"Wear away" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that it was going to rain, as she hurried out of the yard, but she did not wait to get extra wraps nor her umbrella. The best thing to do, she knew, was to get away while that hog buyer was there and trust to luck for the edge of her father's anger to wear away before she returned. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... near Packwood's, out in the broiling sun. They were like ovens; there was no shade, no coolness anywhere; we would have gladly slept, after the day's march, but instead we sat broiling in the ambulances, and waited for the long afternoon to wear away. ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... others, who, writing to me on concerns of their own in which I have had an agency, or from motives of mere respect and approbation, are entitled to be answered with respect and a return of good will. My hope is that this obstacle to the delights of retirement will wear away with the oblivion which follows that, and that I may at length be indulged in those studious pursuits, from which nothing but revolutionary duties ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... wings of light, and flash with impetuous speed, day and night, and month, and year, till youth shall wear away, and middle age is gone, and the extremest limit of human life has been attained;—count every pulse, and, at each, speed on your way a hundred thousand miles; and when a hundred years have rolled by, look ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... I can tell you," said Estella. "First, notwithstanding the proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set your mind at rest that these people never will—never would, in hundred years—impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so busy and so mean in vain, and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... sot at the table in his stockin' feet and shirt sleeves, and eat more than wuz good for him, fur more. He had begun to onbend, and I knew that for days I couldn't keep clothes enough on him to be hardly decent, but knew also that that would wear away ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... dwells above all, that the sun must swallow one of his children each month. Then the mother-moon feels very sorry, and she must mourn. She paints her face black, for her child is gone. But the dark will soon wear away from her face a little by little, night after night, and after a time her face becomes all bright again. Soon the sun swallows another child, and the moon puts on her ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... surrounding ice. But such was not the effect on Walden that year, for she had soon got a thick new garment to take the place of the old. This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice. I never knew it to open in the course of a winter, not excepting that of '52-3, which gave the ponds so severe a trial. It commonly opens about the first of April, a week or ten days later than Flint's Pond and Fair Haven, beginning to melt on the north side and in the shallower parts ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... but an endless chain of renunciations and deprivations, of leafless flowers and dissolving views? It is true, I have never learned to know what is usually called misfortune. But is there a greater misfortune than not to be happy; than to sigh through a life without wish or hope; to wear away the endless, weary days of an existence without delight, yet surrounded ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... it might be a very long time before there was any change. All the same, he felt sure that it was only a matter of time. He seemed to regard my trouble as a kind of artificial barrier which divided the past from the present, but that time would constantly wear away the barrier. He also said that if some very vivid and striking happening were to take place, something that was vitally connected with my past, it might suddenly pierce it—tear it aside, and let in ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... half an hour alone, when the chambermaid of the hostelry knocked at her door, and delivered a message from the squire, begging her to come down to him in the parlour. With a heart that beat so violently it almost seemed to wear away its very life, Lucy slowly and with tremulous steps descended to the parlour. On opening the door she saw Clifford standing in the recess of the window; his face was partly turned from her, and his eyes downcast. The good old squire sat in ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... where the lime comes from in the sea which the corals absorb in such quantities. As far as the living corals are concerned the answer is easy, for an immense deal of lime is brought down to the ocean by rivers that wear away the lime deposits through which they pass. The Mississippi, whose course lies through extensive lime regions, brings down yearly lime enough to supply all the animals living in the Gulf of Mexico. But behind this lies a question, not so easily settled, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... scarlet ribbons, Come I to exchange my silver, To exchange my gold and silver; Gold I have, as old as moonlight, Silver of the age of sunshine, In the first of years was gathered, In the heat and pain of battle; It will rust within my pouches, Soon will wear away and perish, If it be not used in trading." Long the hunter, Lemminkainen, Glided through the fen and forest, Sang his songs throughout the woodlands, Through three mountain glens be sang them, Sang the forest hostess ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... haste. They moved forward rapidly, as if they feared an enemy in the rear. Mayall scanned every movement with the eye of the vulture, for a chance to deal the deadly blow upon his captors. The day seemed to wear away without an opportunity for the deadly combat, until they halted at a ford above where the village of Unadilla now stands. Here they held a parley, as the stream was swollen and rapid. Mayall looked on in sullen silence, ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... bade me quit my books A month at least, for I was wearing out. 'Unbend the bow,' he said. His watchful eye Saw toil and care at work upon my cheeks; He could not see the canker at my heart, But he had seen pale students wear away With overwork the vigor of their lives; And so he gave me means and bade me go To romp a month among my native hills. I went, but not as I had left my home— A bashful boy, uncouth and coarsely clad, But clothed and mannered like ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... Wife if you do love her as much as she do love you. For she is sore put to by an Enemy in the shape of a Friend. Sir, there is one near her who ought to be Away. A woman should not be try'd beyond her Strength, and continual dropping will wear away ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... completely flashed," said Pollnitz to himself, as with a courtly bow and a smiling lip he took leave of the king. "I had hoped at least for a small reward, if it was only to see that I had made him angry. Alas! this man is invulnerable; all my files wear away on him." ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... interesting catastrophe, what must they think of the barren labours of those who, in the degree they become eminent, to use their own style, in the art of "dish, dash, long-tail fly," the less they become interesting to the public; for what can the most skilful writing-master do but wear away his life in leaning over his pupil's copy, or sometimes snatch a pen to decorate the margin, though he cannot compose the page? Montaigne has a very original notion on writing-masters: he says that some of those caligraphers who ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of personal rights, or the pretension to privilege and honours, which remain among certain orders of men, are so many bars in the way of a recent usurpation. If they are not suffered to decay with age, and to wear away in the progress of a growing corruption, they must be broken with violence, and the entrance to every new accession of power must be stained with blood. The effect, even in this case, is frequently tardy. The Roman spirit, we know, was not ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... night began to wear away. For the first hour or two, every now and then, a stifled sob would make itself just faintly heard. It was a sound to wring the heart, for what it meant was that not even Catherine Elsmere's extraordinary powers of self-suppression could avail to check the outward expression of an ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unholy snacks wear away at length. By tea-time things had brightened up. The rain had ceased, and the old, low-raftered room was full of sunshine which danced on the shining dishes of the dresser, made mosaics on the floor, and flickered over ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... idea into his head it was not easy to get it out again, and to this resolute obstinacy he owed no small part of his success. He was like the famous drop of water and would wear away any human stone, however hard it might be. Again and again, when baffled, he returned with gentle persistence to the object he had in view, and however strong of will his adversary happened to be, that will was bound, in the long run, to yield to the incessant attacks of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Aunt Judith, rising from her chair and advancing to the tea-table; "if you were to hear my stories often, the novelty would by-and-by wear away. But here is Aunt Debby with the urn. Let us see what a successful tea-maker she is, and we can talk more about ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... put to a shift, and obliged to get out of a scrape—by scraping. His Viol has the effect of a Scotch Fiddle, for it irritates his hearers, and puts them to the itch. He tears his audience in various ways, as I do this subject; and as I wear away my pen, so does he wear away the strings of his Fiddle. There is no medium to him; he is either in a flat or a sharp key, though both are natural to him. He deals in third minors, and major thirds; proves a turncoat, and is often ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... mouth, like so many adzes or chisels. The grinders or molars are large, and have an extremely complicated structure, being composed of a number of different substances of unequal hardness. The consequence of this is that they wear away at different rates; and, hence, the surface of each grinder is always as uneven as ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... The arc produced by the alternating current. It presents several peculiarities. With an insufficient number of alternations per second it goes out. As the carbons wear away equally it is adopted for such lamps as the Jablochkoff candle, (see Candle, Jablochkoff). As no crater is formed the light is disseminated equally both up and down. For this reason to get full downward illumination ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... the Thames submitted themselves to the conqueror. Cassibelan, worsted in so many encounters, and deserted by his allies, was driven at length to sue for peace. A tribute was imposed; and as the summer began to wear away, Caesar, having finished the war to his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... have our little troubles and annoyances. These we should accept as inevitable, and neither think nor talk much about them. They help to wear away the rough edges. We are stupid at times and so are others and then mistakes are made. These should also be accepted as inevitable, and we should not be more annoyed by those that others make than by our own. Those who go into a rage when ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... Bethsaida. 11. And the people, when they knew it, followed Him; and He received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing. 12. And when the day began to wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto Him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and get victuals; for we are here in a desert place. 13. But He said unto them, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... dry on. In the morning, thus protected, the horse could journey on. It is customary regularly to shoe these ponies only on the fore feet, as the weight of the animal's head and neck, together with that of the rider, comes harder on these hoofs and causes them, when traveling over sharp rocks, to wear away quickly. It seldom happens that the hind feet become tender. The Indians cannot understand the policy of this, and one of them philosophizing on the subject, while visiting the blacksmith's shop attached to a military post, made the remark in Spanish, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... he saw her depart, that he would have the more joy in the castle of his Lady if he were alone, and would wear away the day in better patience therefor. But in sooth the hours of that day were worse to wear than any day there had yet been. He went not without the house at all that day, for he deemed that the folk abroad would note of him that he was ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... tides, and watercourses, assisted by glacial ice and frost, it must be apparent how slowly the work of forming the rocks is being carried on. It goes on steadily, but so slowly that it is estimated to take 6000 years to wear away one foot of the American continent by all the denuding causes combined. To erode a stratum 5000 feet thick will require at ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... by in Heriulf's Storm, and though men's hearts were nothing daunted, but rather angered by what had befallen, yet would Thiodolf wear away the time somewhat more, since he hoped for succour from the Wain-burg and the Wood; and he would not that any of these Romans should escape us, but would give them all to Tyr, and to be a following to Heriulf the Old and ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... Socrates my tender years; your rule, applied with skillful disguise, straightens each perverse habit; nature is molded by reason, and struggles to be subdued, and assumes under your hands its plastic lineaments. Ay, well I mind how I would wear away long summer suns with you, and pluck with you the bloom of night's first hours. One work we had, one certain time for rest, and at one modest table unbent ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... the doctor for a minute kept up a simulation of physical examination in order to wear away the restraint which Phillida might feel at being abruptly left for a confidential conversation with ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... withdrawn, so self-defended, and uneasy of access, some of the country-folk around brought him little offerings—a side of bacon, a keg of cider, hung mutton, or a brisket of venison; so that for a little while he was very honest. But when the newness of his coming began to wear away, and our good folk were apt to think that even a gentleman ought to work or pay other men for doing it, and many farmers were grown weary of manners without discourse to them, and all cried out to one another ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... sniffed once more, found purity; and returned to the library. But here the air seemed faintly impregnated with Orduma cigarettes. "Curious!" he said as he composed himself once more to read—and presently the odour seemed to wear away and vanish. Mr. Atwater was relieved; the last thing he could have wished was to ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... footsteps, the avenue to the endless schemes, and systems, and wonders, that lie buried in and about our world. Still let all who enter our museum, go there with the resolve to accomplish something by their visit. Even in the common concerns of life; in the petty matters that wear away the brain at last; in the market-places of the world, this insight is not without its effect. The heart is humbled as the eyes open to the grandeur of the scheme, and to the consequent littleness of individual manhood; but again, the breast swells with the ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... inherited. Dr. Burgess gives the case of a family consisting of a father, mother, and ten children, all of whom, without exception, were prone to blush to a most painful degree. The children were grown up; "and some of them were sent to travel in order to wear away this diseased sensibility, but nothing was of the slightest avail." Even peculiarities in blushing seem to be inherited. Sir James Paget, whilst examining the spine of a girl, was struck at her singular manner of blushing; a big splash of red appeared first on one cheek, and ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... on account of an abiding displeasure, which he holds locked in his breast; and as he does not break forth into the outward signs of anger, others cannot reason him out of it, nor does he of his own accord lay aside his anger, except his displeasure wear away with time and thus his anger cease. On the other hand, the anger of "ill-tempered" persons is long-lasting on account of their intense desire for revenge, so that it does not wear out with time, and can be quelled ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... what dances shall we have, To wear away this long age of three hours Between our after-supper and bed-time? Where is our usual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand? Is there no play To ease the anguish of a torturing hour? ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... that can be done, and surely those at home who are not brave or patriotic enough to enlist should not ridicule or throw obstacles in the way of men who are going to fight for them. There is a great prejudice against it, but now that it has become a government matter, that will probably wear away. At any rate I sha'n't be frightened out of it by its unpopularity. I feel convinced I shall never regret having taken this step, as far as I myself am concerned; for while I was undecided, I felt ashamed of myself as ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... coming back, gave the larger one to the beggar who sat complaining in the sun. Then, withdrawing to a conventional distance in the shadow of the steeple, she waited patiently for the slow hours to wear away. Not until the long shadow pointed straight from west to east did the ancient vehicle rattle down the street and the driver pull up for her at the old church steps. Then it was that with her first sigh of relief she awoke to the realisation that through all ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... is going to wear away the ice—is going to loosen the entire glacier. And then, suddenly, with no warning at all, the field will plunge forward—break up, sink, grind itself to powder against these cliffs! ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... great ocean of wide expanse and immeasurable water. He that wisheth to split by a slap of his palm the high Kailasa mountain, is not able to do the slightest damage to the mountain although his hand only with its nails is sure to wear away. He that would conquer Vasudeva in battle, would, with his two arms, extinguish a blazing fire, stop the Sun and the Moon, and plunder by force the Amrita of the gods,—that Vasudeva, viz., who having mowed down in battle by main force all the royal warriors of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... put by that which will make their old age respectable. Alas! alas! Of those who thus hope how much the larger proportion are doomed to disappointment. The little lots of goods that are bought and brought together with so much pride turn themselves into dust and rubbish. The gloss and gilding wear away, as they wear away also from the heart of the adventurer, and then the small aspirant sinks back into the mass of nothings from whom he had thought to rise. When one thinks of it, it is very sad; but the sadness is not confined to commerce. It is ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... happy that I have been able to wear away any portion of your tedious journey, Miss Percival, so I shall proceed ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... gather the sleeping child in her arms and steal quietly out of the room. Then the sun got too high up in the heavens to watch little runaway orphan girls. Nobody saw her steal through the deserted playroom, down the clean bare steps, which she had helped to wear away, and out through the yard to the coal-shed. Here she got the reluctant Tommy into his clothes, and tied on his little round straw hat, so absurdly ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... add that accurate weights should never be handled with the fingers. Ivory tipped forceps are best for handling the weights. The forceps commonly used for handling diamonds will, in time, wear away the weights by scratching them so that they will weigh materially less. Unless the weights are of platinum or plated with gold, the perspiration of the hands would cause them to oxidize and gain in weight. It would be well to discard the smaller weights, which are ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... gaps and chasms. All the summer through, for many hours on clear days, the sun will melt those snows and the frost at night will glaze them into ice. The more conformable ice-blocks will gradually be cemented together, while the fierce winds that beat upon the ridge will wear away the supports of the more egregious and unstable blocks, and one by one they will topple into the abyss on this side or on that. It will probably never again be the smooth, homogeneous slope it has been; "the gable" will probably always present ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... question, as woods that are too hard, too soft, too wet, too oily, too gummy, or too resinous will not produce fire. The wood should be soft enough to wear away, else it produces no punk, and hard enough to wear slowly, or the heat is not enough to light the punk, and, of course, it should be highly inflammable. Those that I have had the best luck with are balsam fir, cottonwood ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... to all that's dear, to all that's lovely; I am parted from my life, my soul, my Piozzi. If I can get health and strength to write my story here, 'tis all I wish for now—oh misery! [Here are four pages missing.] The cold dislike of my eldest daughter I thought might wear away by familiarity with his merit, and that we might live tolerably together, or, at least, part friends—but no; her aversion increased daily, and she communicated it to the others; they treated me insolently, and him very strangely—running away whenever he came as if they saw a serpent—and plotting ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... of the fifth month the statesman Kueh Yuen drowned himself in the river Mih-lo. Since then twenty-three centuries have passed, and the mountains wear away. Yet every year, on the fifth day of the fifth month, the great Dragon Boats, gay with flags and gongs, search diligently in the streams of the Empire for the body ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... confession be not sincere, in a very short time, when the novelty and excitement have worn away, the interest in sacred things will wear away also, and very soon something will be said or done that will be a dreadful disgrace to the confession thus carelessly ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... Still he could not conceal that Hermione never spoke of him save in hate, and in view of her then delicate condition it was well not to press the matter. The orator had seemed well content. "Woman's fantasies would wear away in time." But the rumour of this negotiation, outrunning truth, grew into the lying report of an absolute betrothal,—the report which was to drift to Asia and turn Glaucon's heart to stone, gossip having always wrought more harm than ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... knee almost vertical and the heel well drawn back. Spurs are not worn, and another remarkable thing is that he has absolutely no guard to his sword. The Russian soldier scorns buttons; he says, "They are a nuisance; they have to be cleaned, they wear away the cloth, they are heavy, and they attract ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... broken love. Now she stands on the floor of the high-seat, and for e'en so little a space As men may note delaying, she looketh on Sigurd's face, Ere she saith: "I have greeted many in the Niblungs' house today, And for thee is the last of my greetings ere the feast shall wear away: Hail, Sigurd, son of the Volsungs! hail, lord of Odin's storm! Hail, rider of the wasteland and slayer of the Worm! If aught thy soul shall desire while yet thou livest on earth, I pray that thou mayst win it, nor ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... she had too much experience of Elizabeth's vacillations to entertain much hope of her being allowed to retire beyond her grasp into a foreign convent, and she declared that she could not endure that her beloved, devoted child should wear away her life under Elizabeth's jealous eye, but Cis put this aside, saying with a smile, "I think she will not be hard with me. She will be no worse than my Lady Countess, and I shall have a secret of joy within me in thinking of you ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... obstinacy to treat you with severity? It is in your own power to be happy. You need only resolve to love, and be true to me, and I shall treat you with more mildness." "Thou hideous satyr," answered the lady, "never expect that time should wear away my abhorrence of thee. Thou wilt ever be a monster in my eyes." To these words she added so many reproaches, that the giant grew enraged. "This is too much," cried he, in a furious tone; "my love despised is turned into rage. Your hatred has at last excited mine; I find it triumphs over ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... both to the best of my ability. Mr. Booth's system appears to me, and, as I have shown, is regarded by Socialists themselves, to be mere autocratic Socialism, masked by its theological exterior. That the "fantastic" religious skin will wear away, and the Socialistic reality it covers will show its real nature, is the expressed hope of one candid Socialist, and may be fairly conceived to be the unexpressed belief of the despotic leader of the new Trades Union, who ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... could not vote the Democratic ticket because the women would not live with them if they did. The negro men go out in the hotels and upon the railroad cars; they go to the cities and by attrition they wear away the prejudice of race; but the women remain at home, and their emotional natures aggregate and compound the race-prejudice, and when suffrage is given them what must be ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... such scenes as must needs ensue on a revelation of the little he did know. So there was for a time a great coolness between the two houses; but Madame de Valricour had now formed another scheme, and as incessant dropping will wear away even a stone, she soon contrived to induce the marchioness to insist on having Clotilde frequently at Beaujardin. The marquis had always been fond of his niece, and the fact that they both secretly grieved over the fate ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... began to wear away, and all this while the motors hummed cheerily, as they worked unceasingly, carrying the three bold riders closer and closer to where the greatest battle of the age was being fought ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... o' joys maun hae an end, The best o' friends maun part, I trow; The langest day will wear away, And I maun bid fareweel to you. The tear will tell when hearts are fu', For words, gin they hae sense ava, They 're broken, faltering, and few: Gude nicht, and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... thing thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... Colonel existed five consecutive days without slumber—travelling all day and sleeping in the weeds at night—to find an almost inaccessible crag, on the summit of which he hoped to be undisturbed until the action of the dew should wear away the rock all round his body, when he expected and was willing to roll off and wake. But even there Halsey found him out, and put eagles' eggs in his southern pockets to hatch. When the young birds were well grown, they pecked so sharply at the Colonel's legs that he had to ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... the most we only had diplomatic unpleasantnesses. The position, however, was getting strained. I realized quite clearly that if we didn't obtain domestic help of some sort very soon it might come to open hostilities. Isn't it surprising how the petty annoyances of life can wear away the strong bulwarks of trust and friendship formed by years of understanding? Our particular bulwarks were becoming quite shaky through nothing else but having to muddle through the dull sordid grind of cooking and housework by ourselves. ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... merely become shy because of lack of association. Usually he has been brought up with his mother and sisters and merely lacks the touch of a man and a man's viewpoint. After he comes in contact with other boys, this will wear away. The problem of the Teacher is to get the other boys in his class to pilot the boy into the ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... my youth, as youth is apt I know, Some harshness show; All vain asperities I day by day Would wear away, Till the smooth temper of my age should be Like the high leaves upon the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... animal, that it must sustain itself by food, by the process of assimilation. This, however, is merely a contingent truth, because it is in our power to conceive of organized beings whose substance shall not wear away, and consequently shall not need perpetual restoration. But what faculty of the mind is unemployed here that is engaged in perceiving the property of a triangle, that as triangle, it must have two sides greater than the third? The truths ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... detained by unhappy circumstances, and his prevailing arts to wear away three wretched years with him, in the same house, though she most solemnly protests, and she has a right to be believed, that no persuasion could ever again reconcile her to his impious arms. Whenever she cast her eyes upon her son, it gave a mortal ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... the high functions of the press and its immense influence in the nation,—its perpetual daily lessons, falling on the public mind like drops that wear away the hardest rock and work their channel where they will,—it is of the first importance to comprehend the power behind this imperial throne, which directs and controls it. Does it assume to originate and establish principles ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... away the rock And time may wear away the tribe that stood the battle's shock; But ever, sure, while one is left of all that honoured race, In front of Ireland's chivalry is that Fitzgerald's place: And, though the last were dead and gone, how many a field and town, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... look'd again—his eye was flush'd With passion proud and deep delight, But often o'er his brow there gush'd A blackened cloud which made it night, But still the cloud would wear away, (His youthful cheek was red and rare,) And still his heart beat light and gay, Still did ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... lightning rapidity; each man puts his little batch into type, the fragments are placed in their queer frame, and presently the readers are poring over the long, damp, and odorous proof-sheets. There is no very great hurry in the early part of the evening; but, as the small hours wear away, the strain is feverish in its poignancy. There is no noise, no confusion; each man knows his office, and fulfils it deftly. But such great issues are involved, that the nervousness of managers, printers, sub-editors—every one—may easily be understood. Suppose that a very important division ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... since he had first caught the flash of interest in Carmen Dolores' eyes—an interest roused from his likeness to a conspirator who had been shot for his country's good. He was no stouter in body, for he was of the kind that wear away the flesh by much doing and thinking; but there were occasional streaks of grey in his bushy hair, and his eye roamed less than it did once. In the days when he first brought Carmen home, his eye was like a bead of brown light on a swivel. It flickered and flamed; it saw ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Set on thy winds, and overwhelm their sunken ships at sea, Or prithee scattered cast them forth, things drowned diversedly. 70 Twice seven nymphs are in my house of body passing fair: Of whom indeed Deiopea is fairest fashioned there. I give her thee in wedlock sure, and call her all thine own To wear away the years with thee, for thy deserving shown To me this day; of offspring fair she too shall make ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... bitterness had been her portion, and now in the happiness of spring, sorrow and bitterness were with her still. She loved him, she longed for his presence, and it was denied to her. She could not console herself as can some women, nor did her deep passion wear away; on the contrary, it seemed to grow and gather with every passing week. Neither did she wish to lose it, she loved too well for that. It was better to be thus tormented by conscience and by hopelessness than to lose her cause ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... the text grow darker as it goes on. The grim slavery which it threatens as the only alternative to joyful service of God is declared to be lifelong 'penal servitude,' and not only is there no deliverance from it, but it directly tends to wear away the life of the hopeless slaves. For the words that follow our text are 'and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.' That is dismally true in regard to any and every life that has shaken off the service of God which is perfect freedom, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... in the bow, sadly thinking of his misfortunes, until he noticed that one of the men began to stir. The effect of the electric shock conveyed by the tube was beginning to wear away, and now the buccaneer sat up, rubbed his head in a bewildered fashion and looked around him. When he saw Rob he gave a shout of rage and drew his knife, but one motion of the electric tube made him cringe and slip away to the cabin, where ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... urged him to it, and his consuming vanity persuaded him that out of evil might come good. He could make the girl love him. So her punishment would bring her joy in the end. As for Crawford and Sanders, his success would be such bitter medicine to them that time would never wear away ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... the house, while Mrs. Jonas Clark has closed the shutters, added a new forelog, and fanned the embers to a cheerful flame. The young couple whom Madam Hancock has studiously brought together exchange sympathetic glances as they take part in the conversation. The hours wear away, and the candles are snuffed again and again. Then the guests retire, not, to be sure, without apprehensions of approaching trouble, but with little thought that the king's strong arm of military authority is already extended ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... stones that bear a name, The chisel's slender help to fame, Which, e'er our set of friends decay, Their frequent steps may wear away, A middle race of mortals own, Men half-ambitious, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... who have nevertheless died unrecognized. Are Russian navigators, chemists, physicists, mechanicians, and agriculturists popular with the public? Do our cultivated masses know anything of Russian artists, sculptors, and literary men? Some old literary hack, hard-working and talented, will wear away the doorstep of the publishers' offices for thirty-three years, cover reams of paper, be had up for libel twenty times, and yet not step beyond his ant-heap. Can you mention to me a single representative of our literature who would have become celebrated if the rumor had not ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... general: "You seem to be a little—afraid of me. I don't know why it is that people are always that way with me." A halt, to give her the opportunity to say the obvious flattering thing. Mildred said nothing, gave no sign. He went on: "It will wear away as we know each other better. I am a simple, plain man—kind and generous in my instincts. Of course I am dignified, and I do not like familiarity. But I do not mean to ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... which we have no counterpart on Earth. No atmosphere refracts it, no hazy screen softens it, no enveloping vapor absorbs it, no obstructing medium colors it. It breaks on the eye, harsh, white, dazzling, blinding, like the electric light seen a few yards off. As the hours wear away, the more blasting becomes the glare; and the higher he rises in the black sky, but slowly, slowly. It takes him seven of our days to reach the meridian. By that time the heat has increased from an arctic temperature ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... there is a great deal of necessity; and, therefore he builds them. Where? On rocks whose sides are one mass of buttresses, of precisely the same form; on rocks which are cut and cloven by basalt and lava dikes of every size, and which, being themselves secondary, wear away gradually by exposure to the atmosphere, leaving the intersecting dikes standing out in solid and vertical walls, from the faces of their precipices. The eye passes over heaps of scoriae and sloping banks of ashes, over the huge ruins of more ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... corner seat; and so, though his knees interlocked with those of his VIS-A-VIS, only one of the eight inside passengers was jammed against him. The coach started; and the long, dull hours of the journey began to wear away. Nothing broke the monotony but speculations whether the driver—a noted tippler—would be drunk before Melbourne was reached and capsize them; and the drawling voice of a Yankee prospector, who told lying tales about his exploits in California in '48 until, having talked his ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing? Dark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away? Cold, cold Church, in thy death sleep lying, Thy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... the humility with which he made his suit, the obvious intensity of his devotion, began at last to wear away that gentlewoman's opposition, as dripping water wears away a stone. Yet she could not bring herself to forget that he was Sir Oliver's brother—the brother of the man she had loved, and the brother of the man who had killed ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... Continual dropping, however, will wear away the hardest stone, and Aunt Helen was not one to weary in what she considered well-doing. When nearly three years had elapsed after my father's death, I yielded to her urgency and consented to inaugurate my return to society by giving a large ball. The idea came to me one night when I was feeling ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... the bitter wind and the drift would break the blissful vision and dreary pains cover us like clouds. "Are you suffering much?" Jerome would inquire with pitiful faintness. "Yes," I would say, striving to keep my voice brave, "frozen and burned; but never mind, Jerome, the night will wear away at last, and tomorrow we go a-Maying, and what campfires we will make, and what sunbaths ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... it continues so long, the face will be swelled and become black and blue, so that it will at first appear monstrous, which is occasioned as well by the compression of it in that place, as by the midwife's fingers in handling it, in order to place it in a better posture. But this blackness will wear away in three or four days' time, by anointing it often with oil of sweet almonds. To deliver the birth, the same operation must be used as in the former, when the child comes first with the side of the head; only let the midwife ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... not disturbed by the forces which build mountains, the plateaus through which the river now flows in such deep canons will be carried away in the form of sand and mud. Broad valleys will replace the canons, and the Gulf of California will become a fertile plain. As the highlands wear away the process will go on more and more slowly, for there will be less rainfall. The river will become smaller and its basin more arid. All these changes will be brought about through the crumbling ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... with the skipper and Mr Rawlings, gave a scientific explanation from his medical lore. He said that Sailor Bill's mental affliction was due to some psychological effect, which would wear away in time, and probably completely disappear if the boy had to undergo a shock precisely similar to that which had caused it. But, as neither he nor any one else knew what that shock was, of course they could not expedite Sailor Bill's cure, nor do anything, save make him ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... and perplexity of the teacher's life are, as was explained in the last chapter, almost proverbial. There are other pressing and exhausting pursuits, which wear away the spirit by the ceaseless care which they impose, or perplex and bewilder the intellect by the multiplicity and intricacy of their details. But the business of teaching, by a pre-eminence not very enviable, stands, ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... to wear away without a riot, nay, even without a fight; a most extraordinary occurrence for such a place under the existing circumstances; for of late the populace, or, perhaps, the townspeople, were extremely pugnacious, and many were the disputes that were settled ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... and fears, such as had now for nearly three years pressed upon the writer of this letter, would so wear away and break down ordinary souls that, when a crisis came, they would be found wholly unequal to grapple with it; and we may therefore the better form some idea of the strength of mind and almost superhuman fortitude of this admirable queen, if, from time to ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... accepted unreservedly, and that the engineer himself should be requested to resume his position and undertake the management of the work. There was some slight demurring at first, but the catastrophe was so recent that its effect had not had time to wear away, and finally the agreement ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... movements of the American army, until the attack upon the Hessian post at Trenton, the 26th of December, are to be considered as operating to effect no other principal purpose than delay, and to wear away the campaign under all the disadvantages of an unequal force, with as little ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... had overcast his sky, until his horizon was almost as radiant as it had been on the day of his arrival at Wilton. Janoah Eldridge came no more to the Spence cottage; Snelling had vanished; the Galbraiths were occupied with their own affairs; and the barrier between Bob and Willie began slowly to wear away. The little old man was of far too believing and charitable a nature to hold out long against his own optimism; moreover, he detested strife and was much more willing to endure a wrong than to harbor ill feeling; hence he was only too ready to reconstruct Janoah's venomous story into terms ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... fleeting fancy — 'twill quickly wear away. [aside, coming down-stage] Oh, Reginald, if you but knew what a wealth of golden love is waiting for you, stored up in this rugged old bosom of mine, the milkmaid's triumph ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... the mouths of rivers the tides hurry in and hurry out, and especially during spring tides there are currents which flow with tremendous power; then too, as the waves batter against the coast they gradually wear away and crumble down the mightiest cliffs, and waft the sand and mud thus produced to augment that which has been brought down by the rivers. In this operation also the tides play a part of conspicuous importance, ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... made in many different degrees of hardness and softness, the harder varieties being capable of quite a fine point. A chisel-shaped point is the most convenient, as it does not wear away so quickly. And if the broad side of the chisel point is used when a dark mass is wanted, the edge can constantly be kept sharp. With this edge a very ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... in an imprisonment, which lasted only four years; for her constitutional delicacy, her rooted sorrow, and the violence of her feelings, sunk beneath the hopelessness of her situation, and a secret resolution in her mind to refuse the aid of her physicians, and to wear away the faster if she could, the feeble remains of life. But who shall paint the emotions of a mind which so much grief, and so much love, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... side of the penstock, and a curious sickening sensation came over me. The water and Mercer's white face were blurred and swimming before me, and I was fast losing consciousness, but the faintness was not much more than momentary, and the sickening sensation began to wear away as rapidly as it came, as I fully realised the fact that I was half off the little platform, with my legs in the water, but holding my companion all the time with a desperate clutch, while he clung as tightly ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... engine. Steam engines will do so much work—no more. Dynamos or motors will do so much work—and then more. They can be overloaded, unsparingly. But the strain tells. Stout, dependable parts become hot, wear away, crumble, snap. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... their blankets on the hard floor, and after this crude fashion settled down for the first night. None of them expected to obtain a good rest, because the first night out is always a wakeful one on account of strange surroundings. But in due time all this would wear away and in the end it might even prove to be a difficult task to arouse some of ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... blow out, melt down. have done with, give over, surcease, shut up shop; give up &c. (relinquish) 624. hold one's hand, stay one's hand; rest on one's oars repose on one's laurels. come to a stand, come to a standstill; come to a deadlock, come to a full stop; arrive &c. 292; go out, die away; wear away, wear off; pass away &c. (be past) 122; be at an end; disintegrate, self-destruct. intromit, interrupt, suspend, interpel[obs3]; intermit, remit; put an end to, put a stop to, put a period to; derail; turn off, switch off, power down, deactivate, disconnect; bring to a stand, bring to a standstill; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... was often present with them; but the sense of orphanhood grew less bitter, day by day, as time went on. Archie was not quite strong and well yet, but he was far better than he had been for many a long month; and Lilias' feeling of anxiety on his account began to wear away. Gradually they found for themselves new employments and amusements, and their life fell into a quiet ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... opening bloom, For sportive youth to stray in, For manhood to enjoy his strength, And age to wear away in! Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss, A covert for protection Of studious ease and generous cares, And ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... the will is above and beyond time that the stings of conscience are ineradicable, and do not, like other pains, gradually wear away. No! an evil deed weighs on the conscience years afterwards as heavily as if it had been ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... the other. The coat of the dark grey bush-chat is made up of black feathers edged with grey. As the margins of the feathers alone show, the bird looks grey so long as the grey margins exist, and when these wear away it appears black. The cock has a conspicuous white eyebrow, and displays some white in his wings and tail. He is quite a dandy. The hen is a reddish brown bird with a pale grey eyebrow. This species likes to pretend it is a flycatcher. The ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... my parents sent me to Athens; time and patience wear away pain and grief, as fire goes out for want of fuel. Quantum oculis, animo tam procul ibit amor. But so as they tarry out long enough: a whole year [5669]Xenophon prescribes Critobulus, vix enim ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... is accused of infidelity. It is interesting that in the last two diseases the patient is "clear-headed"; memory and orientation are good; the patient speaks well and gives no gross signs of his trouble. As the effects of the alcohol wear away, the patient recovers,—i.e., his character ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... from want of confidence in us, continued gradually to wear away: he told us his name, and Manly gave place to Arabanoo. Bread he began to relish; and tea he drank with avidity: strong liquors he would never taste, turning from them with disgust and abhorrence. Our dogs and cats had ceased to be objects of fear, and were become ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... struggles. Even after the year 1850, the political uncertainties of the time prevented her enjoying the prosperity that then visited England and France. Therefore, only since 1870 (or rather since 1877-78, when the results of the mad speculation of 1873 began to wear away) has she entered on the normal development of a modern industrial State; and he would be an eager partisan who would put down her prosperity mainly to the credit of the protectionist regime. In truth, no one can correctly gauge the value of the complex causes—economic, political, educational, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... whom the experiment has been tried, have all perished sooner or later in consequence. When nitrogenous substances are used in the body, they are, of course, broken up and oxidized, or perhaps we ought to say more accurately, they take the place of the tissues of the body which wear away and are carried off by oxidation and other ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... Pity, however, would have been entirely wasted on the Fouchet household and their change of habitation. Tucked in, cramped, and uncomfortable beneath the low eaves of their cabin ceilings, they could now wear away the summer in blissful contentment: Were they not living on nothing—on less than nothing, in this dark pocket of a chaumiere, while their fine house yonder was paying for itself handsomely, week after week? The heart beats high, in a Norman breast, when the pocket bulges; gold—that is better ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... is Hallaeven, The morn is Halladay; Nine free nichts till Martinmas, As soon they'll wear away." ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... imagined state of sleep. Yet this imagined state of sleep is so incalculably long, and by the will of God withdrawn from human prophecy, that the ages sweeping over the dead man before the trumpets of archangels wake him, shall sooner wear away memorial stone than stir his slumber. It is a slumber, too, unterrified, unentertained by dreams. Suspended animation finds no fuller symbolism than the sculptor here presents to us in ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds |
