|
|
|
More "Diminish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that, by the sacrifice of her favourite, she might reconcile the disaffected Princes. Concini himself foresaw that the increase of influence which so important a command could not fail to secure to him must tend to diminish that of the Duc d'Epernon, whose overthrow had been for some time his greatest wish. Moreover, by quartering his troops in the neighbourhood of M. de Conde, an opportunity would present itself of effecting his reconciliation with that Prince, which ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... pretends to be a demonstration, and endeavouring by that means to elude its force and evidence. It is not in demonstrations as in probabilities, that difficulties can take place, and one argument counter-ballance another, and diminish its authority. A demonstration, if just, admits of no opposite difficulty; and if not just, it is a mere sophism, and consequently can never be a difficulty. It is either irresistible, or has no manner of force. To talk therefore of objections and replies, and ballancing of arguments ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... preferred, [5681] Invenies alium si te hic fastidit Alexis, by this means, which Jason Pratensis wisheth, to turn the stream of affection another way, Successore novo truditur omnis amor; or, as Valesius adviseth, by [5682]subdividing to diminish it, as a great river cut into many channels runs low at last. [5683]Hortor et ut pariter binas habeatis amicas, &c. If you suspect to be taken, be sure, saith the poet, to have two mistresses at once, or go from one to another: as he that goes from a good fire ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... movements of digestion and respiration, by thinking, by loss of temperature, by indulgence of any of our functions, and by any wrong indulgence especially. Excessive use, voluntary or otherwise, will of course diminish our total capital and cut short our lives. Could we always maintain the right ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... careful of you, Master Holliday," the countess said; "for if you go on like this you will much diminish the number of ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... of the fantasia, performed by the colonial militia, all drunk, who fired their pistols off under my nose and blackened my face with powder. General Marey, commanding at Medeah, owned the Romance vintage in Burgundy, and gave us some to drink at dinner, which did not diminish the general cordiality. Ah, well! a glass of good French wine, drunk far from home and the dissensions of the mother country, among comrades ready to give their lives for her at any moment, is a thing ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... ground from which to hold what had been gained, everything on the British line was going to the rear in confusion. Orders and counter orders were being given with a rapidity which invariably accompanies the first moments of a panic, and which tend rather to increase than diminish its effects. ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... station, this was not a little,) as for what he proved himself to be, under every disadvantage that could retard a man struggling through the world, even from his infancy. His perseverance was remarkable, and he had a depth of feeling which no ill treatment or vicissitude could diminish. He must have risen amongst men; for mind is buoyant, and leaps above the grosser element. He had resolved, in his first situation, to do his duty strictly, rather to overdo than to fall short of it, and to make himself, if possible, essential to his employers. He saw, likewise, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... while, in Greek sculpture, these points characteristic of man are increased, that the affinity to animals may be diminished. In the Greek marbles, the great toe is large and apart from the others, where the strap of the sandal came; while the others gradually diminish and sweep round to the outside of the foot, with the greatest regularity of curve; the nails are short, and the toes broad at the points, indicative of pressure on the ground." Rigidity he considers to have been the character of the first epochs, changing ultimately as in the Elgin marbles, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... IV. (847-855) to the Abbot Honoratus, Ex registro Leonis IIII. "There is something quite incredible, the sound of which has reached our ears: a thing which, if true, tends rather to diminish our consideration than to give it honour, to obscure it rather than to give it lustre. It appears in short that you feel nothing but aversion for the beautiful chant of St. Gregory, and for the manner of singing and reading laid down ...
— St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music • E. G. P. Wyatt
... ruled by them; and Scandinavian princes by descent governed in Normandy and in Russia. Although a most vigorous race, the Northmen showed a wonderful facility in adopting the language and manners of the people among whom they settled. The effect of their migrations was to diminish the strength and importance of their native ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... accumulation of skill and science which has been directed to diminish the difficulty of producing manufactured goods, has not been beneficial to that country alone in which it is concentrated; distant kingdoms have participated in its advantages. The luxurious natives ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... couple of the small angle irons used for supporting shelves, and sold at about a penny each. These are screwed on to the board 2 inches from what may be considered to be the rear edge, and are so spaced as to leave room for a washer on each spindle between the roller and the standards, to diminish friction. ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... over to domesticity, those who enjoy that alluring regularity identical with liberty, fare sumptuously, as a rule, on "pay-day." Thereafter the quantity and quality of the good things of life that they enjoy diminish daily until ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... excitement to office, and its determinations will be cold, sluggish, and imperfect. But if either or both of the two former are raised too high, or heated too much, the judgment will be jostled from his seat, and the whole matter, however important in itself, will diminish into a pantomime of the mind, in which we create images that promote no ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... pride which military life creates may cause the plantation-trickeries to diminish. For instance, these men make the most admirable sentinels. It is far harder to pass the camp-lines at night than in the camp from which I came; and I have seen none of that disposition to connive at the offences of members of one's own company which is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... of Nation against Nation being exclusively the act of the Nations that make the War, and not the act of the Neutral Nations, cannot, whether considered in itself or in its consequences, destroy or diminish the Rights of ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... alarming increase of highway-robbery, steps are taken to diminish the evil. It is made lawful to punish such offenders on the spot, by Lynch law. This is all. You may do justice on him when caught, but really you must catch him yourself. Sober citizens are even regretting the days of Santa ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... horse has hard work to do and to cut down the amount of grain when the horse stands in the stable. It is curious that this practice, so well known to give good results, is not applied to the human animal as well. But very few men will be found voluntarily to diminish the amount of their breakfast or dinner because on that day or on the following day they are going to stay in the house instead of engaging in vigorous ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... the top, this result being produced by the spreading of the sheet of water as it was precipitated from the dizzy height above. The breadth of this one is about twenty feet at the bottom, and its depth about fourteen feet. But its depth and span gradually diminish from the bottom to the top, and the rock is worn as smooth as if chiselled by the hand of an artist. Moss and small plants have sprung out from the little soil that has accumulated in the crevices, but not enough to conceal the rock from observation. ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... influx of population from abroad, always an evidence of the increased productiveness of labor. In this work it is shown conclusively, that shipping grows with protection, because protection tends to promote immigration, or the import of men, the most valuable of commodities, and thus to diminish the cost of sending to market the less valuable ones, grain, tobacco, and cotton. The question is examined in every point of view—material, moral, intellectual, and political; and the result arrived at is, "that between the interests of the treasury ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... sufficient quantity to load all the carts, each carrying about one thousand pounds,—an enormous quantity in the aggregate; yet the herd is sometimes so numerous that all this slaughter does not seem to diminish it. ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... panic-fierce antagonist of the Socialist movement. His place, I hold, is to forward the development of that State and municipal machinery the Socialist foreshadows, and to secure for himself and his sons and daughters an adequate position and voice in the administration. Instead of struggling to diminish that burthen of public expenditure which educates and houses, conveys and protects him and his children, he ought rather to increase it joyfully, while at the same time working manfully to transfer its pressure to the broad shoulders of those very rich people who have hitherto ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... his apprehensions whether he was in the right road. The increasing snow rendered this intimation rather alarming, for as it drove full in the lad's face, and lay whitening all around him, it served in two different ways to confuse his knowledge of the count and to diminish the chance of his recovering the right track. Brown then himself got out and looked round, not, it may be well imagined, from any better hope than that of seeing some house at which he might make inquiry. But none appeared—he could therefore only tell the lad to drive steadily ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... than that of any European power of any standing and a navy less than that of either of at least five of them. There could be no extension of territory on the continent which would call for an increase of this force, but rather might such extension enable us to diminish it. ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... evidence; which thing the lady seeing and hearing, first blamed him for having entertained a woman with such a falcon, and then praised the greatness of his mind, which his poverty had not been able to diminish. Then, there being no hope of having the falcon on account of which the health of her son was in question, in melancholy she departed and returned to her son; who either for grief at not being able to have the falcon, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... he gave it a very great beginning, which, even if he had begun on a smaller scale, neither San Gallo nor the others, nor even Buonarroti, would have had enough power of design to increase, although they were able to diminish it; so immense, stupendous, and magnificent was this edifice, and yet Bramante had conceived ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... work the water seemed to be of a light-yellowish tint, caused by the refraction of the sunlight as it made its way to him. He noticed the mild glow, which, of course, would steadily diminish as the sun went down, when all at once it was eclipsed so suddenly by a dark shadow that he instantly suspected ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... love me!" said Cornelia to herself, and she knew a momentary pang of bliss which no consideration of honor or rectitude had power to dull or diminish. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the root: the plant bears a great resemblance to the iris, except that the leaves are much thicker and larger; the flaxy part is the fibres, which extend the whole length of the leaf; towards the root they are very thick and strong, and diminish in size as they approach the end of the Jeaf. This plant, in its green state, is of a surprising strength: from the quantity of dead leaves about the root, I imagine it is an annual, and that the root sends forth ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... satisfactory example of first-rate art—masterhands' work—is wholly out of his reach. And we are so accustomed to look upon this as the natural course and necessity of things, that we never set ourselves in any wise to diminish the evil; and yet it is an evil perfectly ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... has placed me. I can pray for deluded idolaters and for those who labour among them, and this is a privilege indeed.' She began at once to take an active part in local mission work; but while thus employed her interest in foreign missions did not diminish, and the death of the two young missionaries, Wheelock and Colman, who went to Burma to assist Mr. Judson, made a deep impression on her. Wheelock, while delirious from fever, jumped into the sea and was drowned, and Colman, after a time, died at Arracan from the effects of the unhealthy climate. ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... the facility there was for putting out of sight altogether, during such a process of reasoning, the fact that the daily and hourly effect of the existing system was to force the deserving and hard-working poor to sink into that very pauperism which it was the object of all law-makers to diminish, or to abolish altogether. The wit of man could not devise any system of poor relief which should never go wrong in its application, should never bear harshly on men and women who deserved, and were striving for, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... country where men are travelling constantly. The species will probably be preserved in appropriate restricted areas. It would be a great pity to have so perfect an example of the Prehistoric Pinhead wiped out completely. Elsewhere he will diminish, and finally disappear. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... sure. Now, then, separated and going singly, there might be a thin strand of hope. Yet the man felt that, parted a single hour from the woman, and she still alive, his wofully small prospect would diminish and shrink to the vanishing point—New York juries being most notoriously easy upon women murderers who give themselves up and turn state's evidence; and, by the same mistaken processes of judgment, notoriously hard upon their male accomplices—half a dozen such instances ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... o'clock," according to an eye-witness, "the firing began to diminish on both sides, ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... profound inquiry on the part of Leverrier, designed to test its suggested identity with Lexell's comet of 1770. The result was decisive against the hypothesis of Valz, the divergences between the orbits of the two bodies being found to increase instead of to diminish, as the history of the new-comer was traced backward into the previous century.[263] Faye's comet pursues the most nearly circular path of any similar known object; even at its nearest approach to the sun it remains farther off than Mars when ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... subject; and even in decorating a church was reproved for "falling short of the standard of chastity" required. But between the extremes of brutality and conventionalism there is such a wide expanse of pure joy of painting that nothing can diminish the reputation of Goya, however much it is likely to be enhanced. To the modern Spanish painter he is probably as fixed a beacon ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... point to which Mr. Froude's attention ought to be called, as likely seriously to diminish the political weight of his exposition of the causes of Irish discontent. The sole justification of a conquest, even of a conquest achieved over barbarians by a civilized people, is that it supplies good government—that is, protection for life and property. Unless it does this, ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... not sure at this time of day what I should think of George Dawson if he still survived; but nothing can now diminish the affection and reverence with which I bless his memory. I had been writing prose and verse for the local journals for a year or two. I was proud and pleased beyond expression to be allowed to write the political leaders ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... must not return without an enemy's frigate in tow," observed Captain Falkner, as he was one day walking the deck with his young lieutenant. "The Frenchmen have several fine vessels out in these seas at present, and we must try and diminish their numbers. Let us but catch sight of one of them, and, unless she has a very fast pair of heels, she shall be our prize before many hours ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... was the effects of her virginity and mortification, she had a cast in her eyes that was not at all engaging; and such an extent of mouth, as no art or affectation could contract into any proportionable dimension; then her piety was rather peevish than resigned, and did not in the least diminish a certain stateliness in her demeanour and conversation, that delighted in communicating the importance and honour of her family, which, by the bye, was not to be traced two generations back by all the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... operations; and violet powder and starch, upon the external use of which I laid an embargo weeks ago, to the great indignation of the younger nurses, are being employed instead of arrowroot. And the more the medical stores diminish, the more the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... not diminish grief, alters its character. At first we stretch out our hands in very blindness of heart, as if trying to draw back again those whom we have lost. But, after a season, when the impotence of such efforts has become too sensibly felt, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... and she had gained a little fragmentary experience under Sydney's guidance at Fordham. So she was in a most engaging glow of shy delight, and the tidy little well-trained girls who were allotted to her did not diminish her satisfaction. To say that Armine's positive enjoyment was equal to hers would not be true, but he had intended all his life to be a clergyman, and he was resolved not to shrink from his first experience of ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fancy' is dangerous food. But it has certainly done us good. When Mr. Douglas obtained leave to publish it as a whole, there were, I believe, wiseacres who dreaded the effect of the publication, thinking that the passages which Lockhart himself had left out might in some way diminish and belittle our respect for Scott. They had no need to trouble themselves. It was already, as published in part in the Life, one of the most pathetically interesting things in biographical literature. This quality was increased by the ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... of a leaf, it thrust forward its little black head on the left side of it, and then under it, by way of variety; but no additional light seemed to result from these changes in the point of observation, for the surprise did not diminish. ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... although it might well be, although indeed it was, accidental, diminish anything of Catiline's anxiety. For, though he fully believed him trusty and faithful to the end, though he felt that the man was linked to him indissolubly by the consciousness of common crimes, he knew him also to be no less vain than he was daring. And, while he had no fear of ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... a Roanoke chief of great celebrity, commenced his tale. Undoubtedly most of the Indians present were as well acquainted with the story as the narrator, but that circumstance seemed to abate nothing of the interest with which it was listened to; it certainly did not diminish the attention of the audience. In this respect, these wild foresters deserve to become a pattern for careful imitation. They never interrupt a speaker. However incongruous or ill put together his tale, or insulting the matter or manner of his speech, or revolting his opinions to their preconceived ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... this fact, societies of benevolent people have been formed in all countries in which true civilization and humanity are at work, to diminish or abolish social evils, whose object is to assist the restored patient who has been discharged from the institution, at a time when he is most in need of help and assistance. Switzerland has taken the lead of all countries by her brilliant example, and there these societies found ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... be. While I was standing on the dyke, ruminating above the river, I saw a beautiful white bird of the crane species alight not far from me. I do not think a little knowledge of natural history would diminish the surprise and admiration with which I regard the, to me, unwonted specimens of animal existence that I encounter every day, and of which I do not even know the names. Ignorance is an odious thing. The birds here are especially beautiful, I think. I saw ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... ALTER EGO, may have a right to claim the HOMAGIUM of the great tenants of the crown, since all faithful subjects are commanded, in the commission of regency, to respect him as the king's own person. Far, therefore, be it from me to diminish the lustre of his authority, by withholding this act of homage, so peculiarly calculated to give it splendour; for I question if the Emperor of Germany hath his boots taken off by a free baron of the empire. But here lieth the second difficulty—The ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... belong to your Majesty); and these islands would be left alone without a single soldier, and with only the bishop and the religious, so that within one week there would be neither the one nor the other. I assured him, in fact, that without express order from your Majesty I could not curtail or diminish the royal income or alter the encomiendas from their first establishment, which they have had for twenty-six years. I answered him fully in respect to the establishment of justice where there is none, and the great good that would result therefrom. I urged him to appoint laymen ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... smiling, "I think (forgive me still) that you should not take it too easily; just as I think that you had better not blame him for his very natural and praiseworthy shame in approaching you, so I think, also, that you should do nothing that would tend to diminish that shame,—it is such a check on him. And therefore, if you can contrive to affect to be angry with him for his extravagance, it ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... their deities, and throws additional light on those ideas. They did not as yet know too much about the divine beings and their powers and wishes; familiarity had not yet bred contempt; religio, as we saw, was still strong among them—the feeling of awe that is likely to diminish or disappear when you have your god before you in the form of an idol. It is a principle of human nature that where knowledge is imperfect, care must be taken to be on the safe side; this is true of all practical undertakings, and as the religion of the Romans was that of a practical people with ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... challenge to themselves any advantage above him, it could not be judged any attribute superior to what he deserves ... And, though he hath not had the good fortune to be so generally famed abroad as many others, perhaps of less esteem, yet this is a consideration that cannot diminish, but rather advance, his credit; for, by breaking forth of obscurity, he will attract the higher admiration, and, like the sun emerging from a cloud, appear at length with so much the more ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... distinction. They form voluntary associations in free States, to convince their fellow citizens of the sins of other men in other communities. They are blamed and opposed, because their measures are deemed inexpedient, and calculated to increase, rather than diminish the evils ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... know any thing of the matter, I pressed her to send for Hannah. She knew I had always a regard for this servant, because of her honest love to her lady: but now I have greater regard for her than ever. Calamity, though a poor servant's calamity, will rather increase than diminish good will, with a truly ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... should recall to mind; for wisdom is like a stream, ever flowing in and out, and recollection flows in when knowledge is failing. Let no man either laugh or grieve overmuch; but let him control his feelings in the day of good- or ill-fortune, believing that the Gods will diminish the evils and increase the blessings of the righteous. These are thoughts which should ever occupy a good man's mind; he should remember them both in lighter and in more serious hours, ...
— Laws • Plato
... never-failing pill and draught, with rigid restrictions as to diet, and injunctions as to exercise, invariably followed, although perhaps rarely attended to; for persons in general would rather submit to even nauseous medicine than abandon sensual gratifications, or diminish ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... mixes our gastric juice or pepsin and acids in just the right proportion to digest our food, and keep it at exactly the right temperature. If we dilute it, or lower its temperature by ice water, we diminish its solvent or digestive power, and dyspepsia is ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... to Italy and to the civilized world in order to show not by violent words, [cheers,] but by exact facts and documents, how the fury of our enemies has vainly attempted to diminish the high moral and political dignity of the cause which our arms will make prevail. I shall speak with the calm of which the King of Italy has given a noble example, [loud cheers, and shouts of "Long live the King!"] when he called his land and sea forces to arms. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... finances of the Society at home were at a low ebb, and it was thought needful to diminish the number of stations. The intolerance of the Burmese Government led to the decision that there was less benefit in maintaining that at Rangoon than those in the British provinces; and, as Dr. Judson had no private means, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... but she did not speak, and the annoyance she had felt began to diminish, for the boy was evidently ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... explanation of any phenomenon. For if even the complete intuition of a determinate space or time is thoroughly real, that is, if no part thereof is empty, yet because every reality has its degree, which, with the extensive quantity of the phenomenon unchanged, can diminish through endless gradations down to nothing (the void), there must be infinitely graduated degrees, with which space or time is filled, and the intensive quantity in different phenomena may be smaller or greater, although the extensive quantity ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... which descended from the Alban volcano during some prehistoric eruption, and stopped short here, forming the quarries on the left side of the road which supply most of the paving-stone of modern Rome. The Appian Way was here lowered several feet below the original level, in order to diminish the acclivity; and the mausoleum was consequently raised upon a substructure of unequal height corresponding with the inclination of the plane of ascent. It was originally cased with marble slabs, but these were stripped off during the middle ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... there is evil? The five physical senses. But that again reduces to the thought of evil, for men see only their thoughts. These so-called senses say that the world is flat—that the sun circles the earth—that objects diminish in size with distance. They testify not to truth. Jesus said that evil, or the "devil," was "a liar and the father of lies." Then the testimony of the physical senses to evil—and there is no other testimony to its existence and power—is a lie. A lie is—what? ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... for all civil office. He distinctly declares that he does not in this proposition confine his view to orthodox governments or even to Christian governments. The circumstance that a religion is false does not, he tells us, diminish the obligation of governors, as such, to uphold it. If they neglect to do so, "we cannot," he says, "but regard the fact as aggravating the case of the holders of such creed." "I do not scruple to affirm," he adds, "that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Persian influence to the shores of the Arabian Gulf, and so confront the Romans along the whole line of their eastern boundary. He would destroy the point d'appui which Rome had acquired in South-western Asia, and so at once diminish her power and augment the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... doomed to the torture of twelve months' imprisonment by the verdict and judgment of thirteen men, whose sacrifices for conviction may not equal mine. The bitterness of my fate can scarcely be enhanced by your verdict. Yet this does not diminish my solicitude as to its character. If, after the recent scandalous proceedings in another court, you, as a special jury in this High Court of Justice, bring in a verdict of Guilty against me and my co-defendant, you will decisively inaugurate a new ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... his own self, succeeds in earning advancement. That king who behaves deceitfully towards his own people that have not been guilty of any fault, shears his own self like a person cutting down a forest with an axe. If the king does not always attend to the task of slaying his foes, the latter do not diminish. That king, again, who knows how to kill his own temper finds no enemies. If the king be possessed of wisdom, he would never do any act that is disapproved by good men. He would, on the other hand, always engage himself in such acts as would lead to his own benefit ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... and only one, for which the use of force by a government is beneficent, and that is to diminish the total amount of force used m the world. It is clear, for example, that the legal prohibition of murder diminishes the total amount of violence in the world. And no one would maintain that parents should have unlimited freedom to ill-treat their children. ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... a great king, but his cruel attitude towards his queens will ever diminish his glory; two of them were executed at his instigation at the Tower, namely, Anne Boleyn, on May 19th, 1536, and Katherine Howard, on February 13th, 1542. In the death at the block of Lady Jane Grey, "the nine ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... of the university, enjoyed a revenue of forty Scottish marks, about two pounds four shillings and sixpence of sterling money. In the present age of trade and taxes, it is difficult even for the imagination so to raise the value of money, or so to diminish the demands of life, as to suppose four and forty shillings a year, an honourable stipend; yet it was probably equal, not only to the needs, but to the rank of Boethius. The wealth of England was undoubtedly ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... could have stood it out longer, but that he was sensible if he did, he should but diminish the stock, which, considering his debts, was properly not his own; and that he was resolved not to spend one part of their debts, as he had ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... dependent on our fellow-creatures too often renders us likewise indifferent to their comfort, in our absorbing consideration of our own. Although he could sit up and walk about, and go forth into his gardens, yet he suffered great pain, which did not seem to diminish; and a frequent spitting of blood rendered him impatient and querulous, whenever his lowest words were ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... 51; drop in the ocean. animalcule &c. 193. trifle &c. (unimportant thing) 643; mere nothing, next to nothing; hardly anything; just enough to swear by; the shadow of a shade. finiteness, finite quantity. V. be small &c. adj.; lie in a nutshell. diminish &c. (decrease) 36; (contract) 195. Adj. small, little; diminutive &c. (small in size) 193; minute; fine; inconsiderable, paltry &c. (unimportant) 643; faint &c. (weak) 160; slender, light, slight, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... the exportation of gold and silver, in order to purchase foreign goods, did not always diminish the quantity of those metals in the kingdom; that, on the contrary, it might frequently increase the quantity; because, if the consumption of foreign goods was not thereby increased in the country, those ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... inquiry. I soon found that good seasons were the "lucky" ones, and that many lost in an adverse season, all they had before gained. Also, that strong families were the only ones on which I could depend for protection against the moth. This induced the effort to ascertain causes tending to diminish the size of families, and the application of remedies. Whether success has attended my efforts or not, the reader can judge, after a ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... the Disabler.] But if you diminish and abbase a thing by way of spight or malice, as it were to depraue it, such speach is by the figure Meiosis or the disabler spoken of hereafter in the place of sententious figures. A great mountaine as bigge as a molehill, A heauy ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... creature of a new and mixed form like the new and mixed civilization of which it is the offspring. You feel power and invention in it with a touch of quaintness and fancy. Walls of enormous grandeur are developed or expanded without the few windows in them happening to impair their massiveness or diminish their strength. There are no flying buttresses; they are self-sustaining. Marble panels, alternately yellow and black, cover them with a glittering marquetry, and curves of arches let into their masses seem to be the bones of a robust skeleton ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... the island to its fate. This was an adroit stab at the republicans of the Assembly; for, should the evacuation be secured, it was believed that either the radicals in Corsica would rise, overpower, and destroy the friends of France, call in English help, and diminish the number of democratic departments by one, or that Genoa would immediately step in and reassert her sovereignty. The moderates of St. Florent were not to be thus duped; sharp and angry discussions arose among both citizens and troops as to the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... equilibrium between expenditure and income is disturbed, exhaustion ensues. If long continued, it results in permanent impairment of health. The organism poisoned by its own toxic products is incapable of productive effort and the output will steadily diminish as the fatigue increases. The present long working day causes a progressive diminution in the vitality of the worker, defeats its own end, and leaves the girl weak in the ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... and by, began to diminish, the woman turned away. The outlines of her figure were not disclosed, but her step was swinging and free, as that of one who had an abundance of health and vigour. She spoke to nobody, but seemed sure ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... larger detachment than he could spare from his division engaged in making a flank march and an attack on Spytfontein. The idea of assaulting the left flank of the Boers was discussed, but abandoned, because it was thought that the bush-covered ground would diminish the effect of the artillery and cause an undue loss of life among the infantry. Therefore, it was finally decided to carry the heights of Magersfontein, and after their occupation and entrenchment to make a turning movement against the left flank of the Spytfontein range. The tactics of Belmont ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... on the contrary to diminish, and she was nearer losing it than on any occasion on which we have had the pleasure of meeting her. The glow of her eye turners sombre; her smile betrayed a painful effort. "Good enough for anything that I've done with myself? I suppose that's what ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... delighted when he obtained the command of the Spanish army, and was pleased with everything in that country; this procured him the hatred of the Princesse des Ursins, who feared that my son would diminish her authority and gain more of the confidence of the ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... the nature of the soil or its altitude, to be unfit for any improvement whatever. 1000 acres would be probably required for ordinary pasture lands, and 10,000 acres for hill pasture. It is far from our wish that any plantations should diminish the already scanty population, or unduly press upon the pastoral agricultural occupants. We therefore have given roughly what may be held as full souming for stocks upon such an estate. It must be always ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... might have been set on foot towards healing religious divisions, if the open war waged against Christianity had long been in suspense. As it was, other feelings came in, which tended rather to widen than to diminish the breach between men of strong and earnest opinions on different sides. In some men of warm religious feeling the Revolution excited a fervent spirit of Radicalism. However much they deplored the excesses and horrors which had taken place in France, they did not cease to contemplate with passionate ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... to say that auctioneers and buyers treat the slaves in a manner that is not unkind. They handle them just as though they were animals with a market value that ill-treatment will diminish, and a few of the women are brazen, shameless creatures—obviously, and perhaps not unwisely, determined to do the best they can for themselves in any surroundings. These women are the first to find purchasers. The unsold adults ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... desirable parti (a great advantage, although I had no intention of re-marrying), and in full health and vigour. Further, I possessed a large fortune all in cash or in liquid assets, and I resolved that it should not diminish. I had experienced enough of ups and downs; I was sick of vicissitudes, of fears and uncertainties for the future. I said to my soul: "Thou hast enough laid up for many days; eat, drink and be merry," and I proceeded to invest my modest competence in such a fashion that it brought in a steady four ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... Polter's giants—we would be able to make it. We would be seen, but in the pale starlight, keeping away from the city as much as possible, we might only be mistaken for Polter's people. And when we got closer we would diminish our size, creep into the boat, get near Babs and Polter and then plan what ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... beseech you, this fact of the stupefying effect of mere material civilization; and remember that plenty and comfort do not diminish but increase that stupefaction; that Hebrew prophets knew it, and have told us, again and again, that, by fulness of bread the heart waxeth gross; that Greek sages knew it, and have told us, again and again, that ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... passed middle age. Miss Carr looked very contented and comfortable as she lay back against the cushions of her easy chair, so comfortable that she groaned with annoyance as the servant came forward to announce a visitor, and the frown did not diminish ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... in the year 1726, and have continued about eleven years in the prosecution; yet, long as it may be thought, if you were to pass over the whole work (for the borders of it would show you what it was), I make no doubt but that number of years would diminish in your imagination to a much shorter tract of time, by comparison with the difficulties ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... physical and chemical character of the mixture of substances which we call protoplasm.... The greatest happiness in life can be obtained only if all instincts, that of workmanship included, can be maintained at a certain optimal intensity. But while it is certain that the individual can ruin or diminish the value of its life by a onesided development of its instincts, e.g., dissipation, it is at the same time true that the economic and social conditions can ruin or diminish the value of life for a great number of individuals. It is no doubt true that in our present social ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... place, a small touch of kindness breaks the monotony of cruelty, if it be not merely apart of the ordinary routine of executions. The stupefying potion would diminish, but would therefore protract, the pain, and was possibly given for the latter rather than the former effect. But Jesus 'received it not.' He will not, by any act of His, lessen the bitterness. He will drink to the dregs the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... rayons of the sun we see Diminish in their strength, The shade of every tower and tree ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Civil and Ecclesiastical officers to be Christians; there is no fear that the civil officer should underrate the dignity or shorten the serviceableness of the minister; but there is considerable danger that the religious enthusiasm of the minister might diminish the serviceableness of the civilian. (The History of Religious Enthusiasm should be written by someone who had a life to give to its investigation; it is one of the most melancholy pages in human records, and one of the most necessary to be studied.) Therefore, as far as good men are ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... spoke very earnestly, and with a certain dignity and authority that his small stature and rude working-dress could not diminish. A sudden feeling of solemnity and awe came over Edith, and she felt as if she were crossing the mystic threshold and entering the one true church consisting of all believers ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... fuel was exhausted, the tubes that contained it dissolved into their own blast and added to the accelerating thrust, even as they diminished the amount of mass to be accelerated. Then the quantity of fuel burned could diminish—the tubes could grow smaller—so the rate of speed gain would remain constant. Under the highly special conditions of this particular occasion, there was a notable gain in efficiency over a liquid-fuel rocket design. For one item, the Platform ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... by re-writing your book on the proof sheets, correcting everything there which you should have corrected in manuscript. This is an expensive process, and will greatly diminish your pecuniary gains, or rather will add to your publisher's bill, for the odds are that you will have to publish at your own expense. By the way, an author can make almost a certainty of disastrous failure, by carrying to some small obscure publisher a work which ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... leader. His resources seemed boundless, and our confidence in him grew with every escape. While he kept guard at the peepholes we watched for meteors from the windows. We must have come almost within striking distance of a thousand in the course of an hour, but Edmund decided not to diminish our speed, for he said that he could control the car quicker when it was under ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... goods at a much lower price than we could manufacture them. The evil of dumping grows out of the fact that it tends to force domestic producers out of business. Then later the foreign supply may diminish, in which case we suffer from a shortage of goods. If foreign producers do continue to supply the American market they may take advantage of the fact that American competitors have been forced out of business, and demand monopoly prices. The free trader admits the force of the anti-dumping argument, ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... more laborious. Dredging in 150 fathoms is very hard work, if it has to be carried on by manual labour; but by the use of the donkey-engine to supply power,[2] and of the contrivances known as "accumulators," to diminish the risk of snapping the dredge rope by the rolling and pitching of the vessel, the dredge has been worked deeper and deeper, until at last, on the 22nd of July, 1869, H.M.S. Porcupine being in the Bay of Biscay, Captain Calver, her commander, performed the unprecedented ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... their superior management about the registration, such as Leeds and Ripon, where they were sure of both members. He then talked of the tactics to be used, and said they must direct their hostility against the Whigs rather than the Radicals, and make it their principal object to diminish the number of the former. I said I thought this a very perilous game to play, and that if it was avowed and acted upon, it would infallibly produce a reunion between the Whigs and Radicals, who would coalesce to crush their Government; ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... without Stockings or Cap: and her Hair hung dishevelled over her Shoulders. She complained of the Cruelty of Theseus to the deep Waves, whilst an unworthy Shower of Tears ran down her Cheeks. She wept, and lamented aloud, and both became her; nor did her Tears diminish her Beauty. Once, and again, she beat her delicious Breasts with her Hands, and cried aloud, The perfidious Man hath abandoned me; What will become of poor Ariadne? What will become of poor Ariadne? ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... Castellina, is sent to Florence for figure-sculpture, whilst the common kinds are carved locally, at a very cheap rate, into vases, clock-cases and various ornamental objects, in which a large trade is carried on, especially in Florence, Pisa and Leghorn. In order to diminish the translucency of the alabaster and to produce an opacity suggestive of true marble, the statues are immersed in a bath of water and gradually heated nearly to the boiling-point—an operation requiring ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... on French wines thus reduced and the general rates of the tariff which went into operation the 1st January, 1829, shall be maintained in case the Government of the United States should think proper to diminish those general rates ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... sun-spots is that they show definite periodic variations in number. The best-defined period is one of about eleven years. During this period the spots increase to a maximum in number and then diminish to a minimum, the variation being more or less regular. Now this can only mean one thing. To be periodic the spots must have some deep-seated connection with the fundamental facts of the sun's structure and activities. Looked ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... worship, though now it is a seat of fanatical Mahomedanism. It is, however, one of the few places where the old religion lingers. In 1859 there were reckoned 850 families of Guebers in Yezd and fifteen adjoining villages, but they diminish rapidly. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... which lies shipping from all the world, more largely than at the piers of New York; and, finally, with what to most modern communities appears to flash as a costly but brilliant diamond necklace, a public debt, beginning now to diminish, it is true, but still approaching, in net ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... of fuel, and many other processes, are annually converting a large quantity of these matters into carbonic acid; and if there were no other source of carbon but the humus of the soil, the amount of vegetable life would gradually diminish, and at length become entirely extinct. Schleiden, who has discussed this subject very fully, has made an approximative calculation of the total quantity of humus on the earth's surface, and of the carbon annually converted into carbonic acid by the respiration of ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... unchecked, she begins to feel the first stress of the situation of which the tension in Europe has already become almost intolerable. It is the situation which cannot fail to result from the system of private property and inheritance established throughout the Western world. Opportunities diminish, classes segregate. There arises a caste of wage-earners never to be anything but wage-earners; a caste of property-owners, handing on their property to their descendants; and substantially, after all deductions have been made for exaggeration and simplification, ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... this rule to the practical affairs of to-day, would diminish the number of our machine politicians by about four fifths. We are loaded down, almost to the breaking point, with politicians who do not understand politics, and who advocate measures which are not for the ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... not be doubted that the proposed reductions will for the present diminish the revenues of the Department. It is believed that the deficiency, after the surplus already accumulated shall be exhausted, may be almost wholly met either by abolishing the existing privileges of sending free ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... man, great as he was, was marred by many meannesses, to use the expression employed by his enemies, who were anxious to diminish his glory, but which it would be more proper to call apparent contradictions. Envious people and fools, having no knowledge of the determinations by which superior spirits are moved, seize at once on superficial inconsistencies, to formulate an accusation and so to pass sentence ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac
... frequently fancied that they had a temporary interest to diminish the quantity of pure metal contained in their coins; but they seldom have fancied that they had any to augment it. The quantity of metal contained in the coins, I believe of all nations, has accordingly been almost continually diminishing, and hardly ever augmenting. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... had written a genuine Address for the occasion, which was sent to the Committee, and shared the fate it merited, in being rejected. To swell the bulk, or rather to diminish the tenuity of our little work, we added it to the Imitations; and prefixing the initials of S. T. P. for the purpose of puzzling the critics, were not a little amused, in the sequel, by the many guesses and conjectures into which we had ensnared some of our readers. We could even ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... his demeanor toward the king, instead of triumphing over him, and boasting of the victory which he had achieved, he did every thing in his power to soothe and assuage the fallen monarch's sorrow, and to diminish his chagrin. ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... not weaken, and his long absence, his infrequent visits to Stratford, the Duke's injunction to Viola—"let still the woman take An Elder than herself"—and the ironical bequest of his second best bed, neither diminish nor destroy. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... might be chosen by lot for his majesty's service, in any case of emergency. This expedient, however, was rejected, as an unnecessary and ineffectual incumbrance on commerce, which would hamper navigation, and, in a little time, diminish the number of seamen, of consequence act diametrically opposite to the purpose for which it was contrived.—Numberless frauds having been committed, and incessant law-suits produced, by private and clandestine conveyances, a motion was made, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... dominant quality in Schiller's character, this practice would undoubtedly have been abandoned, or rather never taken up. It was an error so to waste his strength; but one of those which increase rather than diminish our respect; originating, as it did, in generous ardour for what was best and grandest, they must be cold censurers that can condemn it harshly. For ourselves, we but lament and honour this excess of zeal; its effects were mournful, but its origin was noble. Who can picture Schiller's feelings ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... Nature, we must now be married by Law." But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a proceeding dubious, and to dread her father's face when he heard of it. Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an opinion of her such as she could not bear to diminish. No! Mary Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to Scotland. More at ease now she packed, avoided her aunt, and took a bus to Chiswick. She was too early, and went on to Kew Gardens. She found no ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the hopeful prediction of the young officer, this blow showed no signs of an early abatement. The wind seemed to increase, rather than diminish and the seas were ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... foreign deposit is evidently of a delicate and peculiar nature. It depends on the good opinion of foreigners, and that opinion may diminish or may change into a bad opinion. After the panic of 1866, especially after the suspension of Peel's Act (which many foreigners confound with a suspension of cash payments), a large amount of foreign money was withdrawn from London. And we may reasonably presume that in ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... salutary function of the study of the past is to tone down those historical animosities which derive their bitterness from the ignorant habit of trying the actors in bygone scenes by moral laws to which they are not justly amenable. The moral function of an historian is to diminish the hatreds which divide nation from nation and class from class; such as at the present moment do more to prevent real unity between the inhabitants of the two islands making up the United Kingdom than do unjust laws or vicious institutions. ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... drive it back to Lee, but he had furthermore determined to make that sections by the destruction of its supplies, untenable for continued occupancy by the Confederates. This would cut off one of Lee's main-stays in the way of subsistence, and at the same time diminish the number of recruits and conscripts he received; the valley district while under his control not only supplying Lee with an abundance of food, but also furnishing him many men for his regular and irregular forces. Grant's instructions to destroy the valley began with the letter ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... species diverge through their dental characters, on the one side into the mastodons, and on the other into the Elephants.* (* "Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society" volume 13 1857 page 314.) The next result is to diminish the distance between the several members ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... speak to their manhood. You and they will have no one between you. There will be no official of the camp; no one to listen to you, no one to come between yourself and them. We trust you entirely with them, and you will understand, I am sure, that we do not wish to diminish anyone's sense of nationality who is imprisoned or interned in Germany." ("My Visit to Ruhleben," p. 21.) The words, says Bishop Bury, "seemed to come straight from the heart of the speaker." Some readers will be sceptical; but at least ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... not produce ourselves. These things will be brought to England and sold at the National Service Stores, at the lowest possible price, for paper money, to those in the service of the State. This of course will only have the effect of introducing greater variety into the stocks—it will not diminish the surplus: and as there would be no sense in continuing to produce more of these things than necessary, it would then be the duty of the Administration to curtail or restrict production of the necessaries ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... brevity, obviously comes under the same generalization. If it be an advantage to express an idea in the smallest number of words, then will it be an advantage to express it in the smallest number of syllables. If circuitous phrases and needless expletives distract the attention and diminish the strength of the impression produced, then do surplus articulations do so. A certain effort, though commonly an inappreciable one, must be required to recognize every vowel and consonant. If, as all know, it is tiresome to listen ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... anything from an empire which is the fruit of ten years' war and bloodshed, continued with an admirable courage and accompanied with the most unhappy agitation and an unexampled constancy. It is still less in his power to diminish the territory of a foreign state which, by entrusting him with the care of governing, had laid upon him the duty of protecting it." A few sentences added by the emperor to the diplomatic document left room for vague hopes of certain consolations. ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... The character of ecclesiastical as of all other institutions has varied with the character of the men who have worked them and the varying needs of the times and places in which they have been worked; and our intense feeling of the gratitude we owe to English Puritanism need in nowise diminish the enthusiasm with which we praise the glorious work of the mediaeval church. It is the duty of the historian to learn how to limit and qualify his words of blame or approval; for so curiously is ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... scrape the coat of arms of Henry IV.? We scoff at M. de Vaublanc for erasing the N's from the bridge of Jena! What was it that he did? What are we doing? Bouvines belongs to us as well as Marengo. The fleurs-de-lys are ours as well as the N's. That is our patrimony. To what purpose shall we diminish it? We must not deny our country in the past any more than in the present. Why not accept the whole of history? Why not love the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... each person imported; and this is a political consideration, not arising from either religion or morality, and is the only principle upon which we can proceed to take it up. But what effect do these men suppose will arise from their exertions? Will a duty of ten dollars diminish the importation? Will the treatment be better than usual? I apprehend it will not, nay, it may be worse. Because an interference with the subject may excite a great degree of restlessness in the minds of those it is intended to serve, and that may be a cause ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... be gain-said that the Turkish power was much weakened by the event, and the arrogance of the Christians proportionately increased, while the change of frontier to which it conduced tended rather to aggravate than diminish the evil. The new boundary line was defined by an European mixed commission, which decided on increasing Montenegro by the annexation of territory on the western frontier, including Grahovo, which they had ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... skill and science which has been directed to diminish the difficulty of producing manufactured goods, has not been beneficial to that country alone in which it is concentrated; distant kingdoms have participated in its advantages. The luxurious natives of the East,(1*) ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... manager to gratify: I proved by mathematical demonstration, that small theatres wanted nothing but good dialogue to support them: I entreated you to send your gorgeous trumpery to rag-fair, and to diminish your overgrown Drury, which no man could now think of entering unaccompanied by a telescope and an ear-trumpet. All the persuasions of a Tully, all the energy of a Waithman, were enlisted into my harangue; which ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... live single, or marry late, do not by such conduct contribute in any degree to diminish the actual population, but merely to diminish the proportion of premature mortality, which would otherwise be excessive; and consequently, from this point of view, do not seem to deserve any ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... flaws of structure. It was as if it had erred only through an excess of softness that made the flesh of it plastic to its blood, to the subtle flame that transfused the white of it, flushing and burning to rose-red. A flame that even in soaring knew its place; for it sank before it could diminish the amazing blueness of her eyes; and it had left her forehead and her eyelids to the whiteness that gave accent to eyebrows and eyelashes ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... their westward pushing do not diminish the cattle, they reduce the cattleman and pinch off much that is romantic and picturesque. Between the farm and the wire fence, the cowboy, as once he flourished, has been modified, subdued, and made partially to disappear. In the good old days of the Jones and Plummer trail there ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... were various collateral movements designed to cripple the power and diminish the territory of Mexico. General Kearney, with an independent force of volunteers, had marched into and taken possession of the province of New Mexico; Colonel Doliphan had in like manner occupied Chihuahua; while ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... means," said Charity, smiling a little at the gleam in Miss Havender's eyes. She had a feeling that Miss Havender had a deep, personal interest in Mr. Ferriday. Miss Havender had; most of the women in his environs had. In the first place, he was powerful and could increase or diminish or check salaries. He distributed places and patronage with a royal prerogative. But he was hungry for praise and suffered from the lack of social prestige granted "the ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... sulphuric acid, passed from the first reservoirs to the second, and thence into the immense globe, which was thus gradually inflated. These preparations occupied all the morning, and about 11 o'clock, the balloon was three-quarters full; sufficiently so;—for as we rise, the atmospheric layers diminish in density, and the gas, confined within the aerostat, acquiring more elasticity, might otherwise burst its envelope. My calculations had furnished me with the exact measurement of gas required to carry my companions and ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... find any yielding qualities about the hearts of Miss Betsy or Mrs. Molly. They observed me with jealous eyes; they considered me as an interloper, whose manners attracted Mr. Harris's esteem, and who was likely to diminish their divided influence in the family. I found them daily growing weary of my society; I perceived their sidelong glances when I was complimented by the visiting neighbours on my good looks or taste in the choice of my dresses. Miss Robinson rode on horseback ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... girl, and leaned wholly upon Andy, who seemed to feel how much was depending upon him, and so kept up a cheery aspect while he kindled a fresh fire and cleared the ashes from the hearth by blowing them off upon the oilcloth; then, as the warmth began to make itself felt and the cold to diminish, he answered Richard's query. ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... mistake that he was quite unable to rally himself and talk on the subject with any spirit or confidence. When interrogated he would simply reply that Sir Peter said this and Sir Peter said that, and thus add to, rather than diminish, the doubt, and excitement, and varied opinion which prevailed through the city. On one morning it was absolutely asserted within the limits of the Close that Miss Stanbury was dying,—and it was believed for half a day at the bank that she was then lying in ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... diminish, and she presently looked up at the old man through her tears, and said, in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her feet when she saw who her visitor was, and exhibited the clearest signs of agitation. David's own emotions were not less violent, for although the gypsy's surroundings were poor and mean, they served rather to enhance than to diminish her exquisite beauty. Her shoulders and arms were bare, and on her wrists were gold bracelets of writhing serpents in whose eyes gleamed diamonds. On her fingers and in her ears were other costly stones. Her dress was ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... old friends, whom distance cannot diminish, figuring up in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on terra firma still, for so we must in courtesy interpret that speck of deeper blue which the decorous artist, to prevent absurdity, has made to spring up beneath their sandals. I love the men with women's faces and the women, if possible, ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... and mixed civilization of which it is the offspring. You feel power and invention in it with a touch of quaintness and fancy. Walls of enormous grandeur are developed or expanded without the few windows in them happening to impair their massiveness or diminish their strength. There are no flying buttresses; they are self-sustaining. Marble panels, alternately yellow and black, cover them with a glittering marquetry, and curves of arches let into their masses seem to be the bones of a robust ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... life of America is disappearing at a rapid rate, we all know only too well. That proposition is entirely beyond the domain of argument. The fact that a species or a group of species has made a little gain here and there, or is stationary, does not sensibly diminish the force of the descending blow. The wild-life situation is full of surprises. For example, in 1902 I was astounded by the extent to which bird life had decreased over the 130 miles between Miles City, Montana, ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the surface circulation of the body, and the elimination of waste matter and thus make the body capable of withstanding the causes which lead to disease, and of resisting it when formed. Grief, anguish and despair enfeeble the circulation, diminish or vitiate the secretions, favour the causes which induce disease, and impede the action of the mechanism by which the body may get rid of its maladies. An army when flushed with victory and elated with hope maintains a comparative immunity from disease under physical ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... This saw-horse is lashed to the hull with numerous straps and ropes and on top of it are placed rugs and cushions. Each saddle is built for four passengers, sitting dos-a-dos, back to back, two on a side, and a little shelf hangs down to support their feet. In order to diminish the climb the elephant kneels down in the road. A naked heathen brings a ladder, rests it against the side of the beast and the passengers climb up and take their seats in the saddle. Another naked heathen, who sits straddle the animal's neck, looks around at the load, inquires if everybody is ready, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... fixedly at the captain, shrugged his shoulders, and responded, "It is impossible! The frigate is a fast sailer; she could not diminish her speed to attend ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... confederation. In the newly-elected second chamber, the opposition, at whose head stood the celebrated poet, Uhland, brought forward numerous propositions for reform, but remained in the minority, and it was not until the new diet, held in 1836, that the aristocratic first chamber was induced to diminish socage service and other feudal dues twenty-two and one-half per cent in amount. The literary piracy that had hitherto continued to exist solely in Wurtemberg was also provisionally abolished, the system of national education ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... occasion. The first task will, of course, be to quarry stones. As soon as sufficient are prepared for one of these outworks you should proceed to erect it, as it would render one side at least unassailable and diminish the circuit to be defended. As soon as one is finished, with its drawbridge, ladder, and entrance, proceed with the next. I would build the one at the rear first. As you see from this plan, the two walls are to be twenty feet high and each ten yards long, so that they could be defended ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... is altogether an insufficient excuse to point to the compensation of coolness being secured from the expansion. Fans driven by electric motors already offer a better solution of the ventilation difficulty, and the advantages on this side are certain to increase rather than to diminish during ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... completed his seventeenth year. They were left in independent, if not in affluent, circumstances; but the fond indulgence of a widowed mother, who could deny them no enjoyment, tended, notwithstanding their long minority, to diminish ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... which I write my narrative, but to consider that, though the diversity of incidents may sometimes break the thread of the history, yet I will tell you nothing but with all that sincerity which the regard I have for you demands. And to convince you further that I will neither add to nor diminish from the plain truth, I shall set my name in the front of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of prolonging it, even as slaves, was worth trying. They chose twilight, that they might be unobserved. We can see them creeping cautiously, with beating hearts, towards the camp, expecting every moment to be challenged, and possibly slain. How their caution would diminish and their wonder grow, as they passed from end to end, and found no one! There stood the horses and asses, left behind lest their footfalls should betray the flight, and every tent empty of men and full of spoil. The lepers seem to have gone right through the camp before ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... any circumstances are likely to produce. There will now be more poets in every generation than in that which preceded it; they will increase faster than your population; and as their number increases, so must the proportion of those who will be remembered necessarily diminish. Tell the Fitz-Muses this! It is a consideration, Sir Poet, which may serve as a refrigerant for their ardour. Those of the tribe who may flourish hereafter (as the flourishing phrase is) in any particular age, will be little more remembered in the next than the Lord ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... sound of a door opening and shutting below, the girl again looked from the window. Footsteps crunched on the gravel-walk, and a shape in a drab greatcoat, easily distinguishable as her father, withdrew from the house. He moved to the left, and she watched him diminish down the long east front till he had turned the corner and vanished. He must have gone ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... with his mouth agape and his eyes fixed on the savage baron with such earnestness of terror that his frame seemed literally to shrink together and diminish in size while encountering the fierce Norman's fixed and baleful gaze. The unhappy Isaac was deprived not only of the power of rising to make the [v]obeisance which his fear had dictated, but he could not even doff his cap ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... was to clear the bushes away from the court of the temple; and this, after several days' hard work, he carried out; although he soon saw that by so doing he would not diminish the number of the snakes, for the greater portion of the area was covered with blocks of fallen stone, among which the reptiles found an impenetrable shelter. The clearance effected, however, was so far useful ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... echoed by the hollow ground; and, though it was not altogether dark, the verger having left a lamp burning just before the door that led to the chapel (otherwise it would have been impossible for him to have found the place), yet did the glimmering it gave, rather add to, than diminish, the solemn horror ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... always singular and always instructive. I could not be checked by any fear of overstepping the modesty of Truth in the celebration of Virtue, so solid and so extensive, that the malevolence of Envy could not diminish its weight, the fondness of Enthusiasm could not amplify its effects. But I must not forget that there are professional limits to my discourse. It is incumbent on me to confine myself to a single object, and to dwell only ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... value to the proprietor, I was permitted to take all I could carry away; and in a single day's time, M. Houlet and I, aided by some slaves, succeeded in possessing ourselves of 3,000 young plants, which we carefully arranged in bamboo baskets (here called cestos). To diminish the weight, M. Houlet removed as little soil as possible; but carefully wetted the roots before closing the baskets, and covered them with banana leaves. In one garden, the largest I have seen devoted to the growth of tea, but which is not particularly well kept, I saw that the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... to be undertaken seriously; and while this would be an ultimate source of wealth, its immediate effect was to diminish the demand for imported foodstuffs—another blow to a purely ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... fairly to be argued that she could not see us; I therefore went forward and slipped the cable without noise, and sent men up aloft to loose the sails. There was a light breeze, sufficient to carry us about two knots through the water, and we knew that it would rather increase than diminish. In half an hour, weak-handed as we were, we were under sail, every thing being done without a word being spoken, and with the utmost precaution. You may imagine how rejoiced we all were when we found that we had manoeuvred so well; notwithstanding, we kept a sharp look-out, to see ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... for me did not diminish. While in his right mind he could not bear to have me out of his sight. Every morning we might have been seen leaving our cottage, I holding his hand as he went to his work; yet nearly as certainly as the evening came round I had to creep supperless to bed. All day he would ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... indeed, constantly circulated, and tended to damp the ardour and diminish the vigilance of the line. Some scouring parties from Norfolk Plains fell in with a tribe of forty, whom they pursued beyond the Shannon. They followed them for three days, but were compelled to return: the blacks, in their progress, had surprised a settler, and murdered him. The rumours of escape ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... disapproves of blood-letting in fevers, "for a fever is like a pot boiling; it is requisite to reduce the fire and not diminish the liquid in the vessel, if we ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... greater. In other words, the conditions were those of to-day intensified. In summer, then, the amount of water seeking outlet by these drainage channels to the sea was enormously multiplied, and the corrasive power was correspondingly augmented. When the ice caps finally began to permanently diminish, the summer floods were doubtless terrific. The waters of the Colorado now rise in the Grand Canyon, on the melting of the snows in the distant mountains, from forty to one hundred feet; the rise must then have amounted to from one hundred to four hundred or more. The Kanab ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... anteriorly are seen the two vocal processes which give attachment to the two vocal cords (white ligaments), which extend across the voice-box to be inserted in front in the angle of the shield cartilage. Groups of muscles pull upon these cartilages in such a manner as to increase, or diminish, the chink between the vocal cord in ordinary inspiration and expiration; in phonation a group of muscles approximate the cords, while another muscle ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... opens with a series of restless dotted notes for the strings ff which diminish and retard to an entrance of the first theme, piu lento, for the pianoforte; the two phrases of which are interrupted by a passage, somewhat modified, from the introduction. Some preludial measures, expanding the material presented, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... much opposition in carrying out his plans, and had he been less popular than he was with the people his efforts might have cost him his throne and his life: but the Rebu were devoted to him, and as the priests came gradually to see that the change would not diminish their power, their opposition died away, especially as many of the younger men were soon convinced by the arguments of the king and his minister, and preached the new religion with enthusiasm among the people. But it was not until many years after ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... will of course need special treatment. Moreover provision of German for all has avowedly not been made. For all it is desirable and for many indispensable. But as the number who read it for pleasure, never very large, seems likely to diminish, German may perhaps be reserved as a tool, the use of which must ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... unexpectedness; but the great essential features of the prospect preserve throughout the year the same impressive serenity. Soracte, be it January or May, rises from its blue horizon like an island from the sea and with an elegance of contour which no mood of the year can deepen or diminish. You know it well; you have seen it often in the mellow backgrounds of Claude; and it has such an irresistibly classic, academic air that while you look at it you begin to take your saddle for a faded old arm- chair in a palace gallery. A month's rides in different directions will ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... different direction to what I said I was when leaving Kangwe, and there are so many ways of accounting for death about here—leopard, canoe capsize, elephants, etc.—that even if I were traced—well, nothing could be done then, anyhow—so will only take three Fans. One must diminish dead certainties to the level of sporting chances along here, or ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... exception of the plain between Pasco and the vicinity of Tarma, twenty leagues in extent, and the valley of Xauxa) presents a continuation of rugged and fatiguing ascents and declivities. That these difficulties do not diminish between Cuzco and Potosi may be inferred from the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... there not good reason to believe that this refusal was prompted by laudable feelings? What selfish motive could faction itself impute to the royal mind? The Exclusion Bill did not curtail the reigning King's prerogatives, or diminish his income. Indeed, by passing it, he might easily have obtained an ample addition to his own revenue. And what was it to him who ruled after him? Nay, if he had personal predilections, they were known to be rather in favour of the Duke of Monmouth than of the Duke of York. The most natural explanation ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... production, the factors which make work pleasant or irksome, and especially the moral condition of the worker. Good-will diminishes the toll which labour takes of the labourer; envy and hatred vastly increase it while they diminish its product. It is, of course, impossible that the worker should not resent having to devote his life to making what is useless or mischievous, and to ministering to the irrational wastefulness of luxury. Christianity, in condemning the selfish ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... the Treasury Department, so far as may be practicable under its present powers over the collection, keeping, and disbursement of the public money, is to diminish the circulation of small bank notes and to substitute specie, and especially gold, for such notes, with the view of rendering the currency of the country, through which its fiscal operations are ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson
... to year, but there is no more—there is no possible way of adding to it, though we may lessen it by allowing it to rush out to sea, giving no service to the land. As the land waters diminish ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... must ever be very limited, because those persons who are fitted for the due performance of them are of necessity few in number; and that in proportion as new facts are added by them to our knowledge, THE EXPERIMENTS MUST DIMINISH IN NUMBER...." ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... all the leading papers. When the paid-for advertisements terminated not a single paper would renew the contract. The holders of those quack medicines and patents had found means to shut down (so far as the advertising of it was concerned) a scientific work which threatened to diminish their profits. That is why I ask what price we are prepared to pay for the protection of ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... assume their natural right of independence, and refuse to rise. It was Lord Lovat's policy, therefore, to discourage all disposition in his clansmen to enter trade or to go to sea and seek their fortunes abroad, lest they should both shake off their dependence on him, and also, by emigrating, diminish the broad and pompous retinue with which he chose to appear on all occasions. It was therefore his endeavour to check industry, to oppose improvement, to preach up the heroism of his ancestors, who never stooped to the meannesses of commerce, but made themselves famous by martial ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... perform other necessary work. Repaired the chronometer and one of the aneroid barometers, which had been broken by the motion of one of the pack-horses. As there was no practicable route to the south, and the sandstone hills to the north seemed to diminish in elevation to the east, I decided on following the northern limit of the desert to the west till some line of practicable country was found by which to penetrate the country to the south. In selecting a westerly route ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... practising was similar to that which other artists feel when members of the public break in and see their work in an incomplete condition. He liked his music to be appreciated. He felt that acknowledgment of the stages by which it came to its ultimate perfection was likely to diminish its glory. But he had no place in which he could practise except the back yard of his father's house, and that, unfortunately, was in the very middle ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... as much as others. Woe to him who would seek to diminish the force of this moral spring; he would cripple at a blow all the virtues. I do not, however, place this noblest of sentiments on the somewhat isolated height where it is put by the exclusive adorers of liberty. Let us not confound dignity with mere loftiness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... long as Weather will permit and if by the providence of God, that by Stormy Weather or some unforeseen Accident we should part, I then Order You to proceed directly to the Island of providence, One of the Bahamia Islands, and there to wait my Arrivall, And not to Embezzle diminish Waste Sell or Unload any part of her Cargo till I am there present, Under the penalty of the Articles Already Signed by You. Att Your Arrivall att providence make a Just Report to his Hon'r the Gov'r of that place of the Sloop's Cargo and what on Board and ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... polysyllables such as Gongora (p. 209) and Zuniga (p. 57 and elsewhere). It will be seen that, in this matter, I have been guided by strictly utilitarian principles. Inconsistencies are perhaps unavoidable under any system. The plan followed here, while it tends to diminish the total number of accents, probably involves no more inconsistencies than any other. It is based on rational grounds, and is, it may be hoped, less offensive to the eye than the current system. Quotations, I repeat, are reproduced ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... work. Finding here enough to explain his influence, and the true seal of mastery, its authors assign to Pellegrino da San Daniele the Holy Family in the Louvre, for certain points in which it comes short of that standard, but which will hardly diminish the spectator's enjoyment of a singular charm of liquid air, with which the whole picture seems instinct, filling the eyes and lips, the very garments, of its sacred personages, with some wind-searched brightness and energy; of which fine air the blue peak, clearly defined ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... 1860, and Mississippi soon after. Emissaries came to Louisiana to influence the Governor, Legislature, and people, and it was the common assertion that, if all the Cotton States would follow the lead of South Carolina, it would diminish the chances of civil war, because a bold and determined front would deter the General Government from any measures of coercion. About this time also, viz., early in December, we received Mr. Buchanan's annual message to ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... bodies would cause a relative reduction in the wings—as with the Pouter, where the wings have been greatly lengthened but not so much as the body.[28] Slender bodies, too, and the lessened divergence of the furculum,[29] would slightly diminish the spread of the wings, and so would affect the measurements taken. As the wing-bones, moreover, are to some extent correlated with the beak and the feet, the artificial selection of shortened beaks might tend to shorten the wing as well as the feet. Under these circumstances how ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... real when I find myself leaning for a moment on a ruined wall and looking listlessly down into the historic pool of Bethesda. I did not think such things could be so crowded together as to diminish their interest. But in serious truth, we have been drifting about, for several days, using our eyes and our ears more from a sense of duty than any higher and worthier reason. And too often we have been glad when it was time to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... convention was looked upon as the probable recipient of the honor that fell to Garfield, the generous warmth of this letter will be accounted most creditable to both of the two friends, whose strong friendship rivalry could not weaken or diminish. ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... were leaving, the first four companies of the Rifle Brigade arrived. Every day boats laden with stores went forward, every day white troops came up. Vast as was the quantity of stores sent off, the piles at Atbara did not seem to diminish. Ninety days' provisions, forage, and necessaries for the whole force had been accumulated there, and as fast as these were taken away they were ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... exercised great hospitality, would be taxed much more lightly than one who entertained fewer guests. Secondly, this mode of taxation, by paying for an annual, half-yearly, or quarterly licence to consume certain goods, would diminish very much one of the principal conveniences of taxes upon goods of speedy consumption; the piece-meal payment. In the price of threepence halfpenny, which is at present paid for a pot of porter, the different taxes upon malt, hops, and beer, together with the extraordinary profit which ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... I learned was not to believe too firmly anything of which I had learnt merely by example and custom; and thus little by little was delivered from many errors which are liable to obscure the light of nature, and to diminish our capacity of hearing reason. Finally, I resolved one day to study myself in the same way, and in this it seems to me I succeeded much better than if I had never departed from either my country or ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... concerning the pamphlet seems rather to increase than diminish, but Seor Gutierrez has many devoted friends, and the place of his retreat is secure. There is little doubt that he will be forced to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... I was close to one of the crimson curtains. For I hoped that if I entered any one of the twelve halls at the right moment, that would as it were give me the right of entrance to all the others, seeing they all had communication behind. I would not diminish the hope of the right chance, by supposing it necessary that a desire to enter should awake within me, precisely when I was close to the ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... they certainly showed it little in their appearance and manner, and Laura was at least sure that if Selina had been perpetually dropping in Miss Steet would have taken that discomfort even more tragically. The sight of this young woman's either real or fancied wrongs did not diminish her conviction that she herself would have found courage to become a governess. She would have had to teach very young children, for she believed she was too ignorant for higher flights. But Selina would never have consented to that—she ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... also advised him to the course, regarding it as the easiest method of keeping good the fortune of Sheldon, whose choice of literature as a profession tended rather to diminish than increase his coffers. And so he embarked his all with Hardin; and all thought him sure to succeed in the enterprise, with so far-seeing and judicious a ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the hissing of the exploding rocket fuel began to diminish in volume. The apex of the flight was nearly at ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... sufficient to observe that he composed this wooden elephant in such a manner that all the parts could be separated. He opened a panel (it is immaterial on which side of the body) and introduced himself into the interior by means of this opening, either to diminish the thickness of the wood or for any other purpose during its construction; the head, the trunk, all was hollow; so that the body, alarming at first from its supposed weight, might be easily transported from one place ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... her ideal of Sunday occupation, and she had gained a little fragmentary experience under Sydney's guidance at Fordham. So she was in a most engaging glow of shy delight, and the tidy little well-trained girls who were allotted to her did not diminish her satisfaction. To say that Armine's positive enjoyment was equal to hers would not be true, but he had intended all his life to be a clergyman, and he was resolved not to shrink from his first experience of the kind. The boys were too ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Rosalie greeted the visitors without a shadow of confusion or a sign of gaucherie. Bonner felt a thrill of joy and pride as he took note of the look of surprise that crept into his mother's face—a surprise that did not diminish as the girl went through ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... eye with beauty. It is created for the purpose of moving through the sea and over the sea with the smallest resistance and the greatest stability; yet, somehow, it does fill the eye with its beauty. And in so far as a boat fails in its purpose, by that much does it diminish in beauty. ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... less side-movement of the pole. In a regular curve, the movements are the same; but in going from a shorter to a longer, or from a longer to a shorter curve, the side-measurement must increase or diminish regularly. ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... would bring in a steady income to author and publisher. The offer found the Professor in a moment of financial perplexity. His illness, his unwonted holiday, the necessity of postponing a course of well-paid lectures, had combined to diminish his resources; and when Harviss offered him an advance of a thousand dollars the esoteric savour of the joke became irresistible. It was still as a joke that he persisted in regarding the transaction; and though he had ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... source almost as intangible as Cassowary's ship. Food and tobacco! What more could the heart of a casual relic of such a race want? Actually he wanted nothing more, save, peradventure, a blanket; but he dreamt he did, and no earthly agent could diminish the festal extravagance of the scenes among which he revelled, conducted by the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... ceased firing, and as our boats had escaped damage, one was lowered, and McAllister and I went on board to take possession. We had certainly contrived in a short hour considerably to spoil the beauty of the French schooner, and dreadfully to diminish the number of her crew. Her brave captain and most of his officers were wounded, and six men were killed and ten wounded. Her captain received us on the quarter-deck, where he stood ready to deliver his sword with the greatest ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... conditions of rude or violent life. He was not likely to find a satisfying range in any mode of existence that would be shared by Sibyl. But he clutched at any chance of extensive travel. It might be necessary—it certainly would be—to make further incision into his capital, and so diminish the annual return upon which he could count for the future; but when his income had already become ludicrously inadequate, what did that matter? The years of independence were past; somehow or other, he must make money. Everybody did it nowadays, and an 'opening' would ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... garrison are confident they can hold out, while at Delhi we know that our position is becoming stronger every day; the reinforcements are beginning to arrive from England, and though the work may be slow at first, our army will grow, while their strength will diminish, until we sweep them before us. I need not stop until the end, only till the peril is over, till Lucknow is relieved, ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... the shudd'ring midnight I had sent From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent, That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry— That in no after-moment aught less vast Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout Black horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout From the more with'ring scene diminish'd pass'd. Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity! Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood, Wand'ring at eve, with finely frenzied eye, Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! Awhile, with mute awe gazing, I would brood, Then weep aloud in a ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... are with the Lord are tender, great, rich, a multitude, and manifold; so they are mercies that DIMINISH NOT in the using, but that rather increase in the exercising of them. Hence it is said, grace aboundeth, and hath abounded unto many; and that God is able to make all grace abound towards us (Rom 5:15; 2 Cor 9:8; Eph 1:7,8). The grace of forgiveness I mean, wherein he hath abounded ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the coalition; and he is such a happy man that he never undertook any thing in which he did not succeed: and even if there were no hopes of success at present, ought we not to sow the seed which may be useful to posterity[652]? Even if we should only diminish the mutual hatred among Christians, and render them more sociable, would not this be worth purchasing at the price ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, follow him with an eternal song, nor(496) before the mountains and hills were, when nothing was brought forth. Many thousand more worlds would add nothing to him, nor diminish anything from him. It is not so with man, he is bounded and limited, he cannot have well being in his own breast. He was indeed created with it in the enjoyment of God, which was his happiness, so that ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... four Evangelists, with their several characteristics. The predominance of the number four again appears in another way. There are four general covenants, of Noah, of Abraham, of Moses, of Christ. It is therefore an act of audacious folly to increase or diminish the number of the Gospels. As there is fitness and order in all the other works of God, so also we may expect to find it in ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... people, early advised of the advance of the foraging party, mounted their horses, rifle in hand, from every direction; and, occupying well protected positions along the main road, also faithfully endeavored to diminish the number of his Majesty's forces, and hastened the retreat of the British into Charlotte, the survivors swearing after their arrival that "every bush along the road concealed ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... gathering corn, was liable to be surprised and slaughtered. In this way tribes were either swept away at once, or gradually thinned out, and savage life was surrounded with constant horrors and alarms. That the race of red men should diminish from year to year, and so few should survive of the numerous nations which evidently once peopled the vast regions of the west, is nothing surprising; it is rather matter of surprise that so many should survive; for the existence of a savage in these parts seems little ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... thousands. He bought fine clothes, purchased fine horses, gave grand entertainments, made handsome presents, lived as if he had been as rich as Sir James Lowther, or his Grace of Bedford, and yet the five thousand pounds never seemed to diminish. No wonder that he gave where giving was so easy; no wonder that he was generous with Fortunatus's purse in his pocket. I say no wonder that he gave, for such was his nature. Other Fortunati tie up the endless purse, drink small beer, and go to bed ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... inconveniences possible in this nocturnal party, the Queen determined on having a number of people with her; and even ordered her waiting women to accompany her. All precautions were ineffectual to prevent the effects of calumny, which thenceforward sought to diminish the general attachment that she had inspired. A few days afterwards, the most wicked libel that appeared during the earlier years of her reign was circulated in Paris. The blackest colours were employed to paint an enjoyment so harmless that there is scarcely a young ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... the main struggle for victory in the war. The case against divergent operations was strongest of all against the East African campaign; and it would have been criminal folly for the sake of amour propre or imperial expansion to diminish our safeguards against a German victory in the West, or weaken the defence of our threatened communications with Egypt and India. Von Lettow-Vorbeck had forces enough to hold his own, but he never even attempted the conquest of British East Africa or the Belgian Congo, and the most ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... little help. I venture to call it help, the sort of thing he came to me for on that summer afternoon. It is always help when a woman who is not an idiot lets an embarrassed man take up her time. If he too is not an idiot, that does n't diminish the service; on the contrary his superiority to the average helps him to profit. Ambrose Tester had said to me more than once, in the past, that he was capable of telling me things, because I was an American, that ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... those who maintain that it is vain to search for reasons of the laws where none are given in the Bible itself; that the sole reason in those cases is the will of God. These people labor under the absurd impression that to discover a rational purpose in the ceremonial laws would diminish their value and reduce them to human institutions. Their divine character and origin is attested in the minds of these people by their irrationality, by the fact that they have no human meaning. This is clearly ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... writes on our fate at the hour of birth:— first, age; secondly, action; thirdly, wealth; fourthly, science; fifthly, fame. I have now done a good deed, and as long as a man's virtue is in the ascendant, all people becoming his servants obey him. But when virtuous deeds diminish, even his friends become ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... to Enforce Peace— undertakes, but the difficulties cannot be overcome unless we try to overcome them. I believe much can be done. Probably it will be impossible to stop all wars, but it certainly will be possible to stop some wars, and thus diminish their number. The way in which this problem must be worked out must be left to this league and to those who are giving this great subject the study which it deserves. I know the obstacles. I know how quickly we shall be met with the statement that this ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... very sensitive, and a very honest mind. His emotions were noble. He felt so keenly that he was obliged to find relief in imparting his emotions. And his mental processes were so sincere that he could neither exaggerate nor diminish the truth. If he had lacked any one of these three qualities, his appeal would have been narrowed and weakened, and he would not have become a classic. Either his feelings would have been deficient in supreme beauty, and therefore less worthy to be imparted, or he would not ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... an animal and to feed on it, although neither his nails nor his teeth nor his muscles make it natural to him. To hunt, to fish, to defend his territory against the wild beasts who attacked it and himself, to drive back tribes of his fellows who would diminish his provisions, these were the first rudiments of the industry of Man. Having become more skilful, he obtained in an expedition more game than he could consume at once; he then kept near him living ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... crop proved an "embarrassment of riches." We feasted on them ourselves and gave to our neighbors, and yet our store did not visibly diminish. The county fair occurred on September 22 that fall; and Addison suggested loading a farm wagon—one with a body fifteen feet long—with about eight hundred of the cantaloupes and tempting the public appetite—at ten cents a melon. The girls helped us to decorate ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... deepest intuition into child's nature, and therefore had the deepest reverence for it, wrote as follows: "Where we behold children we suspect there are princes, but as to the kings, where are they?" Not only life's tragic elements diminish and dam up its vital energies. Equally destructive is a parent's want of reverence for the sources of life which meet them in a new being. Fathers and mothers must bow their heads in the dust before the exalted nature of the child. Until they see that the word "child" is only another expression for ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... the interest of the state demanded: that the supply of precious metals should not diminish; and that the nation should not be dependent upon rival countries for staple commodities. The supply of gold and silver actually present in the king's coffers, or within the radius of his tax-gatherers, was of far greater moment then than now. ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... none of us will easily forget the sledge-hammer blows with which he smote the table. The noise was distinctly audible in the room below, and gave one the idea that the table would be broken to pieces. In vain we withdrew from the table, hoping to diminish the power. The heavy blows increased in intensity, and the whole room shook with their force. The direst penalties were threatened if we again interfered with the development by bringing in new sitters. We have not ventured to do so again; and I do not think we shall easily be persuaded ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... father paired with his daughter, than from a mother with her son. I may add that Mr. Eyton, of Eyton, the well-known ornithologist, who is a large breeder of Grey Dorkings, informs me that they certainly diminish in size, and become less prolific, unless a cross with another strain is occasionally obtained. So it is with Malays, according to Mr. Hewitt, as far as size ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... is a mere aggregation of physical atoms, as a planet is, so organized that they constitute an instrument for a purpose. The mass of matter constituting the body is a variable mass. It may increase or diminish greatly, but the man remains unchanged. There is no permanent relationship between the man and the physical matter which he uses for his vehicle of consciousness. According to the physiologists every atom of the body ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... instance, with a time when the observer can find few or no spots, they gradually increase in number and size until a maximum, in both senses, is reached, during which the spots are often of enormous size and exceedingly active. After two or three years they begin to diminish in number, magnitude, and activity until they almost or quite disappear. A strange fact is that when a new period opens, the spots appear first in high northern and southern latitudes, far from the solar equator, and as the period advances they not only increase in number and size, but ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... historical knowledge, and the unique example of provident and exhaustive equipment which she cited, reduced me to silence, but did not diminish my anxiety. The delay made me nervous, ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... on the roof!" he said, and setting down the pail he had brought, he got on his hands and knees, first to escape the wind in his ears, and next to diminish its hold on his person. Over roof after roof he crept like a cat, stopping to listen every time a new gush of the sound came, then starting afresh in the search for its source. Upon a great gathering of ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... has given us a wonderful work in constructive imagination. As has been said elsewhere, the imagination works with the ideas which are present in the mind. It creates nothing, but it may enlarge, diminish or recombine ideas with an infinity of form. In Adventures in Lilliput Swift has used largely the reducing power of his imagination. If he has been accurate, he has reduced everything in the same proportion. An interesting study of this phase ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... frequently useful to diminish the quantity of natural stimulus for a short time, by which afterwards the irritability of the system becomes increased; according to the third law of irritation above-mentioned, hence the use of baths ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... earnestness to give your most sincere attention to this matter. It is of the utmost importance to every one of you. Let your next object be to obtain as soon as may be, a competency of the good things of this world; immense wealth is not necessary for you, and would but diminish your real happiness. Abject poverty is and ought to be regarded as the greatest, most terrible of all possible evils. It should be shunned as a most deadly and damning sin. What then are the means by which so dreadful a calamity may be avoided? ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... distrust. He advised the building of forts near Lake Erie, and his advice was rejected. "Niagara and Detroit," he was told, "will secure forever our communications with Louisiana."[56] "His Majesty," again wrote the Colonial Minister, "thought that expenses would diminish after the peace; but, on the contrary, they have increased. There must be great abuses. You and the Intendant must look to it."[57] Great abuses there were; and of the money sent to Canada for the service of the King the larger part ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... by influencing the mind of the party with a high idea of the importance and solemnity of the business. In England the familiarity of the object and the summary method of administering oaths are well known to diminish their weight, and to render them too often nugatory. They sometimes swear by the earth, laying their hands upon it and wishing that it may never produce aught for their nourishment if they speak falsely. In all these ceremonies they burn on the spot a little gum benzoin—Et acerra thuris ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... practice cannot be sheer suicide, when the Dutch peasant-girl plods bloomingly through her daily duties beneath a dozen successive involucres of flannel. So in regard to tight lacing, no one can doubt its ill effects, since even a man's loose garments are known to diminish by one-fourth his capacity for respiration. Yet inspect in the shop-windows (where the facts of female costume are obtruded too pertinaciously for the public to remain in ignorance) the light and flexible corsets of these days, and then contemplate at Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth the stout buckram ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... they are modest in behaviour. M. Denon has underrated the Nubians, but it must not be forgotten that their physique varies in different districts. Where there is much land to cultivate, they are well developed; but in districts where arable land is a mere strip, the people diminish in vigour, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... larger—the size of one of Polter's giants—would enable us to make it. We would be seen, but in the pale starlight, keeping away from the city as much as possible, we might only be mistaken for Polter's people. And when we got closer we would diminish our size, creep into the boat, get near Babs and Polter and then plan what ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... night, with all the pomp observed amongst noble families on such occasions. The church in which the corpse was buried, was hung with black cloth; and even the innumerable wax tapers which burned upon the altar and around the coffin failed to diminish the lugubrious ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... possible Turner might have felt the necessity of compelling himself sometimes to dwell on the most familiar and prosaic scenery, in order to prevent his becoming so much accustomed to that of a higher class as to diminish his enthusiasm in its presence. Into this probability I shall have occasion to ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... took over, but such was his adroitness, skill and tact in leading them that he won their complete confidence and trust, and they gave him an unreserved support as well as a free hand in many things. This unbounded support of his early work he never forgot; nor did he let his appreciation diminish with the success of later years. In the course of the observances that marked his forty years as rector, he ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... night[250], Where flames consume, and yet we freeze with cold. Sorrow adds sulphur unto fury's heat, And chops them ice whose chattering teeth do beat; But sulphur, snow, flame, frost, nor hideous crying Can cause them die that ever are in dying, Nor make the pain diminish or increase: Sorrow is slack, and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... own pride. That you should see me disloyal to him in little things, such as this—" (she caught his hand again and caressed it with soft finger-tips) "—hurts me in my love for you, diminishes me, must diminish me in your eyes. I shrink from the thought that my disloyalty to him in this I do—" (she laid his hand against her cheek) "—gives you reason to pity him and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... soil will certainly have an influence on the number and character of the Mushrooms. As a proof of the exhaustive nature of the fungus, it almost invariably happens that when the soil is used a second time it tends to diminish the size and lower the quality ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment, than it is by the occurrence of crime. It obviously follows that the more punishment is inflicted the more crime is produced, and most modern legislation has clearly recognised this, and has made it its task to diminish punishment as far as it thinks it can. Wherever it has really diminished it, the results have always been extremely good. The less punishment, the less crime. When there is no punishment at all, crime will either cease to exist, or, if it occurs, will be treated ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... stared in a frozen sort of way at the hand. He had placed Sam by now. He knew that Sir Mallaby had a son. This, presumably, was he. But the discovery did not diminish his indignation. ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... due course people discovered that business must proceed as usual, and even the architectural profession, despite its traditional pessimism, had hopes of municipalities and other bodies which were to inaugurate public works in order to diminish unemployment. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... design—perhaps in the main merely a different view of the first—is that the interest must be maintained. It may increase, but it must never diminish. Here is that special aspect of design which we call construction, or plot. By interest I mean the interest of the story itself, and not the interest of the continual play of the author's mind on his material. In proportion as the interest of ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... is captured and Lucknow relieved. The Sepoys thought that they had the game entirely in their hands, and that they would sweep us right out of India almost without resistance. They have failed, and when they see that every day their chances of success diminish, their resistance will ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... nothing on but a loose wrapping Gown, without Stockings or Cap: and her Hair hung dishevelled over her Shoulders. She complained of the Cruelty of Theseus to the deep Waves, whilst an unworthy Shower of Tears ran down her Cheeks. She wept, and lamented aloud, and both became her; nor did her Tears diminish her Beauty. Once, and again, she beat her delicious Breasts with her Hands, and cried aloud, The perfidious Man hath abandoned me; What will become of poor Ariadne? What will become of poor Ariadne? On a sudden a vast Multitude was heard, while many Kinds of strange Instruments, ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... confidence to call their accounts histories; wherein yet they seem to me to fail of their own purpose, as well as to relate nothing that is sound. For they have a mind to demonstrate the greatness of the Romans, while they still diminish and lessen the actions of the Jews, as not discerning how it cannot be that those must appear to be great who have only conquered those that were little. Nor are they ashamed to overlook the length of the war, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... did so, but not before I had got the good snapshot of them here reproduced. It can be seen by this photograph what long steps these women took, and how those that carried heavier loads swung their arms about to diminish the effort and balance themselves. They walked with a good deal ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... good which has originated here, and is now in unchecked progress, and must extend beyond all the limits of conception, I cannot help feeling that it is a great and precious privilege to be in some way identified as a member of this college. It does not diminish my satisfaction that other graduates of other American colleges can say the same thing. It rather increases the satisfaction. Glad and thankful that my name is in the list of those who have been educated here, and have endeavored to ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... school as we hear them in Marcus Aurelius the imperial sage counts it a thing to be thankful for that he had learnt to abstain from rhetoric, poetic, and elegance of diction. The reader however cannot help wishing that he had taken some means to diminish the crabbedness of his style. If a lesson were wanted in the importance of sacrificing to the Graces it might be found in the fact that the early Stoic writers despite their logical subtlety have all perished and that their remains have to be sought for so largely in the pages of ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... to do. She spoke highly and hopefully of her future boarding-house. They found her a couple of hundred pounds, glad to salve their consciences so cheaply. Siegmund's father, a winsome old man with a heart of young gold, was always ready further to diminish his diminished income for the sake of his grandchildren. So Beatrice was set up in a fairly large house in Highgate, was equipped with two maids, and gentlemen were invited to come and board in her house. It was a huge adventure, wherein Beatrice was delighted. Vera was excited ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... hate me. I shall always do my duty to my subjects according to the best of my knowledge and ability, as it becomes an honorable and faithful officer. As the chief and most responsible servant of my kingdom, I should be mindful to increase her income and diminish her expenses—to lay taxes upon the rich, and lighten them for the poor. This is my task, and I will fulfil it so long ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... went to work on our heap, and we could feel the pressure diminish as they dragged away the dead and wounded. Garthwaite began uttering aloud the signals. At first he was not heard. Then he ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... were assisted in their endeavours to diminish the numbers of their live stock by their neighbours, both black and white. It is absurd to blame the aborigines for killing sheep and cattle. You might as well say it is immoral for a cat to catch mice. Hunting was their living; the land and every animal thereon ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... politician, skilful with the sword as well as the pen, and with the tongue as well as the sword. He has drawn blood with each and all of these weapons, and though nowadays he often votes in the House without inquiring what he is voting for till he has recorded his vote, this does not diminish his claims to practical wisdom. He married the leading actress of Hungary, who, without waiting for an introduction, rushed forward from the audience to present him with a bunch of flowers when a play of his made ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... engineered by the Spartacans were put down with considerable bloodshed. In January, 1919, soon after the defeat of the Spartacides in Berlin, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, their leaders, were put to death, and their minority party seemed to diminish in strength. In the latter part of May, 1919, the majority Socialists of the reactionary Ebert-Scheidemann group were at first opposed to the signing of the Treaty of Paris, whereas the Spartacans, and also the Independent Socialists ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... predicament? She had often heard of women making money in this way through their friends: she had no more notion than most of her sex of the exact nature of the transaction, and its vagueness seemed to diminish its indelicacy. She could not, indeed, imagine herself, in any extremity, stooping to extract a "tip" from Mr. Rosedale; but at her side was a man in possession of that precious commodity, and who, as the husband of her ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... personal considerations which induced people to vote against us on this point, who do so on no other. It has, I imagine, entirely put an end to any further discussion of this subject. It will not diminish your satisfaction on this occasion to hear that the previous question was moved by me, and that I had the good fortune not only to satisfy myself, which I have not done before in the course of this session, but also to satisfy my friends so well, that the question was rested ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... and Norway has addressed an official invitation to this Government to take part in the International Prison Congress to be held at Stockholm next year. The problem which the congress proposes to study—how to diminish crime—is one in which all civilized nations have an interest in common, and the congress of Stockholm seems likely to prove the most important convention ever held for the study of this grave question. Under authority of a joint resolution of Congress approved February ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... 'Abandon my betrothed? and betray him on the very stroke of the Sword? and diminish him by a withdrawal of that faith in his right wrist which strengtheneth it more than Karavejis and Veejravoosh wound round it in coils?' And she leaned her head, and cried, 'Hark! hear'st thou? there's shouting in the streets ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... their Government; with a wise instinct of confidence, they have freely risked their money, as their lives, in support of their own holy cause. This confidence at home has given us unbounded strength abroad. Nor do the facts in the least diminish the credit fairly due to the Secretary, whose great merit is to have organized a system so well calculated to attract the confidence of the people and to inspire them with a sense of perfect security in trusting their fortunes to the keeping of the nation for its help ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... so long been fastened upon her; let her act so as to be on her guard against every encroachment of that nature that might be proposed by the civil power. The struggle for the independence of the Church was resolutely maintained, and the yoke of those who attempted to diminish it, was dutifully thrown off. Let not any overture hereafter, ranging between complete submission to the State, and the mere use of the veto, on the part of the civil power, upon the appointment of a given minister ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... these lower creatures in our society has generally been accepted as a matter of course. Sentimentalists, after the fashion of Laurence Sterne, have dwelt upon the imaginary woes of the creatures. Associations of well-meaning people have endeavored to diminish the cruelty which people of the towns, rarely those bred on the soil, often inflict upon them. It seems, however, desirable that we should place this consideration upon a plane more fitting the knowledge ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... making my money diminish; I'm sick of the taste of champagne. Thank God! when I'm skinned to a finish I'll pike to the Yukon again. I'll fight—and you bet it's no sham-fight; It's hell!—but I've been there before; And it's better than this by a damsite— So me for the ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... difficulties in the way of this arrangement, but considering the military power which the Sikh nation has exhibited of bringing into the field 80,000 men and 300 pieces of field artillery, it appears to the Governor-General most politic to diminish the means of this warlike people to repeat a similar aggression. The nation is in fact a dangerous military Republic on our weakest frontier. If the British Army had been defeated, the Sikhs, through the Protected States, which would have risen in their favour in ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... larger one in horse-labor, man-labor, or money; but that he may have as little to pay as possible, he ploughs as much for himself, by the day, as he can, and often strives to get the other to do as little per day, on the other side, in order to diminish what will remain due to his partner. There is, consequently, a ludicrous undercurrent of petty jealousy running between them, which explains the ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... by a sudden change from a state of thaw to an intense frost attended by a strong wind, the whole body of water in a river may become quickly cooled, and consequently diminish the temperature of the stone or gravel over which it flows; but to suppose that water which is not itself at freezing- point is capable of reducing the substances in contact with it by means of a continual application of successive particles so far beneath that temperature as in process of ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... details of the art. This, however, need not discourage you, but, on the contrary, should fill you with pleasure to think there is something yet to be learned, and thus the fascination which the study of Phonography has had for you during the past few months, can never diminish so long as you have a desire to advance more and more towards perfection. It is not to be expected that you will for any length of time remember everything that I have ever said to you with regard to the advantages of shorthand or its practical use; but of one thing I feel very sure, and that ...
— Silver Links • Various
... nearly-fatal effects of his own mistake that he was quite unable to rally himself and talk on the subject with any spirit or confidence. When interrogated he would simply reply that Sir Peter said this and Sir Peter said that, and thus add to, rather than diminish, the doubt, and excitement, and varied opinion which prevailed through the city. On one morning it was absolutely asserted within the limits of the Close that Miss Stanbury was dying,—and it was believed for half a day at the bank that she was then lying in articulo mortis. There ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... to expand and intensify political and military cooperation throughout Europe, increase stability, diminish threats to peace, and build relationships by promoting the spirit of practical cooperation and commitment to democratic principles that underpin NATO; program under the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... they have sprung into being there. Because he is under the sanctifying and illuminating influence of the divine Spirit, they are high and holy thoughts. Because they come forth in their primitive form, they are natural and fresh; and for this reason the lapse of ages does not diminish their power ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... been substituted remain unfinished: the progress of deterioration advances, while little is done to counteract or amend what every year must render more difficult and expensive, while the means of repair and correction will diminish in equal proportion, from the poverty occasioned by the evil, and by the fearful extent which it will be allowed to attain. The rivers which are really adapted to navigation are, however, only those which are perpetually fed by those tributary ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... that my quarrel with Kinlay did in no wise alter the friendship that existed between Thora and me. I had for her a fondness which Tom's bullying and tyranny had no power to diminish. Thora, indeed, was a girl whom none except those who were influenced by envy could help admiring. She was the favourite of all the school, and amongst us, her only enemy was her brother. My own sympathy with ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... air; this diffusion takes place even through stone and through brick walls. The more porous the material of which the building is constructed, the more readily does diffusion take place. Dampness, plastering, painting, and papering of walls diminish ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... from that generous friend of the poor Negro, Mr. Daniel Hand. It is a wonderful gift, and comes in a good way. The income only can be used, and that will do just so much more for the Negro, and will not be applied to work now in progress. We are tempted to fear that our patrons will diminish their gifts because Mr. Hand has been so liberal. But we will have faith in God, who has entrusted us with this great work, and we will enter upon our new year with the full confidence that every friend of the Association who appreciates our responsibilities to Christ and the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various
... with pleasure that Savary, the Minister of Police, wished to simplify the working of his administration, and to gradually diminish whatever was annoying in it, but, whatever might be his intentions, he was not always free to act. I acknowledge that when I read his Memoirs I saw with great impatience that in many matters he had voluntarily ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... those who are anybody has missed the run, the run of the season! "And killed him in the open as you may say," says Smith, who has already twice boasted in Jones's hearing that he had seen every turn the hounds had made. "It wasn't in the open," says Jones, reduced in his anger to diminish as far as may be ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... conversation. He yielded at once to an admirer; never trespassed by any chance into the domain of sentiment; never broke, by any accident or blunder, into the irregular paces of flirtation; was a man who notoriously would never diminish by marriage the purity of his race; and one who always maintained that passion and polished life were quite incompatible. He liked the drawing- room, and he liked the Desert, but he would not consent that either should trench on their ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... which they eat, is a belief that, if the bones are preserved, they will in course of time be reclothed with flesh, and thus the animal will come to life again. It is, therefore, clearly for the interest of the hunter to leave the bones intact since to destroy them would be to diminish the future supply of game. Many of the Minnetaree Indians "believe that the bones of those bisons which they have slain and divested of flesh rise again clothed with renewed flesh, and quickened with life, and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... be sheer vanity: he could not bear the thought of anyone's criticism, and he would not expose himself to the chance of a refusal from the Salon; he wanted to be received as a master and would not risk comparisons with other work which might force him to diminish his own opinion of himself. During the eighteen months Philip had known him Clutton had grown more harsh and bitter; though he would not come out into the open and compete with his fellows, he was indignant with the facile success of those who did. He had no patience with Lawson, and the ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... he knew the eclipse was about to diminish, that he condescended to come forth, and told them that he had interceded with God, who would pardon them if they would fulfil their promises. In token of pardon, the darkness would ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... restored the ancient splendor to these rites, escorting the procession again by land, and protecting it with his army in the face of the enemy. For either, if Agis stood still and did not oppose, it would very much diminish and obscure his reputation, or, in the other alternative, Alcibiades would engage in a holy war, in the cause of the gods, and in defense of the most sacred and solemn ceremonies; and this in the sight of his country, where he should have ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... so that the same proportion obtains in it as exists in birds. Hence it is deducted that the Icarian invention is entirely mythical because impossible, for it is not possible either to increase a man's pectoral muscles or to diminish the weight of the human body; and whatever apparatus is used, although it is possible to increase the momentum, the velocity or the power employed can never equal the resistance; and therefore wing flapping by the contraction of muscles cannot give out enough power to carry up the heavy body ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... am sure it will be much more economical in the end for us to diminish the number of articles, and add to the quality of what we do have. I am very much like the poor woman who preferred a cup of clear, strong, fragrant coffee, three times a week, to a decoction of burnt rye every day. What I have, I do ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... eyes glowing in the excitement of her strong, passionate spirit, "I will not succumb to all this monstrous evil. If I am but a transient emanation of the earth, and must soon return to my kindred dust, still I can do a little to diminish the awful aggregate of suffering. My nature, earth-born as it is, revolts at a selfish indifference to it all. Oh, if there is a God, why does He not rend the heavens in His haste to stay the black torrents of evil? Why does ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... above this first gate, the gate has a very lofty tower all covered with rows of men and women and hunting scenes and many other representations, and as the tower goes narrowing towards the top so the images diminish in size. Passing this first gate, you come at once into a large courtyard with another gate of the same sort as the first, except that it is rather smaller throughout; and passing this second gate, there is a large court with verandahs all round ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... some of those Territories ought to be developed as rapidly as possible. Every step in that direction would have a tendency to improve the revenues of the Government and diminish the burdens of the people. It is worthy of your serious consideration whether some extraordinary measures to promote that end can not be adopted. The means which suggests itself as most likely to be effective is a scientific exploration of the mineral regions in those ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... President, unless, in the case of inferior officers, when the law shall otherwise direct. Have we (that is, Congress) a right to extend this exception? I believe not. If the Constitution has invested all executive power in the President, I return to assert that the Legislature has no right to diminish or modify his executive authority. The question now resolves itself into this: is the power of displacing an executive power? I conceive that if any power whatever is in the Executive, it is in the power of appointing, overseeing, and controlling those who execute ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... temptation to extend the denotation of a word so far as to diminish or destroy its connotation; or to increase its connotation so much as to render it no longer applicable to things which it formerly denoted: we should neither unduly generalise, nor unduly specialise, a term. Is it desirable to define education so as to include the 'lessons of experience'; ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... success seemed hourly to diminish; for the jury, very much against the usual experience, appeared to be excessively severe. The bankrupt was sentenced to twenty years' hard labor. The man accused of murder could not even obtain the plea of "extenuating circumstances," and was ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... Greenock; the construction of the Hamilton and Rutherglen bridges; surveys of the ground through which the celebrated Caledonian Canal was to pass, occupied our associate up to the end of 1773. Without wishing at all to diminish the merit of these enterprises, I may be permitted to say that their interest and importance were chiefly local, and to assert that neither their conception, direction, nor execution required a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... to grow, rather than diminish. She carried it so far as to go and almost hide during the working hours. She made off to the jungle, and spent an unreasonable time there. She professed to be collecting cotton, and it must be admitted she brought a good deal home with her. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... though we are, of course, far from denying that they may be traced, in some cases, to distinct external influences; which are assuredly competent to alter the character of the tegumentary covering, to change colour, to increase or diminish the size of muscles, to modify constitution, and, among plants, to give rise to the metamorphosis of stamens into petals, and so forth. But however they may have arisen, what especially interests us at present is, to remark that, ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... saw a dark shadow steal over the moon, seized with terror, they hurried to the ships, and entreated Columbus to intercede for them. He promised to do so, and, retiring to his cabin, waited until he saw that the eclipse was about to diminish, when, coming forth, he assured them that they would be pardoned, provided they fulfilled their promise, in sign of which he would withdraw the darkness ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... and dangers. However pleasant it may be to you to enlarge upon the risks you have run, others may not find such pleasure in listening to your adventures. Avoid provoking laughter also: it is a habit from which one easily slides into the ways of the foolish, and apt to diminish the respect which your neighbors feel for you. To border on coarse talk is also dangerous. On such occasions, if a convenient opportunity offer, rebuke the speaker. If not, at least by relapsing into silence, colouring, and ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... Wine in the old Town: then home again to Woodbridge as fast as we may. For thither goes William Airy, partly in hopes of meeting me: he says he is much shaken by the dangerous illness he had this last Spring: and thinks, truly enough, that our chances of meeting in this World sensibly diminish. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... was ruined through former sins, and when trying to diminish his daily supply of opium, he suffered acutely, and was often ill for weeks together. It was during one of these attacks that the Lue children told him to pray to God for healing. He did so, as he said he could not withstand the pleading of the children, ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... institutions, which already possess far more money than they require,—wealthy persons would bequeath sums for the erection of buildings after the manner of the Victoria Square or the Peabody Dwellings, a wonderful transformation would soon appear in our cities. Crime would diminish, life would rise to a higher level, and from the hearts and brains of tens of thousands, a great and terrible load would be lifted. Yet noble and praiseworthy as is this work, we must not lose sight of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... careful, my dear son, of your health in this heat; I trust you will continue well. Shun all that may enervate or diminish your youthful energies. Farewell! A pleasant talk together would be far better than all this writing. Ever your loving and attached father, who fondly presses ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... executed. Its dimensions of two hundred and twenty-eight feet by a hundred and two, with a height of sixty-six feet to the top of the pediment, were sufficiently great to give an impression of grandeur and sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of parts, such as is found to diminish the effects of some larger modern buildings, where the same singleness of design is not observed. In the Parthenon, whether viewed at a small or at a great distance, there was nothing to divert the spectator's ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... his nature fits him, and society amidst innumerable irregularities and disorders still subsists; and perhaps we may say that the history of the past and our present knowledge give us a reasonable hope that its disorders will diminish, and that order, its governing principle may be more firmly established. As order then, a fixed order, we may say, subject to deviations real or apparent, must be admitted to exist in the whole nature of things, that which we call disorder or evil, as it seems ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... they do not talk of them with any babbling heat or bleat or make funny little appeals to a "public opinion" that, like the Boche, has gone underground. It occurs to me that this must be because every Frenchman has his place and his chance, direct or indirect, to diminish the number of Boches still alive. Whether he lies out in a sandwich of damp earth, or sweats the big guns up the crests behind the trees, or brings the fat, loaded barges into the very heart of the city, where the shell-wagons wait, or spends ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... pancake, lay them on a dry pan, very thin, one upon another, till they are finished, before the fire; then lay a dish on the top, and turn them over, so that the brown side is uppermost. You may add or diminish the quantity in proportion. This ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... Conservatism when he said, "My object for some years past has been to lay the foundation of a great party, which, existing in the House of Commons, and deriving its strength from the popular will, should diminish the risk and deaden the shock of collisions between the ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... sake, sir, as you have said, I love her. If she had millions, it could not increase my affection, and if she had not a penny, it would not diminish it." ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the cable without noise, and sent men up aloft to loose the sails. There was a light breeze, sufficient to carry us about two knots through the water, and we knew that it would rather increase than diminish. In half an hour, weak-handed as we were, we were under sail, every thing being done without a word being spoken, and with the utmost precaution. You may imagine how rejoiced we all were when we found ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... and to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion, and liberties of the kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... remark, before proceeding to the direct answer to your questions, that soon perceiving the benefit resulting from the course I had commenced, and finding the irritation to diminish in proportion as I diminished not only the quality, but quantity of my food, I took less than half a pint at a meal, with a small piece of bread, amounting to about the quantity of a Boston cracker; and at times, in order to lessen arterial action, added some water to the milk, taking ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... variety of objects or points of interest in it; the vision roams hither and thither over it and receives a continuous stream or series of pleasing impressions; but to gaze fixedly at the most beautiful object in nature or art does but diminish the pleasure. Practically it ceases to be beautiful and only recovers the first effect after we have given the mind an interval ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... said of this passion just as it was said of the passion of activity. Granted that it is in excess, how can you say, how on earth can anyone say, that government by discussion can in any way cure or diminish, it? Cure this evil that government certainly will not; but tend to diminish it—I think it does and may. To show that I am not making premises to support a conclusion so abnormal, I will quote a passage from Mr. Spencer, the philosopher ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... minutes, she would listen to the ticking of the American clock on the mantelpiece. Her mind went back to the vigil she had spent during Miss Nippett's kit night of life. Then, it had seemed as if the clock were remorselessly eager to diminish the remaining moments of the accompanist's allotted span. Now, it appeared to Mavis as if the clock were equally desirous of cutting short the moments that must elapse ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... Kentucky, who had been at one period of his life a Baptist preacher. He declared on the floor in debate that he was pledged to his constituents to endeavor to retrench the expenses of the General Government, to diminish the army and navy, to abridge the number of civil and diplomatic officials, and, above all, to cut down the pay of Congressmen. He made speeches in support of all these "reforms," but did not succeed in securing the discharge ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Florence for figure-sculpture, whilst the common kinds are carved locally, at a very cheap rate, into vases, clock-cases and various ornamental objects, in which a large trade is carried on, especially in Florence, Pisa and Leghorn. In order to diminish the translucency of the alabaster and to produce an opacity suggestive of true marble, the statues are immersed in a bath of water and gradually heated nearly to the boiling-point—an operation requiring great care, for if the temperature be not carefully regulated, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... himself up in his cabin, as if to commune with the Deity, and remained there during the increase of the eclipse, the forests and shores all the while resounding with the bowlings and supplications of the savages. When the eclipse was about to diminish, he came forth and informed the natives that his God had deigned to pardon them, on condition of their fulfilling their promises; in sign of which he would withdraw ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... insurrection, and as the survivors who have denounced it. Amongst them lie some of those impeached by the circumstances. So far we might add little to the satisfaction of the public; to see the rolls of the guilty widening would but aggravate the sorrow of a calamity which now it could do nothing to diminish. But oftentimes to know the persons concerned in a great disaster, is a step to knowing something of its causes. And this we will venture to say—that, in defiance of all professional pedantry incident to military men and engineers, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Tinah had a place in my cabin to keep those things which I gave him as being more secure on board than on shore. I had remarked lately that his hoard seemed to diminish the more I endeavoured to increase it: at length I discovered that Iddeah kept another hoard in the master's cabin, which she regularly enriched from her husband's whenever I made him a present, apprehending that I should cease giving when I saw Tinah's locker full. At ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... of pure sentiment predominate in their private relations to each other. She had but won him by her artistic faculty; she could not depend upon that to retain and deepen his affection. Her constant apprehension was lest familiarity should diminish her charm in his eyes. Wilfrid was no less critical than he had ever been; she suspected that he required much of her. Did he seek more than she would eventually be able to give? Was she exhausting the resources of her personal charm? ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... the words were taken out of his mouth. Amedee awoke with a frantic start and launched himself at the archway, carroming from its nearest corner and hurtling onward at a speed which for once did not diminish in proportion to ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... order that two boys and others of their class may draw huge profits.[188] More than 10,000 persons are killed, and 97,000 injured, every year on the railroads, so that the income enjoyed by these lads and others shall not diminish. Nearly all of these casualties are due to economizing in expense, working employees to an extreme fatiguing limit, and refusing to provide proper safety appliances. Millions more workers drudge in rolling mills, railroad shops and factories; they wear ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... Gedid the old wells promised sufficient water to refill the skins, and within seven miles of the wells were two large pools at which the camels could be watered. The column, therefore, prepared for the journey. Nothing was neglected which could increase the water carried or diminish the number of drinkers. Only twelve cavalry were taken. The horses of the Maxim guns and the mules of the battery were reduced to the lowest possible number. Every person, animal, or thing not vitally necessary was remorselessly excluded. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... those that use the name of the Lord, to be well assured the Lord speaks; that they may not be found of the number of those that add to the words of the testimony of prophecy, which the Lord giveth them to bear; nor yet to mince or diminish the same, both being so ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... watch the weather more anxiously than we did. Our lives, as far as we could see, depended on the winds. Already the stock of provisions and water was getting low, and it was necessary to diminish the allowance of both. Still the crew of the Hawk would only receive the same quantity that we did. The sun rose and set, and again rose, and we sailed on. Mr Hill met us each morning at breakfast, his honest countenance beaming with kindness, and jocularly apologised for the scantiness of ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... should have so strangely been anticipated in the age of Gillesbeg Gruamach. Let not those chronological divergences perturb you; they were in the manuscript (which you will be good enough to assume) of Elrigmore, and I would not alter them. Nor do I diminish by a single hour Elrigmore's estimate that two days were taken on the Miraculous Journey to Inverlochy, though numerous histories have made it less. In that, as in a few other details, Elrigmore's account is borne out by one you know to whom The Little Wars of ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... we think we need no command to do. We stand under a discipline of reason and in all our maxims must not forget our subjection to it, nor withdraw anything therefrom, or by an egotistic presumption diminish aught of the authority of the law (although our own reason gives it) so as to set the determining principle of our will, even though the law be conformed to, anywhere else but in the law itself and in respect for this law. Duty and obligation ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... earth. Of course, I do not mean that such a craft would take off from the earth and land on the moon three hours later. There are two things which would interfere with that. One is the fact that the propelling force, the gravity of the earth, would diminish as the square of the distance from the center of the earth, and the other is that when the band of neutral attraction, or rather repulsion, between the earth and the moon had been reached, it would be necessary to decelerate ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... In proportion as you diminish selfishness in your own life or in any other, by fostering generous affections and cultivating the spirit of social duty and religious aspiration, by walking in the footsteps of Christ and living in the light of His presence, you are laying the only possible foundation of any ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... became more frequent and more distressing, may have gone far to diminish the strength of any affection which Minna was able to give me, but I had no idea that she was only waiting for a favourable opportunity to come ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... skull. His forehead, low and retreating, would by degrees assume a nobler form as he advanced to more genial climes, the facial angle reaching its maximum in the temperate zone, only to gradually diminish as he journeyed toward the torrid, and to again exhibit under the equator its original base development. As he continued his journey toward the south pole he would undergo a second time this series of progressing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... Perhaps criticism has a cumulative and final effect; perhaps it does some good we do not know of. It apparently does not affect the author directly, but it may reach him through the reader. It may in some cases enlarge or diminish his audience for a while, until he has thoroughly measured and tested his own powers. If criticism is to affect literature at all, it must be through the writers who have newly left the starting-point, and are reasonably uncertain of the race, not with those ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be "anxious for the morrow; for the morrow will be anxious for itself." That is, it will bring its own proper load of labor and of care, from which you have no right to borrow for to-day's uses; which you cannot diminish by the ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... of the position changed the whole basis and tactics of the Foreign Minister's proceedings. He had to obtain the supplies of grain asked for from Germany and thus to diminish political pressure on that country; but at the same time he had to persuade the Soviet delegates to continue negotiations, and finally to arrive at a settlement of peace under the most acceptable conditions possible with the Ukraine, which would put an end to the still serious ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... able to wear it for best. As this restoration cost but one dollar and a half out of the five which had been given her by young Morton, she felt very well satisfied with the way matters had turned out. This did not, however, by any means diminish her rancor against Pomp, who had been the mischievous cause of ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... tension in Europe has already become almost intolerable. It is the situation which cannot fail to result from the system of private property and inheritance established throughout the Western world. Opportunities diminish, classes segregate. There arises a caste of wage-earners never to be anything but wage-earners; a caste of property-owners, handing on their property to their descendants; and substantially, after ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... of the rushing water underneath, the sound which, more than anything else, meant death; the wearing away of things under the impact of physical forces which men could direct but never circumvent or diminish. Then, in the exaltation of love, more than ever it seemed to him to mean death, the only other thing as strong as love. Under the moon, under the cold, splendid stars, there were only those two things awake and sleepless; death and love, the rushing river and ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... should reach him. But many years having elapsed without any intelligence from him, and a report having arrived that he, and all the party with whom he went, were slain by the savage inhabitants of the island, William's despair of seeing his brother again caused the desire to diminish; while attention and affection to a still nearer and dearer relation than Henry had ever been to him, now chiefly ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... horse with her lantern, groaning and wringing her hands. It took but a few moments to release the gases pent up in the poor beast, and the two women heard the rush of wind and saw the roan visibly diminish in girth. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... course no one goes to the diggings?" "Oh, that pays better still—the gold obliged to be quarried—a pound weight of no value." The excitement that evening can scarcely be imagined, but it somewhat abated next morning on his telling us to diminish his accounts ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... that industry got the cow than that the cow produced industry. This is a trifling instance of a very general truth. People had been content to notice the deaths caused by war and disease, and to infer at once that what caused death must diminish population. Malthus shows the necessity of observing other collateral results. The gap may be made so great as to diminish population; but it may be compensated by a more rapid reproduction; or, the rapidity of reproduction may itself be the cause of the disease; ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... feed on them in the lakes and shore-waters. A greater terror than the shark had appeared in their environment. The Ganoids and Dipneusts dwindle, and give birth to their few modern representatives. The sharks with crushing teeth diminish in number, and the sharp-toothed modern shark attains the supremacy in its class, and evolves into forms far more terrible than any that we know to-day. Skates and rays of a more or less modern type, and ancestral gar-pikes and sturgeons, enter the ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... By this means Caesar was continued five years longer in Gaul. 17. Nor was Pompey roused from his lethargy till the fame of that great commander's valour, riches, and humanity, began to make him suspect they would soon eclipse his own. 18. He now therefore did all in his power to diminish Caesar's reputation; obliging the magistrates not to publish any letters they received till he had diminished the credit of them, by spreading disadvantageous reports. 19. One or two accidents, also, helped to widen the separation; ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... far from intending to vindicate the sanguinary projects of heroes and conquerors, and would wish rather to diminish the reputation of their success, than the infamy of their miscarriages: for I cannot conceive, why he that has burned cities, wasted nations, and filled the world with horrour and desolation, should be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... heart, and mingle with and soothe her sorrow, if she can think of her boy, when he is gone, as always docile, tractable, submissive to her authority, and obedient to her commands. Such recollections, it is true, can not avail to remove her grief—perhaps not even to diminish its intensity; but they will greatly assuage the bitterness of it, and wholly take ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... found your life distasteful? My life did, and does, smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I saved and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... those ideas. They did not as yet know too much about the divine beings and their powers and wishes; familiarity had not yet bred contempt; religio, as we saw, was still strong among them—the feeling of awe that is likely to diminish or disappear when you have your god before you in the form of an idol. It is a principle of human nature that where knowledge is imperfect, care must be taken to be on the safe side; this is true of all practical undertakings, and as the religion of the Romans was that of a practical people ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... the evil of this," said the Douglas: "the ruffians will destroy each other, and the deer of the Highlands will increase as the men diminish. We shall gain as hunters the exercise we lose ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... humanity, stewards of some of God's best gifts, openers of the gates of the beautiful, and hence ushers into the vestibule of the glorious 'Land of the Hereafter.' May they all remember their lofty calling, and never diminish their usefulness by unworthy contests among themselves, or by sacrificing their own better judgment to the exigencies of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... countries, while their quality has not diminished. We should be sustaining an absolute paradox, and at the same time committing a crying injustice, were we to contest the high importance of recent progress, and to seek to diminish the glory of contemporary physicists. Yet it may be as well not to give way to exaggerations, however pardonable, and to guard against facile illusions. On closer examination it will be seen that our predecessors might at several periods ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... it be an advantage to express an idea in the smallest number of words, then will it be an advantage to express it in the smallest number of syllables. If circuitous phrases and needless expletives distract the attention and diminish the strength of the impression produced, then do surplus articulations do so. A certain effort, though commonly an inappreciable one, must be required to recognize every vowel and consonant. If, as all know, it is tiresome to listen to ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... at a minimum, and that, if utter loss of relation to the outer world were capable of destroying a man's consciousness of himself, the destruction of half of his sensitive surfaces might well occasion, in a less degree, a like result, and so diminish ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... that Mr. Lawes, at this time, was a believer in what was called "Liebig's Mineral Manure Theory." Liebig had said that "The crops on a field, diminish or increase in exact proportion to the diminution or increase of the mineral substances conveyed to it in manure." And enthusiastic gentlemen have been known to tell farmers who were engaged in drawing out farm-yard manure ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... great benefit to the human system, but strict vegetarianism is not recommended by our medical men. Nature apparently intended us to be omnivorous, and, in addition, vegetarianism may run too close to the dangers of carbohydrate excess. As man progresses after middle life he can unquestionably diminish materially the amount of ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... inspections, about the imminent arrival of impossibly large convoys, about news—received privately by the Colonel over the telephone—of defeats or victories. Nine times out of ten the rumour turns out to be groundless. But this does not cause the output of rumours to diminish. Apparently the army is a prolific soil for rumours, inasmuch as they have a special name: a rumour is called a buzz. "Only a buzz" ("it's only a rumour") is an expression often heard on the lips of soldiers. ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... guilt it is to mourn When such a sovereign reigns), Your guilt diminish; peace pursue; ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... rust calls on eternal night[250], Where flames consume, and yet we freeze with cold. Sorrow adds sulphur unto fury's heat, And chops them ice whose chattering teeth do beat; But sulphur, snow, flame, frost, nor hideous crying Can cause them die that ever are in dying, Nor make the pain diminish or increase: Sorrow is slack, and yet will ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... the Duke of Albemarle; but, contrarily, speaks much of his courage; but I do as plainly see that he do not like the Duke of Albemarle's proceedings, but, contrarily, is displeased therewith. And he do plainly diminish the commanders put in by the Duke, and do lessen the miscarriages of any that have been removed by him. He concurs with me, that the next bout will be a fatal one to one side or other, because, if we be beaten, we shall not be able to set out our fleete again. He do confess with me that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... cloud that shadowed the life of Lord Earle's beautiful daughter. The discovery did not diminish her love for the quiet, sad mother, whose youth and beauty had faded so soon. If possible, she loved her more; there was a pitying ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... you know that when favours are conferred upon instant and tedious solicitation, that they diminish in their value, and that both the giver loses the grace, and the receiver ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... wishes the happiness of his creatures; consequently, actions which promote that will and wish must be agreeable to him, and the contrary. The method of ascertaining the will of God concerning any action, by the light of nature, therefore, is to inquire into the tendency of the action to promote or diminish general happiness. Proceeding on those grounds, he then arrives at the conclusion, that whatever is expedient is right; and that it is the utility of any moral rule alone, which constitutes the obligation of it. In his further elucidation of this ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... it, called the "Strada Stretta," or narrow street. It was a street in which duels were tacitly permitted, or connived at, in Malta, and were suffered to pass as accidental encounters. Every where else they were prohibited. This restriction had been instituted to diminish the number of duels, formerly so frequent in Malta. As a farther precaution to render these encounters less fatal, it was an offence, punishable with death, for any one to enter this street armed with either poniard or pistol. It was a lonely, dismal street, just wide ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... preserved simply because the inhabitants have for centuries played no part in the political history of the country, and their pursuits or interests having remained constantly agricultural, they have been equally cut off from the commercial movement. But every year will diminish the charm of this dirty old town to the antiquary. It will be observed that all the old streets are not accidentally crooked, but that they have been carefully laid out on curved or zigzag lines, which turn now in one direction and now in another. The motive was a defensive one in ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... condition; that, as all the physicians had, the day before, stated that I must by no means be allowed to see anyone save Tanno or to leave my bedroom, for some days, he had told Ligo the evening before not to diminish his and his fellows' time for sight-seeing by coming on this particular morning; that Ligo had expressed his unalterable intention of coming each evening in ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... went the pistol, and in the mire Rolled Tink without a mew— Flop! fell his mistress in a stew! While Bill and Tom both fled, Leaving the accomplish'd Tink quite finish'd, For Bill had actually diminish'd The feline favorite by a head! Leaving his undone mistress to bewail, In deepest woe, And to her gossips to relate Her tabby's fate. This was her only consolation—for altho' She could not tell the head—she could ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... of his sagacity, and they were never restrained by private ambition or fear. It is probable that upon that cool review, which in the case of this singular figure is difficult, the sense of his potent accomplishment would not diminish, but increase. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... had experience of sweet and transient human love; we have had experience of changeful and ineffectual love; turn away from them all to this immortal, deep heart of Christ's, welling over with a love which no change can affect, which no separation can diminish, which no sin can provoke, which becomes greater and tenderer as our necessities increase, and ask Him to fill your hearts with that, that you may 'know the length and breadth and depth and height of that love which passeth knowledge,' and so 'be filled ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... sense. Such a mother-in-law is the earth, in respect of our natural mother; in her womb we grew, and when she was delivered of us, we were planted in some place, in some calling in the world; in the womb of the earth we diminish, and when she is delivered of us, our grave opened for another; we are not transplanted, but transported, our dust blown away with ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... of the interdiction of the African slave-trade was, not to diminish the trade itself, or greatly to mitigate its horrors; it only changed its name from African to American—transferred the seat of commerce from Africa to America—its profits from African princes to American farmers. Indeed, it is almost certain, if the African slave-trade had been left ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... goes upon two wheels, which are her feet, and are moved by bright steel legs called pistons; these are propelled by steam, and in proportion as more steam is applied to the upper extremities (the hip-joints, I suppose) of these pistons, the faster they move the wheels; and when it is desirable to diminish the speed, the steam, which unless suffered to escape would burst the boiler, evaporates through a safety valve into the air. The reins, bit, and bridle of this wonderful beast, is a small steel handle, which applies or withdraws the steam from its legs ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... ought it ever to be admitted in explanation of any phenomenon. For if even the complete intuition of a determinate space or time is thoroughly real, that is, if no part thereof is empty, yet because every reality has its degree, which, with the extensive quantity of the phenomenon unchanged, can diminish through endless gradations down to nothing (the void), there must be infinitely graduated degrees, with which space or time is filled, and the intensive quantity in different phenomena may be smaller or greater, although the extensive quantity of the intuition ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... passing into the frankest joy, has been spread over pregnancy, birth, and childhood. If many pangs and tears still prove how tentative and violent, even here, are nature's most brilliant feats, science and kindness may strive not unsuccessfully to diminish or abolish those profound traces of evil. But reproduction will not be perfectly organised until the second condition is fulfilled as well, and here nature has as yet been more remiss. Family life, as Western nations possess ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... my life. It has therefore required a great deal of courage to take up my pen and record a few recollections of South Africa. I felt that, were they ever to be written at all, it must be before the rapidly passing years diminish the interest in that land, which in the past has been the object of such engrossing attention; and that at the present time, when the impending Federation of South Africa has at length crowned the hopes of those ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... I was when leaving Kangwe, and there are so many ways of accounting for death about here—leopard, canoe capsize, elephants, etc.—that even if I were traced—well, nothing could be done then, anyhow—so will only take three Fans. One must diminish dead certainties to the level of sporting chances along here, or one can ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... to Edward, informing him of the change in her circumstances and her present occupation, saying she did not think the occupation would diminish her worth, or ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... bay of which they found plenty of drift wood. Sakalar was delighted. He was on the right track. A joyous halt took place, a splendid fire was made, and the whole party indulged themselves in a glass of rum—a liquor very rarely touched, from its known tendency to increase rather than diminish cold. A hole was next broken in the ice, and an attempt made to catch some seals. Only one, however, rewarded their efforts; but this, with a supply of wood, filled the empty space made in the sledges by the daily consumption of the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... truth. But he had hit upon a way of meeting the Rev. Bruno which promised greatly to diminish the suffering inherent in the situation. He would use the large-souled man deliberately for his mirth. Chilvers's self-absorption lent itself to persiflage, and by indulging in that mood Godwin tasted some compensation for the part he ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... forget the sledge-hammer blows with which he smote the table. The noise was distinctly audible in the room below, and gave one the idea that the table would be broken to pieces. In vain we withdrew from the table, hoping to diminish the power. The heavy blows increased in intensity, and the whole room shook with their force. The direst penalties were threatened if we again interfered with the development by bringing in new sitters. We have not ventured to do so again; and I do not ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... together meant ruin—certain, sure. Now, then, separated and going singly, there might be a thin strand of hope. Yet the man felt that, parted a single hour from the woman, and she still alive, his wofully small prospect would diminish and shrink to the vanishing point—New York juries being most notoriously easy upon women murderers who give themselves up and turn state's evidence; and, by the same mistaken processes of judgment, notoriously hard upon their male accomplices—half a dozen ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... are the hopes that made Bliss out of sorrow, and sun out of shade, Slipping away is our hold on life; And out of the struggle and wearing strife, From joys that diminish, and woes that increase, We are slipping away to ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... discover any soda. It is common water mechanically super-saturated with fixed air, which on being disengaged and rarified in the stomach, may, as Dr. Paris observes, so over distend the organ as to interrupt digestion, or diminish the powers of the digestive organs. When acid prevails in the stomach, which is generally the case the day after too free an indulgence in wine, true soda water, taken two or three hours before dinner, or an hour before breakfast, not only neutralizes the acid, but the fixed air, which is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... the death of the great novelist moved him to keener regret than did the death, at no considerable distance of time, of Wordsworth. With French communism or socialism neither husband nor wife, however republican in their faith, had sympathy; they held that its tendency is to diminish the influence of the individual, and that in the end the progress of the mass is dependent on the starting forth from the mass and the striding forward of individual minds. They believed as firmly as did Edmund Burke ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... increasing outgo, the Fifty-first Congress planned to diminish income, not by lowering tariff rates, as the last Administration had recommended, but by pushing them up to or toward the prohibitive point. The McKinley Act, passed October 1, 1890, made sugar, a lucrative revenue article, free, and gave a bounty to sugar producers in this country, together ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... to receive wholesome ordinances, and to consult upon the necessary affairs of the whole jurisdiction if necessity so required; and some image hereof is yet to be seen in the north parts. But as the number of churches increased, so the repair of the faithful unto the cathedrals did diminish; whereby they now become, especially in their nether parts, rather markets and shops for merchandise than solemn places of prayer, whereunto they were first erected. Moreover, in the said cathedral churches upon Sundays and festival days the canons do ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... new acquaintance did not diminish the charm of his society, though it brought to light some startling defects, both in his mental and moral organization. I have before said that his knowledge, though it had swept over a wide circuit and dipped into curious, unfrequented recesses, was desultory and erratic. It ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... opinion condemns more and more the attitude of society in former times, and discards the idea that one must accept evil, dam it in, and hide it as if it were some necessary sewer; for the only course for a free community to pursue is to foresee evil and grapple with it, and destroy it in the bud. To diminish the number of cast-off children one must seek out the mothers, encourage them, succor them, and give them the means to be mothers in fact as well as in name. At that moment, however, Mathieu did not reason; it was his heart that was affected, ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... who might be, if we chose, more effectively checked; who, if he has not yet attacked our own particular dwelling, may take us by surprise any day when we least expect him, and who does at all times very materially diminish our national wealth and increase our public burdens. Perhaps we should not style fire an enemy, but a mutinous servant, who does his work faithfully and well, except when neglected ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... of character must reject such a metaphysical entity, for one sees the organizing energy increase and diminish with the rest of character through health, age, environment, etc. Further, there is at work in all living things a similar something that organizes the action of the humblest bit of protoplasm. This organizing energy of character will be, for us, that something inherent ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... the Secret Police. I saw her very frequently on the street; passing her both on the sidewalk and on horseback. And if she were pining for the newly wedded husband, who had forsaken and denied her, she most assuredly did not show it. Nor did her impudence diminish. Whenever she saw me she tried to catch my eye. Several times it happened she was watching me when I first observed her; then, like a flash, she would bow and smile with the air of the most ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... thickness was the same, although the melting on the surface had now increased considerably. On July 4th the thickness was 2.57 metres. On July 10th I was amazed to find that the ice had increased to 2.76 metres, notwithstanding that it would now diminish several centimetres daily from surface melting. I bored in many places, but found it everywhere the same—a thin, somewhat loose ice mass lay under the old floe. I first thought it was a thin ice-floe that had got pushed under, but subsequently discovered that it ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... frequently the case with goods manufactured from shoddy), and are therefore dyed too dark a shade, then dye-stuffs have to be used which principally dye the cotton, and a too high temperature should be avoided. In such cases it is advisable to diminish the affinity of the wool by the addition of one-fifth of the original quantity of Glauber's salt (about 3/8 oz. per gallon water), and from three-quarters to four-fifths of the dye-stuff used for the first lot. Care has to be taken that not much of the dye liquor is lost when taking out the ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... during the afternoon to make a respectable showing on Hazel's outspread handkerchief. And Hazel was in a gleeful mood over the fact that she had unearthed a big nugget by herself. Beginner's luck, Bill said teasingly, but that did not diminish her elation. The old, adventurous glamour, which the long winter and moods of depression had worn threadbare, began to cast its pleasant spell over her again. The fascination of the gold hunt gripped her. Not for the stuff itself, but ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... fact about sun-spots is that they show definite periodic variations in number. The best-defined period is one of about eleven years. During this period the spots increase to a maximum in number and then diminish to a minimum, the variation being more or less regular. Now this can only mean one thing. To be periodic the spots must have some deep-seated connection with the fundamental facts of the sun's structure and activities. Looked at from ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... to come; for there is no thought in our minds of retreat, even if we find the unknown more distasteful than we think. But, courage! "Hope points before to guide us on our way," and, as yet, there is nothing in the prospect but what is bright and inspiriting, surely; nothing to diminish our youthful energy, nothing to daunt our British pluck! The past lies behind us, with its sweet and tender recollections, and with a softened sense of remembrance of those failures and sadnesses and bitternesses that are linked with them. Now ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
