"Lightening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woke him at last, and he slowly sat up and stared about. He looked out of the window and saw that the sun was lightening the hills across the river. He rose and brushed his hair as well as he could, folded his blankets up, and went out to find his companions. They stood gazing silently at the river ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... no longer the enthusiastic editor, gathering around him the brilliant circle of the talents; he was the absorbed, depressed and ponderous man of business. It was as if some spirit that had breathed on him, sustaining him, lightening his incipient heaviness, had been removed. Jinny sat opposite him, a pale Mater Dolorosa. Her face, even when she talked to you, had an intent, remote expression, as if through it all she were listening for ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... laughed, but without much lightening the atmosphere. "Upon my word, Clodd, you amuse me—you quite amuse me," repeated ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... (against the Crown); (3) treason; (4) parricide, fratricide, etc.; (5) offences against humanity; (6) lese majeste; (7) unfilial conduct, and (8) crimes against society. But there were also six mitigations (roku-gi), all enacted with the object of lightening punishments according to the rank, official position, or public services of an offender. As for slaves, being merely a part of their proprietor's property like any other goods and chattels, the law took no cognizance ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... sentence that his wandering eye was caught beyond the window by the flash of a falling star of unusual brilliance. It was so bright, indeed, that he crossed the room to look out at the sky, stepping very softly, for he had grown accustomed to lightening his footfall, and now unconsciously the murmuring voices of the talkers made him move stealthily—not to steal upon them, but to keep from breaking in on their talk. But when he came to the door opening on the veranda the words he heard ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... or breathing holes, to be seen in the sides of the body. This fact sustains the view of Gegenbaur[26] that at first the tracheae formed two simple tubes in the body-cavity, and that the primary office of these tubes was for lightening the body, and that their function as respiratory tubes was a secondary one. The aquatic Protoleptus, as we may term the ancestor of Leptus, may have had such tubes as these, which acted like the swimming bladder of fishes for lightening the body, as suggested by Gegenbaur. ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... I knew to be true, that the penalties of London life fell heavier upon her than me. I was not insensible to the instantaneous lightening of spirits that happened with her when she was able to forsake the abominable purlieus of the cellar-kitchen where her life was spent; and although I knew not half her toils, nor half her dejections and anxieties, which were sedulously kept from me, yet I was not wholly blind. ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... other nine being occupied, she went down the path toward the garden for fresh supplies, leaving Ann-stasia, as the Infant calls her, to serve the coffee, a prerogative of which she would not consent to be bereft, not even upon the plea of lightening ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Emma, with the latest science of dead-poultry dressing at her finger-tips, sat by, an unheeded watcher, while old Martha trussed the chickens for the market-stall as she had trussed them for nearly fourscore years—all leg and no breast. And the hundred hints anent effective cleaning and labour-lightening and the things that make for wholesomeness which the young woman was ready to impart or to put into action dropped away into nothingness before that wan, muttering, unheeding presence. Above all, the coveted window corner, that was to be a dainty, cheerful oasis in the gaunt old kitchen, ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... 8th until the 13th, the Cherokee lay at anchor in the slip. She was relieved on the 10th of about 200 men, thus slightly lightening her overcrowded condition. In the meantime, this overcrowded condition of the ship had led to some discussion as to who could best be moved on board some other ship, with some prospect that the Gatling Gun Detachment might ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... interest of occupation for any of the inhabitants but the routine of counter or desk within doors, and the effort to pass each other without collision outside; so that from morning to evening the only possible variation of the monotony of the hours, and lightening of the penalty of existence, must be some kind of mischief, limited, unless by more than ordinary godsend of fatality, to the fall of a horse, or the ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... that shrewd, stirring common-sense which is New England's strong point. Here is hinted, also, that philosophic humor which is the one ray lightening her intense realism. ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... blossoms are put forth, and, to use the language of Scripture, the little hills skip like rams, the valleys shout, they also sing, and all the trees of the field do clap their hands. My heroine is still under the cloud of adversity, sharing in the fate of her protectors, and lightening their trials by her ready hand and most affectionate heart. Two years after she entered Mr. Norton's home, her benefactor was taken ill, and lingered for some months before he was transferred to that better mansion which is provided for each ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... sad than that which had taken place at Yarmouth. Charlie was now assured that his mother and sisters would be comfortable, and well cared for in his absence; while his mother, happy in the lightening of her anxiety as to the future of her daughters, and as to the prospects of her son, was able to bear with better heart the thought of their ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... appear dark by day as well as by night is because we see it through the sun-illumined atmosphere. The opposite role is played by the atmosphere when we look through it to the sun. In the first instance it acts as a lightening, in the second as a darkening, medium. Accordingly, when the optical density of the air changes as a result of its varying content of moisture, the colour-phenomenon undergoes an opposite change in each of the two cases. Whilst with increasing density of the ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... to say that he shrank from the future. Rather he accepted everything that lay before him wholeheartedly, and, with the laying aside of his scruples, there was an instant lightening of the heart, a fierce keenness of mind, a contempt for society, a disregard for life beginning with his own. One could have noted it in the recklessness with which he sent Sally up the slope away from ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... it. We shall never be wholly civilized until we remove the treadmill from the daily job. Invention is doing this in some degree now. We have succeeded to a very great extent in relieving men of the heavier and more onerous jobs that used to sap their strength, but even when lightening the heavier labour we have not yet succeeded in removing monotony. That is another field that beckons us—the abolition of monotony, and in trying to accomplish that we shall doubtless discover other changes that will have to ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... with a longing, wistful glance he closed his eyes and prepared to do her bidding. Then it seemed to him that another presence than Edith's was around him, another voice than hers was whispering words of courage, Nina, who went before, guiding his footsteps, and lightening his load, screening him from the scorching heat and buoying him up, while he walked the blackened beam, which shook and bent at every tread, and at last fell with a crash, but not until the ladder was reached, and a dozen friendly arms were ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... to talk to you so much!' said I. 'It's such a lightening of my heart, only to look at you! If I had had a conjuror's cap, there is no one I should ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... understands any thing,—less, indeed, than the very stupidest peasant. Give him workshops, all sorts of workmen at his desire, an order for a machine from abroad, and he will get along. But how to devise means of lightening toil, under the conditions of labor of millions of men,—this is what he does not and can not know; and because of his knowledge, his habits, and his demands on life, he is ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... all the things that would make boys grow fast, like bringing in wood, splitting kindling, putting down hay for the cow, and other out-of-door exercises that had made him the demon of strength he once was. The little boy was not only glad to perform these acts for his own sake, but for the sake of lightening the labours of his hero, who wrenched his back anew nearly every time he tried to do anything, and was always having to take a medicine for it which he called "peach-and-honey." The little boy thought the name attractive, though his heart ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... suggests a way to clothe women both healthfully and handsomely, and that is a great point. It begins at the foundations, as you will see if you will look at these pictures, and I should think women would rejoice at this lightening of ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... this there was another shrill yell, and against the rapidly lightening sky the defenders could see a vague body ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... one point in which they had the advantage over us, and that was in lightening their labors in the boats by their songs. The Americans are a time and money saving people, but have not yet, as a nation, learned that music may be "turned to account.'' We pulled the long distances to and from the shore, with ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the morning, before it was lightening in the east, the Blackbird rode four inches below her load water line with a mixed cargo of coho and dog salmon, the heaviest cargo ever stowed under her hatches,—and eight fishermen divided two thousand dollars share and share alike ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... there on the pier, staring out, as all those about him and behind him were doing, at the expanse of dark blue sun-flecked sea, there came over Jacques de Wissant a great lightening of the spirit.... ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... on to the next town called Memetyar and there Dr. Shedd waited, lightening his own wagons by throwing away everything that they could spare—oil, potatoes, charcoal, every box except his Bible and a small volume of ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... and poets, and wits, the men of genius of the past, chroniclers of the loss of empires, grave men who taught the vanity of life, and funny men who taught the same lesson in a different way, Marcus felt his pack of sorrows considerably lightening. His first, last, only disappointment in love had subsided into a gentle and not disagreeable melancholy. His trial, and the dreadful notoriety which his name had acquired, had imparted to his mild nature a gentle tinge of cynicism, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the Africans who were conveyed to places other than the States, it will be seen that circumstances amongst them and in their favour came into play, modifying and lightening their unhappy condition. First, attention must be paid to the patriotic solidarity existing [241] amongst the bondsmen, a solidarity which, in the case of those who had been deported in the same ship, had all the sanctity of blood-relationship. ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... "Friends, this property is not ours," he remarked, in a calm, firm voice; "we shall get a fair reward if we succeed in saving it. I hope, if we stay by the ship, that we may get her off, at the top of the next flood, by lightening her a little. What say you? Will you stay by my lads and me, and do ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... There was a firm of noted gunsmiths in Lancaster, in whose shops he made himself at home and became expert in the use of tools. At the age of fourteen he applied his ingenuity to a heavy fishing boat and equipped it with paddle-wheels, which were turned by a crank, thus greatly lightening the ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... upper levels he spurred on at a gallop, finding some relief in the pounding action of the saddle and in the rush of air past his ears. The moon was late, but when it came it seemed to help him, lightening his mood as it lightened the trail. The big ledges and lowering, lesser peaks lifted into the dark sky weirdly translucent, and their upper edges seemed smooth and graceful as the rims of bubbles. Solid rock seemed ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... despite of depressing influences, the escort were lightening the journey with chat and jest, when they were called to seriousness ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... herself, the wife was everything to him till the last moment; and when he was gone, the anxieties of the self-forgetting woman were over. She attended his funeral, and afterwards chose to fill her accustomed place among the guests who filled the house. She made tea that evening as usual; and the lightening of her spirits from that time forward was evident. It was a lovely April day, the 23d, (Shakspeare's birth—and death-day,) when her task of nursing closed. The news spread fast that the old poet was gone; and we all naturally turned our eyes up to the roof under which he lay. There, above and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... as far as ever our boats would swim, and we went two days the farther—having been about twelve days in this last part of the river—by lightening the boats and taking our luggage out, which we made the negroes carry, being willing to ease ourselves as long as we could; but at the end of these two days, in short, there was not water enough to swim a ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... instant lightening of the tension for Morris. For Pitman it quenched the last ray of hope and daylight. Uncle Joseph, whom he had left an hour ago in Norfolk Street, pasting newspaper cuttings?—it?—the dead body?—then who was he, Pitman? and was this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lurch. This said, he jogg'd his good steed nigher, 765 And steer'd him gently toward the Squire; Then bowing down his body, stretch'd His hand out, and at RALPHO reach'd; When TRULLA, whom he did not mind, Charg'd him like lightening behind. 770 She had been long in search about MAGNANO'S wound, to find it out; But could find none, nor where the shot, That had so startled him, was got But having found the worst was past, 775 She fell to her own work at last, The pillage of the prisoners, Which in all ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... came on, which prevented their getting out a bower anchor, although a raft was made for the purpose; but the night became so dark, and the sea so rough, they were obliged to relinquish the attempt, and resolved to wait with patience for high water, lightening the vessel as much as possible, by starting the water, and heaving most of the shot and other heavy articles overboard. All hands took their turn at the pumps, and worked vigorously; yet the water gained rapidly upon the vessel: this was partly attributable to her having struck ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... ill-fitted kitchen and laundry. And yet our greatest modern inventor has said that the cares of the home could be reduced to a minimum and the servant problem solved if the perfectly practicable devices, for lightening household labor were adopted in ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... contrasts are eternal and inevitable, is the last word of the dominant philosophy of society; and one of the reasons why Turgot's life is worth studying, is that he felt in so pre-eminent a degree the urgency of lightening the destiny of that livid, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... that was hastening to plunge over the side of the earth. She remembered, with a start of cold horror, Zoe's dim tradition of a fall far off in the river. She had never seen one, but Zoe had stamped its terrors deeply. Still down in the gloom itself she could see nothing but the slowly lightening sky overhead, the drowning stars, the rosy flush upon the dark old tips feathering against a dewy grayness that was like powdered light. But gradually she heard what conquered all necessity of seeing,—heard a continuous murmurous sound that filled all the air and grew to be a sullen roar. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... cannibal-like instinct, came to maturity within the nest of their captors, and in virtue of their own inherited instincts engaged in the work of the hive, we may conceive of a rational beginning of the slave-making instinct. If, further, the captors learned to appreciate the labors of their captives, as lightening their own work, the habit of collecting pupae as slaves might succeed and supersede that of collecting them for food. In any case, we should require to postulate on the part of the slave-makers a degree of instinct altogether unusual ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... they were pursued by bailiffs. The porters and chairmen trot with their burthens. People, who keep their own equipages, drive through the streets at full speed. Even citizens, physicians, and apothecaries, glide in their chariots like lightening. The hackney-coachmen make their horses smoke, and the pavement shakes under them; and I have actually seen a waggon pass through Piccadilly at the hand-gallop. In a word, the whole nation seems to be running out ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... loveliness. The fair face, and blond hair, and brown, brooding eyes, were beautiful as an angel's, and goodness set its seal on his perfections. He gave me no trouble: grief brings age, joy confirms youth, and I and my little boy grew young together. He was with me everywhere, lightening my labor with his prattling tongue, helping me with his sweet, hindering ways; and when the kisses had been many that had waked him many morns, he stood beside me, my little boy, hardly a hand's breadth lower ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... becalmed for many days, and sometimes they go on, but in such a manner that they had almost as good stand still. The atmosphere on the greatest part of this coast is never clear, but thick and cloudy, full of thunder and lightening, and such unwholesome rain, that the water on standing only a little while is full of animalculae, and by falling on any meat that is hung out, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... all these mixtures is variation and liveliness of colour, not an effect of stripes or spots; indeed, these are very objectionable, especially when in contrasted or different colors. A deepening or lightening of the same colour in irregular patches, as will occur in clouded yarns, gives interest, whereas if these cloudings were in strongly contrasted colours they would be crude and unrestful. For this reason, if for no other, it is well to ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... say how or why the feeling prevailed, but the fact was, that the whole family were impressed with a conviction that this partial and sudden restoration of his powers was merely what is termed the lightening before death, and the consequence was, that every word he spoke occasioned their grief, for the loss of the venerable and virtuous patriarch, to break out with greater force. When he was dressed he called Dora to aid her father in bringing him out, which she did with ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... friend driving past, on their evening's excursion. How blooming and lovely the former looked! Mary Wallace's eye turned, I fancied understandingly, to the corner where Guert had placed himself, and her colour deepened as she returned his bow. But, the start of surprise, the smile, and the lightening eye of Anneke, as she unexpectedly saw me, filled my soul with delight, almost too great ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... acted as shoveller, and filled the baskets as fast as Hans and Totty, assisted by Truey and little Jan, could empty them. These last carried a small basket of their own, and contributed very materially to the progress of the work, by lightening the labours of Hans ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... into the sleigh, which had drawn up before the door with a flurry of bells. He had an errand in the next town that afternoon, and was not going to return. When the sleigh had slid swiftly out of sight through the storm, which was lightening a little, the people in the office turned to one another with a curious expression of liberty, but even then little was said. Nellie Stone was at the desk eating her luncheon; Ed Flynn and Dennison and one of the lasters, who had looked in ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... we were gone onward something more, we to see that there went a lightening and a darkening afar along the Gorge, so that the background of the night was made to lose somewhat of the intensity of its darkness, as with constant shudders of light; and this to be surely the far away dance of the flame of the Great Gas Fountain. And we then ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... back, relief showing in the uplift of his lips and the lightening of his eyes. "She's cache grob, Ramon," he said. "She's go som' place and we go also. She's wait for us. Dam-long way—tree days, I ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... Presbyterian preacher, thus thrust into the light cast from the halo of his regenerate nephew, stirred uneasily. He was contemplating the expediency of his youthful kinsman in making the lack of a dress-suit serve as a means of lightening his coming examinations ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... were so pleasantly situated and so tastefully designed that many Polterham people wished they were for lease on ordinary terms. The Infirmary was indebted to his annual beneficence, and the Union had to thank him—especially through this past winter—for a lightening of its burden. Aware of these things, Lilian never felt able to speak harshly against the old Tory. In theory she acknowledged that the relief of a few families could not weigh against principles which enslaved a whole population (thus Quarrier put it), but her ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... sun, moon, and stars. The stars are only stones, but the sun and moon are lights. At times Kadaklan enters the body of a favored medium, and talks directly with the people; but more frequently he takes other means of communication. Oftentimes he sends his dog Kimat, the lightening, to bite a tree or strike a field or house, and in this way makes known his wish that the owner celebrate the Padiam ceremony (cf. p. 401). All other beings are in a measure subservient to him, and his wishes are frequently made known through ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... had received some such impetus as the rolling stone acquires by the increased momentum of its descent. Packages, boxes, bales, and everything that came to hand, were hurled into the water frantically, and without other thought than of the necessity of lightening the groaning bark of its burthen. The agitation of the lake, too, was regularly increasing, wave following wave, in a manner to cause the vessel to pitch heavily, as it rose upon the coming, or sunk with the receding swell. At length, a shout announced ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... The east was lightening to a pale yellow when the men climbed at last into their saddles and galloped out to camp for a hurried breakfast. Thurston had been comforting his aching body with the promise of rest and sleep; but three ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... after a restless night, the ship had settled so much, despite the lightening process, that she rode soggily along at not more than fifty feet above the level of the sea. The situation was indeed a ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... changes. All these fields are ours, and ripe for the harvest to-morrow; Here in the shade we are wont to rest, enjoying our meal-time. But let us now descend across the vineyard and garden, For observe how the threatening storm is hitherward rolling, Lightening first, and then eclipsing the beautiful full moon." So the pair arose, and wauder'd ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... to get further from the idea of immediate emancipation, looking upon it as a very serious problem. He tended, as the following extracts will show, to advocate lightening the burden of the slave, hoping that in the West Indies, where he thought the Negro would eventually rule absolutely, the blacks might establish governments to which freedmen gradually emancipated in the United States might be sent ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... penance, we are accused of clinging to the rags of dead works, instead of "holding on to Jesus" by faith. If, on the other hand, we enrich our souls with the treasures of Indulgences we are charged with relying on the vicarious merits of others and of lightening too much the salutary burden of the cross. But how can Protestants consistently find fault with the Church for mitigating the austerities of penance, since their own fundamental principle rests on ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... effective resistance hitherto offered at Bombay to the scheme of reforms proposed by Sir George Clarke. To the most important features of the scheme, which were the provision of a course of practical science for all first-year students, a systematic bifurcation of courses, the lightening of the number of subjects in order to secure somewhat more thoroughness, and compulsory teaching of Indian history and polity, no serious objection could be raised, but the politicians on the Senate effectively ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... It is not this I mean. It is something deeper, higher, grander than that. As you look along the lines of history from the far-off time when we begin to trace it until to-day, and see the magnificent march of advance, an orderly universe lightening and glorifying as it advances, becoming ever finer and higher and better; as you observe the order and truth and beauty and good dominant, and ever coming to be more and more dominant as the years advance, believe in ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... friends there. It is because of this that I desire to help you, senor. You say that you are an engineer. I think there should be work for you here on the estancia; there is machinery." Derrick sat up with a sudden lightening of the heart. "We have to send to a distance, sometimes as far as Buenos Ayres, when we need repairs. Do you think you can undertake this work? Besides—you are well educated, of course, as is the ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... he started at once, and chased those Indians all the afternoon, and got so close to them once or twice that they saw the necessity of lightening the weight on their tired ponies, and threw off their old saddles and all sorts of things, even little bags of shot, but all the time they held on to their guns and managed to keep the stolen horses ahead of them. They had ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... that were planned and carried out for lightening the long hours of confinement to their wooden home in the Arctic regions, was the newspaper started by Fred Ellice, and named, as we have already mentioned, The ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... a lovely afternoon that we all went out to the City of Justice, and there I see agin what great wealth might do in lightening the burdens of a sad world. Robert Strong might have spent his money jest as that old man did whose place I have described, and live in still better style, for Robert Strong wuz worth millions. But he felt different; he felt as if he ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... lightening of its gloom as he spoke, but there was a firing up of the black eyes, and the woman with the knitting felt that—for whatever reason—he was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... when, through the lightening fog, they reached the place and discovered that Andy, though unconscious, was not dead. They found, upon examination of his hurt, that the bullet had ploughed along the side of his head above his ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... would Accept of me returning, Her Victorious Kindness and Good Will would be very Obliging. She thank'd me for my Book, (Mr. Mayhew's Sermon), But said not a word of the Letter. When she insisted on the Negative, I pray'd there might be no more Thunder and Lightening, I should not sleep all night. I gave her Dr. Preston, The Church's Marriage and the Church's Carriage, which cost me 6s. at the Sale. The door standing open, Mr. Airs came in, hung up His hat, and sat down. After awhile, Madam Winthrop moving, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... was Margaret's quota to the lightening of gloom. "The way everything turned up just when that interesting family required it struck me as marvellous even ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... preaching was still continued by the friars and some of the inferior clergy, was not generally fitted to supply the lack of Bibles and catechisms, and other vernacular books of instruction. It never grappled, as it ought, with the problem of lightening the burdens it had long exacted of the peasantry; but refused almost to the last moment to ease even the most galling of them. It never grappled, as it ought, with the problem of the education of the masses; and what was done for those of the community ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... sank rapidly: the delirium left her; but, as she whispered, she was "clean silly;" it was the lightening before the final darkness. After having for some time lain still, her eyes shut, she said, "James!" He came close to her, and, lifting up her calm, clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly but shortly, looked for Rab but could not see him, then turned to ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... up the bucket empty for the third time, he stood considering; and at last he fastened to it the firestone ring, the Sweetener, and lowered it once more. Then he laughed to himself as he drew up, and felt the bucket lightening at every turn till it touched ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... their hearts at last delivered of the terrible burden laid upon them by Thee, which caused them so much suffering. Tell me, were we right in doing as we did. Did not we show our great love for humanity, by realizing in such a humble spirit its helplessness, by so mercifully lightening its great burden, and by permitting and remitting for its weak nature every sin, provided it be committed with our authorization? For what, then, hast Thou come again to trouble us in our work? And why lookest Thou at me so penetratingly with Thy meek eyes, and in ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky
... in the University eight. They were not shouting like the rest, but hitting out straight and remorselessly; and before those two strong Promachi, townsman and navvy, peeler and special, went down like blades of corn. Close at their shoulder I distinguished Lovell, his clear blue eyes lightening savagely; and stout Tom Lynton, a deeper flush on his honest face, hewing away with all the unscientific strength of his ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... her room grew dimmer, paling before the coming day. A bird in the garden whistled a long note, and after a silence it was answered from another part of the garden, and then quickly from another. A star gleamed low in the ever-lightening purple of the east, the herald of the dawn, and from her window Frina watched it, wondering. There was mystery in the breaking of a new day; would her eyes behold its setting? What thoughts would be in her brain as the golden light faded once more into the ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... said O'Brien. ''Tis a creeping, crawling job before ye, and the lighter ye go, the better. At close quarters the pistols will do the job better than anything else ye can carry. Now get along wid ye. The sky's lightening over Asia yonder, and 'tis small chance ye'll have if the dawn ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... so—I certainly do not want it to die in." A quiet smile trembled for an instant on his lips, momentarily lightening an expression ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... door was open and he went in softly, lightening instinctively his heavy tread. The judge was sitting in his great arm-chair, his white head resting against the cushioned back, his bandaged ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... our Heavenly Father, in such circumstances that I can afford this small testimonial to their former fraternal kindness, and I know no better occasion to manifest the long pent-up feelings of my heart towards them than by lightening, under the embarrassments of the times, the pecuniary burden of our united testimonial to the best ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... over with a quick lightening of the eyes, and the suspicion of a smile in the depths of his curly beard. He turned ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... with 'em myself, you know," said Beevor; "that roof ought to look well, eh? Good idea of mine lightening the slate with that ornamental tile-work along the top. You saw I put in one of your windows with just a trifling addition. I was almost inclined to keep both gables alike, as you suggested, but it struck me a little variety—one ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... the gentleman you know, sir, and...." But the speaker's husband, having left the telling to his wife, unfairly strikes in here, to have the satisfaction of lightening the communication. "But he's out safe, sir. You may rely on the yoong lad." He has made it harder for his wife to tell the rest, and she hesitates. But Dr. Conrad has stayed for no more. He is going at a run down the sloped passage that leads to the ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... odd, dishevelled, half-clothed men of three worlds. The changing, lightening gravity on the incline caught them. Dr. Frank bounded up to the rail under the impetus of his step: caught and held himself, drew himself back. The line swayed. In the dim, blue-lit glare it seemed unreal, crazy. A grotesque dream of men ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... This lightening of shadows in the middle by reflected light and darkening towards their edges is a very important thing to remember, the heavy, smoky look students' early work is so prone to, being almost entirely due to their neglect through ignorance of this principle. Nothing is more ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... the smallest benefit. For these reasons, the king should act with mildness in taking wealth from his subjects. If a king continually oppresses his people, he meets with extinction like a flash of lightening that blazes forth only for a second. Learning, penances, vast wealth, indeed, everything, can be earned by exertion. Exertion, as it occurs in embodied creatures, is governed by intelligence. Exertion, therefore, should be regarded as ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... poorer sort are the most indolent people in the world or they could never be wretched in so plentiful a country as this. The winters here are very fine and pleasant, but 4 months in the year is extreamly disagreeable, excessive hott, much thunder and lightening and muskatoes and sand flies ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... tall pagoda. I never saw a more beautiful scene, or a more magnificent sunset; but alas! we see it under rather melancholy circumstances, for after six hours of trying in all sorts of ways to get off, we are as fast aground as ever. We are now lightening the ship. Silver Island is a kind of sacred island like Potou, but very much smaller.[2] I went ashore, and walked over it with a bonze, who conversed with Lay. He told us that the people in the neighbourhood are very poor, and will be glad that foreigners should come and trade with them. ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... when they haue passed it: for sometimes the ship standeth there almost by the space of many dayes, sometimes she goeth, but in such order that it were almost as good to stand still. And the greatest part of this coast not cleare, but thicke and cloudy, full of thunder and lightening, and raine so vnholesome, that if the water stand a little while, all is full of wormes, and falling on the meat which is hanged vp, it maketh it straight full of wormes. Along all that coast we often times saw a thing swimming vpon the water like a cocks combe (which they call a ship of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... the third month, when the womb begins to ascend out of the pelvis, a progressive enlargement of the abdomen begins and continues until near the end of pregnancy, when the womb again sinks and the so-called lightening occurs. The protrusion of the abdomen is more marked usually on the right side. There is often an increased deposit of fat in the lower portion of the abdomen, as well as on the hips and thighs. The navel may protrude after the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Monetary Unions and has benefited from lower interest and inflation rates. The current government has enacted numerous short-term reforms aimed at improving competitiveness and long-term growth. Italy has moved slowly, however, on implementing needed structural reforms, such as lightening the high tax burden and overhauling Italy's rigid labor market and over-generous pension system, because of the current economic slowdown and opposition ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... and filed His style so sharp to scar imperial brows, And lent the lustre lightening The gloom in Dante's murky verse that flows— Muse Indignation! haste, and help My building up before this roseate realm, And its so fruitless victories, Whence transient shame Right's prophets overwhelm, So many pillories, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... a joint!" Drake turned to me, a shadow of a grin lightening the distress on his face. "But I'd rather chance it than go back. What ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... personality. Those who engage in it will strike deep roots in the essential being of the nation to which they belong. I urge on you the endeavour to participate to the full in its sufferings and its aspirations. Be the light lightening the darkness of the great social masses whose mission it is to renew the world. The men and women of the common people, those whose want of interest in artistic matters is often a trial to you, are mutes. Lacking power of expression, they are ignorant of themselves. Become a voice ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... and what a fraud money is when it comes to the test. I used to imagine that I could do pretty nearly everything I wanted because I was rich, but look at Evie! I would give my life to help her, but beyond a few trumpery presents, and a little lightening of pain, what can I do? She would not accept more, and one dare not offer it, though if she would allow it we would be thankful to pension her off for life. Money ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... lightening, it hath won Our spirit with its strange strong influence, And sways it as ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... were Cocopah or Yuma Indians, amphibious, always ready to plunge overboard to help in lightening their craft over any of the numerous sand bars. Mellen told of lying 52 days in one bar and of often being held up for a week. There was no possible mapping of the river channel, for the bars changed ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... chance that very inning to show what he meant, for while Phil reached first on a Texas leaguer, and Herbert Jones whiffed vainly at three balls that came over the plate with lightening speed, there ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... to Madrid is nearly three hundred miles, the first half of which distance we passed over in the daytime, lightening the journey by enjoyment of the pleasing scenery and local peculiarities. Though it was quite early in the spring, still the fields were verdant and full of promise. More than once a gypsy camp was passed by the side of some cross-road, presenting the usual domestic group, mingled ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... investment. The semicircular lagoon which guards Mantua on the north, and the marshes on the south side, render an assault very difficult; but they also limit the range of ground over which sorties can be made, thereby lightening the work of the besiegers; and during part of the blockade Napoleon left fewer than five thousand men for this purpose. It was clear, however, that the reduction of Mantua would be a tedious undertaking, such as Bonaparte's daring and enterprising ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... jungle of dark reddish and yellowish chimneys and furnaces that covered it with shifting canopies of white steam and of smoke, varying from the delicatest grays to intense black; a beautiful dim gray sky lightening, and on the ground and low, flat roofs a thin crust of snow: Toledo! A wonderful and inspiring panorama, just as romantic in its own way as any Spanish Toledo. Yet I regretted its name, and I regretted the grotesque names of other ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... is close by (for nothing), and sit there when we please, as in our own drawing-room. There have been three fine days in four weeks. On every other the water has been falling down in one continual sheet, and it has been thundering and lightening every day ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... be going and returning to your party alone. I know!" (her face lightening up as with some magic inspiration) "I'll come and stay the night with you, dear, see you dressed, and have a real good gossip up in your room ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... canvas gathered up, the men at the yard-arms seeing to the earring being clear and ready for passing, with the hands facing to leeward, so as to lighten the sail and assist the weather earring being hauled out, as they held the reef-line, and again facing to windward and lightening the sail there in the same fashion, so as to haul out the lee-earring before the signal was given by those out at the end of the yard-arms ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and splashing which accompanied what felt like a sudden lightening of the boat was caused by Tom May lowering himself over the side, after laying down the boat-hook with which he had been sounding the depth; and then Murray felt that the brave fellow had begun to wade with the water close up to his arm-pits, forcing the bows of the boat ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... worked across a broad creek or a pond; sometimes a hardly audible whirr, and the metallic clinking of a bicycle bell would tell them that the wheelmen were speeding on the search. But for the best part of the time only nature's harmony of sounds came up through the ever-lightening gloom. ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... feet. I perceive scamps who plunge their ingenious fists into the pockets of their foolish neighbours. Dear pickpockets, have a little modesty. Fight those next to you if you like; do not plunder them. You will vex them less by blackening an eye, than by lightening their purses of a penny. Break their noses if you like. The shopkeeper thinks more of his money than of his beauty. Barring this, accept my sympathies, for I am not pedantic enough to blame thieves. Evil exists. Every one endures it, every one inflicts it. No one is exempt from the vermin ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... be found especially prominent. Both the knowledge and the manipulation of electricity have assumed in Montalluyah proportions far beyond those known to us. The electric fluid is there employed for the most various purposes: for locomotion, for lightening heavy bodies, for increasing the power of optical instruments, for the detection and eradication of the germs of disease, for increasing the efficiency of musical instruments—in a word, for the advancement of the world in all that belongs ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... The daylight had increased and Philip perceived that they were surrounded by rocks, and had run on shore between two reefs, which extended half a mile from the mainland. He sounded round his vessel, and discovered that she was fixed from forward to aft, and that without lightening her, there was no chance of getting her off. He then turned to where the admiral's ship lay aground and found that, to all appearance, she was in even a worse plight, as the rocks to leeward of her were above the water, and she was much more exposed, should bad weather ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... so that I was able to make the thing clear to you. I dared not look at you! You did not get it at first and you stamped your foot and said: "But I don't see any sense to it!" I replied with a tremendous effort at lightening the situation: "Plenty of cents, and dollars, too!" At which you turned and gave me a look—at first of pride and anger, then melting into appreciation of my wit, and ending by blinding me with the beauty of your laughter! We went on from that famously, and you saw the thing clearly ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... fire Lightening from its thunder-roof: So comes this that saw expire Him we love, for our behoof! Red of heat, O white of heat, This from off the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... very grave. He took his supper, for he needed it; and then he carried up a cup of tea, fresh made, to Diana. She drank it this time eagerly; but there was no lightening of his grave brow when he carried the cup down again. Something was very much the matter, he knew now, as he had feared it last night. He debated with himself whether he had better try to find out just what it was. Miss Collins, by a ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... her hand in his, and placed on her finger the golden pledge of truth, and as he did so, an approving sunbeam burst through the crimson-stained pane, and before lightening the tomb of Sir Reginald, fell on her silvery veil—her snowy robe—her ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... his shoulders and inspired deeply, eyes lightening; and stepped into the study, resolved. "Miss—" he called huskily; and stopped, reminded that not yet did he even know ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... positively there wasn't—to grumble about. All of which, though it charmed Katherine, appeased her anxiety but moderately. The young man worked too hard. His opportunities of amusement were too scant. Katherine cast about in thought, and in prayer, for some lightening of his daily life, even if such lightening should lessen the completeness of his dependence upon herself. And it was just at this juncture that Miss St. Quentin wrote proposing to come to Brockhurst for a week. She had not been there since the Whitsuntide recess. She wrote ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the Spaniard not seek for improvements, he utterly despises and rejects them. The poorer classes especially, who would find an enormous advantage in increased production, lightening their hard lot by a greater plenty of the means of life, regard every introduction of improved machinery as a blow at the rights of labor. When many years ago a Dutch vintner went to Valdepenas and so greatly ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... was so very hungry that evening when he sat down to supper that he was unable to leave the lobster which Mrs. Petty had provided until it was reduced to mere integument. Since his principles prevented his lightening it with anything but ginger-beer he went to bed in some discomfort, and, tired out with the emotions of the day, soon fell into a heavy slumber, which at dawn became troubled by a dream of an extremely vivid character. He fancied himself, indeed, dressed in khaki, with a breastplate ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... same wheels are lessening, to some extent, the congestion of the great centres of population, and lightening their shadows by extending them—spreading them—but none the less are the shadows spreading faster from the coming of the country to the city than of the suburbanizing ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... could possibly be spared were now placed in a depot at the junction of the south branch, and the commissioner proceeded with the boats thus lightened toward Kedgwick Lake. The lightening of the boats was rendered necessary in consequence of the diminution of the volume of the river and the occurrence of falls, over which it would have been impossible to convey them when fully loaded. For want of a guide, a branch more western than that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... torrents, rebounding from the shining pavement and the no less shining umbrellas of passing pedestrians, with vicious little pops and hisses that sounded more like a storm of tiny daggers than of raindrops. As time went on, instead of lightening, the sky had grown murkier and murkier and darker and darker, until, in many parts of the hotel, people had been forced to turn on the lights. Over and about everything hung that moist, indefinably depressing atmosphere that makes one rail at fate and ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... half in the hour that we were able to detect the fact of our own forward movement at all. We had been on deck just an hour—for two bells had barely been struck— when the first faint suggestion of dawn appeared ahead in the shape of a scarcely-perceptible lightening of the sky along a narrow strip of the eastern horizon, in the midst of which the morning star beamed resplendently, while the air, although still warm, assumed a freshness that, compared with the close, muggy heat of the past night, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... only, but the neighbourhood. All else was silent. Presently a distant sound of singing arose and approached; and a procession drew near along the road, the hot clean smell of the men and women striking in my face delightfully. At the corner, arrested by the voice of Maka and the lightening and darkening of the church, they paused. They had no mind to go nearer, that was plain. They were Makin people, I believe, probably staunch heathens, contemners of the missionary and his works. Of a sudden, however, a man broke from their company, took to his heels, and fled into the church; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... room, wrote a short letter to his brother Urbain, and left it on the table. Then he took his sword, crossed himself, and went out into the slowly lightening day. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... still life in France. All the washerwomen of the village assemble, three days in the week, beneath our terrace, and a merrier set of grisettes is not to be found in the neighbourhood of Paris. They chat, and joke, and splash, and scream from morning to night, lightening the toil by never-ceasing good humour. Occasionally an enormous scow-like barge is hauled up against the current, by stout horses, loaded to the water's edge, or one, without freight, comes dropping down the stream, nearly filling the whole river ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the character; nor is it the simple and romantic character of the Old Testament. On the contrary, Samson has become a Puritan: the observations he makes would have done much credit to a religious pikeman in Cromwell's army. In consequence, his death requires some lightening touches to make it a properly artistic event. The pomp of seriousness becomes ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... influences on the public trade of the nation, that Parliament found it necessary to enter upon that great work of a recoinage[5] and in order to prevent all future inconveniences of a like nature, they at the same time enacted that not only counterfeiting, chipping, scaling, lightening, or otherwise debasing the current specie of this realm, should be deemed and punished as high treason, but they included also under the same charge and punishment the having any press, engine, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... her mistress quietly and with a sudden lightening of the heart, she bent down and kissed the lips of her little sleeping daughter. She was greatly relieved. She could not bear the thought that she had hurt that sore heart without having helped it by ever so little. When the time came ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Lane renders by "a private closet," and Payne by a "privy place," suggesting that the Caliph slept in a numero cent. So, when starting for the "Trakki Campaign," Sir Charles Napier (of Sind), in his zeal for lightening officers' baggage, inadvertently chose a water-closet tent for his head-quarters—magno cum risu not of the staff, who had a strange fear of him, but of the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Mr. Phillips to return to England without delay as soon as the children were seized with the fever. Jane also wrote to Dr. Phillips, and Vivian hurried to London, and stayed with his brother's family until his return, which was a great lightening of the load of responsibility which the sisters felt rested on them. In spite of every care and all that either doctor or nurses could do, little Eva fell a victim to the disease; and, after her death, Mrs. Phillips for the first time seemed to realize the danger of the others. ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... there was a quiver of lip and flicker of eyelid, the lightening, as Cranky called it, was evidently gaining ground. Herbert's faint ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge |
