"Shortness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Beethoven's successors, Schubert, Weber, Schumann, Chopin, etc. that they are always grouped together as the Romantic School. A striking feature in this whole Romantic group is the early flowering of their genius and the shortness of their lives—Weber, forty years, Schubert, thirty-one, Schumann, forty-six, Mendelssohn, thirty-eight, Chopin, forty. In the case of all the composers we have hitherto studied, with the exception of Mozart, their masterpieces have been the result of long years of ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... exhibited but on state occasions, and then he pronounced him to be a French cruiser; most probably a privateer. That he was a Frenchman, Marble affirmed, was apparent by the height of his top-masts, and the shortness of his yards; the upper spars, in particular, being mere apologies for yards. Everybody who had any right to an opinion, was satisfied the brig was a French ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... are going to do that," chuckled Neale in spite of his shortness of breath. "Guess we'd better save Aunt ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... you die of; and that deepening of ignorance which comes of the perpetual insisting that fountains of knowledge spring everywhere for those who choose to dispense it. "What science teaches is made useless by the shortness of human existence; it absorbs all our energy in building up a machine which we shall have no time to work. All direct truth comes to us from the poet: whether he be of the smaller kind who only see, or the greater, who can tell what they have seen, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... we can, Mister David, to make up for the shortness of time we've got to do it in," observed Pat, as he rolled himself up ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... and a great deal of pomp, the people conducted him to the great church to give thanks to God. Presently after, with certain ridiculous ceremonies, they presented him the keys of the town and constituted him perpetual governor of the island of Barataria. The garb, the beard, the thickness and shortness of the new governor, surprised all who were not in the secret, and, indeed, those who were, who were not a few. In fine, as soon as they had brought him out of the church, they carried him to the tribunal of justice ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... though they could not have touched us on the high seas, they would have made prize of us, had they caught us trying to enter an enemy's port. I never heard the real name of the governor. We called him Don Longwhiskerandos just for shortness' sake, for it was fully three times as long as that. He looked a very important personage, and awfully fierce, and did little else than smoke cigars, and let a black man attend on him as if he was a mere baby. We had fine weather, and the Don sat on the deck in great state, when a sail was ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... "seemed very low," when a French privateer was in sight. Jeffrey was, it seems, a little afraid of these well-deserved exposures, which, from the necessity of abundant quotation, are an exception to the general shortness of Sydney's articles. Sydney's interest in certain subjects led him constantly to take up fresh books on them; and thus a series of series might be made out of his papers, with some advantage to the reader perhaps, if a new edition of his works were undertaken. The chief of such ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... here an air which was like the ordinary air in every respect. Since this air is necessarily required for the origination of fire, and makes up about the third part of our common air, I shall call it after this, for the sake of shortness, Fire-air; but the other air which is not in the least serviceable for the fiery phenomenon, and makes up about two-thirds of our air, I shall designate after this with the name already known, ...
— Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 • Carl Wilhelm Scheele
... upon the slight view which the shortness of the time allowed me to take of the business in question here, I was persuaded that we probably might, in some degree, succeed in our expedition; because, if the course of things here could not be improved by our ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... are paid for this and receive honour—the greatest honour, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies; but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath ...
— The Republic • Plato
... ordered. The main body being formed, will advance in line or column, according to circumstances, preceded by the skirmishers firing, if necessary. When firing in close order the front rank should fire kneeling, as, owing to the shortness of muskets, accidents frequently occur. Under certain circumstances, as advancing on an open beach, the boats might be employed on the flanks to cover the ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... to-day. I am worse even than the doctor thought. In a reference book in the dining-room there is a medical dictionary. It says: "Dilatation leads to dropsy, shortness of breath and blueness of the face." I have got some of those already. I have never seen a face so blue. It is like the sea in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... no means infinite. The science of mathematics, which embraces but a limited field of knowledge, comprises an indefinite number of propositions and problems which even the greatest genius can not master. Add to these impediments the shortness of human life, the limitations of the intellect, the multitude and intricacy of scientific methods, the inaccessibility of many objects which are in themselves knowable, (e.g. the interior of the earth, ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... attempts at self-control she was conscious of a dynamic desire that betrayed itself in many acts and signs,—as when he brushed against her; and occasionally when he gave evidence with his subordinates of a certain shortness of temper unusual with him she experienced a vaguely alarming but delicious thrill of power. And this, of all men, was the great Mr. Ditmar! Was she in love with him? That question did not trouble her either. She continued to experience in his presence waves of antagonism and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ago last summer I went up into the mountains, where I usually go for my fun. I had noticed a shortness of breath and a wheeziness in previous summers, and had felt my heart pounding pretty hard; but that summer I noticed these things acutely. I couldn't get any air to breathe. My heart pounded like a pneumatic riveter. ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe
... for excellent good Ale, as I have been an eye-witness of, and only because its taste is sweetish, (which is the nature of such raw Drinks) as believing it to be the pure Effects of the genuine Malt, not perceiving the Landlord's Avarice and Cunning to save the Consumption of his Wort by shortness of boiling, tho' to the great Prejudice of the Drinker's Health; and because a Liquid does not afford such a plain ocular Demonstration, as Meat and Bread does, these deluded People are taken into an Approbation of indeed an Ignis fatuus, or what ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... youth; but would often say: "Oh, how nearly hadst thou reached thy last trial, and gained the victory, and looked on Verena's countenance, and atoned for all! Now thou hast thrown thyself back for years. Think, my son, on the shortness of man's life; if thou art always falling back anew, how wilt thou ever gain the summit ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... him of the shortness of the time, and urge him to finish the undertaking—but in vain; Mozart was nowhere to be found. At length he was discovered in a billiard-room, half intoxicated, earnestly engaged in a critical part of this very fascinating ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... when the hostler presented him a bill for the horse's board during his residence at the inn. Joseph said Mr Adams had paid all; but this matter, being referred to Mr Tow-wouse, was by him decided in favour of the hostler, and indeed with truth and justice; for this was a fresh instance of that shortness of memory which did not arise from want of parts, but that continual hurry in which parson Adams was ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... but Waverley, hitherto occupied by the amusements which he had found at Tully-Veolan and Glennaquoich, dispensed with paying any attention to hints so coldly thrown out, especially as distance, shortness of leave of absence, and so forth furnished a ready apology. But latterly the burden of Mr. Richard Waverley's paternal epistles consisted in certain mysterious hints of greatness and influence which he was speedily to attain, and which would ensure his son's ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of the building to all the needs of a studio, properly so called—of work-rooms and exhibition-rooms for the reception of visitors. A more complete sculptor's residence and establishment it would be difficult to imagine. Alas for the shortness of the few years that were allowed to him for the enjoyment of it! Long after the house and the studio were completed, and the marbles all moved thither, Powers was still indulging in the delight of improving ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... your despatches of the 4th and 18th of September last, and the 13th of October. It gives me much uneasiness to find by them, that your health is not yet confirmed, particularly as the extreme shortness of your letters, compared with the importance of the matter, gives me reason to fear, that it has suffered more than you would ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... rest that remaineth for the people of God. We are like those who see the clod of earth against which their foot strikes, but never lift their eyes aloft to look on the towering mountain. Men of science tell us that shortness of sight is greatly on the increase amongst us, especially with those who live in great cities. The reason for this is that the city dwellers wear out their eye-sight by looking constantly on objects close to them, without having any wider or more distant prospect. So it ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... he heard that Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said: 'How different, sire, is what thou art now doing from what thou didst a little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself; and now, behold! thou weepest.' 'There came upon me,' replied he, 'a sudden pity, when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by.' 'And yet there are sadder things in life than that,' returned the other. 'Short as our time is, there is ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... near the northern base, passes over the lower ridge towards the north-east; the town is exceedingly picturesque, and many of the houses are very ancient and built in the Moorish fashion. I wished much to examine the relics of Moorish sway on the upper part of the mountain, but time pressed, and the shortness of our stay in this place did not permit me ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... from being grown as a food for horses; and the horse-chestnut, because used in Turkey for horses that are broken or touched in the wind. Parkinson, too, adds how, "horse-chestnuts are given in the East, and so through all Turkey, unto horses to cure them of the cough, shortness of wind, and such other diseases." The germander is known as horse-chere, from its growing after horse-droppings; and the horse-bane, because supposed in Sweden to cause a kind of palsy in horses—an effect which has been ascribed by Linnaeus not so much to the noxious qualities of ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... week to read, not exciting events or entertaining personalities, but sober essays on the most ancient and apparently threadbare of topics. Here are Johnson's subjects for the ten Ramblers which appeared between November 20 and December 22, 1750: the shortness of life, the value of good-humour, the folly of heirs who live on their expectations, peevishness, the impossibility of knowing mankind till one has experienced misfortune, the self-deceptions of conscience, the moral responsibilities of men ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... indicating the relations which subsist between the two portions of the group, I shall, for the sake of shortness, speak only of the lost sheep and the prodigal, including under the first term also its twin parable of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... of the deep, and are always overflowed at high water. Here, too, the enormous waves of the vast southern ocean, meeting with so abrupt a resistance, break, with inconceivable violence, in a surf which cannot be produced by any rocks or storms in the northern hemisphere. A crazy ship, shortness of provision, and a want of every necessary, greatly increased the danger to our present voyagers of navigating in this ocean. Nevertheless, such is the ardour of the human mind, and so flattering is the distinction ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... kidneys and bladder, but also even in the stomach and the intestines, whence they are ejected by vomiting or in the stools. Indeed they may also be found occasionally in the lungs, the joints and other places. They are comparatively rare in women, in consequence of the shortness of the urethra and the size ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... Saturday, the 17th, he was to have gone for a change of air to his country seat at Sherwood; but on Wednesday, the 14th, he appears to have caught a chill which affected his lungs, for that night he was seized with a shortness of breath and a difficulty in breathing. Though not actually confined to bed, he never left his room again. On the last day, and within four hours of his death, we are told, his two medical attendants, after consultation, spoke so hopefully of the future, that no one ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... forgetting the shortness of their acquaintance in the deep feeling of the moment, "tell me what ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... burned cruelly. "No," he said with shortness. "I was going to take you to the train and then come back here. I am going to take up this claim of Hilliard's—he's through with it. He likes the East. You see, Sheila, he's got the whole world to play with. It's quite true." He said this gravely, ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Notwithstanding the shortness of the time and the restrictions placed upon him, he succeeded in getting nearly thirty women to give evidence on his behalf, and at his trial, which was publicly held, revelations of a ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... themselves which can only be accounted for by the influence of the particular climate in which they are grown. It is, therefore, useless to attempt to maintain these characters wholly unchanged in other climates. Hardiness, earliness, certainty of heading, protection of the head by leaves, and shortness of stem, can all be increased by selection, but, as they are all likewise influenced by climate, the selection is more effective in some climates than in others. The varieties of the south of Europe ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... the rabbis of the time, Rashi accepted no compensation from the community for his services, and he probably lived from what he earned by viticulture. Once he begs a correspondent to excuse the shortness of his letter, because he and his family were busy with the vintage. "All the Jews," he said, "are at this moment engaged in the vineyards." In a letter to his son-in-law Meir, he gives a description of the wine- presses of Troyes, in the installation of which a change had been ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... a time, which was limited, according to the degree of their indignation, to a shorter or a longer respite, that they might therein have better leisure to dispose their affairs, and sometimes depriving them of the means of doing it by the shortness of the time; and if the condemned seemed unwilling to submit to the order, they had people ready at hand to execute it either by cutting the veins of the arms and legs, or by compelling them by force to swallow a draught of poison. But persons of honour would not abide this necessity, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... hours, by his compliance with my wish to dine with me on the following day: although he was quite urgent in bargaining for the previous measure of my tasting his potage and vol au vent. But the shortness and constant occupation of my time would not allow me to accede to it. M. de Larenaudiere then went to a cabinet-like cupboard, drew forth an uncut copy, stitched in blue spotted paper, of his beloved Vaudevires of OLIVIER BASSELIN:[162] and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... contraction of the pupils of the eyes, and a quick, hard pulse. In very acute attacks these symptoms, however, are not always noted. This condition will soon be followed by muscular twitchings, convulsive or spasmodic movements, eyes wide open with shortness of sight. The animal becomes afraid to have his head handled. Convulsions and delirium will develop, with inability of muscular control, or stupor and coma may supervene. When the membranes are greatly implicated, convulsions and delirium with violence may be expected, but if the brain substances ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... Should the shortness of her existence be regretted for Marie? Certainly, thoroughly in love, she would not have found happiness in marriage, which fashionable society too often transforms into a partnership of egotisms, interests, and hypocrisy. But ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage—in three more, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... face, remaining there for an instant, and the palm of it pressed his forehead. It was like the touch of cool velvet, he thought. Then she called to the man named Bateese. He made Carrigan think of a huge chimpanzee as he came near, because of the shortness of his body and the length of his arms. In the half light he might have been a huge animal, a hulking creature of some sort walking upright. Carrigan's fingers closed more tightly on the butt of his automatic. The woman began to talk swiftly in a patois ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... a matter of business prevented me from accepting of his pressing invitation to breakfast. Before parting, he wrote for me the ensuing letter to Mr. Kirkpatrick Sharpe, which I was deprived of an opportunity of delivering by the shortness of my ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... as she came the shortness of the arms. It was less a cross than a sign-post, a sign-post raised on a mound of small rocks; it was tarred to preserve it from the weather. From the left limb close to the post a metal box was hanging by a wire, and on the post itself, a few feet ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... with the company, leaving his horse to be sent after him, when recovered. He was loath, however, to leave the highly-prized and long-tried charger behind; and Colonel Bruce, taking advantage of the feeling, and representing the openness and safety of the road, the shortness of the day's journey (for the next Station at which the exiles intended lodging was scarce twenty miles distant), and above all, promising, if he remained, to escort him thither with a band of his young men, to whom the excursion would be but an agreeable frolic, the soldier changed his mind, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... again he paced the sands for hours and then fell to work to drag by long and toiling zigzags to a favorable point on the southern end of the island the mast he had saved, and to raise there a flag of distress. In the shortness of his resources he dared not choose the boldest exposures, where the first high wind would cast it down; but where he placed it it could be seen from every quarter except the north, and any sail approaching from that direction was virtually sure to come within ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... intercalation. It implies a year differing in excess from the true year only by 19.45 sec., while the Gregorian year is too long by 26 sec. It produces a much nearer coincidence between the civil and solar years than the Gregorian method; and, by reason of its shortness of period, confines the evagations of the mean equinox from the true within much narrower limits. It has been stated by Scaliger, Weidler, Montucla, and others, that the modern Persians actually follow this method, and intercalate eight days in thirty-three [v.04 p.0991] years. The statement ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... pillows, drawing his breath short with apprehension; his days were numbered, and death was coming fast, fast, straight upon him. He felt it within himself—he knew now the meaning of the pain and sinking, the shortness of breath and choking of throat that had been growing on him through the long summer days; he was being 'cut off with pining sickness,' and his sentence had gone forth. He would have screamed for his mother in the sore terror ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... straight up to her, stooped with his hands on his knees, and peered into her face. This behaviour, though necessitated by his shortness of sight, worked the most paralysing effect ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to hear such a testimony from thee," said the old man, earnestly. "It is a pity that any of us should forget the work to be done in this world, and the shortness of time." ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... we part from in this world with a light good-bye whom we never see again! Often do I think, in my meditations on this subject, that if we realised more fully the shortness of the fleeting intercourse that we have in this world with many of our fellow-men, we would try more earnestly to do them good, to give them a friendly smile, as it were, in passing (for the longest intercourse on earth is little more than ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... beginning, to subvert the government, but of course he kept that to himself for a time. He used different arts with different individuals. He awakened dissatisfaction in one quarter by calling attention to the shortness of the Sunday services; he argued that there should be three three-hour services on Sunday instead of only two. Many had secretly held this opinion before; they now privately banded themselves into a party to work for it. He showed certain of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... nest of rural tyrants. Those old steel-clad men of the Manzecca had become what were called "Signorotti"—lords of a height or two, swooping down to raid passing convoys, waging petty wars against the neighboring castles, and at times, like bantams, too arrogant to bear in mind the shortness of their spurs, defying even Florence. In the end, as I recalled the matter, Florence had chastened the Manzecca, together with all the other lordlings of that region. The survivors had come to live in the city, where, through these hundreds of years, many ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a woman; but now she looked to him like a child, a very young girl. Perhaps it was the way her hair fell in a tangled riot of curling tresses over her shoulders and breast; the slimness of her; the shortness of her skirt; the unfaltering clearness of the great, blue eyes that were staring at him; and, above all else, the manner in which she had spoken her name. The bear might have been nothing more than a rock to him now, against which she was leaning. He did not hear Baree's low growling. He ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... fully concocted his plan, overruled all the objections thrown out by the Jew, and, as he was a man of action, he insisted on a tailor being instantly sent for. In ten minutes afterwards the well-known artist Paolo Muhajiar made his appearance, and, though he was somewhat astounded at the shortness of the time allowed him to rig the Greek stranger in a suit of mufti, a show of some broad gold pieces overcame all difficulties, and he promised to set every hand at his establishment ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... things which are to be hanged and bound about the Body, and kept in a dancing posture. Such are Ear-rings hanged upon the tip of each ear, and Rings made of an Ostriche's bones for the Finger; or, when you are told, in a fit of Convulsions or shortness of Breath, to hold your left ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... man was approaching. At times he would break into a kind of trot that ended, after a few steps, in shortness of breath. He was quite withered, his bright eyes twinkling out of an area of moth patches, and he wore a frayed uniform coat with a medal ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... followed the path he took only by a sort of necessity which they call Nature,—that he wrote himself quite into his works, bodily, just as he was, every thought that came and went, and every expression that flew to his pen,—leaving out only a few for shortness. They are so thoroughly beguiled by the very quality they do not see, that they are like spectators who mistake the scene on the stage for reality; they cannot fancy that a man put it all there, and that it is by the artistic and poetic power of him, this man, who is now standing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... Tolstoy, were all learning their expression at an age where Crane had achieved his and achieved it triumphantly." He had the precocity of those doomed to die in youth. I am convinced that when I met him he had a vague premonition of the shortness of his working day, and in the heart of the man there was that which said, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... of shell and the whistle of lead increased in terrifying roar each moment and Ned felt a queer sensation in his chest—a sort of shortness of breath. In a moment he was going to bolt for the rear! He felt it in his bones and saw no way to stop it. He lifted his eyes piteously toward the Colonel who sat erect in his saddle stroking the neck of a restless horse with his ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... he said, breathing hard (although he was only twenty-six he was fat, heavy, and suffered from shortness ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... must consist. But if these steps are infinitely short, a finite time will suffice for them; and in point of fact they do rapidly converge, whatever be the original interval or the contrasted speeds, toward infinitesimal shortness. This proportionality of the shortness of the times to that of the spaces required frees us, it is claimed, from the sophism which the ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... The shortness of her steamer skirt made it possible for Lord Redgrave and Mrs. Van Stuyler to see that the sole of her right boot was swinging up and down on the heel ever so slightly. They came simultaneously to the conclusion that if she had been alone she would have stamped, ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... 64) clean omits the former Emir because he has nothing to do with the tale. In Heron it is the same, and the second chief is named "Emir-Ben-Hilac-Salamis"; or for shortness tout bonnement "Salamis"; and his wife becoming Amirala which, if it mean anything, is ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... ropin' contest, in which some of our most notorious ropers will rope, throw, an' hog-tie a steer, in the least shortness of time. The prizes fer this here contest is: First prize, ten dollars, doneated by the directors of the bank fer which's openin' this celebration is held in honour of. Second prize, one pair of pants doneated by the Montana ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... chuplus which I ordered of a shoemaker ten days ago. I have occupied the time by reading Marryat's "Newton Forster" (one of Hewson's gifts) and I find that when I read I can't write, so that must be my excuse for the shortness of my notes. My head is full of ships, sea fights, and love making to the exclusion of everything else. I heard you—you said it was a good job, as it prevented me writing ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... are very different in taste, smell, and other qualities, and he reckons more sorts which I have omitted. The second Homer skilfully refutes, when he tells us that the plague first began amongst the beasts. Besides, the shortness of their lives proves that they are very subject to diseases; for there is scarce any irrational creature long lived, besides the crow and the chough; and those two every one knows do not confine themselves to simple food, but eat anything. Besides, you take no good rule to judge what is ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... them in the usual cautious Indian style, with the butt-end clutched in the right hand, and the barrel resting on the left arm. A few of the others had bows and arrows slung across their backs. We pleaded shortness of ammunition as our excuse for declining the trade. Our provisions being run low made it impossible for us to offer them anything to eat, so we gave them a few blankets, which we could well spare, by way of keeping ourselves in their good graces; ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... gentlemen, the time of life is short; To spend that shortness basely were too long, If life did ride upon a dial's point, Still ending at the arrival of ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... break the intelligence to her, I stole out with my letter to the Aga Jenkyns, and went to the signor's lodgings to obtain the exact address. I bound the signora to secrecy; and indeed her military manners had a degree of shortness and reserve in them which made her always say as little as possible, except when under the pressure of strong excitement. Moreover (which made my secret doubly sure), the signor was now so far recovered as to be looking forward to travelling and conjuring again in the space of a few days, ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... walnut-crackers, Began), "I did not think you had been thus,— O monk of little faith! Is it because A rascal scum of filthy Cossack heathen Besiege our town, that you distrust in ME, then? Think'st thou that I, who in a former day Did walk across the Sea of Marmora (Not mentioning, for shortness, other seas),— That I, who skimmed the broad Borysthenes, Without so much as wetting of my toes, Am frightened at a set of men like THOSE? I have a mind to leave you to your fate: Such cowardice as ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rather I got Doyle to write to him, the day before yesterday, and the letter you are now going to hear is his reply. I may say that we laid the circumstances full before him; especially the shortness of the time. You're not the only person who thought of that difficulty, Major. Just read ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... But for all the shortness of food, which was thinning the flesh over Finn's haunches now, it was another cause which led him to swerve from the north-westerly course in a south-westerly direction. He paid no particular heed to old Tufter's continuous growls about the direction taken by the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... cut himself off from easy communication with Fort Scott.[366] He had shown a disposition to wander widely from the straight road to Fort Gibson; but Blunt had insisted that he refrain altogether from making excursions into adjoining states.[367] He had himself realized the shortness of his provisions and had made a desperate effort to get to the Grand Saline so as to replenish his supply of salt at the place where the Confederates had been manufacturing that article for many months. He had known also that for some things, ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... man, however, from the post of honor which he occupied at the head of the table evidently held in high consideration among the habitues of the inn, who did not join in the singing. He was a little man, who made up for his shortness of stature by breadth of shoulder and length of arm. There was an ugly black patch over his left eye; no one had ever seen him without that patch since the day of the assault on the fort at Chagres; an Indian arrow had pierced his eye on ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... would have to apply to me, not her. In consequence the cab was at the door before she was fully garmented in my plainest clothes and I arrayed in her beautiful ones, and regretfully she looked at me. I am taller and slenderer than Madeleine, but fashion was in my favor, and the absence of fit and shortness of skirt gave emphasis of adherence to its requirements. I looked ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... wrong, if we were wrong, and send us away with an injunction not to provoke Mrs. Mitchell, who couldn't help being short in her temper, poor thing! Somehow or other we got it into our heads that the shortness of her temper was mysteriously associated with the ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... strings of lutes, because of the excellence of the law and the peace and the goodwill prevailing throughout Erin. May God not bring that man there tonight! 'Tis sad to destroy him. 'Tis 'a branch through its blossom,' 'Tis a swine that falls before mast. 'Tis an infant in age. Sad is the shortness of his life!" ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... anything about feet or metre; nor do they understand what it is that offends them, or know why or in what it offends them. But nevertheless nature herself has placed in our ears a power of judging of all superfluous length and all undue shortness in sounds, as much as ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... condition of my attire, and would have been glad to have concealed it; but, through the endeavor to do so, my movements became still more angular. I did not dare to hold myself upright, because, by so doing, I exhibited all the more plainly the shortness of my waistcoat, which I had outgrown. I had the feeling very plainly that people would make themselves merry about me; yet, at this moment, I felt nothing but the happiness of stepping for the first time before the foot-lamps. ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... then set off for the ostrog, where they arrived safely. One of them, who indulged too much in eating at first, died a short time after; the other two survived; but Spiridon said he had ever since been afflicted with a complaint in his breast and shortness of breath." ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... Junction" was raging at the time I joined the "Midland," as for shortness we dubbed the Midland Great Western and which, for the same reason, I shall continue to dub it, as convenience may require, during the continuance of my story. If I have occasion to again speak of my alma mater, the Midland of ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... pew where Juliet Mascarene had sat often enough, no doubt, whilst the preacher had preached on the vanity of life, on the delusions of the world and the shortness of Time. ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... He not take possession, and untangle the snarl, and right the wrongs, and bring in the true rational order of things?" And all the long waiting, the soreness of hearts over the part that touches one's own life most closely, the shortness of breath in the tensity of the struggle, underscore ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... date is vague. But the period of three years must be reckoned from the death of Murtough (September 17, 1134), or from the subsequent ejection of Niall. Since stress is laid on the shortness, rather than the length of the period, we may therefore conclude that peace was established not long before October 1137, or, at any rate, after the beginning of that year. And as St. Bernard believed that the inauguration of Gelasius "immediately" ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... time," she answered, with a singular shortness, for she could not tell him that a letter from Mrs. Harrington to her mother- -the companion to that received by Luke at Valetta—had brought about this sudden decision. She could not tell him that, egged on by a transparent hint from Mrs. Harrington that Luke was to be her heir, she and her mother ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... life, as he personally needed to see it, not in its passion and mystery, but in its lighter moods of humor and sentiment. Paris frankly seemed to him at this time the most profitable place in the world. Two months after his arrival, he wrote airily, "You will excuse the shortness and hastiness of this letter, for which I can only plead as an excuse that I am a young man and in Paris." He had momentary fancies as to a possible direction for his talents. A sudden intimacy at Rome with Washington Allston made ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... Perfection of lower Creatures may, in the Limits of a short Life. I think another probable Conjecture may be raised from our Appetite to Duration it self, and from a Reflection on our Progress through the several Stages of it: We are complaining, as you observe in a former Speculation, of the Shortness of Life, and yet are perpetually hurrying over the Parts of it, to arrive at certain little Settlements, or imaginary Points of Rest, which are dispersed up and down ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... tripped past him, and Gavin would not let his eyes follow her. It was not the mud on his face that distressed him, nor even the hand that had flung the divit. It was the word "little." Though, even Margaret was not aware of it, Gavin's shortness had grieved him all his life. There had been times when he tried to keep the secret from himself. In his boyhood he had sought a remedy by getting his larger comrades to stretch him. In the company of tall men he was always self- conscious. In the pulpit he looked darkly at his congregation ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... 78.—A dwarf-growing, singular-looking plant, with short, tumid joints from 1 in. to 2 in. long and wide, and nearly the same in thickness. The shortness of the joints, together with their growing on the top of each other, has been not inaptly compared to a jointed finger. Cushions very close together, composed of short, white and yellowish bristles, ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... visible at S 12 degrees E where there were several distinct columns of smoke. This last bearing, which Mr. Flinders apprehended to be near the head of the river, he was not permitted to enter with the sloop, from the intricacy of the channel, and the shortness of the time which remained for ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... so, the groom let him go. Both stirrups were short, but it was too late to discuss that, for by the time I was adjusted to my seat we had traveled, at a run, over a considerable part of the lawn and through most of the flowerbeds. The shortness of the stirrups made me bounce, and I had a feeling that I might do better to remove my feet from them entirely, but as I had never ridden without stirrups I hesitated to try it now. Therefore I merely dug my knees desperately into the saddle flaps and awaited what should come, while endeavoring ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... the little river Clyst joins the Exe. It has given names to a surprising number of villages and manors, considering the shortness of its course—Clyst St Mary, Clyst St Laurence, Honiton Clyst, and so on. At Clyst St George a small estate used to be held on the curious tenure of 'the annual tender of an ivory bow.' About two miles east of the river the land begins to slope upwards to the moorland of Woodbury ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... cumbered with long sentences and tortured with formal arguments to a most harsh and disagreeable excess. Besides, he had, it seems, a weakness in his voice, a perplexed and indistinct utterance and a shortness of breath, which, by breaking and disjointing his sentences, much obscured the sense and meaning of what he spoke. So that in the end, being quite disheartened, he foresook the assembly; and as he was walking carelessly and sauntering ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... 2 by 2 inch stuff, halved at the corners. Cut out the top and bottom of the two sides; lay them on the floor so as to form a perfect rectangle, and nail them together. The strut is then prepared, care being taken to get a good fit, as any shortness of strut will sooner or later mean sagging of the door. Cut the angles as squarely as possible, to ensure the strut being of the same ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... of my Disgrazias—thou sad foreteller of so many of the whips and short turns which on one stage or other of my life have come slap upon me from the shortness of my nose, and no other cause, that I am conscious of.—Tell me, Slawkenbergius! what secret impulse was it? what intonation of voice? whence came it? how did it sound in thy ears?—art thou sure ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... which makes men adore her, is that she contrives to seem exquisitely sympathetic and enthusiastic without ever gushing. It's partly the shape of her eyes and the shortness of her upper lip, which combine together to give a lovely, rapt, brooding expression, that saves her the trouble of thinking up adjectives. With this look on, she appeals to all the love of romance and adventure in their hearts, I'm sure. They would do anything to win it for ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... George—and the reason I did not understand it was because I belonged to another order and had inherited different perceptions from theirs. The trifle—whatever it was—appeared visibly, I knew, before us; it was evident and on the surface, and if I failed to discern it what did that prove except the shortness of the vision through which I looked? A physical soreness, like that of a new bruise, attacked my heart, and rising hastily from the table, I made some hurried apology and went out, leaving them alone together. Glancing back as I got into my overcoat in the hall, I saw ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... 1880, Mr. Rust's attention was attracted by a pair of mantis, whether Mantis religiosa or not, he was not sure, but from the length of the body and the shortness of the wings he was inclined to think them of some other species. The female had her arms tightly clasped around the head of the male, while his left arm was around her neck. Mr. Rust watched intently to see whether the embrace was one of war or for copulation. It proved to be both. As the two abdomens ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... inquiring mind to trace the feeble beginnings of an infant colony, accompanying it through all its variations of hope and despondency, of good or ill success, until it is at length conducted to a state of greatness and prosperity quite unexampled, when the shortness of its duration is considered. And since that colony is our own, since Britain is, for several reasons, unusually concerned, both morally and politically, in the welfare of New South Wales, it cannot but be useful as well ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... Walli by a circuitous route, so as to elude the vigilance of the king, and frustrate his endeavours to recapture him. We were much pleased to find that Ufzul Khan had no suspicion of our not being free agents, and Sturt answered he regretted much that the shortness of the time we had yet at our disposal would prevent his complying with his request, which, indeed, considering all the circumstances of the case, it would have been an act of most culpable folly to have acceded to. At the conclusion of this interview Sturt presented him with a handsome ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... General maxims, unless they be formed upon both, will be but notional, ver. 10. Some peculiarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying from himself, ver. 15. Difficulties arising from our own passions, fancies, faculties, &c., ver. 31. The shortness of life, to observe in, and the uncertainty of the principles of action in men, to observe by, ver. 37, &c. Our own principle of action often hid from ourselves, ver. 41. Some few characters plain, but in general confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent, ver. 51. The same man utterly different in ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... but one objection to the plan, and this hinged upon the shortness of V. Baker's leave. He had only ten days unexpired, and it seemed rash, with so short a term, to plunge into an unknown country; however, he was determined to push on, as he trusted in the powers of an extraordinary pony that would do any distance on a push. This determination, ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker |
