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verb
Less  v. t.  To make less; to lessen. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Less" Quotes from Famous Books



... Plato's works, seems to have been composed by him in the latest years of his long life, and was probably not published till after his death. It bears traces of its later origin in the less artful juncture of its parts, in the absence of humour, in the greater overloading of details, in the less graphic and appropriate characterisation of the speakers. These speakers are three—an Athenian, a Cretan, and a Spartan. A new colony is to be led forth ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... literature: she united, in the highest degree, imagination, florid description and all the brilliancy of the south, with that knowledge, that observation of the human heart, which falls to the share of those countries where external objects excite less interest. ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... prodigious system of canon law which is the ripe fruit of the experience and the inspiration of eighteen hundred years. Nothing can be more remote from the political notions of monarchy than the authority of the Pope. With even less justice can it be said that there is in the Church an element of aristocracy, the essence of which is the possession of hereditary personal privileges. An aristocracy of merit and of office cannot, in a political sense, legitimately bear the name. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... attend on less, When things of more importance press: You can't, grave sir, believe it hard, That you, a low Hibernian bard, Should cool your heels a while, and wait Unanswer'd at your patron's gate; And would my lord vouchsafe to grant This one poor humble boon I want, Free leave to play his secretary, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... It was less than an hour's trip to Fairtown, nor was the walk long through the pleasant, elm-shaded streets. The hospital was a brick building, painted white, and looking very neat and trim, with its striped awnings, and ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... unable in the present campaign to extend his dominions to the banks of the Rhine, contented himself, "before turning his back on it, with the fact that the horses of his army had drunk of the waters of that stream." The Austrasian expedition was less brilliant in its results than he had expected; nevertheless, whether he was to be included in the peace then negotiating or not, he resolved to retain the three ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... and his rifle loaded—and in tip-top working condition, the daily rifle inspection having taken place at dusk. Sometimes our artillery would presently open fire for the enemy's first line, perhaps for five or six minutes—it might be more, it might be less. Then a wait of six or seven minutes, when the enemy returned the fire, and we all got well down. It was as well to keep as hard up against the parapet as possible, and to keep out of all dug-outs, for into them the forward impetus of bursting shrapnel ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey

... in this way from experts than to depend solely upon the guidance of the divers engaged upon the work which the engineer desires to inspect. Only a nominal charge of one guinea for two descents is made, which sum, less out-of-pocket expenses, is remitted to the Benevolent Fund of the Institution of Civil Engineers. It is generally desirable that a complete outfit, including the air pump, should be provided for the ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams

... anybody else rich. But you can't make Milton K. Rogers rich, any more than you can fat a hide-bound colt. It ain't in him. He'd run through Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Tom Scott rolled into one in less than six months, give him a chance, and come out and want to borrow money of you. Well, he won't borrow any more money of ME; and if he thinks I don't know as much about that milling property as he does he's mistaken. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Andy keeps a bright eye on the 'main chance.' Like his brother, the Northern Yankee, whom he somewhat resembles and greatly admires, he never omits an opportunity of 'turning an honest penny.' In defiance of custom-house regulations and of our strict blockade, he has carried on a more or less regular traffic with New-York and Boston (via Halifax and other neutral ports) ever since North-Carolina seceded. His turpentine, while it was still his property, has been sold in the New-York market, under ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... in due proportion, more or less conducive to the growth and perfection of the plants, which men and animals require from the soil: some plants require more of the one, and some more of another; and some find a superabundance of what they need, where others find a deficiency, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... therefore, of the theoretical equality between the ecclesiastical and the secular organs of government. According to this doctrine Sacerdotium and Imperium are independent spheres, each wielding the one of the two swords appropriate to itself, and thus the Emperor no less than the Pope is Vicarius Dei. It is this doctrine behind which the champions of the Empire entrench themselves in their contest with the Papacy. It was asserted by the Emperors themselves, notably by Frederick I and Frederick ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... companions under those circumstances. The daughters loved Brentham, and they loved to please their father; but the sons-in-law, though they were what is called devoted to their wives, and, unusual as it may seem, scarcely less attached to their legal parents, did not fall very easily into this arrangement. The country in August without sport was unquestionably to them a severe trial: nevertheless, they rarely omitted making their appearance, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... iv. 27-35, but a quite independent treatment of the same material, with important differences of form. The place of the systematic generality of chap. iv. is here taken by the definite individual case, and what is analogous to it; the ritual is given with less minuteness, and the hierarchical subordination of ranks has no influence on the classification of offences. In this section also asham and hattath occur interchangeably as synonymous. In the third section a ram as an asham is prescribed (v. 17-19) for the very case in which in the first a ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... himself with the other to Piraeeus; that, while his general, by advancing to the walls and threatening an assault, might keep the Athenians within the city, he might be able to make himself master of the harbour, when left with only a slight garrison. But he found the attack of Piraeeus no less difficult than that of Eleusis, the same persons for the most part acting in its defence. He therefore hastily led his troops to Athens, and being repulsed by a sudden sally of both foot and horse, who engaged him in the narrow ground, enclosed by the half-ruined wall, which, with two arms, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... 19 Nor less thy glories in the deep, Where fish in millions swim and creep, With wondrous motions, swift or slow, Still wandering in the ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... paler than usual, and perhaps even sadder; but he was less distrait and abstracted: no sooner did he see, than he approached me, and extended his hand with great cordiality. His hand, thought I, and I could not bring myself to accept it; I merely addressed him in the common-place salutation. He looked hard and inquisitively at ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... my regard for the young man made me quite forget my duty as an officer, and the Articles of War. I knew that I was about to do wrong; but I considered that, with so many thousand prisoners which we had in England, one more or less could be of no consequence, and I set to work to see if I could not effect ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... placed it on the finger of her dear Hynde Horn, and said, 'As long as the diamonds in this ring flash bright, thou wilt know I love thee as I do now. Should the gleam of the diamonds fade and grow dim, thou wilt know, not that my love grows less, for that may never be, but thou wilt know ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor

... yawn interrupted him. They surveyed their work with blinking eyes, then they crept up to the little room above the garage, and in less than ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske

... water pot. On the way she met several women of the village, who asked her why she was fetching water so early, and she said, "Because the Raja has a tortoise inside him and my husband is going off to see it." In less than an hour the village was full of the news, and the rumour spread until it reached the ears of the Raja. The Raja was very angry and said that he would kill the man who started the report, unless he could prove it to be true. So he sent messengers throughout ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas

... consciousness the city's gigantic, self-centered indifference. Yet it was just that quality that he had loved most in London. She had let him alone. She had been—he recalled the high-flown phrase of his youth—the supremely indifferent friend! Perhaps, he thought to himself, when one is fifty, one cares less to be "let alone"; less for indifference as the supreme ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... unless some special means are taken to arrest the process of disintegration in the third generation. This is so rarely done, at least successfully, that one need not live a very long life to see most of the rich families he knew in childhood more or less reduced, and the millions shifted into the hands of the country-boys who were sweeping stores and carrying parcels when the now decayed gentry were driving their chariots, eating their venison over silver chafing-dishes, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... harmony with all that surrounds it," observes Mrs Agassiz,—"with the dense mass of forest, with palm and parasite, with birds of glowing plumage, with insects of all bright and wonderful tints, and with fishes which, though hid in the water beneath it, are not less brilliant and varied than ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... voters), and the voter being directed to score out the names of those he did not support, and then to place the card (covered by an official envelope) in the box. It was found at Manchester that the voting was considerably more rapid, and therefore less expensive, than under the old system; that only 80 cards out of 11,475 were rejected as informal; and that, the representatives of candidates being present to check false statements of identity, and the public outside being ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... which to enliven the great occasion, and yet I found more real satisfaction in providing for the real wants of little 'Gusta Taggard and her mother than in all the splendid outlay of the wedding ceremony; and it was not that it cost less which made the satisfaction, but it was that all extravagant outlays, in the very nature of things, are unsatisfactory, while ministering to the necessities of the truly needy and industrious ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... "No less! When any of that party talk about 'He' you know whom they mean. There is one predominant 'He' ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... though not where we could do more than take observations upon them. The Philosopher came in that evening—he had known of my coming from the moment that Hepatica had planned to ask me. He was looking rather less well-fed than the Skeptic, but quite as philosophical, and altogether as friendly as ever. He looked hard at me, and wrung my hand, and immediately began to lay out a programme for my visit. As a beginning he had procured tickets for the Philharmonic Society concert to be given ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... charm passed off the tree. Chilled and harder, yet less deep, it was no more a block of woven colour, warm and impassive, like a southern goddess; it was now a northern tree, with a grey light ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... necessary observations required powerful telescopes, which could not be employed on a tossing ship. Even the expectations of the serviceability of Galileo's methods for land calculations proved premature. The movements of the satellites of Jupiter are far less simple than the immortal Italian supposed them to be. The labors of three more generations of astronomers and mathematicians were needed to determine them, and the mathematical genius of Laplace was needed to complete their labors. At the present day the nautical ephemerides contain, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... was able by an effort of attention to fix the vision for a longer and a longer time, and when they waxed faint and nearly vanished, he had the power of recalling them into light and substance, until at last their vacillating indistinctness became less and less, and they assumed a permanent place ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... directly upon the page. Remaining in the sunlight, {242} repeat the attempt every 10 seconds, and notice how long it takes for the eye to become adapted to the bright light. Having become light-adapted, go back into a dimly lighted room, and see whether dark-adaptation takes more or less ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... notions conveyed thereby to the unthinking part of mankind, prove not the idea to be innate; but only that they who made the discovery had made a right use of their reason, thought maturely of the causes of things, and traced them to their original; from whom other less considering people having once received so important a notion, it could not easily be ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... decision rests. The prize courts of all countries have held at different times that foodstuffs under certain circumstances are contraband, as, for instance, where they are intended for the supply of a belligerent garrison as well as in less obvious cases, but any decision which considered foodstuffs generally as contraband would be disquieting to all ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... a great deal of labour in opening and cleaning all our fish: some we dried and salted; some my wife boiled in oil, as they preserve the tunny. The spawn of the sturgeon, a huge mass, weighing not less than thirty pounds, I laid aside to prepare as caviare, a favourite dish in Holland and Russia. I carefully cleansed the eggs from the skin and fibres that were mixed with them, washed them thoroughly in sea-water, slightly sprinkled them with salt, then put them in a gourd pierced ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... his foolish escapade and the result of it. About the effort of this little girl, Trudy Carr, to save him, and about the discovery and discharge. And, Mr. Conover, I want to ask nothing less than that you take the boy back into your service on a month's trial. I feel convinced that the consequences of his error are almost more than he deserves, and perhaps more than you realize, Mr. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... say, "Now, my dear friends in Christ, I have alway since the public resolutioners were for bringing in the malignants, and their interest, thought it my duty to join with the Lord's people, in witnessing against these sinful courses, and now see clearly that it has ended in nothing less than the making us captains, that we may return to Egypt by the open doors, that are made wide to bring in popery, and set up idolatry in the Lord's covenanted land, to defile it. Wherefore it is the unquestionable and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... the citizens held a public meeting—the great panacea for all the ills of village life in America. Nothing but a set of more or less impassioned speeches and a string of resolutions could express the indignation of Sevenoaks. A notice was posted for several days, inviting all the resident stockholders in the Continental to meet in council, to see ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... shortages experienced throughout the country, particularly in urban areas and in the north; future growth in water usage threatens to outpace supplies; water pollution from industrial effluents; much of the population does not have access to potable water; less than 10% of sewage receives treatment; deforestation; estimated loss of one-fifth of agricultural land since 1949 to soil erosion and economic development; desertification; ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... walked away to the other side of the quarter-deck; the idea of parting with Willy was always painful to him, and, weak with the loss of blood, he was afraid that the emotion would be perceived, which he now felt less able to control. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... afterward, Riley made his initial appearance before a New York City audience. The entertainment was given in aid of an international copyright law, and the country's most distinguished men of letters took part in the program. It is probably true that no one appearing at that time was less known to the vast audience in Chickering Hall than James Whitcomb Riley, but so great and so spontaneous was the enthusiasm when he left the stage after his contribution to the first day's program, ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... indeed, completely triumphant in Spain, and the Austrian party as completely routed. The Queen of Spain was sent away from Madrid, and banished to Toledo, where she remained with but a small suite, and still less consideration. Each day the nobles, the citizens, and the people had given fresh proof of their hatred against the Germans and against the Queen. She had been almost entirely abandoned, and was refused the most ordinary necessaries ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... advantage which Smith proposes by substituting paper in the room of gold and silver money (B. 2. c. 2. 434.), is, 'to replace an expensive instrument with one much less costly, and sometimes equally convenient'; that is to say, (page 437,) to allow the gold and silver to be sent abroad and converted into foreign goods,' and to substitute paper as being a cheaper measure. But this ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... foolishly imagin'd, my Father crying to me, Miles! Sleep, my Miles! Go not to that nasty Place, nor do such servile Offices! tho' thou dost, I'll have thee out this Day, nay, I will pull thee out: And then I foolishly imagin'd, that the same cold Hand pull'd me out of the Ditch; and being in less than a Minute's Time perfectly awake, I found my self on my Feet in the Middle of the Room; I soon put on my Cloaths then, and went to my Labour. Were you thus disturb'd when you were Abroad? (the Captain ask'd) O worse, Sir, (answer'd Miles) especially on a Tuesday Night, a little after ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... here be understood to insist on the same fund of learning in any of my brethren, as Cicero persuades us is necessary to the composition of an orator. On the contrary, very little reading is, I conceive, necessary to the poet, less to the critic, and the least of all to the politician. For the first, perhaps, Byshe's Art of Poetry, and a few of our modern poets, may suffice; for the second, a moderate heap of plays; and, for the last, an indifferent collection of ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... fair;—the very wildness in which he occasionally indulged, his contempt of danger, and impatience of restraint, had in them something noble;—assuredly the child was born of high rank. Such was her conclusion, and she acted upon it accordingly. The domestics around her, less jealous, or less scrupulous than Lilias, acted as servants usually do, following the bias, and flattering, for their own purposes, the humour of the Lady; and the boy soon took on him those airs of superiority, which the sight of habitual deference seldom fails to inspire. It seemed, in truth, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... state and solve. In Mankind in the Making, therefore, I tried to review the social organisation in a different way, to consider it as an educational process instead of dealing with it as a thing with a future history, and if I made this second book even less satisfactory from a literary standpoint than the former (and this is my opinion), I blundered, I think, more edifyingly—at least from the point of view of my own instruction. I ventured upon several themes with a greater frankness than I had used in Anticipations, and came ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... day out, Steps mighty high while he picks all about; Never sees de egg-shell layin' in 'is track, Much less the little piece stickin' on 'is back. But he ain't by 'isself in dat, in dat— But he ain't by 'isself ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... as freshly dug as may be convenient; the longer they have been out of the ground the less well-flavored they are. Well wash them, rub off the skins with a coarse cloth or brush, and put them into boiling water, to which has been added salt, at the rate of one heaped teaspoonful to two quarts. Let them boil till tender—try them with a fork; they will take ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... refreshed. She heard her people talk; they were unending babblers in the waterfall. Truth was with them, and wisdom. How, then, could she pretend to any right to live? Already she had no name; she was less living than a tombstone. For who was Chloe? Her family might pass the grave of Chloe without weeping, without moralizing. They had foreseen her ruin, they had foretold it, they noised it in the waters, and on they sped to the plains, telling ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Helen broke in. "I could not believe that Jimmie's death was due to natural causes," her voice quivered. "He had been so loyal—so faithful—I could not be less true to him, even if, as I feared, my own dear father ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... to the art of Terpsichore made Skinner at the Crawford dance no less conspicuous as a dancer than as a man of distinguished presence. He found himself greatly in demand, and he made the quick calculation that this new enhancement of his value was due to his dancing—which, in turn, was due ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge

... matters are not as bad as you fear," he said. "Sit down in this chair, and tell me what has occurred. Don't hurry yourself; a few moments more or less don't signify. Tell your tale ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... to objection that League as first reported endangers Doctrine. It will seriously embarrass advocates of League, it will certainly lead to Senate amendments embodying Doctrine and other provisions in form less likely to secure subsequent acquiescence of other nations than proper reservation now. Deems some kind of Monroe Doctrine amendment now to Article Ten vital to acceptance of League in this country. ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... and beyond—where mail routes run out and end. Acknowledging in her thoughts, from the first frost on Cape Cod to the middle of winter, that temporizing only spelled weakness, Conscience had none the less temporized. She said to herself: "Nothing he wrote now would alter matters." Still with a somewhat leaky logic she added: "But I'll give him a month to answer before I fix the date." When the month had passed without result she granted herself other continuances, facing alike, with a gentle ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... drive was through scenery less striking than some which we had traversed, but still picturesque and beautiful. We saw deep valleys and ravines, with streams at the bottom; long, wooded hillsides, rising far and high, and dotted with white dwellings, well toward the summits. By and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... and he didn't quite see why he would have. Most of the evening was more or less clear in his mind; he hadn't apparently, forgotten ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett

... small a volume as this, I shall give a narrative of the ascent of the Wengern Alp as a sort of specimen of these excursions. I think it better that I should give a minute and particular account of one than a more vague and general, and so less satisfactory, account ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott

... stage of the river practically begins, although there is more or less navigable water above the falls at certain seasons. From St. Paul to Cairo the river flows between bluffs, the terraces of Champlain times, from ten to fifty miles apart. Between the bluffs are the bottom lands, often coincident ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... Snitchey,' said Alfred, 'there are quiet victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, in it - even in many of its apparent lightnesses and contradictions - not the less difficult to achieve, because they have no earthly chronicle or audience - done every day in nooks and corners, and in little households, and in men's and women's hearts - any one of which might reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens

... learns how much it means to me? The army ruined Mel, as it ruined hundreds of thousands of other girls. She will let one soldier make it up to her. She will let me go to my death with less bitterness." ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... the pair represents a blooming and blushing damsel, well bedecked in frock of pure white muslin, if memory serves us faithfully, very scanty and very short-waisted, as was the fashion fifty years ago, and may again be the fashion in less than fifty years hence, for aught we can tell. Over this frock is worn a gay spencer, trimmed with lace and ornamented with an unexceptionable frill, while the damsel's auburn curls are surmounted with a hat of straw fluttering with broad, true blue ribbons, which fasten it ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... tackled into the wagon, was a vicious horse and had several times run away, to the danger of Mr. Dexter's life and others of the family. I was not aware of this or I should not have consented to go with him, much less to drive ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... can in some way act on the body. And this has hitherto been achieved or attempted by magicians, "miracle-mongers," thaumaturgists, mesmerists, and the like, and by the modern hypnotizer, in which we may observe that there has been at every step less and less mysticism or supernaturalism, and a far easier process or way of working. And I believe it may be fairly admitted that in this work I have simplified the process of physically influencing mental action and rendered it easier. The result from the above conclusions being that we ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland

... workingman, and come in late and go out early, I have never found it available for hospitality, even to my intimate friends. I am very glad, however, that the little leisure I have had in it has enabled me to make the floor less ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... Was it really less than a year ago that she herself had come into this very station feeling a little bit frightened of the new life at York Hill? Judith smiled happily. How different things were now—but that must be the train. Her heart beat quickly as she scanned the faces of the incoming travellers. Yes, there ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... Paulist community having been sketched, it is now in order to state the principles with which Father Hecker, guided no less by supernatural intuition than by enlightened reason, intended it should be inspired; and this shall be done as nearly as possible in his own words. The following sentences, found in one of his diaries and quoted some chapters back, embody what ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... of diamonds at her throat, a diamond necklace round it, bracelets set with the same gems and many costly rings. Such a mass of jewelry looked rather out of place in the daylight, but the twilight of the room made the glitter less pronounced. Jennings thought that Mrs. Herne must have Jewish blood in her veins, seeing she was so fond of gems. Certainly she was very like Maraquito, even to having eyebrows almost meeting over her thin high nose. But these, as was her ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... by recipe No. 1206; roll it out to the thickness of about 1/2 inch, or rather less, and divide it into 8, 10, or 12 squares, according to the size the rolls are intended to be. Place some sausage-meat on one-half of each square, wet the edges of the paste, and fold it over the meat; slightly press the edges together, and trim ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... number. The silks of China are much used also in the churches of the Indians, which are thus adorned and made decent; while before, because of inability to buy the silks of Espana, the churches were very bare. As long as goods come in greater abundance, the kingdom will feel less anxiety, and the cheaper will be the goods. The increase to the royal exchequer will be greater, since the import duties and customs increase in proportion to the merchandise; and this increase cannot take place, if the fleets are laid up for the winter, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... no beauty in the scenery round Nashoba, nor can I conceive that it would possess any even in summer. The trees were so close to each other as not to permit the growth of underwood, the great ornament of the forest at New Orleans, and still less of our seeing any openings, where the varying effects of light and shade might atone for the absence of other objects. The clearing round the settlement appeared to me inconsiderable and imperfect; but I was told that they had grown good crops of cotton and Indian corn. The weather was dry and ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... had done. She regretted having become entangled in the wars of men in Washington. She saw that the man's game was played too strongly, too furiously fast, for most women to enter, yet she rejoiced that the coveted fortune had not been lost. She was sorry that her means of saving it had not been less questionable. She saw that ambition and honesty, ambition and truth, with difficulty follow the ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise

... of the limitations of the onlooker-consciousness in science. Goethe's paper was not destined to raise such a storm as soon followed Galvani's publication. And yet the fruit of Goethe's endeavours is not less significant than Galvani's discovery, for the progress of mankind. For in Goethe's achievement lay the seed of that form of knowing which man requires, if in the age of the electrification of civilization he is to remain ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... before they parted at her door, his arms had been about her, and he had kissed her on the lips and kissed her repeatedly. And her last words in his ear, words uttered softly with a catchy sob in the throat that was nothing more nor less than a love cry, were "Bill . . . ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London

... Rome bk. iv. c. 3) considers it rather less than half. The average market-price of the modius is difficult to fix. A low price seems to have been about 12 asses the modius. See Smith and Wilkins in Smith Dict. of Antiq. i. p. 877. For occasional sales ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... greatest actors; and there can be no doubt that it is the name of Racine that would first rise to the lips of an educated Frenchman if he were asked to select the one consummate master from among all the writers of his race. Now in literature, no less than in politics, you cannot indict a whole nation. Some justice, some meaning, France must have when she declares with one voice that Racine is not only one of the greatest of dramatists, but also one of the greatest of poets; and it behoves an Englishman, before he condemns or despises ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey

... possible romance with a handsome young lover she had not quite known herself. She might have made the attempt, but it would have been a failure. She could fall in love with a Master of Ravenswood in a novel, but would have given herself by preference,—after due consideration,—to the richer, though less poetical, suitor. Of good sterling gifts she did know the value, and was therefore contented with her lot. But this business of being married, with all the most extravagant appurtenances of the hymeneal ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... merciful. They fear and shrink from His lightnings and dread His wrath. For the most part, they only think they believe that there is another life, a judgment, and a punishment for sin. Yet they will none the less persecute as Infidels and Atheists those who do not believe what they themselves imagine they believe, and which yet they do not believe, because it is incomprehensible to them in their ignorance and want of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... after this transaction, Charles, in an assembly no less splendid and with a ceremonial equally pompous, resigned to his son the crowns of Spain, with all the territories depending on them, both in the Old and in the New world. Of all these vast possessions, he reserved ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... Nor less in number tho' more new and rude In warfare's school was the vast multitude That, fired by zeal or by oppression wronged, Round the white standard of the impostor thronged. Beside his thousands of Believers—blind, Burning and headlong as the Samiel wind— Many who felt ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... this self-evident proposition, that there can be no transgression where there is no law; and that an unknown law is the same as no law; and consequently, that all mankind, at all times, must be capable of knowing all (whether more or less) that God requires, it would have prevented his endeavoring to prove, that, till the gospel dispensation, mankind were entirely, and unavoidably ignorant of their duty in several important points; and thus charging the light of nature with undeniable defects. I think it ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... was earning his bread before he was in Parliament and had ceased to be Jacky. And the celerity with which he became Sir John was the most astonishing of all. Years no doubt had passed by. But years at fifty are no more than months at thirty,—are less than weeks in boyhood. And now while some tongues, by dint of sheer habit, were still forming themselves into Jacky, Sir John Joram had become the leading advocate of the day, and a man renowned for the ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... time I rode through the Rises and called at the two huts; I found them occupied by two shepherds not unlike the former tenants, who knew little and cared less what had become of their predecessors. Time empties thrones and huts impartially, and the king feels no pride in his monument of marble, nor the shepherd any shame beneath the shapeless cairn ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... year '55, when the Crimean War was at its height, and the old convict ships had been largely used as transports in the Black Sea. The Government was compelled therefore to use smaller and less suitable vessels for sending out their prisoners. The Gloria Scott had been in the Chinese tea trade, but she was an old-fashioned, heavy-bowed, broad-beamed craft, and the new clippers had cut her out. She was a 500-ton boat, and besides her thirty-eight gaol-birds, she ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... nature "which have less of earth in them than heaven," are those which bind together the domestic circle in the various sympathies, affections, and duties, which belong to this class of tender relations. It is beautiful also to observe, how these affections arise out of each other, and how the ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... unhappy about it, but she was more beautiful than she had ever been in her life, and freer, with the last little Lorimer shifting sturdily for himself and his father more in love with her than ever. She had more or less resigned her active motherhood to him. The things she might have done for Honor, the selection of her frocks and hats, the color scheme of her room, her parties, the girl at seventeen did efficiently for herself. Her childish squareness of face and figure was rounding out rather splendidly ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... I was under a delusion. I, too, was very much afraid whenever I was not occupied in prayer; but when I prayed, and our Lord bestowed His graces upon me, I was instantly reassured. My confessor told me they were all of opinion that I was deceived by Satan; that I must communicate less frequently, and contrive to distract myself in such a way as to ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... "there is the letter in which I have your promise to marry me when I am free;—as I am now. It could not be less injurious to you than when locked up there; but the remembrance of it might frighten you." She threw the letter to him across the table, but he did not touch it. "And here are others which might be taken to ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope

... leaving no less than three of Mr. Peaney's employees in recumbent postures along his line of march.... Pansy followed him closely, pale, but resolute. He ascended the stairs, and, finding the door at the top fastened from within, he removed it bodily by the application of a calk-studded ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... but one attitude possible. No man of business could resent the recording of his considered words, but the tablet and pencil and the quietly bent red head were extraordinary obstacles to the fluidity of eloquence. Rosenthal found his arguments less ready and his methods modifying themselves. The outlook narrowed itself. When he returned to his office and talked the situation over with his partner, he sat and bit his nails in ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... it seemed to be a great thing that he should be allowed to fly near the candle. Oh! my friends, if you will but think of it, how many of you have been moths, and are now going about ungracefully with wings more or less burnt off, and with bodies ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... he has never given me any uneasiness. He is not the cleverest of our scholars; but no one possesses the confidence of us all in the same degree. True, he is the oldest of the party, he can hardly be less than twenty-six years old, for he had been married a year when first we saw him; but it is his character rather than his age which gives him his position. For a long time he has been our link with the Melanesians themselves whenever ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... you will not dispute the justice of my resolve to make war upon the Porte, and that you will not hold me less a friend because I may do some injury to the Ottoman. Your majesty may rest assured that under similar circumstances, I should apply the same principles to myself, were I possessed ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... merest trifles. Of, if you feel no love whatever for me, refuse, by all means. My fate hangs on a word from you. Speak!—Father," she said after a pause, "make him listen to reason. Can he imagine that I am less nice than he is ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... do no less, mademoiselle," returned Marteau. "I and my forbears have served your house and known it and loved it for ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... incessant activity, and discloses just those warmhearted acts of kindness that help us to think of Harry Fielding with an affection almost as warm and personal as that we keep for Dick Steele or Oliver Goldsmith. Fielding, we know, had "no other use for money" than to help those even less fortunate than himself; and several incidents of this year show how he turned his opportunities, both as journalist and magistrate, to like generous uses. Thus there is the story of how, one day in March, "A poor girl who had come from Wapping to see the new entertainment at Covent ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... and, contemplating Rose and Blanche by turns with admiration, he resumed: "What happiness for me, to be able to bring some pleasure to these dear young ladies. They are even as I left them graceful, and fair, and charming—only less sad than on the day when I fetched them from the gloomy convent in which they were kept prisoners, to restore them to the arms of their ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... well posted. He may have been influenced by a mistaken public spirit or quite possibly by a less praiseworthy motive; but if we have any more bad breakdowns I can foresee ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... forgot them. Looking about him, the length and breadth of his silent and lonely valley, he could see nothing but amenity in the earth which owed man so little. It was so with him at this time that the more he saw to love in Nature the less he could find admirable in man, who denied her at every turn. It was men, not She, who had given him his bruises; it was She, not men, who had taught him how to forget them. When outraged Society cried him down for a breaker of laws, he had replied that, so far as he knew, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... permission to come with you," said Kaa. "A blow more or less is nothing to thee, Bagheera or Baloo, but I—I have to wait and wait for days in a wood-path and climb half a night on the mere chance of a young ape. Psshaw! The branches are not what they were when I was young. Rotten twigs and ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... to yield an inch, then this evil might come upon them. She had heard that young people can always beat their parents if they be sufficiently obdurate. Parents are soft-hearted to their children, and are prone to yield. And so would she have been soft-hearted, if the interests concerned had been less important, if the deviation from duty had been less startling, or the union proposed less monstrous and disgraceful. But in this case it behoved her to be obdurate,—even though it should be to the very gates of the ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... great American city like Chicago goes on showing a more or less cheerful face to the world while in nooks and crannies down side-streets and alleys poverty and misery sit hunched up in little ill-smelling rooms breeding vice. In times of depression these creatures crawl ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson

... her distress, Nor grief her lost darling recover. She now had a chicken the less, For acting ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

... claim my right to share with you the humble resources which I have saved by the intellectual labours that have absorbed all such moments as my military drudgeries left to the talents which, even at such a moment, paralysing minds less energetic, have sustained me:"—and therewith he poured several pieces of gold and silver on ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Aulus, and later, when he went to Miriam's house to seize her, she was as wonderful as a statue and also as a flower; now her face had become almost transparent, her hands thin, her body reduced by disease, her lips pale, and even her eyes seemed less blue than formerly. The golden-haired Eunice who brought her flowers and rich stuffs to cover her feet was a divinity of Cyprus in comparison. Petronius tried in vain to find the former charms in her, and, shrugging his shoulders, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... of democracy in the nineteenth century is the success with which the abstract idea of nationality has exprest itself in concrete form. Within less than twoscore years Italy has ceased to be only a geographical expression; and Germany has given itself boundaries more sharply defined than those claimed for the fatherland by the martial lyric of a century ago. Hungary has asserted ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... from him and paid well. In less than a month he had taken a hundred roubles from them; at the manor this had meant ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... stepped into the home of a missionary friend of mine, whose name I dare not use. If I did he would likely be sent home by the Japanese. Men have been sent home for less. ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger

... and disparaged. When he was a white, thin, big-headed baby, his mother, stripping the suds from her lean arms, used to inveigh to her neighbors against his existence. "Wa'n't it just like that do-less Lem Warren, not even to leave me foot-free when he ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... elude the vigilance of the enemy; and had advanced two days' march on the road to the metropolis before Essex became aware of his object. In London the news was received with terror. Little reliance could be placed on the courage, less on the fidelity of the trained bands; and peremptory orders were despatched to Essex, to hasten with his whole force to the protection of the capital and the parliament. That general had seen his error; ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... come to the knowledge of the writer, what foundation there has been for the report commonly circulated, that a Member of Parliament had stated to the House of Commons, when speaking to some question relating to Ireland; that there were not less than 36,000 ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland

... animal, I merely cut off its long tail, which I secured as a trophy round my waist. My adventures, however, were not yet terminated, for while I was crossing the short width of cane-brake which was between me and where the she-panther laid dead, the dogs again gave tongue, and, in less than three minutes, had tracked another animal. Night was coming on pretty fast, and I was beginning to be alarmed. Till now I had been successful, each time having destroyed, with a single ball, a terrible enemy, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... clear and artistic utterance in the epoch of the Crusades, is indeed enough to bid us pause and reconsider the justice of our stereotyped ideas about that period. This literature makes it manifest that the ineradicable appetites and natural instincts of men and women were no less vigorous in fact, though less articulate and self-assertive, than they had been in the age of Greece and Rome, and than they afterwards displayed themselves in what is known as ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... without pursuing the discussion further, I will detain the Senate only while I recapitulate the opinions which I have expressed; because I am far less desirous of influencing the judgment of others, than of making clear the grounds of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster



Words linked to "Less" :   comparative, to a lesser extent, more, fewer, comparative degree, less-traveled, gill-less, shell-less, little, inferior, slight



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