"Mitigate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any resources which may thence be furnished for the public advantage. You derive benefits from many dispositions and many passions of the human mind which are of as doubtful a color, in the moral eye, as superstition itself. It was your business to correct and mitigate everything which was noxious in this passion, as in all the passions. But is superstition the greatest of all possible vices? In its possible excess I think it becomes a very great evil. It is, however, a moral subject, and of course ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... kept in a wretched, old, tumbledown house, without doors or windows, during the bitter cold of a Kansas winter, guarded by "Law and Order" militia, exposed to every insult, wallowing in filth, and eaten up with lice. But there was one circumstance to mitigate their hapless condition—their jailer was a good-hearted, honest Kentuckian, who had humanity enough to pity them, and bravery enough to do what he could to mitigate the hardships of their lot. Their hard-hearted judges had condemned ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... here discuss the strength or the weakness of the Christian Socialist reform. When we remember how widely this vague initiative has spread and developed, when we read again Alton Locke and Yeast, and note how much has been practically done in forty years to redress or mitigate the abuses against which these books uttered the first burning protest, we may form some estimate of all that the present generation of Englishmen owes to Charles Kingsley ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... She was a thousand times on the very brink of revoking the sentence she had passed against the poor youth. Love became his advocate, and whispered many things in his favour. Honour likewise endeavoured to vindicate his crime, and Pity to mitigate his punishment. On the other side, Pride and Revenge spoke as loudly against him. And thus the poor lady was tortured with perplexity, opposite passions distracting and ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... them, and in their ears whispered words of peace and hope. The hymns of consolation which they had taught her to sing she now rehearsed to them; and many a word of confidence in God which they had uttered in bar hearing she now called up from the depths of memory, to comfort their hearts and mitigate their sorrows. Her conduct at such an hour was a restoring cordial to the wounded hearts of the parents, who found in the heavenly mindedness of one child consolation for the ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... responsibility with which her future was to be invested. To make the same things known to Joseph was a task of more difficulty. He could not here count on sympathetic intelligence; it was but too certain that his son would listen with disappointment, if not with bitterness. In order to mitigate the worst results, he began by making known the fact of his wealth and asking if Joseph had any practical views which could be furthered by a moderate sum ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... was able to turn upon it his incisive mind; he would drag out and scrutinize every bone of the skeleton which had terrorized his father and shadowed his own life Facts faced are never so dreadful as fears unmaterialized. And more, he sought with all the love of a son for circumstances that would mitigate, excuse, or ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... recurring faithlessness of the Jews, their restlessness and proneness to wander from their one-principled deity which had been set up by their priests for them to worship, was doubtless an unconscious effort on the part of the people to mitigate the outrage which had been committed against their Creator. It was but a reaching out for that lost or unrecognized element which comprehends the more essential force both in human beings and in the ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... made, and were meant to make, criticism of the party in power dangerous. The judges—Federalists to a man and bred, moreover, in a tradition which ill-distinguished the office of judge from that of prosecutor-felt little call to mitigate the lot of those who fell within the toils of the law under this Act. A shining mark for the Republican enemies of the Judiciary was Justice Samuel Chase of the Supreme Court. It had fallen to Chase's lot to preside successively at the trial of Thomas Cooper for sedition, at the second ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... Star in July marks the season of the greatest cold instead of, as with us, the greatest heat; and just as the civilized ancients ascribed the torrid heat of midsummer to that brilliant star,[804] so the modern savage of South Africa attributes to it the piercing cold of midwinter and seeks to mitigate its rigour by warming up the chilly star with the genial heat of the sun. How he does so may be best described in his own ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... have their joys and their sorrows. They eagerly make the most of the former; they fret but little about the latter, which, when all is said, is the best way of achieving a purely animal enjoyment of life. To mitigate these troubles and protect the progeny there is the inspiration of instinct, which is able without the counsels of experience to give the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... abandoned by the dominant party, whether Catholic or Protestant? And where that of toleration asserted, except by the weaker? It is true, to borrow Isabella's own expression, in her letter to Talavera, the prevalence of a bad custom cannot constitute its apology. But it should serve much to mitigate our condemnation of the queen, that she fell into no greater error, in the imperfect light in which she lived, than was common to the greatest minds in a later ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... thy counsels on Phaeacia's shore. But, by the almighty author of thy race, Tell me, oh tell, is this my native place? For much I fear, long tracts of land and sea Divide this coast from distant Ithaca; The sweet delusion kindly you impose, To soothe my hopes, and mitigate ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... was not dissatisfied with an emigration which removed the elements of fresh discord and of further revolutions. On the contrary, everything was done to encourage it, and great exertions were made to mitigate the hardships of those who sought a shelter from the rigor of their country's laws on the soil of America. It seemed as if New England was a region given up to the dreams of fancy and ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... luxury, is deprived of that prosperity. Having through his own fault fallen into distress, such a person blameth the very gods with Indra and his own self. Indeed, knowledge of even the entire scriptures faileth to mitigate his pains. Sometimes he getteth angry with his servants, and sometimes he cherisheth malice towards even his well-wishers. Subject to constant anger, he loseth his very senses, and his senses being clouded, he practiseth evil deeds. Through sinfulness such a person contributeth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Thursday, 27th.—Hotter by several degrees than yesterday: I wish to heaven we could get away from this broiling place. Not a breath of air stirs to relieve me, or mitigate the weakness and fainting with which I am oppressed. I am incapable of exertion, and, indeed, there is no inducement to walk out: it is too much labour to play at billiards; and smoking sickens and ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... their shape; women, who unfortunately have natural bad complexions, lay on good ones; and both men and women upon whom unkind nature has inflicted a surliness and ferocity of countenance, do at least all they can, though often without success, to soften and mitigate it; they affect 'douceur', and aim at smiles, though often in the attempt, like the Devil in Milton, they GRIN HORRIBLY A GHASTLY SMILE. But you are the only person I ever knew in the whole course of my life, who not only disdain, but absolutely reject and disguise a great advantage that nature ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... friendlessness oppressed me so much that I took steps to mitigate it. In my college life I had two particular friends whom I think I must have selected because they were so ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... of his mother, he returned by the usual track to the subterraneous road, but found no appearance of any passage, though he searched for it on the banks of the river for nearly the space of a year. But since those calamities are often alleviated by time, which reason cannot mitigate, and length of time alone blunts the edge of our afflictions, and puts an end to many evils, the youth having been brought back by his friends and mother, and restored to his right way of thinking, and to his learning, in process of time attained the rank of priesthood. Whenever David II., bishop ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... though so heavy and incessant that the men could hardly keep the deck, did not greatly mitigate the heat, and Columbus was at last constrained to yield to the importunities of his crew, and to alter his course to the north-west, in order to reach some of the Caribbee islands, where he might refit ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... preside over such an attempt. But, perhaps, where the pen might fail, the pencil would succeed. What a group!—Mrs. B. the principal figure; you cramming your ears with cotton, as the only antidote to total deafness; Mrs.——in vain endeavouring to mitigate the wrath of the lioness robbed of her whelp; and last, though not least, Elizabeth and Wousky,—wonderful to relate!—both deprived of their parts of speech, and bringing up the rear in mute astonishment. How ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... eating into their vitals with fearful rapidity. My last and not my least sincere hope is, that some one among the many suggestions I have offered for the negro's present benefit, may be found available to mitigate the undoubted sufferings and cruel injustice of which those with bad masters must frequently be the victims. Should I succeed in even one solitary instance, I shall feel more than repaid for the many hours of thought and trouble I have spent over the intricate problem—the best ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the gravest of risks in this respect, and the goose of many a tailor was effectually cooked because of the damning fact, which no protestations of innocence of the sea could mitigate, that long confinement to the board had warped his legs into a fatal resemblance to those of a typical Jack-tar. Harwich once had a mayor who, after vowing that he would "never be guilty of saying there was no law for pressing sailors," as a ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... other belief than that of our Holy Mother the Catholic Apostolic Church of Rome; I renounce the devil and all his works; I confess my Redeemer, and I pray to be saved through the blood of the Cross; and I beseech you, messeigneurs, to mitigate the rigour of my sentence, and not to drive ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... upon a position of neutrality in the unhappy war now being waged, and which they had tried in vain to prevent, had hoped that one place at least in this great nation might remain uninvaded by passion, and through whose good office something might be done to end the war, or at least to mitigate its horrors, or, if this were not possible, that she might be left to choose her destiny without ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... for pity—nothing for love? Will ye leave a foreign Parliament to mitigate—will ye leave a native Parliament, gained in your despite, to redress these miseries—will ye for ever abdicate the duty and the joy of making the poor comfortable, and the peasant attached and happy? Do—if so you prefer; but know that if you do, you are a doomed race. Once more, Aristocracy of ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... which science and medical knowledge could suggest to mitigate these hardships was employed, the sufferings of the ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the pursuit was so fierce; and in the end I came to the determination only to seek to know how it fared with them, and what had become of my brother in the battle, trusting that in due season the Lord would mitigate the ire and the cruelty that was let loose on all those who had joined in the Protestation and renewed the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... breath he pursued his researches with unabated ardour. But his career was embittered by broils and controversies; while the frequent acts of kindness, and the general warmth of heart, evinced in his conduct, hardly sufficed to soften the asperity, or to mitigate the wrath, of a host of enemies—which assailed him to the very last. But Cadmus-like, he sowed the seeds from which these combatants sprung. Whatever were his defects, as a public character, he is said to have been, in private, a kind parent, a warm friend, and an ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... promising capital which clustered about the Battery and overlooked the Bay, and of which the uppermost boundary was indicated by the grassy waysides of Canal Street. Even at the age of twenty- seven Austin Sloper had made his mark sufficiently to mitigate the anomaly of his having been chosen among a dozen suitors by a young woman of high fashion, who had ten thousand dollars of income and the most charming eyes in the island of Manhattan. These eyes, and some of their accompaniments, were ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... this showed her to be possessed of as much power as the woman she displaced, and when she began to exercise that power in other directions the popular dislike to her was increased. She made no effort to mitigate it—hating the Spaniards as much as they hated her—and it is incredible to what an extent ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... disastrous condition, which they attributed to free-trade measures, which they contended had affected the whole of the agricultural interests. Consequently, February 19th, Mr. Disraeli moved for a committee of the whole House to consider such a revision of the Poor Laws of the United Kingdom as might mitigate the distress of the agricultural classes. Some thought that this was a movement against free-trade, but Mr. Gladstone courted the fullest investigation, and seeing no danger in the motion, voted for it. However, the motion ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... whole day by herself, thinking that something must occur to mitigate the severity of the sentence which he had pronounced against her. It could not be that he should leave her thus,—he whose every word, whose every tone, whose every look, whose every touch had hitherto been so full of tenderness. ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... which one cannot fail to make in the present instance, is, that in the course of this inquiry, certainly with respect to the defence made by the defendant De Berenger, one cannot find any circumstances of which the court can lay hold, as a ground upon which they can mitigate the offence which the law calls for to be inflicted upon that defendant, because after a weight of evidence not depending upon the testimony of two, three, four or six persons, as to the identity of the man and his clothes, ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... citizenship, and in peace maintain it—we shall give them uttermost justice and abiding friendship. And whatever we do, into whatever seeming estrangement we may be driven, nothing shall disturb the love we bear this Republic, or mitigate our consecration to its service. I stand here, Mr. President, to profess no new loyalty. When General Lee, whose heart was the temple of our hopes, and whose arm was clothed with our strength, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... much enhanced his distress. Going to the warden, I presented the case, and received the reply, "If he wants his flannels, let him ask the doctor." He could meddle in the matter enough to divest the man of the needed articles, but would not move to put them on, and thus mitigate his sufferings. It was then early in the afternoon, and the man would have to suffer till the next forenoon, the usual time for the doctor to make his visit. When he came, as I was informed, he lectured them severely for removing the flannels ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... been led by his fatal passion to take from the funds entrusted to him by his clients a sum which was already more than half their amount. When the whole were gone, the unfortunate man intended to blow out his brains, hoping to mitigate the disgrace of his conduct by making a demand upon public pity. A fortune, rapid and secure, darted before du Tillet's eyes like a flash of lightning in a saturnalian night. He promptly reassured Roguin, and made him fire his pistols into ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... think that the relief you afford to those returned miners will be heard of, and that it will mitigate your sentence?" ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... day dragged interminably. Even the usual pleasure of going shopping with her captain could not mitigate the pain of yesterday's shocking discovery. To Marjorie the bare idea of theft was abhorrent. When, at the Hallowe'en dance, Mignon had accused Constance of taking her bracelet, Marjorie's wrath at the insult to her friend had ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... further, I esteem it the office of a physician not only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors; and not only when such mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a fair and easy passage. For it is no small felicity which Augustus Caesar was wont to wish to himself, that same Euthanasia; and which was specially noted in the death of Antoninus ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... precariously on small things, such as he can pick up as he travels loitering along the lake shores, or strolls, with easy footsteps, about the forest precincts of his lodge. A single fish, or a bird or squirrel, now and then, serves to mitigate, if it does not satisfy, hunger. He has but little, I am told, at the best estate; but, to make amends for this, he is satisfied and even happy with little. This is certainly a philosophic way of taking life, but it is, if I do not mistake it, stoic philosophy, and has been learned, by painful ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... home. We possess men of intelligence without pretention, active men as Jacob Barker without his roguery—men whom nature intended to flourish at St. James, but whose fate fortune in some fit of prolifick humor fixed and nailed to this Sinope. We have however to mitigate the cold spring breezes of the lake a fall unrivalled in mildness and in beauty even in Italy, the land of poetry and passion. We have a whole lake in front, whose clear blue waters are without a parallel in Europe. We have a beautiful river brawling at our feet, the banks of which ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... of affairs, could not do without a small quantity of reason, but in order to temper the evil thus occasioned, at the suggestion of folly woman was introduced into the world—"a foolish, silly creature, no doubt, but amusing, agreeable, and well adapted to mitigate the gloom of man's temper." Woman owes all her advantages to folly. The great end of her existence is to please man, and this she could not do without folly. If any man doubts it, he has only to consider how much nonsense he ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Naturally the first step of the railroads was therefore to contest the constitutionality of the laws, and while these suits were pending they resorted to various expedients to evade these laws or to mitigate their severity. A touch of liveliness and humor was added to the situation by the thousands of legal fare cases that filled the courts, for farmers used to indulge in one of their favorite agricultural sports—getting on trains and tendering the legal two and a half cents ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... gain, were candor as universal as concealment! Then each one, seeing himself as others see him, would truly know himself. How much misunderstanding might be avoided, how much hidden shame be removed, hopeless because unspoken love made glad, honest admiration cheer its object, uttered sympathy mitigate misfortune,—in short, how much brighter and happier the world would become, if each one expressed, everywhere and at all times, his true and entire feeling! Why, even Evil ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... authority, but may in the meantime be required to undergo the punishment adjudged. The commanding officer who imposes the punishment, his successor in command, and superior authority shall have power to mitigate or remit any unexecuted portion of the punishment. The imposition and enforcement of disciplinary punishment under authority of this article for any act or omission shall not be a bar to trial by court-martial for a crime or offense growing ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... Dix signed the Bayne law against the sale of wild native game in the State of New York, Currituck County, N.C., was a vast slaughter-pen for wild fowl. No power or persuasion had availed to induce the people of North Carolina to check, or regulate, or in any manner mitigate that slaughter of geese, ducks and swans. It was estimated that two hundred thousand wild fowl ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... filling even a smaller and humbler sphere. They have missed the opportunity of being really great, and yet their abilities prevent them from being satisfied with anything short of this. The call came to Gordon to take his share in the battle of life, and to do his best to mitigate the sufferings caused by a horrible civil war, and doubtless he pondered those words, "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me." He decided to take the path which appeared to him the one of duty; nor need we be surprised when we know that he was ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... scene that night; the young girl to whom poor Allen was engaged was heartbroken at her lover's doom, and bitter were her cries to "save my William!". No protests, no pleas, however, availed to mitigate the doom, and on November 23rd, Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien were hanged outside Salford gaol. Had they striven for freedom in Italy, England would have honored them as heroes; here she buried them as common murderers in quicklime ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... humoring the priestly power, were more vexed and more anxious about the necessity under which they found themselves of continuing to despoil the churches and of persisting in a system which was putting the finishing stroke to the ruin of all ecclesiastical discipline. They were more eager to mitigate the evil and to offer the Church compensation for their share in this evil to which it was not in their power to put a stop. Accordingly at the March parade held at Leptines in 743, it was decided, in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... promptly sent off with a light marching force, and the few who offered resistance were killed. The majority threw away their arms and begged for quarter. Some escaped to the main camp[167] and spread universal panic by exaggerating the strength and prowess of the enemy, in order to mitigate the disgrace of losing the fort. In the Vitellian camp all offences went unpunished: desertion met with sure reward. Their loyalty soon gave way and a competition in treachery began. Tribunes and centurions deserted daily, but not the common soldiers, who had grown stubbornly faithful ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... seen that the Rebu are men in the field," Amuba said to some of them. "Let them see that we can also bear misfortune like men. Grieving will not mitigate our lot, nay, it will add to its burden. If the Egyptians see that we bear our fate manfully they will have far more compassion upon us than if they see that we bemoan ourselves. Remember we have a long and toilsome journey before us, and shall need all our strength. After all, the ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... his own way as sincerely as I did in mine. I believed that she detested him for the detestable crime in which he had been concerned. I believed that the opinion of him which she had expressed to his face, in my hearing, was her true opinion, and I longed to hear her mitigate it ever so little before he went. He won my sympathy as a gallant who valued a kind word from his mistress more than life itself. I hoped earnestly that that kind word would be spoken. But I had no desire to wait to ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... He had no idea that he was making excuses for her,—he believed himself only just. The recollection of what she had said of the power of love, albeit it had hurt him cruelly at the time, was now clearer to him, and even seemed to mitigate her offense. She would be here but a day or two longer; he could afford to wait ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... Southern States to be a slave. It tells not only its own story of grief, but speaks of a thousand wrongs and woes beside, which never see the light; all the more bitter and dreadful, because no help can relieve, no sympathy can mitigate, and no ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... hour has already come in France, where the blood of heretics has lately fertilised the soil of faith; it will come here, as surely as I now stand before you; and till it comes the faithful can only weary heaven with their entreaties, if haply thereby they may mitigate the evil. I shall remain here," he continued, "while the Marquess needs me; but that task discharged, I intend to retire to one of the contemplative orders, and with my soul perpetually uplifted like the arms of Moses, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... already made me your friend," exclaimed Francisco. "And now point out to me in what manner I can in any way repair—or mitigate—the wrong done to that fair creature in whom ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... system are greater still. Moreover, that system is one which offers an almost indefinite capacity for improvement. We may progressively eliminate the evils; we may progressively augment the goods which it contains. I do not want to see impaired the vigour of competition, but we can do much to mitigate the consequences of failure. We want to draw a line below which we will not allow persons to live and labour, yet above which they may compete with all the strength of their manhood. We want to have free competition upwards; we decline to allow free competition to run downwards. We ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... 'Mitigate it, Father?' interrupted the 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. ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... the telescope, and the application of it to reading by artificial light, is very prejudicial to its use for the more delicate purpose. John Herschel, no doubt, availed himself of every precaution to mitigate the ill effects of this inconvenience as much as possible, but it must have told upon his labours as compared with those ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... moon, nor star ever appeared; and Servadac's irritation and annoyance at being unable to identify any one point of the firmament may be more readily imagined than described. On one occasion Ben Zoof endeavored to mitigate his master's impatience by exhorting him to assume the resignation, even if he did not feel the indifference, which he himself experienced; but his advice was received with so angry a rebuff that he retired in all haste, abashed, to resume his watchman's duty, which he performed with ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... it, he said: "I want to make an abject apology. We are ill-prepared to entertain a lady here, and no one knew of your coming. But we certainly intend to mitigate in some degree the desolation of the room to which you were conducted. I left you for the purpose of seeing what the store-room contained that would contribute a trifle toward transforming it into a ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Earth these thy transgressors, but thou knowst, Whoever judg'd, the worst on mee must light, When time shall be, for so I undertook Before thee; and not repenting, this obtaine Of right, that I may mitigate thir doom On me deriv'd, yet I shall temper so Justice with Mercie, as may illustrate most Them fully satisfied, and thee appease. Attendance none shall need, nor Train, where none 80 Are to behold the Judgement, but the judg'd, Those two; the third best absent is condemn'd, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... fury-woken blood, We live and die and wonder why In mud, and mud, and mud, And horror first and horror last And Phantom Terror riding past. We hear and hear the hounds of Fear Nearer and more near. We feel their breath.... Only the nights befriend And mitigate the hell; Of those who ponder, see and hear, Too well. The nights, and Death— The end. We feel but never fear ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... advise that the cities and towns of the United States, whether on the coast or on the lines of interior communication, by sound sanitary regulations and the promotion of cleanliness, be prepared to resist the power of the disease and to mitigate its severity. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... years younger than her husband; and yet she did not look old, although her health was far from good, her more youthful appearance being due to a false front of glossy chestnut-coloured hair, an occasional visit to the rouge-pot, and other artificial means used by civilised ladies to mitigate the ravages of time. In other things also she offered a striking contrast to her husband, being short and stout, or fat; she was also a dressy dame, and burdened her podgy fingers and broad bosom with too much ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... pipe continually. I found later that it was a habit to take the pipe to bed with her, so that she could begin smoking the first thing in the morning. She used a very expensive Parisian perfume, whether to mitigate the effects of the pipe or not, I do ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... letter, I was satisfied that so far from adding to the poor girl's grief, a full disclosure of what had happened would, on the contrary, mitigate her sorrow, and deprive ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... To mitigate the reluctance still felt by some of them, he brought forward the two following motives: "The bread which holy poverty causes to be collected from door to door, is the bread of angels, because it is the ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... the thermometer invariably rises; so, instead of the customary forty and fifty and even sixty degrees below zero, the temperature remained fifteen below. Also, he was warmly clad and had a full matchbox. Further to mitigate his predicament, on the fifth day he killed a wounded moose that weighed over half a ton. Making his camp beside it on a spruce-bottom, he was prepared to last out the winter, unless a searching party found him or his ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... that the severity of the sentence would mitigate the King's anger; but Henry was implacable: he swore "by God's eyes" that they had favored De Brois on account of his clerical character, and required the bishops to make oath that they had done justice between himself and the prisoner (A.D. 1163). ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... hours after the offence has been committed; and so repeatedly, when at the time I have settled in my mind the quantum of punishment that the offender should receive, have I found, upon reflection, which delay has given time for, reasons to mitigate the severity, that I wish, for the benefit of the service, that the Admiralty would give a standing order ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Cleopatra in the magnificence of its appointments, as its interior was gilded, and it was fitted up with all the luxury that could be devised at this period. Silken carpets and golden drinking-vessels, stores of the most delicate food and of the rarest wines, were embarked to mitigate, as far as possible, the inevitable hardships of a sea-passage, and there were not lacking instruments of music wherewith to beguile the Caeesar with concord of sweet sounds. Perhaps that which strikes the modern seaman most in this recital of all the useless ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... that doubt; and if he has suffered to any extent—if simply to the extent of losing a palliation, or the shadow of a palliation—by means of a false translation from the Greek, we ought not to revise or mitigate his sentence merely, but to dismiss him from the bar. The Germans make it a question—in what spirit Iscariot lived? My question is—how he died? If he were a traitor at last, in that case he was virtually a traitor always. If he perpetrated ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... four dwelling-houses prior to 1661, and large numbers of men employed. He was a ready contributor to all public objects. His education had been superior and his attainments in knowledge extensive. He was of an enlightened spirit, and strove to mitigate the severity of the procedures against Antinomians and others. He seems to have had an ingenious and enterprising mind. At a General Court held at Boston, Sept. 6, 1638, it was voted that, "Whereas Emanuel Downing, Esq., hath ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labors; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the cares of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... I was sent for by the medical authorities to provide nurses for the sick at Up-Park Camp, about a mile from Kingston; and leaving some nurses and my sister at home, I went there and did my best; but it was little we could do to mitigate the severity of ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... a large part of that in which we live, the practice of infanticide was, or is, a regular and legal custom; famine, pestilence, and war were and are normal factors in the struggle for existence, and they have served, in a gross and brutal fashion, to mitigate the intensity of the effects of its ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... the 'mouldering heaps' in the churchyard. Hence the problem that especially suggests itself is the potential greatness, when they lived, of the 'rude forefathers' that now lie at his feet. He does not, and cannot solve it, though he finds considerations to mitigate the sadness it must inspire; but he expresses it in all its awfulness in the most effective language and with the deepest feeling; and his expression of it has become a living part of ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... mitigate the terrors of the law by finding that the stolen property, however valuable it might be, was of less value than five shillings. May the recording angel "drop a tear over this record of perjury and ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... besmearing his hat, his only thought was of his health, of which he took studious care. So, after changing his clothes and encasing himself in a warm dressing-gown he proceeded to prepare a sudorific in the shape of hot gin and water, warming the latter over one of those spirit lamps which mitigate the austerities of the modern hermit's life. By the time this preparation had been imbibed, and Salisbury's disturbed feelings had been soothed by a pipe of tobacco, he was able to get into bed in a happy state of vacuity, without a thought of his adventure in the dark archway, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... cure of this disease, imitate the practice of Hippocrates, and first mitigate the pain with fomentations of melilot, dog's mercury, mallows, linseed, camomiles and althoea. Then let the womb be prepared with syrup of stoebis, hyssop, calamint, mugwort, with distilled water, a ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... stories the virtuous were always made happy. We talked of our friends and acquaintances, and if he ever knew anything bad about a man he never told it; while if I mentioned it he could always say something good of him to balance it, or at least to mitigate the opinion that might be formed of it. He was always doing some man a good turn or speaking a comforting word ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... antagonistic and have no hostile intentions. We are unfortunate in not knowing the character of the dwellers on the island. They may have had frequent contact with the outside world. That may, or it may not, mitigate our lot. So we cannot count on that factor too much. If they are low down in the scale of humanity, we may find a still harder problem. In any event, however, this must be made plain. The wagon is our fort. From that we can defy them, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... a trembling hand Mrs. Hamilton softly opened Emmeline's door, and with a heart bleeding at the anguish she beheld, and which she felt too truly she could not mitigate, she entered, and stood for several minutes by her side unnoticed ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... great hopes that these cruel words would be reported—as they were—to her stepmother, and, of course, they did not mitigate the Baroness's uneasiness. Madame de Nailles revenged herself for this insult by dismissing the innocent echo of the impertinence—of course, under some plausible pretext. She felt it necessary also to be very cautious how she treated the enemy whom she was forced ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... questions as to what had taken place in regard to our neighbours. When I left her at Brestenberg and took my leave she quite seemed to realise the painful seriousness of our position. I could say very little to comfort her, except that I would try, in the interests of our future life together, to mitigate the dreaded consequences of her having ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... thing, it was impossible that the former could manage to bound down the latter. My practical moral, as addressed to the Laureate, was, "Be just to yourself, and the public will be just to you," and the compliment implied in one part of this criticism did much to mitigate the ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... nothing about the Catholics till we began to mitigate the laws against them; when we relieved them in part from this oppression they began to be disaffected.' This is very true; but it proves just what I have said, that you have either done too much or too little; and ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... the human anguish. . . . Formulas touch not these, nor does acquiescence mitigate. Tell ourselves as wisely as we may that mutability must be—we yet discern where the woe lies. We cannot fix the "one fair good wise thing" just as we grasped it—cannot engrave it, as it were, on our souls. And then we die—and it is gone for ever, and we would have ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... keeping them, accordingly as there is more or less ability in him who has acquired the state. Now, as the fact of becoming a prince from a private station presupposes either ability or fortune, it is clear that one or other of these things will mitigate in some degree many difficulties. Nevertheless, he who has relied least on fortune is established the strongest. Further, it facilitates matters when the prince, having no other state, is compelled to reside ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... commends herself to the care of the Virgin. She begins to sing softly, tremulous, like one in pain and doubt, "Ave Maria, hearken to the Virgin's cry." The melody she sings is rich, even ornate, but the richness of the phrase, with its two little grace notes, does not mitigate the sorrow at the core; the rich garb in which the idea is clothed does not rob the song ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... The practice indeed of our Roman Catholic brethren would have been exemplified, had our blessed Lord represented the rich man's five brethren still on earth as pious men, and as supplicating Abraham in heaven to pray for themselves, or to mitigate {49} their lost brother's punishment and his woes. But then it would have afforded Christians little encouragement to follow their example, when they found Abraham declaring himself unable to aid them in attaining the object of their prayer, or in any way to assist them at all. Without ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... emperors could not remedy the growing depopulation of the country any more than their heathen predecessors. All their efforts only showed the impotence of government to arrest that dreadful evil. Sometimes, alarmed at the depopulation, they tried to mitigate the lot of the farmer, to shield him against the landlord; upon this the proprietor exclaimed he could no longer pay the taxes. At other times they abandoned the farmer, surrendered him to the landlord, and strove to chain him to the soil; but the unhappy cultivators perished or fled, and the land ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... is impossible to read without being carried along by the force of mind and power of combination which the author manifests, and without feeling how much ingenious sophistry can perform to mitigate and soften the most startling absurdity. His contemporary, Erastus, after all his victories on the field of imposition, was foiled by the subject of witchcraft at last. This was his pet delusion—almost the only one he cared not to discard—like the ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... and guardedly have I thrown out a few suggestions, which may enable us to avoid, or mitigate the severity of, the disease called THE BIBLIOMANIA. Happy indeed shall I deem myself, if, in the description of its symptoms, and in the recommendation of the means of cure, I may have snatched any one from a premature grave, or lightened the load of years ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... shrub in the courthouse square, not the dead and stricken trunk of a tree standing monument of any attempt to mitigate the curse of sun. There was not a blade of grass, not a struggling, wind-blown flower. Only here and there chickweed grew, spreading its green tracery over the white soil in such sequestered spots as the hoofs of beast and the ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... exertions. A moral system, to govern society, must accommodate itself to common characters and mingled motives. It must be capable of influencing natures that can never rise to an heroic level. It must tincture, modify, and mitigate where it cannot eradicate or transform. In Christianity there are always a few persons seeking by continual and painful efforts to reverse or extinguish the ordinary feelings of humanity, but in the great majority of cases the influence of the religious ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... her loins a frock, with many a swelling plait, Emboss'd with well-spread horse, large sheep, and full-fed neat; With villages amongst, oft powthered here and there; And (that the same more like to landscape should appear) With lakes and lesser fords, to mitigate the heat In summer, when the fly doth prick the ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... as well as his servants, austere regulations. He restored to the subjugated Saxons certain of the rights of which Charlemagne had deprived them. He sent out everywhere his commissioners with orders to listen to complaints and redress grievances, and to mitigate his father's rule, which was rigorous in its application and yet insufficient to repress disturbance, notwithstanding its preventive purpose and its ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... ought to be detached from a world which I am soon to leave; to be totally so is a vain endeavour, and perhaps there is vanity in the endeavour: while we are human, we must submit to human infirmities, and suffer them in mind as well as body. All that reflection and experience can do is to mitigate, we can never extinguish, our passions. I call by that name every sentiment that is not founded upon reason, and own I cannot justify to mine the concern I feel for one who never gave me any ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... to be the fathers of the next generation. By destroying these particular instincts, that is to say by attempting to masculinise woman, and to feminise men, we jeopardise the future of our people. The general democratic movement of modern times, in its frantic struggle to mitigate all differences, is now invading even the world of sex. It is against this movement that Nietzsche raises his voice; he would have woman become ever more woman and man become ever more man. Only thus, and he is undoubtedly right, can ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... secret shall be safe in my keeping," said Montague, tenderly, as he sat down again and drew his chair near to that of Mrs Stuart. "But, alas! I do not see how it is possible for me to help your husband. I will use my utmost influence to mitigate his sentence, but I cannot, I dare ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... the sectional shifting of political power from oppressors to oppressed. The poor man is given a vote by the Liberals in the hope that he will cast it for his emancipators. The hope is not fulfilled; but the lifelong imprisonment of penniless men for debt ceases; Factory Acts are passed to mitigate sweating; schooling is made free and compulsory; sanitary by-laws are multiplied; public steps are taken to house the masses decently; the bare-footed get boots; rags become rare; and bathrooms and pianos, smart tweeds and starched collars, reach numbers of people who once, as ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... abuse of supreme power. When a nation ceases to believe in religion, it becomes ungovernable in consequence, and its prince perforce becomes a tyrant. The Chambers that occupy an intermediate place between rulers and their subjects are powerless to prevent these results, and can only mitigate them to a very slight extent; Assemblies, as I have said before, are bound to become the accomplices of tyranny on the one hand, or of insurrection on the other. My own leanings are towards a government by one man; but though it is good, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... some folks will now have discovered what reliance there is to be placed on a capricious and absolute man. It was clear from the first that he had resolved upon this Italian speculation, and that as soon as he could mitigate the universal feeling and opinion against him, he would have his way. The congress, whether suggested by him through Russia or not, was only one means of delay till all was ready, and one way of putting Austria ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... took steps that it should be, for he began stealing away Kaviak's few cherished possessions—his amulet, his top from under the bunk, his boats from out the water-bucket, wherewith to mitigate the barrenness of the Yukon tree, and to provide a pleasant surprise for the Esquimer who mourned his playthings as gone for ever. Of an evening now, after sleep had settled on Kaviak's watchful eyes, the Boy worked at a pair of little snow-shoes, helped ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... this distress to Miss Howell. If anything in my power to remove, or which a life devoted to her service can mitigate, she has only to command me to ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... going away on a tour of some four months in England, Ireland, and Scotland. I shall read, during that time, not fewer than four or five times a week. It will be sharp work; but probably a certain musical clinking will come of it, which will mitigate the hardship. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... The introduction of the Age of Consent Bill, in 1890, to mitigate the evils of Hindu child-marriage, gave him a fresh opening. Ranade, discouraged and alarmed by the violence of the Tilak party, had by this time retired from the forefront of the fray, but in Dr. Bhandarkar, Mr. Justice Tilang, Mr. A.K. ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... name his accomplices in guilt, he should be put to death, according to the usage of their ancestors, as a public enemy), yet, regarding rather their character than their resentment, endeavored to calm their turbulence and mitigate their rage; and assured them that, as far as depended on him, the public faith should not be broken. At length, when silence was obtained, he brought forward Jugurtha, and addressed them. He detailed the misdeeds of Jugurtha at Rome ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... cartridge. I had already noticed several charges of grape ranged along the shot-racks; and it now occurred to me that one of these discharged into the thick of our enemies might help very materially to mitigate their ardour. So, turning to some of the lads behind, I directed them to run in one of the guns, load it, and slue it fore and aft, with its muzzle pointing toward the taffrail, in which direction we were slowly ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... more than they have ever offended you since. At nine years old you made people, alas! responsible for their faces, as you do still in a measure, though you think you do not. You severely made them answer for their clothes, in a manner which you have seen good reason, in later life, to mitigate. Upon curls, or too much youthfulness in the aged, you had no mercy. To sum up the things you hated inordinately, they were friskiness of manner and of trimmings, and curls combined with rather bygone or frumpish fashions. Too much childish ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... distinctness, as if a death wail coming up from the carnage of the field, the piteous plaints of that terror-stricken soul. Rumor has it, that before the building was fired by a shell in the middle of the following forenoon, her spirit had taken its flight; but whether or not, it could not mitigate the retributive justice to be measured out by that God over us all to whom vengeance belongs, upon the heads of the ingrates who had ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... are known to spare neither age nor sex. In this outrage against the laws of honorable war and against the feelings sacred to humanity the British commanders can not resort to a plea of retaliation, for it is committed in the face of our example. They can not mitigate it by calling it a self-defense against men in arms, for it embraces the most shocking butcheries of defenseless families. Nor can it be pretended that they are not answerable for the atrocities perpetrated, since the savages are employed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... They make common cause in behalf of the sex; and, indeed, this is natural enough, when we consider the vast power that the law gives us over them. The law is for us, and they combine, wherever they can, to mitigate its effects. This is perfectly natural, and, to a certain extent, laudable, evincing fellow-feeling and public spirit: but when carried to the length of 'he sha'n't,' it is despotism on the one side and slavery on the other. Watch, therefore, the incipient steps of encroachment; and they ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... regard the earth as peopled by dangerous lunatics. Political indifference to human life and human suffering had taken the place of the premeditated cruelty of the Middle Ages. Still, if no previous war had ever been so frightful, neither had there ever been so much done to mitigate suffering. While fanatic Frenchwomen on the battlefields cut the noses off wounded Germans, and mutilated them when they could, and while the Germans were burning villages and killing their peaceful inhabitants, if one of them had so much ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... were set in motion to determine; hence the necessity of considering not only the moral power, but the economical and military strength of the respective countries. It requires no mean share of political wisdom to mitigate an encounter with the financial difficulties by which every contest is beset. The evils of the political and social state of France were brought to a head by the dilapidation of its revenues, and occasioned, not the Revolution itself, but the disorders by which it was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... contrast with the prim and priggish Richardson is Henry Fielding (1707-1754), a big, jovial, reckless man, full of animal spirits, who was ready to mitigate any man's troubles or forget his own by means of a punch bowl or a venison potpie. He was noble born, but seems to have been thrown on the world to shift for himself. After an excellent education ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... against him be founded on an order of Congress or Committee," etc. But this resolution amounted practically to nothing. It seems to have been intended to allay the fears and weaken the opposition of loyalists, but contributed nothing for their protection, or to mitigate the cruel persecutions everywhere waged ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... and alarm; scarcely had part of the crew time to hurry on deck, before the ladder gave way, leaving numbers struggling with the water, which rushed in at the bottom. The captain and lieutenant endeavored to mitigate the fears of the people; and afterwards, going down to the cabin, burnt the papers and private signals. Meantime, every sea dashed the vessel against the rocks; and they were soon compelled to climb the rigging, where they remained an hour, the surge continually ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... of a frightful catastrophe. In vain the British Government was called upon to give relief through Parliament, until, in the autumn of 1846, parliamentary authority was obtained to grant baronial loans. But these and every local endeavor to mitigate the suffering failed, and the destructive work of the famine continued, the number of victims increasing, to the end of that fatal year. The horrors of 1846 were more than equalled by those of the year that followed, and the woful picture presented by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, the distinguished ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... threatened to brain him with it if he stirred. Then people began to pour out of the houses and a policeman sprang up from nowhere. I went down and joined the excited throng. There was a dreadful to-do. It cost Jaffery five hundred pounds to mitigate the righteous wrath of the young man in the holly-bush, and save himself from a dungeon-cell. The scrubby young man, who, it appeared, had been brought up in the fishmongering trade, used the five hundred pounds to set up for himself in Ealing, where very shortly afterwards ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... reach'd. On the fifth circle when I stood at large, A race appear'd before me, on the ground All downward lying prone and weeping sore. "My soul hath cleaved to the dust," I heard With sighs so deep, they well nigh choak'd the words. "O ye elect of God, whose penal woes Both hope and justice mitigate, direct Tow'rds the steep rising our uncertain way." "If ye approach secure from this our doom, Prostration—and would urge your course with speed, See that ye still to rightward keep the brink." So them the bard besought; and such the words, Beyond us some short space, in answer came. I ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... exceptional persons has created a namby-pambyism in literature which would banish these topics—the greatest and holiest in which human sympathy can be enlisted—to the domains of science. But science cannot aid unhappy Portugal. Sympathy and prayer alone can mitigate our sufferings. Therefore sympathize with and pray for us, you who stand in the broad glare of freedom, filled with plenty and surrounded by promise, Pray for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... emotion. But that is not the worst of him. Mr. Shaw is deficient in these supreme qualities. But Mr. Shaw is an honest playwright. And Brieux (speaking, of course, in a sense strictly artistic) is not. That he is dishonest in the cause of moral progress does not mitigate his crime. Zealots may deny this as loudly as they please. Nothing can keep Brieux's plays alive; they are bound to go precisely where the plays of Dumas fils have gone, because they are false to life. I do not expect to kill the oncoming craze, but I will give ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... free in the spring of 1902, her government having been formed under the guidance of the United States. The duty to aid the young Republic, and in particular to mitigate the severities of the Dingley Tariff impressed the President, who used all his influence to get such legislation from Congress. He failed signally, raising only a new issue by his attempt to coerce Congress. His speeches in the summer showed a willingness ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... they live, although damp, is good, for the thick foliage of the forest and the breezes that often hail from the mountains mitigate the heat of ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... consider me a busybody were I to try to mitigate this woman's evil influence? I love dear Constance, and should be happy to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... springs not from our permanent part; not from the land we inhabit; not from our national homestead. There is no possible severing of this but would multiply and not mitigate evils among us. In all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors separation. In fact, it would ere long force reunion, however much of blood and treasure ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... differed from other children in the respect that her sensibilities were so acute, her heart so tender, that she made the trials of the slaves her own, and grieved that she could neither share nor mitigate them. So deeply did she feel for them that she was frequently found in some retired spot weeping, after one of the slaves had been punished. She remembered that once, when she was not more than four or five years old, she accidentally witnessed the terrible ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... the earliest Montgolfier with its blazing furnace, the balloon had gone up from the gay capital under every variety of circumstance—for pleasure, for exhibition, for scientific research. It was now put in requisition to mitigate the emergency occasioned by the long and close investment of the city by ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought through national action programs that incorporate long-term strategies supported by international ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... him make himself emperor, he will be grotesque. That will finish him. His destiny is to make mankind shrug their shoulders. Will he be less severely punished for that reason? Not at all. Contempt does not, in his case, mitigate anger; he will be hideous, and he will remain ridiculous. That is all. History ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... east and south-west to north-east. But in many parts deep transverse valleys intersect the prevailing direction of the ridges, and facilitate the passage of man, plants and animals, as well as of currents of air which mitigate the contrast that would otherwise be found between the climates of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the three faces! Perhaps at this moment, envious of hers, thou art regarding her, either as she paces to and fro some gallery of her sumptuous palaces, or leans over some balcony, meditating how, whilst preserving her purity and greatness, she may mitigate the tortures this wretched heart of mine endures for her sake, what glory should recompense my sufferings, what repose my toil, and lastly what death my life, and what reward my services? And thou, oh sun, that art now doubtless harnessing thy steeds in haste to rise betimes and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and in discussing and often severely criticizing the motives and conduct of parties and witnesses, should not make many enemies; but he was so essentially modest, simple, gentlemanly, and tender, so considerate of the feelings of others, so evidently trying to mitigate the pain which it was often his duty to inflict, that we never heard of his searching and subtile examination of witnesses, or his profound and exhaustive analysis of character and motive, or his instantaneous and irresistible retorts upon counsel, creating or leaving behind him, in the bar ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... What occasion is there to apply to reason, or to any sort of consolation such as we generally make use of, to mitigate the grief of the afflicted? For we have this argument always at hand, that nothing ought to appear unexpected. But how will any one be enabled to bear his misfortunes the better by knowing that it is unavoidable that such things should happen to man? Saying ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... no attempt in this wild lament to soften or mitigate the horrors of a violent death by throwing around it a halo of heroism and glory. The woman cares not what prodigies of valor her lover performed, but she dwells with self-torturing vividness of imagination upon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... stoop a little to the weakness of the younger, in keeping company still; and when hereby he shall not go one step the further out of the ready road unto their Father's house.'[342] On points of Church order and discipline, mitigate the terms of uniformity, do not rigidly preclude all alternatives, admit some considered system which will allow room for option. Frankly acknowledge, that in regard of the doctrine of the sacraments, divers opinions may still, as has ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... the last generation. I am inclined to think it may have been once universal, and I certainly think it more elegant than the vile vencher, naycher, pickcher, that have taken its place, sounding like the invention of a lexicographer to mitigate a sneeze. Nash in his 'Pierce Penniless' has ventur, and so spells it, and I meet it also in Spenser, Drayton, Ben Jonson, Herrick, and Prior. Spenser has tort'rest, which can be contracted only from tortur and not from torcher. Quarles rhymes nature with creator, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... way to Paris, he gave some more signs, that the misfortunes he had suffered, had lessened his heart and courage: he writ several the most submissive letters in the world to the King, and to the Queen-Mother of France; wherein he strove to mitigate his treason, with the poorest arguments imaginable, and, as if his good sense had declined with his fortune, his style was altered, and debased to that of a common man, or rather a schoolboy, filled with tautologies and stuff of no coherence; ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... ycleped Aladine, Ruled in care, new sovereign of this state, A tyrant erst, but now his fell engine His graver are did somewhat mitigate, He heard the western lords would undermine His city's wall, and lay his towers prostrate, To former fear he adds a new-come doubt, Treason he fears within, and ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... more stranger sort than Tripolion or Teucrion, thrise a day changing the colour of his flowers, and my indeuoring to sende out scalding sighes deeply set from the bottome of my hart, she did temper and mitigate the same with hir sweete and friendly regards, pacifieng the rage of my oppressing passions, so as notwithstanding my burning minde in these continuall flames and sharpe prouocations of loue, I was ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... life endurable to you, by the strength of my love, my care, and respect.—Our children are settled in life; they need me no more. Let me try to be an amusement to you, an occupation. Let me share the pain of your banishment and of your poverty, and help to mitigate it. I could always be of some use, if it were only to save ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... unlikely that my mother's last good-bye and her death appeared to me more awful in imagination than it would have ever done in reality. Indeed, there can be hardly any doubt that this is so, for we are only half-conscious of what is happening. Reality clouds, our actions mitigate, our perception; we can see clearly only when we look back or forwards. There is something very merciful about reality; if there were not, we should not be able to ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... "Opening Ode," which was so badly sung as to mitigate the awe; and an "order of business" solemnly gone through. Under the head "Good of the Order" the visiting brethren spoke as if it were a class-meeting and they giving "testimony," one of them very volubly reminding the assembly of the great principles of the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... with the year 91 B.C. In this year the dispute over the extension of the franchise to Italy began again, and the failure of the measure proposed by the tribune M. Livius Drusus led to an Italian revolt, which soon assumed a serious aspect. To mitigate or to cripple this revolt (the so-called Social or Marsic war), a bill was offered and passed in 90 B.C. This was the famous law (lex Iulia) which applied to all Italian states that had not revolted, or had stopped their revolt, and it offered Roman citizenship (civitas) to all such states, ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin
... thing to mitigate the pain of the world than to brood upon the problem of it. And not only the lover of mankind, but man the animal is pre-eminent above the poet-dreamer. His joy is joy; his pain, pain. 'Only the dreamer venoms all his days.' Yet the poet has his reward; it is given to him to partake ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... bishops, I burn to tell them how their acts affect me; yet I'm obliged to refrain, because I know my words could do no good and might do harm, for they could only anger them. My sole hope of doing anything to mitigate the rigour of your cruel customs is to take as little notice of them as possible in any way whenever I ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... to turn informant against her lover, and by implication against Tetchen, her lover's accomplice, nevertheless she despised herself for what she was doing. She did not expect to soften her aunt by her conduct, or in any way to mitigate the rigour of her own sufferings. Her clandestine meetings with Ludovic had brought with them so much of pain and shame, that she had resolved almost by instinct to avoid another. But having taken this step to ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... answerable for it with their lives; for on supposition it was justifiable or excusable to kill Attucks, or any other person, it will be equally justifiable or excusable if in firing at him they killed another, who was innocent; or if the provocation was such as to mitigate the guilt of manslaughter, it will equally mitigate the guilt, if they killed an innocent man undesignedly, in aiming at him who gave the provocation, according to Judge Foster; and as this point is of such consequence, I must produce ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... company," and these two officers of the twenty-third corps, undoubtedly working in collusion, sought to mitigate their misery by putting two brigades of the fourth corps into the same class with their corps, whose battle line had proved unequal to the strain of the two brigades passing over it when driven in from the front by the assaulting rebel army. That part of Cox's line broke in a panic at ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... benefits on both, to give up a part of the benefit to soften the inconvenience. The perfect cure is impracticable; because the disorder is dear to those from whom alone the cure can possibly be derived. The utmost to be done is to palliate, to mitigate, to respite, to put off the evil day of the Constitution to its latest possible hour,—and may it be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... much more concerned with saving the State than with paying its contribution and, in short, it maintains its censure.—If it will not bend it must break, and on the 4th of February, 1792, the municipality sends Barbaroux, its secretary, to Paris, that he may mitigate the outrages they are preparing. During the night of the 25-26, the drums beat the general alarm, and three or four thousand men gather and march to Aix with six pieces of cannon. As a precaution they pretend to have no leaders, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... One feels instinctively that this St. John would be friendless, for he has nothing to offer, and asks no sympathy. There is no room for anybody else in his career, and nobody can share his labours or mitigate his privations. In short, there is no link between him and the spectator. Unless we interpret the statue in this manner, it loses all interest—it never had any beauty—and the St. John becomes a tiresome person with a pedantic and ill-balanced mind. ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... Act. Fervent hopes were entertained by Cape politicians that not only would we not suffer any injustice, but the position of the Coloured races in the north would be improved, and their rights eventually be admitted. They fondly believed that the leavening influence of the Cape ideas would mitigate the barbarity of those of the northerner. We had no reason to doubt the sincerity of our friends' beliefs, but we had no faith in the northerners — men whose public professions and practice were void ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... of the Portuguese at Ningpo, by the Cantonese pirates, served to mitigate the evil by calling the attention of the English and Portuguese authorities to the anarchy which drew much of its support from Hongkong and Macao. The Portuguese were subjected to greater restraint, and a greater degree of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... denouncing the bribes as ugly in form. That was what the precious metals—they alone—could afford to be; it was vain enough for him accordingly to try to impart a gloss to his own comparative brummagem. The humiliation of this impotence was precisely what Aunt Maud sought to mitigate for him by keeping him down; and as her effort to that end had doubtless never yet been so visible he had probably never felt so definitely placed in the world as while he waited with her for her half-dozen other guests. She welcomed ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... wicked once, weren't you?" I said, seeking by emphasis on the "once" to mitigate what I felt might be the ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... matched the leaden skies outside in point of gloom, and even the wood fire, crackling on the hearth, failed to mitigate the air of restraint and cheerlessness which prevailed in the dining-room. The rain, falling in torrents, had brought with it a penetrating cold wind, a last reminder of winter, and Vincent, passing noiselessly to and from ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... beautiful queen of Frederick William of Prussia, had an interview with Napoleon and earnestly sought to induce him to mitigate his harsh terms. In vain she brought to bear upon him all her powers of persuasion and attractive charm of manner. He continued cold and obdurate and she left Tilsit deeply ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... Mary," persevered in through the foulest life, would obtain that beams should be arrested in their fall, ships fail to sink, cords to hang, till such confession had been made as should insure ultimate salvation, after such a proportion of the flames of purgatory as masses and prayers might not mitigate. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... murders surpass belief. Shut up in his harem, the voice of justice seldom reached the ear of the monarch, and when it did, was scarcely heeded. The Resident, it will be seen, was beset during his journey with petitions for redress so numerous, that, anxious as he was to do everything in his power to mitigate the horrors he witnessed, he frequently gives vent to the pain he experienced at ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman |
