"Wearing away" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only amounts to a thousand crowns, and there he stops in his arrondissement, wearing away time like the rung of a chair. I say nothing of the pleasure of going to the theatre without paying for your seat, for that is a delight which quickly palls; but you can go behind the scenes in four theatres. Be hard and sarcastic ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... pursuit. He himself was supposed not to return for a week, and the story of visiting the minister's wife was not only plausible, it was natural. Jed had upset calculations, because Jed was shrewd, and had eyes in his head. Buck Johnson's first mental numbness was wearing away; ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... her ears, she gave herself up to anxious thoughts. She wanted to see her son at liberty, but at the same time the idea of freeing him frightened her. She felt that the struggle around her was growing keener and that a sharp collision was threatening. The silent patience of the people was wearing away, yielding to a strained expectation of something new. The excitement was growing perceptibly. Bitter words were tossed about. Something novel and stirring was wafted from all quarters; every proclamation evoked lively discussions in the market place, in the shops, among servants, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... my loss weighed little with me. The diffidence born of inexperience and of strangeness to London and the Court was wearing away; the desire for another's arm to lean on and another's eyes to see with gave way before a young man's pride in his own arm's strength and the keenness of his own vision. There was sport afoot; aye, for me in those days ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... which the turbid Arno flowed into that sea. And from time to time the bottom of the sea was raised, depositing these shells in layers, as may be seen in the cutting at Colle Gonzoli, laid open by the Arno which is wearing away the base of it; in which cutting the said layers of shells are very plainly to be seen in clay of a bluish colour, and various marine objects are found there. And if the earth of our hemisphere is indeed raised by so much higher than it used to be, it must have become by ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Nose in the afternoon, enjoying once more the view of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks, when I descried two men far off toward the Chin. They had come up the mountain, not by the carriage road, but by a trail on the opposite side, and plainly were in no haste, though the afternoon was wearing away. As I watched their movements, a mile or two in the distance, I said to myself, "Good! they are botanists." So it proved; or rather one of them was a botanist,—a college professor on a pedestrian ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... communities, by the development of shipping and the invention of the wheel and the made road, spelt increased trade perhaps for a time, but very speedily a more extensive form of war, and in the end either the wearing away of differences and union, or conquest. Man is the creature of a struggle for existence, incurably egoistic and aggressive. Convince him of the gospel of self-abnegation even, and he instantly becomes its ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... that this thought finally drove me from the scene, for I am of a very hardy make when it comes to the most frightful sort of suppositions. But the afternoon was wearing away, and we must go sometime. It seemed better also to leave the gayety at its height: the river covered with soft colors, and the barges and house-boats by the brink, with their companies responsive in harmonies of ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... person diving to the bottom may hear literally thousands of stones knocking against each other. This attrition, being carried on for hundreds of miles in different rivers, must have an effect greater than if all the pestles and mortars and mills of the world were grinding and wearing away the rocks. The pounding to which I refer may be heard most distinctly in the Vaal River, when that is slightly in flood. It was there I first heard it. In the Leeambye, in the middle of the country, where there is no discoloration, and little ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... wearing away. The wild fowl were passing northward, landward. The game had changed its haunts. March was coming, the month between the seasons for the tribes, the time of want, the ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... The subject is of so much moment in my estimation as to excite a constant solicitude that the consideration of it may be renewed until the greatest attainable perfection shall be accomplished. Time is wearing away some advantages for forwarding the object, while none better deserves the persevering ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... wise kept silence, and Gunnar heeded him nought: On the daughter of his people was set the Niblung's thought, So sore he longed to behold her; for his life seemed wearing away, And the wealth and the fame he had gathered seemed nought by the earlier day, The day of love departed, and ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... how it is that so many variations occur in impressions from his plates, depending entirely on the direction in which the printer wiped off the ink—whether across the ridges, or in the same direction as the lines. Varieties have also arisen from these ridges wearing away by the friction of the hand; and as Rembrandt's copper plates, judging from those I have examined, were soft, they soon wore down. We also find this dark effect given in many of his varieties by ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... out of many, of a being with strong mind and warm heart, cheated of objects on which to expend the vigor of the one, or the fervor of the other. The energies of her character, finding no legitimate outlet, beat back upon herself, wearing away by continued friction the fine perception of beauty and susceptibility of true enjoyment. The vine that finds no support for its upward growth, grovels on the earth and covers it with rank, unshapely leaves. ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... breaking up, or at least to its softening to the point where the roots can penetrate it and complete its destruction. Thus it comes about that the water which to a great extent divides the rocks into the state of soil, which is continually wearing away the material on the surface, or leaching it out through the springs, is also at work in restoring the layer ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... ride home, for the afternoon was wearing away and picket lines are dangerous at dusk. The military situation is without doubt at this moment most grave and critical. We have been at war three weeks. The army that was to have defended Natal, and was indeed expected to repulse the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... embouchure of the Ohio to the mouth of the Mississippi itself, though at certain points the extent of the encroachment and the formation that neutralises it is much greater than at others. In some places the "wearing away" of the bank operates so rapidly that in a few days the whole site of a village, or even a plantation, may disappear. Not unfrequently, too, during the high spring-floods this eccentric stream takes a "near cut" across the neck of one of its own "bends," and in a few hours a channel is formed, ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... rocks, or in this vicinity. Old river beds formed of gravelly drifts in the same neighbourhood may probably contain alluvial gold, or shallow deposits of "wash" on hillsides and in valleys will often carry good surface gold. This is sometimes due to the denudation, or wearing away, of the hills containing quartz-veins—that is, where the alluvial gold really was derived from such veins, which, popular opinion to the contrary, ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... they continued on, those who formerly believed that the light was approaching them, no longer held to that faith. On the contrary, after rowing nearly an hour, all were too ready to agree in the belief that the ship was wearing away. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... Benjie, it now behoved me to have an eye towards myself; for, having turned the corner of manhood, I found that I was beginning to be wearing away down the hillside of life. Customers, who had as much faith in me as almost in their Bible with regard to everything connected with my own department, and who could depend on their cloth being cut according to the newest and most approved fashions, began now and then to return a coat ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... by Gothic columns, converted into a servants' hall. Here Joe looked forward to rule the roast at the head of the servants' table, and to make the Gothic arches ring with those hunting and hard-drinking ditties which were the horror of the discreet Nanny Smith. Time, however, was fast wearing away with him, and his great fear was that the hall would not be completed in his day. In his eagerness to hasten the repairs, he used to get up early in the morning, and ring up the workmen. Notwithstanding his great age, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... two-fold: it illumines, and so helps the spiritual man to see; and it also burns up the nets and meshes which ensnare the spiritual man. So with the other means, spiritual reading and obedience. Each, in its action, is two-fold, wearing away the psychical, and upbuilding the ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... planned, full of imaginative variety; at innumerable points it anticipates what the later more accomplished Gothic sculptors were to achieve, and I suspect, indeed, that much of its apparent lack of executive skill is due to wearing away of the rather soft stone the sculptors used. In the capitals of the cloisters—certainly much later—a peculiarly hard stone has been chosen, and, notwithstanding, the precision and expressive vigour of these artists is clearly shown. But the great portal, a stupendous work ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... by the serenity of her face, and the trouble, which he knew it concealed, seemed, to his mind, to be wearing away. Carefully securing the doors, they walked over the fields together, pausing on the hilltop to listen to the caw of the gathering crows, or to watch the ruby disc of the beamless sun stooping to touch the western rim of the valley. Many a time had they thus gone over the farm ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... of the old priest, were yet secretly proud of the honor of his special notice. Shyly they stood about in groups, watching for a time the resumed labors of fathers and brothers, until afternoon was wearing away, and it was time to betake themselves home to make ready for the still more important event of the day. Gaily they rushed down the hill, their joyous laughter and merry shouts—relieved as they were from the restraint which good manners had imposed in the priest's ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... see him presently," said the lawyer; "he is in the passage waiting till I call him in to take some instructions from him; and I think I had better do so now, for I have breakfasted, and time is wearing away." ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... wearing away. Jack frequently stared eagerly off to the west, when the sun's glowing face was veiled for a brief time by some friendly cloud. Several times he believed he could see something that looked like a stretch of water, but dared not ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... since, and had now come round again; that travelling was one of the professions, more or less productive, which her husband did not follow. But continued travelling is far from productive. It begins with wearing away the soles of the shoes, and making the feet sore, and erelong it will wear a man clean up, after making his heart sore into the bargain. I have observed that the after-life of those who have travelled much is very pathetic. True and sincere ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... to-day. No wonder she went about with an absent smile on her face, and did everything in the craziest possible way. It was so precious, this newly-found secret of hers! She knew her own heart now. There was no possibility of her misunderstanding herself in the future. The afternoon was wearing away, and she sat waiting and listening. Ding! No, that was only a beggar-woman at the door. Ding, again! Yes, that was Arthur! Then she grew frightened. How could she look into his eyes? He would read her secret ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... made a woeful change in her. She was as gaunt as a suckling she-hound, an old terror lay lurking in her young eyes. For one hour of dread is worse than a year of weeping. One may grieve, honestly and deeply, without wearing away the cheeks or burning out the heart, for there is a soft sorrow which lies upon the soul like a deadening mist upon the autumn fields. But there is no worry without waste. One day of it will burn more of the fuel of human life than a decade ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... is not confined to carriages, but extends to the cloathing of individuals, as no person under the rank of an edele heeren is permitted to wear velvet: there are a number of other distinctions in dress equally ridiculous, but they seem to be wearing away: a few years ago, the women were strictly forbid wearing any European dress, and ordered to conform ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... which the whole substrata were upheaved above the ocean. I am disposed to think that such islands and ranges of the sandstone were formed before the deposit of the basalt, and that the form of the surface is now returning to what it then was, by the gradual decomposition and wearing away of the latter rock. Much, however, may be said on both sides of this, as of every other question. After descending from the sandstone of the Vindhya[3] range into Bundelkhand, we pass over basalt and basaltic soil, reposing immediately on syenitic granite, with ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... rubbing off or wearing away of the parts of a rock, or of the soil, by the impinging and friction of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the gas; the lines of gaudy bottles gleam like vulgar, sham jewelry; the glare, the glitter, the garish refulgence of the place dazzle the eye, and the sharp acrid whiffs of vile odour fall on the senses with a kind of mephitic influence. The evening is wearing away, and the broad space in front of the bar is crowded. A hoarse crashing babble goes steadily on, forming the ground-bass of an odious symphony; shrill and discordant laughter rises by fits and starts above the low tumult; a coarse joke sets one group sniggering; ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... contrived for conveying a lump of tempered clay before the point of the tuiron plate, to guard the wall from wearing away as it would otherwise do in that part, there being the greatest force of ...
— Iron Making in the Olden Times - as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of Dean • H. G. Nicholls
... soften the glass of the rods, G, G, so that they bend as shown at O (Fig. 3), and allow the carbons to move onward until the heat has sufficiently diminished to prevent any further softening of the glass. In measure as the wearing away progresses, the preceding effects are reproduced; and, as these are produced in an imperceptible and continuous manner, there is perceived no jumping nor inconstancy in the light of the arc. Under such conditions, then, the regulation of the arc is effected ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... of others, it would have been before this; it's too late to begin now. I came here because I have failed in all I undertook; because I am beginning to hate the one for whom I have toiled, until I grew gray with the wearing away of mind and body; because the soul of life is gone. I do it out of revenge against that person. There is no remorse; no conscience; but it's revenge. Look at me; that person has blasted me. Do I not show it in every feature and limb? Now you understand me. My schemes are ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... the Philippines by way of her New York home. For a week they stayed in it, and it was there that the first sense of loss touched Meredith. The stirring effect of all that she had recently gone through was wearing away, and Doris, and all that Doris meant in the past, haunted the ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... levels are connected by well-like pits, some of which measure two hundred and twenty-five feet from top to bottom. Through some of the lowest of these tunnels flows Echo River, still at work dissolving and wearing away the rock while on its dark way to appear at the surface as ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... uncertainty respecting my uncle's character; which was not altogether unwarranted by the circumstances of the two trying interviews whose particulars I have just detailed. The unpleasant impression which these conferences were calculated to leave upon my mind, was fast wearing away, when there occurred a circumstance, slight indeed in itself, but calculated irresistibly to awaken all my worst suspicions, and to overwhelm me again with ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... have stayed in it." "Yes," said I, "that was before I knew you; but having lived with you here, I should be very loth to live here without you." "Indeed," said Belle, "I did not know that I was of so much consequence to you. Well, the day is wearing away—I must go and harness Traveller to the cart." "I will do that," said I, "or anything else you may wish me. Go and prepare yourself; I will see after Traveller and the cart." Belle departed to her ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the valleys little by little, until in places the lava reached a thickness of nearly four thousand feet. The lower mountains were hidden from sight. We know of the existence of these buried mountains because the wearing away of the lava in some places has ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... innocence seem guilt; no more painful dreams of punishment for some intangible crime; no starting if she heard a sudden footstep; no more hurried walk through the streets, looking neither to right nor to left; no more inward struggles wearing away her life. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cursed his companion's devoted friendship internally, as they walked silently along, side by side, for some minutes, each immersed in his own meditations! The morning was wearing away; he grew desperate. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... My nephew is an invalid; has been an invalid for years—that's why so little is known about him. He's dying of consumption. The doctors hold out no hope for him, and now, with the fear preying upon him of leaving his wife and children penniless, he is wearing away so fast that any hour may see his end. And I have to meet his eyes—such pitiful eyes—and the look in them is killing me. Yet, I was not to blame. I could not help—Oh, Miss Strange," she suddenly broke in with the inconsequence ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... old-fashioned English dinner, and that is about all I can remember, except that the table looked exceedingly nice. I don't think there was much talking; evidently the guests were as yet strangers to each other, and were only gradually wearing away the restraint that naturally existed. I could not see Miss Gertrude Forrest, for she was sitting on my side of the table, but I could see the peculiar eyes of Herod Voltaire constantly looking at some one nearly opposite him, while he scarcely touched ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... else, there should be nothing left of him but an equal submission with the loyal section of our common country to the Constitution and the laws." The frightful cost in blood of this policy of hammering continuously and thus wearing away his adversary's strength by mere attrition, did or did not occur to General Grant. In either case he is not ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... passed that did not see Hal Hutchings at Mrs. Robertson's door, to lend his strong arm and willing feet to do for her some little kindness, a true labor of love. When the Sabbath was wearing away, Hal might be seen moving his coarse finger slowly along the sacred page, reading holy words, to which Mrs. Robertson from time to time added her voice of ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... working-day of life is wearing away its last hours and verging towards the great stillness, the voices of time fall but faintly on the ear, the adorations and ideals and fashions and enthusiasms of the world come to mean little to a man who in his day has followed ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... the men with the surroundings, they are taken sometimes to a real police court while a magistrate is not sitting, and lectured on the surroundings. Everything is done with the idea of wearing away their rough edges, of smoothing the path for them when they should come to have only their own knowledge to rely on. All that takes place at Peel House is aimed to that end. There are classes on such subjects as reading, ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... his part of the palace, and lived with her there in the most shameless manner, while his neglected wife, far from all her friends, alone, and almost broken-hearted, spent her time in bitterly lamenting her hard fate, and gradually wearing away her life in ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... that this feeling towards England is not likely to continue; indeed, even at this moment it is gradually wearing away. Self-interest governs the world. At the declaration of the last war with England, it was the Northern States which were so opposed to it, and the Southern who were in favour of it: but now circumstances have changed; the Northern States, since the advance ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... English religion and English liberty, and which in the meanwhile lay ready to give force and virulence to any outbreak of strife at home. On a temper such as this argument was wasted. The only agency that could deal with it was the agency of time, the slow wearing away of prejudice, the slow upgrowth of new ideas, the gradual conviction that a Stuart restoration was hopeless, the as gradual recognition of the benefits which had been won by the Revolution, and which were secured by the maintenance of ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... the corner of a street they fell in with two men, who were seated in conversation; and as they approached softly, one of them said to the other, "I tell you, Coja, that happy is the man who can always command a hard crust like this, which is now wearing away my teeth." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rapidly taking place in usages and ideas, are undermining all these distinctions; the habits or disabilities which chained people to their hereditary condition are fast wearing away, and every class is exposed to increased and increasing competition from at least the class immediately below it. The general relaxation of conventional barriers, and the increased facilities of education which already ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... were wearing away, and here we stood idly by the side of the road. It never struck me that the time might have been profitably employed in paying a flying visit to one of the most sacred objects in Calabria and possibly in the ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... allows the upper half to open whilst the lower remains shut, such as is used in stables in England. The flooring is made of cow-dung, into which peach stones are trodden at the threshold, in order to prevent its wearing away. The furniture consists of a deal table and some chairs, rather nearly made of strips of hide fastened to a wooden frame. There is no ceiling, but only beams, to which are fastened strips of "biltong," or game's flesh, dried in the sun. Out of this ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... seem an essential part of the conquest that the Armada should arrive. Yet—wonderful to relate-Philip, in his impatience, absolutely suggested that the Duke might take possession of England without waiting for Santa Cruz and his Armada. As the autumn had been wearing away, and there had been unavoidable delays about the shipping in Spanish ports, the King thought it best not to defer matters till, the winter. "You are, doubtless, ready," he said to Farnese. "If you think you can make the passage to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... worse. Not anxious to hear, yet far from rest. Dark, uneasy eye. Asked me, 'What is it to believe?' Spoke to her on 'God, who made light shine out of darkness.' She seemed to take up nothing. Lord, help! 17th—Still worse; wearing away. No smile; no sign of inward peace. Spoke of 'Remember me.' Went over the whole gospel in the form of personal address. She drowsy. 18th—Quieter. 'My Lord and my God.' She spoke at intervals. More cheerful; anxious that I should not go without prayer. Has much knowledge; complete command ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... the people. My limits oblige me to confine myself to very few.—And, first, it is an encouraging circumstance, that the respect for labor is increasing, or rather that the old prejudices against manual toil, as degrading a man or putting him in a lower sphere, are wearing away; and the cause of this change is full of promise; for it is to be found in the progress of intelligence, Christianity, and freedom, all of which cry aloud against the old barriers created between the different classes, and challenge especial ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... be sent to the station which had been long occupied by a large fleet, commanded by the darling of the navy, and the glory of the British empire, to the station where this fleet had for years been wearing away in the most barren, repulsive, and spirit-trying service, in which the navy can be employed! and that this minor squadron should be sent independently of, and without any communication with the commander of the former fleet, for the express and solitary purpose ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... from the truth. The earth-crust is a scene of perpetual change, of perpetual struggle, of perpetual building up, of perpetual wearing away. ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... know no end. Emblems of permanence as they are, though Olivet looks down on Jerusalem as it did when Melchizedek was its king, and Tabor and Hermon stand as they did before human lips had named them, they are wearing away by winter storms and summer heats. But, as Isaiah has taught us, when the earth is old, God's might and mercy are young; for 'the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from thee.' 'The earth ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... day was a hard one at the dictionary place. She told herself it was because the novelty of it was wearing away, because her fingers ached, because it tired her back to sit in that horrid chair. She did not admit of any connection between her flagging interest and the fact that the place at ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... well, as small Glasses; whereas yet, the bigger they are, the more compleat they ought to be: And if any weight or Engine be used to supply strength, there is then danger of an unequal pressure, and of wearing away the Engine; In the mean time, the preciseness and delicateness is {58} greater than can easily be imagined. Wherefore he could never, having some experience of this preciseness, conceive, that a Turn-lathe, wherein must be two different, and ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... affection disturbed him from his absorption in the dead. He started when he heard Frederick's cries, and shook his head:—'Poor boy! poor boy!' he said, and took no more notice. Margaret's heart ached within her. She could not think of her own loss in thinking of her father's case. The night was wearing away, and the day was at hand, when, without a word of preparation, Margaret's voice broke upon the stillness of the room, with a clearness of sound that startled even herself: 'Let not your heart be troubled,' it said; and she went steadily on ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... is continually wearing and caving on one side or the other, and making a corresponding deposit on the other bank. Opposite a portion of the city of New Orleans this deposit has been going on for many years, while the opposite bank has been wearing away. There are living citizens who saw in youth the river occupying what is now covered by many streets and many blocks of buildings, and is one of the most valuable portions of the city. In truth, what was a century ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... spot where the Splash sank had been carefully noted, after my capture, by the principal and his men, and without much difficulty I found the place. The bed of this part of the lake was composed of gravel, washed down by the continual wearing away of the bluff; and as the water was clear, I could see the bottom. The Splash lay in about twenty-five feet of water—as I found by measuring with a fish-line. She sat nearly upright on her keel, and the tops of her masts were not more than a foot ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... blame in wearing away his youth in contemplation with the end of poetizing in his manhood. With the increase of his judgment the light which should make it apparent has faded away. His judgment consequently is too correct. This may not be understood-but the old Goths of Germany would have understood ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to break off the conversation, interesting as it might be, and to think of our departure: for the afternoon was fast wearing away, and a starless, if not a tempestuous, night threatened to succeed. Charles Rohfritsch was despatched to the inn below—to order the horses, settle the reckoning, and to bring the carriage as near to the monastery as possible. Meanwhile ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... You see, sir, just here a ridge of elvan crops up through the slate; the rock, out yonder, is good elvan, and that is why the sea has made an island of it, wearing away the softer stuff inshore. The mischief here lies in the ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the mind of crowds. The most redoubtable idols do not dwell in temples, nor the most despotic tyrants in palaces; both the one and the other can be broken in an instant. But the invisible masters that reign in our innermost selves are safe from every effort at revolt, and only yield to the slow wearing away ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... the erosion, or the wearing away, caused by trickling water, frost and snow, sharpens the edge of the rock, as a grindstone does the edge of an ax, and traveling along one of these ridges presents almost the same difficulties that travel along the edge of an upturned ax would ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... to the French inhabitants; from whom I heard much the same, though all agreed that Cagots were to be found in different parts of the mountains, and that they were still shunned as a race apart, though the prejudice against them was certainly wearing away. ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... that he will not," replied Hilyard, soothingly; "some chance may yet break off these nuptials, and once more give us France as our firm ally. But now we must be patient. Already Edward is fast wearing away the gloss of his crown; already the great lords desert his court; already, in the rural provinces, peasant and franklin complain of the exactions of his minions; already the mighty House of Nevile frowns sullen on the throne ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... enlarging itself, visible or invisible as it likes. There is a continued opening between the trees, a narrow slip of green turf besprinkled with flowers, chiefly daisies, and here it is, if I may use the same kind of language, that this pretty path plays its pranks, wearing away the turf and flowers at its pleasure. When I took the walk I was speaking of, last summer, it was Sunday. I met several of the people of the country posting to and from church, in different parts; and in a retired spot by the river-side were two musicians (belonging probably to ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... a very severe winter. The poor holy water sprinkler died and the parish priest appointed the wheelwright, whose misfortunes had come to his knowledge, to replace him. He went every morning and sat in the same place, on the same chair, wearing away the old stone pillar by continually leaning against it. He would gaze steadily at every man who entered the church and looked forward to Sunday with as much impatience as a schoolboy, for on that day the church was filled with people ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... little, instead of, as now, abruptly and with no preparation. That she should permit herself the indiscretion of actually intruding herself into his room had never so much as occurred to her. Yet here she was, IN HIS ROOM, and they were talking together, and little by little her embarrassment was wearing away. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... Kha-hia, this person, and one long since Passed Beyond, and to this end have I uncomplainingly striven for the greater part of a lifetime. For the rest, men do not cross the King-langs in midwinter, wearing away their lives upon those stormy heights, to make a jest of empty words. Already sinking into the Under World, even as I am now powerless to raise myself above the ground, I, Nau-Kaou, swear and attest what I ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... backing upon which McClellan could still rely was that of the President, and he was surely wearing away the patience of his only friend by the irritating attrition of promises ever reiterated and never redeemed. No man ever kept his own counsel more closely than did Mr. Lincoln, and the indications of his innermost ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... wind came, I saw with proprietary alarm the point wearing away. That which coloured the Lake was fine rose-clay and it was mine, bought by the foot-front.... A man may ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort |
