Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Lapse   /læps/   Listen
Lapse

verb
(past & past part. lapsed; pres. part. lapsing)
1.
Pass into a specified state or condition.  Synonyms: pass, sink.
2.
End, at least for a long time.
3.
Drop to a lower level, as in one's morals or standards.  Synonym: backslide.
4.
Go back to bad behavior.  Synonyms: fall back, recidivate, regress, relapse, retrogress.
5.
Let slip.
6.
Pass by.  Synonyms: elapse, glide by, go along, go by, pass, slide by, slip away, slip by.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Lapse" Quotes from Famous Books



... and on the Beowulf episode; Finn, king of the Frisians, had carried off Hildeburh, daughter of Hoc, probably with her consent. Her father, Hoc, seems to have pursued the fugitives, and to have been slain in the fight which ensued on his overtaking them. After the lapse of some twenty years Hoc's sons, Hnaef and Hengest, are old enough to undertake the duty of avenging their father's death. They make an inroad into Finn's country, and a battle takes place in which many warriors, among them Hnaef and a son of Finn, ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous

... Armstrong stepped into the room, and almost immediately she heard a sound as of a violent blow, followed by a deep groan and then all was still. She was paralyzed with horror and affright. After the lapse of a few seconds, a voice—Mrs. Armstrong's undoubtedly—asked in a tremulous tone if "all was over?" Her husband answered "Yes: but where be the keys of the writing-desk kept?" "In the little table-drawer," was the ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... shore, and soon began to ascend the mountain, winding this way and that in long zigzags, through rich vineyards and groves of mulberry trees, all planted on soil which had been formed during the lapse of ages from the disintegration and decay of the lava which had come down from the volcano above. This land was very fertile; and as both the soil itself and the rocks from which it was formed were of a rich brown color, the country looked even more fertile ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott

... explained the little man proudly. "Helps tap the unused eighty per cent. The pre-symptomatic memory is unaffected, due to automatic cerebral lapse in case of overload. I'm afraid it won't do much more than cube his present IQ, and an intelligent idiot is still an ...
— Teething Ring • James Causey

... the far-reaching consequences that ensue if the phenomena of heredity are considered as phenomena of memory. Thus, when he is dealing with the phenomena of old age (vol. i. p. 538, ed. 2) he does not ascribe them to lapse and failure of memory, nor surmise the principle underlying longevity. He never mentions memory in connection with heredity without presently saying something which makes us involuntarily think of a man missing an easy catch at cricket; it is only rarely, however, that he connects the two at ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... its place on the shelves of our religious libraries, beside Ware 'On the Christian Character,' Greenwood's 'Lives of the Apostles,' and other works to which we might refer as standard publications, the value of which is not likely to be diminished by the lapse of time or the ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen

... size and colour of the corolla are both extremely variable characters, and it can hardly be doubted that if large and brightly-coloured flowers were advantageous to any species, these could be acquired through natural selection within a moderate lapse of time, as indeed we see with most alpine plants. Papilionaceous flowers are manifestly constructed in relation to the visits of insects, and it seems improbable, from the usual character of the group, that the progenitors of the genera Vicia and Trifolium produced such minute and unattractive ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin

... family brought ale, cider, fruit, cakes, enough for a dozen men, and for some minutes Smith's attention was divided between eating and drinking and answering the questions which poured upon him in a never-ending flood. Conscious of the lapse of time, he at last said that he must go and obtain the fuel for his engine. The men rose in a ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... one state against another, to prevent their growing importance, and to serve their own interested purposes. For according to the system of policy the states shall adopt at this moment, they will stand or fall; and by their confirmation or lapse, it is yet to be decided, whether the revolution must ultimately be considered a blessing or a curse:—a blessing or a curse not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... not surprised when Arthur offered to accompany her. She was aware that a powerful magnet in the person of Louison attracted him across the ocean, and when the young nobleman landed in France again, after the lapse of a few months, he was accompanied by a handsome young wife, whom the old Marquis of Montferrand warmly welcomed to the home of his fathers—for was she not a scion of the house of Fougereuse, and the sole heiress of all the property of that family? Louison's uncle, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... surpass; but the masses grew up in superstition, and the Christian Church, which entered on the inheritance of Neoplatonism, was compelled to reckon with that and come to terms with it. Just when the bankruptcy of the ancient civilisation and its lapse into barbarism could not have failed to reveal themselves, a kindly destiny placed on the stage of history barbarian nations, for whom the work of a thousand years had as yet no existence. Thus the fact is ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... prejudice greatly concurred. He had the notion that it was precisely the same with pictures as with Rhenish wines, which, though age may impart to them a higher value, can be produced in any coming year of just as excellent quality as in years past. After the lapse of some time, the new wine also becomes old, quite as valuable and perhaps more delicious. This opinion he chiefly confirmed by the observation that many old pictures seemed to derive their chief value for lovers of art from the fact that they had become darker and browner, and that the harmony ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... there is no necessity to enter into the question," the doctor answered. "The boy's lapse of memory refers, as I told you, to his past life—that is to say, his life when his intellect was deranged. During the extraordinary interval of sanity that has now declared itself, he is putting his mental powers to ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... and abetting the escape of a slave. Many colored men, for no other crime than that of giving aid to a fugitive slave, have, like Charles T. Torrey, perished in prison. The abolition of slavery in my native State and throughout the country, and the lapse of time, render the caution hitherto observed no longer necessary. But even since the abolition of slavery, I have sometimes thought it well enough to baffle curiosity by saying that while slavery existed there were good reasons for not telling the manner of my escape, and since slavery had ...
— Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass • Frederick Douglass

... that he lived and died in the days of the Crusades to the Holy Land. Although his name was still kept in remembrance, his Cave and Chapel had long been deserted and overgrown with bushes and weeds, while the overhanging trees hid it completely from view. But after a lapse of hundreds of years St. Robert's Cave was destined to come into greater prominence than ever, because of the sensational discovery of the remains of the victim of Eugene Aram, which was accidentally brought to light after long years, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... receiving great encouragement from the natives when he first starts in a district. At first the converts flock in, get baptised in batches, go to church, attend school, and adopt European clothes with an alacrity and enthusiasm that frequently turns their devoted pastor's head, but after the lapse of a few months their conduct is enough to break his heart. Dressing up in European clothes amuses the ladies and some of the young men for a long time, in some cases permanently, but the older men and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... forever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... the extraordinary state of preservation of these ruins after so vast a lapse of time— at least six thousand years—it must be remembered that Kor was not burnt or destroyed by an enemy or an earthquake, but deserted, owing to the action of a terrible plague. Consequently the houses were left unharmed; also the climate of the plain is remarkably fine and dry, and ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... superior to humanity. He remained immovable in the same attitude for an hour, and no consolation which I endeavoured to afford him seemed to reach his ears, far less his heart. But enough of this sad episode, on which I cannot linger, even after the lapse of so many years, without renewing in my own heart the awful wretchedness of that day. He desired to be left alone, and I was obliged to leave him. I found him on the following morning tranquillized, and with an expression of religious resignation on his features. 'She is more fortunate than we ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various

... power of any one, by a careless transportation of these honored remains, to lose a relic, connected with an event which formed the most glorious epoch of Spanish history, and that it might be manifested to all nations, that Spaniards, notwithstanding the lapse of ages, never ceased to pay all honors to the remains of that "worthy and adventurous general of the seas;" nor abandoned them, when the various public bodies, representing the Spanish dominion, emigrated from the island. As he had not time, without great inconvenience, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... certain vague satisfaction in their newly discovered rascality—all these spurred them on to make the most of their opportunities. One step in the direction they had taken leads so easily to another, that now they had reached a point in their moral lapse where they would stop at nothing—not even the taking of life—to win that on which they ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins

... day went heavily by, without anything to mark the lapse of time, but the decline and reappearance of the light that feebly glimmered through the narrow window of the dungeon in which the unfortunate alchymist was buried rather than confined. His mind was harassed with uncertainties and fears about his daughter, so ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... the alarming ordeal I was so soon to undergo, let me present to the reader a slight sketch of myself, mental and bodily; and, as mind ought to take precedence of matter, I will attempt, as far as I am able after the lapse of time, to paint my character in true colours, "nought extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice". I was, then, as the phrase goes, "a very well-behaved young gentleman"; that is, I had a great respect for all properly constituted ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... mind the year—you could speak no English, and when next I saw you, after a lapse of two years, you would prattle no French; when again we met, you were the nymph with bright and flowing hair, which frightened his Highness Prince James out of his feline senses, when, as you came in by the door, he made his bolt by the window. It was then that you entreated ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... won't!' joined in Queenie comprehendingly. 'Miss Muffet's jints are giving way, too. Just look, Binks!' She held up for inspection an elaborately dressed lady, whose arms and legs were in such a tremulous condition that their total lapse from the body to which they belonged ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... long been parted, once more engaged in the same round of familiar avocations, once more re-acting the thousand little trifles of life which we have so often acted before, and that, too, in company with those who now sit beside us, as if to mock the lapse of intervening years. These meetings seem to steal a pinion from time's wing, and hard indeed were it if the sensations they called forth were not pleasurable ones; for oh! how rudely and frequently, on the other hand, are ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... Two Brothers, I continued nearly a twelvemonth; and here I got acquainted with nautical terms, and contracted a love for the sea, which a lapse of thirty years ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... be. They are not burning with a desire for souls. They go through their ministerial duties in a formal, lifeless manner, and their labors are barren of results. These things should not be so, but unfortunately they are. As a result, children grow up ignorant of their covenant with God, or soon lapse therefrom, and are in an unconverted state. The communicants of the church lose their first love, and become ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding

... After the lapse of many years, I close my eyes, and leaning back in my chair listen again to my comrade as with tremulous voice he reads the fatal letter.—"Monsieur, you once did me a priceless service. I have never forgotten—shall never forget. Believe me, monsieur, ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx

... everything material. Man's reason is not subjected to the fate of the lower psychical functions, which, as the "form" of the body, perish with the body; it enters from without, and it endures after the body has passed away. It is interesting to note, however, an occasional lapse even in Aristotle. When he comes to speak of the relation to the world of the Divine Mind, the First Cause of Motion, which he conceives as pure Reason, he represents it as touching the world, although it remains itself untouched. We seem to find here just a flavor—an ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... difficult—marches through a mountainous country and in bad weather always take incomparably longer than is expected—the delay may be due not to lack of energy but to the inevitable friction of movement. The mere lapse of time throws no light on the Boer plan, for though sound strategy counsels rapidity in the decisive blow, rapidity is a relative term, the pace varying with the Army, ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson

... shape a sigh for thee! O'er the waves, among the flowers, Through the lapse of odorous hours, Breathes a lonely, longing sound, As of something sought, unfound: Lorn are all things, lorn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... branch off into a graphic description of her own maladies, to which Ellen was fain to listen patiently, wondering vaguely as she listened whether the lapse of years would render her as wearisome a person as ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... said before, finding at each repetition some new comment to make, some new point upon which to agree, after the manner of people who are very fond of each other. The hours slipped by, and they were unconscious of the lapse of time. The great clocks of the neighbouring church towers tolled eleven, twelve, and one o'clock, and yet they had more to say, and did not even notice the loud ringing of the hundred bells. The day was clear, and the bright sunlight streamed in through the high windows, ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... hand, a look of perplexity on his face. He felt committed for labor; glad was he, very, yet perplexed. He did not in the least know where to commence. Well, neither had this little lady; yet she had accomplished more in her one day's acquaintance than he after a lapse of weeks. Either she had found opportunities, or had made them. There must be chances; he would be sure to keep his ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... curiosity had been too fully roused. My relationship to the world of people outside St. Peter's had been definitely re-established by the kindly, rather childlike, bushman, and would not again be allowed to lapse. The mere talk of swimming to the wharf, of cutting the painter, of walking forth into the real world which was not ruled by a Sister-in-charge—all this had wrought a permanent ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... I tried to believe it. Then I thought to myself: "Henry himself is not quite what is understood by 'an actor of physique,' and certainly he is popular. And that he is a great actor I know. He certainly has both imagination and 'sense and sensibility.'" After the lapse of years I begin to wonder if Henry was ever really popular. It was natural to most people to dislike his acting—they found it queer, as some find the painting of Whistler—but he forced them, almost against ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... of pain and pleasure, strangely mingled, when Willoughby and Maud reached the rocks, and got a first view of the ancient Beaver Dam. All the buildings remained, surprisingly little altered to the eye by the lapse of years. The gates had been secured when they left the place, in 1776; and the Hut, having no accessible external windows, that dwelling remained positively intact. It is true, quite half the palisadoes were rotted down; but the Hut, itself, had resisted the ravages of ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... only in the all-creating power of God, who shall stand here a hundred years hence, to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country, during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of New England's advancement. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... goaded by some other unacknowledged desire? And if Gyges had not been the handsomest young man in all Asia would she have evinced the same ardour in punishing Candaules for having outraged the sanctity of marriage? That is a delicate question to resolve, especially after a lapse of three thousand years; and although we have consulted Herodotus, Hephaestion, Plato, Dositheus, Archilochus of Paros, Hesychius of Miletus, Ptolomaeus, Euphorion, and all who have spoken either at length or in only a few words concerning Candaules, Nyssia, ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... entertain contrary opinions about the notions, if he does not mean to uphold anything at variance with faith. If, however, anyone should entertain a false opinion of the notions, knowing or thinking that consequences against the faith would follow, he would lapse into heresy. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... you take of the origin of sight, hearing, voice, the wonder to a thoughtful mind is just the same; how, under the storm of circumstances, and through the lapse of ages, those faculties have not been lost again and again, by countless individuals, nay, by the whole species. For we must confess that those faculties are gradually developed in each individual; that every animal ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... the span between the canyon's mouth. Interested, gripped in the contagion of the excitement round him, he kept his eyes upon the distant specks until the sun had changed to another angle. But even after this lapse of time, so distant were the horsemen, so wide the canyon's mouth, they had traveled only half-way across the span. Yet he continued to watch, wondering at the nervousness around him, conscious of steadily increasing ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... 1832—recommending Borrow to the secretary, the Rev. Andrew Brandram. How little he knew of Borrow is indicated by the fact that he referred to him as 'independent in circumstances.' Brandram told Caroline Fox many years afterwards that Gurney had effected the introduction, but this was merely a lapse of memory. In fact we find Borrow asking to be allowed to meet Gurney before his departure. In any case he has himself told us, in one of the brief biographies of himself that he wrote, that he promptly walked to London, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... So thou attend the enriching Fate Which none can stay, and none accelerate. I am neither faint nor weary, Fill thy will, O faultless heart! Here from youth to age I tarry,— Count it flight of bird or dart. My heart at the heart of things Heeds no longer lapse of time, Rushing ages moult their wings, Bathing ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... down the road, the excited voice of a newspaper-boy came to him. Presently the boy turned the corner, shouting, "Ker-lapse of Surrey! Sensational bowling ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse

... Espana, Peru, and the Filipinas, which receive annually two million pesos of silver; all of this wealth passes into the possession of the Chinese, and is not brought to Espana, to the consequent loss of the royal duties, and injury to the inhabitants of the Filipinas; and the greatest loss, with the lapse of time, will be that rebounding upon the Yndias themselves. All the projects and prohibitions that have been devised to remedy this loss serve but to inflict still greater injury, and to cause ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags—fails—a revulsion ensues—and then the poem is, in effect, and in ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... of pessimism, a sudden conviction of the undeniable prose of life, a lapse of the illusion which sustains youth midway between heaven and earth, a desperate attempt to reconcile herself with facts—she could only recall a moment, as of waking from a dream, which now seemed to her a moment of surrender. But who could give reasons such as these for doing ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... in House of Commons, a spacious dining-hall cunningly contrived with lack of acoustical properties that make it difficult to hear what a conversational neighbour is saying. In time of political stress this useful, as preventing lapse into controversy at the table. Homeward bound from his last Antarctic trip, ERNEST SHACKLETON discovered three towering peaks of snow and ice. One he named Mount Asquith; another Mount Henry Lucy; a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various

... museum. Whatever of strange, grotesque, and curious, Calmadys of past generations had collected in their wanderings, by land and sea, found lodgment here. It was a home of half-forgotten histories, of valorous deeds grown dim through the lapse of years; a harbour of refuge for derelict gods, derelict weapons, derelict volumes, derelict instruments which had once discoursed sweet enough music, but the fashion of which had now passed away. The somewhat obsolete ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... narrative will have seen, that after many untoward occurrences, and a considerable lapse of time, that friendly intercourse with the natives which had been so earnestly desired was at length established; and having never been materially interrupted, these remote islanders have been shown living in considerable ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... those demands, and because Tadoussac also was not sufficient to meet all the expenditure contemplated to give war to the Iroquois, he it was also who began in not paying the thousand weight in beaver owing for seignorial right to the Company who was irritated and blamed his conduct, and after the lapse of some years his friends write him they could not longer shield him he anticipated his recall in returning to France, where he has since served as sub-dean of the Council, residing at the cloister of Notre-Dame with his son, canon ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... no history so trustworthy as that prepared by contemporary writers, especially by those who have themselves been actively engaged in the events which they relate. Such history never loses its interest, nor does the lapse of ages, in the least degree, impair its credibility. While the documents can be preserved, Xenophon's Retreat of the Ten Thousand, Caesar's Gallic War, and the Dispatches of the Duke of Wellington, will be as trustworthy as on the day they were written. Yet ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... theii marriage. It was accordingly celebrated; and this island, which after the name of the genie princess was called Tukkalla, was fixed upon for the place of their residence. Its magnificent palace still remains, after the lapse of many ages, and is at present in my possession. Here 1 hope to meet my only daughter, whom I brought to reside in it nearly a year ago, to secure her from the attempts of a young courtier, on whom she had, against ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... know, however, that, at my time of life, and after a lapse of thirty years, I should have been roused to the arrangement of the papers which I have combined to form this narrative, had I not met with the work of Madame Campan upon ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... he, honey? an you am poor? Tut! tut! dat is too bad for de son of ole Marser Tom!" said the old crone, after the lapse of half an hour in which both tongues had ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... perceive in the tone of this letter that its writer was not an accepted lover. His interests with the lady, despite Miss Seward's watchful care, were already declining; and the lapse of a few months more reduced him to the level of a valued and entertaining friend, whose civilities were not to pass the conventional limits of polite intercourse. To Andre this fate was very hard. He was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... promontory, until your eye rests upon a long ridge of snowy foam, where a stream of considerable magnitude mingles its waters with those of the river. Glancing a little way up this stream, a huge old mill presents itself to view, blackened with exposure, and grown picturesque by the lapse of years. Here and there the green moss adorns its roof, and slumbers along the walls with a quaint richness, especially where the heavy water-wheel, revolving in a sea of foam, keeps it shadowy ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... able to trace with any accuracy or satisfaction that portion or branch of the O'Reilly family to which my hero belonged. The dreary lapse of time, and his removal from the country, have been the means of sweeping into oblivion every thing concerning him, with the exception of his love for Miss Folliard, and its strange consequences. Even tradition is silent upon that part of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Death and Change told of its lapse among the family at Langley Hall. Five years after the events above related, Mr. Langley died; and was followed to the grave, shortly afterwards, by his wife. Of their two sons, the eldest was rising into good practice at the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... at will. And leaning on their own creative power, As on the confident arm of buoyant Love. But from the climbing of their wildering way Many have faltered, fallen,—some have died, Still wooing from across the lapse of years The faded splendour of a morning dream, And feeding sorrow with remembered smiles. Love, that pale passion-flower of the heart, Nursed into bloom and beauty by a breath, With the resplendence of its broken light, Even on the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... aim of Spirit. This result it is at which the process of the world's history has been continually aiming, and to which the sacrifices that have ever and anon been laid on the vast altar of the earth, through the long lapse of ages, have been offered. This is the only aim that sees itself realized and fulfilled, the only pole of repose amid the ceaseless change of events and conditions, and the sole efficient principle ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... graduated at the Universities or received holy orders, all lawyers, and all magistrates, should take the oath of supremacy when tendered to them, on pain of forfeiture and imprisonment during the royal pleasure. After the lapse of three mouths, the oath might again be tendered to them; and if it were again refused, the recusant was guilty of high treason. A prospective law, however severe, framed to exclude Catholics from the liberal professions, would have been ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... as was natural, tended to be lower with the lapse of time and the growth of wealth. In the age of the Babylonian empire and the Persian conquest the normal rate was, however, still as high as 1 shekel a month upon each maneh, or twenty per cent. ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... lacking the influence of her presence, even Vagabondia lost something of its charm. So sometimes he was guilty of the impoliteness of slipping into half-unconscious reveries of a few minutes' duration, and, being thus guilty upon one particular occasion, he was roused, after a short lapse of time, through the magnetic influence of a pair of soft eyes fixed upon him, which eyes he encountered the instant he looked ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the starry heights. Yes, let us believe that, for some days at least, John's mind was overcast, his faith lost its foothold, and he seemed to be falling into bottomless depths. He sent them to Jesus, saying, Art Thou He that should come? We can easily trace this lapse of faith to ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... with Maggie, but Maggie viewed the lapse with considerable relief. Billy of the night before awed her in spite of herself. Billy of the morning after cast no ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... both righteousness and men, O Bharata, decay in consequence of the gradual lapse of Yuga, and when the world becomes afflicted by robbers, how, O Grandsire, should ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... twined fortunes? Deeps of unhewn woods Alone can cherish thee, alone possess Thy quiet, teeming vigor. This our crime: Not to have worshipped, marred by alien moods That sole condition of all loveliness, The dreaming lapse of slow, unmeasured time. ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell

... South has been dwelt upon, perhaps, at too great length. But it was, in real truth, the literature of the South. To sum it up may be repeated, after a lapse of twenty-five years—that sentence from the preface to my "South Songs," which raised such ire among irreconcilables of the southern press:—"In prose of all kinds, the South stood still, during the war; perhaps retrograded. But her ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... finally, not being stopped by our pleased tutor,[E] page after page, till I finally went through in that way the greater part of the eleven recitations of the week. The celebrated passage on the Memory happened to be included. A portion of it, after the lapse of forty-seven years, remains in my recollection as distinctly as it did the day after I learned it. I refer to the passage beginning, 'Thus the ideas, as well as children, of our youth often die before us; and our minds represent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... spirited him away, and I believe he fled to the far West. His relatives declared at the time that he had gone crazy on account of a blow on the head, and believed he had a mission to kill white men. This was likely true. And now, after a lapse of five years, the fellow wandered back to this neighborhood and fired ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... probably because he thought they might give offence needlessly to living persons; but the withheld memoranda were all carefully preserved and passed into the hands of some of his descendants in New Jersey, and have after this long lapse of time been published at last. They tell us with painful accuracy of the petty annoyances constantly inflicted upon Napoleon, and of the impatience and fretfulness with which, day after day, he resented them and complained of them. We seem to live with the great dethroned Emperor ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... that is what it was now becoming—but he knew nothing of the struggles that had gone to their making. During the latter part of the term his conduct had not been by any means "unexceptionable"; but it was part of Gabrielle's queer policy of secrecy to hide any lapse on Arthur's part from her husband. She tackled them alone, forcing herself, against her own compassionate instincts, to play upon Arthur's feelings. She had now discovered that where appeals to general morality, or even to reason, were bound to fail, the least ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young

... how invariably do we find that the memory is true to what the place appeared to us when children, and hardly to be recognised when our ideas and powers of mind have been developed and enlarged in proportion with our frames. Is it possible? thought I, when I returned, after a lapse of fifteen years, to the house of my childhood out of mere curiosity, for my family had long quitted it. Is this the pond which appeared so immense to my eyes, and this the house in my memory so vast? Why it is a nutshell! I presume ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... The lapse of forty years and the important events of intervening history give the opportunity for impartial judgment concerning the policy of acquiring Texas. We were not guiltless towards Mexico in originally ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... marked the lapse of time. Mrs. Reeve did not recover from the "twist in her inside." In answer to her appeal, a brother-in-law in the north took charge of her two remaining children, and then she died. It was about three years after Alfred had entered the school. ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... with a prayer, and recited the morning devotions instead of the evening devotions by mistake, a lapse of which the rector, however, took no notice. The Amen was no sooner uttered than the youngsters, with a wild yell, made a solid rush for the door, bearing in mind Mr. Korde's laudable habit on such occasions of lambing it into the hindermost by way of ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... voyage when only a little child, and he looked upon America as his birthplace. The French language was certainly not the first he had learned, for he still remembered a limited number of English phrases. The English word "father" was among those that lingered in his memory; and now, after a lapse of twenty years, he pronounced it without the least foreign accent. But while he remembered the word perfectly well, no recollection remained to him of the person he had called by that name. His first sensations were those of hunger, weariness, and cold. He recollected, ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... which Briggs and his satellites had prepared for us. Everybody was in the best of spirits, for the men had not only worked well but had also displayed a very manifest desire to eradicate, by their behaviour, the bad impression that had been produced by their recent lamentable lapse from the path of rectitude. Excellent progress had also been made in the task of lightening the ship, and, finally, the savages had shown no disposition to interfere with us. There was consequently a good deal of lively chatter during the progress of the meal, and when it was over the piano ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... the dishes cleaned in salt water and sand, the guardian gave thought to their next move. But she was in no haste. The girls were allowed plenty of time to rest and digest their hearty meal, which they did by sitting in the sand with the sun beating down on them. After the lapse of an hour she told the girls to ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge

... than a leaf. I found it with some trouble, for the weather and the rubbing of the wind-stirred sand had worn even the Ethiopian stone. Having found it, I pressed on it with all my strength in a certain fashion. Even after the lapse of many years the stone swung round, showing a little opening, through which a man might scarcely creep. As it swung, a mighty bat, white in colour as though with unreckoned age, and such as I had never seen before for bigness, for his measure was the measure of a hawk, flew forth and for ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... was passing; and though now and then Norman's letters, carrying sentences of remembrance, made her glow a little, she was so steady to her resolution that she averted all traffic in messages through her brother's correspondence, and, in that fear, allowed it to lapse into Margaret's hands more than she had ever done. Indeed, no one greatly liked writing from home, it was heartless work to say always, "No news from the Alcestis" and yet they all declared they were ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... after a long lapse of years I feel that this is not the natural talk of a boy of sixteen, and as I write, I ask myself whether I have not incorrectly recorded our conversation. It is true I only write from memory; nevertheless, I think I have faithfully described what was said. Really, Wilfred was never ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... not suffice to explain everything in the Bible, such imperfection does not spring from its own nature, but from the fact that the path which it teaches us, as the true one, has never been tended or trodden by men, and has thus, by the lapse of time, become very difficult, and almost impassable, as, indeed, I have shown in the difficulties ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza

... her—unless you outlaw yourself from your native country—strip yourself of your citizenship—declare yourself unworthy to be a son of the land that gave you birth. Even if you perpetrated such a civil crime, you would render no service to Annie. Your right would simply lapse to the son of Herbert Hyde—the young man ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... dregs and feculence of every land. In cities, foul example on most minds Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds In gross and pampered cities sloth and lust, And wantonness and gluttonous excess. In cities, vice is hidden with most ease, Or seen with least reproach; and virtue, taught By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there, Beyond the achievement of successful flight. I do confess them nurseries of the arts, In which they flourish most; where, in the beams Of warm encouragement, and in the eye Of public note, they reach their perfect size. Such London ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... shells, the remains of "infinitely multiplied generations of shelled animals which have lived in this place, and have there successively deposited their debris." He therefore supposes that these remains, "continually heaped up, have formed these shell banks, become fossilized after the lapse of considerable time, and in which it is often possible to distinguish different beds." He then continues his line of anti-catastrophic reasoning, and we must remember that in his time facts in biology and geology were feebly grasped, and scientific reasoning or induction ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... strange to Hector Garret to be sensible of Bridget's lapse from his side,—to hear the present mistress, the subdued diligent woman, canonized to the level of the grand, glad lady of Otter to whom Bridget had been so long fanatically loyal. He said to himself that the child had helped to effect it, the precious descendant, the doted-on ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... did not even have any moats then; these were dug after the English invasion of 1762. The walls were also rearranged at that time, and perfected with the lapse of time and the needs that ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... were heaped upon him. Having left France as a captain, he came back a rear-admiral; and immediately after his return the king created a fourth vice-admiralship, a special post to be filled by Suffren, and to lapse at his death. These honors were won by himself alone; they were the tribute paid to his unyielding energy and genius, shown not only in actual fight but in the steadfastness which held to his station through every discouragement, and rose equal to every demand made by ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... error that the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Greeks have erred in introducing such gods as these, and making images thereof, and deifying dumb and senseless idols. I marvel how, when they behold their gods being sawn and chiselled by workmen's axes, growing old and dissolving through lapse of time, and molten in the pot, they never reflected concerning them that they are no gods. For when these skill not to work their own salvation, how can they take care of mankind? Nay, even the poets and philosophers among the Chaldeans, Greeks and Egyptians, although by their poems and ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... always—I break down sometimes. But, upon the whole, recollection holds me to it: dread of a lapse. Nothing is so potent ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... was wont to watch, lynx-eyed, the spot where these consecrated bullets were placed, and afterward carried them in a separate buckskin bag over his heart, and mentally called them his "kisses;" for the youths of those days were even such fools as now, although in the lapse of time they have come to pose successfully in the dignified guise of the "wise patriots of the pioneer period." More than once when the station was attacked and the women loaded the guns of the men to expedite the shooting, she kept stanchly at his elbow throughout the thunderous ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... compatriots, there was absolutely no possibility of turning these into aspirations of practical account, and thus in practice I remained an efficient aid esteemed by all and feared by none. My sudden breaking away was looked upon as a lapse, and I was in fact more pitied than scorned. I was said to have fallen prey to an ambitious, selfish woman, as indeed sometimes happened to ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... poetry, not to speak of the inarticulate suggestions of the plastic arts. He will at once make for the principles which art cannot express, even if it can embody them, and when those principles are attained, the works of art, if they had no other value than that of suggesting them, will lapse from his mind. Forms will give place to formulas as hieroglyphics have given place to the letters ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... respectable, so odious, so infamous, that they will practically disappear. There are certain of the older forms of sin which the race in its long struggle upward has so effectually blacklisted that only a few perverts now lapse into them; we have execrated out of existence whole classes of cruelty and vice. But with the changing and ever more complex relations of society new forms of sin continually creep in; these we have not yet come to brand with the odium they deserve. Leaders of society and pillars ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... manner described for intrenched camps. It has sometimes happened, however, that these lines have had the relief and proportions of permanent works; and in this case escalade would be quite difficult, except of old earthen works whose slopes were worn away from the lapse of time and had become accessible for infantry of moderate activity. The ramparts of Ismail and Praga were of this character; so also was the citadel of Smolensk, which Paskevitch so gloriously defended ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... Hallam describes Gilbert as "at once the father of experimental philosophy in this island, and by a singular felicity and acuteness of genius, the founder of theories which have been revived after the lapse of ages, and are almost universally received into the creed of science." Gilbert, who always signs his name Gilberd or Gylberd in the College books, was Senior Bursar of the College in 1569, and President in ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott

... Franklin was about seven years of age, which left so indelible an impression upon his mind, that it cannot be omitted in any faithful record of his life. He gave the following account of the event in his autobiography, written after the lapse of sixty-six years: ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... no breathing time. And do you order us to forget them (for such forgetfulness is contrary to nature), and at the same time deprive us of the only assistance which nature affords, the being accustomed to them? For that, though it is but a slow medicine (I mean that which is brought by lapse of time), is still a very effectual one. You order me to employ my thoughts on something good, and forget my misfortunes. You would say something worthy a great philosopher if you thought those things good which are best suited to ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... misconduct to neglect duty to conform to the consuetudes of the hour. We must endeavour in practical life to carry out to the best of our ability our philosophical and ethical convictions, for any lapse in such endeavour is what constitutes immorality. We must live consistently with theory so long as our chief purpose in life is advanced by so doing, but we must be inconsistent when by antinomianism ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon

... Louisa did not leave their country empty handed. Her Parents, 'tis supposed, gave Louisa money, but what sum, after this long lapse of time, is uncertain. Nor does tradition say for how much Marion sold his little farm. But it is well known that on their arrival in Carolina, they went up into the country, and bought a plantation on Goose Creek, near Charleston, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... he worked well, and the planter wondered. Deesa had vagabonded along the roads till he met a marriage procession of his own caste and, drinking, dancing, and tippling, had drifted past all knowledge of the lapse of time. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... in 1888 the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. It consisted in reducing afresh, with the aid of the most refined modern data, Bradley's original stars, and comparing their places thus obtained for the year 1755 with those assigned to them from observations made at Greenwich after the lapse of ninety years. In the interval, as was to be anticipated, most of them were found to have travelled over some small span of the heavens, and there resulted a stock of nearly three thousand highly authentic proper motions. These ample ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... restitution would yet come. By all opinions and in all places he was regarded as a harmless madman, whose strange delusions and predilections were not to be combated, but to be indulged. Thus he wandered through the Christian world; regardless alike of lapse of time and change of climate; living within himself; mourning, as a luxury, over the fall of his worship; patient of wrongs, insults, and disappointments; watching for the opportunity that he still persisted in believing was yet to arrive; ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... ascension indicates that it was part of the recognised Christian beliefs, and implies that it had been familiar long before the date of this Epistle, which itself dates from not more than at the most thirty years from the death of Christ. Surely that lapse of time is far too narrow to allow of such a belief having sprung up, and been universally accepted about a dead man, who all the while was lying in a ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... day, and ate unlimited quantities of pastry, he would still be what he describes as free from superfluous flesh. I call it scraggy. Smith is one of the men set apart by nature to perpetuate the Don Quixote type of beauty, just as I am doomed with the lapse of time to approximate the Falstaffian type. Smith's five sisters and brothers are thin. His father was slight and neurasthenic. His mother was spare and angular. Little wonder the Smith family is fond of walking. Friction ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... him he had reached home. He alighted in silence, and passed into his house without a word. How he reached his apartment he never knew, but the following morning found him raging with fever and delirious. When he had sufficiently recovered, after the lapse of a few days, to admit of his reading the numerous letters awaiting his attention, one was put into his hand which had been brought on the second night after the one of the memorable ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... his colour, and attributed it to the embarrassment of a scrupulously gallant gentleman caught in a lapse of attention to a lady. "Don't be disturbed," she said, benevolently. "People aren't expected to listen all the time to their relatives. A high colour's very becoming to you, Arthur; but it really isn't necessary between cousins. You can always be informal enough with us ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... and Mav had stopped teasing him about them. She only warned him of what he knew was Gospel truth—that the little failures were more frequent under hurry or excitement, and that when deeply moved he had a tendency to lapse badly toward the ancient ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... The lapse of many months had now soothed, and tranquillized my mind, and I once more returned to the translation to which a wish to serve a young man surrounded with difficulties, had induced a number of respectable characters to set their names: but alas, what a mortification! I now discovered, for the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various

... lengthened in accordance with the longings that are of thought from affection. From this, also, comes the expression, "spaces of time." Moreover, in cases where thought does not join itself to its proper affection in man, as in sleep, the lapse of ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... that you had to perform this or that labor." Whether you understand the "elements of the world" to mean the Law of Moses, or the religions of the heathen nations, it makes no difference. Those who lapse from the Gospel to the Law are no better off than those who lapse from grace into idolatry. Without Christ all religion is idolatry. Without Christ men will entertain false ideas about God, call their ideas what you like, the laws of Moses, the ordinances of the Pope, the Koran of ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... Truedale commanded, Lynda found a certain relief. These visits were like grim plays, to be sure, but they were also sacred duties. This one, after the lapse of time filled with new and strange emotions, was a bit grimmer than usual, but it had the effect of a tonic upon the ragged nerves of the ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... commonplaces about people being happiest who have fewest wants. As if, on the contrary, that action which he describes as the true element of man, were not directly connected with the incessant multiplication of wants. We may take this, however, as a casual lapse into the common form of moralists of ascetic ages. In substance the System of Nature is essentially a protest against ascetic and ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... and the book was considered one of the popular successes of the day. The real author of this book was, of course, Washington Irving. When forty years later the book was to be included in his collected works he wrote an "Apology," in which he says, "When I find, after a lapse of nearly forty years, this haphazard production of my youth still cherished among them (the New Yorkers); when I find its very name become a 'household word,' and used to give the home stamp to ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... respect; and he encouraged citizens to despise their government if they were not governed by wise men. To the aristocracy of philosophers he assigned a boundless prerogative; but as no government satisfied that test, his plea for despotism was hypothetical. When the lapse of years roused him from the fantastic dream of his Republic, his belief in divine government moderated his intolerance of human freedom. Plato would not suffer a democratic polity; but he challenged all existing authorities to justify themselves before a superior tribunal; he desired that all ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... a doubt. And a very cunningly devised scheme it was, too, ably planned and most efficiently executed—the enticement of the mate into the forecastle by the suggestion of fire; then, after just the right lapse of time, the fictitious message to the skipper through me, followed by the summons of the second mate, and, finally, the capture of my insignificant self. It was much too subtle a scheme to be evolved by the uninventive ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... organic aggregate, whether considered individually or as a continuously existing species, is modified afresh by each fresh distribution of external forces. To its pre-existing differentiations new differentiations are added; and thus that lapse to a more heterogeneous state, which would have a fixed limit were the circumstances fixed, has its limits perpetually removed by the perpetual change of the circumstances. These modifications upon modifications, which result in evolution, structurally considered, are the accompaniments of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... elsewhere, to save from destruction one drawing by Hokee. Again I say that all we deem sublime in the world's history are acts, of injustice; and it is certain that if mankind does not relinquish at once, and for ever, its vain, mad, and fatal dream of justice, the world will lapse into barbarism. England was great and glorious, because England was unjust, and England's greatest son was ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... contribution to the social agreeableness of London. If in now endeavouring to recall their characteristic gifts I use words which I have used before, my excuse must be that the contemporary record of a personal impression cannot with advantage be retouched after the lapse of years. ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... barricaded the door of the church. The delegates that had come to ordain him, not being able to effect an entrance through the door, entered by a window. Henderson was that day settled as the pastor of an absent congregation. In the lapse of time he won the people. He was faithful and powerful as a preacher of the Word, and the Lord Jesus honored him in ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... after the lapse of centuries of murder, rapine, and robbery on the high seas, did the Pirate City receive a fatal blow, from which it never completely recovered. It revived a little, indeed, in after years, and made a struggle to renew its old strength and resume its old ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... series of critical experiments. In general the conclusions of science where experiment cannot be used depend on the method of agreement, especially in the larger theories in biology and geology, where the lapse of unnumbered centuries is necessary to bring about changes. In physics, in chemistry, in medicine, on the other hand, critical experiments are generally possible, and so progress is by the method of difference. In such subjects as political science and government, where experiment is out ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... authority in this land; but everyone holds his own view and opinion, and does as he prefers. There were some persons more powerful than I, for, without license from me, they violated the peace and friendship, thus obliging me to be guilty of a lapse of duty. But if it had not been done in this wise, and they had done it with my approbation and advice, I would merit punishment. If I were king of this land, instead of being only the master of my own estate, the word I had given would not ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair

... we were, indeed, and then and there was enacted such a celebration as I hope may never again be witnessed there or elsewhere on another fourth of July. Even as I stand here before you, through the lapse of years and the shifting experiences of the recent past, visions and memories of those days rise thick and fast before me. We did, indeed, crowd thundrously down to their feet. Of the events of those three terrible days I may speak with feeling and yet with modesty, for small, indeed, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... early 1990s. Kenya's real GDP grew at 5% in 1995 and 4% in 1996, and inflation remained under control. Growth slowed in 1997. Political violence damaged the tourist industry, and the IMF allowed Kenya's Enhanced Structural Adjustment Program to lapse due to the government's failure to enact reform conditions and to adequately address public sector corruption. Moreover, El Nino rains destroyed crops and damaged an already crumbling infrastructure in 1997 and on into 1998. Long-term barriers to development include electricity ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... round, but when after the lapse of ten minutes Maria Blond appeared, she was alone. She had twice mistaken the staircase. And when Lucy, in some ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... amelioration of suffering and the righting of social wrongs; and when she had finished, and he met the earnest appeal of her dark eye, there would often be a pause, during which each, with a half unconscious lapse from the impersonal, would feel more keenly the joy of this new and delicious mental companionship. And when at length he answered, sometimes gently refuting and sometimes assenting to her proposition, it was always with ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... force Mr. Brinkworth or Miss Silvester—one or the other—to assert the very marriage which they repudiate now? Who is to say that interested relatives (property being concerned here) may not in the lapse of years, discover motives of their own for questioning the asserted marriage in Kent? I acknowledge that I envy the immense self-confidence which emboldens Sir Patrick to venture, what he is willing to venture upon his own individual opinion on an undecided ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... After the lapse of an hour or more, and while we were all considering whether or no we should return to the house, the figure of Annie Raeburn was seen coming down the brae towards the party, in a way very unlike her usual ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... estimable, pious woman, and she said to her husband: "We shall enjoy seven good years. Let us use this time to practice as much charity as possible; perhaps God will lengthen out our period of prosperity." After the lapse of seven years, during which man and wife used every opportunity of doing good, Elijah appeared again, and announced to the man that the time had come to take away what he had given him. The man responded: "When I accepted thy gift, it was after consultation with my ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... was harassed by the terrible fear of a sudden summons by name from the pulpit to "awake and give heed to the message," which for the next few minutes would have an application so personal and pungent that it would effectually prevent sleep for that and some successive Sabbaths. The only apparent lapse of attention occurred when Donald Ross opened his horn snuff-box, and after tapping solemnly upon its lid, drew forth a huge pinch of snuff and passed it to his neighbor, who, after helping himself in like manner, passed the box on. That the lapse ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... near the great family vaults of her granddames and their powerful husbands. She would be able to look at them, and think not only that d'Urberville, like Babylon, had fallen, but that the individual innocence of a humble descendant could lapse as silently. All the while she wondered if any strange good thing might come of her being in her ancestral land; and some spirit within her rose automatically as the sap in the twigs. It was unexpected youth, surging up anew after its ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... charge: in which case it is good pollicie to excuse it by some allowable pretext, as did one whom his mistresse burdened with some vnkindne speeches which he had past of her, thus. I said it: but by lapse of lying tongue, When furie and iust griefe my heart opprest: I sayd it: as ye see, both fraile and young, When your rigor had ranckled in my brest. The cruell wound that smarted me so sore, Pardon therefore (sweete sorrow) or at least Beare with mine youth that neuer fell before, Least ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... in a cloud of mystery, which it will be our happiness to disperse, while we record that event in a clear, indisputable narrative of facts. His earlier biographer, Mr. Doe, not having access to archives which the lapse of time has now rendered available, attributed his release to the influence of Bishop Barlow, by the interference of Dr. Owen. It is narrated in the life of Dr. Owen, published in 1721:—'The doctor had some friends ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... There was a lapse of nearly a year, after the excitement of the matter had worn away, and the whole neighbourhood had gone on its accustomed way. Brent was still absent, and Delandre more drunken, more morose, and more ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker



Words linked to "Lapse" :   finish, forgo, advance, mistake, interruption, terminate, move, march on, failure, fell, slip, cease, move on, suspension, stop, turn back, break, end, pause, fault, recidivism, fall away, drop away, pass on, throw overboard, waive, give up, forfeit, return, intermission, progress, drop off, go on, revert, fly, error, retrovert, vanish, forego



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com