"Disuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the old rubbish of the household, broken pieces of furniture, utensils past service, articles become useless or cumbrous. It was also used to store the provision of wood and coal for the winter. This old coach-house had a small door opening on the street, which had been in disuse for many years; but which Noel had had secretly repaired and provided with a lock. He could thus enter or leave the house at any hour without the concierge or any one else knowing. It was by this door that the advocate went out, though not without ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... by merely pressing a few buttons or turning a crank, the operator understanding little or nothing of the fundamentals underlying the solution of the problems in hand. This means, in the near future, brain atrophy through disuse. ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... ad libitum until the requisite fee was forthcoming. If their services were declined the butchers would turn up all the same, and make things very unpleasant for the marriage party. The custom dates from the eighteenth century, and though it has gradually fallen into disuse a marrow-bone and cleaver band is still available in London for those who want it. A band took part in a wedding ceremony at Clapham as recently as the autumn ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... administered after Morning Service on the first Sunday of the month, and on Christmas and Easter Days; and after Evening Service on the third Sunday. The black gown was, of course, worn in the pulpit, and I remember a mild sensation caused by the disuse of bands. The prayers were preached; the Psalms were read; and the hymn-book in use was "The Church and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymnal"—a quaint compilation which I have never seen elsewhere. It would not be easy to ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... went on the sacrifices became more numerous and more elaborate, and the mass of ritual grew to such an extent that the king could no longer cope with it unaided. The employment of purohits or family priests, formerly optional, now became a sacred duty if the sacrifices were not to fall into disuse. The Brahman obtained a monopoly of priestly functions, and a race of sacerdotal specialists arose which tended continually to close its ranks against the intrusion of outsiders." Gradually then from the household priests and those ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... from generation to generation, while the rocks piled up their strata and the oceans shaped their beds. Moses! Why, Lord Rothschild's great-grandfather, a few score times removed, must have known Moses, talked with him. Babylon! It is a modern city, fallen into disuse for the moment, owing to alteration of traffic routes. History! it is a tale of to-day. Man was crawling about the world on all fours, learning to be an animal for millions of years before the secret of his birth was whispered to him. It is only during the last ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... movement of change in Scotland allowed time for Chaucer to exercise a potent influence on Scottish poetry, but in England this final -e, to which most of the earlier grammatical forms by Chaucer's time had been reduced, itself fell rapidly into disuse during the 15th century, and a serious barrier was thus raised to the appreciation of the artistic value of his verse. His disciples, Hoccleve and Lydgate, who at first had caught some echoes of his rhythms, gradually ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... place, and yet some man many years ago had builded him a habitation here that was half dugout, half log lean-to. The door of the place faced Poison Hole, and was not two hundred yards from it. The hovel had been in disuse long before Buck Thornton came to the range save as a shelter to some of the wild things ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... to Vandon. The stable clock, still partially paralyzed from long disuse, was laboriously striking eleven as he drew up before the door. His resounding peal at the bell startled the household, and put the servants into a flutter of anxious expectation, while the sound made some one else, breakfasting late in the dining-room, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... nestling common pigeon sent, for I mean to make skeletons, and have already just begun comparing wild and tame ducks. And I think the results rather curious ("I have just been testing practically what disuse does in reducing parts; I have made skeleton of wild and tame duck (oh, the smell of well- boiled, high duck!!) and I find the tame-duck wing ought, according to scale of wild prototype, to have its two wings 360 grains in weight, but it has it only 317."—A letter to Sir J. Hooker, 1855.), ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... themselves close to the mill, which was almost ready to fall down from disuse and neglect. As they rode up Tom chanced to glance towards a side window and was surprised to catch sight of a man looking curiously at them. As soon as he saw that he was discovered the man ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... indeed of relieving them, after the dearth they had had; but the main reason was, to recover their good-will, which he now wanted; for they were uneasy at him, because of the innovations he had introduced in their practices, of the dissolution of their religion, and of the disuse of their own customs; and the people every where talked against him, like those that were still more provoked and disturbed at his procedure; against which discontents he greatly guarded himself, and took away the opportunities they might have to disturb him, and enjoined ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... conclusion of the whole is, however, contained in Romans vi. Just as the body of Christ after crucifixion was buried in the grave, so our sinful, sensual, selfish selves must be done away in the grave of forgetfulness and oblivion and disuse—buried with Christ, "that like as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... extolling the system by which the Pope might act as judge and father of all, and as supreme court of appeal. To the Utraquists he would counsel conformity to the practice of the majority; although unable to understand why the Church should have allowed a practice instituted by Christ to fall into disuse. ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... how many household processes is the worker expected to get down on all fours? The free-born American rebels. Perchance it is the unconscious protest over a four-footed ancestry, or it may be that disuse has really weakened the spinal column. Whatever the cause, the fact remains. It is not the idea of work, of service, but of bending the back to work that is so repugnant; likewise the effect on the hands of hot water and scrubbing. Close observation has convinced me that care ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... Pernambuco was still undergoing the miserable effects of the long and desultory war it had sustained; all the bands of government had been loosed during that disastrous period; law and justice had fallen into disuse; and had there not been a redeeming virtue in the free spirit that lived on in spite of the evils among which it had sprung, its very emancipation from a foreign power might have been regretted. The negroes who had escaped to the Palmares, and whose depredations ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... as military advisers. This was apparently because their elaborate studies had made them mere imitators or copyists. Whatever originality of thought or power of invention they ever possessed had ceased to exist from disuse. They could plan and direct a campaign with absolute accuracy, according to the teachings of the great masters, for the well-defined purpose upon which those teachings had been based. But when a wholly new problem was presented ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... the individual decoration of a room to them. The material should be plain Holland, white or buff when there are outside blinds, otherwise green or blue. In recent years shutters, or outside blinds, have come somewhat into disuse. This is, on the whole, perhaps an improvement, for they are rarely manipulated with judgment, being either left open or kept shut for continuous periods. In the latter case they darken rooms which, though ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... wonderful institutions of the republics and principalities of antiquity that have now gone into disuse, was that by means of which towns and cities were from time to time established; and there is nothing more worthy the attention of a great prince, or of a well-regulated republic, or that confers so many advantages upon a province, as the settlement of new places, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... and trussed the same way as a pheasant, but the custom of cooking them with the heads on is going into disuse somewhat. The usual way of carving them is similar to a pigeon, dividing it into two equal parts. Another method is to cut it into three pieces, by severing a wing and leg on either side from the body, by following ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... of the hill had two names. It had once been called The Watch Tower, for reasons but vaguely known by the present generation of villagers. To-day it was generally styled The Pines. Yet even this had fallen into disuse, save on the occupant's letter paper. When any one asked where Rear Admiral Killigrew lived, he was directed to "the big white house at the top o' ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... to all comers and all demands is doubtless, in the language of Uncle Ulick, a mighty convenience, and a great softener of the angles of life. But a time comes to the most easy when he must answer "No," or go open-eyed to ruin. Then he finds that from long disuse the word will not shape itself; or if uttered, it is taken for naught. That time had come for Uncle Ulick. Years ago his age and experience had sufficed to curb the hot blood about him. But he had been too easy to dictate while he might; ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... spacecraft. It had given man his empire. Kennon gave the hull one quick glance. That part of the ship didn't worry him. It was what he would find inside that bothered him. How much damage had occurred from two thousand or more years of disuse? How much had the original travelers cannibalized? How much could be salvaged? What sort of records remained? There were a thousand questions that the interior of that enigmatic hull ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... Burying Ground. It was a lovely spot. Fallen into disuse, the bewitching grace of carelessness was added to the architectural beauty of the tombs. The verdure was rank, and luxuriant trees and marble tombs alike were festooned with clematis and jasmine. Here they were pleased to find Nawab Khan and the servant, whom he dismissed on ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... Thus, for instance, when the change of fashion brought about the disuse of long periwigs in every-day life, their price did not cease to fall until they had entirely disappeared. But, if a person wishes to have one made to-day for a masquerade, for the stage, etc., he would pay as much for it as its former price. On the other ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... with a movement of coquetry most graceful in spite of long disuse, and the answering fire sprang into her eyes. She looked very piquant and a trifle diabolical. He pressed his lips suddenly on hers. A moment later something tugged at the long locks his hand caressed, and at the ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... is not between the theory of a supernatural cause and the theory of any one particular natural cause, or set of causes—such as natural selection, use, disuse, and so forth. The issue thus far—or where only the fact of evolution is concerned—is between the theory of a supernatural cause as operating immediately in numberless acts of special creation, and the theory of natural causes as a whole, ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... seem to have produced some direct and definite effect, but how much we cannot say. Thus, when varieties enter any new station, they occasionally assume some of the characters proper to the species of that station. With both varieties and species, use and disuse seem to have produced a considerable effect; for it is impossible to resist this conclusion when we look, for instance, at the logger-headed duck, which has wings incapable of flight, in nearly the same condition as in the domestic duck; or when we look at the burrowing ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... seemed that the emphasis should be laid on Function,—on use and disuse, on doing and not doing. Practice makes perfect; c'est a force de forger qu'on devient forgeron. This is one of the fundamental ideas of Lamarckism; to some extent it met with Darwin's approval; and it finds many supporters to-day. One of the ablest ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... law, that use and disuse are powerful to modify organs, Lamarck is upon more solid ground, and can point to many instances of the visible effect of these factors of change. It is of course rather closely bound up with his second law and may even be regarded as ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... save is the disuse of money and the thousand occupations connected with financial operations of all sorts, whereby an army of men was formerly taken away from useful employments. Also consider that the waste of the very rich in your ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... language in its present form is not sufficient. Spanish, for example, has changed comparatively less than German since the sixteenth century, yet there are locutions as well as words found in early documents pertaining to America that have fallen into disuse and hence are not commonly understood. Provincialisms abound, hence the history of the author and the environment in which he was reared should be taken into account, for sometimes there are phrases that are unintelligible without a knowledge of the writer's early surroundings. ...
— Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction • Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier
... others. In former times, if any man were so rash as to disregard this custom and to use the forbidden words, not only he but all his relations were immediately put to death. But the changes thus introduced were only temporary; on the death of the king the new words fell into disuse, and the original ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Phillips to bring him back, and entreated him to entendre raison.(48) . . . I pleaded their late hour of dinner, our having no carriage, and my disuse to the night air at this time of the year; but M. de Narbonne said their cabriolet (they have no other carriage) should take us home, and that there was a top to it, and Madame de la Chtre declared she would cover me well with shawls, etc. . . . M. d'Arblay scampered off for the little ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... through the woods. On occasion Perkins would hitch up in the single buggy Dexter, the fiery young colt, too fiery for any other to drive, and, as a special attention to his employer's daughter, would drive her to the service. But since the coming of Cameron, Mandy had allowed this custom to fall into disuse, at first somewhat to Perkins' relief, for the colt was restless and fretted against the tie rein; and, besides, Perkins was not as yet quite prepared to acknowledge any special relationship between himself and the young lady in question before the assembled congregation, ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... Chafi Three. He had not vocalized since fledgling days and his voice had a jarring croak of disuse. "Our Zid escaped its cage and destroyed two of us, forcing us to maroon it here for our own safety. Unfortunately, we trusted our star manual's statement that the planet ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... This is also the case throughout the Union. And here permit me to state a case, with which I am acquainted. I do it with a double object. I do it to show that the use of ardent spirits produces poverty and distress, and the disuse of them restores to wealth ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... equivalent increase of labor; (2) others have not the power of increasing the produce, but have that of diminishing the labor and expense by which it is obtained. (1.) Among the first are to be reckoned the disuse of fallows, by means of the rotation of crops; and the introduction of new articles of cultivation capable of entering advantageously into the rotation. The change made in agriculture toward the close of the last century, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... his disuse and his use of parliaments, Henry strengthened the royal power, the initiative of all legislation remaining in his hands. To the same end he continued to depress the great nobles and to create a ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... of the ceremonies. Demosthenes, Diodorus Siculus, and Plutarch, say that it was first celebrated by Orpheus; while Herodotus states, that it was introduced from Egypt by the daughters of Danaues; and that, after the Dorian conquest, it fell into disuse, being retained only by the people of Arcadia. It was intended to commemorate the introduction of laws and the regulations of civilized life, which were generally ascribed to Demeter. It is not known whether the festival lasted four or five days with the Athenians. Many days were spent ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the hearts of many more from the love of the world than such pale fables of the early Christian life as "Work while ye have the Light." A man's gifts are not given him for nothing, and the man who has the great gift of dramatic fiction has no right to cast it away or to let it rust out in disuse. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... resulted in developing men for special branches, so that today we have relatively few men who can skillfully operate for instance the engine lathe and planer. Even if there are those who ever had that ability, most of them have lost it through disuse. ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness
... provisions of the Land Code (Den-ryo) should have fallen quickly into disuse will be easily comprehended when we come presently to examine that system in detail, but for the neglect of portions of the Military Code (Gumbo-ryo), of the Code of Official Ranks and Titles, and of the Code relating to the Meritorious Discharge of Official Duties, it is ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being growth with reproduction; variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a ratio of increase so high as to lead to a struggle for life, and as a consequence to natural selection, entailing divergence of character and extinction of less improved forms. Thus from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... was provided for them by the king's appointment; for they judged their time was better employed in the service of souls, than in begging their daily bread about the streets. Yet they omitted not to ask alms once or twice a-week, that they might not disuse themselves from the spirit of mortification and poverty. With these considerations, they reserved but little of what was sent them from the palace, and distributed the rest among ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... followed the line of the canal, thus occupying an already constructed barrier. Formerly Conde was regarded as a fortress of formidable strength, but its position was not held to be of value in modern strategy. Its forts, therefore, had been dismantled of guns, and its works permitted to fall into disuse. But the fortress of Maubeuge lay immediately in rear of the British line. In rear again General Sordet held a French cavalry corps for flank actions. In front, across the Belgian frontier, General d'Amade lay with a French brigade at Tournai as ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... Zambesi River, which, again, was several miles above the actual falls themselves. With the advent of the railway and of the magnificent bridge now spanning the mighty river, that drift has actually fallen into disuse, but at the time of our visit it was the scene of much activity, and quite a nest of stores, houses, and huts, had sprung up near the rough landing-stage on the north side. As transport, not only for individuals and for every ounce of food ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... Cupid at the flight] The disuse of the bow makes this passage obscure. Benedick is represented as challenging Cupid at archery. To challenge at the flight is, I believe, to wager who shall shoot the arrow furthest without any particular mark. To challenge at the bird-bolt, seems ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... education is complete without a knowledge of archery. It is a pity that this noble sport has fallen into disuse. We shall find it essential to some ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... were destroyed, and objects connected with the spiritual symbolism of Christianity set up in their place. And thus the obelisk, the oldest of all religious symbols, which was constructed at the very dawn of human existence, to mark the worship of the material luminary, fell into disuse and oblivion, when "the Sun of Righteousness" rose above the horizon of the world, with healing in His wings, dispelling all the mists and delusions of error. The art of constructing obelisks followed the usual stages in the history of all human ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... ordinary rifle-practice, which has come of late years to be considered in Europe almost as the one thing needful for the soldier, while with us it has been gradually sinking into disuse for a quarter of a century. When called upon to send an army into the field, we find that more than half of its members have never fired a gun, and even of those who have, not one in a hundred has had any instruction beyond what he has been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... is needed for the disuse of a language of signs for the special purpose now in question when the speech of surrounding civilization is recognized as necessary or important to be acquired, and gradually becomes known as the best common medium, even ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... recommended that the term Streptotrichosis should be used as the appropriate clinical epithet of the large class of Streptothrix infections. And since that year the name Actinomycosis has been falling into disuse, and in any case is only used synonymously with Streitotrichosis. For a further account of these parasites see the articles on BACTERIOLOGY and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... evident that inoculation with the virus did not prevent smallpox, but, on the contrary, frequently caused it; and therefore the practice gradually fell into disuse, only to be revived by Jenner about one hundred years later in a modified form. He substituted ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... little expedition wintered was called "The Caches" for years, and the name has only fallen into disuse within the last two decades. I remember the great holes in the ground when I first crossed the plains, a third ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... line was so sharply drawn between the social classes that for a long time slavery, or even death, was the punishment for a mixed marriage. In course of time this barbarous custom fell into disuse, but free choice continued to be discouraged by the law that if a man married a woman beneath him in rank, neither she nor her children were raised to his rank, and in case of his death she had no claim to the usual provisions ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Jewish law was abrogated. When Babylon replaced Palestine as the centre of Jewish intellect, the works of Philo, like the rest of the Hellenistic-Jewish literature, written as they were in a strange tongue, fell into disuse, and before long were entirely forgotten. The Christians, on the other hand, found in Philo a notable evidence for many of their beliefs and a philosophical testimony for the dogmas of their creed. They claimed him as their ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... weakness did not easily recover itself, an army of Latins, under one Livius Postumius, marched upon it. He halted his army not far from Rome, and sent a herald to say that the Latins were willing to renew their old domestic ties, which had fallen into disuse, and to unite the races by new intermarriage. If, therefore, the Romans would send out to them all their maidens and unmarried women, they would live with them on terms of peace and friendship, as the Romans had long before done with the Sabines. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... was a change in the outer ritual of worship which should correspond to the advance towards a more pronounced Protestantism that had been made by the nation at large during the years of Elizabeth's reign. Their demands were as of old for the disuse of "superstitious ceremonies." To modern eyes the points which they selected for change seem trivial enough. But they were in fact of large significance. To reject the sign of the Cross in baptism was ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... law was most stringent. In 1424 it was enacted that "Quha sa ever be convict of Slauchter of Salmonde in tyme forbidden be the Law, he shall pay fourtie shillings for the unlaw, and at the third tyme gif he be convict of sik Trespasse he shall tyne his life." But the law had fallen into disuse—was, in fact, a dead letter; practically there was no "tyme forbidden," or at least the close season was as much honoured in the breach as in the observance, and, especially in the upper waters of Tweed and her tributaries, countless numbers of spawning fish ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... pump-brake, and they shipped them in the hand-pump. But, heave as they might, they could not move it, except in jerks of about an inch. With an old-fashioned force-pump, rusty from disuse, a three-inch outlet, and three atmospheres of pressure, pumping was useless, and they gave it up, even though the girl added her little weight and strength to ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... army, when they first saw one, stoutly averred that "those boats could run on a heavy dew." The hull was then thinly plated with iron, and the prow lengthened, and made massive, until it formed the terrible "ram," fallen into disuse since the days of the Greek galleys, to be taken up again by naval architects in the nineteenth century. Then on the deck was built a pent-house of oak and iron, with sloping sides just high enough to cover the engine. The two towering smoke-stacks, the pride of the old river-steamers, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... readily, though with less elegance than Italian, till from disuse he lost much of his fluency in the latter. In his last fatal tour in Germany, he was rapidly acquiring a readiness in the language of that country. The whole range of French literature was almost as familiar to him as ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Shame and Confusion in which this good-natured angry Man must needs behold his Friends while he thus lays about him, does not give him so much Reflection as to create an Amendment. This is the most scandalous Disuse of Reason imaginable; all the harmless Part of him is no more than that of a Bull-Dog, they are tame no longer than they are not offended. One of these good-natured angry Men shall, in an Instant, assemble together so many ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... harp a requiem for Polydorus. Alighting at the landing-place we stroll up the hill and among the ruins of the old forts, and breast ourselves the surging battle-tide. For war is not to this generation what it has been. The rust of long disuse has been rubbed off by the iron hand of fate,—shall we not say, rather, by the good hand of our God upon us?—and the awful word stands forth once more, red-lettered and real. Marathon, Waterloo, Lexington, are no longer the conflict of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... being had witnessed the act, and he was cocksure that no higher power existed to see, it; but for all that it worried him. Memories are not dead things but alive; they dwindle in disuse, but they harden and develop in all sorts of queer ways if they are being continually fretted. Curiously enough, though at the time he perceived clearly that the shifting was accidental, as the days wore on, his memory became confused about it, until at last he was not ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... are like the fakirs who have held up an arm till it has become stiffened,—they cannot now change its position; like the poor mutes, who, being deaf, have become dumb through disuse of the organs of speech. Their education has been like those iron suits of armor into which little boys were put in the Middle Ages, solid, inflexible, put on in childhood, enlarged with every year's growth, till the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... heard of the numbing stupor that invades those who stay beyond their time in the Ice, but never before had she seen it in its reality. It was not a lack of intelligence; it seemed rather to be the machinery of intelligence rusted and clogged from long disuse. He deliberated long before he spoke. It took him some time to understand things. Speech did not come to him readily, and he became easily confused in the matter of words. Once, suddenly, he had ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... that she talked less than formerly. Gradually the power of speech was going from her because of disuse. It is almost always so with the very young who are deprived ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... the oldest existing form of the Arabic alphabet; to judge from its being identical with the Hebrew. It is supposed to date from after the beginning of the Christian era, when the Himyaritic form fell into disuse, and it is now ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... end. The existence of a distinction of this kind in regard to the open seats only, affords strong proof, if proof were necessary, that it was the introduction of appropriated pews which led to the disuse of else long established, and once general, custom of the men occupying the south side of the nave, and the women ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... substantiae secundae or general substances, and substantial forms, doctrines which under varieties of language pervaded alike the Aristotelian and the Platonic schools, and of which more of the spirit has come down to modern times than might be conjectured from the disuse of the phraseology. The false views of the nature of classification and generalization which prevailed among the schoolmen, and of which these dogmas were the technical expression, afford the only explanation which can be given of their having misunderstood ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... Louis and Frank waited in deep suspense. Asgeelo remained long beneath the water, but to them the time seemed frightful in its duration. Profound anxiety began to mingle with the suspense, for fear lest the faithful servant in his devotion had over-rated his powers—lest the disuse of his early practice had weakened his skill—lest the weight bound to his foot had dragged him down and kept him ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... become obsolete. But what makes a word obsolete, more than general agreement to forbear it? and how shall it be continued, when it conveys an offensive idea, or recalled again into the mouths of mankind, when it has once become unfamiliar by disuse, and unpleasing by unfamiliarity? ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... fatigue which at some time she should learn to treat with disrespect, especially when disuse of her powers has made their exercise difficult, and yet when returning health makes it wise to employ them. To think, and at last to feel sure that she cannot walk is fatal. And above all, and at all times, close attention to her own motions is a great evil. We cannot swallow a pill because we ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... half hour of reasonable thrill might be expected to flow from it. Gander Pullin's is popular a lot when I'm a yearlin'; I knows that for shore; though in a age which grows effete it's mighty likely if we-all goes back thar now, we'd find it fallen into disuse as a reelaxation. ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... which their operations and accounts will be subjected. Thus disposed, as well from interest as the obligations of their charters, it can not be doubted that such conditions as Congress may see fit to adopt respecting the deposits in these institutions, with a view to the gradual disuse, of the small bills will be cheerfully complied with, and that we shall soon gain in place of the Bank of the United States a practical reform in the whole paper system of the country. If by this policy we can ultimately witness the suppression of all bank bills below $20, it is apparent that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... country is full of iron-stone, and the railings of St. Paul's churchyard are made of Sussex iron. Iron-foundries were at work there as long as there was wood enough to supply them, but gradually the works fell into disuse, and the last furnace was put out in the year 1809. So now, because there is no coal in Sussex, the iron lies idle, while in the North, where the iron-stone is near the coal- mines, hundreds of tons are melted ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... become so worm-eaten that they had to be replaced by new ones. The sheriff who pounced down on Billy Boyle's in his official capacity must have fancied he had struck a second Sazeraz, for the lock upon the door was so rusty and rheumatic through disuse that it absolutely refused to respond to the persuasion of the keys produced for the performance of its functions. We cannot help applauding the steadfastness with which this lock resented the indignity which the official visit of ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... introduced the practice of immersion ("Dompeldoop") as a mark of initiation into the Society, but they considered true Christian baptism to be with the Spirit and not with water, and they allowed their members a large range of liberty in the use or disuse of water baptism, as well as in the form of receiving it. They rejected the Supper as an ecclesiastical ceremony, but they highly prized it as an occasion of fellowship and of group worship. Every person ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... big silver-chest in the garret; among them was a huge center ornament, called in those days an epergne—an extraordinary arrangement of prickly silver leaves and red glass cups which were supposed to be flowers. It was black with disuse, and Blair made Harris work over it until the poor fellow protested that he had rubbed the skin off his thumb—but the pointed leaves of the great silver thistle sparkled like diamonds. Blair was charmingly considerate of old Harris ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... religious upheaval. The language in which it is framed continues fixed, amid the slowly developing conditions of the workaday world. Often, indeed, the use of an ancient language, which has gradually fallen into disuse among the people, is deliberately maintained for the air of mystery and of awe which is conveyed by its use, and which has something of the same effect upon the intellect as the "dim religious light" ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... abandoned five years ago. It had been thought better, in view of the extreme secrecy that was to be kept, that England's representative in the expedition should start from a comparatively unknown point, and this old stage, in disuse now, except for occasional trials of new Government machines, had been selected. Even the lift had been removed, and it was necessary to climb the hundred and fifty ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... trying the little he could get at, had gladly denied himself its pleasures, and consorted with the young men he met at the caffe's, or in the Piazza. But when the Vervains came, they recalled to him the younger days in which he had delighted in the companionship of women. After so long disuse, it was charming to be with a beautiful girl who neither regarded him with distrust nor expected him to ask her in marriage because he sat alone with her, rode out with her in a gondola, walked with her, read with her. All young men like a house in which no ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... guard against fraud, are still chosen annually by the liverymen in common hall assembled on Midsummer Day. Since ale and beer have become excisable commodities the custom of appointing ale-tasters has in most places fallen into disuse. (See ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to illustrate those described in the letter to Dardanus. The original MS., probably an illustrated transcript of this letter, which served as a copy for the others, was apparently produced at a time when the Roman bagpipe (tibia utricularia) had fallen into disuse in common with other musical instruments, and was unknown except to the few. The Latin description given above is correct and quite unmistakable to any one who knows the primitive form of bagpipe; the illustrations must therefore represent ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... another grow old. This chloroformed audience was afflicted with a long and too heavy programme, as is the custom in performances of this kind. They played fragments of the best known pieces, and sang songs from operas long since fallen into disuse even on street organs. This public saw the same comedians march out; the most famous are the most monotonous; the comical ones abused their privileges; the lover spoke distractedly through his nose; the great coquette—the actress ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... Lady Prioress; 'Not I, believe me. The laws of our order are strict and severe; they have fallen into disuse of late, But the crime of Agnes shows me the necessity of their revival. I go to signify my intention to the Convent, and Agnes shall be the first to feel the rigour of those laws, which shall be obeyed to the very letter. ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... selection acts by either now adapting the varying parts of each being to its organic and inorganic conditions of life; or by having adapted them during past periods of time: the adaptations being aided in many cases by the increased use or disuse of parts, being affected by the direct action of external conditions of life, and subjected in all cases to the several laws of growth and variation. Hence, in fact, the law of the Conditions of Existence is the higher law; as it includes, through the inheritance of former variations and adaptations, ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... gallery, filled the central space between the two projecting wings, and at the back there was a banqueting-chamber or ball-room, where in more prosperous days, the family had been accustomed to dine on all stately occasions—a room now shabby and grey with disuse. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... do with the clear look of temperance as well as with great particularity of personal care, and in part also grows out of the moral condition. In three breathless seconds Eleanor took note of it all, characteristics well known, but seen now with the novelty of long disuse and with the background of that huge black savage, to whom Mr. Rhys was addressing some words, of explanation or exhortation—Eleanor could not tell which. She noticed the quiet pleasant manner ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... between the same parties with British reinforcements, known as the battle of Bridgewater, as more important than its precursor.... The victory of Chippewa was the resurrection or birth of American arms, after their prostration by so long disuse, and when at length taken up again, by such continual and deplorable failures, that the martial and moral influence of the first decided victory opened and characterized an epoch in the annals and intercourse ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... show that the tub and bowl forms of the coffin continued to be used during the period extending from Hammurabi to Nabonnedos. In later times, it would appear, the custom of placing food and drink with the dead fell into disuse.[1269] We may perhaps find that, as was the case in Egypt, symbolical representations of food—a clay plate with the food modeled in clay—took the place of the old custom. Fewer utensils, too, are found in the graves of the later period; but, on the other hand, ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... through the trackless forest, and the carrier pigeon to recover his mate and dwelling place from the distance of hundreds of miles away. In civilized men, however, the habit of the home and street and the disuse of the ancient freedom has dulled, and in some instances almost destroyed, all sense of this shape of the external world. The best training to recover this precious capacity will now be ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... our reason, or fancy we have any. We are taught to place all our art in adorning our outward forms, and permitted, without reproach, to carry that custom even to extravagancy, while our minds are entirely neglected, and, by disuse of reflections, filled with nothing but the trifling objects our eyes are daily entertained with. This custom, so long established and industriously upheld, makes it even ridiculous to go out of the common road, and forces one to find as many excuses, as if it ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... went into disuse many years ago. In fact it never had many soldiers in it, and was, I believe, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... wet weather had been tracked about the floor. The stove was rusted and cracked. Pete wondered why men must invariably abuse things that were patently useful, when those things did not belong to any one especially; for the stove, the windows, the table, the two home-made chairs showed more than disuse. They had been wantonly broken, hacked, or battered. Some one had pried the damper from the stove, broken it in two, and had used half of it for a lid-lifter. A door had been torn from the wall-cupboard and split into kindling, as a few painted splinters attested. And some ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... above it. A pink was rigged like a schooner, but without a bowsprit or jib. For the fisheries a multitude of smaller types were constructed—such as the lugger, the shallop, the sharpie, the bug-eye, the smack. Some of these survive to the present day, and in many cases the name has passed into disuse, while the type itself is now and then to be met with ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... the governor. The hundred had also its assembly of all the people, which was in many respects like the New England town-meeting. These hundred-meetings enacted by-laws, levied taxes, appointed committees, and often exhibited a vigorous political life. But after the Revolution they fell into disuse, and in 1824 the hundred became extinct in Maryland; its organization was swallowed up in that ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... them in spite of their commander. Ortiz alone remained in the open plain, and was assaulted by Alvaro Nieto with his lance. Ortiz leaped to one side to avoid the lance, and called out in the Indian language having forgot his own by long disuse, but fortunately made the sign of the cross, on which Nieto asked if he were Juan Ortiz. Answering in the affirmative, Nieto took him up behind him on his horse and carried him to his captain Gallegos, who was gathering his men that had dispersed in pursuit of the Indians. Some of the natives never ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... on stationery, after a period of disuse, seem to be coming into favor again. The monograms in the best taste are the small round ones, though very pleasing designs may be had in the diamond, square, and oblong shapes. They should not be elaborate, and no brilliant colors should be used. The stamping is best done in black, white, ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... it would have been impossible to find a prouder or happier ship's company, but with all their feelings of elation they did not imagine that everything would run smoothly after such a long period of disuse, and they knew also that much hard work lay in front of them if they were to carry out the remainder of their program. If the Discovery was free before the navigable season closed Scott had resolved to spend the remaining time in exploring the region ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... want another word for the sustaining 'sceptre' of a foxglove, or cowslip. Before determining that, however, we must see what need there may be of one familiar to our ears until lately, although now, I understand, falling into disuse. ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... of Africa, paying none to English composition. With the exception of a short interval in Angola, I had been three and a half years without speaking English, and this, with thirteen years of previous partial disuse of my native tongue, made me feel sadly at a ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... The Pehlvi, he says, is much more flowing, and less overcharged with vowels, than the Zend. The books of Zoroaster, first written in Zend, were afterwards translated into Pehlvi and Parsi. The Pehlvi had fallen into disuse under the dynasty of the Sassanides, but the learned still wrote it. The Parsi, the dialect of Pars or Farristan, was then prevailing dialect. Kleuker, Anhang zum Zend Avesta, 2, ii. part i. p. 158, part ii. 31.—G.——Mr. Erskine (Bombay Transactions) considers ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... however, have fallen into disuse, as, for instance, the once popular game of Hot Cockles, Hunt the Slipper, and "the vulgar game of Post and Pair"; but Cards are still popular, and Snapdragon continues such Christmas merriment as is set ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... external causes on life and habit, such as changes of climate, food supply, geological upheavals and so forth, really held as his fundamental proposition that living organisms changed because they wanted to. As he stated it, the great factor in Evolution is use and disuse. If you have no eyes, and want to see, and keep trying to see, you will finally get eyes. If, like a mole or a subterranean fish, you have eyes and dont want to see, you will lose your eyes. If you like eating the tender tops of trees enough ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... fastened to a joist, But with the upside down, to show Its inclination for below; In vain, for a superior force, Applied at bottom, stops its course; Doomed ever in suspense to dwell, 'Tis now no kettle, but a bell. A wooden jack, which had almost Lost by disuse the art to roast, A sudden alteration feels Increased by new intestine wheels; And, what exalts the wonder more. The number made the motion slower; The flier, though't had leaden feet, Turned round so quick you scarce could see't; But ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... equipped for the strife to be deterred by it, or to bear malice towards the losing side. In trying to produce the sensuous effects of opera, the fashionable drama has become so flaccid in its sentimentality, and the intellect of its frequenters so atrophied by disuse, that the reintroduction of problem, with its remorseless logic and iron framework of fact, inevitably produces at first an overwhelming impression of coldness and inhuman rationalism. But this will soon ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... were drawn from all classes of the population, and freely elected by the parishioners. When a man was elected by the popular vote, he was presented to the Bishop, and if he was found to be a fit and proper person for the office, he was at once ordained. But this custom early fell into disuse. The Bishops, finding that many of the candidates presented were illiterate peasants, gradually assumed the right of appointing the priests, with or without the consent of the parishioners; and their choice generally ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... inspired Hebrew love songs there stretches an interval of at least fourteen centuries. It is an oft-told story, how, with the destruction of the Temple, the Jewish desire for song temporarily ceased. The sorrow-laden heart could not sing of love. The disuse of a faculty leads to its loss; and so, with the cessation of the desire for song, the gift of singing became atrophied. But the decay was not quite complete. It is commonly assumed that post-Biblical Hebrew poetry ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... was done. Deprived of his push-buttons, he was as helpless as a baby. Beyond the little stunt he did in his office or his store, and beyond the ability to cross a crowded street, he was no good. He not only didn't know how to do things, but he was rapidly losing, through disuse, the power to learn how to do things. The modern city dweller, bred, born, brought up on this island, is about as helpless and useless a man, considered as a four-square, self-reliant individual, as you can find on the broad expanse of the globe. I've got no use for ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... Solon from those which passed under his name in later ages. Nor do the Scholiasts and Lexicographers attempt to distinguish how many of these laws were still in force at the time when they wrote, or when they fell into disuse and were to be found in books only. Nor can we hastily assume that enactments which occur in the Laws of Plato were also a part of Athenian law, however probable ...
— Laws • Plato
... animals are alike not only in that they have in common a large number of tendencies to respond in definite ways to definite stimuli, but that these responses may be modified, some strengthened through use, and others weakened or altogether discarded through disuse. In both also the survival and strengthening of some native tendencies, the weakening and even the complete elimination of others, depends primarily upon the satisfaction which ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... highly complimented for their efficiency. The successor of Chief Justice Howe was opposed to their serving and none were summoned by him. Jury duty is not acceptable to men, as a rule, and the women themselves were not anxious for it, so the custom gradually fell into disuse. The juries are made up from the tax lists, which contain only a small proportion of women. There are no court decisions against women as jurors, and they are still summoned occasionally ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... weather," which is certainly best; but granting a fair frame of mind, one can still "have sight of that immortal sea" which brought us hither from the twelfth century; one can even travel thither and see the children sporting on the shore. Our sense is partially atrophied from disuse, but it is still alive, at least in old people, who alone, as a class, have the ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... is not done very soon—within a month—perhaps less—the country will run with the blood of vengeance from Churchill to the Barrens. If what I expect to happen does happen there will be no government road built to the Bay, the new buildings at Churchill will turn gray with disuse, the treasures of the north will remain undisturbed, the country itself will slip back a hundred years. The forest people will be filled with hatred and suspicion so long as the story of great wrong travels down from father to son. ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... never again shall be able to grasp. To his astonishment, he finds that no small part of his range of mental activity and sense of power was involved in that exercise alone. He has not lost merely his hands; much of his inner being has been stricken into disuse. ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... in of the mummy was a very ancient rite, but one that had fallen into general disuse, so that as it chanced Tua, who had never seen it practised before, looked on it with curiosity not ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... poet generally, as is our present plight, the first question is: When was he born? The second, When did he (to use a favourite phrase of the last century, now in disuse)—When did he commence author? The third, How long did he keep at it? The fourth, How much has he written? And the fifth may perhaps be best expressed in the words of ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... desire to hurt them, as against the Deity. And it is, in its original use, accurately opposed to another Greek word, "Euphemy," which means a reverent and loving manner of benediction—fallen entirely into disuse in modern sentiment ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... merry-andrew, is not much in vogue, but as they are andronymics, to coin a word, embalming the memories of two famous charlatans, they possess an abiding interest apart from all question of their use or disuse. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... lay furze and firewood, and from this store he drew, heaping the combustible material on the hearth, until a cheering blaze fairly illumined the worn and dilapidated interior. Near the fireplace were a pot and kettle, whose rusted appearance bespoke long disuse; but a trencher and porridge spoon on a stool near by seemed waiting the coming of the master. A couch of straw had been the lonely shepherd's bed—and later the lodgment of his enemy, the wolf. Above it, on the wall, hung a small ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... was obliged to reply. 'With a people naturally more gentle and humane than we of Rome this custom would long ago have fallen into disuse. They would have easily found a way, as all people do, to conform their religious doctrine and offerings to their feelings and instincts. But the Romans, by nature and long training, lovers of blood, their country built upon the ruins of others, and cemented with blood—the ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... stillness of the night, for all that the hour was early. The air of the place was as that of some gigantic sepulchre. A little daunted by this all-enveloping stillness, I skirted the terraces and approached the house on the eastern side. Here I found an old-world drawbridge—now naturally in disuse—spanning a ditch fed from the main river for the erstwhile purposes of a moat. I crossed the bridge, and entered an imposing courtyard. Within this quadrangle the same silence dwelt, and there was the same obscurity in the windows that overlooked it. I ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... that "odds" is not an English word; he classifies it as belonging to a language known by the term "slang," of which he declares his utter disuse. And he thinks that when used at all, the word is but an ellipsis for "odd chances." This was not the opinion of the great English lexicographer, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 39. Saturday, July 27, 1850 • Various
... Italy, where he had studied the works of Palladio; and especially since the time when his successor, Sir Christopher Wren, had rebuilt St. Paul's in the Italian Renaissance style, after the great fire of London in 1664, Gothic had fallen more and more into disuse. "If in the history of British art," says Eastlake, "there is one period more distinguished than another for the neglect of Gothic, it was certainly the middle of the eighteenth century." But architecture had this advantage over other arts, it had left memorials ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... another, and in this instance, that other was his Lord. Talents are not given to be buried, and then to be dug up and offered back unimproved, reeking with the smell of earth and dulled by the corrosion of disuse. The unused talent was justly taken from him who had counted it as of so little worth, and was given to one, who, although possessing much, would use the additional gift to his own profit, to the betterment of his fellows, and to the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... of the branch line, carriages fell into disuse and dilapidation, and many an old barouche, landau, and brett passed into the hands of the negro hackmen who were former slaves of the old families. Among these ex-slaves the traditions of the first families of Columbus were upheld ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... been observed clinically that if the muscles are impaired by long disuse, or by a disease such as myasthenia gravis, then the range of production of both heat and motion is below normal. This is in agreement with the experimental findings that anesthetics, curare, or any break in the muscle-brain connection causes ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... is an old door connected with another passage that leads by a dark and wearying staircase to the servants' corridor beneath! I am afraid you won't be able to open it, as it is rusty with age and disuse. The servants would as soon think of coming up here as they would of making an appointment with the Evil One; so it has not ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... explain Darwin's agnosticism as due to atrophy of his religious sense, consequent on over-absorption in scientific pursuits, and who also argue that the "religious faculty," like a physiological structure, increases in efficiency with use and atrophies with disuse. There is no reason for believing that, had Darwin been profoundly religious, his mental qualities would have been different to what they were. They would have been expressed in a different form, that is all. As I have already said, there are no such things as specifically ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... the slaveholder, then, should be to keep his people in strict subordination. In this, it may in truth be said, lies his entire duty." Again, in speaking of the punishments of slaves, he remarks: "If to our army the disuse of THE LASH has been prejudicial, to the slaveholder it would operate to deprive him of the MAIN SUPPORT of his authority. For the first class of offences, I consider imprisonment in THE STOCKS[A] at night, with or without ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... has been no opportunity for their growth. Ambitions cannot exist without an aim, nor hope without an object. Just as in certain dark caves of the world, where daylight never penetrates, the fish found there have no eyes, because, from long disuse of the organ, it has gradually lessened and died out; so hope and ambition amongst the moral faculties must equally disappear without an object ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... fixed and its parts are rendered incapable of vibration. The condition of atrophy which is observable in the sense cells and in the nerve elements is probably due to the impossibility of functional activity; it is an atrophy caused by disuse "(25 ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... come two of my staff. John, I have been talking for an hour, and the bell is rusting from disuse." ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... us, and it is not meant to help us. It is not even its own reward, except for the self-centred and—I had almost said—the unamiable. No man can pacify his conscience; if quiet be what he want, he shall do better to let that organ perish from disuse. And to avoid the penalties of the law, and the minor capitis diminutio of social ostracism, is an affair of wisdom—of cunning, if you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... appeared to be little more against him than that he had committed an indiscretion while under the influence of liquor, and had afterward atoned for it in accordance with a code of honor which had not, at that epoch, fallen entirely into disuse. And, after all, what business was it of theirs? Pennroyal, however objectionable in himself, owned a large property and belonged to a good family. In short, society received the honorable prodigal in its bosom once more, and ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... Whirlpool for to-morrow morning. It's late for it to-day, at any rate." He had treated Isabel since the adventure on the Three Sisters with a superiority which he felt himself to be very odious, but which he could not disuse. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is almost expressed by the one word exercise. It is a matter of everyday knowledge that the muscles are developed and strengthened by use, and that they become weak, soft, and flabby by disuse. The effects of exercise are, however, not limited to the large muscles attached to the skeleton, but are apparent also upon the involuntary muscles, whose work is so closely related to the vital processes. While it is true that exercise cannot be ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... while selfish greed and the hungry lust for power masquerade as laudable 'ambition.' Men and women, especially women, hate the truth, because, like the electric light, it shows them as they are, and that is vile. It has grown so strange to them from disuse that, like Pilate, they do not even know what it is! I was going to say, however, that if you care to trust me with it, I think I see how I can take a message to Angela for you—without either causing you to break your promise or doing anything ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... pathetic deprivation of the sports of their native land. If only we could have a badger, we could almost hear them say to each other in dog language, a strong, morose, savage badger! Alas! we are wasting our days in idleness, our talents rust from disuse! Finally, Uncle Jim remained ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... sharing results between the landowner and the labouring peasant, still flourishes in France, notwithstanding the severe denunciations passed upon it by various writers. If it were a very bad system, it would have fallen into disuse long before now, for although the French have a tendency to keep their wheels in old ruts, they are as keen as any other people in protecting their own interests. It is a system that would soon become impossible without trustfulness and honesty. On both sides there must ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... flogged at the whipping-post, for stealing some pieces of ribbon. Both culprits were also banished from the village, apropos of which form of punishment Fenimore Cooper at a later day was moved to remark, "It is to be regretted that it has fallen into disuse." ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... than their nomadic neighbours, and have since experienced in a greater degree the civilising influences of Russian intercourse. They have adopted almost universally the religion, customs, and habits of their conquerors, and their own language, which is a very curious one, is already falling into disuse. It would be easy to describe their character by negatives. They are not independent, self-reliant, or of a combative disposition like the northern Chukchis and Koraks; they are not avaricious or dishonest, except where those traits are the results of Russian education; they are not suspicious or ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... struck with the perils of walking on the side of a precipice, with the foaming river below. When the timbers rot, such passages of course become obstructed, and thus the road is said to have been periodically in complete disuse. The repairs, which were chiefly made in the time of the Ming, concerned especially passages of this sort." Richthofen also notices the abundance of game; but inhabited places appear to be rarer than in Polo's time. (See Martini in Blaeu; Chine Ancienne, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... old and new. Among ourselves it is perhaps at present more desirable that we should bring out the old things than seek to find the new. The historic circumstances of the Anglican Church have been such as to lead to the practical disuse of much that is of great spiritual value in the treasury of the Church. It is largely in the attempt to bring into use the riches that have been abandoned that some are to-day incurring the charge of disloyalty—a charge that they are not ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... view that a system of telegraphy sufficiently rapid and economical to be practically available for important business correspondence should have fallen into disuse. This, however, is made clear—so far as concerns Edison's invention at any rate—in Chapter ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... mutual love; that I could never again have free intercourse of heart with any one;—why then use the rite of communion, where there is no communion? But, on the other hand, I thought it a mode of confessing Christ, and that permanently to disuse it, was an unfaithfulness. In the Church of England I could have been easy as far as the communion formulary was concerned; but to the entire system I had contracted an incurable repugnance, as worldly, hypocritical, and an evil counterfeit. I desired, therefore, to creep into some ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... under whom they had landed, who was exacting, severe in his judgment on the Patriots, and impatient of professional service. Commodore Hood and his family also sailed for Halifax. Both Mackay and Hood, aiming at reconciliation, and liberal in non-essentials, easily won the general good-will. The disuse of the press-gang, which even "Junius" was now justifying, and which England had not learned to abominate, but which rowelled the differently trained mind of the Colonies, was regarded as a great concession to personal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... put many a mile between them and the comfortable firesides at Rayado. But these miles, Kit Carson has often said, were the shortest he ever traveled. The way was beguiled by many a recollection in which every man present could participate with a relish, keen as disuse alone can render the palate of enjoyment. In a short time the well-remembered waters of the South Fork of the River Platte were descried. Their practised eyes soon discovered the oft-noted "signs of the beaver." The camp was formed and the traps set. The beaver, so long ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Mr. M'Queen was to accompany us half a day more. We stopped at a little hut, where we saw an old woman grinding with the quern, the ancient Highland instrument, which it is said was used by the Romans, but which, being very slow in its operation, is almost entirely gone into disuse. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... small objects lying there. Sperry brought me a stick from the dressing-room, and with its aid succeeded in bringing out the two articles which were instrumental in starting us on our brief but adventurous careers as private investigators. One was a leather razor strop, old and stiff from disuse, and the other a wet bath sponge, now stained with blood to a ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... right to be by him regarded as existent. He paid no heed to the different natures of the two kinds of existence, their different laws, and the different demands they made upon the two consciousnesses; he had in fact, by a long course of disobedience growing to utter disuse of conscience, arrived nearly at non-individuality. In regard to what was outside him he was but a mirror, in regard to what was inside him a mere vessel of imperfectly interacting forces. And now his capacities and incapacities together had culminated in a hideous plot, in which it would be hard ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... house, sheltered under the rocky cliff, had an air of stern and unkempt loneliness; and there was something sinister about the watermill, whose dingy wheel, green with disuse, was close against the side of the building. Yet there was prosperity to be read in the large open barn stacked high with corn and hay, in the many cows that fed in the meadow below the hill, and in the horses that stamped ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... with the trial at once; that all the prisoners should be arraigned the first day; that the King's counsel might privately manage the evidence before the Grand Jury (the practice of allowing any advocates to appear before the Grand Jury has long fallen into disuse); that the murder of the King should be precisely laid in the indictment, and be made use of as one of the overt acts to prove the compassing of his death; that any act tending to the compassing of the King's death besides the one laid in the indictment might ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... Quisante's own. In fact it was very doubtful if he asked any more of the world than what the world was prepared to give him. But that, said May, was not because he lacked the power and the desire of love, but because his affections were withered by neglect or rusty from disuse. She knew well that they were there and would expand under the influence of sympathy. If people grew human towards him, he would respond in kind; in hitting on this idea she commended herself for a sagacity in questions of emotion not less than that which Dick ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... presence. In this profession Yan's venerating and custom-regarding nature compelled him to act as leaders of blind beggars had acted throughout all historical times and far back into the dim recesses of legendary epochs and this, in an era when the leisurely habits of the past were falling into disuse, and when rivals and competitors were springing up on all sides, tended almost daily to decrease the proceeds of his labour and to sow an insidious doubt even in his ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... deer, elk, and sheep, but are usually performed for the specific purpose of obtaining rain. Formerly, too, when their lives were far less peaceful than they are to-day, the Pueblos indulged in war and scalp dances; but these are now falling into disuse. The most remarkable exhibition of dancing, still in vogue, is the repulsive Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, which takes place every year alternately in four villages between the 10th and the 30th of August according to the phase of the moon. The origin of this ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... is to discourage and suspend prosecutions for heresy. The practice of heresy-hunting might be allowed to fall into disuse. Instead of deposing heretics, the orthodox ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... But the disuse of certain words on the death of kinsmen, and the Kobong are not the only customs common to ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... the strangest days which Ellen had ever passed. The enforced idleness gave her an indefinite sense of guilt. She tried to assist her mother about the household tasks, then she tried to sew on the wrappers, but she was awkward about it, from long disuse. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman |
