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Accustom   Listen
noun
Accustom  n.  Custom. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Accustom" Quotes from Famous Books



... listened to Lady Earle's plans and arrangements—how her children were to go to Earlescourt and take the position belonging to them. Mrs. Vyvian was to go with them and remain until Lord Earle returned. Until then they were not to be introduced into society; it would take some time to accustom them to so great a change. When Lord Earl returned he could pursue ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme

... Indians, that are to live among Christians, undoubtedly they ought all to be baptized; since it is not out of the Power of their Masters to take Care that they have a Christian Education, learn their Prayers and Catechism, and go to Church, and not accustom themselves to lie, swear and steal, tho' such (as the poorer Sort in England) be not taught to read and write; which as yet has been found to be dangerous upon several political Accounts, ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones

... tenderness and cheerfulness that Mr Benson's gentle heart prompted; and now and then a languid smile stole over the boy's face. When his bedtime came, Mr Benson told him of the hour, although he feared that Leonard would have but another sorrowful crying of himself to sleep; but he was anxious to accustom the boy to cheerful movement within the limits of domestic law, and by no disobedience to it to weaken the power of glad submission to the Supreme; to begin the new life that lay before him, where strength ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... leave me, Albert," he said kindly. "I must be alone to reflect, to try and accustom myself ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... Athenians left their city, and which he buried on the promontory which to this day is called the Dog's Tomb.[27] We ought not to treat living things as we do our clothes and our shoes, and throw them away after we have worn them out; but we ought to accustom ourselves to show kindness in these cases, if only in order to teach ourselves our duty towards one another. For my own part I would not even sell an ox that had laboured for me because he was old, much less would I turn ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... has said that "six months are sufficient to accustom an individual to any change in life." As he might fairly be supposed to have penned this for German readers and with the fixed habits and feelings of a German, if true at all, it ought to hold good the world over. As we are more particularly ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... had almost begun to accustom themselves to the promiscuous arrival of shells at odd hours throughout the day, when General Joubert hit on the happy idea of varying the monotony of the daily routine by making the night into a "lurid inferno"—the term is borrowed from the Boers. Now no sooner were ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... the Brenner, and wrote an unsatisfactory postcard from the shores of the Lake of Garda, saying that her plans were uncertain and had better be ignored. Evidently she disliked meeting Henry. Two months are surely enough to accustom an outsider to a situation which a wife has accepted in two days, and Margaret had again to regret her sister's lack of self-control. In a long letter she pointed out the need of charity in sexual ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... through surprise at this ambiguous opinion, he proceeded: "Hasdrubal thinks that the flower of youth which he gave to the enjoyment of Hannibal's father, may justly be expected by himself in return from the son: but it would little become us to accustom our youth, in place of a military education, to the lustful ambition of the generals. Are we afraid that the son of Hamilcar should be too late in seeing the immoderate power and splendour of his father's sovereignty? or that we shall not soon enough become slaves to the son of him, to ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... order to secure an easy and elegant style in reading, to refer the pupil often to the more important principles involved in a just elocution. To this end, it will be found very advantageous, occasionally to review the rules and directions given in the preceding pages, and thus early accustom him to apply them in the subsequent reading lessons. For a wider range of examples and illustrations, it is only necessary to refer to the numerous and various exercises which form the body of this book. They have been selected, in many cases, with ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... gives the heart-burn. Shave the upper lip. Go about like an European. Read no books of voyages (they are nothing but lies), only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy under. Above all, don't go to any sights of wild beasts. That has been your ruin. Accustom yourself to write familiar letters, on common subjects, to your friends in England, such as are of a moderate understanding. And think about common things more.... I supped last night with Rickman, and ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... by this argument. He knew the human heart well enough to be certain that during the night Cesar would go over the question in his own mind, and the mental discussion would accustom him to the idea of ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... "'Coffin, you must not leave us; we shall have warm work, and want you.'"[23] But in other cases Adams succeeded: one by one John Hancock, Josiah Quincy, Jr., John Adams, and Joseph Warren were by him brought into prominence. And at the same time he began to accustom men's minds to ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... temples, because the Devil persuaded them that the Gods took great delight in such people, and thus the Devil acted as a traitor to remove the veil of shame that the Gentiles felt for this crime and to accustom them to commit it in public ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... only to prepare ourselves for death. His imagination, he says, has occupied itself with these thoughts of death more than with anything else. Referring to a saying of Lykurgos, he approves of graveyards being laid out close to churches and in the most frequented places of a city, so as to accustom the common people, women, and children not to be scared at the sight of a dead person, and to forewarn everyone, by this continual spectacle of bones, tombs, and funerals, as to ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... those creole home habits which are the result of centuries of experience with climate,—abstention from solid food before the middle of the day, repose after the noon meal;—and you find each repast an experience as curious as it is agreeable. It is not at all difficult to accustom oneself to green pease stewed with sugar, eggs mixed with tomatoes, salt fish stewed in milk, palmiste pith made into salad, grated cocoa formed into rich cakes, and dishes of titiri cooked in oil,—the minuscule fish, of which a thousand will scarcely fill a saucer. Above ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... bounds confined 905 Of law or order. But, eternal sire! Shall I offend thee chasing far away Mars deeply smitten from the field of war? To whom the cloud-assembler God replied. Go! but exhort thou rather to the task 910 Spoil-huntress Athenaean Pallas, him Accustom'd to chastise with pain severe. He spake, nor white-arm'd Juno not obey'd. She lash'd her steeds; they readily their flight Began, the earth and starry vault between. 915 Far as from his high tower the watchman kens O'er gloomy ocean, so ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... expedition, but something like forty samples of plankton were taken with a full-speed net. We were unable to trawl on the bottom until we reached Melbourne, when a trawl was made in Port Phillip Harbour to try the gear and accustom men to its use. It was not a purpose of the expedition to spend time in deep-sea work ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... Mr. Bulstrode, assentingly. "Those who are not of this world can do little else to arrest the errors of the obstinately worldly. That is what we must accustom ourselves to recognize with regard to your brother's family. I could have wished that Mr. Lydgate had not entered into such a union; but my relations with him are limited to that use of his gifts for God's purposes which is taught us by the ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... sex; nor do they ever throw it off but to suffer more cruel evils. They must be subject, all their lives, to the most constant and severe restraint, which is that of decorum: it is, therefore, necessary to accustom them early to such confinement, that it may not afterward cost them too dear; and to the suppression of their caprices, that they may the more readily submit to the will of others. If, indeed, they are fond of being always at work, they should be sometimes ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... not be a good idea if we went for a short stroll?' Fred asked, after a time. 'It would accustom us to appearing in ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... not to last forever. It was only the act of a wicked ministry, attempting, by an unconstitutional tax to enslave an affectionate part of the nation. God can never suffer such an attempt to prosper. It must be but a momentary quarrel; and we ought to accustom ourselves to think of it as such, and to look beyond it to the happy days that are to succeed. And since the storm of war is soon to subside into the calm of peace, let us do nothing now, that may throw a cloud over the coming sunshine. Let us not even talk of 'exterminating war'! that ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... rooms which are to be used, and the dancing may not do as much harm as the enforced standing. The woman who has to stand behind the counter, or behind the bookkeeper's desk, or at her loom in the factory, may, perhaps, accustom herself in a measure to the daily strain; but the girl to whom it is an irregular exercise, and who, besides, is probably over-excited as to her nerves, cannot fail to suffer, though the blame is not, as a general rule, laid ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... it fast to a sturdy bush which grew conveniently close to the water's edge. "Well," he said, in answer to Stukely's question, "you were perfectly right, however you came by your knowledge. And, as to remaining here—well, I think we might do worse. We ought to accustom ourselves gradually to the outdoor, semi-savage life which will henceforth be ours; and I think we cannot do better than begin here. And that reminds me that I have not yet breakfasted, while yonder I see some bananas that appear to have reached ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... well-trained to such situations. Now and then he stretched out his neck, gazed down into the valley, and, recognising some of his kind below, uttered a shrill neigh. Carlos purposely kept him on the cliff, in order to accustom him to it before making ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... Queen, "so you must treat them well. The others you can stint; they are only working people, and they must accustom themselves to be content with what they can get." And every morning the poor little wretches got a little piece of Bee bread and nothing more, and with that they had to be satisfied, though they ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... him. They likewise say these ships brought the venerial distemper to this Island, where it is now as Common as in any part of the world, and which the people bear with as little concern as if they have been accustom'd to it for Ages past. We had not been here many days before some of our People got this disease, and as no such thing hapned to any of the Dolphin's people while she was here, that I ever heard of, I ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... cherish the most grateful and affectionate feelings for the worthy Guerard. When we were close on the time for my examination, he had me questioned several times over by the official examiners of the Ecole Polytechnique and others, so as to accustom me to the surprises of public examinations. I thus passed through the hands of Baron Reynaud, and of Messieurs Bourdon, Delille, and Lefebure de Fourcy. This last inspired me with downright terror, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... Resolutions more valuable and drastic than they usually are. I have a dim notion that the most useful Resolution for most of us would be to break quite fifty per cent. of all the vows we have ever made. "Do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility with vows.... Take this warning; it is of great importance." (The wisdom is Johnson's, but I flatter ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett

... had settled in our house I had to accustom myself to the honours of my position, which at first were rather irksome to me; but as they were part of the business I had to put up with them. I found my position as the wife of the British Consul in Damascus ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of art from life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning of art-study while traveling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It is only on reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceive ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... of right conduct, and impress upon your mind the necessity of adhering to them. Render me an account of the expenditure of your money, not viewing me in the light of a rigid preceptress, but as a friend who wishes to accustom you to the habit ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... reflecting on what could be done to confirm my spiritual vocation, to pin me down, as it were, beyond any possibility of escape, bethought him that it would accustom me to what he called 'pastoral work in the Lord's service', if I accompanied Mary Grace on her visits from house to house. If it is remembered that I was only eight and a half when this scheme was carried into practice, it will surprise no one to hear that it was not crowned with success. I ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... my favourite; he has little or no tincture of the artist in his composition; his soul is small and pedestrian, for the most part, since his profession makes no call upon it, and does not accustom him to high ideas. But if a man is only so much of an actor that he can stumble through a farce, he is made free of a new order of thoughts. He has something else to think about beside the money-box. He has a pride of his own, and, what is of far more importance, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... not, at first, accustom herself to the thought that her son was already forgotten. Old Michaud had not even pronounced the name of Camille, and had made a joke of the pretended illness of Therese. The poor mother understood that she alone preserved at the bottom of her heart, the living ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... such as you see among our dancers, but violent dancing, exhausting themselves till the perspiration streams from their faces—and this both men and women regard as amusement; so, Puntojee, if you are to take your place among your countrymen again, you must accustom yourself to fatigues, and strengthen your body in every way; or you will be regarded with contempt as one who, although of their blood, has grown degenerate ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... this is not only thoughtless and improvident, but heartless and cruel in the last degree. To bring a family into the world, give them refined tastes, and accustom them to comforts, the loss of which is misery, and then to leave the family to the workhouse, the prison, or the street—to the alms of relatives, or to the charity of the public,—is nothing short of a crime done against society, as well as against the unfortunate individuals ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... gozzard having the charge of them. They are plucked, poor things, for their feathers as often as five times a year, and for their quills once. Even the young goslings of six weeks' old are deprived of their tail feathers, in order, as it is said, to accustom them to this cruel operation. When ready for the London market, the geese are marched slowly up from Lincolnshire to London, in flocks of from two to nine thousand. Being slow travellers, they are on foot from three in the morning to nine in the evening, ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")

... troop down to the middle deck, where they form in line, two deep, all along the deck; the port watch in the fore part of the ship, and the starboard watch farther aft. This division into two parts, starboard watch and port watch, is to accustom them to the idea of the whole ship's company being ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... or an accident occurs, accustom them to inform you of it immediately. Few mistresses, of well regulated minds, will be offended when openly told of accidents; but if they are left to be found out, you always feel more disposed to blame and reprove them. By speaking to them in a mild and forgiving manner, careless ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea

... one person to whom he was not indifferent. In this mood it was a relief to him that certain three windows in the BRUDERSTRASSE remained closed and shuttered; with the load of malicious gossip fresh on his mind, he chose rather not to see her; he must first accustom himself to it, as to the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... O'Keefe was kind, and Dodger was her faithful friend, she could not accustom herself ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger

... Infanta and behaved as if she was no one's vassal. Fortunately for her and her aims, Urraca was far too busy fighting with her second husband, the king of Aragon, to pay much attention to what was happening in the west, so that she had time to consolidate her power and to accustom her people to think of themselves as ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... injure his bank, he sent three waggons there, and drove them away full of money, which he made Law give him for paper he held. Law did not dare to refuse, and thus show the poverty of his metallic funds, but fearing to accustom so insatiable a prince to such tyranny as this, he went, directly the waggons left, to M. le Duc d'Orleans, and complained of what had occurred. The Regent was much annoyed; he saw the dangerous results, and the pernicious example of so violent a proceeding, directed against an unsupported ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Melmotte she must endure. With Madame Melmotte she had to go out in the carriage every day. Indeed she could only go to those parties to which Madame Melmotte accompanied her. If the London season was to be of any use at all, she must accustom herself to the companionship of Madame Melmotte. The man kept himself very much apart from her. She met him only at dinner, and that not often. Madame Melmotte was very bad; but she was silent, and ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... of colour and tone. And with a brush full of paint as your tool, some form of mass drawing must be adopted, so that at the same time that the student is progressing with line drawing, he should begin to accustom, himself to this other method of seeing, by attempting very simple exercises in ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... returns to his natural bent. He whom you have secured by kindness, acts from inclination; he is anxious to return like for like; present and absent, he will be the same. This is the duty of a parent, to accustom a son to do what is right rather of his own choice, than through fear of another. In this the father differs from the master: he who can not do this, let him confess that he does not know how to govern children. But is not ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... to be the end of this? Would she not, on learning that La Tournoire was myself, all the more decidedly insist on going her own way? Therefore, before disclosing myself to her, I must accustom her to the view that a difference in religion ought not to separate two who love each other. In order to do this, I must have time; so ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... now retreating, All around the fire they meet, And, with wine, the sons of eating, Crown, at length, the mighty treat: Triumphant plenty's rosy graces Sparkle in their jolly faces: And mirth and cheerfulness are seen In each countenance serene. Fill high the sparkling glass, And drink the accustom'd toast; Drink deep, ye mighty host, And let the bottle pass. Begin, begin, the jovial strain, Fill, fill, the mystic bowl, And drink, and drink, and drink again, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... the whole year after: for I never need other powdering to my hair, to preserve it bright and clean, as the gallants do; but which does certainly greatly prejudice transpiration by filling up, or lying heavy upon the pores. Those, therefore, who (since the use of perukes) accustom to wash their heads, instead of powdering, would doubtless find the benefit of it; both as to the preventing of aches in their head, teeth, and ears, if the vicissitude and inconstancy of the weather, ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... would make men and women discontented, with the divine and wholesome discontent, at their own physical frame, and at that of their children. I would accustom their eyes to those precious heirlooms of the human race, the statues of the old Greeks; to their tender grandeur, their chaste healthfulness, their unconscious, because perfect, might: and say—There; ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... to avoid the crowd, he walked slowly along under the big trees, trying to accustom himself to the thought of his boy dressed in the conventional minister's garb, delivering time worn conventionalities in a manner as conventional. It was to this strange thinking old man, almost as if he had seen Dan behind the grated doors of a ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... bitter feeling, but rather like a woman who begins to understand a foible, and to accustom ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... her reminiscences, and gave the conversation the tinge of melancholy that was needed to keep it serious. She revived his love without awakening his desires, and allowed her first husband to discern the mental wealth she had acquired while trying to accustom him to moderate his pleasure to that which a father may feel in the society of a ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac

... those to whom Congress shall extend the right of suffrage. In Territories, Congress fixes the qualifications of electors; and I know of no better place nor better occasion for the conquered rebels and the conqueror to practise justice to all men, and accustom themselves to make ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... had a call to name, Agreed for such a sum to blaze A certain famous champion's praise. He therefore a retirement sought, But found the theme on which he wrote So scanty, he was forced to use Th' accustom'd license of the muse, And introduced and praise bestow'd On Leda's sons to raise his ode; With these the rather making free, As heroes in the same degree. He warranted his work, and yet Could but one third of payment get. Upon ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... mastering them. Of course, I did not let him do much work. Colts are like boys—a boy shouldn't do a man's work, but he had exercise every day, and I trained him to draw a light cart behind him. I used to do all kinds of things to accustom him to unusual sounds. Father talked a good deal to me about Rarey, the great horse-tamer, and it put ideas into my head. He said he once saw Rarey come on a stage in Boston with a timid horse that he was going to accustom to a loud noise. First a bugle was blown, then some louder instrument, and ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... and ends of hours so that they constitute, for practical purposes, an unbroken duration of time, is to emancipate one's self from dependence on particular times, and to appropriate all time to one's use; and in like manner to accustom one's self to make use of all places, however thronged and public, as if they were private and secluded, is to free one's self from bondage to a particular locality, or to surroundings specially chosen for the purpose. Those who have ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... the sinking sun. In a curve on the left, eight miles away, sparkled the slender steeple of the church of St. Gerome. A thick column of smoke rose from somewhere in its neighbourhood. "It is on the beach," said the men; "the boys of the village accustom themselves to burn the rubbish there for a bonfire." But as our canoes danced lightly forward over the waves and came nearer to the place, it was evident that the smoke came from the village itself. ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke

... easily accustom myself to the Paris journals. Cheap enough some of them were, but still the strange language was an obstacle. They are worse printed than ours, and are by no means equal to such journals as the Times and Tribune. They publish continued ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... to keep before his eyes the fact that chance is merely a synonym for our ignorance; that the reign of law pervades the domain of history as much as it does that of political science. He is to accustom himself to look on all occasions for rational and natural causes. And while he is to recognise the practical utility of the supernatural, in an educational point of view, he is not himself to indulge in such intellectual beating ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... notion of self-restraint than had the "better classes" whose self-indulgences maintain the vast army of doctors and druggists. The only thing that saved Susan from all but an occasional cold or sore throat from wet feet was eating little through being unable to accustom herself to the fare that was the best the Brashears could now afford—cheap food in cheap lard, coarse and poisonous sugar, vilely adulterated coffee, doctored meat and vegetables—the food which the poor in their ignorance buy—and for which they ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... various pets. Fear will accomplish a great deal with dumb animals, but the real secret of winning their confidence is quietness, the art of never alarming them, but by perfectly passive behaviour, and the most gentle of movements, accustom the timid creatures to our presence. The rest was merely habituating them to the fact that their owner was the sole source from which food ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... pleasure of living near to you, in the pleasing satisfaction of partaking every sentiment of your heart, every event of your life, I have taken such a habit of being inseparable from you, that I cannot now accustom myself to your absence, and I am more and more afflicted at that enormous distance which keeps me so far from my dearest friend. I am the more concerned at this particular time, my dear general, as I think the campaign is opened, you are in the field, and I ardently ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... nought in order to reach that of being, the being to which we come is a logical or mathematical essence, therefore non-temporal. And, consequently, a static conception of the real is forced on us: everything appears given once for all, in eternity. But we must accustom ourselves to think being directly, without making a detour, without first appealing to the phantom of the nought which interposes itself between it and us. We must strive to see in order to see, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... grave-stone might not only record the name of our deceased friends, but also proclaim the name of Jesus, as the only name given under heaven whereby men can be saved. Perhaps, if the ministers of religion were to interest themselves in this matter, and accustom their people to consult them as to the nature of the monumental inscriptions which they wish to introduce into churches and church-yards, a gradual improvement would take place in this respect. What is offensive, useless, or erroneous, would no longer find admittance, and ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... from the rude thrust, but, recovering himself stood erect, and tried to accustom his eyes to the half darkness. He stood in a small, square room with walls of hard cement or plaster. The roof of the same material was high, and in the center of it was a round hole, through which came all the air that entered the cell. In a corner was a rude pallet of blankets ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... specimen of Portuguese or Brazilian educational literature; if such be the case the schoolmaster is indeed "abroad," and one may justly fear that his instruction—to quote once more the Preface—"only will be for to accustom the Portuguese pupils, or foreign, to speak very bad any of ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca

... for novices, as soon as they have learned to handle the rapier, whether they have had any quarrel or not, and such encounters rarely lead to any result worth mentioning. The intention is to accustom the student to fighting for its own sake, and he must submit to the conditions or leave the Korps with ignominy. He learns to fence with coolness and judgment, in a way that could never be learned on the fencing ground with masks and blunted weapons, and he acquires from the first the habit of ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... Thyrza of one of the first duties she must take upon herself. It mattered little where she lived—mattered little if the sun-dawn never broke again. Her life was to be in a narrow circle, and to that she would accustom herself. ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... latter were transplanted to Mount Aventine and made plebeians; these movements being the origin of the castes which long afflicted Rome, the vanquished people constituting a subordinate class; that at first the chief occupation was agriculture, the nature of which is not only to accustom men to the gradations of rank, such as the proprietor of the land, the overseer, the labourer, but also to the cultivation of religious sentiment, and even the cherishing of superstition; that, besides the more honourable occupations in which the rising state was engaged, she had, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... focusing of the mind requires a focusing, or bringing to a center, of the Will. The mind is concentrated because the Will is focused upon the object. The mind flows into the mould made by the Will. The above exercises are designed not only to accustom the mind to the obedience and direction of the Will, but also tend to accustom the Will to command. We speak of strengthening the Will, when what we really mean is training the mind to obey, and accustoming the Will to command. Our Will is strong enough, but we do not realize ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... one would be respected in after Ages, as much as we know the other has in the former: But every one is Fool or Knave that is not of this Gentlemans kidney. A little while after, at the usual rate of his own accustom'd civility, he falls upon the Renown'd Shakespear, and says, he is so guilty, that he is not fit to make an Evidence. [Footnote: Collier, p. 50.] Why now it 'twere possible for his Complexion to blush, there's ne're a Robe of any Friend Cardinal the Absolver has at Rome, that can ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet

... artisans were likely to attain any distinguished skill in ornamental design, it would be incumbent upon me to make my class here accurately acquainted with the principles of earth and metal work, and to accustom them to take pleasure in conventional arrangements of colour and form. I hope, indeed, to do this, so far as to enable them to discern the real merit of many styles of art which are at present neglected; and, above all, to read the minds of semi-barbaric nations in the only ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... of dirt annoys them beyond measure, they lose their gaiety, and die of melancholy and disgust. They are animals of the most excessive delicacy, and it is not easy to procure them suitable nourishment. They cannot accustom themselves to live alone, and solitude is pernicious to them in an exact proportion to the degree of tenderness and care with which they have been habitually treated. The most certain means of preserving their existence, is to unite them to other individuals of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various

... I have heard rebellious words that I have not understood, and I thought that my ears, that one has tried to accustom for some time to a strange language, still deceived me, and that I have thought for your honour, my lord William Ruthven, and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... cruelty to force Marietta to rinse out the cup every morning at the spring under the rock and to fill it with fresh flowers. She hoped by this to accustom Marietta to the cup and heart of the giver. But Marietta continued to hate both the gift and giver, and her work at the spring became an ...
— The Broken Cup - 1891 • Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke

... wi' their pocks, Cause they kent that I liked a bicker; Sae I bartered whiles wi' the gowks, Gaed them grain for a soup o' their liquor. I had lang been accustom'd to drink, And aye when I purposed to quat it, That thing wi' its clappertie clink Said aye to me, Tak it, man, tak it. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... sea-front, for cheap jewellery and casual friends picked up at the hotel, at the bland superficiality of her mind; and now and again this distaste was shot through with moments of acute fears when he realised, startled to it by some blunt display of the ugly things of life, that to this he must accustom himself for the rest of his days; and that he would grow only too deadly accustomed, to the stifling of other ideals, he foresaw. These were his days, yet he felt remorseful at his own spirit of criticism, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... when we are near it, is a vast and overwhelming spectacle; but every rising and setting sun exhibits Almighty wisdom, power and goodness, on a scale infinitely beyond that of a hundred burning prairies. It is a good thing to accustom ourselves to regard the works of creation around us with that attention and wonder they are calculated to inspire, and especially to ponder on the manifestation of God's grace set forth in his holy word. When burning prairies and burning mountains shall be all extinguished; when rising and setting ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... some of the finest spots of ground, that we may now boast a success equal to that profusion of expense which has been destined to promote the rapid progress of this happy enthusiasm. Our gardens are already the astonishment of foreigners, and, in proportion as they accustom themselves to consider and understand them will become their admiration." The periodical from which this is taken was published exactly a century ago, and the writer's prophecy has been long verified. Foreigners send to us for gardeners to help them to lay out their grounds in the ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... him quite an important personage, heir to an old title, and first or second cousin to a host of peers. It took many a day to accustom her to think of her husband's connections without a sense of pride and exultation, at which Ormonde laughed heartily whenever he perceived it. On his side De Burgh thought her a very pretty little toy, quite amusing with her small airs and graces and assumption of ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... muscles for building the habit of determination within you should be concentrated on exercise in changing swiftly from comparative laxity to muscular tension. That is, in order to accustom your mind to hardening with determined thoughts whenever determination is needed, you should train your muscles to harden in coordination, and thus to support your mental determination by the complementary physical suggestion of ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... it grows again; if the proper time is allowed to elapse, the wool falls off, and is succeeded by short, shining, close hair, like that of the goat in the same climate. Every animal, it would appear, like man, requires time to accustom itself to climate. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various

... if men accustom themselves to call upon God on civil occasions, they render his name so familiar to them, that they are likely to lose the reverence due to it, or so to blend religious with secular considerations, that they become ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... myself. The art of leaping on to horseback is one which we would fain persuade the youthful members of the corps to learn themselves; though, if you choose to give them an instructor, (24) all the greater credit to yourself. And as to the older men you cannot do better than accustom them to mount, or rather to be hoisted up by aid of ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon

... me to do, I must do. This is, to press upon the few whose ear I can gain, the importance of this part of self- education. Do not despise the idea of reasoning on subjects which come before you; nor think it masculine or old fashioned. Not only accustom yourselves to reason, but to reason on every thing. There is almost as great a difference between a young woman who takes all things upon trust, scarcely knowing that she can use her own powers in the investigation of truth, and one who has been, like my worthy and venerable correspondent, in ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... tale is, I am aware, not without grounds; yet it appears to me that it might be published without serious risk, if its appearance were speedily followed up by another work from the same pen, of a more striking and exciting character. The first work might serve as an introduction, and accustom the public to the author's the success of the second might thereby be rendered more probable. I have a second narrative in three volumes, now in progress, and nearly completed, to which I have endeavoured ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... his accustom'd date, As loath the Night, incens'd by Fate, Should wreck our lovers. Hero's plight; Longs for Leander and the night: Which ere her thirsty wish recovers, She sends for two betrothed lovers, And marries them, that, with their ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... the harbour they had to pass through the slave-market. This was not the first time they had visited the scene of this iniquitous traffic, but neither Harold nor Disco could accustom themselves to it. Every time they entered the market their feelings of indignation became so intense that it was with the utmost difficulty they could control them. When Disco saw handsome negro men and good-looking girls put up for ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... many of the questions. There are pictures of actual lives meeting real temptations; there are the epigrammatic precepts of Proverbs and of the teachings of Jesus. Call attention to them, not as settling the question out of hand, but as testimony to the point. Accustom children to getting the light of the Bible on their lives, remembering that this book is a light and not a fence nor a code ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... Russians from the Black Sea and the Slavs from the south, and shall have conquered large tracts to the east of our frontiers for German colonization. We cannot let loose ex abrupto the war which will create this Central Europe. All we can do is to accustom our people to the thought that this war must come.—P. DE LAGARDE, ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various

... be a praiseworthy custom to unite for work in a community room, I desire that the nuns of the convent of St. Joseph shall be freed from this custom, for it is much easier to keep silence if each works in her cell. Moreover, it is of the first importance to accustom oneself to solitude, in order to advance oneself in prayer; and as prayer should be the mortar of this monastery, we should cherish all that which increases ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... try to support himself on what his labors brought in exclusively, he would be dead in less than a month. He suffers from liver disease; he has not been used to hard labor from early youth; he cannot, at his age, accustom himself to it any more than he can compel his stomach to accept a purely vegetable diet in place of the meat diet on which he has been brought up. He strives conscientiously to do it. Even the fits of illness caused by ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... they do there? What have they been doing there for the last three weeks that they have not heard from me? Who knows what would be the effect of a suspension of communication for six months? No: France would not accustom itself to my absence, and Prussia and Austria would take advantage ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote

... is not entirely reestablished by the baths, yet on the whole I think I have improved. I had another annoyance here, owing to a person having engaged an unsuitable lodging for me, which is hard on me, as I cannot yet accustom myself to it, and my ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... matter also is just as much about us here on the surface of the solid earth as that of the others. All these globes of finer matter are a part of us, and are all revolving round the sun with their visible part. The student will do well to accustom himself to think of our earth as the whole of this mass of interpenetrating worlds—not only the comparatively small physical ball ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater

... the healthy mind is to accustom itself to new sensations, as the ring on the finger, or the spectacles on the nose. The obsessive individual resists this tendency; he starts with the fixed idea that he cannot stand the annoyance, his resentment increases, and his sensations become more, instead of ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.

... father now," said Rose, "were to have no objection, I might perhaps in time accustom myself to look upon you as my future husband. If I could but feel a little more respect and awe for you! If you would behave very roughly to me now and then, not always so kindly, but angrily and savagely at times, I might by and by ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... lucid and normal, like the pictures that are hung on the walls of schoolrooms to give children an illustration of what is meant by a carpenter's bench, a bird, an ant-hill; things chosen as typical of everything else of the same sort. But names present to us—of persons and of towns which they accustom us to regard as individual, as unique, like persons—a confused picture, which draws from the names, from the brightness or darkness of their sound, the colour in which it is uniformly painted, like one of those posters, entirely blue or entirely red, in which, on account of the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... sir, this would be national dishonor. It would destroy the confidence with which the public creditor rests upon the promises contained in your bonds. It would greatly tend to arrest the process by which the interest on your bonds is reduced. It would accustom our people to the substitution of a temporary wave of popular opinion for its written contract or promise. It would weaken in the public mind that keen sense of honor and pride which has always distinguished the English-speaking nations ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... Hoffman found nothing remarkable. The palace inhabited by the Royal Family, was a spacious hut, with an ante-chamber or outer house, in which eight of the guard kept watch. Their only weapon was an old pistol fastened on a plank; this was frequently fired, probably to accustom the young King to the tumult of battle. The old King lies buried under a stone monument, in front of which three guns are kept; but, to prevent accidents, they are ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... at a five-barred gate, and, if he is not used to hunting, he will turn pale; put a fox-hunter on one of the Swiss chasms, over which the mountaineer springs like a roe, and his knees will knock under him. People are brave in the dangers to which they accustom themselves, either ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... and bloated colon, while acquainting a person with their own bowel. Having an empty colon is actually a pleasant and to most people a thoroughly novel experience. A few well-delivered colonics can quickly accustom a person to the sensations accompanying the enema and demonstrate the effect to be achieved by oneself with an enema bag, something not quickly ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... am amused at the difficulty you find in taking up the position of a "grave and reverend senior"; because I can by no means accustom myself to the like dignity. In spite of my grey hairs "age hath not cooled the Douglas blood" altogether, and I have a gratifying sense that (liver permitting) I am still capable of much folly. All this, however, has not much to do with poor Dr. — to whom, I am sorry ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... step, leaning heavily on the rails, he essays to walk as a child. The sockets of his joints yield beneath him, the limbs are loose, the ankle twists aside; each step is an enterprise, and to gain a yard a task. Thus day by day the convalescent strives to accustom the sinews to their work. It is a painful spectacle; how different, how strangely altered, from the upright frame and the swift stride that struggled through the miry lane, perhaps even then bearing the seeds of disease imbibed in some foul village ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies



Words linked to "Accustom" :   habituate, addict, harden, alter, teach, indurate, modify, inure, hook, change



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