"Weaken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... judgment for his manifold crimes. One only remains, the present Duke of Gloucester; and I do consider that this branch of heresy should be removed, even in preference to his parent, whose conduct is such as to assist our cause, and whose death may weaken the animosity of his Catholic Majesty, whose hostility is well known to be personal. I have neither men nor money to offer you, but I have means, I trust, soon to accomplish this point, and I dedicate my useless ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... strike the guilty; yet the sight of that bowed, lovely head went home to him very deeply indeed. She was the instrument of his vengeance, necessary to his cause, but there was nothing to be gained by afflicting her needlessly. At least, he could give her his pity. It would not weaken him, dampen his fiery ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... Wagner's Macedonian phalanxes; it is parcelled out and as divided as possible. Each part aims at independence and works as it thinks best, without apparently troubling about the other parts. Sometimes it seems, as it did when reading Berlioz, that the execution must result in incoherence, and weaken the effect. But somehow the result is very satisfying. "Now doesn't that sound well?" said Strauss to me with a smile, just after he had finished ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... and brotherly kindness, will constitute a cement which would for ever preserve our Union. Those who cherish and inculcate sentiments like these render a most essential service to their country, while those who seek to weaken their influence are, how ever conscientious and praise worthy their intentions, in effect its ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... years I have filled high positions in the State, and my long experience has shown me that when the ruling power is weak the people are oppressed. Those, therefore, who—like the great majority of rhetoricians—try to weaken the government, commit an abominable crime. An autocrat, who governs by his single will, may sometimes cause most deplorable results; but if he governs by popular consent there is no remedy possible. ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... as his predecessor had been determined at any price to fight one; he was without doubt convinced that the first elements of strategy would forbid Hannibal to advance so long as the Roman army confronted him intact, and that accordingly it would not be difficult to weaken by petty conflicts and gradually to starve out the enemy's army, dependent as it was on ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Such a prosecution ought not to have been ordered by the Directors, but upon grounds that would have fully authorized the recall of the gentleman in question. This prosecution, supposing it to have been seriously undertaken, and to have succeeded, must have tended to weaken the government, and to degrade it in the eyes of all India. On the other hand, to intrust a man, armed as he was with all the powers of his station, and indeed of the government, with the conduct of a prosecution against himself, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... common form of faith binds the Irish Protestants to ourselves, while they, upon the other hand, are fast linked to Ireland; and thus they supply the most natural bond of connection between the countries. But if England, by overthrowing their Church, should weaken their moral position, they would be no longer able, perhaps no longer willing, to counteract the desires of the majority tending, under the direction of their leaders (however, by a wise policy, revocable from that ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... of their quarrels. The crown scene, in which the Prince helps himself to the crown while his father is yet alive, is taken by Shakspeare from Monstrelet, who is supposed to have invented all that he narrates in order to weaken the claim of the English monarch to the French throne. If Henry IV., when dying, could declare that he had no right to the crown of England, on what could Henry V. base his claim ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... Pitt studied her next day, and much doubted his mother's assertion. All the months of his last term in college had not been enough to weaken in the least Esther's love for him. It was real, honest, genuine love, and of very pure quality; a diamond, he was ready to think, of the first water. Only a child's love; but Pitt had too fine a nature himself to despise a child's love; and full as his head was of ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... with you," resumed the lodger, "you own your home and have saved your money, perhaps, but a whole lot of the strikers are being pinched and they're going to weaken. They'll be cursed a little bit by the Brotherhood, but the public is dead against the strikers—read the ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... Influence of the Government on the Gilds.*—Internal divisions and external changes in the distribution of industry were therefore alike tending to weaken the gild organization. It had to suffer also from the hostility or intrusion of the national government. Much of the policy of the government tended, it is true, as in the case of the enclosures, to check the changes in progress, and thus to protect the gild ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... "thou speakest unwisely. 'Tis not for us to adjudge the displeasure of Heaven upon slight testimonies. He trieth our faith, when the dark cloud overshadoweth His mercy. But let us not dishonour this good cause, and weaken our hands by indulging in such gloomy anticipations. The night showeth little token of a change, and when I was last abroad, the river passed on, shallow ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... won't be long—" He paused while he made a rapid mental calculation of the distance, and of what a horse may endure. "Three hours. Will my girl be brave enough to stay here three hours? I'll call the man who was mowing—if I can find him. But that will take minutes. Three hours—and you won't weaken, will you, dear?" ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... arthmioi}. This is generally taken to mean, "unless they were of one mind together"; but that would very much weaken the force of the remark, and {arthmios} elsewhere is the opposite of {polemios}, cp. vi. 83 and ix. 9, 37: Xerxes professes enmity only against those who had refused to give the tokens ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... will be opposition in Congress to assuming obligations to take affirmative action along either military or economic lines. On constitutional grounds, on its effect on the Monroe Doctrine, on jealousy as to Congressional powers, etc., there will be severe criticism which will materially weaken our position with other nations, and may, in view of senatorial hostility, defeat a treaty as to the League of Nations or at ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... that sweet things mixed with wine make it less heady, and that some physicians prescribe to one that hath drunk freely, before he goes to bed, a crust of bread dipped in honey. And therefore, if sweet mixtures weaken strong wine, it is reasonable that wine should not be heady till it hath lost ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... would seem that sorrow does not weaken all activity. Because carefulness is caused by sorrow, as is clear from the passage of the Apostle quoted above (A. 2, Obj. 1). But carefulness conduces to good work: wherefore the Apostle says (2 Tim. 2:15): "Carefully study to present thyself . . . a workman that needeth not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... have their root in an insufficient appreciation of the value of free effort. But when this is once attained, the interfering party will see that his efforts should mainly be enabling ones: that he may come as an ally to those engaged in a contest too great for their ability; but that he is not to weaken prowess by unneeded meddling. It may be said that this is vague. I am content to be vague upon a point where, I believe, the greatest thinkers will be very cautious of laying down precise rules. Look at what Burke says with regard to state interference—that it should confine ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... thick showers usual with high people who have hall-porters, and a thousand names or more on their books. The pile gets horribly dusty to be sure, and the upper layer turns by degrees from cream-color to brown; but antiquity is not held to weaken the force of grandeur. The titled card left on a chance occasion more than a year ago still keeps the uppermost place, still represents a perpetual renewal of aristocratic visits, and an unbroken succession of social triumphs. Yellowed and soiled, it is none the less the trump-card of the ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... with terror at their plight. Catherine, more resolute, tried to encourage her companion; but as they jogged and jolted over the deserted road for what seemed hours, even her own courage began to weaken. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... patriotism. In some cases the stout German maidens served the guns of their artillery, and one of them, disguised in a uniform, fought in the ranks until seriously wounded. The peasantry saw their homesteads destroyed with equanimity when told that it would weaken France. Koerner sang and fought; Arndt sounded the trumpet of German unity; Luetzow gathered his famous "black troop," and the universities were so fervid that Professor Steffens of Breslau issued ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... instant he whirled, lunging at Weir and flinging his arms about his captor. An exultant exclamation slipped from his lips; his hot breath fell on the engineer's cheek; his eyes glared into those of the man his arms encircled. He had tricked Weir by his pretense of obstinacy, led him to weaken his guard and had him in ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... place the idea was likely to weaken the doctrine of the integrity of Turkey, and, for this and other reasons, was inconsistent with the interests and traditional policy of Great Britain and other Western States. It was all the more inconsistent because this policy originally shaped ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... usual, took refuge in plots and treachery, but this time, instead of corrupting his enemies with gold, he sought to weaken them by division. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... delicacy weaken the rigor of these rules. Let it be remembered, that for the wisest and most evident reasons, the merciful maxim of the law, which says, that it is better that ninety-nine guilty men should escape ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... of the hammer, springing up from the ground as though carried away by the force he put into the blow. He was a fierce one, who fought with the iron, annoyed at finding it so hard, and he even gave a grunt whenever he thought he had planted a fierce stroke. Perhaps brandy did weaken other people's arms, but he needed brandy in his veins, instead of blood. The drop he had taken a little while before had made his carcass as warm as a boiler; he felt he had the power of a steam-engine within him. And the iron seemed to be afraid ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... weaken the supreme power in its very principle, by forbidding or preventing society from acting in its own defence under certain circumstances. To weaken authority in this manner is what is generally termed in Europe to lay the foundations ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... The physical and the sensuous, in themselves or in their immediate continuations, retain holds upon me which I think are never entirely releas'd; and those holds I have not only not denied, but hardly wish'd to weaken. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... such consolidated schools serve as social centers, but it is believed that in the long run community life will flow to its natural centers and that the seeming success of such social centers in the open country, unless the neighborhood be an isolated one, will tend to weaken the communities concerned. Usually a consolidated district of this sort will contain parts of two or three community areas and the location of the school at a point between them weakens the support of the community centers ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... influential as they unite themselves with decisive tendencies." Provide the right conditions for mental growth, and then let the child do the growing. If we dictate too absolutely, we envelop instead of developing his mind, and weaken his power of choice. On the other hand, we do not wish his reading to be partial or one-sided, as it ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... March, when he first demanded reinforcements as a right, that he must shift for himself. Then he would have kept these boats by him, and triumphantly fought his way in them to the Equator. But his trust in the Government, notwithstanding all his experience, led him to weaken his own position in the hope of facilitating their movements, and he found their aid a broken reed. In only one passage of his journal does Gordon give expression to this view, although it was always ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... in me," he said, "to weaken like that; but I'm no' used to that white damp. Gi' me a minute to catch ma breath an' I'll ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... be much difficulty about that, Alfred," replied Captain Sinclair; "if there were sufficient danger to make that demand upon the commandant, the same danger would require that he should not weaken his force in the fort; no, you would have to retreat to the fort, and leave your farm to the ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, that didst weaken the nations!... Is this the man that did make the earth to tremble,—that did shake kingdoms,—that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... sacrifices for God and the salvation of the world. O fools and blind, not to see, that selfishness, idleness, luxury, pride, worldliness, slavery to fashion, neglect of the Bible, ignorance and lukewarmness are the things which disgrace and weaken the Church, and hinder the salvation ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... is paid, replace the money which I have taken? From what I have seen of believers, I know that many would act thus. But how does it work, when we thus anticipate God, by going our own way? We bring, in many instances, guilt on our conscience; but if not, we certainly weaken faith instead of increasing it; and each time we work thus a deliverance of our own we find it more and more difficult to trust in God, till at last we give way entirely to our natural fallen reason, and unbelief prevails. How different, if one is enabled ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... de Maulincour had a friend in the old Vidame de Pamiers, formerly a commander of the Knights of Malta. This was one of those undying friendships founded on sexagenary ties which nothing can weaken, because at the bottom of such intimacies there are certain secrets of the human heart, delightful to guess at when we have the time, insipid to explain in twenty words, and which might make the text of a work in four volumes as amusing as the Doyen de Killerine,—a work about which young ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the exception began to be considered as the rule. Not a session passed without a Mutiny Bill. When at length it became evident that a political change of the highest importance was taking place in such a manner as almost to escape notice, a clamour was raised by some factious men desirous to weaken the hands of the government, and by some respectable men who felt an honest but injudicious reverence for every old constitutional tradition, and who were unable to understand that what at one stage in the progress of society is pernicious may at another stage be indispensable. This clamour ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... we have found so much of brilliant promise in the earth's twin sister that I almost hesitate to approach another phase of the subject which may tend to weaken the faith of some readers in the habitability of Venus. It may have been observed that heretofore nothing has been said as to the planet's rotation period, but, without specifically mentioning it, I have tacitly assumed the correctness ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... eagerly received. The chief hindrance to this intercourse was the hostility of the wild tribes who pillaged caravans and blocked the route, and throughout the whole stretch of recorded history the Chinese used the same method to weaken them and keep the door open, namely to create or utilize a quarrel between two tribes. The Empire allied itself with one in order to crush the second and that being done, proceeded to ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... not injured, by the loss of a sovereignty which had become an anachronism. It is, of course, certain that many thought the contrary; Lord Palmerston believed that the religious position of the papacy would suffer, and among the advanced party the wish to weaken the spiritual influence of the priests went along with the wish to abolish their political dominion. Cavour looked upon religion as a great moralising force, and he was well assured that the only form of it acceptable to the Italian people was the Latin form of Christianity established in Rome. ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... irrelevant suggestions. For at length the hesitating and bewildered President, unable to decide and impotent to construct, seems to have made his message a patchwork from the contributions of his advisers, regular and irregular, with the inevitable effect, not to combine and strengthen, but to weaken and confuse the warring thoughts ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... They would have no sectional companies of Sinn Fein volunteers, of United Irish League Volunteers, of Hibernian Volunteers. All must mix equally in the ranks. The second was the fear of most Nationalists that by joining an organization with which the national leader was not identified they might weaken his hand. This operated, although the declared intention of the organization was to strengthen Redmond's position. At Limerick in January Pearse said: "In the Volunteer movement we are going to give Mr. Redmond a weapon which will enable him to enforce ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... and peace in the we-group and that of hostility and war towards others-groups are correlative to each other. The exigencies of war with outsiders are what make peace inside, lest internal discord should weaken the we-group for war. These exigencies also make government and law in the in-group, in order to prevent quarrels and enforce discipline. Thus war and peace have reacted on each other and developed each other, one within the group, the other in the intergroup relation. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... a firm believer that the right use of hypnotism by intelligent persons does not weaken the will. Says he: "I do not believe there is any danger whatever in this. I have no evidence (and I have studied a large number of hypnotized subjects) that hypnotism will render a subject less capable of exercising his will when he is relieved from the hypnotic ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... The vote of the counties does not affect the justice of your appreciation of the general character of the elections. It is not a return to the old Tory party, but rather the condemnation of the Radical programme; and from this point of view they have an international importance which nothing can weaken. All the same, this vote of the counties seems to me to render absolutely necessary the modification of parties which the complete success of the Ministry would have postponed. After the redistribution of seats, there is need of a redistribution of persons and of political groupings. Either ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... was now turning so strongly against the magistrates that they began to weaken in their purpose. But there was one more victim. In November, 1660, William Leddra returned from banishment. The case was clear enough, but he was kept in prison four months and every effort was made to induce him to promise to leave the colony, but in vain. In ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... foreign rule, oppressive enactments, or conscription, I can assure him that he is wofully mistaken. This class needs no cause at all; prosperity cannot allay its hatred, and adversity does not weaken it. It is certainly unwise to the last degree to provoke this demon, to control which as yet no means have been found. You cannot arrest the invisible; you cannot pour Martini-Henry bullets into a phantom. How are you going to capture people ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... germ of equality which can never exist but which will flatter the people; [we must] immolate the most obstinate, burn and destroy their property in order to intimidate the rest, so that if we cannot entirely destroy this prejudice we can weaken it and the people will avenge their vanity and their jealousy by all the excesses which will bring ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... continued his efforts, and in 1688 he put forth the most complete and masterly exposition of his beliefs, his 'History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches.' The Revolution of 1688-89 in England did not in the least, sad though it seemed, weaken his faith in the ultimate triumph of Catholicism. In France at that time the English revolution was not considered an assertion by the people of political and religious rights, but the carrying out of a detestable family conspiracy of a daughter and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... America has many advantages to weaken the temptation to crime, but she is very far from perfect. The people on some of her coasts have been accused of resorting to the old English practice of showing false lights, with a view to mislead vessels, and of committing cruel ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... cotton linings, for instance, must be woven in a special way in order to make them last and not "rub up" when they are wet with water or perspiration. They are bleached with the utmost care not to weaken them, and they are singed between red-hot copper plates to remove all ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... is not, because the same woman he loves as thyself. Such words weaken any cause. No wrong have I seen or known of ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... unwholesome Vapours of marshy Ground, and of corrupt stagnating Water: All which, joined to the other Hardships and Inconveniences unavoidably attending a military Life in Time of Service, often give Rise to numerous Diseases, which weaken an Army in a most surprising Manner; and therefore Commanders ought to use every Means in their Power, consistent with the necessary military Operations, to preserve the Health of ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... their repeated statements that in the wilderness God also commanded sacrifices. The issue is so grave that there have been attempts to evade it. None, however, can be regarded as successful. That which would weaken the Hebrew phrase, rightly rendered concerning by our versions, into for the sake of or in the interest of (as if all the speaker intended was that animal sacrifice was not the chief end or main interest of the Divine legislation) is ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... of poor Pendleton and Mr. Boston had been planned, she said, by the Malay; and when he and his native friends found that they could not induce Mr. Wright to further weaken his ship's company by sending another boat's crew on shore, so that the Union might the more easily be captured, she was ordered under the most awful threats to act as decoy. Resolved to upset their diabolical plan, or die in the attempt, she ...
— The Adventure Of Elizabeth Morey, of New York - 1901 • Louis Becke
... you ain't a-doin' right when you meddle in men's business and weaken 'em. You can't know my feelin's. I got to prove a man to be a good husband for ye to take pride in. I got to git the ile, ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... far. Unless the head is raised very high by pillows, however, it will be found very fatiguing to hold the book high enough, not to mention the danger of falling asleep, and of upsetting the lamp or candle, and thus setting the bed on fire. Many persons permanently weaken their eyes by reading to pass away the tedious hours during recovery from severe illness. The muscles of the eyes partake of the general weakness and are easily overtaxed. Persons in this condition may be read to, but should avoid the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... poles cross each other in the X, or centre, it is best to flatten them some by scoring and hewing with a hatchet, but care must be taken not to weaken them by scoring too deep. Next take your lash rope, double it, run the loop down under the cross sticks, bring it up on the other side, as in Fig. 83, then pull the two loose ends through the loop. When they are drawn taut (Fig. 84), bend them round in opposite directions—that is, bend the right-hand ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... uncommon pains taken at the beginning of the last session of the last Parliament, and indeed during the whole course of it, to asperse the characters and decry the measures of those who were supposed to be friends to America, in order to weaken the effect of their opposition to the acts of rigor then preparing against the colonies. The speech contains a full refutation of the charges against that party with which Mr. Burke has all along acted. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... picture-gallery. But what is thus admitted with regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) natural beauties no amount of excess in sublime mountain outline or the graces of cultivated lowland can do anything, it is supposed, to weaken or degrade the palate. We are not at all sure, however, that moderation, and a regimen tolerably austere, even in scenery, are not healthful and strengthening to the taste; and that the best school for a lover of nature is not to the found in one of those countries where ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... adrift, it would be hard to say that the position of a wife was improved by the code of Mohammed."[73] Even if the privilege of divorce and marital tyranny be not exercised, the knowledge of its existence as a potential right must tend to abate the self-respect, and in like degree to weaken the influence of the sex, impairing thus the ameliorating and civilizing power which she was meant to exercise upon mankind. And the evil has been stereotyped by the Koran for ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... Endeavor; just as, on the other hand, it is the conscientious fear, on the part of watchful guardians of sectarian interests, that habitual fellowship across the boundary lines of denominations may weaken the allegiance to the sect, which has induced the many attempts at substituting associations constituted on a narrower basis. But the form of organization which most comprehensively illustrates the unity of the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... given by athletes to their sports, no undergraduate can make himself acquainted with the vast fields of economics and governmental theory covered by such subjects. To write an argument of twelve hundred words on such a subject will weaken rather than strengthen ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... legislation "closing the Southern Ports as Ports of Entry," in reality a mere paper blockade and one which would "justify Great Britain and France in recognizing the Southern Confederacy...." Thus he began to weaken in opposition to any interference[504]. His earlier expressions to Seward were but arguments, without committing his Government to a line of policy, and were intended to ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... way, as I have known, I perceived that, for her dear sake, I should not let my lovingness weaken me in that moment. And, in verity, I shifted my hand and loosed the fastenings of her garment, so that her pretty shoulders did be bared. And her face to change sudden, and she lookt up at me an instant, with a little gasp; so that I knew she did ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... only means to fuse them with our other ideas- -we either take the law into our own hands, and our minds being in the dark fuse something easier of assimilation, and say we have fused the miracle; or if we play more fairly and insist on our minds swallowing and assimilating it, we weaken our judgments, and pro tanto kill our souls. If we stick out beyond a certain point we go mad, as fanatics, or at the best make Coleridges of ourselves; and yet upon a small scale these same miracles are the breath and essence of life; to cease ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... were pitted against each other in close and costly combat—i.e., "the wearing-down battle" which must go on in this war, as in all wars where large and equal forces are engaged, till one or the other combatant begins to weaken. And, finally, the last stage, when the weakening combatant stakes "on a supreme effort what reserves remain to him," and must abide by the issue. Germany staked her last reserves in the "great sortie" of her beleaguered Armies, which lasted from April to July of 1918. She lost the game, and the ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... must have patience with her. Consider that she has been unfortunate in her associates. Consider that she has been a petted child all her life, and that you have helped to pet her. Consider how much your sex always do to weaken the moral sense of women, by liking and admiring them for being weak and foolish and inconsequent, so long as it is pretty and does not come in your way. I do not mean you in particular, John; but I mean that the ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the dark of the night as I see it now. Me, I'm a hard man, but it breaks my heart, that ghost of Irene. So here I'll lie, waiting for you, Pierre, and lingering out the days with whisky, and fighting the wolf eyes of them there sons of mine. If I weaken—If they find they can look me square in the eye—they'll finish me quick, and make off with the ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... and hastily snatched my few possessions.) In this sentence, "rushed" and "snatched" lose rather than gain force by adding "hurriedly" and "hastily." Look up definitions of "rush" and "snatch." When we wish to express strong emotion or to describe action resulting from excitement, we only weaken the impression by using unnecessary words. Simple, direct sentences are most forceful. In aiming to secure sentence emphasis, then, we should avoid circumlocution, redundancy, tautology, and verbosity. (Look up these terms ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... of legislature were lodged in the two houses only, and the king had no negative upon their proceedings, they might be tempted to encroach upon the royal prerogative, or perhaps to abolish the kingly office, and thereby weaken (if not totally destroy) the strength of the executive power. But the constitutional government of this island is so admirably tempered and compounded, that nothing can endanger or hurt it, but ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... of Hanover and Brunswick were preserved, and the enemy obliged to evacuate that part of Westphalia. Perhaps they might have been driven to the other side of the Ehine, had not the general of the allies been obliged to weaken his army for the support of the Prussian monarch, who had met with divers disasters in the course of this campaign. It was not to any relaxation or abatement of his usual vigilance and activity, that this warlike prince owed the several checks he received. Even in the middle ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... most fervently hoped it might be as I surmised, for, if so, I should have the fellow at advantage, inasmuch as he would doubtless have put a fairly strong prize crew on board the ship, which would proportionately weaken his own crew. Full of the hope that this Ishmael of the sea might be about to place himself within my power, I caused all hands to be called, and, having first made sail, sent them to quarters, the gunner at the same time descending to the magazine and sending up a plentiful ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... maintains. We should wish to leave that point to the decision of all who have read Mr Sadler's book, or any twenty pages of it. To quote particular instances of a temper which penetrates and inspires the whole work, is to weaken our charge. Yet, that we may not be suspected of flinching, we will give two specimens,—the two first which occur to our recollection. "Whose minister is it that speaks thus?" says Mr Sadler, after misrepresenting in a most extraordinary manner, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... There must be some decision; for is not society being more and more broken up into small sections, possessing the most variable standards of life, and evaluating things in a diversity of ways? Such an inward schism must weaken any effort on the part of humanity to combine for ideal ends. Perhaps he of narrow vision, who sees nothing in life but sensuous pleasure, is happy—but it is the happiness of the lower world. Perhaps, too, he of the superficial mind is happy, who sees no deep contradictions in the solutions offered, ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... wriggled from my grasp; and time after time he broke my hold by sheer agility. His exertions must have been to him something terrible, for they required every ounce of his strength at the greatest speed. I could, of course, take it much easier, and every instant I expected to feel him weaken beneath my hands; but apparently he was as vigorous as ever. He was in excellent training. At last, however, I managed to jerk him whirling past me, to throw his feet from under him, and to drop him beneath me. As he fell he twisted, and by a sheer ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... sufficient force to organize a movable army of thirty-five to forty thousand men, after being reinforced by Price from Missouri. This movable force could be thrown against either Corinth, Bolivar or Memphis; and the best that could be done in such event would be to weaken the points not threatened in order to reinforce the one that was. Nothing could be gained on the National side by attacking elsewhere, because the territory already occupied was as much as the force present could guard. The ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... state constitutions are usually too long; they contain too many miscellaneous provisions. Most of these relate to transient or petty matters which, if made affairs for public action at all, should be left to legislation. Changes in the constitution weaken our respect for it. Rarely should anything go into that great charter which has not stood the test of time, unless it has the promise of endurance as a necessary safeguard of the rights and ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... five-and-thirty years, up to and including the present moment, during which Competitive Examination has been a field of battle, much has been added to Peacock's attack on it, or anything said on the other side to weaken the cogency of that attack. No doubt he was to some extent a prejudiced judge; for, though few people would at any time of his youth have had less to fear from competitive examination, his own fortune had ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... branch of intellect they neglect the rest? Nay, the very torpor of the reasoning faculty has often kindled the imaginative. Lucretius composed his sublime poem under the influence of a delirium. The susceptibilities that we create or refine by the pursuit of one object, weaken our general reason; and I may compare with some justice the powers of the mind to the faculties of the body, in which squinting is occasioned by an inequality of strength in the eyes, and discordance of voice by the same ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was little past the prime of life, his long and abundant hair was white, and his broad and upright forehead marked with the meshes of the net of care. But drought and famine and long fatigue had failed even now to change or weaken the fine expression of his large, sad eyes. Those eyes alone would have made the face remarkable among ten thousand, so deep with settled gloom they were, and dark with fatal sorrow. Such eyes might fitly have told ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... to themselves all day, indulged in this sort of silent observation. Their window was narrow, and the mother, whose eyes were beginning to weaken as the result of hard usage, sat near the light against the drawn muslin curtain; her daughter's large armchair was a little farther away. She announced the approach of their daily passers-by. It was a diversion, a subject ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... men the simple truth, the spiritual necessity for justice and fairness. It was not a question of social equality; it was a question of clearing a road for the development of Southern life. He would show white men that to weaken, to debase, to dehumanize the negro, inflicted a more terrible wound on the South than would any strength the black man might develop. He would show black men that to hate the whites, constantly to suspect, constantly ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... desperate grapple. Now to Roger's strength and quickness Beltane opposed craft and cunning, but wily Roger met guile with guile nor was to be allured to slack or change his gripe. Therefore of a sudden Beltane put forth his strength, and wrestled mightily, seeking to break or weaken Roger's deadly hold. But Roger's iron arms gripped and held him ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... politics—I propose to begin first by taxing America, as a blind—that will create an eternal animosity between us, and by sending over continually ships and troops, this will, of course, produce a civil war—weaken Britain by leaving her coasts defenseless, and impoverish America; so that we need not fear any thing from that quarter. Then the united fleets of France and Spain with troops to appear in the channel, and make a descent, ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... number of small communities; in the relation of these to each other, war or negotiation was constantly carried on; revolutions, conquests, and alliances frequently occurred among them. To raise the power of his tribe, and to weaken or destroy that of his enemy, was the great aim of every Indian. For these objects schemes were profoundly laid, and deeds of daring valor achieved: the refinements of diplomacy were employed, and plans arranged with the most accurate calculation. These ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... I do not doubt that had you been sooner apprised of my illness, you would not have failed to give me proofs of your good disposition. Those which I formerly received have so confirmed this belief, that even my present misfortunes cannot weaken it. I am extremely obliged by your having sent to visit me when the rumour of my indisposition reached you. If your goodness has led you to regret that you were not sooner made acquainted with so public a circumstance, my affection induces ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... was looking with eager eyes toward Texas, in the hope of securing and extending her Mexican usurpation. England was ready to give all the assistance in her power to any step which would weaken the North; and had the rebels been pressed back from the seaports and the Northern Atlantic slope, they would have had it in their power, if still holding the Mississippi, the South-west, including Tennessee, and the great natural fortresses of the mountains, to have so connected ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... can't speak for the others. But you can be sure that I'll use my influence on the right side every time. Some of them may weaken and break away, but I doubt very much if they'll be any of your main-stays. If I were you, Mac, I wouldn't let this ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... us suppose all these moral difficulties got over. The ocean remains. You cannot pump this dry; and as long as it continues in its present bed, so long all the causes which weaken authority ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... me so plain that, besides our religionists, our American education is playing in with the Kaiser's plans. It tends to weaken faith in our government. It makes unpatriotic citizens. Our colleges turn out young men who feel no political duties. We teach them to look for benefits without responsibilities. How different with the ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... Fritz's expression of surprise to be a compliment to the ship's sailing powers; and so Fritz would not undeceive him by telling him his real opinion about the vessel. It would have been cruel to try and weaken his belief in the lubberly old whaler, every piece of timber in whose hull he loved with a fatherly affection almost equal to that with which ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Language is by nothing more weaken'd, than by the use of Monisyllables. This no one ever had the least Notion of but Spencer. Which I wonder has not been observed, 'tis so very palpable in him. What makes the ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... to pass in review all the marriageable princesses who were eligible to share his throne, but to each in succession he attached some objection which tended to weaken her claim. After what he had already undergone, as he declared, there were few women, and still fewer women of royal blood, to whom he would willingly a second time confide his chance of happiness. "In order not to encounter ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... says regulation says limitation: now, how conceive of limiting privilege before it existed? I can conceive a sovereign submitting privileges to regulations; but I cannot at all understand why he should create privileges expressly to weaken the effect of regulations. There is nothing to prompt such a concession; it would be an effect without a cause. In logic as well as in history, everything is appropriated and monopolized when laws and regulations arrive: in this respect civil legislation is like ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... the assertion that the cloth was made without design. If she did, she would not credit your statement. If you patiently explained to her the theory of carding-machines, spinning-jennies, and power-looms, would her reception of your explanation weaken her conviction that the cloth was the result of design? It is certain that she would believe in design as firmly as before, and that this belief would be attended by a higher conception and reverent admiration of a wisdom, skill, and power ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... writin' down of earmarks, though most like I could point him out in a crowd, an' say, 'That's the rooster.' But sposin' a judge stood up another man that looked pretty much like him, an' asked me to swear one of the guys into ten years in Sing Sing, pr'aps I'd weaken. Mistaken identity is like grabbin' up two kings an' a jack, an' playin' 'em ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... the industries of this nation must be a test of his loyal citizenship just as a man's attitude toward our army was a test. And Americans dare not continue to ignore the danger that lies in the work of those emissaries who are seeking to weaken the loyalty of our workmen and who by breeding class hatred and strife in our industries are trying to bring about the downfall of our government and replace the stars and stripes with the flag that is as foreign ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... so as to make all pass for their full value. In some schools even suspension is so common that it does not seem to the pupil a very terrible thing. "Familiarity breeds contempt," and frequency implies familiarity. A punishment seldom resorted to will always seem to the pupil to be severe. As we weaken, and in fact bankrupt, language by an inordinate use of superlatives, so, also, do we weaken any punishment by its frequent repetition. Economy of resources ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... admitted by the inventors of these devices, that God expressly permitted his chosen people to buy and hold slaves. Yet Dr. Wayland, by whom this admission is made, has endeavored to weaken the force of it by alleging that God has been pleased to enlighten our race progressively. If, he argues, the institution of slavery among His people appears so very "peculiar and anomalous," this is because he did not choose ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... written by an Englishman for an English boy, and there are a great many allusions to things that only English boys appreciate or understand, and it has seemed wise to omit most of these. On the other hand, nothing has been omitted to weaken the story of Tom, and nothing has been added to destroy the charm of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... mustn't count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the table-cloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die. Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots; but I didn't believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... disinclination to convict a man unless the case is a very bad one. One judge, indeed, has asserted that he will not give any man the full penalty under the present law, so long as he is on the bench. The natural result of stretching the law to undue limits is to weaken it. Instead of being, as it should be, an extremely serious crime, rape loses in a large proportion of cases the opprobrium which rightly belongs to it. It is, therefore, a matter for regret that in ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... made a clumsy section of a pair. Look at each in turn. Mark the one tunnel that leads upward to the nest, mark the two galleries that surround it, mark that they wind in a spiral, and are not joined by shafts at intervals. That would so weaken the surroundings as to leave the nest an easy prey to scratching weasel. Why is the spiral made? To cheat inquiry; a dozen tunnels join it from the run; from it are a dozen exits to the surrounding field. One tunnel only leads into the nest. Only the moles know that one. Alone ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... entertainments. One signal from the man he has hired, and he stops drinking—he will stop speaking as soon as the man's mouth is open. He is under a complete fascination, attributable, some say, to passes of the hands, which the man won't wash lest he should weaken ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... difference. Well, sir, I came to the first pitfall—and, lo and behold! something had been and taken the bait and got away with it without so much as putting a foot through the wattling. I'd woven it too strong. So I thought I'd just weaken it up a little—it wouldn't take five minutes. I tried it with my foot—very gingerly. Yes, it was too strong—much too strong. I put more weight into that foot—and bang, smash, crash—bump! There I was at the bottom of the pit, with half the ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the attack was repulsed, while as gallant a resistance at the other end of the line held Eugene in check. It was the centre however, where the French believed themselves to be unassailable, and which this belief had led them to weaken by drawing troops to their wings, that had been chosen by Marlborough from the first for the chief point of attack. By making an artificial road across the morass which covered it, he was at last enabled to throw his eight ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... abdomen is tender upon pressure, which is a symptom I would rather not have found. But I can't make any positive diagnosis as yet. Some big sickness is coming on—that, I am afraid, is certain. I shall come out here to-morrow. But, Mr. Bennett, be careful of yourself. Even steel can weaken, you know. You see this rabble" (he motioned with his head toward the anteroom, where the other visitors were waiting) "that is hounding you? Everybody knows where you are. Man, you must have rest. I ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... to quarrel with Philip. Another of Philip's vassals rebelled against him, and Edward helped the rebel. He hoped by doing so to weaken Philip ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... the question that her Majesty shall become virtually a prisoner in her own palace. She must of necessity frequently go abroad and show herself to the people, otherwise they would soon begin to think, and to say, that she is afraid of Sachar; and that would but strengthen Sachar's hands and weaken ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... was attacked by Damiens, who was put to death by cruel tortures. In the Revolution there were several assassins, the most noted of whom was Charlotte Corday, praises of whom are so common as to weaken the force of that feeling which should ever be directed against murder. Granted that Marat was as bad as he is painted, no individual had the right to slay him. Bonaparte was in great danger from assassins; and it was not until he had the Duc d'Enghien assassinated that he obtained a respite from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... press his case unfairly is another proof of the excellence of our system, which contrasts favourably in this respect with the badgering and the prolonged moral torture to which a French prisoner is subject. Reforms, however, are needed which will not weaken these excellences. The absence of any plan for interrogating the prisoner avoids the abuses of the French system, but is often a cruel hardship upon the innocent. 'There is a scene,' he says, 'which most lawyers know by heart, but ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... they are sneaking, cowardly, sly, deceitful and treacherous themselves, are constantly asking me if I do not drink a little all the time. And then they say I use morphine and opium. There is nothing that has made me more wretched, and done more to weaken and drag me down, than the continued accusation of doing something that it is just as impossible for me to do as it would be to live without breathing; that is, to take a drink of liquor without getting drunk. And if ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... lower part of that tree; one temptation draws him to the left—another to the right: his upward course is a crooked one; but it is an upward course for all that; for he has, like the tree, the principle of sky-directed growth within him: the disturbing influences weaken as grace strengthens, and appetite and passion decay; and so the early part of his career is not more like the warped and twisted trunk of that tree, than his latter years resemble its taper top. He shoots off heavenward in a straight line.'" Such is a specimen of the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... the context, and how splendid it sounds!' He was answered, 'That is not the point. This modulation is forbidden; therefore it must not be made.'" The lack of really educative teaching, and the actual injustice for which Cherubini's disciplinary methods were answerable, did much to weaken Berlioz's at best ill-balanced artistic sense, and it is highly probable that, but for the kindliness and comparative wisdom of his composition master, Lesueur, he would have broken down from sheer lack of any influence which could command ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... to quote the passages, in which the Holy Scriptures speak of marriage, even in the case of preachers of the Gospel, the shepherds of the congregation. They are too numerous, too decided, too striking for any one to overthrow or weaken. Laying hold of these, Zwingli had drawn up the papers just mentioned. Ten of his associates signed with him the one addressed to the Bishop. Others approved of the thing, but did not yet venture to avow it openly. The concluding words of the memorial to the Confederates will here exhibit the ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... again making Kokimi share his apartment, for company's sake. He had still some hope that the latter might be useful to him; and, with the intention of stirring up his energies, observed, "You are a nice boy; but I am afraid the coldness shown to me by your sister may at last weaken the ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... considerable strength for this new effort. To muster the shock divisions necessary for the attack, they had to weaken their lines elsewhere. The first reserves that they drew for this offensive were the Prussian Guard divisions which they had been holding in readiness in back of the weak spot in their line in the Villers-Cotterets Forest. Those divisions ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... on the night gloom, and brings to the human what it must, in a similar way, bring to the lesser animals a sense of impending attack, a death warning. It is part of the system of the predatory beast that he uses fear to weaken the powers of his prey before he assaults it. Animal psychology is essentially utilitarian. Cowering, trembling, muscularly relaxed, on the verge of emotional shock, we are easier ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... have told me, that "they believed I had as good a right to be free as they had;" and that "they did not believe God ever made any one to be a slave." The reader will easily see, that such little conversations with my play fellows, had no tendency to weaken my love of liberty, nor to render me contented with ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... plan of Milan to weaken Florence by aiding Pisa, and to weaken Pisa by this continual war, for it was the Visconti's dream to carry their dominion into Tuscany. Now at this time, amid all these disasters, the Pisan ambassador at Milan was a certain Giovanni dell' Agnello, a merchant, ambitious ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... misrepresent him to the world. The act of Peter gave countenance to charges which would be preferred against Jesus, and further resistance would have compromised the position of his Lord. However well intended, such rash defenses weaken the cause they are ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... white men's ship, which, he had had information, was about to come up the river. He minimised its strength and exhorted him to oppose its passage. This double-dealing answered his purpose, which was to keep the Bugis forces divided and to weaken them by fighting. On the other hand, he had in the course of that day sent word to the assembled Bugis chiefs in town, assuring them that he was trying to induce the invaders to retire; his messages ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the edition printed by the Propaganda under ecclesiastical authority." Notwithstanding all this, the brethren took a hopeful view of their prospects. "To get a firm footing," they say, "among a people of a strange speech and a hard language; to inspire confidence in some, and weaken prejudice in others; to ascertain who are our avowed enemies, and who are such in disguise; to become acquainted with the mode of thinking and feeling, with the springs of action, and with the way of access to the heart; to begin publicly to discuss controversial subjects with the dignitaries ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... not see why his sister should not have her husband and be restored to the world,—if Judge Bramber should at last decide that so it ought to be. No money could bribe Judge Bramber. No undue persuasion could weaken him. If that Rhadamanthus should at last say that the verdict had been a wrong verdict, then,—for pity's sake, for love's sake, in the name of humanity, and for the sake of all Boltons present and to come,—let the man ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... His right to emancipate slaves was strictly a war-power; he had the right to exercise it strictly for the purpose of weakening the enemy or strengthening his own generals; he had not the right to exercise it in the cause of humanity, if it would not either weaken the enemy or strengthen his own side. If by premature exercise he should alienate great numbers of border-state men, while the sheet of paper with his name at its foot would be ineffectual to give actual liberty of action to a single black man in the Confederacy, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... examine the chances and changes which each man is likely to meet in marriage, and which may weaken him in that struggle from which ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... education among Indians had taught him to treat those who were thus afflicted by Providence with more than common tenderness. Nor was there any thing in Hetty Hutter's appearance, as so often happens, to weaken the interest her situation excited. An idiot she could not properly be termed, her mind being just enough enfeebled to lose most of those traits that are connected with the more artful qualities, and to retain its ingenuousness and love of truth. It had often been remarked of this girl, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... heard High Schools strongly objected to because they made the girls so full of gossip, about what this or that teacher said, or what some girl did, till their people hated the very name of school. If school friends talk much school gossip, they must weaken their minds and feel at a loss when out of their school set. It is very "provincial" to have no conversation except the small gossip which would bore a stranger, and yet I fear many friends confine themselves to a kind of talk which unfits them ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... you ever should be In a state of ennui, Just listen to me, And without any fee I'll give you a hint how to set yourself free. Though dearth of intelligence weaken the news, And you feel an incipient attack of the blues, For amusement you never need be at a loss, If you take up the paper and read it across. (INTER ARIA DEMI LOQUI.) Here's the Times, apropos, And so, With your patience, I'll show What I mean, by perusing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... sweetheart. I want you to be true to it. I don't know a thing about desert land laws and riparian rights, but I do know that if you sold your Pagans into bondage for money to marry me, I'd be ashamed of you—and disappointed. Don't let your love for me weaken your defenses, Bob. If you win I want to live with you in Donnaville, but if you lose—I want you to ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... "the line of resistance." In modern fighting, when a heavy attack is expected the defending army is usually arranged in three lines. The first is the advanced line, and this is hardly expected to be held very long. Its chief aim is to hold back the enemy for a while and weaken him as far as possible. Not many troops are employed on this line nor many big guns. The chief reliance is on rifle fire and machine guns, which are so placed as to deliver a withering cross-fire and cut ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... and keep a middle course. He is either ambitious, and therefore appropriates all his revenues to the maintenance of soldiers, to pour out in inroads upon his neighbours; or he is superstitions, and devotes all his revenue to his priesthood, who embellish his country at the same time that they weaken it, and invite invasion, as their prince becomes less and less able to ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... in this substitution of every tenth for the seventh day as a day of rest. It was not only a senseless outrage on an ancient observance, around which a thousand good and gentle feelings had clustered; it not only tended to weaken the bond of brotherhood between France and the other members of Christendom; but it was dishonest, and robbed the labourer of fifteen days of restorative and humanizing repose in every year, and extended the wrong to all the friends and fellow labourers of man in the brute ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... 2nd, 1914, the Germans declared war on France, and the First field army of Austro-Germans crossed the Meuse near Liege. For two weeks the Germans delayed before Liege, expecting that the French would send several armies into Belgium and thus weaken the forces before Metz. The French generals refused the bait, and were ready when the German main army struck along the old road from Metz to Paris. The Germans were defeated and left 40,000 dead on the battlefield. This was the greatest battle in the ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... But I have watched the cultivators during the process, and observed the usual neglect; sometimes the spurs were shaved off completely, without a bud for next year's shoot, and at others too many buds were left, that would weaken and disfigure the parent stem. The instrument for pruning was similar to a very small reaping-hook, with a handle about a foot in length, and the delicate operation was conducted with a rapidity that rendered the necessary care impossible. After the clearing of the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... back in silence, as they spun over the white road. Every moment now was a moment gained, provided that nothing were said to weaken his purpose. He braced himself in his seat, with his feet and his back, as though he expected the carriage to upset, and closed his lips tightly as if to ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... listened to, and that being the case, of what avail was his opinion on the state of the country any way? During these weeks the condemned man is visited by large numbers of people, both friends and foes; but before no one does he for a moment weaken in his constant declaration of the correctness of his cause. Some of the verbal shot that his proslavery interlocutors received were as hot as those which he fired from his musket into their midst ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... brokenly, "I'm a great, selfish brute. I think only of myself. Now I'm ready to go. And when I weaken again, don't ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... it is profitable for the human creature to be unjust, and unprofitable to be just, let us reply that, if he be right, it is profitable for this creature to feast the multitudinous monster and strengthen the lion and the lion-like qualities, but to starve and weaken the man, who is consequently liable to be dragged about at the mercy of either of the other two; and he is not to attempt to familiarize or harmonize them with one another—he ought rather to suffer them to fight and ...
— The Republic • Plato
... was perversion by that youthful mind, Which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, Deceit infect not, nor contagion soil, Indulgence weaken, or example spoil, Nor mastered science tempt her to look down On humbler talent with a pitying frown, Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, Nor envy ruffle to ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the power of His Godhead He might have done, that he should not tempt Him, but permitted him to spend all his artillery, and received the strokes and assaults of Satan's temptations in His own body, to the end He might weaken and enfeeble the strength and tyrannous power of our adversary by His long suffering. For thus, methinks, our Master and Champion, Jesus Christ, provoked our enemy to battle: "Satan, thou gloriest of thy power and victories over mankind, that there is none able to withstand ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... praises of the exormiston are not only foreign to the main subject of the letter, but to a certain extent weaken the writer's argument on behalf of his countrymen; but, as a good Bruttian, he cannot help vaunting the products of ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... of a well-used metaphor is that it should completely fulfil this function: there should be no by-products of imagery which distract from the poet's aim, and vitiate and weaken the desired consciousness. ...
— Tract XI: Three Articles on Metaphor • Society for Pure English
... their libraries any books but such as treat of religious, historical, or scientific subjects, imagining, and we think very erroneously, that all works of fiction have a demoralizing effect, and tend to weaken the judgment, ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... cooperation to develop. ASAD's recent cabinet reshuffle may improve his chances of implementing further growth-oriented policies, although external factors such as the international war on terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and downturn in oil prices could weaken the foreign investment and government revenues Syria needs to flourish. A long-run economic constraint is the pressure on water supplies caused by rapid population growth, industrial ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... of his means and confused in his choice, tends to fall into indecision, and to smear and dilute and weaken. ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... Liberty in 1881. From the Limpopo as far as Cape Town the Second Majuba has given birth to a new inspiration and a new movement amongst our people in South Africa. A new feeling has rushed in huge billows over South Africa. The flaccid and cowardly Imperialism, that had already begun to dilute and weaken our national blood, gradually turned aside before the new current which permeated our people. Many who, tired of the slow development of the national idea, had resigned themselves to Imperialism now paused and ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... Gunny Bags did not intimidate Mulligan. One of the committee remarked to me, on the occasion of his death by the rifle shot of a policeman while he was wild with delirium tremens, that he was the only prisoner ever put in the committee cells who did not "weaken." He was a character the community could well spare; but he had given the committee no offence ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... laugh. "A trick," he said, "to weaken me. They think to shave my locks; show me to the people bound by their red tape. To put it another way, a rat among ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... and these preparations generally do more harm than good. Night-caps are most unwholesome and uncleanly contrivances, and should be discarded altogether. They keep the head unnaturally warm, shut out the fresh air, and shut in those natural exhalations which should be allowed to pass off, and thus weaken the hair and render it more liable to fall off. Ladies may keep their hair properly together during repose by wearing a ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... the alternative of an early marriage presented itself. He might hasten the wedding, and then take Phillida to Europe, where the sight of a religious life quite different from her own would tend to widen her views and weaken the ardor of her enthusiasm. He wondered what would be the effect upon her, for instance, of the stack of crutches built up in monumental fashion in one of the chapels of the Church of St. Germain des Pres at Paris—the offerings of cripples ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... feel bad, but none of us must weaken," blustered Big Josh. "And while we are discussing family matters, how about this talk about that pretty Miss ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... are moments when sentiment is strong enough to triumph over principle and sweep our minds bare of all the every-day thoughts. But afterwards—there is always the afterwards. The conflict must come. Reason stays with us always, and sentiment might weaken with ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... struggled harder, but only to weaken himself. He was confused by the darkness, and found that he had miscalculated his powers. The strain upon him during the past two days, and the efforts he had made that night, had been greater than he was aware of; and now, in spite of the sterling stuff of which he ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... our wants and their gratification many obstacles are interposed. We conquer or weaken these by the employment of our faculties. It may be said, in general terms, that industry is an effort ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... of Vitry says, that he was believed to have received baptism at his death which happened in the year when Damietta was besieged. It is admitted that Wading was mistaken in quoting this passage to prove the conversion of the Sultan of Egypt, but that does not weaken the evidence of Ugolino. He says that Francis went a second time to the sultan before his return to Italy. He urged him to be converted. The Saint, not being able to induce him to overcome the human obstacles which stood in the way, prayed fervently for him for several successive days, ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... strengthened in faith, confirmed in hope and made ardent in love. For as long as we live on earth our lot is such that the evil spirit and all the world assail us with joy and sorrow, to extinguish our love for Christ, to blot out our faith, and to weaken our hope. Wherefore we sorely need this sacrament, in which we may gain new strength when we have grown weak, and may daily exercise ourselves into the strengthening and uplifting ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... Procter was firm. Indeed she did not glance at Suzanna. The reaction from her days of hard and continuous work was setting in. She merely said: "Suzanna, we must make that dress last a long time. I made it so that it can be lengthened five inches. We can't weaken it by cutting the goods away from under the lace. Now, dear, go and see that the children aren't in mischief. I ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... only!" again Herrara seemed to weaken. To start in three hours a journey into the unknown far East of the Americano was beyond his imaginings. He shrugged his shoulders, tossed his hands outwards in despair, ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... news of so strong and well armed a party having left the fort, reached the ears of the Indians. They had a very great dread of Boone, and knew very well he would not be found sleeping or unprotected, at the springs. They shrewdly inferred that the departure of so many men must greatly weaken the garrison, and that they could never hope for a more favorable ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... the skin too great protection, and thus weaken it. The result is that it degenerates and partly loses its function with consequent detriment to the ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... that Antony used for the necessity of this partnership was that Brutus and Cassius were just across in Macedonia, waiting and watching for the time when civil war would so weaken Rome that they could step in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... passage to listen to the infernal noise in the dark city of Amiens. But I went back again and bent over my paper, concentrating on the picture of war which I was trying to set down so that the world might see and understand, until once again, ten minutes later or so, my will-power would weaken and the little devil of fear would creep up to my heart and I would go uneasily to the door again to listen. Then once more to my writing... Nothing touched the house in the rue Amiral Courbet while we were there. But it was into my bedroom ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... resolutely facing every obstacle, and resolved to fulfil the object of his mission, or perish in the attempt. Whatever might be his own misgivings and apprehensions, he concealed them from his comrades, resolved that no disclosure of them should damp their confidence, or weaken their efforts. ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park |
