"Weakening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... render du Bousquier both ridiculous and odious for a time; but ridicule ends by weakening; when all had said their say about him, the gossip died out. Besides, at fifty-seven years of age the dumb republican seemed to many people to have a right to retire. This affair, however, envenomed the hatred which du Bousquier already bore to the house ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... was evidently weakening. He lay back with his eyes closed till they were all assembled, and then Andrew, who seemed to have the entire management of the melancholy ceremony, stepped up to the bedside ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... I say and proue by diuerse arguments, that Witches can, by the power of their Master, cure or cast on disseases: Now by these same reasones, that proues their power by the Deuil of disseases in generally is aswell proued their power in speciall: as of weakening the nature of some men, to make them vnable for women: and making it to abound in others, more then the ordinary course of nature would permit. And such like in all other particular sicknesses; But one thing ...
— Daemonologie. • King James I
... landed. The place was entirely deserted by its inhabitants, the provisions were carried off or destroyed, and the invading force took possession of a complete solitude. On the 28th of May Sir A. Campbell ordered an attack on some of the nearest posts, which were all carried after a steadily weakening defence. Another attack was made on the 10th of June on the stockades at the village of Kemmendine. Some of these were battered by artillery from the war vessels in the river, and the shot and shells had such effect on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... own eyes, and it appeared less funny than he had been led to believe. The horrible screams of the dead manager's wife pursued them as they hurried to the town. McMurdo was absorbed and silent; but he showed no sympathy for the weakening of his companion. ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... struggled on, without weakening, spurred to further efforts by each rebuff, abandoning nought of his ideas, but marching straight before him, with all the ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... undergone a change. In early times it had been a barrier; later, under the Phoenicians, it became a highway, and to the Greeks a defense. We find that the Romans made it a basis for sea power and subdued all the lands on its margin. With the weakening of Rome came a weakening of sea power. The Barbary states and Spain became Saracen only because the naval power of the eastern empire was not strong enough to hold the whole sea, but neither was the ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... The slow weakening of the Tokugawa Shogunate was due to causes not unlike those which had brought about the decline of previous regencies: the race degenerated during that long period of peace which its rule had inaugurated; ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... him. For a deserter to come to him from a legion so faithful to the rebel cause as that of Major Lee seemed an evidence that the American side was rapidly weakening. He questioned Champe closely. The taciturn deserter answered him briefly, but with such a show of sincerity as to win his confidence. The interview ended in Clinton's giving him a couple of guineas, and bidding him to call on General Arnold, who ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... been invariably met at but a few yards from home, and immediately driven in again by largely superior numbers. Still the cordon required a good many more men than the besieging party could well spare without too much weakening their positions, and they had therefore sought the aid of all the gentlemen of puritian politics in the vicinity, and of course that of Mr. Heywood. With the men his father sent, Richard himself offered his services, in the hope that, at the coming fall of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... determined Clifford hosts had carried the ball over into the territory of their rivals. Columbia was visibly weakening before these fearful plunges, and it seemed as though flesh and bone could not hold out against them. Seconds counted now. How desperately Frank and his backers fought to ward off the threatening evil. Every lawful tactic that would bring about delay ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... supplies were forwarded to the army with a very scanty hand—the military plans and proposals of the duke were either overruled or subjected to a rigid and often inimical examination—and that division of responsibility and weakening of power became apparent, which is so often in military, as well as political transactions, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... skin was broken, with germs on the hands and instruments of the operator, and with germs on the dust in the air. He must find some defensive power which was able to kill the germs, at least in the first two instances, without exercising an irritating effect on the tissues and weakening their vitality. The relative importance of these various factors in the problem only time and experience could tell him. Carbolic acid had been discovered in 1834 and had already been tried by surgeons ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... such a charming picture, was it strange that Owen found himself thinking along certain lines that up to now he would have cast from him with scorn, as an evidence of weakening? ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... of," he replied simply, but with no weakening of his determination to see the boy through, no matter at ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... is often the case. Men capable of sudden, direct, and strong action are often poor talkers, particularly when they are just going to spring or strike. A little hesitation is more often the sign of a near outbreak than of any inward weakening. But Sister Giovanna ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... Pinabel. At last a blow came which cut his helmet in two and split off his right cheek. Then with vision clouded by the blood and with fast-failing strength, Tierry aimed a blow with all his force straight at the head of Pinabel. God gave force to the weakening arm and directed the stroke so that it cleft the steel helmet and the skull, and entered the brain of Pinabel, who fell gasping to the earth and died there ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a most intimate nature crowded upon him. He was also made the victim of a conscienceless swindler who fleeced him of many thousand dollars, and, to crown all, his old and indefatigable enemy, F.O.J. Smith, administered a cowardly thrust in the back when his weakening powers prevented him from defending himself with his oldtime vigor. From a very long letter written by Smith on December 11, 1871, to Henry J. Rogers in Washington, I shall quote only the ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... men, who had no time for words, prepared to sell their lives dearly, believing that those of the crew who might have been loyal had been slaughtered. For some minutes they stood waiting in the darkness, and heard no sound but the moans of the steward, who was fast weakening ...
— The South Seaman - An Incident In The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... weep out my life in secret, overcame me. Then, these subsided; and ONE THOUGHT slowly arose in their stead—arose, and cast down before it every obstacle of conscience, every principle of education, every care for the future, every remembrance of the past, every weakening influence of present misery, every repressing tie of family and home, every anxiety for good fame in this life, and every idea of the next that was to come. Before the fell poison of that Thought, all other thoughts—good or evil—died. As it spoke secretly ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... he said still as gloomily; "but I'm sorry in two ways. I'm sorry, too, that this means breaking up our friendship—if not breaking up, at least weakening it. You will understand that for me, too, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... around you: a haze of cant and catchwords. Such things are employed on political platforms and by the Press as a kind of pepsine, to aid our race-stomach in digesting certain heavy doses of irrationalism. The individual stomach soon discovers their weakening effect.... ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... Kiselev, addressed a circular to the governors-general in which he pointed out that after the promulgation of the laws concerning the establishment of Crown schools and the abolition of the Kahals—laws-which were aimed at "the weakening of the influence of the Talmud" and the destruction of all institutions "fostering the separate individuality of the Jews"—the turn had come for carrying into effect, by means of the proposed classification, the measures directed towards "the ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... toward the colonies, marks the beginning of the policy of George III. which, had it been successful, would have made him the ruler of an absolute instead of a limited monarchy. He hated the Tories only less than the Whigs, and when he bestowed a favor upon either, it was for the purpose of weakening the other. The first task he set himself was that of crushing the Whigs. Since the Revolution of 1688, they had dictated the policy of the English government, and through wise leaders had become supreme in authority. They were particularly ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... the present instance does our Savior alter His language when He finds His words taken in the literal sense? Does He tell His hearers that He has spoken figuratively? Does He soften the tone of His expression? Far from weakening the force of His words He repeats what He said before, and in language more emphatic: "Amen, amen, I say unto you, Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye shall not have ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... would have perpetrated the atrocity (or generosity) at the merest sign of weakening on my part. By that time, however, I was more discontented, disgusted, and dogged than ever. The past eighteen months, so full of new and varied experience, appeared a dreary, prosaic waste of days. I felt—how shall I express it?—that there ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... Lombardy and Venice. Francis Joseph became chief of the Austrian Empire at the same time that Louis Napoleon ascended to the same point in France. Certainly, if the object of France had been the mere weakening and spoliation of Austria, then was the time to assail her, when one half her subjects were fighting the other half, when the Germans outside of her empire were by no means her friends, and when it was far from clear that she could rely upon assistance from Russia. Austria ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... her own trash to herself!" cried the indignant dame, flinging the little pot out of the window; "that is a most dangerous salve: its effect is often that of injuring the brain, weakening the senses—producing dizziness and delirium! Bring a little cold water, Nelly; that is a far better thing to apply to a bump on the ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... retreating combatants, I arrived in the proximity of the chariots, happy in the midst of defeat at having at least come near my mother and family, and at being able to defend them—if indeed the strength were spared me, for my wounds were weakening me more and more. Alas! The gods had condemned me to a horrible trial. I can now repeat the words of Albinik and his wife, both killed in the attack on the Roman galleys, and battling on the water as we did on the land for the freedom of our beloved ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... tough proposition, McBain," he said with a sigh, which had no weakening in it. "But I think we'll make good this time, if only we can get the news of the shipment when it comes along well ahead. Superintendent Jason is in communication with every local police force east, and should get it all right. If we get that, the rest should be easy. Rocky Springs only has ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... converts as was possible and by opening Jesuit and Capuchin missions in the Protestant places. "Some were brought to see the truth by fear and some by favour." Yet Richelieu did not play the part of a persecutor in the State, for he was afraid of weakening France by driving away heretics who might help to increase her strength in foreign warfare. He was pleased to find so many of the Huguenots loyal to their King, and rejoiced that there would never be the possibility of some discontented nobleman rising against his rule with a Protestant ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... years Auletes had been losing his friends and weakening his government, and, at last, when he refused to quarrel with the senate about the island of Cyprus, the Egyptians rose against him in arms, and he was forced to fly from Alexandria. He took ship for Rome, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... Bishop Law, the work of T. Banks, R.A. A figure of Religion leaning on a cross is above the tablet. This monument was originally fixed on the pillar behind the pulpit ("Columnae hujus sepultus est ad pedem"). It was removed to the north aisle because of the weakening of the pillar through having been cut to receive the memorial; and in 1894 was again removed and fixed here, about as far away from the bishop's grave as it could possibly ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... number than would be essential to work the ship, and than would have been shipped if the voyage had been to any port of a civilized country; but on a voyage to a wild coast, the possibilities of long absence and of the weakening of the crew by death, illness, etc., demanded consideration and a larger number. The wisdom and necessity of carrying, on a voyage to an uninhabited country, some spare men, is proven by the record of Bradford, who says: "The disease begane to fall amongst them the seamen also, so as allmost ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... conceived each to be entitled to. It took away parts of the lands of the conquered states, in order to bestow them upon the allies of Rome, thus accomplishing two objects at once,—attaching to Rome those kings of whom she had little to fear and much to hope, and weakening those of whom she had little to hope and ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... disheartening and weakening discovery of the depth and extent of our sinfulness, we proceed to take the second step, and attempt to extirpate it. Suppose that after coming to a consciousness of all this obligation resting upon us, we endeavor to comply with it. This renders us still more ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... of the perpendicular. No increase in the deviation was found to exist when it was examined early in the present century. It is a wonder that this slight-looking structure can have survived the blasts, and thunderbolts, and earthquakes, and the weakening effects of time on its stones and timbers for five hundred years. Since the spire of Chichester Cathedral fell in 1861, sheathing itself in its tower like a sword dropping into its scabbard, one can hardly help looking with apprehension at ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was to poor Owen! that necessity of expression, and the visible presage of weakening health so surely fulfilled! And his Lucilla! It was a melancholy work to have brought home a missionary, and secularized a parish priest! 'Not a generous reflection,' thought Honora, 'at a rival's grave,' and she turned ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The esophageal wall, however, may be weakened by ulceration, malignant disease, or trauma, so that the possibility of making a false passage should always deter the endoscopist from advancing the tube beyond a visible point of weakening. To avoid entering a false passage previously created, is often exceedingly difficult, and usually it is better to wait for obliterative adhesive inflammation to seal the ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... armies in the universe, without depopulating either their fields or cities by new levies; without suspending their manufactures, or disturbing the peaceful artificer; without interrupting their commerce, or weakening their navy. By venal blood they possessed themselves of provinces and kingdoms; and made other nations the instruments of their grandeur and glory, with no other expense of their own than their money; ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... any one or more of the persons described in a former order, such persons should be considered as encouraging a set of lawless and seditious people, to the total subversion of all order and government, and to the weakening of His Majesty's authority in the settlement. He next informed the people whose conduct had occasioned this order, that if they were of opinion, that to threaten would be the best means of obtaining what they desired, they ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... the indignation with which I read these belittling and weakening alterations and interpolations; they are so unjust and so degrading to the reputation of Sternhold. It seems worse than forgery—worse than piracy; for instead of stealing from the defenceless dead poet, it foists upon him a spurious and degrading progeny; there is no word to express ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... with Steele; Sanger sent to McClernand, and McCoy, myself, and John Taylor were with you and Stuart. At about half-past three I got your permission to go to Giles Smith's skirmish-line, and, thinking I saw evidence of the enemy weakening, I hurried back to you and reported my observations. I was so confident that a demand for it would bring a surrender, that I asked permission to make it, and, as you granted me, but refused to let another member ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... cannot by their notoriety be unknown to your High Mightinesses. Europe has her eyes fixed on your resolution. Your High Mightinesses know too well the value of good faith, not to give an example of it on this important occasion. The least deviation from a rule so sacred, in weakening friendship among neighbors, produces often ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... Now we know—that it is they, or we—since they willed it so. And this old, illogical, unready country is only just arriving at its full strength, only just fully conscious of the sternness of its own resolve, only just putting out its full powers, as the German power is weakening, and the omens are changing—both ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... uncommunicating regions. The organizing power of Europe is married to the sensuousness of Asia. The virile formative power of the heirs of Bach is here. An extended form is solid as mountains, projects volumes through time. One four-square movement is set atop another. There is no weakening, no slackening, no drop. One can put one's hand around these brown-gold blocks. And at the same time, this organizing power makes to live a dusky sensuality, a velvety richness of texture, a sultriness and wetness that sets us amid the bronzed glowing wood-carvings of Africans, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... present life, with another nation living in its midst, but dwelling wholly in the thought of the other world. Religion would have grown to superstition, ecstasy would have ruled in the hearts of the religious devotees, weakening their hold on the real, and wafting them away into misty regions of paradise. We should have had every exaggeration of ascetic practice, hermitages multiplying among the rocks and islands of the sea, men and women torturing their bodies for the ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... huge walls the mighty sire explores, With eye close searching, lest a weakening flaw, Might hurl some part to ruin. All he found Firm in its pristine strength;—then glanc'd his eye Around the earth, and toils of man below. 'Bove all terrestrial lands, Arcadia felt— His own Arcadia—his ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... north-west, which would bring it almost directly upon the line of retreat of the 1st German Army, which was in close contact with Maunoury across the Ourcq. The adoption of any other method of action which I had considered must have meant delay and a weakening of my front. What was wanted was a speedy decision of the critical situation ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... conflict where we set the best and bravest of each nation to spill each other's blood—but a conflict against crime and disease and selfishness and greediness and cruelty. There is much fighting to be done; can we not combine to fight our common foes, instead of weakening each other against evil? We destroy in war our finest parental stock, we waste our labour, we lose our garnered store; we give every harsh passion a chance to grow; we live in the traditions of the past, and not in the ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... undertook one, of this very Author, by subscription. And if the Editor hath not discharged his Task with suitable abilities for one so much honoured by them, this was not their fault but his, who thrust himself into the employment. After such an Example, it would be weakening any defence to seek further for Authorities. All that can be now decently urged is the reason of the thing; and this I shall do, more for the sake of that truly ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... inexpressible things in nature that is revealed in such a note as the following: 'A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the Spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening days; a sudden softening, a weakening of nature.' In describing this atmosphere, this too sudden softness, he uses a word frequent in the vocabulary of Shelley—'fainting.' In truth, like the great English poet, whom he seems not to have known, he seeks from ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... are mere airy and fascinating speculations. We have, indeed, no evidence whatever that the luminiferous ether ceases at the boundary of the stellar system. If, therefore, it extends outwards infinitely in every direction, and if it has no absorbing or weakening effect on the vibrations which it transmits, we cannot escape from the conclusion that practically all the rays of light ever emitted by all the stars must chase one another eternally through ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... "put aside your piety for a while and look at the thing through the medium of good sense and earthly foresight. The Emperor of Germany is victorious; he is gradually weakening the Sultan, so that it is within the range of possibilities that he overturn the Ottoman power, and consolidate the Germanic confederations into one great empire. This done, he will turn his attention to France—of that you may ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... whole scheme of modern life was lopsided, she said, all the upper classes going to brains and no body and all the lower classes all to body and no brains. Conflict in the end was inevitable. The unnatural way of living was weakening the fiber of the governing powers the people of which intermarried and brought into the world children of weak muscular tissue. She doesn't believe in marriage unless both the man and the woman have passed rigid physical tests ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... exquisite face was no unshadowing of wrath, no diminishing of rage, no weakening of dreadful determination. The star-flecked eyes were not upon us; they ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... affinity with the Wheel of Fortune. For it appears not how this can be done without danger and mischance of putting out a great number of the best and ablest; in whose stead new elections may bring in as many raw, unexperienced, and otherwise affected, to the weakening and much altering for the worse of public transactions. Neither do I think a Perpetual Senate, especially chosen and entrusted by the people, much in this land to be feared, where the well-affected, either in a Standing Army or in a Settled Militia, have their arms in ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... left the Palace the Archduchesss had had a moment of weakening, but the Countess had laughed ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... rooms and made him cut up all kinds of capers. He at first refused, point blank—but Underwood got up and, standing directly in front of him, gazed steadily into his eyes. Again he commanded him to do these ridiculous, degrading things. Howard felt himself weakening. He was suddenly seized with the feeling that he must obey. Amid roars of laughter he recited the entire alphabet standing on one leg, he crowed like a rooster, he hopped like a toad, and he crawled abjectly on his belly like ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate timber, and the red head of Namgay Doola was chief among them all. The logs swayed and chafed and groaned as fresh consignments from upstream battered the now weakening dam. All gave way at last in a smother of foam, racing logs, bobbing black heads and confusion indescribable. The river tossed everything before it. I saw the red head go down with the last remnants of the jam and disappear between the great ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... hereafter of these particular classes upon the community: on the ground, therefore, of the future protective benefit to society, such expense may be legitimately laid upon the community as a whole. Further, in these cases, the danger of the weakening of the sense of parental responsibility is not an extreme danger to the Commonwealth, since the aid is definitely limited to a restricted number of cases, and since the moral obligation imposed upon the ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... music be my care,' Apollo said, the wise and fair; 'And mine,' that mighty god replied, In the Nemaean lion's hide, 'To teach him to subdue The vices, an envenom'd crew, Like Hydras springing ever new. The foe of weakening luxury, The boy divine will learn from me Those rugged paths, so little trod, That lead to glory man and god.' Said Cupid, when it came his turn, 'All things from me ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... water before breakfast, cleaning the teeth and rinsing the mouth before swallowing any, and then take what water the body asks for during the rest of the day. Taking too much water is not as injurious as overeating, but waterlogging the body has a weakening effect. ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... revelry swept on again in full flood. The men and maids went careering up and down the room. Serena's willing fingers laboured patiently over the yellow keys of the reluctant melodion. But the ancient instrument was weakening under the strain; the bellows creaked; the notes grew ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... act may be done in the next room. All is here and now, and patient reiteration, till habit is formed, and no havoc-making rules which it cannot understand or remember, is our cue. Obedience can, however, be instinct even here, and is its chief virtue, and there is no more fear of weakening the will by it than in the case of soldiers. As the child grows older, however, and as the acts commanded are repugnant, or unusual, there should be increasing care, lest authority be compromised, sympathy ruptured, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... and in no case was there a parallel to the abandoned Bahrdt. The Deists were steady in the pursuit of their game, for when they struck a path they never permitted themselves to be deflected. But the Rationalists were ever turning into some by-road and weakening their energies by traversing many a ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... fifteen minutes without intermission the frenzy lasted. I was nearly exhausted. My efforts to avoid her mad rushes, the terrible tension of my nervous system produced by the spectacle of such exquisite and prolonged suffering, were weakening me beyond what I should have thought it possible an hour before for anything to weaken me. In fact, I felt my strength leaving me. A terror such as I had never yet felt was taking possession of my mind. I sickened at the sight before me, and at the thought of agonies yet to come. 'My ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... Of course it's very sad for her, poor woman. But she makes her trouble worse by these perverted views, doesn't she? And, I hope you will show no signs of weakening, Mr. President, till it has been made impossible for those shameful rebels to hold up their heads again. Goliath says you ought to make a proclamation that no mercy will be shown to them afterwards. I'm sure I shall never speak ...
— Abraham Lincoln • John Drinkwater
... this point. There may be exceptions, of course, and there are always mothers who, by reason of having married late, perhaps, are anxious to have as many babies as quickly as possible. But most women neither can nor will nor should produce children in this fashion. There is too much risk of weakening the mother's body ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... was plodding slowly northward, guided by the stars, his faith in the success of his mission began to flag. Hard continuous toil and a weakening frame had no doubt something to do with his depression. His dogs, also, were in much the same condition with himself,—growing thin, and becoming less lively. Clambering to the top of a hummock, ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... health became progressively poorer and his weakening body less able to support the strain of his exacting office. He would listen to no plea for relaxation, however, until his decreasing strength clearly made it impossible for him to continue. Even then he refused to rest and planned ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... Villeneuve, Napoleon believed, had thoroughly deceived Nelson. "Those boasted English," he wrote, "who claim to know of everything, know nothing of it," i.e. of Villeneuve's escape and course. But the "boasted English," as a matter of fact, did know all about it, and in place of weakening their forces in the Bay of Biscay, strengthened them. Meanwhile Nelson, with ten ships of the line, was hard on the track of Villeneuve with eighteen. At Barbadoes, Nelson was sent a hundred miles out of his course by false intelligence, and that hundred miles just enabled Villeneuve ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... weakening of responsibility.] Now this system, in depriving the mayor of power, deprived him of responsibility, and left the responsibility nowhere in particular. In making appointments the mayor and council would come to some sort of compromise with each other and exchange ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... Henry Cromwell, Monk, Lockhart, and Tomlinson, were at a distance, and could not appear immediately. Finally, if, after all these deductions, a sufficient House should be brought together, it would be at the expense of a considerable weakening of the Government party in the Commons by the withdrawal of leading members thence, and this at a time when such weakening was most dangerous. For, by the Petition and Advice, were not the Anti-Oliverians excluded from last session, to the number of ninety or more, to take ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... he well knew that the old ideal was the true, the right one; but he drove away such thoughts as the temptations of pride. The recent events had not taken place without in some degree weakening his moral personality; from being continually talked to about obedience, submission, humility, a certain obscurity had come over this luminous soul; inspiration no longer came to it with the certainty ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... anything. Prussia and Austria are rivals in Germany, and will never join hands in a common undertaking. Austria can never forgive Prussia for taking Silesia from her, and Prussia will always secretly suspect that Austria is intent upon weakening her rising power and humbling her ambition. Hence, Prussia will hesitate and temporize even at this juncture, although it is all-important now for Germany to take a bold stand against her common enemy, rapacious and insatiable France; she will hesitate ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... to half-cock again, except only in the case where the trigger is also pressed back. The objections to carrying a gun at half-cock are, that careless people occasionally leave it on full-cock without perceiving the difference, and that there is a probability of weakening the main-spring, if day after day it be kept on ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... the independence of a province forming a component geographical part of an empire, must have but one result, that of weakening the mother state, without, as experience has shown, ameliorating the condition of the province. Independently, therefore, of the drain upon the Turkish finances, for the maintenance of troops from time to time on the Servian frontier, to counteract revolutionary propaganda, ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... interrupted a colloquy between the handsome Briton and the Doctor. "A mere syncope, my dear sir. Perhaps—even only the result of tight lacing, or inaction. Perhaps some sudden nerve crisis. These are the results of the easy luxury of an enervating high-life. All these social habits are weakening elements. Now, fortunately, your wife has a singularly strong vital nature. You may safely dismiss all your fears. Madame will be entirely herself in ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... half year of the war there was very little for the Balkan diplomats to do but lie low and watch; watch for the first signs of weakening of either the Allies or the Teutons. To be sure, Turkey threw in her lot with the Teutons during this period, but German control of the Turkish machinery of government and the army appears to have been so strong that it seems doubtful whether Turkish ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... were, but we clung tenaciously to it. We stumbled and fell; we sank through pure physical inability to retain our feet; but always we managed to rise at last and go on. At first, wherever it had been possible, we had walked hand in hand lest we become separated, and later, when I saw that Ajor was weakening rapidly, we went side by side, I supporting her with an arm about her waist. I still retained the heavy burden of my armament; but with the rifle slung to my back, my hands were free. When I too showed indisputable evidences of exhaustion, ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... defeats, they sought revenge and actuated by an ill-judged hope of weakening the resisting obstacles, they dismissed a countless multitude of military officers, who were turned out of the army upon half pay, though their full pay had been formally guarantied. It must be acknowledged that the number of the officers of the imperial army ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... policy of liberalizing the economy and today stands out as one of the most successful and open transition economies. GDP growth had been strong and steady in 1993-2000 but fell back in 2001 with slowdowns in domestic investment and consumption and the weakening in the global economy. The privatization of small and medium state-owned companies and a liberal law on establishing new firms have allowed for the rapid development of a vibrant private sector. In contrast, Poland's large agricultural sector remains handicapped by structural problems, ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... wisdom of this course. Aided by the bird's reckless attack, the keen blade found its mark under one of those great pounding pinions, and by the diminishing force of the next charge, and the next, Ralph knew that the eagle was weakening. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... her sitting by the fire in a large easy chair, in her dressing-gown and shawl, and was surprised at the first sight of her too, for that very weakening complaint, the influenza, had made a great change in her, perhaps assisted by all that she had gone through during the last summer and autumn, beginning with the parting with John, the grief and anxiety ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... sense of angry injury against the men or forces responsible for his present difficulties. His elder resentment was of course against O'Connor, who was taking advantage in every way of the Guardian's misfortunes; but as the palpably weakening hold of the company brought him more closely in touch with its underwriting affairs, as the questionable losses from Boston and other similar agencies began to arrive in faster and faster succession, and he clearly perceived the weakness ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... our generation. The priesthood, also, which sprang from the middle classes, resisted material forces and stood between the people and their enemies. But the territorial possessions of the Church and her temporal power, which seemingly made her position yet stronger, ended by crippling and weakening her action. As a matter of fact, if the priest has possessions and privileges, he at once appears in the light of an oppressor. He is paid by the State, therefore he is an official: if he gives his time, his life, his whole heart, this is a matter ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... that they were obliged to run to the river, and before they had reached it he had almost overtaken them. Two jumped into the canoe; the other four separated, and, concealing themselves in the willows, fired as fast as they could reload. They struck him several times, but, instead of weakening the monster, each shot seemed only to direct him towards the hunters, till at last he pursued two of them so closely that they threw aside their guns and pouches, and jumped down a perpendicular bank of twenty feet into the river: the bear sprang ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... and behold that Bravery and Spirit, which should only be made Use of against the Enemies of the Country, hourly employ'd and lavish'd away in private Quarrels, that can have no other Tendency that the weakening of the Kingdom, and which, if suffer'd to go on, must compleat ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... Melisinda. He was born in 1130, and became king in 1143, under the regency of his mother, which lasted till 1152. He came to the throne at a time when the attacks of the Greeks in Cilicia, and of Zengi on Edessa, were fatally weakening the position of the Franks in northern Syria; and from the beginning of his reign the power of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem may be said to be slowly declining, though as yet there is little outward trace of its decay to be seen. Edessa ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... looking on the surface of public life, the larger facts of national history, and the material condition of the people, there is no evidence, obvious to the hasty observer, of interference with personal freedom, of any demoralizing or weakening influence on individual character exercised by political or social equality. It is outside of the proper field of politics, in facts invisible to distant observers, and not visible at a glance to thoughtful travellers, ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... their fatal and rash project of proceeding to England. Mr. Radcliffe, on finding that his representations were ineffectual, begged that he might have an hundred horse given to him, that with them he might try his fortune with the Highlanders: this was also denied him, for fear of weakening the force; and he was constrained to proceed with his confederates in arms ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... the mournful effect of a weakening of the moral sense in the chief of a state, to enfeeble that moral sense at the same time, and by an inevitable contagion, amongst his rivals and adversaries. In presence of the continental blockade, and of the ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... minuteness and ability, no flaw or error has been pointed out which in the slightest degree affects my main argument, and I consider that every point yet objected to by Dr. Lightfoot, or indicated by Dr. Westcott, might be withdrawn without at all weakening my position. These objections, I may say, refer solely to details, and only follow side issues, but the attack, if impotent against the main position, has in many cases been insidiously directed against notes and passing references, and ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... was proud—proud, that is, of his ability to hurl defiance into the very teeth of Death. He said that he had always hoped he would be able to die thus; that he had sometimes feared lest in his last illness there should be some weakening towards the end: perhaps his mind would become overclouded, and he would lose grip of his arguments; perhaps he would think that death was something instead of being nothing; perhaps he would be troubled by the thought of impending annihilation. ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... direct and definite effects; and these may become strongly marked in the course of time, though we have not sufficient evidence on this head. Habit in producing constitutional peculiarities, and use in strengthening, and disuse in weakening and diminishing organs, appear in many cases to have been potent in their effects. Homologous parts tend to vary in the same manner, and homologous parts tend to cohere. Modifications in hard parts and in external parts sometimes affect softer and internal parts. When one part ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... is only a matter of form, but it is the policy of the nation itself, and no Government that attempted to recede from or palter with that policy would last a week. (Loud cheers.) I am perfectly certain that no idea or intention of any weakening on this point or this question has entered the head ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... illuminated by some prodigious radiance. The cry of the convert in the majority of cases is: "I am a sinner!" It seems as if darkness had fallen away from him, together with all the evil which was corroding, weakening, and suffocating him, and which at length he saw, when it was separated from him, terrible, obscure, and full of hideous dangers. It is this which agitates him, and makes him weep; it is this which urges him to seek some one who can understand, comfort, and help him. The converted ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... they had traversed quite half the length of the lake ere there was the slightest perceptible sign of the creature weakening; and they accomplished another quarter of the distance ere the reptile slackened speed sufficiently to admit of their attempting to haul the yacht up alongside it. Then, when they at length proceeded to make the attempt, the additional strain thrown on the rope, as it ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... larger amounts of wheat than we. Over half the food of the French is bread, so if the wheat shortage were near the danger-line, it might lead to a serious weakening of the marvellous courage ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker
... us cultivate calmness, restfulness, poise, sweetness,—doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we can; living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the wicked or the malice of the envious. Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay, fretting over failure, wearying over results, and weakening under opposition. Let us ever turn our face toward the future with confidence and trust, with the calmness of a life in harmony with itself, true to its ideals, and slowly and constantly progressing ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... think that if it was to be done at all, it was best to do it thoroughly, since to have kept some natives under our protection, and to have handed over the rest to the tender mercies of the Boers, would only be to render our injustice more obvious, whilst weakening the power of the natives themselves to combine in self-defence; since those under our protection would naturally have little sympathy with their more unfortunate brethren—their ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... on the Pilica, a German feint was in progress with the object of weakening the Russian defense in the north. But while Petrograd seemed to be resigning itself to the idea of a second withdrawal from before Przasnysz, there was little doubt of the ultimate outcome of this German attempt to gain a firm ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... after the fashion of the horticulturist and the breeder, neither has played, nor can play, any important part in the evolution of society; apart from other reasons, because I do not see how such selection could be practised without a serious weakening, it may be the destruction, of the bonds which hold society together. It strikes me that men who are accustomed to contemplate the active or passive extirpation of the weak, the unfortunate, and the superfluous; who justify that conduct ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... from Reynolds, who seemed to be weakening. "What a dreadful affair this is! I'd give anything in my power to give if I were ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... loomed over her, so that she put out trembling hands. After the struggle a reaction was coming to her. She was weakening. She had ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... fascination of an orator, and again his heart glowed with a secret feeling that he, too, could be an orator like that. He felt strong, and cool, and hopeful, while Radbourn was speaking, but afterward that horrible, weakening fear came ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... A drowsy, ineffably languid feeling took possession of the entire assemblage. Here and there a noble head nodded slightly; eyelids fell in the silent war against the god of slumber, only to revive again with painful energy and ever-weakening courage. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... considerably reduced within a short time by loss through the perspiration alone. This may explain to some extent the weakening effect of profuse perspiration, as from night sweats of consumption, convalescence from typhoid fever, or the artificial sweating from ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... struck one on the rock; it broke in his trembling fingers. Another—there were so few left. He drew it with infinite care on the surface of rock. The figures below tore in frenzy at the weakening barricade, while yet others stood waiting at this sign of some ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... Adriatic seas, but the Carthaginians also were compelled to adopt a more energetic policy. The immediate result of the long and obstinate conflicts between them and their equally powerful and infamous antagonist, Dionysius of Syracuse (348-389), was the annihilation or weakening of the intervening Sicilian states—a result which both parties had an interest in accomplishing—and the division of the island between the Syracusans and Carthaginians. The most flourishing cities ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... comparing these times with those. In those times all big crimes were unpunished, and there was but little petty crime. Now all big criminals are relentlessly hunted down by the police; and the inevitable weakening of the village system has led to a large increase of petty crime, and certain breaches of morality and good conduct. I remember talking to a man not long ago—a man who had been a headman in the king's time, but was not so now. We were chatting of various ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... mate of the Barracouta, as gunner; Coombs, the carpenter's mate, as carpenter; and Bartlett, the boatswain's mate, as boatswain. And by way of a crew, the captain gave us forty of his best men, as he very well could without weakening his own ship's company, a ship with supernumeraries having most opportunely arrived from home only a few days previously. It will thus be seen that, so far as strength was concerned, we were fairly well able to take care of ourselves. ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... Lannes was detached with his division to cut off the enemy's line of retreat over the Narew. Napoleon, as at Jena, believed the main army of his opponent to be where it was not, and he was incautious in thus dividing and weakening his forces. Accordingly the battle had an irregular and indecisive character. Lannes came unexpectedly upon the mass of the Russian army, two columns forming the center and right, and engaged them from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon. At that hour a reserve arrived under Gudin, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... more deeply than any other department of the university. The tendency toward disintegration to which we referred above has forcefully directed attention to the great need of emphasizing this aspect of our subject, since such disintegration is naturally accompanied by a weakening of mathematical vigor. It may be noted that such a disintegration would mean a reverting to primitive conditions, since some of the older works treated mathematics merely as a chapter of astronomy. This was done, for instance, in some of the ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... some concern, but Dennis, Williams and others report that the height is inaccessible from the river side. If an attack in force is made at Queenston, we will have to concentrate every available man there—at the risk of weakening our flanks. Lewiston, as you have seen, is white with tents. At Fort Gray the enemy has two twenty-four-pounders, waiting to silence our eighteen-pounder in the redan. The Americans have several mortars and six-pounders on the river bank below Lewiston, ready to ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... anything better than this, Thomas," said he; "but you needn't think I am weakening; you drove with me, and ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... while the Socialist, with an equal liberalism, regards the outlook with a kind of hopeful dread, and insists upon an elaborate readjustment, a new and untried scheme of social organisation to replace the shattered and weakening Normal ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... lad, with a healthy appetite, which, until very recently, had always been satisfied, and just then he was feeling that unless he ate and drank, something—he knew not what—would happen. He was even conscious that his voice was weakening, when, having entered the eating-house and dropped into a seat in one of the little boxes into which the place was divided, he asked the waitress for the food and drink which he was now positively aching for. And he had eaten a plateful of fish ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... Tresler, with a grim smile. "Thanks for your warning, but I'm going to try and ride her," he went on with quiet decision. "Not because I think I can, but because that bully up there"—with a nod in Jake's direction—"would only be too glad of the chance of taunting me with 'weakening.' She shall throw me till she makes it a physical impossibility for me to mount her again. All I ask is that you fellows stand by to keep her off when I'm on ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... from family and caste ties and offers nothing in return but an undefined theism, not calculated to excite any enthusiasm or strong feeling in ordinary minds. Its efforts at social reform have probably, however, been of substantial value in weakening the rigidity of Hindu ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... temperature of the vast hall. There is a single entrance, with noble bronze doors, admitting directly to the interior, around which seven niches, alternately rectangular and semicircular in plan and fronted by Corinthian columns, lighten, without weakening, the mass of the encircling wall. This wall was originally incrusted with rich marbles, and the great dome, adorned with deep coffering in rectangular panels, was decorated with rosettes and mouldings in gilt ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... without effect, and another to the right, but everywhere they were faced by the precipitous wall of cliff, carved-out and terraced, and here and there offering facilities for climbing up more or less high, the stones from above having fallen from the weakening and decay of time till a glacis-like slope had been formed; but after the reptiles that had been started in the less likely places, there was no present temptation for ascending the stony slopes, bathed in the hot ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... than the next human being is in similar circumstances. The whispering was hastily suppressed; love for her, desire that she should be comfortable—those must be the real reasons. But he must be careful lest she, the sensitive, should begin to brood over a fear that she was already weakening him and would become a drag upon him—the fear that, he knew, would take shape in his own mind if things began to go badly. "You may be sure, dearest," he said, "I'll do nothing that won't help me on." He tapped his forehead with his ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... where they had left their horses, and cantered back over their trail. Minute after minute passed before the cautious skulker among the rocks across the stream could believe in his good fortune. When he at last decided that he was alone again he left his shelter and started away, with slowly weakening stride, over cleanly washed rock where he left ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... Estabrook was weakening. He nodded. I looked at my watch and found that it was after eleven. I drew the curtain and saw that sheets of rain were still being blown slantwise across the foggy radiance of the arc lights. There is a ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... the guests who were present at such a banquet. It also compelled or induced the Italian allies to accept the provisions of the Fannian law[85]—an unusual step which may show the belief that a luxury similar to that of Rome was weakening the resources of the confederacy, on whose strength the leading state was so dependent, or which may have been induced by the knowledge that members of the Roman nobility were taking holiday trips to country towns, to enjoy the delights which were prohibited at home and to waste ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... in all cases more or less weakening. The more foliage that is removed, the more weakening it is. Vines, therefore, which are making a weak growth from any cause whatever can only be injured by topping. If the vines are exceptionally ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... Miantonomo; and suspicions had arisen in the breast of Masasoyt, which he vainly strove to infuse into his more enlightened and trustworthy son, Mooanam. Nothing that his father could say had any effect in weakening the friendship entertained by the young Sachem, and his brother Quadequina, towards the emigrants; and it was owing to this steady friendship that they were made acquainted with the altered feelings of the Sagamore in time to prevent their ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Frontenac received from France both money and troops, but neither in sufficient quantity to place him where he could deal the Iroquois one final blow. Thus one year after another saw a war of skirmishes and minor raids, sufficiently harassing and weakening to both sides, but with results which were disappointing because inconclusive. The hero of this border warfare is the Canadian habitant, whose farm becomes a fort and whose gun is never out of reach. Nor did the men of the colony display more courage than their wives and daughters. The ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... a passage of captivating vivacity, in which work and pleasures inflame this ardent vitality, other days,—numerous, alas! have the mere mention of a date followed by a dash. These are the stations of the disease when the charming body was weakening like a dying flower. And there were the alternations of hope, the physicians consulted when at first she believed everything, to doubt, later, all the remedies with which their pity beguiles anxiety, at last ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... completed a line of defense from the Schuylkill to the Delaware, and a reinforcement from New York had arrived at Chester. These two circumstances enabled him to form an army in the Jerseys, sufficient for the reduction of Fort Mercer, without weakening himself so much in Philadelphia as to put his lines in hazard. Still, deeming it of the utmost importance to open the navigation of the Delaware completely, he detached Lord Cornwallis, about 1 in the morning of the 17th (1777), with a strong body of troops to Chester. From ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... anxious to see the pictures of the magic lantern; but fever had so weakening an effect, and I had such violent action of the heart, with buzzing in the ears, that I could not go for several days; when I did go for the purpose, he had his principal men and the same crowd of court beauties near him as at the reception. The first picture exhibited was Abraham about ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... war was everywhere: in our front, on our flanks, and in our rear. Our army was constantly weakening, and the enemy becoming daily more enterprising. This conquest seemed destined to fare like many others, which are won in the ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... King had lately called upon him for the tribute from his government, for which he was in arrears, being unable to raise it from the Hellenic towns by reason of the Athenians; and he therefore calculated that by weakening the Athenians he should get the tribute better paid, and should also draw the Lacedaemonians into alliance with the King; and by this means, as the King had commanded him, take alive or dead Amorges, the bastard son of Pissuthnes, who was in rebellion ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... bringing about a religious state of things in England that approached very nearly to Lutheranism. Taking advantage of Henry's pique and anger at the Pope's refusal to grant him a divorce from Katharine of Arragon, Cromwell set about widening the breach between England and Rome. After weakening the power of the bishops and lower clergy, he was able to force the oath of supremacy upon the nation, and having thus satisfied his master's pride and vanity, his next step was by the dissolution of the monasteries ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... left the wolves hopelessly behind, they followed silently and with apparent indifference. Nevertheless they kept a close watch upon the deer, singling out one who had been wounded before, and was showing signs of weakening. This animal soon lagged and was cunningly separated from the herd, thus falling an easy prey to the wolves. Another was treated in the same manner before the savage appetites were satisfied and the wolves turned ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... impressed with a sense of his responsibilities. He really wished to send assistance to Fort Duncan, but felt the importance of conveying his charge safely to Fort Edmonton, and he was too prudent to run any risk, by weakening his escort. He, therefore, determined to commence the journey at an earlier hour than usual, and to push forward as fast as possible. He recollected the half-breeds from whom they had parted only three days before, ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... break with our memories of her when alive. Attitude and expression are characteristic. She is the strong woman still, conscious of immense power; and, if that shut mouth could speak, and if health were given back to her, ready no doubt still to use it tyrannously. There is no weakening and no repentance in the face; and I like it better so. Nor did she ever really reverse, though she modified, the exclusion of Coryston from the inheritance. She was able during an interval of comparative betterment about Christmas-time, to make an alteration in her will, and the alteration ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hearts. And Burleigh advises allowing the followers of dissenting Protestant Churches, especially the Puritans, to worship as they please: in preaching and catechising they are more zealous than the Episcopalians, very far more successful in converting the people, and indispensable for weakening the popish party. We see how the necessity of the war acts on home affairs. The chief minister favoured the elements which were forcing their way out through the ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... eyelashes. In England women of the leisure class showed during the years of the sports craze a tendency to an unfeminine length of limb, often attaining or surpassing the male average. But Nature avenged herself by narrowing the pelvis and weakening the reproductive organs. Free trade drove the old sturdy yeoman into the towns and diminished the stature and muscular power of their descendants, but ten months of trench life and Nature laughed at the weak spot in ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Darrell sat holding Whitcomb in his arms. Passengers from the other coaches crowded in, eager to offer assistance that was of no avail. A physician was found and came quickly to the scene, who, after a brief examination, silently shook his head, and Darrell, watching the weakening pulse and shortening gasps, needed no words to tell him that the young life was ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... the show of legitimacy. The former class demanded a distinct recognition of the right of subjects to dethrone bad princes. The latter class desired to rid the country of one bad prince, without promulgating any doctrine which might be abused for the purpose of weakening the just and salutary authority of future monarchs. The former class dwelt chiefly on the King's misgovernment; the latter on his flight. The former class considered him as having forfeited his crown; the latter as having resigned it. It was not easy ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... endeavoring to render Paris impregnable, try rather to render the loss of Paris an insignificant matter. Instead of accumulating about one point academies, faculties, schools, and political, administrative, and judicial centres; instead of arresting intellectual development and weakening public spirit in the provinces by this fatal agglomeration,—can you not, without destroying unity, distribute social functions among places as well as among persons? Such a system—in allowing ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... thousand pounds; you would give up that objection. And I stand committed to no bookseller, printer, money-lender, banker, or patron whatever; and decidedly strengthen my position with my readers, instead of weakening it, drop by drop, as I otherwise must. Is it not so? and is not the way before me, plainly this? I infer that in reality you do yourself think, that what I first thought of is not the way? I have told you my scheme very badly, as I said I would. I see its great points, against many prepossessions ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... with joy, and even dreamed, at first, that he would play the white man out. The first hundred miles he looked for signs of weakening, and marveled that ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... of a mile from the rock where he had left his comrade, Weber once more paused. Nothing as yet had come to confirm that peculiar warning described, but his faith knew no weakening ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... he was early sent to the care of the Jesuits. Under the direction of the holy and sainted members of this order he soon gave hope of a religious and virtuous manhood. Away from the scoffs of an unbelieving father and the weakening seductions of pleasure, he opened his generous soul to those salutary impressions of virtue which draw the soul to God and enable it to despise ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... ministers, their predecessors, had acquired under the authority of their masters; and it is observable that the mayors of the Palace and the counts of Paris placed themselves on the thrones of kings exactly by the same methods that gained them their masters' favours,—that is, by weakening and changing the laws of the land, which at first always pleases weak princes, who fancy it aggrandises their power; but in its consequence it gives a power to the great men and motives to the common ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... lands on the solar plexus of the proposition he's tackling in the twentieth. But you can have a regiment of good business qualities, and still fail without courage, because he's the colonel, and he won't stand for any weakening ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... interest in us and our surroundings, despite the persistent invitation of the near woods to him to leave "Doctor Na-ki-ta" and to tramp off in them on a deer hunt (for "Billy" is a lover of the woods and a bold and successful hunter), he held on courageously. The only sign of weakening he made was on one day, about noon, when, after many, to me, vexatious failures to draw from him certain translations into his own language of phrases containing verbs illustrating variations of mood, time, number, &c., he said to me: "Doctor, how long you ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... whole matter into a mere calculation of interests. He was accustomed to say that one of the chief merits of Christianity was that it taught that right and wrong were as far apart as Heaven and Hell, and that no greater calamity can befall a nation than a weakening of the righteous ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... warfare is the poison of sedition and conspiracy that is thrown into the cup of domestic peace and confidence—more fatal than the ravages of the battle field is that of the worm that creeps slowly and surely—weakening, as it works, the foundations of the edifice in which we dwell unsuspicious of evil. Is it astonishing that they, the enemies of our common weal, should rejoice in these signs of incipient weakness, or fail to resort ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... fought like that between Karna and Arjuna today. Karna had powerfully assailed the two Krishnas today and all others who are thy foes. Destiny, however, has certainly flowed, controlled by Partha. It is for this that Destiny is protecting the Pandavas and weakening us. Many are the heroes who, resolved to accomplish thy objects have been forcibly slain by the enemy. Brave kings, who in energy, courage, and might, were equal to Kuvera or Yama or Vasava or the Lord of the waters, who were possessed of every merit, who were almost unslayable, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Cui-kau launch accidentally fell overboard, and although a friend was able to grasp his hand and hold him above the surface, no one offered to help him; the launch continued at full speed, and finally weakening, the poor man loosed his hold and sank. This is by no means an isolated case. Some years ago a foreign steamer was burned on the Yangtze River, and the crowds of watching Chinese did little or nothing to rescue the passengers ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... of light shot from the fires, expanding in size, but weakening in intensity. These lights, and the candles at the west end, revealed in a strange combination the middle ages, the nineteenth century, and ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... weakening Doctor Ingraham favoured the queer old street with a tableau to which it long had been a stranger. And the cabinet, creeping back to reconnoitre, immediately guessed ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... compartment boxed off from the main body of the vat, so that no part of the material which is being dyed can come in contact with it. A closed steam coil will, on the whole, give the best results, as then no weakening of the dye-liquor can take place through dilution by the condensation of the steam. Many dye-vats are, however, fitted with perforated, or as they are called, open steam coils, in which case there is, perhaps, better circulation of the liquor in the dye-vat, but as some of the steam must condense ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... decisive. In that steaming climate, and those narrow paths, he walked faster than was at all agreeable to his companions, and was dressed moreover in a woollen coat and waistcoat all the time. In fact, he thoroughly enjoyed the heat, though no doubt it was weakening him; he liked the food, which gave him no trouble at all to eat, and he ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... generator after generator burned out, the defensive screen collapsed, and the red converter beam attacked voraciously the unresisting metal of those prodigious walls. Soon there was a terrific explosion as the pent-up air of the planetoid broke through its weakening container, and the sluggish river of allotropic iron flowed in an ever larger stream, ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... of conflict, after a vast expenditure of wealth and human lives, the Holy Land remained in Moslem hands. It is true that the First Crusade did help, by the conquest of Syria, to check the advance of the Turks toward Constantinople. But even this benefit was more than undone by the weakening of the Roman Empire in the East as a result ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... Dialect or Part of our Language so little understood, as that which relates to Pastoral; nor none (not even the Sublime) so difficult to write. Of all who have attempted Pastoral in our Tongue, no one (but SPENCER) has gone so far as even the weakening and enervating their Dialect; yet after that is perform'd, a Pastoral-Writer has gone but half way; for after the Strength is taken away, a Tenderness and Simplicity of Expression must supply its Place, or else 'tis only bald and low, instead of ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... of three thousand men, taken from the departments. This measure, which would at least have made the assembly independent, was not supported with sufficient vigour to be adopted. Thus the Girondists attacked the Mountain without weakening them, the commune without subduing it, the Faubourgs without suppressing them. They irritated Paris by invoking the aid of the departments, without procuring it; thus acting in opposition to the most common rules of prudence, for it is always safer to do a thing ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... the way to safety.' ... That would be a good Union motto, don't you think? Or 'Festina lente'—for we mustn't be impatient, must we? Or, 'Hands across the sea!' For nothing is so important as keeping our entente with France intact, is it.... The people of this country will not stand any weakening ... you know.... My husband reads me that out of the paper at breakfast.... There he is ... Frederick, isn't this ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... stripped of all its prerogatives, and reduced to impotence by tacit consent, would become incompetent to fulfil its purpose; and the second Union would perish, like the first, by a sort of senile inaptitude. The gradual weakening of the federal tie, which may finally lead to the dissolution of the Union, is a distinct circumstance, that may produce a variety of minor consequences before it operates so violent a change. ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al |
