"Shortness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... finds marked "by a certain instability and fickleness of character," owing to the fact that in Norway and Sweden agricultural labor experiences long interruptions, due to the severity of the winter and the shortness of the days; in Spain and Portugal owing to the heat and drought of summer.[1440] The extreme continental climate of northern of Russia with its violent contrast of the seasons, its severe and protracted winters, enables Leroy-Beaulieu to make a safer application of this principle ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... no time," she answered, with a singular shortness, for she could not tell him that a letter from Mrs. Harrington to her mother- -the companion to that received by Luke at Valetta—had brought about this sudden decision. She could not tell him that, ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... short man who spoke, with arms immensely long and hairy, and a seamed face of a shortness out of all proportion to its width, as though crown of head and chin had been pressed together in a vise. Of the others, all were more or less as black as Ethiopians with grime; many were shaven and mutilated, with lips slit ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... needed to create England; Wykeham and Wycliffe both have a place in the roll of its "Makers." At all events, if Wykeham obtained his wealth by secular service, he spent it for the promoting of the welfare of the Church, as he conceived it. The purpose of his two colleges was to remedy the shortness of clergy in his day, and to assist the /militia clericalis/, which had been grievously reduced /pestilentiis, guerris et aliis mundi miseriis/ (an obvious reference to ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... not so soon as I have of late practised, my little trouble of mind and the shortness of the days making me to lie a little longer than I used to do, but I must make it up by sitting up longer of nights. To my office, whither my brother Tom, whom I chide sufficiently for yesterday's work. So we sat at the office all the morning, some of us at Deptford ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... like Stepan "oo-loo-loo-loo." When this good-hearted and clever woman turned pale with indignation, and with a quiver in her voice spoke to the doctor of the drunkenness and dishonesty, it perplexed me, and I was struck by the shortness of her memory. How could she forget that her father the engineer drank too, and drank heavily, and that the money with which Dubetchnya had been bought had been acquired by a whole series of shameless, impudent dishonesties? ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... to win Wellington's victories; also the halberts of sergeants now laid aside, and some swords that had been used at the battle of Sheriffmuir. These latter were very short, not reaching to the floor, when I held one of them, point downward, in my hand. The shortness of the blade and consequent closeness of the encounter must have given the weapon a most dagger-like murderousness. Ranging in the hall of arms, there were two tattered banners that had gone through ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the remaining plates only three periods when it seems to have got longer. But doubtless the very ample cloak, which is so long that it even trails upon the ground, extenuated and in some degree justified its shortness. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... weeks (though it is silly to talk about it. Don't mention it!), and I feel very tired and indolent. No wonder I seem to "go softly." But I am unusually happy down in the depths, only the surface troubled. I hope that it is not fancy only that makes the shortness and uncertainty of this life a ground of comfort and joy. Perhaps it is, indeed I think it is, very much a mere cowardly ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have in various other places expressed my sincere respect for the works of Samuel Prout: his shortness of sight has necessarily prevented their possessing delicacy of finish or fullness of minor detail; but I think that those of no other living artist furnish an example so striking of innate and special instinct, sent to do a ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... mind. The closing sentences of his third prison book, "Christian Behaviour," published in 1663, the second year of his durance, clearly point to such an expectation. "Thus have I in few words written to you before I die, . . . not knowing the shortness of my life, nor the hindrances that hereafter I may have of serving my God and you." The ladder of his apprehensions was, as Mr. Froude has said, "an imaginary ladder," but it was very real to Bunyan. ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... greatly preponderating. Ternerani, when making his bust, praised the form of his ears. The nose, as observed in all his portraits, was somewhat upturned. Standing or sitting, his head was invariably upraised, owing, perhaps, mainly to his shortness of stature, with so much bodily activity as to give him the character of restlessness; and no doubt that usual accompaniment of genius was eminently his. His hair, at the time I speak of, was thin and very gray; and he wore his hat with the jaunty air that has been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... Anthony, however, returned, according to his custom, alone to his cell, increased his discipline, and sighed daily as he thought of the mansions of heaven, having his desire fixed on them and pondering over the shortness of man's life. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... 2 by 2 inch stuff, halved at the corners. Cut out the top and bottom of the two sides; lay them on the floor so as to form a perfect rectangle, and nail them together. The strut is then prepared, care being taken to get a good fit, as any shortness of strut will sooner or later mean sagging of the door. Cut the angles as squarely as possible, to ensure the strut being of the same length both inside ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... the bed-side,—"cousin Bridget was cook in a gentleman's family in this city, and a very nice body she was, and is to this day. In the same family there lived a young man as was a coachman, very good-looking, and very attentive to Biddy, as we call her for shortness, miss. But, though he was desperate in love with my cousin, she would give him no encouragement, and the poor fellow pined away, and neglected his wittles, and grew thin in flesh, until, from being called Fat Tom, he got to be nicknamed the 'Natomy, which means a skeleton. It was in ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... nothing in the nature of a mutiny marred the voyage, Flinders' journal shows that Bligh's harshness occasioned discontent. There was a shortness of water on the run from the Pacific to the West Indies, and as the breadfruit plants had to be watered, and their safe carriage was the main object of the voyage, the men had to suffer. Flinders and others used to lick the drops that fell from ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... the Osage, in the Indian Territory, in January, 1883, he learned of the existence of a secret society of seven degrees, in which, it was alleged, the traditions of the people have been preserved to the present time. Owing to the shortness of his visit, one month and eleven days, he was unable to gain more than fragmentary accounts of the society, including parts of two traditions, from several Osage who had ...
— Osage Traditions • J. Owen Dorsey
... hobbled, and then turned out to wander at their own sweet will—the shortness of the hobbles a guarantee that they would not stray very far; and the three wanderers sat on the bank of the creek, very ready for the luncheon Mrs. Brown had carefully prepared and placed near the top of the pack. This despatched, ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... The shortness of food was owing to their having expected to reach a certain point of the journey where fresh supplies could be procured. But they had been held up so many times that afternoon by the passing of cattle that ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... punishment shall depend on the shortness and correctness of your answers. I suppose you live by ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... It must be evident to the reader at a glance, that the real serviceableness of any of these grouped arrangements must depend upon the relative shortness of the shafts, and that, when the whole pier is so lofty that its minor members become mere reeds or rods of stone, those minor members can no longer be charged with any considerable weight. And the fact ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... myself only, I should at once make a bargain with him to seal in company, and to divide the spoils. But this is now impossible, and I must quit him in some way or other. He outsails me in most weathers, and it is a thing easier said than done. What will make it more difficult is the growing shortness of the nights. The days lengthen fast now, and as we go south they will become so much longer, that, by the time when it will be indispensable to separate, it will be nearly all day. The thing must be done, however, and I trust to luck to ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... three small figures shuffled about some dark recumbent object. For the most part they went on all fours, but at moments reared up on their hind legs. Their action was at once silent, stealthy and purposeful. Our young clergyman's shortness of sight rendered their appearance the more peculiar. His normal attitude was not so completely restored, moreover, but that they caused him another nervous tremor. Then he grasped the truth; while the detective, latent ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... diminutive shoulders. Though he was to act as yamstchik he had to leave the putting in of the horses to larger specimens of the human species, but he took care that all was done properly. Putting one of his big boots a little in advance, and drawing himself up to his full shortness, he watched the operation attentively, as if the smallness of his stature had nothing to do with his inactivity. When all was ready, he climbed up to his seat, and at a signal from the station-keeper, who watched with paternal pride all the movements of ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Madame D'Aubrey, Marion and Louisa returned home in order to make the best preparations, which the shortness of the time would allow, to quit their ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... His Body in her arms as it was taken down from the Cross; and she had followed to the place where was a Garden and a new tomb wherein man had never yet lain, there she had seen the Body placed and hastily cared for, as much as the shortness of the time on the Passover Eve would permit. And then she had gone away, not caring at all where she was taken, with but one thought monotonously beating in her brain,—He is dead, ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... off they started. It was always a great ordeal to enter the doctor's study, even in what might be termed times of peace; and now, as Diggory turned the handle of the door, in answer to the muffled "Come in" which had followed his knock, the three friends experienced a sudden shortness of breath, and an unpleasant sinking sensation at the ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... item says, "The drawers this year are made very short, and some have lace ruffles." Some fashion reporter has evidently been looking over our back fence at the clothes line. But they got awfully fooled. The shortness of those drawers was caused by the flannel shrinking and the "lace ruffles" the reporter noticed is where a calf chewed them when they were hanging out to dry last fall on Black Hawk Island, when a gun kicked us out of a boat. Some of these fashion ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... less-pleased-looking females it would have been difficult to find, as we made our way to the house, and up the narrow, twisting staircase. Delphine was injured at the prospective shortness of her drive; I was appalled at the length of mine. Why had he asked me? Why hadn't I refused, and what—oh! what should we ever find ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... what I have to say. Your plainness and your shortness please me well. Right true it is your son Lucentio here Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him, Or both dissemble deeply their affections; And therefore, if you say no more than this, That like a father ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... sort of necessity which they call Nature,—that he wrote himself quite into his works, bodily, just as he was, every thought that came and went, and every expression that flew to his pen,—leaving out only a few for shortness. They are so thoroughly beguiled by the very quality they do not see, that they are like spectators who mistake the scene on the stage for reality; they cannot fancy that a man put it all there, and that it is by the artistic and poetic power of him, this man, who is now standing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... shortness of speech may be used commendably in their time; as mariners sometimes sail with larger spread, and sometimes with narrower-gathered sails. But as some are large in speech out of abundance of matter, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... excitements. He was wonderfully proud of little Antanas; he was curious about all the details of him—the washing and the dressing and the eating and the sleeping of him, and asked all sorts of absurd questions. It took him quite a while to get over his alarm at the incredible shortness ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... general conformation of the parrots, as well as the arrangement and strength of their toes, they climb very easily, assisting themselves greatly with their hooked bill, but walk rather awkwardly on the ground, from the shortness and wide separation of their legs. The bill of the parrot is moveable in both mandibles, the upper being joined to the skull by a membrane which acts like a hinge; while in other birds the upper beak forms part ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... duties are performed you shall have the paper. Part of his property is written down, but a box of gold and some other sums he did not name. After that last sad scene one can scarcely think of anything earthly. Oh, Howel! I wish you would consider the shortness and uncertainty of life, and what is ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... root, powdered liquorice root, powdered anise seed, and sulphur, of each one dram. Make into ordinary sized pills with a sufficient quantity of tar, and take three or four pills at night on going to bed. This is an admirable remedy for asthma and shortness of breath. ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... held when the bishop returned to Paihia (Jan. 5), only 44 Maoris were able to be presented, besides 20 white people—mostly missionaries' children. At the Hauraki station the bishop found a mere handful able to receive the laying-on of hands. Owing to the shortness of his visit and to the difficulty of communication, he was unable to visit more than these three stations; and he had left for Norfolk Island before many of the missionaries knew ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... for the present but to admit that we have in it an ancient Aryan relic preserved in Greek long after the causes which had produced it had ceased to act. It would fall into the same category as eimi and imen. Here, too, the efficient cause of the length and shortness of the radical vowel i, viz., the change of accent, Sk. mi, but ims, has disappeared in Greek, while its effect has been preserved. But whatever explanation may hereafter be adopted, the simple fact which I had pointed out remains, the motive power which changed the nom. dyas ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... care," returned the doctor. "It's the name of a buccaneer of my acquaintance, and I call you by it for the sake of shortness, and what I have to say to you is this: one glass of rum won't kill you, but if you take one you'll take another and another, and I stake my wig if you don't break off short, you'll die—do you understand that?—die, and go to your own place, like the man ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... span-long lives" must ever bear in mind our limited time for acquisition. And remembering how narrowly this time is limited, not only by the shortness of life, but also still more by the business of life, we ought to be especially solicitous to employ what time we have to the greatest advantage. Before devoting years to some subject which fashion or fancy suggests, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... leaders of the opposite factions having made a temporary accommodation, the interests of the English were sacrificed; and this effort of Henry proved, in the issue, entirely vain and fruitless. The declining state of his health, and the shortness of his reign, prevented him from renewing the attempt, which his more fortunate son carried to so great a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... presence," he replied with some shortness, "it will be a pleasure to present myself at once. If—" he paused and looked at the stiffly erect figure before him, "if the peremptory tone you assume is a part of your instruction, I must remind you that I am an American citizen, entirely free to accept or decline invitations—even when they ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... of the bill; each indorser becomes in his turn liable to the owner of the bill for those contents, and, if he fails to pay, he becomes too, from that moment, a bankrupt. Though the drawer, acceptor, and indorsers of the bill, should all of them be persons of doubtful credit; yet, still the shortness of the date gives some security to the owner of the bill. Though all of them may be very likely to become bankrupts, it is a chance if they all become so in so short a time. The house is crazy, says a weary traveller to himself, and will not stand very long; but it is a chance if ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... doubt La Touche, who was cursed with the miserable fate of possessing the temperament of genius without the electric spark itself, magnified the help he had given, and felt extreme bitterness at the shortness of memory shown by the great writer, whom he vainly strove to sting into feeling by the ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... potatoes and turnips, lettuce and cabbage, could be raised anywhere in those regions; the intensity of the season compensates for its shortness; the sun is in the heavens twenty-four hours in the day, and all living things sprout and grow with amazing rankness and celerity under the strong compulsion of his continuous rays. Spring comes literally with a shout and a rush here in Alaska, and must cry even louder ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... blood-forming element of plants. In more humid countries plants delay the time of seed production and thus enable the plants to store up more carbon and thus reduce the percent of protein. The short growing season, induced by the shortness of water, is undoubtedly the main reason for the higher protein content and consequently higher nutritive value ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... suddenly, all alone, and in a moment, as if by magic, the Islanders all seem to know he is here. On the shore, or in the fields he assembles them round him, and tells them many things that are plain and true. I have heard him speak often of the shortness of life and its many sorrows, and he says we could all make each other happy for the little time we have to live, if we would. And I think he is right; it is only wicked and selfish people ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... on increasing in bitterness, until at length it became clear that either Baha-'ullah or Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel must for a time vanish from the scene. For Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel (or, for shortness, Ezel) to disappear would be suicidal; he knew how weak his personal claims to the pontificate really were. But Baha-'ullah's disappearance would be in the general interest; it would enable the Bābīs to realize how totally dependent they were, in practical matters, on Baha-'ullah. 'Accordingly, ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... whom I came across one afternoon in Sydney, by the merest chance, in a sort of cafe, and who remembered the affair perfectly. Indeed this affair, I may notice in passing, had an extraordinary power of defying the shortness of memories and the length of time: it seemed to live, with a sort of uncanny vitality, in the minds of men, on the tips of their tongues. I've had the questionable pleasure of meeting it often, years afterwards, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... called her his daughter, as he had done before; but he did it only in his old fashion, using the affectionate familiarity of an old friend to a young maiden. He was a small, aged man, very thin and meagre in aspect—so meagre as to conceal in part, by the general tenuity of his aspect, the shortness of his stature. He was not even so tall as Nina, as Nina had discovered, much to her surprise. His hair was grizzled, rather than grey, and the beard on his thin, wiry, wizened face was always close shorn. He was scrupulously clean in his ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... Its silk is said to be much stronger than the fibre of cotton, and is a mean between fine wool and ordinary silk. The worm is very hardy, and can be reared in the open air both in this country and in Europe. The main drawback to its culture is the difficulty in unreeling the tough cocoon, and the shortness of the thread, the cocoon ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... I will not close with this picture of the man; for my purpose is rather to present the poet. Hampered though he was by fewness of years, by feebleness of body, by shortness of bread, and, most of all perhaps, by over-luxuriance of imagination, Lanier was yet, to my mind, indisputably a great poet. For in technique he was akin to Tennyson;* in the love of beauty and in ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... or halting, iambics; a choliambic (a lame, halting iambic) differs from the iambic Senarius in always having a spondee or trichee for its last foot; the fifth foot, to avoid shortness of meter, being generally an iambic. See Fables of Babrias, translated by Rev. James Davies. ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... towards it, noticing as she came the shortness of the arms. It was less a cross than a sign-post, a sign-post raised on a mound of small rocks; it was tarred to preserve it from the weather. From the left limb close to the post a metal box was hanging by a wire, and on the post itself, ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... should go with him to the tower of the church of St. Mary, Redcliff, and view with our own eyes the ancient chest in which the manuscripts were found. To this, Dr. Johnson good-naturedly agreed; and though troubled with a shortness of breathing, laboured up a long flight of steps, till we came to the place where the wonderous chest stood. 'There, (said Catcot, with a bouncing confident credulity,) there is the very chest itself.'[161] 'After this ocular demonstration, there was no more to be said. He brought ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... and went down the rocky way. Several hundred yards beneath, the trail led across a small glacier and down to Crater Lake. Other men packed across the glacier. All that day he dropped his packs at the glacier's upper edge, and, by virtue of the shortness of the pack, he put his straps on one hundred and fifty pounds each load. His astonishment at being able to do it never abated. For two dollars he bought from an Indian three leathery sea-biscuits, and out of these, and ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Our much tried physician spoke with salutary shortness. "They may be Indian-made but that's all. I'll eat my hat if it's an Indian who has worn them. Did you ever see an Indian with ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the faith which God had provided for the comfort and salvation of men, why should not God be likely to visit princes, as offenders with the least excuse for their backslidings, with the curse of shortness of days? ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... continued in such a state of bodily ailment as to be deprived of the power of stooping, so that 'Cumberback',—a thing unheard of before,—was compelled to depute another to perform this part of his duty. On his voyage to Malta, he had complained of suffering from shortness of breath; and on returning to his residence at the Lakes, his difficulty of breathing and his rheumatism increased to a great degree. About the year 1809, ascending Skiddaw with his younger son, he was ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... hits on a railroad. Every master has found his materials collected, and his power lay in his sympathy with his people, and in his love of the materials he wrought in. What an economy of power! and what a compensation for the shortness of life! All is done to his hand. The world has brought him thus far on his way. The human race has gone out before him, sunk the hills, filled the hollows, and bridged the rivers. Men, nations, ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... The doctor has just come in and put me off the sick list. It is getting very near eleven o'clock, and the captain will be off directly, so that I must conclude my letter, hoping you will, for this reason, excuse its shortness; and with best love, &c., to all at home, believe me ever your most ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... me your despatches of the 4th and 18th of September last, and the 13th of October. It gives me much uneasiness to find by them, that your health is not yet confirmed, particularly as the extreme shortness of your letters, compared with the importance of the matter, gives me reason to fear, that it has suffered more than you would ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... harmonious and acceptable. In respect of quantity the problem was more complex. Plautus had disregarded it in numerous instances (e.g. dari), and in others had been content to recognize the natural length or shortness of a vowel (e.g. senex ipse), neglecting the subordinate laws of position, &c. This custom had, as far as we know, guided Ennius himself in his dramatic poems; but for the epos he adopted a different principle. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... remarks about their dark-skinned friend, and to question his fitness for the duties of guide. In particular, Muggins—who was becoming fatigued, owing partly to the weight of his club as well as to the weight of his body and the shortness of his legs—at last broke out on him and declared that he ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... have been startled and embarrassed if she could have read his thoughts, for they might have suggested to her that she was becoming a great deal fonder of Bill than the shortness of their acquaintance warranted. But though she did not fail to observe the strangeness of her brother's manner, she traced it to another source than the real one. Nutty had a habit of starting back and removing himself when, entering the porch, he perceived that Bill and his ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... was just turned of eight years old, but so short of her age, that few people took her to be above five. It was not a dwarfish shortness; for she had the most exact proportioned limbs in the world, very small bones, and was as fat as a little cherub. She was extremely fair, and her hair quite flaxen. Her eyes a perfect blue, her mouth small, and her lips quite plump ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... read in the bible, he that offends in one point is guilty of all?' I said, 'Yes.' Then he assured me, that one sin unatoned for was as sufficient to damn a soul as one leak was to sink a ship. Here I was struck with awe; for the minister exhorted me much, and reminded me of the shortness of time, and the length of eternity, and that no unregenerate soul, or any thing unclean, could enter the kingdom of Heaven. He did not admit me as a communicant; but recommended me to read the scriptures, and hear the word preached, not to neglect fervent prayer to God, who ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... by nature, my mother had to keep me as a little child almost sitting upright in bed. After I had outgrown that and as a big girl could run around and play well enough, I still had much trouble with shortness of breath in the beginning of my singing lessons. For years I practised breathing exercises every day without singing, and still do so with especial pleasure, now that everything that relates to the breath and the voice has become clear to me. Soon I had got so far that I could ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... of Protestant distrust. But sectarian feeling, everywhere common between rival creeds, is, of course, by no means absent. Englishmen find it hard to understand what seems to them the bigoted and senseless animosity of the rival faiths in Ireland. This is due to the astonishing shortness of their memory in regard to their own history, and their very limited outlook on the world outside their own island. If, without looking further back in their history, they reflected that the "No Popery" feeling ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... for this and receive honour—the greatest honour, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies; but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Monday afternoon Cicely Bourne, to whom Walden had so successfully telegraphed Maryllia's commands, arrived. She was rather an odd-looking young person. Her long thin legs were much too long for the shortness of her black cashmere frock, which was made 'en demoiselle,' after the fashion adhered to in French convents, where girls are compelled to look as ugly as possible, in order that they may eschew the sin of personal vanity,—her hair, of a rich raven ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... ends with:—"Th' young child could never have been there above a minute, all told, before the engine come along, and might have took no warning at twice his age for the vairy sudden coming of it." He dwells upon the shortness of the time Dave had been on the spot as though this minimised the evil. "I shouldn't care to fix the blame, for my own part," says he, shaking his head in venerable refusal of judicial functions not ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... a sermon on the shortness of time! What's time to us children of eternity? But what shall we give ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... doy, come to thy gronny, Bless thee, to me tha'rt as pratty as onny; Mutherlass barn of a dowter unwed, Little tha knaws, doy, the tears at I've shed; Trials I've knawn both for t' heart an' for t' heead, Shortness o' wark, ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... before he had readjusted himself, sorrowfully but firmly, to the unchanged situation. His duty was as clearly defined now as it had been the day previous, or at any time in the past. There was nothing changed, nothing different, save that a new complication had arisen in the crucial shortness of the interval for action. Knowing human nature a little, he knew how difficult it is to arouse an effective public sentiment on the eve of an election, no matter how important the issues involved. In a hard school of experience the voter has learned to discount ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Byron's habits of clear, searching analysis, her thoughtfulness, and, above all, that peculiar reverence for truth and sincerity which was a leading characteristic of her moral nature. {139} It also shows her views of the probable shortness of her stay on earth, derived from the opinion of physicians about her disease, which was a gradual ossification of the lungs. It has been asserted that pulmonary diseases, while they slowly and surely sap the physical life, often appear ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of the Bushman's physique is shortness of stature. Gustav Fritsch in 1863-1866 found the average height of six grown men to be 4 ft. 9 in. Earlier, but less trustworthy, measurements make them still shorter. Among 150 measured by Sir John Barrow during the first British occupation of Cape Colony the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... that the accumulation of fat around the heart is not referred to by this designation. In fatty degeneration the elements of the muscular tissue are replaced by fatty or oily granules. The muscle becomes weak, the heart contractions are insufficient, and heart weakness is shown by general weakness, shortness of breath, and weak, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... was to call for me in the morning at nine o'clock. I got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of my night's rest, and was ready for him before the appointed time. He received me exactly as if not five minutes had elapsed since we were last together, and I had only been into the hotel to get change for sixpence, or ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... long on the island that its customs were quite familiar; and I much lamented that, from the shortness of our stay, he could not tell ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... much more uneasy about my sister than myself just now. Emily's cold and cough are very obstinate. I fear she has pain in her chest, and I sometimes catch a shortness in her breathing when she has moved at all quickly. She looks very thin and pale. Her reserved nature occasions me great uneasiness of mind. It is useless to question her; you get no answer. It is still more useless to recommend remedies; they ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... on which our narrative has commenced, the usual fishing party had ascended the river at an early hour, for the newness of the season and the shortness of the days rendered it an object that they should be on the accustomed haunt as soon as possible. They had left the Fort at daylight, passing Heywood's farm at the moment when, for the purpose of foddering the ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... over at Newport had got engaged to a mandarin or a count or something 'nother, and the Dowager had been preaching kind of eloquent concerning the shortness of the nobility ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the slight view which the shortness of the time allowed me to take of the business in question here, I was persuaded that we probably might, in some degree, succeed in our expedition; because, if the course of things here could not be improved by our journey, yet I should consider the being able to ascertain what that state was, ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... and get back to England across the North Sea. He calculated that with such a motor barge as ours it would be possible to reach the Yorkshire coast within four-and-twenty hours. But this idea I overruled because of the shortness of our provisions, and more particularly because of our ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... young man she had ever seen "in the world or out of it." He was tall, broad, round-necked, narrow in the hips, and of a fine brown coloring. He carried with easy grace a strong, well-massed head, to which the close adherence of the ears, and the shortness of the dark-brown shiny hair, gave an effect of high civilization and finish. Brown, level eyes, neither hard nor soft, but of a twinkling habit, a nose straight, thick, finely chiselled, an emphatic chin, and a large mouth of extraordinary sweetness, were not lost upon Barbara, ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... charming friendship, a delightful comradeship. Much of his work had been written for her, to her. It was fine work. She had been proud of her share in it. Even allowing there were faults—irritability, shortness of temper, a tendency to bossiness!—underneath it all was a man. The gallant struggle, the difficulties overcome, the long suffering, the high courage—all that she, reading between the lines, had divined of his life's ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... Lord's ministry, and the shortness of the time remaining to Him in the flesh, demanded more missionary laborers. The Twelve were to remain with Him to the end; every hour of possible instruction and training had to be utilized in their further preparation for the great responsibilities that would ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... highly developed. The forehead is high, and the chin shapely, whilst neither the brow-ridge nor the lower jaw protrudes as in the Neanderthal type. Whether this race survives in modern Europe is, as was said in the last chapter, highly uncertain. In certain respects—for instance, in a certain shortness of face—these people present exceptional features; though some think they can still find men of this type in the Dordogne district. Perhaps the chances are, however, considering how skulls of the neolithic period prove to be anything but uniform, and ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... lieutenant, and several contusions of his subordinates, the constitutional power suffered an important reverse in the person of one of its oldest representatives—in the person of Nola, the head of the municipals. As we know, this person, who was so unpopular in Lancia on account of the shortness and excessive roundness of his nose, lost in the first struggle his kepis, his sword, and the honour of his cheeks. Anger and revenge reigned in his heart. But he could not do anything to gratify these feelings, because he was deprived of all coercive means. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... other side of the studio and was revolving about Miss Light. "Ah, he 's gone to look at my beautiful daughter; he is not the first that has had his head turned," Mrs. Light resumed, lowering her voice to a confidential undertone; a favor which, considering the shortness of their acquaintance, Rowland was bound to appreciate. "The artists are all crazy about her. When she goes into a studio she is fatal to the pictures. And when she goes into a ball-room what do the other women ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... measured from the front of the cheek-bone to the nose, should be short, and its skin should be deeply and closely wrinkled. Excessive shortness of face is not natural, and can only be obtained by the sacrifice of the "chop." Such shortness of face makes the dog appear smaller in head and less formidable than he otherwise would be. Formerly this shortness of face was artificially obtained by ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... and then a twinkle of humor in Darwin's eyes, as when he says that in the high altitude of the Andes the inhabitants recommend onions for the "puna," or shortness of breath, but that he found nothing so ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... speak of doing this before," said she, when she suggested it to her brother, "because I have tried to make the whole trip comparatively inexpensive, remembering the shortness of the dear doctor's purse. Now, of ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... number of miles between you and Paris. That these miles were apt to stretch themselves interminably, and that your feet were inclined to ache terribly; still more would you feel the length of the way and the vast distance of the road, if the journey had to be made in winter. Then the shortness of the days, the length of the nights, the great cold, the bitter winds, would all add to the horrors of this so-called ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... with all the leaves; but the tentacles were never closely inflected. After 8 hrs. 30 m. they began to re-expand. Next morning, after 23 hrs., all were fully re-expanded, excepting one which was still slightly inflected. The shortness of the period of inflection in this and ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... Ochateguins it is a journey of thirty-five or forty days to the sea, which they see in three places, a thing which they have again assured me of this year. But no one has spoken to me of this sea on the north, except this liar, who had given me thereby great pleasure in view of the shortness of ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... pounds. We killed a deer and a bear. We have not seen in this quarter the black bear, common in the United States and on the lower parts of the Missouri, nor have we discerned any of their tracks. They may easily be distinguished by the shortness of the talons from the brown, grizzly, or white bear, all of which seem to be of the same species, which assumes those colors at different seasons of the year. We halted earlier than usual, and camped on the north, in a point of woods, at the ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... devotees seems a clumsy stumbling by comparison. Some only join their hands; others clap them three times loudly and slowly; then they bow their heads, pray silently for a moment, and rise and depart. The shortness of the prayers impresses me as something novel and interesting. From time to time I hear the clink and rattle of brazen coin cast into the great wooden ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... sent to remind him of the shortness of the time, and urge him to finish the undertaking—but in vain; Mozart was nowhere to be found. At length he was discovered in a billiard-room, half intoxicated, earnestly engaged in a critical part of this very fascinating game. The person who came in search of him, aware ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... sharp spurs is forbidden, except by special permission. Whyte-Melville points out that my sex are unmerciful in the abuse of the spur. He says:—"Perhaps because they have but one, they use this stimulant liberally and without compunction. From their seat and shortness of stirrup every kick tells home. Concealed under a riding habit, these vigorous applications are unsuspected by lookers on." I have seen more than one poor animal's side badly torn and bleeding from a lady's spur. A lady who rides a horse in the ordinary way with this instrument ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... Conjecture may be raised from our Appetite to Duration it self, and from a Reflection on our Progress through the several Stages of it: We are complaining, as you observe in a former Speculation, of the Shortness of Life, and yet are perpetually hurrying over the Parts of it, to arrive at certain little Settlements, or imaginary Points of Rest, which are dispersed up and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... reputation for his learning and his moral character. Curious stories are told of him; for instance, that by way of self-mortification he lay every night for twenty years on the bare ground with only a bear's skin for a covering; that in an audience he had with Pope Boniface VIII. his extraordinary shortness of stature led the pope to believe he was kneeling, and to ask him three times to rise, to the immense merriment of the cardinals; and that he had a daughter, Novella, so accomplished in law as to be able to read her father's lectures in his absence, and so beautiful, that she had to read behind ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... expect the best account you can give us, with that expedition which the shortness of the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... to the end steadily and calmly. Both the priests named live close to the church, in a building which forms part of the property of the mission. It is intended some time to have a proper presbytery, near the church: one is included in the original plan; but shortness of funds bars its erection. The work thus far executed—the church, vestries, &c.—has cost about 8,000 pounds, and there still remains upon the buildings a debt of about 4,000 pounds. There are no schools in connection with the church; but it is expected that there will be by ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... the answer came with equal shortness. "You'll pardon me making this a heart-to-heart talk—and anyway it's no funeral of mine. But she's the loveliest girl and I right down like her. So you take it from me. That F.F.V. Lady with the violets—Oh, don't pretend you ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... whom were coming back to their own country after an exile in Africa among un-Christian and dangerous things. The little children who had not yet known Europe, having been born beyond the sea, were full of wonder; but their parents, who knew the shortness of human life and its trouble, were happy because they had come back at last and saw before them the known jetties and the familiar hills of home. As I was surrounded by so much happiness, I myself ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... servant returned was almost insolent in the shortness and coolness of its tone. Mr. Rambert had no books in his library which were not in perfect condition. The volume of the Times had left his house perfect, and whatever blame might attach to the mutilation ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the favourite companion of Widow Wales and her little girl Julia. She departed this life in her fifth year, and was interred at the bottom of the garden, last Thursday morning at half-past eight o'clock. The cause of her death proceeded from an internal disorder and shortness of breath. For a week or more it was evident that her end was fast approaching, as her strength was nearly gone, and she was unable to perform ...
— The Life and Adventures of Poor Puss • Lucy Gray
... by considering the whole nature of excess and defect, and then we shall have a rational ground on which we may praise or blame too much length or too much shortness in ...
— Statesman • Plato
... forgetting the shortness of their acquaintance in the deep feeling of the moment, "tell me what the ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... reason I did not understand it was because I belonged to another order and had inherited different perceptions from theirs. The trifle—whatever it was—appeared visibly, I knew, before us; it was evident and on the surface, and if I failed to discern it what did that prove except the shortness of the vision through which I looked? A physical soreness, like that of a new bruise, attacked my heart, and rising hastily from the table, I made some hurried apology and went out, leaving them alone together. Glancing ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... a multitude of objects, or animals, or natural scenery, or figures standing round or in motion; and these give additional vitality and interest to the representation. Again, they are short, as short as a soliloquy or a letter or a conversation in a street. Shortness belongs to this form of poetic work—a form to which Browning gave a singular intensity. It follows that they must not be argumentative beyond what is fitting. Nor ought they to glide into the support of a thesis, or into didactic addresses, as Bishop Blougram ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... do slaves eat in order to kill themselves; it is a diseased appetite, and rich men who have plenty to eat are often subject to it. The feet swell, flesh is lost, and the face looks haggard; the patient can scarcely walk for shortness of breath and weakness, and he continues eating till he dies. Here many slaves are now diseased with safura; the clay built in walls is preferred, and Manyuema women when pregnant often eat it. The cure is effected by drastic purges composed as follows: old vinegar of cocoa-trees is put into a ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... whose heavy gold case still showed the marks of a providential interference with a bullet destined for its owner, and replaced it with some difficulty and shortness of breath in his fob. At the same moment he heard a step in the passage, and the door opened to Adoniram K. Hotchkiss. The Colonel was impressed; he had a duelist's respect ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... rapidly, and Westcott was soon to his waist, leaning to his right to keep his feet; he heard the marshal splashing along behind, convinced by his ceaseless profanity that he also made progress in spite of his shortness of limbs. Indeed they attained the rock shelter almost together, creeping up through a narrow crevasse, leaving a wet trail along the grey stone. This was accomplished none too soon, a yell from the bank telling of their discovery, followed by the crack of a gun. The marshal, who was still exposed, ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... locomotive engine, to be tested on the portion of the railway then completed. Ericsson was not aware that any such prize had been offered, until within seven weeks of the day fixed for the trial. He was not deterred by the shortness of the time, but, applying all his energies to the task, planned an engine, executed the working-drawings, and had the whole machine constructed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... property. Accidents, too, are often attributable to the effects of drink, and altogether, as stated in the resolutions, a large percentage of the deaths among the natives here is directly due to drink. In its bearing on the labour question, drink also plays an important part. The shortness in the supply, as compared with the demand for labour, has been accentuated by it. Where possible more natives are kept in the compounds than are actually required for the work to be done, to make allowance for those who are ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... its own aim. Catherine knew all this very well; her great aunt had read her a lecture on the subject only the Christmas before; and yet she lay awake ten minutes on Wednesday night debating between her spotted and her tamboured muslin, and nothing but the shortness of the time prevented her buying a new one for the evening. This would have been an error in judgment, great though not uncommon, from which one of the other sex rather than her own, a brother rather than a great aunt, might ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... example of the ancient philosophers, is employing the last days of his political existence in composing a learned discourse "On the Shortness of Ministerial Life." To try the effect of it, his lordship gives a full dress dinner-party, immediately after the meeting of Parliament, to several of his friends. On the removal of the cloth, he will read the essay, and then the Queen's intended speech, in which she civilly gives his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... my shortness of speech. "It was nothing," I replied. "The truth is, it was pleasant to have you here beside me." I laughed at my own folly. "Starling, I will put you in man's dress ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... away. They began to circle about one another, both tugging hard, both intensely watchful of the slightest initiative on the part of the other. Mr. Polly wished brooms were longer, twelve or thirteen feet, for example; Uncle Jim was clearly for shortness in brooms. He wasted breath in saying what was to happen shortly, sanguinary, oriental soul-blenching things, when the broom no longer separated them. Mr. Polly thought he had never seen an uglier person. Suddenly Uncle Jim flashed into violent activity, but alcohol slows movement, and Mr. ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... dough. For short crust, rub the butter or fat lightly into the flour with the tips of the fingers; and do not use more water than necessary in mixing it. This is a common mistake; and too much water deprives the paste of its shortness. Short paste is the best for children and persons of weak digestion; the flour in it being more thoroughly incorporated with the fat, gets better cooked. It is, therefore, capable of more perfect mastication than ...
— The Skilful Cook - A Practical Manual of Modern Experience • Mary Harrison
... been made to the shortness of the period allowed by the statute limiting titles and claims. Of the same class is the rule that when a fief falls to one, he cannot claim it unless he be present in the land and seek the investiture in his own person. Hence is explained the oft-repeated ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... had presently good reason to lament a contretemps, over which he was sulking when Mrs. Pendomer rustled to her seat at the breakfast-table, with a shortness of breath that was partly due to the stairs, and in part attributable to her youthful dress, which fitted ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... they rested themselves about an hour, and then set off for the ostrog, where they arrived safely. One of them, who indulged too much in eating at first, died a short time after; the other two survived; but Spiridon said he had ever since been afflicted with a complaint in his breast and shortness ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... struck him dumb. Mr Flintwinch, who had spun backward some two or three yards under the impetus last given to him, brought himself up with a face completely unchanged in its stolidity except as it was affected by shortness of breath, and looked hard at Arthur. Not a whit less reticent and wooden was Mr Flintwinch outwardly, than in the usual course of things: the only perceptible difference in him being that the knot of cravat which was generally under his ear, had worked round to the back of his head: where ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... with panting noises (she suffered from shortness of breath) plodded up and down the house, reassuring herself that all her treasures ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... weather—rain, fogs, and wind; but there was worse come. Snow began to fall on the morning of the 22nd. It grew to a storm, and the blizzard continued all that day, which was a Sunday, all night, and all the following day, and lashed the men pitilessly and blindingly. The army, already reduced by shortness of victuals, was now in a miserable plight in its unsheltered camp, and the defenders of Faenza, as if realizing this, made a sortie on the 23rd, from which a fierce fight ensued, with severe loss to both sides. On the 25th the snow began again, whereupon the hitherto unconquerable ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Mes'esperta'mier, &c., and one of his examples, which he advances with the confidence of complete satisfaction, is the name Margate, which he asserts is pronounced Margit,[28] that is, with a short i. The vowel is no doubt short, and its shortness is enforced by its being closed by a t: but it is not a short i, it is an extremely hastened and therefore disguised form of the original and proper diphthong ei (heard in bait and gate); and the true way to write it phonetically would be ei, with some diacritical sign to show that ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... the full assumption of the theory of evolution) of the first man; but we can get a very tolerable idea of the Paulo-prehistoric man, if I may so say—of man as he existed some short time (as we now reckon shortness), some ten thousand years, before history began. Investigators whose acuteness and diligence can hardly be surpassed—Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Tylor are the chiefs among them—have collected so much and explained so much that they have ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... broader than the average of his fellows: he was wide-chested and muscular, though without any inclination to stoutness; and he had a handsome, sunburned face, with a short brown beard and deep-set, dark-brown eyes. His hair was not cut quite to the conventional shortness, perhaps: there was a lock that would fall in an unruly manner across the broad brow with an obstinacy no hairdresser could subvert. But, in all other respects, he was very much as other men: he dressed well, if rather carelessly, and presented to the ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... be thy portion, make it not thy expectation. Reckon not upon long life; but live always beyond thy account. He that so often sur- viveth his expectation lives many lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his days. Time past is gone like a shadow; make times to come present; con- ceive that near which may be far off. Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensions of them: be like a neighbour unto death, and think there is but little to come. And since there is something ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... and repentance, and again raise up the broken-hearted youth; but would often say: "Oh, how nearly hadst thou reached thy last trial, and gained the victory, and looked on Verena's countenance, and atoned for all! Now thou hast thrown thyself back for years. Think, my son, on the shortness of man's life; if thou art always falling back anew, how wilt thou ever gain the summit on this side ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... L. anserifera, I have made some remarks on the diagnostic characters of this species. In the thinness of the valves,—form of the carina, with the rim connecting the prongs being not, or scarcely, reflexed,—and in the shortness and narrowness of the peduncle, there is some approach to L. australis, and thence to L. fascicularis. In the form of the maxillae,—in one specimen having the mandible on one side bearing only four teeth,—and in the frequent absence ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... sister—filled her with innocent delight. They were so well built and gaily at ease with each other and their surroundings, so perfectly dressed and finished. The filmy narrowness of delicate frocks, the shortness of skirts accentuated the youth and girlhood and added to it a sort of child fairy-likeness. Kathryn in exquisite wisps of silver-embroidered gauze looked fourteen instead of nearly twenty—aided by a dimple in her cheek and a small tilted ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... pilots, after having spent more than seven months on the voyage. He went to Mexico and to Vera Cruz; and, continuing his journey and encountering a new storm on the ocean, was driven to the coasts of Terranova [i.e., Newfoundland] and of Labrador. As a consequence so much shortness of food was experienced that only two onzas of biscuit were given to each man, and about the same amount of water. The ship began to leak, so that it was as if by a miracle that it was able to put in at the Terceras. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... the shortness of human life was imputed to a distempered state of the blood; when all diseases were ascribed to this cause, without attending to the whole of what relates to the moral and physical nature of man, a conclusion was easily formed, that a radical removal of the corrupted blood, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... have overtaken them if all of us had been close at your heels," replied George, speaking with considerable difficulty because of the shortness of his breath. "But, as a matter of fact, I don't think we could have followed those men even if the team itself had been ours only in consideration of our catching them. You see, we have run a mile at full speed, ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... 201. Shortness — N. shortness &c adj.; brevity; littleness &c 193; a span. shortening &c v.; abbreviation, abbreviature^; abridgment, concision, retrenchment, curtailment, decurtation^; reduction &c (contraction) 195; epitome &c (compendium) 596. elision, ellipsis; conciseness &c (in style) 572. abridger, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... maintains at all times a regular army, respectable in numbers as well as in personal valor, had at the beginning, and, from the shortness of the war, continued to the end to have a decided land superiority over ourselves. Whatever we might hope eventually to produce in the way of an effective army, large enough for the work in Cuba, time was needed for the result, and time was not allowed. In one respect only ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... light, so that no particle of dust may escape your eye. The coat is then folded exactly in half lengthwise, sleeve to sleeve, the lining on the outside. With evening coats it is sometimes necessary to fold the sleeves in half, owing to the shortness of the waist. In packing a trunk the same method is used, only the sleeves are stuffed with tissue paper to ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... withering hopes of those, who, guided by more profound contemplations, have fathomed all the fallacies of the new observations and recognized their impossibility! I cannot resolve what to say in a chance so strange, so new, so unexpected. The shortness of time, the unexampled occurrence, the weakness of my intellect, the terror of being ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... would appear that he obtained from the Continent, or had previously secreted from his confiscated stock, printing tools, and that he and Penry, at the house of Mistress Crane, at East Molesey, in Surrey, printed a certain tract, called, for shortness, "The Epistle."[43] This tract, of the authorship and character of which more presently, created a great sensation. It was immediately followed, the press being shifted for safety to the houses of divers Puritan ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Her shortness of sight made too brilliant a light painful to her, but as she stood before me she seemed to like me looking at her. My gaze fed hungrily on the two little half-spheres, which were not yet ripe, but so white as to make me guess how ravishing the rest of her ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt |
