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adjective
Contracted  adj.  
1.
Drawn together; shrunken; wrinkled; narrow; as, a contracted brow; a contracted noun.
2.
Narrow; illiberal; selfish; as, a contracted mind; contracted views.
3.
Bargained for; betrothed; as, a contracted peace. "Inquire me out contracted bachelors."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contracted" Quotes from Famous Books



... late hour he turned over, looked at the clock, grunted and grinned sleepily and lapsed off again into blissful oblivion, thereby cutting all his morning classes and generally submerging himself in the unregenerate ways of his graceless sophomoric year. He had never contracted to be conspicuously virtuous it ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... naught for me? To thee Come I, a poet, hereward haply blown, From out another worldflower lately flown. Wilt ask, What profit e'er a poet brings? He beareth starry stuff about his wings To pollen thee and sting thee fertile: nay, If still thou narrow thy contracted way, —Worldflower, if thou refuse me— —Worldflower, if thou abuse me, And hoist thy stamen's spear-point high To wound my wing and mar mine eye— Natheless I'll drive me to thy deepest sweet, Yea, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... he stopped short in amazement. He had never seen such an expression on her face before. Her brows were contracted, her lips set, her eyes looked sternly straight ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev

... new, and I did not know what to expect; but as the little canoe careered wildly down the slope from one lake to the next with, in the beginning, many a scrape on the rocks of the river bed, my nervous system contracted steadily till, at the foot where we slipped out into smooth water again, it felt as if dipped into ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... was a tall, gaunt woman of fifty years, with a cadaverous complexion and harsh, disagreeable features. A bitter, sardonic smile, caused by a lifetime of misery and suffering, habitually contracted her livid lips, her form being almost bent double; her mutilated arm and bilious face, enframed in a ragged cap, through which hung long wisps of gray hair, were alone ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue

... introduce a curious fact, which can have no bearing on the main lines of his descent, but holds collateral possibilities concerning it. His mother's name Wiedemann or Wiedeman appears in a merely contracted form as that of one of the oldest families naturalized in Venice. It became united by marriage with the Rezzonico; and, by a strange coincidence, the last of these who occupied the palace now owned by Mr. Barrett Browning was a Widman-Rezzonico. The present Contessa Widman has lately ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... their domestics, even in civil suits, previous to the reign of queen Anne; when an embassador from Peter the great, czar of Muscovy, was actually arrested and taken out of his coach in London, in 1708, for debts which he had there contracted. This the czar resented very highly, and demanded (we are told) that the officers who made the arrest should be punished with death. But the queen (to the amazement of that despotic court) directed her minister to inform him, "that the law of England had not yet protected embassadors from ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... Sherasmin, but soon, experiencing the same want himself, he drew forth Oberon's cup and made the sign of the cross. The cup filled and he drank it off, and handed it to Sherasmin, who followed his example. The Governor and his officers, seeing this abhorred sign, contracted their brows and sat in silent consternation. Huon pretended not to observe it, and having filled the cup again handed it to his uncle, saying, "Pray, join us, dear uncle; it is excellent Bordeaux wine, the drink that will be to ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... Eleanor slowly, deliberately, looking from the faded features of the withered woman to Mrs. Kachin's contracted mouth. "I will give ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... universal depravity. 24. Otho, who had long been a favourite of Galba, and hoped to be adopted a successor in the empire, finding himself disappointed, and stimulated by the immense load of debt which he had contracted by his riotous way of living, resolved upon obtaining the empire by force, since he could not do it by peaceable succession. Having corrupted the fidelity of the army, he stole secretly from the emperor while he was sacrificing, and, assembling the soldiers, he, in a short speech, urged the cruelties ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... working of affairs was very clear and far-reaching. Her father, who had also been a manufacturer, like Tom's, had often said it had been a mistake that she was a girl instead of a boy. Such executive ability as hers is often wasted in the more contracted sphere of women, and is apt to be more a disadvantage than a help. She was too independent and self-reliant for a wife; it would seem at first thought that she needed a wife herself more than she did a husband. Most men like best the women whose natures cling and appeal to theirs ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... the ant-eater reaches an enormous size. The capybara is also found. It is obliged to triturate its food—grass, and herbaceous plants—for a long time, in consequence of the contracted size of the oesophagus, which will hardly admit a goose-quill, although the animal is sometimes so large that it weighs more than two hundred pounds. Its destiny seems to be to feed jaguars, for they ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... I said. But little rain fell here; the wind lashed the ocean into fury along the coast, and then rolled in long, melancholy howls into the stretches of barren sand and interminable pine forest; the horizon contracted, though at all times it is narrower than anywhere else, the dome of the sky wider,—clouds and atmosphere forming the scenery, and the land but a round, flat standing-place: but now the sun went out; the air grew livid, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... linear, very long, arista bare, rather stout; thorax with three whitish stripes; pectus with a more distinct oblique white band on each side; metathorax whitish; abdomen aeneous, pubescent, finely punctured, reddish and slightly contracted towards the base, with two white bands, the second widely interrupted; oviduct long, lanceolate; legs piceous; wings nearly limpid, clouded with black at the tip of the costa and on the praebrachial transverse vein, hardly clouded on the discal ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various

... postulates than Kant had done. He started with a sun ready made,[1151] and surrounded with a vast glowing atmosphere, extending into space out beyond the orbit of the farthest planet, and endowed with a slow rotatory motion. As this atmosphere or nebula cooled, it contracted; and as it contracted, its rotation, by a well-known mechanical law, became accelerated. At last a point arrived when tangential velocity at the equator increased beyond the power of gravity to control, and equilibrium was restored by the separation of a nebulous ring revolving ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... I find that I cannot get my eyes into the centre, nor near the centre, of these glasses. Therefore, the lady's eyes are set very near to the sides of the nose. You will perceive, Watson, that the glasses are concave and of unusual strength. A lady whose vision has been so extremely contracted all her life is sure to have the physical characteristics of such vision, which are seen in the forehead, the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... All debts contracted since the Annexation will be payable in the same currency in which they may have been contracted; all uncancelled postage and other revenue stamps issued by the Government since the Annexation will remain valid, and will ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... the blood upon the sensibility of the skin, is further demonstrated by the pain experienced when chilled extremities are suddenly exposed to heat. The nerves, by the sudden dilatation of the contracted blood-vessels, are put in vivid and rapid motion, which causes the painful and tingling sensation that we experience. In every part of the system, sudden changes produce unpleasant sensations, and frequently a ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... the United States I had been doctored much and had worn glasses for four years. I also had catarrh, for which I had taken much medicine without being relieved. In addition to this I was an excessive smoker, using tobacco in some form almost constantly. I had contracted a smoker's heart, ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... prosecution of his designs by his successors. This policy, apparently so stupendous, was connected with a system of fiscal economy so rigorous, that the treasury augmented its stores, while the work of improvement went on; the public debt, contracted in past wars, dissolved away, and the nation flourished in unexampled prosperity. John Quincy Adams administered the Federal Government, while De Witt Clinton was presiding in the State of New York. It is refreshing to recall the noble emulation of these illustrious benefactors—an ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... urine. But the Cat mint is the detestation of rats, insomuch that with its leaves a small barricade may be constructed which the vermin will never pass however hungry they may be. It is sometimes called "Nep," as contracted from Nepeta. Hoffman said, "The root of the Cat mint, if chewed, will make the most gentle person fierce and quarrelsome"; and there is a legend of a certain hangman who could never find courage ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... furnishing his palaces: all these causes involved the king in great difficulties immediately after his restoration; and the parliament was not sufficiently liberal in supplying him. Perhaps, too, he had contracted some debts abroad; and his bounty to the distressed cavaliers, though it did not correspond either to their services or expectations, could not fail, in some degree, to exhaust his treasury. The extraordinary sums granted the king during the first years did not suffice for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... General," said Paisiello. "But I cannot give up the habit I have contracted in addressing sovereigns, who, compared with you, are but pigmies. However, I will not forget your commands, and, if I have been unfortunate enough to offend, I must throw myself on ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... fierce assaults upon inspiration been wielded in its defense. "Rationalism was not to be simply ignored," says Schaff, "but in the hand of that Providence which allows nothing to take place in vain, must serve the purpose of bringing to a new form the old, which, in its contracted sphere—that of mere understanding—it had profanely demolished. By this means a freer activity and fuller development were secured, and that want which lies at the root of all Rationalism, was supplied; namely, that religious truth shall not be confronted with the subjective ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... a capital boat, but Levi had long been beset by an ambition to sail something larger. This desire was about to be realized, for Mr. Watson, always a lover of the sea, had contracted for a yacht of eighty tons, at the establishment of a celebrated builder in the city. She was to be ready by the 1st of June, but she was not completely stored and furnished till ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... Clause 1. All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman

... you'd contracted to take the hull charge of two handfuls of buck-shot and slugs; but ez one eighth o' that amount would have done your business, and yet left enough to have gone round, promiskiss, and satisfied the other passengers, it wouldn't ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... a glance that a dark frown contracted his eyebrows, and that the compressed muscles of his upper lip gave a strange degree of austerity to his open face. He carried his head proudly on high, determined to be dignified in spite of his misfortunes, and advanced two steps into the room without ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope

... the lady picturesque," he answered affectedly, but his brows suddenly contracted and his eyes shot together, as they always did when angry. He had been jealous before now of that shambling, awkward, ill-favored and true-hearted Alick, that loyal knight and faithful watchdog whom he despised with such high-hearted contempt; and he was not pleased ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... they took had caused him to get backward with the general expenses. He had also been over liberal to his mother. Money was owing on all sides; for large things and for small; how much, Lionel did not yet know. He did not know—he was afraid to guess—what private debts might have been contracted by his wife. There had been times lately, when, in contemplating the embarrassment growing so hopelessly upon him, Lionel had felt inclined to wish that some climax would come and end it; but he had never dreamt of such a climax ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... question of the refugees, the clamours of the Jingo Colonials, and the extreme seriousness of the military situation at one time, it was perfectly marvellous that he did not break down. Instead, as very few men could have done, he kept a clear-headed shrewdness, owing to which the Empire most certainly contracted an immense debt of gratitude toward him for not having allowed himself to yield to the temptation of retaliating upon those who had made his task such a particularly hard one. His forbearance ought never to be lost sight of ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... varied to an extraordinary degree, so that on different occasions he had appeared to be aiming at the process termed by the initiated "getting on the money." The warm friendships, too, which the old soldier had contracted with sundry vacuous and sappy youths, who were kindly piloted by him into quasi-fashionable life and shown how and when to spend their money, had been most uncharitably commented upon. Perhaps the vagueness ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... that Mrs. Hanson approved of the marriage. On the contrary, it was the cause of her death, a fortnight later. In 1828 the marriage was annulled, a jury having decided that Lord Portsmouth was 'non compos mentis' when he contracted it.] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... Sabina not merely on account of the fact that by reason of resemblance to her he had been made a eunuch, but because the boy like the mistress had been solemnly contracted to him in Greece, with Tigillinus to give the bride away, as the law ordained. All the Greeks held a festal celebration of their marriage, uttering all the customary good wishes (as they could not well help) even to the extent of praying that legitimate children ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... airete. You will think that I am inventing, but I say that if kakia is right, then arete is also right. But what is kakon? That is a very obscure word, to which I can only apply my old notion and declare that kakon is a foreign word. Next, let us proceed to kalon, aischron. The latter is doubtless contracted from aeischoroun, quasi aei ischon roun. The inventor of words being a patron of the flux, was a great enemy to stagnation. Kalon is to kaloun ta pragmata—this is mind (nous or dianoia); which ...
— Cratylus • Plato

... and laughter of people snowballing in the streets when he heard a laboured step on the stair behind him. It was Brother Paul coming up with a spade to shovel away the snow. His features were pinched and contracted, and his young face was looking ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... Turkey have now given way to the splendid varieties of America, and my knowledge halts behind the age. The black sticks resembling lollipops are said to be compounds of rum, bullocks' blood and tobacco lees. A taste for them, when once contracted, is abiding. Fine volatile tobacco, with aromatic delicacy, requires a long tube; used in a short pipe of modern fashion, they parch and shrivel the tongue. In short, what is true of all other pleasures ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... From that moment they contracted a most sacred friendship, whose union was so strict, that ever after they seemed to have but one heart and one soul: insomuch that Father Xavier undertook not any thing without consulting the bishop first; and the bishop, on his side, imparted all his designs to Father Xavier: and it ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... miles, we had a view of white Augusta, with its steeples, and the State-House, at the farther end of the town. Observable matters along the road were the stage,—all the dust of yesterday brushed off, and no new dust contracted,—full of passengers, inside and out; among them some gentlemanly people and pretty girls, all looking fresh and unsullied, rosy, cheerful, and curious as to the face of the country, the faces of passing travellers, and the incidents of their journey; not yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... required for the cattleman to act. They formed his system of logic and the most of his creed. McGuire was the seventh invalid whom Raidler had picked up thus casually in San Antonio, where so many thousand go for the ozone that is said to linger about its contracted streets. Five of them had been guests of Solito Ranch until they had been able to leave, cured or better, and exhausting the vocabulary of tearful gratitude. One came too late, but rested very comfortably, at last, under a ratama tree in ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... swaying slightly upon his feet. He was frightfully pale, and his countenance was contracted as if in pain. He lifted a wavering ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... child, Monsieur Loring?—the mother who went mad and died, and the child whom you sold to Kenneth McVeigh?—sold as a slave for his bachelor establishment; a slave who would look like a white girl, whom you contracted should have the accomplishments of a white girl, but without a white girl's inconvenient independence, and the ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... which had become impared by toil and exposure, he had hardly recovered from the fatigue of the journey when he requested to be allowed to return to his mission, where his presence was needed. It was while in the active discharge of his duty among the sick that he contracted the disease of which he died in the midst of his people, who were well nigh inconsolable for their loss. The obituary letter announcing his death to the other Jesuit missionaries contains a glowing eulogy of the man and his work. His ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... Mrs. McKinstry's dark face contracted. "Don't you see, Maw," struck in Cressy quickly. "Teacher drinks sometimes, but he don't USE ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... over castles and towers, rivers and crags; and where did we descend, but by one of the gates of the daughters of Belial, on the posterior side of the city of Perdition, and I could there perceive, that the three gates of Perdition contracted into one on the hinder side, and opened into the same place—a place foggy, cold, and pestilential, replete with an unwholesome vapour, and clouds, lowering and terrible. "Pray, sir," said I, "what dungeon of a place is this?" "The chambers of Death," said Sleep. ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... landlord ready to have the Tarantella danced for us. We framed a discreeter fiction than that prepared for us by the patriarch, and went in to dinner, where there were two Danish gentlemen in dispute with as many rogues of boatmen, who, having contracted to take them back that night to Naples, were now trying to fly their bargain and remain at Capri till the morrow. The Danes beat them, however, and then sat down to dinner, and to long stories of the imposture and villany of the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... the following summary:—"Large sums have, from time to time, been lent to various foreign states by English capitalists, whose money has been put to great hazard, and, in some cases, lost. On the other hand, many foreign loans have been contracted by our merchants, which have proved highly profitable, through the progressive sale of the stock in foreign countries at higher than the contract prices. It is evidently impossible to form any correct estimate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... wandered from the bright cross above the little cemetery where he was to lie, and contracted with an expression of wonder. Where had Jon found Castilian roses in this barren land? No man had ever been more blest in a servant, but could even he—here— With the last triumph of will over matter he raised his head, his keen, searching gaze noting every detail of the room, ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... coming in with a few geranium leaves and a white fuchsia which she had purloined from her mistress' house plants, announced Mrs. Van Buren's arrival, and the pleasant morning was at an end. Mrs. Dr. Van Buren had come up from Boston to borrow money from her sister for the liquidation of certain debts contracted by her son, and which she had not the ready means to meet. Aunt Barbara had accommodated her once or twice before, saying to her as she signed the check, "That money in the bank was put there for Ethie, but no one knows if she will ever need it, so it may as well do somebody ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... the female pronucleus is shown in this figure. The skein is contracted and thickened. The attraction-spheres are near one side of the ovum, and are connected with its periphery by a cone of fibres forming a polar circle, ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... married the daughter of a great merchant, a delicate type of beauty; the last to fascinate a buccaneer, according to the gossips of the time. Rumor had it that he had taken her for the wherewithal to pay the enormous debts contracted in his latest exploit. To disprove this he went to sea in a temper with a frigate and came back laden with the treasure of half a dozen galleons, to find that his wife had died at the birth of a son. He promised himself to settle down for good; but the ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... seduced into the use of narcotics, not secretly, but (such was my ignorance) openly and exultingly, as one who had discovered, and was never weary of recommending, a grand panacea, and saw not the truth till my body had contracted a habit and a necessity; and that, even to the latest, my responsibility is for cowardice and defect of fortitude, not for the least craving after gratification or pleasurable sensation of any sort, but for yielding to pain, terror, and haunting bewilderment. But this I say ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... custody of the children, in case of divorce, is given to the innocent party, except when the children are below the age of five years, in which case they are left with the mother. Mutual consent of the married is not a ground for divorce. All marriages contracted in opposition to the canon laws are considered null. The Diocesan Council is the sole competent authority to judge affairs of divorce, its decisions being submitted to the approval of ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox

... Stratford, in a manuscript memorandum book written in the year 1664, asserts that "Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben Johnson had a merie meeting, and itt seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a feavour there contracted." ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot[3] family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... person whom I mistook for a farm labourer, but who proved to be a National schoolmaster who absorbed whiskey like the desert sands. A decent farmer who thought the Land League the finest thing in the wuruld, complained that while the British Government have contracted for hay at L8 15s., yet he and his friends could only get L3 for "best saved." His idea of Home Rule was—No Rent to pay. A ferocious commercial traveller, whose jaw and cheekbones were as much too large as his eyes and forehead were too small, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... by just degrees, to the particulars of this part of my story:—You may suppose, that having now lived almost four years in the Brazils, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my plantation, I had not only learned the language, but had contracted an acquaintance and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among the merchants at St. Salvador, which was our port; and that, in my discourses among them, I had frequently given them an account of my two voyages to the coast of Guinea, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... makeshift and the answer is, eventually, a properly designed service wing, architecturally in keeping with the 18th century but mechanically modern. Even under these makeshift conditions, however, the assembly idea has been followed and this somewhat mitigates the drawback of contracted space. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... Teresa's attention than the management of her family. But as Marie Antoinette grew up, the Empress-queen's ambition, ever on the watch to maintain and augment the prosperity of her country, perceived in her child's increasing attractions a prospect of cementing more closely an alliance which she had contracted some years before, and on which she prided herself the more because it had terminated an enmity of two centuries and a half. From the day on which Charles V, prevailed over Francis I. in the competition for the imperial crown, the attitude of the Emperor ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... as you may suppose, kindly received by Mr. Trevannion and his daughter, and soon gained their affection; but she pined for your return, and when she was told that you were dead she never recovered it. The climate certainly did not agree with her, and she contracted a very bad cough during the winter, but I believe from my heart that it was your loss which affected her the most severely. After she had been about eighteen months in England, she fell into a consumption ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... as her mate. A short time having passed after the nuptials, the Eagle {said}: "Go and carry off for me the booty you promised me." Soaring aloft, the Kite brings back a field-mouse, most filthy, and stinking from long-contracted mouldiness. "Is this," said the Eagle, "the performance of your promise?" The Kite replied to her: "That I might contract a marriage with royalty, there is nothing I would not have pledged myself to do, although I knew that I ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... had been presented to him; the Cardinal would know his name, and what his business was; and that is always a step towards consideration. Cabrero, the royal Chamberlain, was also often a fellow-guest at the Treasurer's table; and with him Columbus contracted something like a friendship. Every one who met him liked him; his dignity, his simplicity of thought and manner, his experience of the sea, and his calm certainty and conviction about the stupendous thing which ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... and his wife, a missionary from South America. Like most lonely ladies, Lady Frances found her comfort and occupation in religion. Dr. Shlessinger's remarkable personality, his whole hearted devotion, and the fact that he was recovering from a disease contracted in the exercise of his apostolic duties affected her deeply. She had helped Mrs. Shlessinger in the nursing of the convalescent saint. He spent his day, as the manager described it to me, upon a lounge-chair on the veranda, with an attendant ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle

... 36: The founder and first legislator of the German nation, to whom after his deification the fourth day of our week was consecrated, now contracted from Wodon's day ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... extremely thin. Their movements were occasioned, as Mr. Edgeworth supposed, from the warm moisture of the hand, but depended upon the manner in which they were placed. If the middle of the fish was made to touch the warmest part of the hand, it contracted, and set the ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... a piece of stone to his left hand, to his right, and after going many yards at what was but a snail's pace, he discovered that the place had suddenly contracted, and after creeping a little farther, the place was more contracted still, and ascended. So narrowed was it now that a couple of steps in either direction enabled him to touch a wall, while about twenty short paces farther on the ascent grew much ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... fired shell at any moving or stationary object they could catch sight of—sometimes at a single scout. They often fired their pompom at a range of about 5000 yards at the vultures feeding on the dead horses under Devon Post. On this day they sent three 40-lb. shells at an old man named Brown who contracted for the dead horses. Brown used to take these out into the open in full view of the Boers, to some flat ground under the Post, and there skin them at his leisure. The old man would take his load out once a day in a four-horsed cart. If he was seen by the Boers he would come back at ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson

... number of contracted forms, such as 't is, shortened to 'tis, in order to preserve the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... accept the said inheritance with the said condition, I leave my soul as my heir to the whole of the said remainder. My executors shall do with it as they deem best for the good of my soul, in accordance with what I have contracted and agreed with the said father commissary. And if the said my wife shall accept the said inheritance, and shall bind herself to the sum of the two thousand pesos, they shall be employed as is stated, and they shall be distributed; for this is my intention, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... the same was begun. And when the shipping was in a maner prepared, and men ready vpon the coast to go aboord: at that time some brake consort, and followed courses degenerating from the voyage before pretended: Others failed of their promises contracted, and the greater number were dispersed, leauing the Generall with few of his assured friends, with whom he aduentured to sea: where hauing tasted of no lesse misfortune, he was shortly driuen to retire home with the losse ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... obtaining words only, and scarcely anything serious or effective. She had, it is true, received some money for her own use, either in repayment of that which she had formerly lent the Queen, or for the discharge of debts contracted during exile and in the interest of Anne of Austria. On returning to Court, one of her earliest steps was to withdraw her friend and protege, Alexandre de Campion, from the service of the Vendomes, and place ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... Dryden, or Pope. I will not take upon me to determine the exact import of the promise which, by the act of writing in verse, an Author in the present day makes to his reader: but it will undoubtedly appear to many persons that I have not fulfilled the terms of an engagement thus voluntarily contracted. They who have been accustomed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers, if they persist in reading this book to its conclusion, will, no doubt, frequently have to struggle with feelings of strangeness and awkwardness: they will look round for poetry, and will ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... time, and if you have done as my class did before you, you have already thrown your books away, and only await the moment of the conclusion of these ceremonies to don the garb of the officer or the civilian. The shell of the cadet is too contracted to contain your impatient spirits. Nevertheless, if you will listen but for a few minutes to the relation of an old soldier, I will repeat of the lessons of experience a few of those most ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... a fracture should be commenced as soon after the accident as possible, before the muscles become contracted and hold the fragments in abnormal positions, and before the blood and serum effused into the tissues ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... enough for that," he had decided, "when Steens became his, as some day it must;" for the estate ever since the first Stephen acquired it in the Wars of the Roses and gave it his name ('Steens' being but 'Stephen's' contracted) had been a freehold patrimony descending regularly from father to son or next heir. All in good time Roger Stephen would marry and install his wife in the manor-house. But the shop in Coinagehall Street was no place for a woman. She would be a nuisance, sweeping the place out and upsetting him ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... vegetables; and when drained, put them into a large stock jar. Boil the vinegar, pour it over some more of the vegetables, let them lie all night, and complete the operation as before. Thus proceed till each set is cleansed from the dust they may have contracted. Then to every gallon of vinegar, put two ounces of flour of mustard, gradually mixing in a little of it boiling hot, and stop the jar tight. The whole of the vinegar should be previously scalded, and set to cool before it is put to the spice. This pickle will not be ready for a ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... real-estate investments he greatly increased his wealth. His eldest son, Maurice, was, at his own request, sent to the Eastern States, where educational advantages were greater; he entered, in due time, one of the best and oldest universities, and, to the great disappointment of his father, contracted a violent enthusiasm for natural science. Being convinced, however, that remonstrance was vain, the old gentleman gradually learned to look with a certain vague respect upon his son's enigmatical pursuits, and at last surprised the latter ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... a long row past the valleys which ran inland, and down one of which the doctor declared that he saw a reindeer; and in due time the fiord contracted, the rocks on either side towered up with their ledges displaying row after row of sea-birds ready to take flight and utter their wild clamour, as in the distance they resembled a snowstorm of which the great ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... of three thousand five hundred white persons, including three hundred soldiers, turned out for the exciting operation of clearing Van Diemen's Land by means of a cordon across the island. All seemed to be going well until the line of beaters contracted, when it was found that the natives were in the rear, instead of in the front. The attempt proved a total failure; only two natives were captured. The total cost of the expedition amounted to L35,000. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... persons, and is the largest in Spain.... 'El Tato' is the second matador of Spain: he is a well-looking and remarkably well-grown young man, and a well-grown figure is set off to great advantage by the dress. The horses used are only fit for the knacker's yard; they are contracted for at about six pounds each; on this occasion thirteen or fourteen were killed. As regards the horses, it is a cruel and disgusting sight; but as between the bull and the matador, the display of courage, eye and presence ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... the ability to do so"; and I have always counted it an impudent fiction that playfulness is inconsistent with greatness. Many men and women have died of Dignity, but the disease which sent them to the tomb was not contracted from Charles Dickens. Not long ago, I met in the street a bleak old character, full of dogmatism, egotism, and rheumatism, who complained that Dickens had "too much exuberant sociality" in his books for him, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... statesmen in their various types, men of firmer movement and less dreamy air; the scholar, the speaker, the plodder; the man whose mind grew with his growth in years, and the man whose mind contracted with the same. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... not above fourteen or fifteen miles west from the Cat-stane. For, in his famous sentence regarding the termination of the walls of Antoninus on the Forth, he states that the Picts called this eastern "head of the wall" Pean-fahel, but the Angles called it Pennel-tun. To a contracted variety of this Pictish word signifying head of the wall, or to its Welsh form Pengual, they added the Saxon word "town," probably to designate the "villa," which, according to an early addition to Nennius, was placed there. "Pengaaul, quae villa ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... had a nice trip, good outfit and strong cattle. Uncle Jess mounted us ten horses to the man, every one fourteen hands or better, for we were contracted for delivery in Nebraska. It was a five months' drive with scarcely an incident on the way. Just a run or two and a dry drive or so. I had lots of time to think about Kate. When we reached the Chisholm crossing on Red ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... Uncle Harry's wishes are very plain; his will is not a dozen lines," and Mrs Clair sighed deeply. She knew her husband had died poor—not worth a couple of hundred pounds, perhaps—but she did not know of the many small debts contracted through thoughtlessness, and left unpaid through carelessness, or she would have been still more anxious about the future. It was the sudden feeling of loneliness and desolation, the sudden sense of responsibility and helplessness combined, that ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... sandy bottom changed and contracted until the channel was scarcely wide enough for the meager stream of water, and beside it she picked her way along a narrow bridle-path with banks on either side, which became with every mile more like cliffs, walling her in and dooming her to a ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... respect to the said captains, officers, and soldiers, you shall observe, and cause to be observed, their privilege of exemption from arrest for debt contracted while they were in the service; or the seizure of their weapons, horses, or other things needful and proper to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair

... well-earned holiday, which he did as often as he was able, he astonished the neighbours with his broadcloth, his beaver hat, and the ample plies of his neckcloth. Though an eminently solid man at bottom, after the pattern of Hob, he had contracted a certain Glasgow briskness and APLOMB which set him off. All the other Elliotts were as lean as a rake, but Clement was laying on fat, and he panted sorely when he must get into his boots. Dand said, chuckling: "Ay, Clem has the elements of a corporation." "A provost and corporation," returned ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... dressed, and he was very civil, but what he really owed his social advancement to was his indomitable will. That quality governs all things, and though the will of Seymour Hicks was directed to what many may deem a petty or a contracted purpose, life is always interesting when you have a purpose and live in its fulfilment. It appeared from what he told Endymion that matters at the office had altered a good deal since he left it. The retirement of St. Barbe was the first brick out of the wall; now, which Endymion ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... cruizey. The cruizey was all the lamp Thrums had in those days, though it is only to be seen in use now in a few old-world houses in the glens. It is an ungainly thing in iron, the size of a man's palm, and shaped not unlike the palm when contracted and deepened to hold a liquid. Whale-oil, lying open in the mould, was used, and the wick was a rash with the green skin peeled off. These rashes were sold by herd-boys at a halfpenny the bundle, but Cree gathered his own wicks. The rashes skin readily when you know how to do it. The iron ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... death, and little did they dream that they had escaped that terrible storm only to meet still greater perils. Soon they found that they were victims of an infamous treachery, that the merchants who had been so praised in preparing vessels for their use, were simply slave-dealers who had contracted (and probably for an enormous amount of money)—to sell those unsuspecting children to the Mohammedans—the very nation whom the youthful Crusaders had gone forth to conquer, to whom such a consignment of fair young slaves would ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... last chance, I remembered I had not examined the three great marble columns, each of such circumference that a man could not embrace them in his arms. I dashed forward, and in the blinding smoke, that caused my eyes to water and held my chest contracted, I tried to investigate whether they were what they appeared to be, solid and substantial supports. The first was undoubtedly fashioned out of a single block of stone, the lower portion polished by the thousands of people who during many centuries had ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... with the emperor acquired a fresh impetus when Charles VIII sent back Margaret of Burgundy to her father Maximilian, and contracted a marriage with Anne ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... The brow of Harper contracted, and a deeper shade of melancholy crossed his features; his eye kindled with a transient beam of fire, that spoke a latent source of deep feeling. The admiring gaze of the younger of the sisters had barely ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... the reader's idea is of the effect produced on the company by this terrible sentence, against which there could be no appeal. There was something pitiless in Pennewip's manner, and in his contracted eyebrows there was no ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... the winter of 1917-18 the working force of the Massachusetts Historical Society was contracted into one room—the Dowse Library—where was at least a semblance [8]of warmth in ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville

... him. Fortunately the advanced division of the Ninth Corps returning from Vicksburg reached Cincinnati on the 12th, and although the troops were wholly unfit for active service by reason of malarial diseases contracted on the "Yazoo," they could relieve some of the Kentucky garrisons, and Burnside was thus enabled to increase his moving column to about 15,000 men. The earlier stages of the advance were slow, as the columns were brought into ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... to jar and squeak queerly. His face was distorted, his lips were stretched into a big grimace and were quivering, and from his small eyes frequent tears were running over the now contracted wrinkles of his face. He looked so pitiful and so unlike himself, that Foma stopped short, pressed him close to his body with the tenderness of a strong man ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... principal tract of land lies nearly in a triangular form, commencing in latitude 43 degrees, and extending about sixty-miles along the coast. In 1824, this incorporated company contracted with Government for this line of country and some others, as well as for a portion of the clergy reserves, comprehending in all about two million acres, payable in fifteen ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... Boy, riding hard, came into camp with a doctor, followed discreetly in the rear by an N. W. M. P., really mounted this time. It had occurred to the Boy that people looked at him hard, and when he saw the groups gathered about the tent his heart contracted sharply. Had the Colonel died? He flung himself off the horse, winced as his foot cried out, told Joey Bludsoe to look after both beasts a minute, and led the Dawson doctor ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... on. I miscalculated. What then? It is all over. Another life! Men talk of 'another life,' as if it only began on the other side of the grave. I have long entered on another life." With the last words she raised her arms till they were bare to the elbow, her brow was contracted in one deep fold, her eyes were closed, her voice was smothered: in her dusky flame-colored garment, she looked like a dreamed visitant from some region ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... real hummers, your boss and mine, when it comes to sheddin' the mazuma an' never mindin' other folks' feelin's. What did they do when they hit Linderman? The carpenters was just putting in the last licks on a boat they'd contracted to a 'Frisco bunch for six hundred. Sprague and Stine slipped 'em an even thousand, and they jumped their contract. It's a good-lookin' boat, but it's jiggered the other bunch. They've got their outfit right here, but no boat. And they're stuck ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... Authoritie and Reason on her waite, As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and to consummate all, Greatness of mind and nobleness thir seat Build in her loveliest, and create an awe About her, as a guard Angelic plac't. To whom the Angel with contracted brow. 560 Accuse not Nature, she hath don her part; Do thou but thine, and be not diffident Of Wisdom, she deserts thee not, if thou Dismiss not her, when most thou needst her nigh, By attributing ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... of the fog favored us at last, and we ran into the little harbor. I walked the contracted hurricane deck at three o'clock, with the sunset already flushing the west, looked on the town and land, and thought of my friend Dr. Kane. The mercury had fallen to 16 deg., a foot of snow covered the house-roofs, the low, undulating hills all wore the same monotonous ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... contracted, indeed, in its dimensions, that his toilette was not completed without his elbows having first suffered severe abrasions. His mechanical turnip showed him that he had no time to lose, and the furious ringing of a bell, whose noise was echoed by the bells of other colleges, made him dress ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... a fearful hailstorm of projectiles, this square still resisted. It was commanded by an obscure officer by the name of Cambronne. At each volley the square still diminished, but continued to reply to the canister with musketry fire, and each moment contracted its four walls. Fugitives in the distance, stopping at moments to draw breath, listened in the darkness to this gloomy diminishing thunder. When this legion had become only a handful, when their colors were but a rag, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... away soon after that, the nurse informed him. And toward dawn Clayton left Audrey in the sick room and found Graham. He was asleep in a chair in the waiting-room, and looked boyish and very tired. Clayton's heart contracted. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... to Madame de Meilhan. On our return to the chateau I questioned her, and learned that my beautiful unknown was named Madame Louise Guerin. At that word "Madame" my heart contracted. Wherefore? I could not tell. Afterwards I learned that she was a widow and poor, that she lived by the labor of those pretty fingers which I had seen dabbling in the water. Further than that, Madame de Meilhan knew nothing, her remarks were confined to indulgent ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... people consulted you in their difficulties?-They have; and I am aware personally of fishermen having contracted debts which their survivors could not possibly liquidate. In the case of men who have lost their lives by accident, I have known that the firm by whom these men were employed have lost considerably: that, I had reason to believe was in consequence of the present system; ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... with anxious scrutinising eyes. No, George Fairfax had not deceived her. He had the look of a man who was going the wrong way. There were premature lines across the forehead, and about the dark brilliant eyes; a nervous expression in the contracted lips. It was the face of a man who burns the candle of life at both ends. Late hours, anxiety, dissipation of all kinds, had set their ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... sufficient to destroy their credit in New York or London and make them the target of every virtuous newspaper which voices the sentiment of the class that deals in "futures" and "corners." As an illustration, take the State of Virginia. The people of that State contracted large debts to aid and abet the cause of the so-called Confederate Government, a thing which crystallized around the question: "Have the Sovereign States absolute, undivided authority to regulate their own internal concerns, ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... influences. Beyond this sphere there were continual warfare, piracy, migrations of barbaric hordes, and disturbances of all kinds, among which, if a stranger ventured, it was at the almost certain risk of losing his life or liberty. The area of undisturbed seas became more and more contracted in proportion as the memory of past defeats faded away. Cyprus was not comprised within it, and the AEgeans, who were restrained by the fear of Egypt from venturing into any region under her survey, perpetually flocked thither ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... vision of heaven; bids him listen to the music of the spheres, which, as they move in their order, "by a modulation of high and low sounds", give forth that harmony which men have in some poor sort reduced to notation. He bids him look down upon the earth, contracted to a mere speck in the distance, and draws a lesson of the poverty of all mere earthly fame and glory. "For all those who have preserved, or aided, or benefited their country, there is a fixed and definite place in heaven, where ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... that old people are more alike than middle-aged people. There is something of the same narrowness and similarity in the range of their tastes and feelings that is marked in children. The reason they thought to be that the interests of age have contracted to about the same scope as those of childhood before it has expanded into maturity. The skein of life is drawn together to a point at the two ends and spread out in the middle. Middle age is the period of most diversity, when individuality is most pronounced. The members ...
— The Old Folks' Party - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... affinity, or any other lawful cause whatsoever, there be no lawful impediment on this behalf; and that there be not at this time any action, suit, plaint, quarrel, or demand, moved or depending before any judge ecclesiastical or temporal, for or concerning any marriage contracted by or with either of you; and that the said marriage be openly solemnized in the church above-mentioned, between the hours of eight and twelve in the forenoon; and without prejudice to the minister of the place where the said woman is ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... sum of $1010 was to be paid him. In the course of the preparation of the wire several improvements occurred to me of an economical character, in which Mr. Chase cheerfully concurred, although at a considerable loss to him of labor contracted for; so that my wire has been prepared at a cost of $551.25, which is receipted in full, instead of $1010, producing ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... and they confidently expected that their strenuous efforts would be seconded by some divine and miraculous aid. The enemies of Constantine have imputed to interested motives the alliance which he insensibly contracted with the Catholic church, and which apparently contributed to the success of his ambition. In the beginning of the fourth century, the Christians still bore a very inadequate proportion to the inhabitants of the empire; but among a degenerate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... his mother for having contracted an intimacy with such a man. Hence the change of name—he belonged to neither of them. But as this was at adolescence, the unrest of the youth should not be ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... were the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave. I saw my father's situation entailed on me perpetual labour. The only two openings by which I could enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain-making. The first is so contracted an aperture I never could squeeze myself into it—the last I always hated—there was contamination in the very entrance! Thus abandoned of aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well from native hilarity as from a pride of observation ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... Abby Kelly, a little New England woman, with, as the name would indicate, an Irish crossing of the blood. I heard her once, and it seemed to me that I never listened to a tongue that was so sharp and merciless. Her eyes were small and it appeared to me that they contracted, when she was speaking, until they emitted sparks of fire. Although she went by her maiden name, she was a married woman, being the wife of Stephen Foster, a professional Abolitionist agitator and lecturer. Although himself noted ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... by, and still the treasure was unfound. Of course, as the unexplored space in the cave contracted, so daily the probability grew stronger that Fortune would shed her golden smile upon us before night. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that the optimistic spirits of most were beginning to flag a little. Only Mr. Shaw, though banned ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... were attracted in her direction. Then the appetizing smell filled the coach, making the nostrils dilate and mouths water, while the jaws under the ears contracted painfully. The contempt of the ladies for this girl was becoming ferocious, developing into a desire to kill her or throw her, with her drinking cup, her basket and her provisions, out of the coach on ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... threads, as shown in figures 57 and 60, also in figures 62 and 63, the latter taken from the metaphase of the first maturation spindle. If these linin connections persist, as they appear to do, from the segmentation of the spireme to metakinesis, the first division of the contracted tetrads must be longitudinal, corresponding to the split in the segments of figures 55, 57, 58, etc. The chromosomes in the metaphase usually appear as dumbbells (fig. 66) or elongated crosses (fig. 67), but occasionally ...
— Studies in Spermatogenesis (Part 1 of 2) • Nettie Maria Stevens

... "It must be due to some now forgotten superstition."[49] Soon after the Yakuts saw a camel for the first time smallpox broke out amongst them. They thought the camel to be the agent of the disease.[50] A woman amongst the same people contracted an endogamous marriage. She soon afterwards became blind. This was thought to be on account of the violation of ancient customs.[51] A very great number of such cases could be collected. In fact they represent the current mode of reasoning of nature people. It is their ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... him, in a similar chair and with a similar glass, was no less an individual than our old acquaintance, Von Baumser. As a mercantile clerk in the London office of a Hamburg firm the German was thrown into contact with the shippers of the African fleet, and had contracted a special alliance with the bibulous Miggs, who was a social soul in his hours ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... trembled with emotion, she permitted him to leave her, stung almost to madness by the disclosure her request implied. Did she play? was that fatal propensity added to her numerous other errors? and yet never had anything fallen under his eye to prove that she did. And what debts had she contracted to demand such a sum? Grahame felt she had deceived him; that the money had never been expended on herself; but he would not torture himself by demanding a true and full disclosure. The conduct of his children had ever grieved him, and fearing too justly ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... you have been a great comfort to me; you have, indeed, taken the place of the little girl who never lived to call me father—and—have helped me to bear other troubles also," he concluded, flushing hotly, while a heavy frown contracted, his brow. ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... gaze was troubled; her lovely countenance, pale with a translucent pallor, was contracted with a touching expression of melancholy. She looked like Our Lady of Sorrows. Two tears rose slowly to her eyes, and began to steal down ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... are specially susceptible to it. According to his own statement it sufficed for him to pass anywhere near the plant, even without touching it, to become afflicted with the disease. In this case he did not even know where he had contracted it, until the cook showed him some specimens of the plant near an oak tree close by the kitchen tent. The poor fellow's lips were badly swollen; he had acute pains in his eyes, and felt unable to move. Sometimes, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... continued on their way to the fort. They had contracted a strong friendship, and were unreserved in their communication ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... word is the Muzungu of the Zanzibar coast, and contracted to Utanga and even Tanga it is found useful in expressing foreign wares; Utangani's devil-fire, for instance, is ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... addressed by an officer to troops on parade, or by a rider to his horse. Their effect on Snarley was instantaneous. Turning full round, he drew himself erect and faced us in an attitude of much dignity. Every trace of his brutal expression slowly vanished; his huge features contracted to the human size; the rents of passion softened into lines of thought; wisdom and benignity sat upon his brows; and he was calm and still as the Sphinx in ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks

... yet heard. My sister, who has certainly no admiration for the honors that have humiliated our race for so many generations—I might say ages—have we not ancient honors, Adelheid, as well as thou?—my sister is contracted to one who bargains for eternal secrecy on this point, as the condition of his accepting the hand and ample dowry of one of the gentlest of human beings! Thou seest that others are not as generous as thyself, Adelheid! My father, anxious ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... him in surprise and then blushed faintly. As they descended the steps, he put his arm around her shoulder. At the bottom he stopped and glanced around apprehensively, something like alarm appearing in his face. His arm slipped from her shoulder to her waist and contracted suddenly. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... face; but somewhat more spread then the former. The third is your soldier's face, a menacing and astounding face, that looks broad and big: the grace of his face consisteth much in a beard. The anti-face to this, is your lawyer's face, a contracted, subtile, and intricate face, full of quirks and turnings, a labyrinthean face, now angularly, now circularly, every way aspected. Next is your statist's face, a serious, solemn, and supercilious face, ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

... been travelling on the Continent, and there had both contracted typhoid fever, which showed itself ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... former veiled from him the terrible evils of his condition, while the intelligence of the latter revealed to him, in detail, the baleful effects of the institution upon all who came within its area. It was at war with social order; it contracted the sublime ideas of national unity; it made men sectional, licentious, profligate, cruel,—and selfishness paled the holy ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... from end to end, despite Bovary's remonstrances. However, he was glad to see her at last manifest a wish of any kind. As she grew stronger she displayed more wilfulness. First, she found occasion to expel Mere Rollet, the nurse, who during her convalescence had contracted the habit of coming too often to the kitchen with her two nurslings and her boarder, better off for teeth than a cannibal. Then she got rid of the Homais family, successively dismissed all the other visitors, and even frequented church less assiduously, to the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... every side he is involved in a heated smoke. Covered with a pitchy darkness, he knows not whither he is going, nor where he is, and is hurried away at the pleasure of the winged steeds. They believe that it was then that the nations of the thiopians contracted their black hue, the blood being attracted. into the surface of the body. Then was Libya" (Sahara?) "made dry by the heat, the moisture being carried off; then with disheveled hair the Nymphs lamented the springs ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... here, he contracted with the master of a French ship for his passage to Alexandria, but was prevented from going by the following circumstances. In the evening of the 17th of October, 1620, the English fleet, at that time on a ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... loathe each other, still, when they come to wed, the words 'romantic love-match' must be thrown in by an obliging Press in order to satisfy the tender scruples of a people who would certainly not abide the thought of a Royal marriage contracted in mutual aversion. Thus much soundness and right principle there is at least, in what some superfine persons call the 'common' folk,—the folk whose innermost sense of truth and straightforwardness, not even the proudest ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... bear a resemblance to the man's and manu's, yet one that casual observers would not notice. Is there kinship between the two sets of words? There is. But not the full fraternal or sororal relation. The mains are children of manus by a French marriage he contracted. With this French blood in their veins, they are only half-brothers, half-sisters of the ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... exchanges. It accordingly commenced a system of curtailment of its loans and issues, in the vain hope that the joint stock and private banks of the Kingdom would be compelled to follow its example. It found, however, that as it contracted they expanded, and at the end of the process, to employ the language of a very high official authority, "whatever reduction of the paper circulation was effected by the Bank of England (in 1825) was more than made up by the issues ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... except what mother chooses to give me, and that is not much. Father, you know, is poor, and mother holds the purse, which is not a large one, and keeps me awful short at times, especially after paying my Oxford bills and a few debts I contracted the last year. There would have been no end of a row if I had asked her for money to spend on you and ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... having mounted to the altar, had just come down again. In a loud voice he made the exhortation; he cited as an example the marriage which Jesus had contracted with the Church; he spoke of the future, of days to come when they would live and govern themselves in the true faith; of children whom they must bring up as Christians; and then, once more, in face of this hope, Angelique again ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... Prince, she clung about his neck and sobbed, and how he soothed her, and said she would soon laugh at her own unwillingness to go to her husband. But even then the Black Death was in Bordeaux, and being low and mournful at heart, the sweet maid contracted it, and lay down to die ere she had made two days' journey, and her last words were, "My God hath shown me more pity than father or brother;" and so she died like a lamb, and mine aunt was sent by the Prince to ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... most injurious, by inducing a dry, dull reserved, and selfish condition of mind, more or less inimical to true manliness and breadth of character. The mind soon learns to run in small grooves, the heart grows narrow and contracted, and the moral nature becomes weak, irresolute, and accommodating, which is fatal to all generous ambition or ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... the completion of the new cupola, our city fathers contracted with Messrs. Sperry & Co., the celebrated tower-clock makers of Broadway, to build a clock for it, at a cost not exceeding four thousand dollars, that our citizens might place the utmost reliance upon, as a time-keeper of unvarying correctness. During the month ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... so poignant an emotion that at times his fears of death were excited by the knowledge of a dead man's impotence to suggest hazy margins in the final exposure of his property. There it would lie, dead as himself! contracted, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith



Words linked to "Contracted" :   expanded, contractile



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