"Shortening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mirth and jollification begin. Far and near, all sorts and conditions of voices caught up the old melody and added their quota to the music; and when their leader began mischievously to alter the refrain by dropping the last word, and shortening it each time by one word less, delight was general and the ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... presently, a new manifestation increased my distress. For it began to coruscate, and shoot out on all sides a radiation of dim shadow. These rays of gloom issued from the central shadow as from a black sun, lengthening and shortening with continual change. But wherever a ray struck, that part of earth, or sea, or sky, became void, and desert, and sad to my heart. On this, the first development of its new power, one ray shot out beyond the rest, seeming ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... ground the kernels to flour, which was instantly sifted, the bran being packaged and dropped like the chaff for pickup. A cluster of tanks which gave the metal serpents a decidedly humpbacked appearance added water, shortening, salt and other ingredients, some named and some not. The dough was at the same time infused with gas from a tank conspicuously labeled "Carbon Dioxide" ("No ...
— Bread Overhead • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... be an increased immigration to our Union, and each new settler writes to his friends abroad, and often remits money to induce them to join him in his Western home. The electric ocean telegraph will soon unite Europe with America, and improved communications are constantly shortening the duration of the voyage and diminishing the expense. Besides, this war has made us much better known to the European masses, who, everywhere, with great unanimity and enthusiasm sustain our cause, and, with slavery extinguished, will still ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... eminent French Statesman and writer, read a witty, piquant essay in reprehension of War and all other contrivances for shortening human life, which, being given first in French and then substantially in English, elicited very ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... suggested.—A route by the Isthmus of Darien, and a route by the Cape with a branch to the Mauritius. The route by Egypt and India has at length been chosen, and the most sanguine hopes are entertained of its success. The steam establishment will have the farther advantage of shortening the distance by one-half between Calcutta and Sydney; and reducing it to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... the same morning, the coast of Porto Rico was in sight, and a few hours afterwards the Alabama entered the Mona Passage, shortening sail as she did so to permit a barque to run up with her for the purpose of ascertaining her nationality. The barque, which proved to be English, dipped her ensign as she passed to the Stars and Stripes which were flying from the peak of the Alabama; but the ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... to deal with the canvas in any way, on board ship, immediately commands the whole attention of all whose duty it is to attend to such matters, and there was an end of all discourse while the Swash was shortening sail. Everybody understood, too, that it was to gain time, and prevent the brig from reaching Throg's Neck ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... When I speak of victory I am not referring to those victories which crowd the daily placards of any newspapers. I am speaking of victory in the sense of a brilliant and formidable fact shaping the destinies of nations and shortening the duration of the war. Beyond those few miles of ridge and scrub on which our soldiers, our French comrades, our gallant Australian and New Zealand fellow-subjects are now battling, lie the downfall ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... help toward shortening a long journey. A little picnic every hour, if it is permitted, is something not too distant to look forward to, and it may take up ten minutes each time. A larger meal all at once may, of course, be more convenient, but, if not, the ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... as she spoke, and Drake kept pace with her, shortening his strides. The need of doing that, trifle though it was, increased his sense of responsibility towards her. 'It's so abominably deceitful, and it's my doing. I should involve you ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... some diacritical sign to show that it was obscured. There is no long vowel or diphthong in English which cannot in some positions be pronounced short; and when hurried over between accents it is easy to see that there is nothing, except an obstacle of consonants, which can prevent the shortening of any syllable; for long and short are relative, and when you are speaking very slowly 'short' sounds actually occupy as much time as 'long' sounds do when you are speaking quickly. You have therefore ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... of recuperation demanded by the organism varies in different individuals, but that there are certain limits of human productivity has been made increasingly clear by a careful study of the effects of fatigue upon output in industrial occupations. Repeatedly, the shortening of working hours, especially when they have previously numbered more than eight, has been found to be correlated with an increase in efficiency. Likewise, the provision of rest periods as in telephone-operating and the needle trades, has ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... attempting to inaugurate reforms. As in the case of labour, it would be obviously unfair to claim that the employer element was actuated by motives of self-interest alone; nor were their concessions due only to fear. Instances could be cited, if there were space, of voluntary shortening of hours of labour, of raising of wages, when no coercion was exerted either by the labour unions or the state; and—perhaps to their surprise employers discovered that such acts were not only humane but profitable! ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... who take pills to make them sleep. That's a crime. It's murder in slow degrees for they are surely shortening their lives by this poison dope ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... the school early, and array yourself rapidly, but carefully, for there may be fifty riders present during the evening, and there will be little room to spare on the mounting-stand, and no minutes to waste on buttoning gloves, shortening skirt straps or tightening boot lacings. Remember all that you have been taught about mounting and about taking your reins, and think assiduously of it, with a determination to pay no attention to the gallery. There will be no spectators on the mounting-stand, ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... shortening of the days all hope of obtaining her husband's forgiveness began to leave her; and there was something of the habitude of the wild animal in the unreflecting instinct with which she rambled on—disconnecting herself by littles ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... aloft to obey the order, for every one knew there was no time to be lost. The masts bent like willow wands, and I expected every moment to see them go over the side. While attending to shortening sail, the eyes of the officers were withdrawn from the chase; for some of the ropes getting foul during the operation, we were obliged to luff up to clear them, thereby allowing her to get still farther ahead. Still, she ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... keep the sense of purchase in it. The chest should be carried forward of the abdomen and the abdominal muscles given their best leverage by a slight bending forward from the hips. (Bending forward must not be done by any dropping of the chest, or shortening of the line at waist through relaxation.) This position must be light, active, buoyant, ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... advance is likewise amusing. The expression of his eyes and the pose of his head are all in accord with the tone of his exclamation. When he tastes the plum he utters a series of ahs, and produces a kind of warble by prolonging some of his notes and shortening up others. We find in these examples, without doubt, that the articulate voice makes us better able to judge the meaning of the impressions that are moving the animal than inarticulate cries, or merely musical sounds. When Jaco met a child for whom he had a great affection, he would promenade ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... the bearing of weight upon the affected member, or by the moving of such a distressed part, results in an irregularity in locomotion, which is known as lameness or claudication. A halting gait may also be produced by the abnormal development of a member, or by the shortening of the leg occasioned by the loss ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... had an affection that sprang from old associations and was capable of mysterious revivals and refreshments. Here he lingered late, till the snow was on the nearer hills, almost down to the limit to which he could climb when his stint, on the shortening afternoons, was performed. The autumn was fine, the lake was blue and his book took form and direction. These felicities, for the time, embroidered his life, which he suffered to cover him with its mantle. At the end of six weeks he felt he had learnt St. George's lesson by heart, had ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... a grave danger," answered the Chemist, "because then distances are opening up and a single false step means many miles of error later on. But going out, just the reverse is true; distances are shortening. A mile in the wrong direction is corrected in an instant later on. Not coming to a realization of that when I made the trip before, led me to undertake many unnecessary hours of most arduous climbing. There is only one condition ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... well tired they left the further riches of the pine woods unexplored and walked sagely homewards. At the brow of the table-land Mr. Olmney left them to take a shorter cut to the high-road, having a visit to make which the shortening day ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... fields, and rambles into hazel- copses in search of nuts; the stripping of the apple-orchards of their ruddy fruit, amid the joyous cries and shouts of watching children; and the gorgeous tulip-like colouring of the later time had now come on with the shortening days. There was comparative silence in the land, excepting for the distant shots and the whirr of the partridges as they rose ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of September, and the days were shortening. The dusk of evening had already closed over the city when de Casimir and Charles at length came downstairs. No one had troubled to open the shutters of such rooms as were not required; and these were many. For Moscow was even at that day a great city, though ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... does me the honor to speak to me so kindly, I will dare to profit by your goodness. I am tired of life, sire, and yet have a repugnance to shortening it myself, for God forbids it, and all the subterfuges that a man of honor employs in such a case are mortal sins. To get one's self killed in battle or to let one's self die of hunger are only different forms of suicide. I renounce the idea, therefore, of dying before the term which God has ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... these two poor heads from a couple of thick quilted blue sattin caps with which they had dressed them, and which I endeavoured to convince both her and the nurse would heat the heads, so as to be the means of shortening the child's life, and consequently of curtailing the profits arising ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... to indulge her in any amount of it: and she perceived why. Fox! she thought. Grand fox, but fox downright. For her time was shortening to days that would leave ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... what he once had been, But I for him, a shadow, a defence, The guardian of his fame, his guide, his staff, Leaned on so long he fell if left alone. I was his eye, his ear, his cunning hand, Love was my spur and longing after fame, But his the goading thorn of sleepless age That sees its shortening span, its lengthening shades, That clutches what it may with eager grasp, And drops at last with empty, outstretched hands. All this he dreamed not. He would sit him down Thinking to work his problems as of old, And find ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to the successive spheres of evolution to which it must apply. "Integration," for instance. A definite coherence is an Integration; and examples given of integration are the contraction of the solar nebula, the formation of the earth's crust, the calcification of cartilage, the shortening of the body of crabs, the loss of his tail by man, the mutual dependence of plants and animals, the growth of powerful states, the tendency of human occupations to go to distinct localities, the dropping of terminal inflexions ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... you must remember that a paddle-driven canoe travels much faster than a merely drifting one; and that we ourselves, assuming that we are on the right way, all day have been shortening the distance that a search-party would have to travel. We ought to have met some time ago. I think we shall have to turn back in ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... a reed-pipe joined in and the dancer, raised on her toes on the dais, began to sway languorously to and fro. And so she swayed and swayed with sinuously curving limbs while the drums throbbed out faster with ever-shortening beats, with now and then a clash of brazen cymbals that was ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... phrases, searching for the exact balance between generous praise and critical discrimination, expressing their opinions in the mild technicalities of the Art Books and painting classes. They spoke of atmospheric effects, of middle distance, of "chiaro-oscuro," of fore-shortening, of the decomposition of light, of the subordination of individuality to ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged Year is ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... eat his words, and he figured Hilary retracting and apologizing in the presence of the whole Board; Hilary apologized handsomely, and Northwick forgave him, while it was also passing through his mind that he must reduce the risks of railroad accident to a minimum, by shortening the time. They reduced the risk of ocean travel in that way, by reducing the time, and logically the fastest ship was the safest. If he could get to Montreal from Wellwater in four or five hours, when it would take him twelve ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... wi' angry sugh[1]; The shortening winter day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; The blackening trains o' craws to their repose The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes; This night his weekly moil is at an end; Collects his spades, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... alteration in the course of enactment being provided for by return of payments made in error. The general tendency of civilized government is now strongly in favor of attaching the process of deliberation upon financial measures to the period of their administrative incubation, and of shortening the period ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... are even allowed to descend by hereditary right. As the popular control over the executive declines, jealousy of the executive leads to some disastrous changes: to the multiplication of offices, to the shortening of terms of office, to the creation of innumerable checks and balances, to the organisation of this or that powerful interest or party as a state within the state. But the morbid pathology of the communes in their last stage of decline is a subject ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... on B transmits the drive from a belt which passes at its other end round a similar, but slightly larger, pulley on the crank shaft. This pulley is accommodated by moving the eccentric slightly nearer the crank and shortening the fly-wheel side ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... swung himself lightly into the saddle, shortening the lead rope and fastening it to the horn. "I was ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... forms of this species which sometimes manifest themselves are very singular; the sporangium has a tendency to dilate, becoming funnel-form or even salver-shaped, the stipe shortening and even disappearing. I have a large specimen which superficially resembles some lichen, a Physcia, for example; the sporangia are pressed down, flattened out, extremely irregular, and in many places confluent; the rudimentary stipes ...
— The Myxomycetes of the Miami Valley, Ohio • A. P. Morgan
... affairs, returned General Miles to his proper command. On reaching the enemy's lines immediately surrounding Petersburg, a portion of General Gibbon's corps, by a most gallant charge, captured two strong inclosed works—the most salient and commanding south of Petersburg—thus materially shortening the line of investment necessary for taking in the city. The enemy south of Hatcher's Run retreated westward to Sutherland's Station, where they were overtaken by Miles's division. A severe engagement ensued, and lasted ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... lower the velocity of flight, and at the same time to effect certain alterations of form in the bullet. These with rectangular impact in the case of bullets travelling at a low degree of velocity consist in a bending and deformation of the tip; in the higher degrees, of bending, shortening, extensive destruction, or complete fragmentation. If the bullet makes lateral impact, only widening and flattening result, often with the escape of the lead core from the mantle. That a ricochet bullet may travel a considerable distance is shown by the following observations ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... I. Contractio Pantalunae, or Shortening of the Legs of the Trousers, an extremely painful malady most frequently found in the growing youth. The first symptom is the appearance of a yawning space (lacuna) above the boots, accompanied by an acute sense of humiliation and a morbid anticipation of mockery. The application of treacle ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... preserve their intervals from the side of the guide, yielding to pressure on that side and resisting pressure from the opposite direction; they recover intervals, if lost, by gradually opening out or closing in; they recover alignment by slightly lengthening or shortening the step; the rear rank Scouts cover their file leaders at ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... will"—anxious to present to his fiancee some turtle-doves and pigeons with rosy beaks, with whose whereabouts he was acquainted, left his home a little before sunset to surprise the birds on their nest; but he was late, the night closed in rapidly, and with the intention of shortening the road, instead of following the beaten one he took his way across the forest. Without in the least heeding the brambles and bushes which caught his legs, or the ditches and streams he was obliged to cross, he pressed on; ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... any flagship or any other ship in the fleet shall be forced to go out of the line for stopping of leaks or repairing any other defects in the ships, then the next immediate ships are forthwith to endeavour to close the line either by making or shortening sail, or by such other ways and means as they shall find most convenient for doing of it; and if any ship, be it flagship or other that shall happen to be disabled and go out of the line, then all the small craft shall come in to that ship's assistance, upon signal made of her being disabled. ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... controversy; they have been proved by many extant military documents and by the testimony of many living witnesses. They were designed to reduce whole peoples to a state of impotent terror, beneath the level of humanity. The apology made for them, that by shortening resistance to the inevitable they were in effect merciful, is a blasphemous apology, which puts Germany in the place of the Almighty. The effect anticipated did not follow. The system of terrorism hardened and prolonged resistance; it launched against Germany ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... whoever he is?" So Claudius was led out, and the first to be asked his opinion was Father Janus: he had been made consul elect for the afternoon of the next first of July,[Footnote: Perhaps an allusion to the shortening of the consul's term, which was done to give more candidates a chance of the honour.] being as shrewd a man as you could find on a summer's day: for he could see, as they say, before and behind. [Footnote 8: II, iii, 109; ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... the pallid fields to the left, a group of starveling trees on a hill slid up into the skyline behind them, and at last it seemed as if some touch of self-control, some suggestion of having had enough of the joke, was shortening the mare's grasping stride. The trap pitched more than ever as she came up into the shafts and back into her harness; she twisted suddenly to the left into a narrow lane, cleared the corner by an impossible ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... had exhibited in support of their sacred privileges and the right of election; and also for his declaration that he would use his best endeavours to restore the house of commons to its purity, by shortening the duration of its term, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... showing where the buck had bounded at the shot, but no blood. He followed, and a dozen feet away found the next hoof marks and on them a bright-red stain; on and another splash; and more and shortening bounds, till one hundred yards away—yes, there it lay; the round, gray form, quite ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... disregard all national or local politics; it must give the working-class movement in all countries an "essentially economic" character, by setting up as final aim "the shortening of the hours of labour, and the increase of wages," and as a means "the association of the working masses, and the starting of funds for fighting." It is needless to add that the shortening of the hours of ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... of this year, at a meeting of the electors of Southwark, 'instructions' had been presented to Mr. Thrale and his brother-member, of which the twelfth was:—'That you promote a bill for shortening the duration of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... academy figures every man of them. What symmetry of form! what jet black beard and mustache! what dark flashing eyes! what noses without reproach! All were in the various combinations of action which their position demanded, hauling away at what seemed to our impatience an endless net; by the shortening of which, however, as their boat received it, layer upon layer, fold upon fold, coil upon coil, they were slowly bringing up the reticulated wall. As the place of captivity came nearer, every body was intensely anxious to get a first view ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... Shortening sail, we came to an anchor not far from the Saint Vincent, among several other yachts. On the Gosport side we could see across the harbour, away to the dockyard, off the quays of which were clustered a number of black monsters of varied form and rig. Papa said—though otherwise ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... symptoms are quite prominent. The tendons may be hot and swollen. Pressure may cause the animal pain. In chronic tendinitis the tendon may be thickened and rough or knotty. Pain is not a prominent symptom in this class of cases. Shortening of the inflamed tendon may occur, causing the animal to knuckle over. Rupture of one or more of the tendons and the suspensory ligament can be recognized by the abnormal extension of the pastern. If the ruptured tendon heals, it always results in a thickening ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... the bones?—"By shortening or lengthening themselves according to the way the bones are ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... meat; four tablespoonfuls shortening; two green peppers; one large onion; three tomatoes; one cupful milk; two tablespoonfuls flour; one teaspoonful Kitchen Bouquet, one teaspoonful salt, one-fourth teaspoonful pepper. Make a white sauce by melting half the shortening, add flour and when well mixed slowly add milk; stir ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... prepared for planting by cutting away all dead or injured roots and shortening-in the healthy roots. Grape roots can be cut severely if healthy stubs remain, the removal of small roots and fibers doing no harm, since fibers are of value only as indicating that the vine is strong and vigorous. Fresh fibers come quickly from stout, healthy roots. Most ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... change were to be accounted; perhaps, diseases and death, and certainly his 'luck,' which seemed to include all these. But it also promised, when the term of his exile was up, and there were means of shortening it, a certain competence, and very likely wealth; escaping those other contingencies, marriage. There seemed no other way. The girl was very young: there was no question of an early marriage; there was not even a definite engagement. Garth would take no promise from her: only for himself, he was ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... "(1) By shortening each generation by an amount equally proportionate to the diminution in age at which marriage occurs. Suppose the span of each generation to be shortened by one-sixth, so that six take the place of five, and that the productivity of each marriage is unaltered, it follows that one-sixth ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... the point whence it is to be transferred to the granary, railway truck, or other destination, the band travels horizontally on suitable bearings, the buckets being so constructed that in traveling they retain their load intact. The contrivance for lengthening and shortening the bucket band is an application of the "lazytongs" device, which is well known. The float of the elevator is shown at the left hand of the engraving, and, as seen in the latter, there is an automatic weighing machine, by which the material may be weighed as it is delivered, before ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... world's commerce has led to an urgent demand for shortening the great sea voyage around Cape Horn by constructing ship canals or railways across the isthmus which unites the continents. Various plans to this end have been suggested and will need consideration, but none of them has been sufficiently matured to warrant the United States in extending pecuniary ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... admitted in the world. Mankind are kept perpetually busy by their fears or desires, and have not more leisure from their own affairs, than to acquaint themselves with the accidents of the current day. Engaged in contriving some refuge from calamity, or in shortening the way to some new possession, they seldom suffer their thoughts to wander to the past or future; none but a few solitary students have leisure to inquire into the claims of ancient heroes or sages; and names which hoped to range over kingdoms and continents, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... teller of the tale is Catherine Douglas, known in Scottish tradition as Kate Barlass, who had thrust her arm through the staple, in place of a bar, to hold the door against the assassins. A few stanzas of "The Kinges Quair" are fitted into the poem by shortening the lines two syllables each, to accommodate them to the ballad metre. It is generally agreed that this was a mistake, as was also the introduction of the "Beryl Songs" between the narrative parts of "Rose Mary." These ballads of Rossetti compare well with other modern imitations of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... showing the absence of the radius and thumb, with shortening of the forearm. Conditions more or less approaching this had occurred in several members of the same family. In some they were associated with defects of development in the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... but the men, who saw as clearly as the second mate the importance of shortening sail, continued their work. Even the boys, although holding him in dread, instigated by Owen and Nat, remained aloft, until they had handed the mizen-royal and topgallant sail, and close reefed the topsail. Scoones, completely beside ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... Kind reader! the shortening space we have prescribed to our volume warns us we must draw our story to an end. Nine months after this Killarney excursion, Lord Scatterbrain met Dick Dawson near Mount Eskar, where Lord Scatterbrain had ridden to make certain inquiries about ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... nitrogen-deficient pile is to turn it, simultaneously blending in more nutrient-rich materials and probably a bit of water too. After a few piles have been made novice composters will begin to get the same feel for their materials as bakers have for their flour, shortening, and yeast. ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... difficulty, and I perceived that she regretted the necessity of death, even more than she cared to confess. Yet she had not to complain of an undue shortening of existence; her faded person shewed that life had naturally spent itself. We had been alone at first; now Clara entered; the Countess turned to her with a smile, and took the hand of this lovely child; her roseate palm and snowy fingers, contrasted with relaxed ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... treatment. But any one acquainted with the facts knows that the treatment is illusory. In a short time every woman in a brothel is infected, with very few exceptions. But, on the one hand, the proxenets and the prostitutes have every interest in shortening the time in hospital; and, on the other hand, the visiting doctor, who often lives partly by their fees, is obliged to treat them with respect. [In Paris, the doctors in charge of the inspection of prostitutes are paid by the State, and do not depend on fees from the women.] ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... of the way of' them. I have no manner of connexion with any ministry, or opposition to ministry; and their merits and their faults are equally a secret to me. The Parliament sitting, so long has worn itself to a skeleton; and almost every body takes the opportunity of shortening, their stay in the country, which I believe in their hearts most are glad to do, by going down, and returning for the trials, which are to be on the 28th of this month. I am of the number; so don't expect to hear from me ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... waned, bringing with it the slight chill which, at the summer's end, begins to mark the shortening days. She turned her face homeward, and by this time became conscious that if Verena's companion had not yet brought her back there might be ground for uneasiness as to what had happened to them. It seemed ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... mouth was defective, the symmetry of her chin, carrying with it the oval of her cheek and jaws, was perfect. How many a face, otherwise lovely to look upon, is made mean and comparatively base, either by the lengthening or the shortening of the chin! That absolute perfection which Miss Lawrie owned, we do not, perhaps, often meet. But when found, I confess that nothing to me gives so sure an evidence of ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... walking about the arcades, which used to bestow a grateful shade in July, but which seem rather dusky and chilly in these shortening autumn days. I am struck with the way the English always speak of them—with a shudder, as gloomy, as dirty, as evil-smelling, as suffocating, as freezing, as anything and everything but admirably picturesque. I take us Americans for the only people who, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... vain. He is being "played" with such a fishing- line as the skill of a Wilson or a Stoddart never could invent; a living line, with elasticity beyond that of the most delicate fly- rod, which follows every lunge, shortening and lengthening, slipping and twining round every piece of gravel and stem of sea- weed, with a tiring drag such as no Highland wrist or step could ever bring to bear on salmon or on trout. The victim is tired now; and slowly, and yet dexterously, his blind assailant is feeling ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... though not of necessity consciously, on mathematical lines. Even those puzzles that we have no way of attacking except by haphazard attempts can be brought under a method of what has been called "glorified trial"—a system of shortening our labours by avoiding or eliminating what our reason tells us is useless. It is, in fact, not easy to say sometimes where the "empirical" ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... conforming friends stood Bishop Bull, his old tutor and warm friend, to whom he always acknowledged a deep debt of gratitude. Three years after his death Nelson published his life and works, shortening, it is said, his own days by the too assiduous labour which he bestowed upon the task. But it was a work of love which he was exceedingly anxious to accomplish. In the preface, after recording his high admiration of his late friend's merits, he solemnly ends with the words, 'beseeching God ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... showed a relatively long time between the stimulus and reaction. This involved laying off many of the most intelligent, hardest-working, and most trustworthy girls. Yet the effect was the possibility of shortening the hours and of reducing more and more the number of workers, with the final outcome that thirty-five girls did the work formerly done by a hundred and twenty, and that the accuracy of the work at the higher speed was two thirds greater than at the former slow speed. This allowed almost ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... was seized by cholera on the following day; in less than two days more he was dead and buried; and the disease went creeping about the streets and lanes for weeks after—here striking down a strong man in the full vigour of middle life—there shortening, apparently by but a few months, the span of some worn-out creature, already on the verge of the grave. The visitation had its wildly picturesque accompaniments. Pitch and tar were kept burning during the night in the openings of the infected lanes; and the unsteady light flickered with ghastly ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Mauleon, with his calm smile, "would you like the captain of the ship, when the sky darkened and the sea rose, to ask the common sailors 'whether they approved his conduct on altering his course or shortening his sail'? Better trust to a crazy tub and a rotten rope than to a ship in which the captain ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... first knelt down before his Majesty's knees, and the rest of the bishops knelt on either hand, and about him; and they did their homage together, for the shortening of the ceremony, the ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... years—for Bill Harkness, the Flying W owner, would drive no others after his last sickness had seized him, the sickness which had finally finished him some months before. The blacks were coming rapidly, shortening the distance with the tireless lope that the plains' animal uses so effectively, and as they neared the point on the mesa where the rider had stationed himself, the latter parted the branches of the thicket and peered between ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... log, the same as the first mate had to do, which that individual resented as a sort of check exercised upon him, and hated me accordingly. As I afterwards found out, he was an extremely bad navigator, and ignorant of all the newest methods, such as Sumner's, for shortening calculation, consequently, he was afraid of his errors being discovered too easily if his log should be compared every day ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Decrease. — N. decrease, diminution; lessening &c. v.; subtraction &c. 38; reduction, abatement, declension; shrinking &c. (contraction.) 195; coarctation|; abridgment &c. (shortening) 201; extenuation. subsidence, wane, ebb, decline; ebbing; descent &c. 306; decrement, reflux, depreciation; deterioration &c. 659; anticlimax; mitigation &c. (moderation) 174. V. decrease, diminish, lessen; abridge &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... fringed the banks of the arroyo at my feet. There was an enchanting stillness in the air, broken only by an occasional whine from the prairie wolf, the distant snoring of my companions, and the "crop, crop" of our horses shortening ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... the insect itself boring the exit passage, the problem assumes a more troublesome form. If the larva, rich in leisure and satisfied with its sojourn in the interior of the trunk, simplifies the coming emergence by shortening the road, what must not the adult do, who has so short a time to live and who is in so great a hurry to leave the hateful darkness? He above any other should be a judge of short cuts. To go from the murky heart of the tree to the sun-steeped bark, why does he not follow ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... with milk or melted sugar and cream; occasionally we have other simple puddings, such as tapioca, etc. Custards, with or without a crust, pies made of apple, and other fruits either green or preserved; but we have no more shortening in the crust than just to make it ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... approximation upon all the factors bearing on value, except the quality of the ore. For this, aside from inspection of the ore itself, a look at the plans is usually enlightening. A longitudinal section of the mine showing a continuous shortening of the stopes with each succeeding level carries its own interpretation. In the main, the current record of past production and estimates of the management as to ore-reserves, etc., can be accepted in ratio to the confidence that can be placed in the men who present them. It then becomes ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... of shortening words was very popular in the 17th century, from which period date cit(izen), mob(ile vulgus), the fickle crowd, and, pun(digrion). We often find the fuller mobile used for mob. The origin of pundigrion is uncertain. It may be an illiterate ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... more than offset all the dreary past; yet the risk was great, and Mr. Lincoln could not sanction it. He wrote: "I think Lee's army, and not Richmond, is your sure objective point. If he comes towards the Upper Potomac, follow on his flank and on his inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens his; fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... good of the children, only a panic horror of the inexpressibly pitiable calamity of their living a ledge or two lower on the molehill of the world—a calamity to be averted at any cost whatever, of struggle, anxiety, and shortening of life itself. I do not believe that any greater good could be achieved for the country, than the change in public feeling on this head, which might be brought about by a few benevolent men, undeniably in the class of "gentlemen," who would, on principle, enter into some of our commonest trades, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... let me say that a bad temper is an affliction, whoever owns it, and shortening to life. I don't know what your opinion may be: but my grandfather was parish constable in these parts for forty-seven years, and you'll find it on his headstone in Manaccan churchyard that he ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... unusual attainments in mathematics, despite the fact that he could neither read nor write. Once acquainted with the power of numbers, he commenced his education by counting the hairs of the tail of the horse with which he worked the fields. He soon devised processes for shortening his modes of calculation, attaining such skill and accuracy as to solve the most difficult problems. Depending upon his own system of mental arithmetic he learned to obtain accurate results just as quickly as Mr. Zerah Colburn, a noted calculator of that day, who tested the Negro mathematician.[1] ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... water, and changed every five to eight minutes, or as often as they become warm. Although the cool compresses are not usually liked by the patient, they will soon give relief if their use is continued, and they do much towards shortening the course of the disease. Care should be taken to keep the patient's body from being wet except where the treatment is applied. The cold compress is much used in the large hospitals of Germany. When the ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... father, but should also serve his generation as a good citizen and a true patriot. When the public good demanded sacrifices, she would not drag him back by insisting on his duty to his family, nor would she persuade him to rob the public stores, or time, by taking little perquisites or shortening his office hours. She would feel with De Tocqueville, who says, "A hundred times I have seen weak men show real public virtue, because they had by their sides women who supported them—not by advice as to particulars, but by fortifying their feelings of duty, and by directing their ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... highly original in many ways. Although he had never seen the work of any great artist, he painted the most extraordinary fore-shortened pictures; and fore-shortening was a technicality in art then uncommon. He also was the first to paint church cupolas. Fore-shortening produces some peculiar as well as great results, and being a feature of art with which people were not then familiar, Correggio's ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... the grape-vine. Of course fine fruit is impossible when the head of a tree is like a thicket. The growth of unchecked branches follows the terminal bud, thus producing long naked reaches of wood devoid of fruit spurs. Therefore the need of shortening in, so that side branches may be developed. When the reader remembers that every dormant bud in early spring is a possible branch, and that even the immature buds at the axil of the leaves in early summer can be forced into immediate growth by pinching back the leading shoot, he will ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... to dress up, but I suppose I'll have to," grumbled Lucy. "I'll go as a school girl, I guess. I can wear a checked gingham dress I have and a white apron, by shortening them. White stockings and white tennis shoes will go well with it. I'll wear my hair down my ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... that the long snout—possibly prehensile at its lower end—is necessary for the animal to reach the ground. But the snout still lies on the projecting lower jaw, and is not a trunk. Passing over the many collateral branches, which diverge in various directions, we next kind that the chin is shortening (in Tetrabelodon longirostris), and, through a long series of discovered intermediate forms, we trace the evolution of the elephant from the mastodon. The long supporting skin disappears, and the enormous snout becomes a flexible trunk. Southern Asia seems to have been the province of ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... his grace unto unbelief, and raising thereby discontents, doubts, fears, jealousies, and many distempers in the soul, to its prejudice and hurt, yet in end, grace shall be seen to be grace; and the faithful shall get such a full sight of this manifold grace, as ordering, tempering, timing, shortening, or continuing, of all the sad and dismal days and seasons that have passed over their own or their mother's head, that they shall see, that grace did order all, yea, every circumstance of all the various tossings, changes, ups and downs, that they did meet with. And O what a satisfying ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray) |
