we must draw our story to an end. Nine months after this Killarney excursion, Lord Scatterbrain met Dick Dawson near Mount Eskar, where Lord Scatterbrain ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... But our shortening paper warns us not to prolong our catalogue of distresses beyond reasonable bounds, and therefore we will close with advising all our friends, who intend to try this way of travelling for pleasure, to take a good stock both of patience and clean towels with them, for we think ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... in a ride from his quarters, determined him to request leave of absence for a few weeks. He resolved first to visit his uncle's ancient friend and correspondent, with the purpose of extending or shortening the time of his residence according to circumstances. He travelled of course on horse-back, and with a single attendant, and passed his first night at a miserable inn, where the landlady had neither shoes nor stockings, and the landlord, who called himself a gentleman, was disposed ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... whole stock of his provisions; in short, that I was to take my staff and walk on to Inverness. It was in vain that I remonstrated, pleaded and urged wet feet, the darkness, the wind and rain. "It is so," said the lassie, "and can't be otherwise." She tried to encourage me to the journey by shortening the distance by half its actual miles, saying it was only two, when it was full four, and they of the longest kind. So I went out into the night in my wet clothes, and put the best face and foot to the head-wind ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... closer to the running gear, the rim of the wheel just grazed a bolt-head in a small brace underneath, thereby producing the peculiar grating noise we had heard and materially checking the motor. The shortening of the struts and reaches to admit the short chain had done all this. As the chain had stretched a little, we were able to lengthen slightly the struts so as to give a little more clearance; it was also possible to shift ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... materialist. Agatha says that I am a rank one. I tell her that is an excellent reason for shortening our engagement, since I am in such urgent need of her spirituality. And yet I may claim to be a curious example of the effect of education upon temperament, for by nature I am, unless I deceive myself, a highly psychic man. I was a nervous, sensitive boy, a dreamer, a somnambulist, ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lightly into the saddle, shortening the lead rope and fastening it to the horn. "I ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... giving promise of a vigorous career. But evidently with this boon the patience of nature was exhausted; for Franklin's infirmities now increased upon him terribly. He endured extreme pain during periods steadily increasing in length and recurring at ever-shortening intervals. He bore his suffering, which too often became agony, with heroic fortitude; but it was evident that even his strong frame could not long hold out against the debilitating effects of his merciless disease. ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... paused no longer, but, shortening up the rope, pulled on it with all his strength, and then leapt out upon the arch of waters. They struck him and he was dashed out like a stone from a sling; again he fell against them and again was dashed away, so that his girdle burst. Eric felt it go and clung wildly to the rope and ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... imprint showing where the buck had bounded at the shot, but no blood. He followed, and a dozen feet away found the next hoof marks and on them a bright-red stain; on and another splash; and more and shortening bounds, till one hundred yards away—yes, there it lay; the round, gray form, quite ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... been busy with irreparable deeds of vandalism, but at Hereford he surpassed his previous efforts in this direction. He altered the whole proportion of the building, shortening the nave by a bay of 15 feet, erected a new west front on a "neat Gothic pattern," and availed himself of the chance of removing all the Norman work in the nave, above the nave arcade substituting ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... seem to me to be fundamental, so far as assisting pupils through the difficulties which lie in their way is concerned. Diminish the difficulties as far as is necessary by shortening and simplifying the steps, and make thorough work as you go on. These principles, carried steadily into practice, will be effectual in leading any mind through any difficulties which may occur. And though they can not, perhaps, ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... sale, and George weds Anna. Boieldieu's music has much melodic beauty, though its tenderness is apt to degenerate into sentimentality. In its original form the opera would nowadays be unbearably tiresome, and only a judicious shortening of the interminable duets and trios can make them tolerable to a modern audience. In spite of much that is conventional and old-fashioned, the alternate vigour and grace of 'La Dame Blanche' and the genuine musical interest of the score make it the most favourable specimen of this period ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... the 10th of August the Parrott thirty-pounders were received and placed in Position; for a couple of days we kept up a sharp fire from all our batteries converging on Atlanta, and at every available point we advanced our infantry-lines, thereby shortening and strengthening the investment; but I was not willing to order a direct assault, unless some accident or positive neglect on the part of our antagonist should reveal an opening. However, it was manifest that ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... inquiry, disregard all warnings, go out on the first appearance of a strip of blue sky, and come home wet through, with what she calls "only a chill," but which really means a nail driven into her coffin—a probable shortening, though it may be a very small one, of her mortal life; because the food of the next twenty-four hours, which should have gone to keep the vital heat at its normal standard, will have to be wasted in raising it up to that standard, from which it has ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... surely, fore-shortening the horizon, and by just so much increasing the distance that ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... the night gave Vjera fresh strength and courage. The way was long, as distances are reckoned in Munich, and more than ten minutes elapsed before they reached the building. A sentry was pacing the pavement under the glare of the gaslight, his shadow lengthening, shortening, disappearing and lengthening again on the stone-way as he walked slowly up and down. Vjera and her companion stopped on the other side of the street. The sentinel paid ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... invalids. We must cease to deal with such as with responsible human beings, who might do better if only they would. The "indeterminate sentence" is a step toward such treatment, but it is often rendered wholly futile by being mixed with "reward of shortening term for good behavior in prison." Good behavior inside prison walls gives no proof of ability to take good care of one's self outside those walls; it may be only a proof that the moral weakling has to have an external conscience and a strict ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... thin membrane, the base of the ovipositor bulges out, bent back into a stout hook. Here the filament passes through the insect from end to end and emerges underneath. Its issue is therefore near the base of the abdomen, instead of at the tip, as usual. This curious arrangement has the effect of shortening the lever-arm of the ovipositor and bringing the starting-point of the filament nearer to the fulcrum, namely, the legs of the insect, and of thus assisting the difficult task of inoculation by making the most of the ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... had seldom gone to bed sober. Now, when he had nothing to occupy his mind save terrible recollections and terrible forebodings, he abandoned himself without reserve to his favourite vice. Many believed him to be bent on shortening his life by excess. He thought it better, they said, to go off in a drunken fit than to be hacked by Ketch, or torn limb from ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thousand of his men, and came with much diminished numbers to a place called the White Village, between Sidon and Berytus, on the seacoast, where he waited for the arrival of Cleopatra. And, being impatient of the delay she made, he bethought himself of shortening the time in wine and drunkenness, and yet could not endure the tediousness of a meal, but would start from table and run to see if she were coming. Till at last she came into port, and brought with her clothes and money for the soldiers. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough |
