"Curtail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of feeling the life he had mapped out for himself seemed horrible beyond thought. He could not bear it. It would be tying his hands and burdening himself with a responsibility that would curtail his freedom and hamper him beyond endurance. A great restlessness, a longing to escape from the irksome tie, came to him. Solitude and open spaces; unpeopled nature; wild desert wastes—he craved for them. The want was like a physical ache. The desert—he drew his ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... saying that we could have a holiday without extra expense; but say, I told him to shut up, that if I chose to spend two dollars on my only sister it was nobody's business. I really think Andrew has come to like me first-rate, though I'm a little afraid he misses his garments and has to curtail his customary smokes on ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... transferred to the Federal Communications Commission, over accounts and depreciation rates of telephone companies does not, in the absence of exercise by the federal agency of its power, operate to curtail the analogous State authority;[875] nor is an unconstitutional burden laid upon interstate commerce by the action of a State agency in requiring a telephone company to revise its intrastate toll rates so as to conform to rates charged for comparable ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... going further into the detailed measures necessary to attain this ideal, the importance of which must be evident to every practical soldier. I would call attention to only one fundamental consideration: the desire to curtail the length of supply columns by concentrating the loads, with the object of lessening the congestion of the roads and diminishing the time needed to bring their contents to the troops, is sound as long as it attains its object, fatal ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... himself fully and decidedly in favour of my work. The only objection he had to make was that the stretta of the second finale was too abrupt, a criticism which proved his keenness of perception; and I was able to show him, by the score, how I had been compelled, much against my inclination, to curtail the opera, and thereby create the position to which he had taken exception. We often met when out walking and, as far as it was possible with a person so sparing of words, we exchanged views on matters of musical interest. He was looking forward to the production, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... "that is wimmen's work. I would not wish for a moment to curtail the holy rights of wimmen. I wouldn't want to stand in her way, and keep her from doin' all this modest, un-pretendin' work, for which her weaker frame and less hefty brain ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... a machine was prompted by the desire to curtail the physical sufferings of the victim, instead of prolonging them, as under the ancient system. It is, however, difficult to believe that the mediaeval judges were actuated by any humane feelings, when we find that, in order to reconcile ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... was soon traced, less than two lengths of the horse from the last grass on the turf. Vizcarra and Roblado would have insisted upon short measure; but their proposal to curtail it was received with murmurs of disapprobation and mutterings ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... to restrain him; no old settlements to bind him hand and foot; none of those hundred and one family interests to consult which accumulate in the course of years around a landed estate, and so seriously curtail the freedom of the man in possession, the head of the family. So far as liberty and financial considerations go, he is much better off than his landlord, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... represent its labour, it will have levied, in two centuries, a tenfold value on the labour of others. In this social arrangement, is there not a monstrous evil to be reformed? And this is not all. If it should please this family to curtail its enjoyments a little—to spend, for example, only 900 francs, instead of 1,000—it may, without any labour, without any other trouble beyond that of investing 100 francs a year, increase its capital and its income in such rapid progression, ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... be found that in the subsequent discussions of this question there was generally, if not at all times, a proposition pending to in some way curtail this power of the President by legislation, which furnishes evidence that to limit such power it was supposed to be necessary to supplement the Constitution ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... to life against your right to things at whatever point the two claims might directly or indirectly conflict. The effect of the disproportionate possession of the wealth of a community by some of its members to curtail and threaten the living of the rest is not in any way affected by the means by which that wealth was obtained. The means may have constituted, as in past times they often did by their iniquity, an added injury to the community; but the ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... by Ruskin ("Modern Painters"), that no one can venture to do more than quote his description. It is well known to many, but none will regret having it called to their remembrance—"placuit semel—decies repetita placebit"—space, however, will oblige me somewhat to curtail it. "Meek creatures! the first mercy of the earth, veiling with hushed softness its dentless rocks: creatures full of pity, covering with strange and tender honour the sacred disgrace of ruin, laying quiet fingers on the trembling stones to teach them ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... the war that has now begun, nor can any curtail it until it has run its appointed course. But we have at our command a power which, if skilfully applied at the right moment, will turn the tide of conflict in favour of Britain, and if at that moment the Mother of Nations can gather her children about her in obedience to the call of common ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... international: Moldovan difficulties with break-away Transnistria region inhibit establishment of a joint customs regime with Ukraine to curtail smuggling, arms transfers, ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... their reason. They far excel their predecessors in the art of deducing general principles from facts. But unhappily they have fallen into the error of distorting facts to suit general principles. They arrive at a theory from looking at some of the phenomena; and the remaining phenomena they strain or curtail to suit the theory. For this purpose it is not necessary that they should assert what is absolutely false; for all questions in morals and politics are questions of comparison and degree. Any proposition which does not ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... him form loops where before he habitually made bars, or vice versa, and if he formerly made a u with an angle like a v he will not write the u with a rounded hook. Neither will it cause him to drop his habit of adding a spur to his initial letters or curtail the ends and tails that he was wont to make long. In short, the points to which the expert devotes his investigation are those least affected by any variation in the character of the pen used and the hand-gestures which have, by constant usage, become as much part of the ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... was the breaking of a law. So when Parliament passed acts regulating wages, conditions of employment, or prices of commodities, those who combined secretly or openly to circumvent the act, to raise wages or lower them, or to raise prices and curtail markets, at once fell under the ban of conspiracy. The law operated alike on conspiring ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... to laugh. He laughed full heartily; There lives a curtail fryer in Fountains Abbey Will beate ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... of the Negative which culminates in Death as the sum-total of all limitations, and which introduces at every step those restrictions which are of the nature of Death, because their tendency is to curtail the ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... my mind is the belief that Socrates corrupted the young. This man, who, beyond what has been already stated, kept his appetites and passions under strict control, who was pre-eminently capable of enduring winter's cold and summer's heat and every kind of toil, who was so schooled to curtail his needs that with the scantiest of means he never lacked sufficiency—is it credible that such a man could have made others irreverent or lawless, or licentious, or effeminate in face of toil? Was he not rather the ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... devilish trick of that minx Feng!" Chia Chen smiled. "How ever could they have reached such straits? She's certain to have seen that expenses were great, and that heavy deficits had to be squared, so wishing again to curtail some item or other, who knows which, she devised this plan as a preparatory step, in order that when it came to be generally known, people should say that they had been reduced to such poverty. But from the result of the calculations ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... interested in the phenomenon of a blacksmith that bound books and read them. He began to dream of patronage and responsive devotion. What a thing it would be for him, in after years, with the cares of property and parliament combining to curtail his leisure, to have such a man at his beck, able to gather the information he desired, and to reduce, tabulate, and embody it so as to render his chief the best-informed man in the House! while at other times he would ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... their power rests upon their wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because they gain by their ruin; they take interest from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their ...
— The Republic • Plato
... necessary to his existence,—no doubt he may have to content himself with a less quantity than he could have wished, and have to substitute oatmeal and potatoes, or some other inferior food for wheaten bread and butchers meat; still, it is less in his power to curtail the consumption of agricultural produce than of manufactures, so that the manufacturing classes suffer from the general distress which renders the people unable to consume in a greater degree ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... spoken of the prohibition imposed by Massachusetts, I may be pardoned for a slight inquiry as to the effect of this prohibition. First, it did not in any way abridge or curtail the exercise of the suffrage by any person who enjoyed such right. Nor did it discriminate against the illiterate native and the illiterate foreigner. Being enacted for the good of the entire commonwealth, like all just laws, its obligations fell equally and impartially on all ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... traditions as she had at first supposed. Each year she had made a stupendous effort to keep Christmas after the old fashion; and each season the ceremony, before it was over, made appalling inroads on her slender purse. This time it had been her plan to curtail expenses and put what was spent into the more substantial and lasting things. But now as she glanced about her her heart misgave her. Even Carl and Mary, valiantly as they fought for economy, and grown ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... have taken the opportunity when I had it," replied Hugh. "I want to ask your help. May I begin at the beginning, and tell you all the story? or must I epitomize and curtail it?" ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... colonized the Cape of Good Hope; and in the same year, began the obstinate and bloody maritime, war between Holland and England. This arose principally from the navigation act, which was passed in England in 1650: its object and effect was to curtail the commerce between England and Holland, which consisted principally of foreign merchandize imported into, and English merchandize exported from, England in Dutch vessels. In this war, the Dutch lost 700 merchant ships in the years 1652 and 1653. In 1654, peace was made. The ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... Eugene is moody and distraught, for he is very much smitten with madame, who, to do her justice, does not encourage the passion, though in a certain way she enjoys the young man's adoration. Then, too, he is extremely miserable about money. He hates to curtail any indulgence, he is fond of theatres, operas, petit soupers, fresh gloves, and fast horses, and he is put upon an allowance, which makes him hate Floyd ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... appropriation for charitable purposes this present year, yet I can, perhaps, curtail in some directions and so remit to you $20 as a small tributary to swell the stream for meeting indebtedness. I hope your appeal will accomplish ...
— American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 11. November 1888 • Various
... those reforms while expanding government assistance for poor Colombians, who continue to make up about 40% of the population. In an effort to bring down inflation, SAMPER has arranged a "social pact" with business and labor to curtail price hikes and trim inflation to 18%. The rapid development of oil, coal, and other nontraditional industries, along with copious inflows of capital and strengthening of prices for coffee, have helped keep growth at 5%-6%. Development ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... London was very strong, but pride prevailed against it. Everard might perhaps go to see his cousin, and relate all that had happened at Seascale, justifying himself as he had here done. Whether Miss Barfoot became aware of the story or not, Rhoda could not reconcile it with her self-respect to curtail the stipulated three weeks of holiday. Rather she would strain her nerves to the last point of endurance—and if she were not suffering, then ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... injudiciously. The consequence is, that I am cramped severely, and am neglecting my legitimate business in order to run about after money. I owe your house more than half of the aggregate of my whole liabilities. Give me the time I ask, in order to recover myself and curtail my business, and ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... that boy, who has been denominated his cupid; he is a nobleman by birth, a gentleman by courtesy, and a gamester by profession. He exhausted a large estate upon odd and even, sevens the main, &c. till having lost sight of the main chance, he found it necessary to curtail his establishment and enliven his prospects, by exchanging a first floor for a second, without an opportunity of ascertaining whether or not these alterations were best suited to his high notions or exalted taste; ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... riots broke out in Sussex, in Birmingham, Nottingham, Coventry, and other places. Bills were passed with the object of husbanding the supply of wheat; liberal bounties were granted on importation, and the members of parliament entered into an agreement to curtail the use of wheaten flour in their own households. A bill for the regulation of wages, introduced by Whitbread, the brewer, and advocated by Fox, was opposed by Pitt and was rejected. Starving men are quick to believe assertions that their sufferings are caused ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... the burghertum, the vast middle class. They dislike the "academic freedom" of the university professor, would limit the liberty of the press and restrain the right of public meeting, and increase rather than curtail the powers of the police. On the other hand, if they are a powerful drag on the Emperor's Liberal tendencies—Liberal, that is, in the Prussian sense—towards a comprehensive and well-organized social policy, they are at least reliable supporters of his Government for the ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... Press considers he has done a bold thing, and, misjudging Cherif, praise him for having broken with the advisers who caused the ruin of Ismail. My opinion is that Tewfik feared Cherif's proposition as being likely to curtail his power as absolute ruler, and that he judged that he would by this dismissal gain kudos in Europe, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... is out of the question. Concentration will put a constant check upon over-accumulation of facts, and will rather seek to strengthen an idea by association with familiar things than to add a new fact to it. No matter how thorough and enthusiastic a specialist one may be, he is called upon to curtail the quantity of his subject and bring it into ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... Besides, why curtail the luxuries of courtship? Should haste to enjoy the lusciousness of summer engulf the delights of spring? The pleasures of courtship are unsurpassed throughout life, and quite too great to be curtailed by hurrying marriage. And ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... make a thorough investigation of the affair. Richelieu, the Prime Minister of France, wrote from Paris whether another revolution was breaking out; and Metternich insisted that the Duke of Weimar should curtail the liberties of his subjects. The heavy hand of reaction fell upon all German universities. German scholars were compelled to turn their interests from public affairs to pure science and scholarship, ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... only when a traveler has reached his goal that he is justified in discarding his maps. During the journey, he takes advantage of any convenient short cut. The ancient rishis discovered many ways to curtail the period of man's exile in delusion. There are certain mechanical features in the law of karma which can be skillfully adjusted by the fingers ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... suspicion of the concealment of smuggled goods. Otis resigned his office and took the side of the colonists, attacking the constitutionality of a law that allowed the right of unlimited search and that was really designed to curtail the trade of the colonies. He had the advantage of many modern orators in having something to say on his subject, in feeling deeply interested in it, and in talking to people who were also interested ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... of water the roots of the trees that are swelling their second crop; ply the syringe frequently amongst the foliage, and sprinkle the paths, &c., to keep the atmosphere moist. Shut up early in the afternoon. As the fruit of the first crop ripens, curtail the supply of atmospheric moisture—otherwise before they reach maturity they are apt to turn mouldy. The roots to be regularly supplied with water, and some liquid manure added about once a week to assist the second crop. Keep down red spider ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane
... could scarcely fail to realize that a point must be reached when the federal government would assert its authority in Utah territory, but they deemed a conflict with the government of less serious moment than a surrender which would curtail their own civil and criminal jurisdiction, and bring their doctrine of polygamy within reach of the law. A specimen of the unbridled utterances of these leaders in those days will be found in a discourse by Mayor Grant in the Tabernacle, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... observations, together with two photographs of him, or with four, if he had a beard when convicted, is sent to every police office in the country, and is there studied by the detectives and police. The intention, of course, is to render easier the recognition of "old offenders," and to curtail their future industries. It is generally affirmed that bertillons cannot be mistaken; but in a Detroit court, on January both, 1914, an expert declared that "a difference of one-eighth of an inch in the laying on of the fingers made an entirely different impression"; and "judgment was awarded ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... anxious that the affair should not interfere with the happiness of her guests. Some, indeed, proposed returning at once to Stonegate, but they were overruled by the younger members of the party, who were anxious to remain until the moon had risen, and also by Mrs. Woburn's desire not to curtail their enjoyment; and it was finally settled that the steamer should not ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... self-sacrifice, had been dismissed, if this indeed had been possible! Language, in short, is the depositary of all experience, which, being the inheritance of posterity, we have a right to vary, but none to curtail. We may improve the conclusions of our ancestors; we should not let drop any of their premisses; we may alter a word's connotation; but we must ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... did not curtail her authority; did not attack her honor or interests. We always responded loyally to the duties of our alliance and afforded her our protection when she took the field. We have done more. When Italy directed covetous glances ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... ask, Why then was it introduced? The answer is, that it could only have been done for greater caution, and to guard against all cavilling refinements in those who might hereafter feel a disposition to curtail and evade the legitimate authorities of the Union. The Convention probably foresaw, what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate, that the danger which most threatens our political welfare ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... inner end of Thirsty Sound in latitude 22 deg. 16'; and curtail the distance of thirty miles from Pier Head in captain Cook's chart, to twelve miles ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... expenditure. That control has generally been used, and quite rightly, as a means of calling attention to grievances, and as giving an opportunity for criticism of the executive; but the House of Commons should also put pressure on the executive to curtail expenditure, not so much by discussing small details which would be far better dealt with by such a small Estimates Examination Committee as suggested, but by using its influence generally against an increase of expenditure unless a clear case for it is ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... six years before Georgia ceded it to the United States, and ten years before Congress had power to prohibit the importation of slaves into that State. But these facts show a strong disposition on the part of "the fathers" to curtail and circumscribe slavery, even in the far south, and at the hazard, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... Jack.—"Go, Mak, and tell his majesty, or chieftainship, or his royal highness, with my compliments, that I am much obliged by the offer, and will consider it. Also give him this plug of tobacco; and see you don't curtail its dimensions before it ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... cultivating his garden, feeling the melancholy satisfaction that he was at least sheltered from all the wicked revolutionaries under the shadow of that colossus of stone, which inspired awe and respect from its majestic age. They might curtail the revenues of the temple, but they would be powerless against the Christian faith of those who lived under ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... position of Marduk, however, became more and more assured without danger of being shaken, the feeling of rivalry in his relations to the other gods began to disappear. Marduk's supremacy no longer being questioned, there was no necessity to curtail the homage paid to Shamash at Sippar or to En-lil at Nippur; hence the religious importance of the old centers is not diminished by the surpassing glory of Babylon. There was room for all. Marduk's toleration is the best ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... front of the house (one of the twenty-four commanding a fine sea-view "both ways") off, and in my first and only turn of refreshing sweet sleep, by the Silvery-voiced Tenor, who persists, spite entreaties, requests, and finally threats, to move a little further away, or curtail a singularly florid version of "Fra Poco" under eighteen-pence. On, at length, threatening to send for the police if he declines to desist, he meets the announcement with shouts of derisive laughter, a fact which, Mrs. COBBLES, my landlady, is kind enough to explain, indicates that "The Policeman," ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... connecting machinery before the teeth of the whirling blade could reach his fingers. Should it get beyond his control—of which there was not the remotest possibility—he would, of course, rent his house, sell his books and curtail. "In the meantime, my dear fellow, there is some of the old Madeira left and a game of whist will only help to drive ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... things crowded themselves into a few brief years! It is not easy to curtail these boyhood adventures of Sam Clemens and his scapegrace friends, but one might go on indefinitely with their mad doings. They were an unpromising lot. Ministers and other sober-minded citizens freely prophesied sudden and violent ends for them, and considered them hardly ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... color, and leave the forehead. 2. Curtail a joiner's tool, and leave a plot or draught. 3. Curtail a machine tool, and leave an article used in house-building. 4. Curtail a shrub, and leave warmth. 5. Curtail another shrub, and leave fog. 6. Curtail ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... morning to scrubbing the pig. The doctor's shouts of laughter could not persuade her to curtail the ceremony in the slightest detail. She had brought soap and towels and brush with her and she gravely scrubbed and rinsed and dried Bony and put him out in ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... of it I should be more so than I am. The saving of money without any special motive for it does not appear to me desirable, any more than self-denial without a sufficient motive—and I do not call mere mortification such—appears to me reasonable. I do not feel called upon to curtail the comforts of my daily life, for in some respects it is always miserable, and in many respects often inevitably very uncomfortable; and while I am laboring to spare sacrifice and disgrace to others, I do not see any very strong motive for not applying a sufficient portion ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... which under the earlier monarchs had been exceedingly abundant,—failed comparatively under the later ones, who therefore imported it from a distance. It is evident, however, that this scarcity was not allowed to curtail the royal amusement. To gratify the monarch, hunters sought remote and savage districts, where the beast was still plentiful, and, trapping their prey, conveyed it many hundreds of miles to yield a momentary ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... live on crackers—'thout any butter," she said miserably to herself, and she began to curtail her meals as much as discreetness ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... regret, of Mr. Talbot's speedy return. It would curtail his income considerably. Still he felt that Mr. Talbot would be satisfied with the manner in which his mother and himself had acquitted themselves of their trust, and that was ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... climate—Egypt, South Africa, Madeira—I could take my choice. I flatly refused to obey. I had my duties in London. He was so unsympathetic as to damn my duties. My duty was to live as long as possible, and my wintering in London would probably curtail my short life by two months. Then I turned on him and explained the charitable disingenuousness of my replies to his questions. He refused to believe me, and we parted with mutual recriminations. I sent him next day, however, a brace of pheasants, a present from Farfax ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... tapestries. The interview was pleasant and easy. When I took leave, she let me back down the whole length of the room, not half turning away as so many princesses do after the first few steps, so as to curtail that very inconvenient exit. However, a day dress is never so long and cumbersome as an evening dress ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... the truth, is not man a most miserable creature the while? It is scarce, by his natural condition, in his power to taste one pleasure pure and entire; and yet must he be contriving doctrines and precepts to curtail that little he has; he is not yet wretched enough, unless by art and study he augment ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... with Shad's help and able cooperation, she had managed to curtail the chase of the gypsy moth, temporarily, by holding the chaser captive in the family corn-crib, but she inwardly suspected that Stanley was remembering it. Every once in a while she accidentally caught him looking at ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... outer door, and drawn the chair forward, asking Mistress de Chavasse to sit. Squire Boatfield, who was visibly embarrassed, was still standing and tried to murmur some excuse, being obviously anxious to curtail this interview and to postpone ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... to curtail their royal visit was the state of politics at home, which had suddenly become critical. There were symptoms, and considerable ones, of disturbance and danger when they departed for their wedding tour, but they could not prevail on themselves to sacrifice a visit on which they ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... so unavoidably late, and that the early darkness of winter renders the roads so difficult for those who have long journeys to make, I shall somewhat curtail the remarks I have in mind," he said, pompously, and took another long drink ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... task about that, and told him he had no business to waste his time so," said Ogden; "but he said that he was not taking care of other people's money or trying to build up a great business, and that if he chose to curtail his practice, so as to have some time to work in politics, it was a matter of ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... adherents and opponents of the Definite Platform. Among these resolutions are the following: "II. Resolved, That while the basis of our General Synod has allowed of diversity in regard to some parts of the Augsburg Confession, that basis never was designed to imply the right to alter, amend, or curtail the Confession itself." "III. Resolved, That while this Synod, resting on the Word of God as the sole authority in matters of faith, on its infallible warrant rejects the Romish doctrine of the real presence of transubstantiation, and with it the doctrine of consubstantiation; rejects ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... desired to be President, were the avowed leaders. In the House of Representatives, in March, 1910, the Insurgents cooperated with the Democratic minority, defeated a ruling of Speaker Cannon, and modified the House rules in order to curtail the autocracy of the presiding officer. They asked the country to believe that Taft had ceased to be progressive and had become the ally of the stand-pat interests. The split in the Republican party enabled the ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... and lies they steal the men away to look at land which they call their own. The land pirates do not advertise, but live on the advertising that the reputable land men do. As a result the latter curtail their advertising and do a comparatively small amount of it, since they are prevented from realizing the full profits due on the investment. This is a situation that forces the land men to realize the need of a licensed ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... now so as to answer in the afternoon." The deputies took their time; and the discussion was a long and a hot one. "We see quite well how it is," said the princes and the majority of the great lords; "to curtail the king's power, and pare down his nails to the quick, is the object of your efforts; you forbid the subjects to pay their prince as much as the wants of the state require: are they masters, pray, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... value of scouting, volumes might be written, but suffice it to say that it is the principal means of standardizing the game. If the big teams of the country played throughout the season in seclusion, the final games would be a hodge-podge of varying systems which would curtail the interest of the spectator and all but block the development ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... It's a thing I bought Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day - I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech, As we curtail the already cur-tail'd cur (You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words?) Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days. Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern, And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange - 'Chop' was my snickering dandiprat's own ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... the beginning of December, the others following through December and closing in the later regions about the middle of January. Frosts play an important part in the ultimate yield. An early killing frost over the entire belt would curtail the size of the crop by 500,000 bales in a season, as was the case in 1909 when about 32,000,000 acres were planted. Light frosts and late frosts do little harm to the cotton-plant; in fact it is contended that the late frosts do much good under certain conditions of the crop, by opening the bolls ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... said territory north of said Missouri Compromise line, Slavery or involuntary servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited." As has been lucidly stated by another,—[Greeley's History]—"while seeming to curtail and circumscribe Slavery north of the above parallel (that of 36 30' north latitude), this measure really extended it northward to that parallel, which it had not yet approached, under the flag of Texas, within hundreds of ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... on that account minded to have respect merely to my own judgment in the governance of our life, but to unite your wisdom with mine; and that you may understand what I think of doing, and by consequence may be able to amplify or curtail it at your pleasure, I will in few words make known to you my purpose. The course observed by Pampinea to-day, if I have judged aright, seems to be alike commendable and delectable; wherefore, until by lapse of time, or for some other cause, it grow tedious, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... exploders, newsgroups, or chat rooms. As a practical matter, the Court also found that it would be prohibitively expensive for noncommercial as well as some commercial speakers who have Web sites to verify that their users are adults. These limitations must inevitably curtail a significant amount of adult communication ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... the Government. It would be thoroughly worth effecting, as every saving would, great or small. Our duty is not altered by the scale of the saving. But my point is that the people of the United States do not wish to curtail the activities of this Government; they wish, rather, to enlarge them; and with every enlargement, with the mere growth, indeed, of the country itself, there must come, of course, the inevitable increase ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... among his great contemporaries, who, if beginning his career at present, would not find it, in some degree, necessary to conform his style to the taste for business and matter-of-fact that is prevalent. Mr. Pitt would be compelled to curtail the march of his sentences—Mr. Fox would learn to repeat himself less lavishly—nor would Mr. Sheridan venture to enliven a question of evidence by a long and pathetic ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... land, with feudal accompaniments, it held a monopoly, or nearly one, of the land's resources. The old aristocracy of Holland grew jealous of the power and pretensions of what it frowned upon as an upstart trading clique and tried to curtail the rights and privileges of the patroons. These latter contended that their absolute lordship was indisputable; to put it in modern legal terminology that a contract could not be impaired. They elaborated upon the argument that they had ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... dark and stern days. It was in vain that financial leaders began to sound a note of warning, calling for retrenchment and thrift. And now the inevitable results were beginning to appear. The great steel and coal industries began to curtail their operations, while desperately striving to maintain war prices for their products. Other industries followed their example. All the time the cost of living continued to mount. Foodstuffs ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... to teach our daughters to do without expensive ornaments or fashionable elegances; better even to deny ourselves the pleasure of large donations or direct subscriptions to public charities, rather than to curtail the small stipend of her whose "candle goeth not out by night," and who labors with her needle for herself and the helpless dear ones dependent on ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... days after Octavia's arrival he made her get out one of her riding skirts, and curtail it to a shortness ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... Herculean in might, now rival mine; The starry light upon your forehead dims The lustre of my crown—distasteful sign. Contract thy wishes, boy! Do not insist Too much on what's thine own—thou art too new! Bend and curtail thy stature! As I list, It is my glorious privilege to do. Take my advice—I freely give it thee— Nay, would enforce it. I am ripe in years— Let thy young vigor minister to me! Restrain thy freedom when it interferes! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the imprisoned converts if it could be done consistently with their personal safety. But the missionaries believed that the intention of the Turks, and also the tendency of Sir Henry's movements, were seriously to curtail their own liberty and that of their converts, and greatly to embarrass the propagation of the Gospel, as well among all the nominally Christian ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... of a similar nature up to the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and the introduction of free trade into Great Britain. The Navigation Acts were repealed in 1849. Thus for very nearly two hundred years British trade was subject to restrictions, of which the avowed intention was to curtail the commercial intercourse of the empire with the world. During this period the commercial or mercantile system, of which the fallacies were exposed by the economists of the latter half of the 18th century, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... resumed the speaker, in reply, "the name by which I propose to christen this new and terrible device of mine, to counteract the power of virtue, and curtail the dominions ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... classrooms, given over to pens, ink, and sheets of foolscap paper, were the abodes of a silence only disturbed by the occasional scratching of a pen, or the sigh of a candidate in the throes of attacking a stiff problem. To Honor the experience was all new. She tried her best, but found it difficult to curtail her statements sufficiently to allow of her answering every question, in spite of Miss Farrar's oft-repeated warning against devoting too much time to one part of the paper. She was, of course, at a great disadvantage, ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... tears, and together we persuaded him not to curtail his holiday, which, indeed, he could not have done without assigning the reason to the elders, and this was out of the question. Nor did he venture to hang back when, as our service was to be on Sunday afternoon, my father proposed to walk to Hillside ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... individual mind of the preacher at liberty to range freely, as they wished it to do, in conducting the devotional services. It was on this very account that the friends of strong government did like it. They wished to curtail this liberty, which, however, they called license, and which they thought made mischief. In extemporaneous prayers, it is often easy to see that the speaker is aiming much more directly at producing a salutary effect on the minds ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... country, and trees that bear delicious apples. Her right hand bore for its weapon not a javelin, but a pruning-knife. Armed with this, she busied herself at one time to repress the too luxuriant growths, and curtail the branches that straggled out of place; at another, to split the twig and insert therein a graft, making the branch adopt a nursling not its own. She took care, too, that her favorites should not suffer from drought, and led streams of water by them, that the thirsty roots ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... consensus of enlightened public opinion should come to conclude that on the whole it is not so used, the people will find means to limit those rewards and to curtail that power. ...
— The New York Stock Exchange and Public Opinion • Otto Hermann Kahn
... that young lady having decided to go on at once to her father—without waiting to visit her Australian friends—in order that the judge's natural anxiety to see his daughter after her singular adventure might be gratified with as little delay as possible. And further to curtail that anxiety to its lowest limit, she despatched a cablegram to her father within an hour of her arrival in Melbourne. As for Dick, he allowed his affairs to stand during the two days that elapsed between ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... right construction of the Constitution, and that a state that voluntarily entered the Union could voluntarily withdraw from it. They did not fight for Confederate money. It was not worth ten cents a yard. They did not fight for Confederate rations—you would have had to curtail the demands of your appetite to make it correspond with the size and quality of those rations. They fought for what they thought was a proper construction of ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... through Aristodemus, Aristomachus, Cleodaeus and Hyllus to Heracles (Herodotus vii. 204), and he belongs rather to mythology than to history. Tradition ascribed to him the capture of the maritime town of Helos, which resisted his attempt to curtail its guaranteed rights, and the institution of the class of serfs called Helots ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that no attempt had been made as yet to curtail the young schoolmaster's liberty; otherwise the situation was quite as bad as Marty had so ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... this morning leads me to the conclusion that at present we shall not have to curtail the normal use of articles of food. There is enough food today for all of us and enough left over to send to those who are fighting on the same ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... to be present. The rooms, in spite of the outlet afforded by the garden, were all surprisingly full; and after a hurried exchange of greetings, which Eve's duties as hostess had compelled her to curtail, he had passed through a jungle of brilliant toilettes and unfamiliar figures into the newly-built, bright studio, where he had been told that he would find his friend. He had abundant leisure to corroborate the first impression of a splendour for which he was hardly prepared, which ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... can fight my own battles, and that I have no possible need of your sympathy. Put me alone, sir, and with my back to the wall. G. E. C. is happiest then. Well, sir, let us do what we can to curtail this visit, which can hardly be agreeable to you, and is inexpressibly irksome to me. You had, as I have been led to believe, some comments to make upon the proposition which I ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he seemed to dismiss them from his mind and, going over to the cage, sniffed eagerly at the meat inside it. He had had nothing to eat since the preceding noonday, and was ravenously hungry. But he seemed to suspect some trap to curtail his new-found liberty and, hungry as he was, for more than half an hour he refused to enter the cage. He made numerous attempts to hook the meat with his claws, but found it always a little beyond his reach. ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... hev 'em, and she'd orter hev a new hat, too," reflected Bud, and his song became a requiem. He manfully resolved to sacrifice his future to present needs and curtail the laundry fund. After some meditation he called upon the bishop, and asked if he might have an advance of half the amount he would ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... and Borderers; the General Assembly itself was made amenable to royal influence by its summons to Perth, where the cooler temper of the northern ministers could be played off against the hot Presbyterianism of the ministers of the Lothians. It was the Assembly itself which consented to curtail the liberty of preaching and the liberty of assembling in presbytery and synod, as well as to make the king's consent needful for the appointment of every minister. What James was as stubbornly resolved on was the ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... the functions which attends it, the growth of the foetus. Neither the pursuit of pleasure in the evening, nor the observance of any trite maxims in regard to early rising in the morning, should be allowed to curtail the hours devoted to slumber. Pregnant women have an instinctive desire to lie abed late, which, like the other promptings of nature during this period, should not be disregarded. At least eight hours out of the twenty-four can be profitably spent in bed. No night-watching ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... your assenting to it they have been deprived of all the legitimate influence of their office: and that though they profess that it was for my sake that they wished to have the vote for the outfit of the consuls under their control, not in order to curtail their freedom of action, but in order to attach them to my cause:[371] that as things stand now, supposing the consuls to choose to take part against me, they can do so without let or hindrance, but if they wish to do anything in my favour they are powerless if the tribunes ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Church to regain its hold on thinking men it must simplify and curtail its creeds; it must recognize that the love of God is not measured by the narrowness of human prejudice, and that God's arms are open to receive every honest searcher after truth. Let him come with ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... year 1515, an attempt was made by the superior, Isabel of Bourbon, to curtail the indulgences of the sisterhood, by keeping them more closely confined, increasing the number of fast-days, and generally introducing a system of greater rigor. But the nuns remonstrated against the innovation, and had recourse to the Bishop of Bayeux, alledging the injustice of their being ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... could be made than to curtail the hours of sleep. Eight hours should be taken as a minimum, and any weak person should take ten hours. More and better work can be done by a person who takes fully eight hours' sleep than by one who tries to do ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... Royal Hungarian crown against every attack from without, and every attempt at disruption and separation that may be made within the kingdom, and at the same time inviolably to maintain the laws which have received the Royal sanction. And while His Majesty will not suffer any one to curtail the liberties assured to all classes by the law, His Majesty, as well as all the members of His Royal dynasty, strongly condemns the audacity of those who venture to affirm that any illegal act whatsoever or any disrespect ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... organisms are by adaptation to the conditions of life; even species are altered during the embryonic development. Moreover, it is an advantage for all higher organisms (and the advantage is greater the more advanced they are) to curtail and simplify the original course of development, and thus to obliterate the traces of their ancestors. The higher the individual organism is in the animal kingdom, the less completely does it reproduce in its embryonic development the series of its ancestors, for reasons that are as yet ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... quarters of these acquisitions are for him superfluous. He derives no advantage from them, neither for inward satisfaction or for getting ahead in the world; and yet they must all be gone through with. In vain would the father of a family like to curtail his children's mental stores to useful knowledge, to reading, writing and arithmetic, to giving to these just the necessary time, at the right season, three months for two or three winters, to keep ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... sellers, it advances. If the supply and the number of buyers are normally well balanced, the price will be determined largely by the cost of production and transportation. If events or circumstances operate to increase or curtail either the sugar supply or the number of buyers, and such events or circumstances follow one after the other ...
— About sugar buying for Jobbers - How you can lessen business risks by trading in refined sugar futures • B. W. Dyer
... slaves to number, as to insert words which have no use nor meaning to fill up the vacuities in a sentence. There are likewise some who, in imitation of Hegesias (a notorious trifler as well in this as in every other respect) curtail and mince their numbers, and are thus betrayed into the low and paltry style of the Sicilians. Another fault in composition is that which occurs in the speeches of Hierocles and Menecles, two brothers, who may be considered as the princes of Asiatic Eloquence, and, in ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... a right to ask questions in the performance of their duty, but there are occasions when it seems as if they might curtail or forego the privilege. Not long ago an Irishman whose hand had been badly mangled in an accident entered the Boston City Hospital relief station in a great hurry. He stepped up to the man in ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... years on terms proposed by themselves, they might seldom in peace put forth their strength to influence elections or control the affairs of the nation. But if any private citizen or public functionary should interpose to curtail its powers or prevent a renewal of its privileges, it can not be doubted that he would be made to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... Controller asks us to curtail our consumption of bread by one-fourth. Here, at least, non-combatants have an opportunity of showing themselves to be as good patriots as the Germans and of earning the epitaph: "Much as he loved the staff of life, he loved his ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... legs, and gave inopportune attention to a persistent flea near the small of his back. When, however, the butt of Jimmie's whip fell smartly on his flank, he was surprised into an appreciation of the fact that a serious attempt was being made to curtail his freedom; and he was at once alive ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... were similarly costumed, and a noble trio they looked as they sat modestly in a corner, talking to each other in whispers, and endeavouring, as much as possible, to curtail ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... financiers began by now to realize the enormous value of the enterprise, their number was not sufficient to ensure the immediate future. Faced with considerable difficulties, which compelled him to severely curtail his personal expenses, Leopold II had formally offered the colony to the country in 1895. This offer had been rejected. Under the stress of circumstances, the sovereign of the Congo Free State ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... course of years, the sum had mounted up to over forty rubles. Thus he had one half on hand. But where was he to find the other half? Where was he to get another forty rubles from? Akaky Akakiyevich thought and thought, and decided that it would be necessary to curtail his ordinary expenses, for the space of one year at least, to dispense with tea in the evening, to burn no candles, and, if there was anything which he must do, to go into his landlady's room, and work by her light. When he went into the street, he must walk as lightly as he could, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various |
