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Contracting   Listen
noun
contracting  n.  The act or process of acquiring an infectious disease; contraction; as, the contracting of a serious illness can be financially catastrophic.
Synonyms: catching.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contracting" Quotes from Famous Books



... by opening a prospect of advantages to be gained. The baselessness of such a supposition is evident from the Treaty itself which had been offered to you, and whose most important clause consisted in the promise of the contracting parties, not to desire in any case to derive from the War any advantage ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... paper, which I read soon after the time when the late Mr. PITT uttered in Parliament an expression of his anxious hope, that his 'name would be inscribed on the monument which he should raise to 'public credit.' Time has taught me, that PUBLIC CREDIT means, the contracting of debts which a nation never can pay; and I have lived to see this Goddess produce effects, in my country, which Satan himself never could have produced. It is a very bewitching Goddess; and not less fatal in her influence in private than in public affairs. ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... you? Do not you see these afflicted persons, and hear them accuse you?" She answered, "The Lord knows I have not hurt them. I am an innocent person." Hathorne continued, "It is very awful to all to see these agonies, and you, an old professor, thus charged with contracting with the Devil by the effects of it, and yet to see you stand with dry eyes where there are so many wet." She answered, "You do not know my heart." Hathorne, "You would do well, if you are guilty, to confess, and give glory to God."—"I am as clear as the child unborn." Hathorne continued, "What ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... he attended Morisine to Germany, and wandered over great part of the country, making observations upon all that appeared worthy of his curiosity, and contracting acquaintance with men of learning. To his correspondent, Sturmius, he paid a visit, but Sturmius was not at home, and those two illustrious friends never saw each other. During the course of this embassy, Ascham ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... deities introduced in temple lists and in the course of legal proceedings, and such as are merely known through forming an element in proper names. The former constitute a part of what might be called the 'active' pantheon of the time. Deities that are actually invoked by contracting parties for whatever purpose are such as are endowed with real significance; and if any of these are not mentioned in the historical texts proper, the omission is due to the lack of material. The testimony of the legal documents ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... exquisitely in keeping with man, but natural features are actually changed, plastic to the imprint of their lord and master's mind. Bushes, shrubs, trees, forget to follow their original intent, and grow as he wills them to; now expanding in wanton luxuriance, now contracting into dwarf designs of their former selves, all to obey his caprice and please his eye. Even stubborn rocks lose their wildness, and come to seem a part of the almost sentient life around them. If the description of such dutifulness seems fanciful, the ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... how the capitalist came by his money; example of Atticus; incoming of wealth after Hannibalic war; suddenness of this; rise of a capitalist class; the contractors; the public contracting companies; in the age and writings of Cicero; their political influence; and power in the provinces; the bankers and money-lenders; origin of the Roman banker; nature of his business; risks of the money-lender; general indebtedness of society; Cicero's debts; story of ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... was held by Massachusetts over the Narragansetts and other subject tribes, contracting their limits by repeated cessions, not always entirely voluntary. The Wampanoags, within the jurisdiction of Plymouth, experienced similar treatment. By successive sales of parts of their territory, they were now shut ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... frequent changes, which I freely acknowledge, have not been owing to any inconstancy, but to precipitation and want of caution in contracting them. ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... That, therefore, in contracting, wrinkles (for the loftiest mountain chains are nothing but tiny wrinkles, compared with the whole mass of the earth), wrinkles, I say, must form on its surface from time to time. And that the mountain chains ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley

... constitutional sanction of the Senate, by the advice and consent to their ratification. They were accordingly ratified on the part of the United States, and during the recess of Congress have been also ratified by the other respective contracting parties. The ratifications have been exchanged, and they have been published by proclamations, copies of which are ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson

... heard our hero to an end, with great patience. Then the wife, who was the common mouth upon all such occasions, contracting her features into a very formal disposition, "I'll assure you," said she, "Doctor Fathom, my husband and I have been in a very great terrification and numplush, to hear such bad things of a person, whom, as one may say, we thought a worthy gentleman, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... first time that the husband and wife cohabit together after the ceremony has been performed is called the consummation of marriage. Many grave errors have been committed by people in this, when one or both of the contracting parties were not physically or sexually in a condition to carry out the marriage relation. A marriage, however, is complete without this in the eyes of the law, as it is a maxim taken from the Roman civil statutes that consent, not cohabitation, is the binding element in the ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... the disarray of her nightgown, sat upright. The alarm clock on the floor by the bed clacked in the stillness. The tap in the kitchen cubicle dripped. Timbers, contracting in the cool of early ...
— Stopover Planet • Robert E. Gilbert

... caution. Shielding the flame of his candle in the shell of his left hand, Lawford moved slowly, with chin uplifted, to the stairs. He bent forward a little, and stood motionless and drawn up, the pupils of his eyes slowly contracting and expanding as he gazed down into the carpeted vacant gloom; past the dim louring presence that had fallen back ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... and the bridal party walked to the door through a double rank of uplifted weapons. From the chapel they were led to another room, where the contracting parties signed their names in a register. The Kofedix then brought forward two marriage certificates—heavy square plates of a brilliant purple metal, beautifully engraved in parallel columns of English and Kondalian ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... faces homeward a day or two after the receipt of Oscar's letter. I left my reformed father, resting his aching old bones in his own easy-chair; capable perhaps, even yet, of contracting a Platonic attachment to a lady of his own time of life—but capable (as I firmly believed) of nothing more. "Oh, my child, let me rest!" he said, when I wished him good-bye. "And never show me a church or a picture again as long as ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... the theory that the sun and planets with their satellites in the solar system were originally one mass of nebulous matter which, gradually cooling and contracting, under violent revolution resolved itself into ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... unfading newness. When the moon was nearly full, one of their great delights was to dive deep in the water, and then, turning round, look up through it at the great blot of light close above them, shimmering and trembling and wavering, spreading and contracting, seeming to melt away, and again grow solid. Then they would shoot up through the blot, and lo! there was the moon, far off, clear and steady and cold, and very lovely, at the bottom of a deeper and bluer lake than ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... least in this method and order, I mean that part which is about sanctification. Others may be displeased with the mean and low style; with my multiplying particulars, which might have been better and more handsomely couched under fewer heads, and with my unnecessary contracting of the whole into such a narrow bound, and other things of that kind; for which, and many other failings of the like nature and import, which may without any diligent search, be found in it, even by ordinary and unprejudiced readers; I shall not industriously labour ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... now the tragic part! After this fit, When Norfolk cock had got the best of it, And Wisbich lay a dying, so that none, Tho' sober, but might venture Seven to One; Contracting, like a dying taper, all His strength, intending with the blow to fall, He struggles up, and having taken wind, Ventures a blow, and strikes ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... are related to one another. But why, you may ask, was the name given to sponsors? Out of this reason;—in the middle ages it was the prevailing belief (and the Romish Church still affirms it), that those who stood as sponsors to the same child, besides contracting spiritual obligations on behalf of that child, also contracted spiritual affinity one with another; they became sib, or akin, in God; and thus 'gossips'; hence 'gossipred', an old word, exactly analogous to 'kindred'. Out of this faith the Roman Catholic Church will not allow (unless ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... first name familiarly. I did not need to be told that he was the young man with whom she had been seen on the highway. He was introduced to me as Mr. Tom Chalmers; I was told he had earned his nickname, "Pinkey," by contracting the ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... exacting toil. No doubt, there must be those who do the material work of the world; who gain, among other things, those "goods" which go to support the Mystics. But there will be no lack of such workers, through the inroads of religion; the broad ways of daily life are in no danger of contracting suddenly in to the path to the strait gate. Moreover, natural life itself is a poor thing unsupported by an unseen stream of spiritual refection. Here, as elsewhere in the ordered economy of things, two forms of life are found to ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole

... feet of Dora—literally, mind you, on the lee side of a sage bush—and lisped his love. On this sacred ground let us tread as lightly as may be. Suffice it that Posey's suit prospered, and that presently a little programme came to be agreed upon between the contracting parties to this effect: They would go on for the present precisely as if nothing had happened—Dora to seek her father and Posey to seek his fortune. As soon, however, as Dora should have succeeded in restoring the doctor to health, or had haply buried him, Posey ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... pay one-sixth of the expenses, Venice two-sixths, and Spain three-sixths; that each party should appoint its own Commander-in-Chief, and that Don John of Austria should be in supreme command of the whole forces assembled. The contracting parties were to furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot, 4,500 horse, and the requisite ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... "Both contracting parties guarantee to each other the integrity of their respective territories, as constituted before the present war, keeping the boundaries possessed at that time by each captaincy general or viceroyalty ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... great service which you can render France," he answered me as we stopped to watch the great white waves flung aside from the ship. "France needs friends in America, great powerful friends who will help her in contracting for food and all other munitions. A beautiful woman can do much in winning those friends. You go to your uncle, who is one of those in power in a State in that fruitful valley of the Mississippi from which I hope that my lieutenant, ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... No sound. The swell was so gentle that it did not break on the ledges of the island loudly enough to be heard a mile and a quarter off. The heaving circle of which they were the center was contracting fast. Its misty walls were now less than five hundred ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... the love of show, to the desire of outstripping others, and to habits of expense which grow out of this insatiable passion! In a country so thriving and luxurious as ours, the laborer is in danger of contracting artificial wants and diseased tastes; and to gratify these he gives himself wholly to accumulation, and sells his mind for gain. Our unparalleled prosperity has not been an unmixed good. It has inflamed cupidity, has diseased the imagination with dreams of boundless ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... guests were all assembled and the contracting parties with attendants in their respective stations, the preacher began the ceremonies by reading the following text: "And when Noah was one hundred and forty years old, he took unto himself a wife" (then turning the page he continued) "three hundred cubits in length, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... now, and lived together in harmony, which is more than could be said of many properly constituted families. The tie which held them together remained intact, but they were otherwise unfettered. They continued being lovers without contracting any bad matrimonial habits, as, for example, the habit of being rude ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... distance in space makes things look small, and therefore free from defect. This is why a landscape looks so much better in a contracting mirror or in a camera obscura, than it is in reality. The same effect is produced by distance in time. The scenes and events of long ago, and the persons who took part in them, wear a charming aspect to the eye of memory, which sees only the outlines ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer

... Government, on condition that they would become actual settlers on the land, and perform certain settlement duties, which consisted in chopping out and clearing the concession lines.* Before the Crown patent could issue, the party contracting to perform the settlement duties was obliged to appear before a magistrate, and make an affidavit that he or they had chopped and cleared certain concession lines opposite the lots of land ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... Concha knew all about them, and would take an unfair advantage of his opportunities, refusing probably to perform the ceremony until he was satisfied as to the ways and means and prudence of the contracting parties—which of course he had no right to do. Here came the halt, the lame, the blind, the poor, and also the rich. Here came the unhappy. They came naturally and often. Here, so the bootmaker tells, came one morning a ruined man, who after speaking a few words to the ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... they resumed their voyage, passing several islands in the course of the day, the river alternately widening and contracting, and the hills sometimes retiring from, and at others approaching, its banks. They stopped for the night at the distance of thirty-two miles from their last encampment. "Before landing," proceeds the Journal, "we met two canoes, the largest of which had at the ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... worm aspiring to be a star. Tempest, whom she had liked least, now filled her with admiration. She saw the tragedy of his life plain and sad upon his features. She could not look at him without her heart's contracting in an ache. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... than before; and darkness now came to add new terrors to the scene; not the wholesome solemn darkness of nightfall, but a weird unearthly gloom which was neither night nor day, a gloom which descended and encompassed them stealthily and menacingly, contracting the horizon until nothing could be seen further than half a mile from the ship, and which still seemed to be saturated with a pale spectral shimmering light, in the which men looked in each other's eyes like ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... talk about it," interrupted the proud woman, her brow contracting instantly at this mention of the young carpenter, while she glanced about the humble though pretty room with an air of disdain that brought the sensitive color into Mrs. Richardson's cheeks, and made the physician glare angrily at ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... be observed that Goldsmith was sometimes content to be treated with an easy familiarity, but upon occasions would be consequential and important. An instance of this occurred in a small particular. Johnson had a way of contracting the names of his friends, as Beauclerk, Beau; Boswell, Bozzy.... I remember one day, when Tom Davies was telling that Dr. Johnson said—'We are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play,' Goldsmith seemed displeased that such a liberty should be taken with his name, and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... funding and paying the National debt, and of contracting the currency, went on with vigor and persistency during the summer and autumn of 1867. The Treasury statements for the year showed that up to November 1, 1867, the long obligations of the Government had ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... to record all this briefly, but it must not therefore be supposed that it was easy of arrangement, on the part of the high contracting parties, whose tongues were unavoidably useless ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... for Dan Murphy was there, and wherever Dan was there was sure to be an uproar. Scotty was responsible for the young man's presence; he had invited Mr. Murphy on the strength of his own relationship to both contracting parties, knowing a warm welcome was assured. So, with an apron tied round his waist, Dan was making a fine pretence of helping Betty Lauchie wash dishes, his chief efforts, however, being directed towards balancing pots of boiling water in ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... private wedding announcement cards should be mailed the following day to all relatives and acquaintances of both the contracting parties. ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... purchased for that sum, which will return in rentals four and a half per cent. The house in Paris should be included in the entail. The surplus of the two fortunes, if judiciously managed, will amply suffice for the fortunes of the younger children. If the contracting parties will agree to this arrangement, Monsieur ought certainly to accept your guardianship account with its ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac

... always made their conjunction at points equally distant, or at thirds of their orbits, it would cause a series of increasing deviations; for Jupiter would be constantly swelling his orbit at three points, and Saturn increasingly contracting his orbit at the same points. Disaster would be easily foretold. But as their times of orbital revolutions are not exactly in the ratio of five and two, their points of conjunction slowly travel around ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... exceptional temperament and an iron constitution, to have had no effect. Of middle height, broad shoulders, regular features, and decided gait, his face was tanned with the scorching air of the tropics. He had a thick black beard, and eyes lost under contracting eyebrows, giving that swift but hard glance so characteristic of insolent natures. Clothed as backwoodsmen are generally clothed, not over elaborately, his garments bore witness to long and roughish wear. On his head, stuck jauntily on one side, was a leather hat with ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... of the treaty embodied the usual and necessary obligation of such pacts—the pledge to exchange views upon any fact and economic questions of a general nature that might arise pursuant to its terms. None of the contracting parties had the right to undertake, without a previous agreement, any step the consequence of which might impose a duty upon the other signatories arising out of the Alliance, or which would in any way ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... straits, as the place was called from the river contracting, as it did in several other places, and running between two upright walls of rock. The men were some distance behind, and they had ceased to trouble about them, when, to Mark's consternation, on passing round ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... bulk of transactions are made in the midst of intense excitement, incident to rapid and sometimes violent fluctuation of values, and, although gigantic trades are made binding by only a wink or a nod, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, the contracting parties stand rigidly by their bargains, prove they good or bad. [Applause.] So much for the heroic integrity of the so-called bulls and bears. Out in the broader realm of commercial vocation, and through the wider fields of pastoral pursuit, it occurs to me this lesson ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... in a wrong or awkward form. Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than I could ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant

... protect their ears from being torn by their antagonists; for those animals which do not fight with their teeth do not thus express a savage state of mind. We may infer as highly probable that we ourselves have acquired the habit of contracting the muscles round the eyes whilst crying gently, that is, without the utterance of any loud sound, from our progenitors, especially during infancy, having experienced during the act of screaming an uncomfortable sensation in their eyeballs. Again, some highly expressive ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... the treaty between the high contracting parties, in the City of Mexico, the discussion of the subject grew interesting at the Government Boarding-House in San Francisco, and a new California was hoped for on the southern boundary. Old Spanish history was ransacked for information from the voyages of Cortez in ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston

... inspires, when Goblin clutches me by the wrist, and lays, not her skinny finger, but the handle of a key, upon her lip. She invites me, with a jerk, to follow her. I do so. She leads me out into a room adjoining—a rugged room, with a funnel- shaped, contracting roof, open at the top, to the bright day, I ask her what it is. She folds her arms,, leers hideously, and stares. I ask again. She glances round, to see that all the little company are there; sits down upon a mound of stones; throws up ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... inserts a clause in the contract to the effect that the machine will raise itself from the surface of the earth, defy the laws of gravity, and soar in the heavens at the will of the aviator, he is to say the least contracting to ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... mountains, which indeed may well satisfy the most exacting curiosity and fastidious taste, while from the summit of Mangerton (the great mountain attraction of travellers) but miniature forms of beauty present themselves, the great distance and height contracting the circle of beauty, and depriving every object of its fulness and natural proportions. From Turc mountain, on the other hand, you see the lake at your feet—all its islets, curls, cascades are within ken, entrancing your senses. Standing on that green hill, it is impossible to divest the ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... famous treaty of Vienna, the source of so many projects and expedients, of so much terrour and solicitude, of such immense expenses, and perplexed negotiations. This treaty, a paper innocent and well-meaning, which related only to the contracting parties, kept, for some time, this nation in alarms, in apprehensions of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... thus thrown back upon the resources of character, were put to terrible tests. As the intellect cannot act when the will is paralyzed, many a merchant, whose debts really bore no proportion to his property, was seen sitting, like the French prisoner in the iron cage whose sides were hourly contracting, stupidly gazing at the bars which were closing in upon him, and feeling in advance the pang of the iron which was to cut into his flesh and crush ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... generally a good safeguard against sunstroke. A long warm coat is a very necessary article of wearing apparel, especially for girls who are playing in tournaments. It should be put on immediately after a strenuous match, however hot the day. There is the great danger when overheated of contracting a chill. The coat should be of a thick warm material—blanket is very popular and serviceable—and it should reach to the end of your skirt, ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers

... God's over-ruling providence was seen in the way we, especially the children, were kept from contracting contagious diseases. The Chinese carry their children about everywhere in their arms, even when sick with ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth

... his, the new rest-house on the mountain road far up in the hills was his. He supported many monks, he gave largely to the gilding of the pagoda. If a theatrical company came that way, he subscribed freely. Soon he thought he would retire from contracting altogether, for he had enough to live on quietly for the ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... to allude to Fort Leavenworth, he always told the story of his "contracting" at Leavenworth on the corner of Fifth and Shawnee Streets. Out there at Fort Zara, Bill enjoyed himself as only Irishmen can, but his stumbling block was Captain Conkey, who was the biggest crank on earth, "take it from me," for he and I had a little ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... man!" said Dexter, his brows still contracting heavily. "But if he still hopes to rival me in Jessie's love, he will find himself vastly in error. No, no, madam! If it is for him you are interested, you had better give it up. I passed him in the ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur

... Netherlandish cities assembled in the city hall of Cologne and there prepared those memorable articles of confederation which decreed another war with King Waldemar of Denmark; stipulated the levying of a definite contingent of troops on the part of the contracting cities; provided for a duty on exports to defray the expenses of the campaign; and draughted letters of protest to the Pope, to Emperor Charles IV, and to many of the German princes. That auspicious ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... things must then have occurred, either the vitrified mass, contracting as it cooled—the centre area of fifty square miles must have burst asunder at either side from the adjoining plateau, and sunk down to its present level—leaving the two parallel gorges, or chasms, which form ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... the Bank to bad and partial payments, the giving and allowing exorbitant interest, high premiums and discounts, contracting dear and bad bargains; the general debasing and corrupting of coin, and such like, by which means things were brought to such a pass that even 8 per cent. interest on the land-tax, although payable within the year, would ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... until all Piero's debts had been paid, and that the said Piero was to remain banished to a distance of two hundred miles, and his brothers of one hundred, from the Tuscan border. After the agreement had been drawn up in regular official form, the contracting parties met in the Duomo to swear to the observance of all its clauses, and in the evening there was a general illumination of the city, although the people gave no signs of their previous good-will ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... in parliament without difficulty. The inconsiderate and interested did even think proper to ridicule their imbecility; particularly in the house of lords. The most unsuspected of all our patriots, Mr. Burke, was reduced to the necessity of so far contracting his system of reform upon this account, as to have afforded a handle to superficial raillery ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... diary. 'The day after tomorrow,' he wrote, 'is my birthday, if I am permitted to live to see it— my forty-seventh birthday since my birth. How large a portion of my life on earth is already passed! And then— what is to follow this life? How visibly my outward work seems contracting and softening away into the gentler employments of old age. In one sense how nearly can I now say, "Vivi". And I thank God that, as far as ambition is concerned, it is, I trust, fully mortified; I have no desire other than ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... probable, drawn from his own imagination or from some equally exclusive source. The Morning Post might content itself with the mere statement of the arrangement which would shortly take place, but it was St. Michael's breathless little voice that proclaimed how the contracting parties had originally met over a salmon-fishing incident, why the Guards' Chapel would not be used, why her Aunt Mary had at first opposed the match, how the question of the children's religious upbringing ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... king could not believe that this was the small beast who had seemed so friendly on the shore of the lake of quicksilver but then he knew very little of necromancy, and had never studied the art of expanding and contracting his body. But it was the dragon and nothing else, whose six wings were carrying him forward as fast as might be, considering his great weight and the length of his tail, which had fifty twists and ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... is John M. Dunphy; I reside in the city of Chicago; I have resided here for the past forty-seven years. I was city treasurer of Chicago for one term; was commissioner of buildings for one term in this city; I have been engaged in the contracting business for the past forty years; I have been in the employ of Mr. S. Krug, contractor, of Chicago, for the past three years; I am very familiar ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... Arbitration in all future differences between the contracting parties, an equal number of arbitrators to be appointed by each party from their subjects, with an umpire to be chosen ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell

... with his hand and looked across at the barrels, his face contracting with horror at the ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... length concluded the presentation of his desires, his hearer knew nothing whatever, save what was absolutely necessary, of those concerned in the matter. Utterly detached from all curiosities as he was, this crossed the Vicar's mind. There was a marriage ceremony to be performed. That only the contracting parties should be aware of its performance was absolutely necessary. That there should be no chance of opportunity given for question or comment was imperative. Apart from this the legality of the contract was all that concerned ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... of the commissary to which the MacMorrogh led the way held three men; Eckstein, and the two younger members of the contracting firm. They had heard the fusillade in the camp street and were waiting for news. Brian MacMorrogh gave it, garnished with ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... papers). Let's see. Your name, station, religion. I've got all that. You are accused of contracting a marriage with another man, knowing your first husband ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... conveyed out into the sun where I wanted to examine them. The pupils of their eyes had contracted to a most abnormal extent, even before they were exposed to the sunlight, and seemed to have almost lost the power of expanding and contracting in various lights, and although the eyes were wide opened and staring they did not seem to discern what was placed before them. The eye-ball had a yellowish tinge and the iris was not well-defined but seemed to have ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... pictures with which Babylonian writing began were soon discarded for the conventional forms, which could so easily be impressed by the stylus upon the soft clay. It is probable that the use of the clay as a writing material was first suggested by the need there was in matters of business that the contracting parties should record their names. The absence of stone made every pebble valuable, and pebbles were accordingly cut into cylindrical forms and engraved with signs. When the cylinder was rolled over a lump of wet clay, its impress remained forever. The signs became cuneiform characters, and the ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... Portugal was courteously declined, Philip of Spain was assured that his representations had decided the French Court, and immediate preparations were made for the unhappy union, whose date was to be written in blood. The double ceremony, exacted by the difference of faith in the contracting parties, was performed, as we have said, on the 18th of August 1572, the public betrothal having taken place on the preceding day at the Louvre; and it was accompanied by all the splendour of which it was susceptible. The marriage-service was performed ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... a few words, with their faces turned to the wall. None of the onlookers guessed the nature of this by-play, though their curiosity was keenly excited by the strange gestures of the two contracting parties. When Castanier returned, there was a sudden outburst of amazed exclamation. As in the Assembly where the least event immediately attracts attention, all faces were turned to the two men who had caused the sensation, and a shiver passed ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac

... is a mere detail. The parents, or those who stand in the place of parents, are the absolute masters, and therefore the high contracting powers. Sons as well as daughters are subject to this will until after marriage. It is a custom strong as statute law. If inclination coincide with parental desire, well and good; if not, a social system which rears young orphan girls to feed the insatiate lust of Paris winks ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... say," replied Douglas, "but there it is. Of course, at Gretna Green, which, as you say, is not far away, the blacksmith used to witness marriages, although his presence was unnecessary. Old stories have it that the contracting parties jumped a broomstick or a pair of tongs, or something of that sort, but whether there were any signatures I really do not know. Anyhow, the law in Scotland, as I have been informed, is that if a man and a girl agree to take each other as husband and wife, a marriage is legally performed, and ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... to the antique hymn a new character and a more scientific music [9],—gradually, in Attica, it gave way before the familiar and fantastic humours of the satyrs, sometimes abridged to afford greater scope to their exhibitions—sometimes contracting the contagion of their burlesque. Still, however, the reader will observe, that the tragedy, or goatsong, consisted of two parts—first, the exhibition of the mummers, and, secondly, the dithyrambic chorus, moving in a circle round the altar ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... " 'The Contracting Powers agree to abstain from the use of projectiles the object of which is the diffusion of ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... It is what you should expect. It is what I had in mind when I spoke of the surgeon contracting the disease. We German intellectuals know what war means; we are used to things like this." Suddenly he ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... to him: 'You seem to be so much pained at contracting so small a debt, I think I can suggest a plan by which you can avoid the debt, and at the same time attain your end. I have a large room with a double bed up-stairs, which you are very welcome to share ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... than later—supplant the practical portions of the woman's magazine, leaving only the general contents, which are equally interesting to men and to women. Hence the field for the magazine with the essentially feminine appeal is contracting rather than broadening, and it is likely to contract much ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... among the upper class, are accompanied by receptions and feasts like our own, but differ greatly in the comparatively insignificant part played by the contracting parties. Whereas, in an American wedding, the whole object of calling all these people together seems to be a desire to silhouette the bride and groom against the festive background, one comes away from a Filipino celebration with a feeling that an excuse was needed for assembling ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... the Protector's own words of what is meant by a girl who has "absconded." "It is common now, when an owner notices one of her girls contracting a continued intimacy with a male visitor (and therefore to be suspected of an intention to apply to our office for release), for the owner to sell the girl away to another country. When this has been ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... And in the same case, of one of the contracting parties being engaged in war with any other power, to prevent all the difficulties and misunderstandings, that usually arise respecting the merchandise heretofore called contraband, such as arms, ammunition, and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... differentiated; and where the growth of gender, number, and case systems, together with the development of tense and mode systems can be observed. The evolution of mind in the endeavor to express thought, by coining, combining, and contracting words and by organizing logical sentences through the development of parts of speech and their syntactic arrangement, is abundantly illustrated. The languages are very unequally developed in their several parts. Low gender systems appear with high tense systems, highly evolved ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell

... whom mental peculiarities are most frequently seen—either dullness, stupidity and ungovernable temper, or very marked talent in one direction with as marked an incapacity in others. In all epileptics, the pupils of the eye are larger than normal, and, after contracting to bright light soon ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... head and looked at me. She had a trick of contracting the corners of her eyes just a little, which ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... about 20 miles, till it reaches the S.E. edge of a great mountain plateau N. of Aristarchus, when it swerves slightly towards the S., becoming wider and wider, up to a place a few miles N. of Herodotus, where it expands into a broad valley; and then, somewhat suddenly contracting in width, and becoming less coarse, enters the ring-plain through a gap in the N. wall, as before mentioned. I always find that portion of the valley in the neighbourhood of Herodotus more or less indistinct, though ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger

... often remonstrated with her son upon the life he led, and the dissipated habits he was contracting; and several times Harry ventured to introduce the subject. Edward, however, would not hear a word from either. It is true that we either grow better or worse, as we advance in life; and Edward Flint's path was down a headlong steep. His mother wept and begged him to be a better ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... is not an empire,' answered Baburin, raising his head, and contracting his brows; 'it is a ... form of society in which everything rests on ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... motionless before the pretty widow, first contracting his eyebrows with an angry air, then, on the contrary, he endeavored to relax his thin long face into a forced smile. While these successive expressions did not tend to put an end to Blue Beard's mirth, the chevalier said to himself that for a murderess, the widow did not have such a gloomy ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... the firms offered to go down at once, although it was some two or three months ahead of the regular season for buying cattle, pick them out, and pay a cash deposit, contracting to pay the market price when the cattle were ready for sale, and that each beef was to ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish

... should, as Bertillon rightly insisted, be of the most complete description—setting forth all the anthropological traits of the contracting parties—so that the characteristics of a human group at any time and place may be studied and compared. Registration of this kind would, beside its more obvious convenience, form an almost indispensable guide to the higher evolution of the ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... arms and joining thy hands, run to him for thy good, to seek his protection. And that other man whom thou seest with long arms and tall as the full-grown Sala tree, seated on his chariot, biting his lips, and contracting his forehead so as to bring the two eye-brows together, is he,—my husband Vrikodara! Steeds of the noblest breed, plump and strong, well-trained and endued with great might, draw the cars of that warrior! His achievements are superhuman. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... desire to possess a coaling station; the possession first resulted in entanglements with other nations, and later in the question whether we ought not to withdraw; and eventually we withdrew from some of the responsibilities, but not from all. Despite its traditional policy of not contracting entangling alliances, the United States was in the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... firmly resolved to save and lay bye the farthing. They fail in this attempt as a matter of course, and hence the difficulty of making the two ends meet. If these unfortunates had been bred to the profession of engineering or "contracting," they would have known that it is what we may style a law of human nature to under-estimate probable expenses. So thoroughly is this understood by the men of the professions above referred to, that, after they have formed an estimate,—set down ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... and asked me to write him some verses that he might present her in return. I promised, but forgot; and when he called for his lines at the time agreed on—Sit still a moment, (says I) dear Mund' [see post, May 7, 1773, for Johnson's 'way of contracting the names of his friends'], 'and I'll fetch them thee—So stepped aside for five minutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep such a ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... pins; Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie, Or wedged whole ages in a bodkin's eye: Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain, While, clogg'd, he beats his silken wings in vain; 130 Or alum styptics with contracting power Shrink his thin essence like a rivell'd flower: Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel The giddy motion of the whirling mill, In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, And tremble at the sea ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... of such tremendous importance for the agricultural work that a real scientific study of the details might lead to just as much saving as the introduction of new machinery. The farmhand, who would never think of wasting his money, wastes his energies by contracting big muscles, where a better economized system of movement would allow him to reach the same result through the contraction of smaller muscles, which involves much less energy and much less fatigue. The loss by wrong bending and wrong cooerdination ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... Son to this competitor's fine Daughter with the mouth (Year 1329): 'In this manner do not Bohemia and the Tyrol come together in my blood and in yours, and both of us are made men?' said the two contracting parties.—Alas, no: the competitor Duke, father of the Bride, died some two years after, probably with diminished hopes of it; and King Johann lived to see the hope expire dismally altogether. There came no children, there came no—In fact Margaret, after ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... him, and as self-respecting as Raleigh or Sidney, except the tradition of his class, in which education or statesmanship may no doubt be acquired by those who have a turn for them, but in which insolence, derision, profligacy, obscene jesting, debt contracting, and rowdy mischievousness, give continual scandal to the pious, serious, industrious, solvent bourgeois. No other class is infatuated enough to believe that gentlemen are born and not made by a very ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw

... of black luminosity contracting his visage, cranes his scraggy neck forward. He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls.) Verfluchte Goim! He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed. Pig God! He had two left feet. He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the pope's bastard. (He leans out on tortured ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... Wasps": chapters 18 to 20.—Translator's Note.) underground, the Scolia ends by finding a Cetonia-larva, a good plump one, in the pink of condition, having reached its full growth, just what the grub which is to feed on it requires. Forthwith, the assaulted victim, contracting desperately, rolls itself into a ball. The other seizes it by the skin of the neck. To unroll it is impossible to the insect, for I myself have some trouble in doing so. One single point is accessible to the sting: the under part of the head, or rather of the first segments, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... space and grew denser, and presently a second piece was thrown off, to become in time another planet. The same process was repeated with Saturn, and then with the huge Jupiter. The nebula was always rotating and always contracting. And as it behaved, so did the planets in their turn; they spun round and cooled and contracted, and the moons were flung off from them, just as they—the planets—had been flung ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton

... to hunt wild beasts, a vast multitude of people is collected together, by whom the country is surrounded to a large extent in a great circle; and by gradually contracting this circle towards its centre, they at length collect all the included game into a small space, into which the sportsmen enter and dispatch the game ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... parchment, and sealed with wax, as is the case with treaties made by kings and diplomats—to be broken by the same; but signed with little words, and sealed with certain pressings of the hand—a treaty which between two such contracting parties would be binding enough. And by the terms of this treaty Griselda Grantly was to become Lady Lufton. Lady Lufton had hitherto been fortunate in her matrimonial speculations. She had selected Sir George for her daughter, and Sir George, with the utmost good-nature, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... it is," said his aunt. Then another paroxysm of pain seized her. She looked at Robert with a convulsed, speechless face. He held her hands more tightly, his own face contracting in sympathy, and watched his aunt with a sort of angry helplessness. But he felt as if he wanted to fight something for the sake of this poor, oppressed, innocent creature; indeed, he felt fairly blasphemous. But this time the pain passed ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... energetic as ever, but, Juliana, don't you think she is contracting a slight stoop to one side?" said Miss Charlotte. Miss ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... the animal stood, the pupils of his eyes contracting or expanding as the glow of the embers waxed or waned. Then a brand in the campfire burned through and broke with a snap, sending up a shower of sparks. Whether the sound reminded him of the rifle report of the previous night or whether ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... is delightfully invigorating, and the sojourners at this watering-place are not of that transient class which one finds at Nahant, Newport, and other pet resorts. Indeed, it is usual to spend from six to eight months on the "Island," and one has the advantage of contracting friendships which are not severed at the first approach of the "cold term"—for the particulars of which "cold term," see that funny old savant of Brooklyn Heights, who has a facetious way of telling us that it has ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... sinking lower and lower in self-respect. He was contracting a habit of drinking, and in a month or two after you had left ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... of the three contracting parties makes war on a fourth Power, the other two will maintain a benevolent neutrality. (To this Bismarck sought to add a corollary, that if two of them made war on a fourth Power, the third would equally remain neutral; but the Czar is said to have rejected this, in ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... desires, when, making use of the bitter part of the liver, to which it is akin, it comes threatening and invading, and diffusing this bitter element swiftly through the whole liver produces colours like bile, and contracting every part makes it wrinkled and rough; and twisting out of its right place and contorting the lobe and closing and shutting up the vessels and gates, causes pain and loathing. And the converse happens when ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... drives his slaves in its production, and purchases supplies of the northern freeman, whose interests are thus identified with those of the cotton grower, and the slave-holding interest becomes predominant in the country. From their habits, the people of the slave-holding States are constantly contracting more debts in the free States than they have the means of paying; so that, under the present system of intercourse, the slaveholders exercise over the free population of the north, the same control which an insolvent ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... already seen how Patrick was said to have kept a leper. Brigit also healed lepers by washing (LL, 1620), and Ruadan cleansed lepers with the water of a spring that he opened miraculously (VSH, ii, 249). Contrariwise, Munnu never washed except at Easter after contracting leprosy (VSH, ii, 237). The miraculous opening of a spring is a common incident in Irish hagiography; we have already seen an example, in ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... From time to time, as Lady Clonbrony gathered up her cards, she would direct an inquiring glance to the group of young people at the other table; whilst the more prudent Mrs. Broadhurst sat plump with her back to them, pursing up her lips, and contracting her brows in token of deep calculation, looking down impenetrable at her cards, never even noticing Lady Clonbrony's glances, but inquiring from her partner, "How many they were ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... at Linz. Published the Rudolphine tables in 1627, embodying Tycho's observations and his own theory. Made a last effort to overcome his poverty by getting the arrears of his salary paid at Prague, but was unsuccessful, and, contracting brain fever on the journey, died in ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... It shall be the duty of the Legislature to provide for the organization of cities, towns and incorporated villages, and to restrict their power of taxation, assessment, borrowing money, contracting debts and loaning their credits, so as to prevent abuses in assessment and in contracting debts by such ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... season of gloom pierced by no ray of light; with the enemy, elated by victory, pressing upon contracting frontiers; with discontent and division gnawing at the heart of the cause—the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... conference of his church, and refused to accept the decision; prohibited his people from contracting or working for the Union Pacific, and threw all his influence and efforts to the Central Pacific, which just at that time was of great moment, as there was a complete force of Mormon contractors and labourers in Salt Lake Valley competent to ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... Asquith's ill-fated Bill. Worked in conjunction with a law for the inspection of machinery and a thorough-going system of factory inspection, it has lessened accidents without leading to litigation. It neither permits contracting-out nor allows employers to escape liability by means ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... at about this time that Father Le Caron performed the first marriage ceremony in Canada, the contracting parties being Etienne Jonquest of Normandy, and Anne Hebert, eldest ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... city Kei-shui-shien, which like most cities in China offered little worthy of remark, the river divided into two branches; and at Kin-gan-foo, a city of the first order, which we passed the same night, by the river contracting suddenly the current became stronger and of course our progress slower. To track the barges it was necessary again to press a number of men; here, however, it may be observed, they undertook the service with more willingness than to the northward. The river meandered through a mountainous ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... and a long term of years necessarily elapsed before the colonial planter could even return for a short visit to his native land. The overwhelming force of public opinion against mixed marriages, and the consequent degeneration of type, from a union which lowers one of the contracting parties without raising the other, beats but faintly against these remote shores, cut off from associations which mould and modify the crudities of individual thought in regions swept by the full tide of contemporary ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... the captive seated, leaning his elbows on a table, and he took a seat opposite him and explained the pope's position: it was an embarrassing one. At the very time of contracting so important an alliance with the house of Aragon as that of Lucrezia and Alfonso, His Holiness could not avow to Ferdinand and Isabella that, for the sake of a few miserable ducats, he had signed a dispensation which would unite in the husband and wife together all the legitimate claims to a ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... firman, which, while, ameliorating their condition without distinction of religion or race, records his generous intentions towards the Christian population of his empire, and wishing to give a further proof of his sentiments in that respect, has resolved to communicate to the Contracting Parties the said firman, emanating spontaneously from ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... the lowest of our three levels, let us observe not even the simplest animal, but a single muscle. If we give a muscle electric shocks as stimuli, it responds to each shock by contracting. To a weak stimulus, the response is weak; {73} to a strong stimulus, strong. But now let us apply a long series of equal shocks of moderate intensity, one shock every two seconds. Then we shall get from the muscle what ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... reversed, the father of the bride having to provide the dowry, consisting partly in cash, partly in clothes, jewelry, and slaves. In cases of separation the dowry had, in most cases, to be returned to the wife's parents. The most appropriate age for contracting a marriage, Plato in his Republic fixes, for girls, at twenty, for men, at thirty. There was, however, no rule to this effect. Parents were naturally anxious to dispose of their daughters as early as possible, without taking objection ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... of me contracting the malady," replied Max; "I am constitutionally incapable of receiving it. I pluck the fruit or flower that grows nearest, never suffering my imagination to run away with my longings. But never mind me and my sybaritic interpretations of the tender ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... faculties of paying. What is true of generations succeeding one another at fixed epochs, as has been supposed for clearer conception, is true for those renewed daily, as in the actual course of nature. As a majority of the contracting generation will continue in being thirty-four years, and a new majority will then come into possession, the former may extend their engagements to that term, and no longer. The conclusion, then, is, that neither the representatives of a nation, nor the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... as sentimental. But when you take sentiment out of the world nothing is left worth living for, and when you get sentiment out of the heart it is nothing more or less than a pump, an old piece of rubber that has acquired the habit of contracting and dilating. But I have this consolation: The people that do not agree with me are those that ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... the price he asks. Another man, who is also anxious to get the contract, then offers to accept it on lower terms; a third man's demand is smaller still; and so they proceed until the piece of work is knocked down to the lowest bidder. By this sort of labour the contracting workman—after he has paid his expenses for assistance—seldom clears more ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... the nets. This river is about one hundred yards wide at its mouth. Its waters did not become brackish until we had ascended it seven or eight miles; but when we had passed several rivulets of fresh water which flowed in, the main stream became very salt, at the same time contracting its width to fifteen or twenty yards. At a distance of twenty-two miles, including the windings of the river, the plains commence. Having pitched the tent at this spot, we set out to visit the principal springs, and had walked about three miles when the ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... of a "compensated gold dollar" the legal weight of the gold coins would be increased or decreased from time to time to conform with the tabular standard. Still a third method would be to regulate the issue of standard paper money, contracting and expanding its amount by issue and redemption, by deposit in and withdrawal from depository banks, at regular intervals to bring prices into conformity with the tabular standard. These are as yet but distant possibilities, and for some time to come gold will continue to serve as the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... thing,' said the patient, with great gusto, 'I've tried everything under the sun to make it right, but they ain't no good; it's always expanding and a contracting of itself unbeknown to me, and throwing the bile into the stomach, which ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... by the man, being given by his parents. The wife furnished nothing for the marriage, until she had inherited it from her parents. The solemnity of the marriage consisted in nothing more than the agreement between the parents and relatives of the contracting parties, the payment of the dowry agreed upon to the father of the bride, [148] and the assembling at the wife's parents' house of all the relatives to eat and drink until they would fall down. At night the man took ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... with semiparalysis. A Cetonia-grub, pricked away from the centre on a level with the fore-legs, has her right side flaccid, spread out, incapable of contracting, while the left side swells, wrinkles and contracts. Since the left half no longer receives the symmetrical cooperation of the right half, the grub, instead of curling into the normal volute, closes its spiral on one ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... coup d'etat was Louis Bonaparte's election as President for ten years by an immense majority; late in the year he assumed the Imperial title as Napoleon III., and the Empire was formally recognised by the majority of the Powers; the Emperor designed to add to his prestige by contracting a matrimonial alliance with Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe. In the East of Europe a dispute had commenced between France and Russia about the Holy Places in Palestine. Simultaneously with the death of the Duke of Wellington, the era of European peace was destined to come to an ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... questions since 1812. But, by a mysterious process, which never fails of effect in such cases, a deal of time had been unprofitably consumed by this supposed immaculate commission. And now the high contracting parties sought an extension, that much more might be consumed in the very same way. Uncle Sam being very good-natured, the request could not ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... maintained; that if any part of North America still professing allegiance to the Crown of Britain should be reduced by the Colonies it should belong to the United States; that if France should conquer any of the British West India Islands they should be deemed its property; that the contracting parties should not lay down their arms till the independence of America was formally acknowledged, and that neither of them should conclude a peace without the consent of ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing



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