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Relaxation   /rˌilæksˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Relaxation

noun
1.
(physiology) the gradual lengthening of inactive muscle or muscle fibers.
2.
(physics) the exponential return of a system to equilibrium after a disturbance.  Synonym: relaxation behavior.
3.
A feeling of refreshing tranquility and an absence of tension or worry.  Synonym: easiness.
4.
An occurrence of control or strength weakening.  Synonyms: loosening, slackening.  "The loosening of his grip" , "The slackening of the wind"
5.
Freedom from activity (work or strain or responsibility).  Synonyms: ease, repose, rest.
6.
A method of solving simultaneous equations by guessing a solution and then reducing the errors that result by successive approximations until all the errors are less than some specified amount.  Synonym: relaxation method.
7.
The act of making less strict.  Synonyms: liberalisation, liberalization.



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"Relaxation" Quotes from Famous Books



... to them a solid and noble testimonial of his affectionate devotion to their interests. Their fortune was the purchase of his life's blood. The acquisition of that fortune absorbed the whole of his time, and of his energies; it deprived him of thousands of opportunities for relaxation and enjoyment, and also—it must be added—for the exercise of virtues which probably he possessed, but gave himself little or no time for calling into action—of those virtues which elevate and adorn the individual, while ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... our walk and returned to the hotel for dinner. The evening was spent in the hotel parlors, where the team was entertained and had opportunity for relaxation from the mental strain that was necessarily a part of the situation. A general reception took place in the corridors, players of old days came around to see the team, to revive old memories, and cheer the men of ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... pleasure. There is no doubt that employment contributes to health of both body and mind. Good blood, good thought and good morals are born of industry, provided it be not pushed to the extreme of exhaustion. Children and young people must have relaxation from toil, that both the physical and mental powers may recuperate; but not much attention was paid to this beneficent philosophy in my father's family. Had there been, it might have been better for at least some of his children in after years. There is a golden mean in this, as ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... possible. In 'close' parishes, i.e. where all the land belonged to one owner, as distinguished from 'open' ones where it belonged to several, all the cottages were often pulled down so that labourers coming to work in it had to travel long distances in all weathers. We shall see further relaxation in the law in 1795, but it was not until modern times that this abominable system was destroyed. The agricultural labourer's difficulty in building a house was aggravated by the statute 31 Eliz., c. 7, before noticed, which ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... opportunity to look close enough to see that there wasn't a grain of powder upon it, not even between the shoulder blades, it made you think of flower petals again. What clenched the effect was her healthy capacity for complete relaxation when no effort was required of her. She drooped a little and people thought she looked tired. She never could see herself like that and never made due allowance for the effect she produced, invariably upon strangers and not ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... minutes north, it is not unfrequently at 87 and 88 degrees. At sunrise it is usually as low as 70; the sensation of cold however is much greater than this would seem to indicate, as it occasions shivering and a chattering of the teeth; doubtless from the greater relaxation of the body and openness of the pores in that climate; for the same temperature in England would be esteemed a considerable degree of warmth. These observations on the state of the air apply only to the districts near the sea-coast, where, from their comparatively low situation, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... his mind the fate of the huntsman who was frozen to death, and even though the children had almost emptied the bottle of black coffee—which necessarily would bring on a corresponding relaxation afterwards, they would not have been able to conquer their desire for sleep, whose seductive sweetness outweighs all arguments against it, had not nature itself in all its grandeur assisted them and in its own depths awakened a force which was able ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... discussion of physical hygiene for the student, we cannot stress too much the value of relaxation. The life of a student is a trying one. It exercises chiefly the higher brain centres and keeps the organism keyed up to a high pitch. These centres become fatigued easily and ought to be rested occasionally. Therefore, the student ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... thought very little of any need she might feel for relaxation and amusement, and she was very far from realizing what that solitude meant, which she was seeking with so much enthusiasm. She had never yet been as much alone as she should have liked to be, and she could not imagine that she might possibly become tired of playing the princess ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... agreed Georgiana to this decidedly boyish speech. She realized suddenly how quickly the sense of relaxation from care was beginning to show in her husband. Her hand within his arm gave it a warm little squeeze. "That couldn't be expected. To be torn apart, at any and all hours, and kept apart day after day, just when we most want to be together—and then to come down to a big ship and know that no telephone ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... and disappearing in the dark, until the third evening it vanished altogether. But I have since known clubs of fifty times its number, whose collective genius was not more than that of either one of the Dii Majores of our Concord coterie. The fault was its too great concentration. It was not relaxation, as a club should be, but tension. Society is a play, a game, a tournament; not a battle. It is the easy grace of undress; not an intellectual ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... exercises were going on Cavor seems to have experienced a considerable relaxation of his confinement. "The first dread and distrust our unfortunate conflict aroused is being," he said, "continually effaced by the deliberate rationality of all I do.... I am now able to come and go as I please, or I am restricted only for my own good. ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... atmosphere was that of a great conservatory. A dozen tropical growths mingled their odors into an indefinable whole; and the effect was akin to that of a subtle exotic drug, lulling the senses, filling the whole being with a languor, a relaxation, a pleasant enervation which it seemed well not to throw off. Outside on the prairie the sun burned harshly; within, the scented shadows shielded away the sun and wrapped round one a drugged warmth all its own. The path and the open spaces beneath the ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... depression she felt, she set to work immediately at what she now felt to be her first duty—the fulfilment of her father's wish that she should complete the Memoirs of his life, which he had himself begun. Yet her eyes were still so weak that she seldom allowed herself what had been her greatest relaxation—writing letters ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... a mere pretext for gaming, intriguing, and fortune-hunting. There are a few honest people who go for amusement, and a few for rest and relaxation after the toils ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... increased the feeling of dizziness. Always there was a power at his back which drew him out as though he were responding to some powerful magnet. This and the temptation to loosen the tight cords back of his knees—to just let go and sink into relaxation—kept him at a more severe strain than did ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... was one of graceful relaxation, and pretty Patty had never looked prettier than she did then, ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells

... through their noses to the accompaniment of a bass-viol. Of other musical instruments, they knew only the Jews-harp for home delectation, and the drum and fife for training-days. Doctrinal religion furnished them with a mental relaxation which supplied the place of amusement. Sandemanians, Adamites, Peterites, Bowlists, Davisonians, and Rogereens, though agreeing mainly in essentials, found vast gratification in playing against each other at theological dialectics. On one cardinal point of discipline only—the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... against her, that when she visited them in the simple attire in which she so much delighted, 'sans ceremonie', unaccompanied by a troop of horse and a squadron of footguards, they complained to their father, who hinted to Marie Antoinette that such a relaxation of the royal dignity would be attended with considerable injury to French manufactures, to trade, and to the respect due to her rank. 'My State and Court dresses,' replied she, 'shall not be less brilliant than those of any former Dauphine or Queen of France, if such be the pleasure of the King,—but ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... says tidy up," the old lady observed gently, not liking to be censorious at this happy moment of relaxation, but still anxious to do her duty. Beth understood her ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... them by their social rank and responsibility. This was known as "keeping secret house," or, in other words, my lord became for a season incognito, and retired to one of his remoter properties for relaxation and repose. Our kings in some measure did the same; for they held their revels only, as a rule, at stated times and places. William I. is said to have kept his Easter at Winchester, his Whitsuntide at Westminster, and his Christmas at Gloucester. Even these antique grandees had to work on some ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... Peter's Orphanage, without any appeal to sheer force of arms. There were young men among us, yet the sisters' rule was never openly defied. I think the secret must have had to do chiefly with work and food. We were never idle, we were always hungry, and we never had any opportunities for relaxation. I never saw any kind of game played at the Orphanage; and on Sundays devotions of one kind or another were made to fill all intervals between the different necessary pieces of work, such as milking, feeding stock, cleaning, and ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... oaths at the accession of George I, was not only an excellent classical scholar, but reasonably skilled in science, and master of most modern languages. He was, however, old and indulgent, and the recurring interregnum, during which Edward was entirely freed from his discipline, occasioned such a relaxation of authority, that the youth was permitted, in a great measure, to learn as he pleased, what he pleased, and when he pleased. This slackness of rule might have been ruinous to a boy of slow understanding, who, feeling labour ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... like a person quite dead. His limbs had all the utter relaxation of death. But as I watched I saw them begin to stiffen, exactly as though rigor mortis had set in. Then, to my astonishment, I perceived them once more relax, and this time there appeared upon his chest the stain of decomposition. It spread and spread; in three minutes the man, to ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard

... broke into a loud march. There was an interval of relaxation for the audience, to move, look about, ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... This relaxation in his manner flattered and pleased me. He now perceived me to be somebody; my half-offended vanity was appeased, and I accepted his offer ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... subjects of Constantine were incapable of discerning the decline of genius and manly virtue, which so far degraded them below the dignity of their ancestors; but they could feel and lament the rage of tyranny, the relaxation of discipline, and the increase of taxes. The impartial historian, who acknowledges the justice of their complaints, will observe some favorable circumstances which tended to alleviate the misery of their condition. The threatening tempest of Barbarians, which so soon subverted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... also in another matter to the times, by consenting to baptize occasionally in private houses. Hitherto it had been a strict rule with me only to baptize from the pulpit. Other parishes, however, had long been in the practice of this relaxation ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... nature and to seeing things as they are, which in art, in literature, and in physics, produced such splendid fruits, had, like the anterior Hellenism of the pagan world, a side of moral weakness and of relaxation or insensibility of the moral fibre, which in Italy showed itself with the most startling plainness, but which in France, England, and other countries was very apparent, too. Again this loss of spiritual balance, this exclusive preponderance given ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... him that the deacon had hung up the receiver in something of a temper. Donaldson came out of the booth, hesitated, and then put in another call. He found relaxation in the vaudeville picture he had of the spindle-shanked hypocrite fretting in the cold so many miles distant. He was morally certain that the old fellow had robbed the dying Burnham of half his scant property. If he had had the time he would have started a lawyer upon ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... and rest awhile now," he said at last, and led the horse to one side, where a level space made it possible for them to dismount and stretch themselves on the ground to give their weary limbs the needed relaxation. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... should go back to my botanist in a state of emotional relaxation. At first I should not heed the fact that he, too, had been in some manner stirred. "I have seen him," I should say, needlessly, and seem to be on the verge of telling the untellable. Then I should fade off into: "It's ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... Having established his reputation for absolute truthfulness, Carleton won not only Grant's personal friendship, but obtained a pass signed "U. S. Grant," which was good in all the military departments of the country, with transportation on all government trains and steamers. In hours of relaxation, Carleton was probably as familiar with Grant as was any officer on the general's own staff. Carleton profoundly honored and believed in Grant as a trained, regular army officer who could cut loose from European traditions and methods, ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... possible effort to this attempt, and maintain the effort for about one minute. Then step away quickly from the wall by more than the length of the arm, while keeping the arm hanging down by the side of the body in a state of complete relaxation. Provided all conditions are properly fulfilled, the arm will be found rising by itself in accordance with the aim of the earlier effort, until it reaches the horizontal. If the arm is then lowered again and left to itself, it will at once rise ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... of past civilisation shows us this, there is an a priori presumption that each further step in the repression of individual enterprise and in the extension of state-control does not mean a net diminution in individual activity or any relaxation of effort in self-assertion, but merely an elevation of the plane of competition and of the kind of human qualities engaged. This is, in fact, the philosophical defence of progressive socialism, that human ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... push. Martin's mind was made up. He would drop into the Independent ostensibly to extend his subscription, but really to get on more intimate terms with the woman whom he had now firmly determined should become his wife. He drew a deep breath of relaxation and finished the glass of sweetness with that sense of self-conscious sheepishness which most men feel when they surrender to the sticky charms of an ice-cream soda. A few minutes later he stood beside Rose's ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius

... away recollections in a drawer, or of inscribing them in a register. There is no register, no drawer; there is not even, properly speaking, a faculty, for a faculty works intermittently, when it will or when it can, whilst the piling up of the past upon the past goes on without relaxation. In reality, the past is preserved by itself, automatically. In its entirety, probably, it follows us at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals of consciousness ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... honey; the smell of roasting meats, the clash of pots and kettles. Here, behind the scenes, were the ropes and pulleys which set the stage that the actors might strut through their lordly parts; here was no relaxation and luxurious ease, but labor stern and unremitting, since always pleasure must be ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... disposal, after putting things right for the day, and for next day too, we know of nothing better than a good rubber at whist for filling up the evening. It must be a good rubber, however, for the parlour game is neither relaxation nor pleasure. Hence we would advise all our angling friends to acquire a thorough knowledge of the game, as only to be learned with the aid of a good book on the subject. Remember that when staying at some out-of-the-way fishing hotel, you may be asked to form ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior

... to say what Harold's particular amusement of the hour might turn out to be. One thing only was certain, that it would be something improbable, unguessable, not to be foretold. Who, for instance, in search of relaxation, would ever dream of choosing the drawing-up of a testamentary disposition of property? Yet this was the form taken by Harold's latest craze; and in justice this much had to be said for him, that in the christening of his amusement he had gone ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... hundred and ninety to sixty people, and at last it was moved and seconded that they do now adjourn. They started away from Jamestown without a tear, or hardly anything else, having experienced a very dull time there, funerals being the only relaxation whatever. ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... confess it would be to me a great satisfaction to find an Archbishop of Canterbury earnestly pleading in the House of Lords in favour of gambling, or the unrestricted opening of public-houses on Sunday, or some relaxation in the prosecution of pornographic literature. Not by any means that I should agree with his point of view. But the spectacle offered of a morally courageous and intellectually independent Archbishop of Canterbury would be so stimulating, the presence of a Live Person at the head of the Church ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... down in the corner with a sigh. "You must forgive me," it said. "I'm afraid I'm addicted to various forms of relaxation. When one is as ...
— Beyond Lies the Wub • Philip Kindred Dick

... the race would go. But it was not in the nature of David Kildare to be held against the grindstone of serious endeavor too long at a time, and in the midst of the turmoil he proceeded to plot for a brief and exciting relaxation for himself and his strenuous friends, and he chose Saturday for the ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... she seemed spurred to outdo herself from consciousness of physical weakness. When she returned to England again in the following September, her failing health was painfully apparent to all. Yet her unconquerable energy struggled against her sufferings, and she would permit herself no relaxation. In vain her husband and her good friend Lablachc remonstrated. A hectic, feverish excitement pervaded all her actions. She was engaged to sing at the Manchester Musical Festival, and at the rehearsals she would laugh and cry ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... depends on no mechanical rules imposed from without; its life and movement come from within, and the lines vary, like a breeze straying among blossoms, with every stress or relaxation of the writer's mood. While La Fontaine derives much from antiquity, he may be regarded as incarnating more than any other writer of his century the genius of France, exquisite in the proportion of his feeling and the expression ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... squeezed to death;—whose writing desk is usually another man's back; and who sketch out a much better speech between an orator's shoulder blades than he is making in front;—whose written language is a perplexity compared with which Greek is a relaxation and Sanscrit a positive amusement;—who deal in adjectives, and know their precise value, and how to administer them, as an apothecary knows the drugs that are boxed and bottled on his shelves;—who are less men than parts of an enormous mill grinding ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... sort of place is Steynholme for a chemist of his capacities? Dr. Foxton has the highest regard for him professionally, and I'm told he doctors people for miles around. Yet he lives the life of a recluse. An old woman comes by day to prepare his meals, and tidy the house and shop. His sole relaxation is an hour of an evening in the village inn, his visits there being uninterrupted since the murder. He was there on the night of the murder, too. For the rest, he is alone, shut off from the world. Without knowing it, he's going to fall into ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... or snapping off the sealed point of the capillary portion. If pressure is now exerted upon the elastic bulb by a finger and thumb whilst the capillary end is below the surface of the fluid to be taken up, some of the contained air will be driven out, and subsequent relaxation of that pressure (resulting in the formation of a partial vacuum) will cause the fluid to ascend the capillary tube. Subsequent compression of the bulb will naturally result in the complete expulsion of the fluid ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... aid my progress and afford me relaxation, my master recommended me to study some treatises on mechanics in general, and on clockmaking in particular. As this suited my taste exactly, I gladly assented, and I was devoting myself passionately to this attractive study, when a circumstance, apparently most simple, suddenly decided my future ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... Elpidias! I don't wish to inflict any evil upon you. But if you are tired of following my arguments to their logical conclusions, permit me to relate to you an allegory of a Milesian youth. Allegories rest the mind, and the relaxation is not unprofitable." ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... nervous energy to the point where "the day we most need a holiday is the day after a holiday." This may be different when we learn more fully that the recuperative power of short intervals of complete relaxation has a genuine investment value. The increased output of energy afterward, the happier spirits, prolonged endurance, clearer thinking, and the greater ease and pleasure with which work is done, more than compensate for the time required. It has been stated ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... sighed in relaxation. "You know how to touch the spot. Did you tell Phoebe about ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... desk on the platform. It had always reminded her of an island in the midst of a great sea. She breathed a little sigh of relief. Her pet aversion, Miss Merton, was not occupying the chair behind it. This, no doubt, accounted for the general air of relaxation that pervaded the room. Her alert eyes searched the room for Constance Stevens. She was not present. She gave another sigh, this time it was one of disappointment. She had seen Constance only twice since Mary's arrival. On ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... are pretty well on in years. The novelist only sought to make a strong expression of his good opinion of French manners, no doubt. In observing the blouse wearers of Paris in their hours of ease and relaxation, I have been struck with the great prevalence of a certain unforced courtesy of manner, even among the coarsest. No one would dream what a howling demon this creature could and did become in the days of the Commune who should see him enjoying himself at his ball, his concert, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... toil and a relaxation from graver pursuits, the perusal of a well-written story, by a writer of genius, is a high intellectual pleasure; and it is a description of literature to which all classes of readers, old and young, are attracted as by a powerful instinct; nor would we have ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... the direct road which they had left at Anicull, in order to avoid passing through the town of Oussoor. Here they came upon a large village, and Dick found no difficulty in hiring a light native cart to take Annie, who was, as he felt by the relaxation of her hold, unable to proceed farther on horseback, or ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... that every activity of the mind has a direct effect on the brain substance. That is, each mind operation through the brain changes its physical structure in some degree. Mental effort or relaxation increases or decreases the amount of blood in the brain. When you have been using your mind very hard, your head "feels heavy," and it is unusually heavy then on account of the extra amount of blood weight. Even the temperature of the brain, particularly of that portion of the brain ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... or later, to come and ask forgiveness for your dreadful unkindness to me. Till then, as I said, I didn't expect to call upon you in any way. But I've felt compelled to-day to come and speak to you about a matter of duty, and as a matter of duty strictly I regard it, not as any relaxation of my just attitude of indignant expectancy towards yourself; no parent ought rightly to overlook such conduct as yours on the part of a son.' Ronald inclined his head respectfully. 'Well, what I've come to speak ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... baboon mean by meddling with our affairs? A pretty state of things, truly, if kings are to choose or retain their ministers at the will of the people; little does he know of the disasters which would be caused by a relaxation of the edicts." In the same sense, the Cardinal, just before his departure, which was now imminent, wrote to warn his sovereign of the seditious character of the men who were then placing their breasts between ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... contract differing from all others as because the history of its origin shows one of the first appearances of contract in our law. It is to be traced to the gradual increase of faith in the honor of a hostage if the case calling for his surrender should arrive, and to the consequent relaxation of actual imprisonment. An illustration may be found in the parallel mode of dealing with the prisoner himself. His bail, to whom his body is supposed to be delivered, have a right to seize him at any time and anywhere, but he is allowed to go at large until [251] surrendered. ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... newly-arrived letters before him. The dinner was no more like the breakfast, than was my friend in the midst of his guests like my friend alone with his papers. His meal consisted of one slice of dry toast, and one cup of tea, already cold. The face that was all smile and relaxation of muscle on the preceding evening, was solemn and composed. You might have ventured to assert that tea and toast were that man's most stimulating diet, and that the pleasures of the counting-house were the highest this world ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... modification of detail, but no essential change of method, British shipping and seamen continued to be "protected" against foreign competition down to and beyond the War of 1812. In this long interval there is no change of conception, nor any relaxation of national conviction. The whole history affords a remarkable instance of persistent policy, pursued consecutively for five or six generations. No better evidence could be given of its hold upon the minds of the people, or of the serious nature of the obstacle encountered by any other ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... controversy sharpens the understanding by the subtlety and remoteness of the topics it discusses, and braces the will by their infinite importance. We perceive in the history of this period a nervous masculine intellect. No levity, no feebleness, no indifference; or if there were, it is a relaxation from the intense activity which gives a tone to its general character. But there is a gravity approaching to piety; a seriousness of impression, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual fervour and enthusiasm in their mode ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... vain. The little banking establishment had not been disturbed. Jean Thompson had told the searchers certain facts about it, and about its gentle proprietor as well, that persuaded them to make no move against the concern, if the same relations did not even induce a relaxation of their efforts ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... who, in secrecy and in silence, were devoting themselves to the royal cause. Cowley was seized on by the ruling powers. At this moment he published a preface to his works, which some of his party interpreted as a relaxation of his loyalty. He has been fully defended. Cowley, with all his delicacy of temper, wished sincerely to retire from all parties; and saw enough among the fiery zealots of his own, to ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... he passed at the Board of Control he had no time for relaxation, and very little for the industry which he loved the best. Giving his days to India, and his nights to the inexorable demands of the Treasury Whip, he could devote a few hours to the Edinburgh Review only by rising at five when the rules of the ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... need immediate reforms. They've got to be pacified. An immediate announcement of more consumer goods, fewer State taxes, above all a relaxation of Security Police pressures. Given immediate promise of these, we might ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... expansion of their muscular walls. Many of the organs of the body function discontinuously, periods of activity alternating with comparative repose; during the period of activity a greater blood supply is demanded, and is furnished by relaxation of the muscle fibres which allows the calibre to increase, and with this the blood flow becomes greater in amount. Each part of the body regulates its supply of blood, the regulation being effected by means of nerves which control the tension of the muscle fibres. The circulation may ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman

... labor. Few people entertain the idea that they are of no use in the world; or that they are ruining themselves by their laziness. Yet lazy persons lose the power of enjoyment. Their lives are all holiday, and they have no interval of leisure for relaxation. The lie-a-beds have never done anything in the world. Events sweep past and leave ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... and of ancient birth, had itself to blame for this degradation. Great alterations in manners or government—such as give a new character to human affairs—always seem brought about by some strange relaxation of morals, or atrocity of conduct, which makes society anxious for the change. The unfortunate custom in France which gave every male member of a noble family a title equivalent to that of its chief, so that a simple viscount with ten stalwart and penniless ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... good ones diminished, by uncleanness and impure air. Clean hands and a pure heart go together. Foul air prompts to vice, and oxygen to virtue, as surely as sunlight paints the flowers, and ripens the fruits, of our gardens. The tired workman, who, after a day's labor, needs the repose and relaxation of home, is apt to be driven from it by the close atmosphere of the street and house in which he lives. He would, if he could, get into the fresh air of the country; but, as he cannot do this, he seeks the relief which drink or other excitement yields. If there were a park accessible ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various

... of studious hours; he either craves, like God, the seventh day of rest, or with Satan, the pleasures of hell; so that his senses may have free play in opposition to the employment of his faculties. Byron could never have taken for his relaxation to the independent gentleman's delights of boston and gossip, for he was a poet, and so must needs pit Greece ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... usefulness and esteem? By such accomplishments do you hope to recommend yourselves to the thinking part of the world, and to answer the expectations of your friends and your country? Amusements youth requires: it were vain, it were cruel, to prohibit them. But, though allowable as the relaxation, they are most culpable as the business, of the young, for they then become the gulf of time and the poison of the mind; they weaken the manly powers; they sink the native vigour of ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... back in her chair in the careless attitude of long-continued fatigue, heeded at last; and all the scars, the ugly sabre cuts with which age and suffering brand the faces of the old, manifested themselves, ineffaceable and pitiful to see, in the relaxation of slumber. Desiree would have liked to be strong enough to rise and kiss that lovely, placid brow, furrowed by wrinkles which did not ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Springs offered a pleasant relaxation from the business cares and social duties of Nome. There was very little driving for the dogs, but they were allowed to chase every big beautiful white hare they could find, pursue a red fox if they were so lucky as to start ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... side than on the other, so that it will be crowded over to the opposite side. These displacements are often called prolapsus uteri, or "falling of the womb," carrying the idea that the difficulty depends upon a morbid relaxation of the ligaments that support the organ. Not one case in a hundred is of this latter character, but nearly, if not all, depend upon the inflammation and swelling above mentioned. How futile then, not to say hurtful, must be all instruments for, and all attempts ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill

... relaxation and a rest. He knew the science of composition, and was familiar in detail with the best work of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... use of Native gentlemen from the East Indies. In his speech the Prince referred with gratitude to his "magnificent reception" in India and expressed his strong approval of the establishment of a place where natives of that Empire could meet together for purposes of relaxation and intercourse. The City of London College, intended chiefly for young men who could only attend evening classes, was inaugurated on July 8th of this year. The Princess was also present. In the House of Lords on February 22nd, 1884, the Prince made ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... early to her room, feeling that unless her taut nerves could have the relaxation of solitude, she must scream out. To-day's discovery had kindled anew all the fires of insurgency that burned in her, inflaming her heart to demand the mating joy which could make of marriage not a formula of duty and hard allegiance, but ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... proved mildly intoxicating—yet different from the stimulants used in the Federation. Lord drank a long draught from a mug brought him by one of the women. The effect was immediate. He felt no dulling of his reason, however; no loss of muscular control, but instead a stealthy relaxation of mental strain joined with a satisfying sense of physical well-being. A subtle shifting in prospective, ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox

... lastly, the essential oils are to be carefully mixed with the powdered substances. Experience has convinced him of the efficacy of this tooth powder, the habitual employment of which, will suffice to preserve the gums and teeth in a healthy state. For those who are troubled with excessive relaxation and sponginess of the gums, he recommends the ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... thought, watching from where he lay, down below, and there was in him a great weariness after the triumph so bitterly fought for had been achieved. He rested through minutes of quiet and relaxation, watching what he had brought about; but only minutes—for suddenly without warning ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter

... is found in female infants. Thus, Townsend records the case of an infant, 8 months old, who would cross her right thigh over the left, close her eyes and clench her fists; after a minute or two there would be complete relaxation, with sweating and redness of face; this would occur about once a week or oftener; the child was quite healthy, with no abnormal condition of the genital organs.[215] The frequency of thigh-friction among women as a form of masturbation is due to the fact that it is usually ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... said. The prospect did not seem to disturb him or the men. It was a possibility hazy to minds which asked only sleep or relaxation after two sleepless nights under fire. "The Germans haven't any aeroplanes up to enable them to see us and no sausage balloons, either. Since our planes brought down those six in flames the day before the attack the others have been ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... to be brought into healthy existence instead of struggling on in convulsions? That exactly in the ratio as they worked long and monotonously, the craving grew within them for some physical relief - some relaxation, encouraging good humour and good spirits, and giving them a vent - some recognized holiday, though it were but for an honest dance to a stirring band of music - some occasional light pie in which even M'Choakumchild had no finger - which craving must and would be satisfied aright, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... mind her tongue, but could be as slangy and as natural as she pleased. Toby did not know any better. She had not always to be thinking, with him, of what a real lady might be expected to say. He was a relaxation for her. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... management of the great herds of the country. These Indians were Christians, docile even to servility, and excellent laborers. Then came the Americans, followed soon after by the discovery of, and the wild rush for, gold, and the relaxation for the time being of a healthy administration of the laws. The ruin of this once happy and useful people commenced. The cultivators of vineyards began to pay their Indian peons with aguardiente, a real 'firewater.' The consequence was that on receiving ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... not so as to put these people in the excepted classes, but to state that we will admit all Chinese, except Chinese of the coolie class, Chinese skilled or unskilled laborers. There would not be the least danger that any such provision would result in any relaxation of the law about laborers. These will, under all conditions, be kept out absolutely. But it will be more easy to see that both justice and courtesy are shown, as they ought to be shown, to other Chinese, if the law or treaty is framed as above suggested. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... had the divided interests of family and social relations; turned their attention to reforms which promised speedier rewards; surrendered to the forces of persecution. With Miss Anthony the cause of woman took the place of husband, children, society; it was her work and her relaxation, her politics and her religion. "I know only woman and her disfranchised," was her creed.... May we, her daughters, receive as a blessed inheritance something of her indomitable will, splendid courage, limitless patience, perseverance, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... those joys satisfactory and happy." Then the company who were invited from the city related the following particulars:—"1. There are here days of festivity appointed by the prince, that the mind, by due relaxation, may recover from the weariness which an emulative desire may occasion in particular cases. On such days we have concerts of music and singing in the public places, and out of the city are exhibited games and shows: ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... reflections appeared. They were "right!" And while "resting" (definition from the private dictionary of Cornelius McAuliff) from the more or less arduous and routine and yet interest-holding duties of newspaper-man, Allison's relaxation and refreshment come in studies of human nature in all its mystifying aspects, whether in war or in peace; or in the sports—prize-fighting and baseball; or in the sciences; in politics; in the streets ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock

... little I wavered under the temptation (Reader,—was it not great?)—the idea of having a little relaxation which would permit some, at least, of these well-planned papers to be written. But I was keenly alive to the danger which overtook us at last. We are daily reminded that 'art is long and life is short.' I had already saved the Works from being strangled at their birth ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... fireside which were in melancholy contrast with the restlessness of his later years. Nay, even after his return to England, and during the six months of his regular work on the Morning Post, the vigour of his political articles entirely negatives the idea that any relaxation of intellectual energy had as yet set in. Yet within six months of his leaving London for Keswick there begins a progressive decline in Coleridge's literary activity in every form. The second part of Christabel, beautiful but inferior to the first, was composed in the autumn ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... to the bird in ecstasy. She felt an infinite longing for happiness, for some sudden demonstration of tenderness, for the revelation of superhuman poetry, and she felt such a softening at her heart, and relaxation of her nerves, that she began to cry, without knowing why. The young man was now straining her close to him, yet she did not remove his arm; she did not think of it. Suddenly the nightingale stopped, and a voice ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... professions, other than religion and philosophy, have sought to deal with these fears, the psychiatric, the psychoanalytic, and the psychological. The medical psychiatric profession has naturally emphasized physical remedies beginning with sedatives and bromides to induce artificial relaxation and ending up with lobectomy or the complete cutting off of the frontal lobes of the brain, the centers of man's highest thought processes. Between these two extremes are the shock treatments in which an injection of insulin or metrazol into the blood stream causes the person to fall into a sort ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... intervals of leisure, our exhausted spirits require refreshment; the serious concerns of our immortal souls, are matters of speculation too grave and gloomy to answer the purpose, and we fly to something that may better deserve the name of relaxation, till we are again summoned to the daily ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... young man of remarkable experience for his years. He ran less risk, therefore, in exposing himself to the temptations and dangers of a great city than many older men, who, seeking the livelier scenes of excitement to be found in large towns as a relaxation after the monotonous routine of family life, are too often taken advantage of and made the victims of their sentiments or their generous confidence in their fellow-creatures. Such was not his destiny. There was something ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... government neutral as to religion and moral traditions, but favourable to the accumulation of riches; so that a certain enlightenment and cosmopolitanism were made possible, and private passions and tastes could be gratified without encountering persecution or public obloquy, though not without a general relaxation of society and a vulgarising of arts and manners. That something so self-indulgent and worldly as this ideal of liberalism could have been thought compatible with Christianity, the first initiation into which, in baptism, involves renouncing the ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... immediate presence of the healer or in a distant country. Under these circumstances it is found by experience that one of the most effectual modes of mental healing is by treatment during sleep, because then the patient's whole system is naturally in a state of relaxation which prevents him offering any conscious opposition to the treatment. And by the same rule the healer also is able to treat even more effectively during his own sleep than while waking. Before going to sleep ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... occurs something better to be done for the common good, in which case the matter would seem to belong chiefly to the power of the Pope, who has charge over the whole Church; and even of absolute relaxation, for this too belongs in general to the Pope in all matters regarding the administration of things ecclesiastical. Thus it is competent to any man to cancel an oath made by one of his subjects in matters that come under his authority: for instance, a father may annul his daughter's ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... a convent, she found there propitious moments, surrendering her thoughts to mysticism and her heart to first friendships. The monotonous regularity of this life gently soothed the activity of her meditations. In the hours of relaxation she did not play with her companions, but retired beneath some tree to read and muse. As sensitive as Rousseau to the beauty of foliage, the rustling of the grass, the odour of the herbs, she admired the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... this condition is complete relaxation of the ligaments which naturally support this organ. When the ligaments become weak, they easily stretch, and thus allow the uterus to fall down into the vaginal canal, even nearly to the surface ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... however, was due to a clergyman, Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808). After long and arduous efforts to secure relaxation from the doctrinal subscription imposed on the clergy, Lindsey resigned his living at Catterick, in 1773, facing poverty and hardship with a courage that elicited warm commendations, though few were found to imitate the example. In spite of the terrors of the law, now becoming a ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant

... trade in a growing State, to invest in its banks, railroads and manufactures, and to render all these investments profitable. With his increase in wealth there was in Mr. Otis no increase of display, and no relaxation of the economy of early life, but an increasing liberality in public charities, particularly those connected with religion. When compared with the briskness of modern traffic he was slow and cautious; but ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... camel's pace; one thing, and one thing only, having so far saved her from the utter dissolution of fatigue, and that being when, urged by their master's voice, the three animals had broken into a gentle trot, ending in a pace which literally took away the girl's breath; but even that relaxation had had to be abandoned as the nature of ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... day, and omitted to say good-morning to her rainbow of piggies. She had run short of wool for her knitting, and Boxing Day appeared to her a very ill-advised institution. You would have imagined, thought Miss Mapp, as she began cracking her egg, that the tradespeople had had enough relaxation on Christmas Day, especially when, as on this occasion, it was immediately preceded by Sunday, and would have been all the better for getting to work again. She never relaxed her efforts for a single day in the year, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... Total abolition of protective duties in this country must lower the price of corn, and that is the smallest of the evils we anticipate;—for an evil it is, if the effect of it be to reduce the labourer's wages—and it must also tend to throw land out of cultivation. But what will the relaxation of the tariff do? Will it lower the price of manufactured goods in this country to the agricultural labourer?—that is, after the diminished duty is paid, can foreign manufactures be imported here at a price which shall compete with the home manufactures? If so, the home consumption ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... mission, it is said, was purely religious. Was it so? The chief article in the religion which they came to teach was the duty of obedience to the Pope, who had excommunicated the Queen, had absolved her subjects from their allegiance, and, by a relaxation of the Bull, had permitted them to pretend to loyalty ad illud tempus, till a Catholic army of deliverance should arrive. A Pope had sent a legate to Ireland, and was at that moment stirring up a ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... led him, but he never suffered himself to do so. He would not even read a newspaper, lest it should divert his thoughts from the one great purpose he had in view. I am not saying for a moment that he would have been wrong to indulge himself with relaxation in the shape of sight-seeing and reading the news; but surely when he made everything bend to his one grand self-imposed duty, we are constrained to admire and not to blame, far less to ridicule, his magnificent heroism. Yes; he never swerved, he never drew back; and, best of all, he did ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... may, there was certainly no more enchanting way of obtaining mental and physical relaxation than in wandering through those wonderful woodlands that abound in our vicinity, and which breathed so many inspirations to the Master of Fable, who at one time was their keeper. How I wish that good La Fontaine might have seen ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... He was an intelligent, impecunious, pleasant kind of man, still, like his host, on the sunny side of forty. Sir Lyon was "in the City," as are now so many men of his class and kind. He took his work seriously, and spent many hours of each day east of Temple Bar. By way of relaxation he helped to run an Oxford College East-End Settlement. "A good chap,"—that was how Blanche summed him up ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... enumerated as the physical, the legal, the social, the religious, and the moral. Of the physical sanction familiar examples may be found in the headache from which a man suffers after a night's debauch, the pleasure of relaxation which awaits a well-earned holiday, the danger to life or limb which is attendant on reckless exercise, or the glow of constant satisfaction which rewards a healthy habit of life. These pleasures and pains, when ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... spirits of his people. James, perhaps least of all the Stuarts, illustrated the principle of noblesse oblige. Melville's attendant was taken from him; no visitors were admitted; neither was the use of writing materials allowed. After twelve months, however, some relaxation was gained, through the good offices of Sir James Sempill of Beltrees, the Balladist, who was a warm friend of Melville, and sympathised with him in his struggle to maintain Presbyterianism, although he himself had been brought up ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... to have passed into another world, in which she experienced a freedom and a mental exhilaration unknown to her before. Under this influence she entered upon her studies with keen enjoyment, finding for a time all the relaxation she needed, in the charming social ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... stood for Hogarth's "Industrious Apprentice." When a printer's boy, young Samuel stole from his hours of rest and relaxation the time to improve his mind. He was careful not to tire himself by sitting up too late at night over his books, and purchased his own candles, so that his master, who called him the "pillar of his house," might suffer no injury from his servant's improvement.[162] ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... that saves me," he said with a sense of relaxation. Then he turned and peered fearfully into the black abyss beyond the stern. Nothing there! nothing save the heavy breathing ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... invaluable Pills, and the Soldier will quickly acquire additional strength. Never let the bowels be either confined or unduly acted upon. It may seem strange, that HOLLOWAY'S PILLS should be recommended for Dysentery and Flux, many persons supposing that they would increase the relaxation. This is a great mistake, for these Pills will correct the liver and stomach, and thus remove all the acrid humors from the system. This medicine will give tone and vigor to the whole organic system, however deranged, while health and strength follow, as a matter of course. Nothing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... except as herein specified, the existing blockade remains in full force and effect as hitherto established and maintained, nor is it relaxed by this proclamation except in regard to the port to which relaxation is or ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... body activated a pressure plant and a pair of mummy-like plastifoam plates slid curvingly out the wall and locked her in a soft cocoon. A dozen similar safety clamps were located throughout the car at every working and relaxation station. ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael

... completely, the manners of the nation would become so totally opposed to military tastes, that perhaps even the army would eventually acquire a love of peace, in spite of the peculiar interest which leads it to desire war. Living in the midst of a state of general relaxation, the troops would ultimately think it better to rise without efforts, by the slow but commodious advancement of a peace establishment, than to purchase more rapid promotion at the cost of all the toils and privations of the field. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... is the keynote of piano mastery. Another principle which goes hand in hand with it is Relaxation. Unless this condition is present in arms, wrist and shoulders, the tone will be hard and the whole performance constrained and unmusical. There is no need of having tired muscles or those that feel strained or painful. If this condition arises ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... Silence one must first establish perfect relaxation in mind and body. Then as the consciousness is brought from one part of the body to ...
— The Silence • David V. Bush

... said; "nature exhausted by suffrance, and the waste of spirits, his wearied frame embraces the first moment of temporary relaxation to sink into slumber." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... think, not even remember. Even such activity would have made her presence too disturbing in the room. She sat quite still, with all her activities in abeyance—except that strange will-to-passivity which was by no means a relaxation, but ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... had given the grafting endeavor more attention we might have had different results but we are in the manufacturing business in Erie, Pennsylvania, and really look upon the Westfield, New York, farm as a type of relaxation. In those years 1933 to 1935 industry was experiencing a major distress and I am afraid most of our attention was given to our factory rather than our farm. In fact, that situation applies very largely to all of our nut endeavors. There is an old Scotch saying "The eye of the master fattens the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... feet with one accord, ominous frowns on their brows, and poor old Mom Wallis sat petrified where she was, the smile of relaxation frozen on her face, a look of fear growing ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... before breakfast. He dockets his tailor's bills, and nicks off his dinner-notes in diplomatic paragraphs, and keeps precis of them all. If he ever makes a joke, it is a quotation from Horace, like Sir Robert Peel. The only relaxation he permits himself, is to read Thucydides ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... appointed days of relaxation from labour, we would go into the neighbouring woods, and wage war on the monkeys, our harvest's greatest enemies. As soon as a little dog, purposely brought up to this mode of warfare, warned us by his barkings that marauders were in sight, we repaired to the spot, and then ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... not govern, but with all courteous benevolence." The servant men abode on one side of the house, the women on the other, and met at prayer time or on Church festivals, when More would read and expound to them. He suffered no cards or dice, but gave each one his garden-plot for relaxation, or set them to sing or "play music." He had an affection for all who truly served him, and his daughters' nurse is as affectionately mentioned in his letters when from home as they are themselves. "Thomas More sendeth greeting to his most dear daughters Margaret, Elizabeth and Cecily; and to Margaret ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... my opinion, but I act in consonance with it. I allow myself no relaxation. Have I ever had a love-affair? Perhaps, Fredersdorf, you believe my blood to be frozen like ice in my veins; that I have a heart of stone; in short, that I ceased to be a man ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... than opposition to the new and burdensome taxation, and disgust with the existing ministry. Nor was there any religious object in view. No doubt a large part of the disorder had no general purpose whatever, but consisted in an attempt, at a period of confusion and relaxation of the law, to settle by violence purely local or personal ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... was no farther relaxation. All, in turn, worked hard, full of excitement at the fruit borne by their efforts; and, at last, while Vane was striving his best, the patient's eyes were opened, gazed round once more, blankly and wonderingly, ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... restraints became altogether insupportable when they were known to be kept up for the profit of hypocrites. It is quite certain that, even if the royal family had never returned, even if Richard Cromwell or Henry Cromwell had been at the head of the administration, there would have been a great relaxation of manners. Before the Restoration many signs indicated that a period of license was at hand. The Restoration crushed for a time the Puritan party, and placed supreme power in the hands of a libertine. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... while James Greenfield and his fellow-capitalists of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company were taking their much needed vacations and seeking relaxation and rest from business cares at their seaside and mountain retreats, the desert pioneers were coming more and more to Jefferson Worth for advice and counsel, for strength and courage and help to go on with the work. By fall the financier's position in the life of the new country seemed ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... eleven years of almost incessant war, the conqueror returned to Babylon, and here, while preparing for new wars in Arabia and elsewhere, indulged with reckless freedom in that intoxication which was his principal form of relaxation from warlike schemes and duties. As a result he was seized with fever, and in a week's time died, just at the time he had fixed to set out with army and fleet on another great career of conquest. It was in June, 323 ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... pioneers, whilst the Examiner of Plays issued two guinea certificates for the vulgar and vicious plays. For this reason the plan would no doubt be popular; but it would be very much as a relaxation of the administration of the Public Health Acts accompanied by the cheapening ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... dare say you would be the first to disapprove of the other extreme," admonished Mrs. Allison in her soft and gentle way. "Under martial law you know, there must be no relaxation of discipline, notwithstanding the fact that the Americans once ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... of hectic pleasure had thus far succeeded in bringing only one piano and a half-dozen dance-hall girls—all decidedly the worse for wear—into the camp; and either faro or whisky has its limitations as a steady means of relaxation. So it came about that any advocate could usually find an audience to harken to his ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... Lord Mountclere for more than a week, when she received another letter, which put an end to her season of relaxation, and once more braced her to the contest. This epistle was very courteously written, and in point of correctness, propriety, and gravity, might have come from the quill of a bishop. Herein the old nobleman ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... he ran across a lady friend in Bond Street, "a War Toiler enormously interested in the War" (see the current number of Social Snaps). She had been at Yvonne's trying on her gauze for the Boccaccio Tableaux in aid of the Armenians and needed some relaxation. So she engaged the Babe for the play, to be followed by supper with herself and her civilian husband. The play (a War-drama) gave the Babe a fine hunger, but the Commissionaire (apparently a Major-General) who does odd jobs outside the Blitz took exception to him. "Can't go in, Sir." "Why ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various

... climb the tree, but was driven back by swarms of stinging ants; the poor little fellow slid down in a sad predicament, and plunged into the brook to free himself. Two days afterwards I found the body of the sloth on the ground, the animal having dropped on the relaxation of the muscles a few hours after death. In one of our voyages, Mr. Wallace and I saw a sloth (B. infuscatus) swimming across a river, at a place where it was probably 300 yards broad. I believe it is not generally known that this animal takes to the water. Our men caught the beast, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... Festival of Judaism, the Purim Feast, appointed by Esther and Mordecai, commemorating deliverance from massacre which Hamar had determined by lot against them, gave occasion for relaxation. Even the most austere and gloomy rejoiced, while the younger people abandoned themselves to dissolute mirth, opposite sexes dressing up in the clothes of each other; a habit at present in favour amongst the coster fraternity of East London on Bank Holidays. The Jews were a peculiar people. ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green

... Italian Opera began in Rutland House in Charter-house yard, May 23, 1656, and was afterwards transferred to the Cockpit in Drury Lane." Cromwell's own fondness for music may have prompted him to this relaxation, in Davenants favour, of the old theatre-closing Ordinance of September 1642. At all events, money was coming in for Davenant, and he was not very unhappy.[2]—The Satirist JOHN CLEVELAND, as we have said, had never gone into exile. This was the more remarkable because, through the Civil War, he ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... were among men, and in men's company: their wives had but a fragment of their lives. At the present time, the progress of civilization, and the turn of opinion against the rough amusements and convivial excesses which formerly occupied most men in their hours of relaxation—together with (it must be said) the improved tone of modern feeling as to the reciprocity of duty which binds the husband towards the wife—have thrown the man very much more upon home and its inmates, for his personal and social pleasures: while the kind and degree of improvement ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... with other causes,—the foundation of a public library, the erection of public buildings, and the institution of public gardens—to create with apparent suddenness, among a susceptible and lively population, a general cultivation of taste. The citizens were brought together in their hours of relaxation [6], by the urbane and social manner of life, under porticoes and in gardens, which it was the policy of a graceful and benignant tyrant to inculcate; and the native genius, hitherto dormant, of the quick Ionian race, once awakened ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the club, on Thursday September 27, 1827. A steam packet was engaged, to accompany the match, by the Club for the accommodation of their friends, among whom we had the good fortune to be numbered. It was altogether a most grateful relaxation from our land labours. The distance sailed was from off Blackwall to Gravesend and back, and the muster of the fleet almost unprecedentedly fine. The whole of the vessels were admirably managed throughout, the match, which towards the close, became intensely interesting. At length it was decided ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 291 - Supplement to Vol 10 • Various

... strict conformity to these principles. They were, indeed, ameliorations of the rigors of war upon which we might have insisted. They substituted for the harshness of military rule something of the mildness of civil government, and were not only the exercise of no excess of power, but were a relaxation in favor of the peaceable inhabitants of the conquered territory who had submitted to our authority, and were ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... in the course of my legal studies, found the necessity of a knowledge of French, in which language all the early history of our profession is written, and have determined to take a little relaxation from chamber reading, which has seriously injured my health. If my modest finances can bear a two months' journey, and a residence at Paris, I propose to remain there ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... value of honest fiction for children and the overwrought brains of busy men, but the reading of novels of any kind can only be justified as a relaxation, and it is a sad fact that there is a large class of persons who will read nothing but novels and who call all other books dry reading. Upon the minds of this class fiction has a most enervating effect, and it is ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley

... convenient time on another evening of the week, a popular speaker addresses the audience on a theme of social interest, after it has been entertained for a half hour with music; following the address a brief intermission allows for relaxation, and then for an hour the question goes to the house, and free discussion takes place under the direction of the leader of the meeting. Sometimes series of this sort are supplied by churches or other social organizations; in that case many of the ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... at your instigation for rest and relaxation—to get rid of nervous worries, and here I find a big new worry waiting for me that I'd never thought of having before. What if my only daughter should take it in her head to marry one of these infernally ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster

... machinery requires an occasional relaxation, as much as the steam engine does the application of oil to its divers springs; and, after a bon fide slumber, we rise with a freshness equal to that of flowers in the best regulated flower-pots. But dozing must not be confounded with legitimate sleep, though frequently ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... sea-bird is tossed through the spray of flying rollers. At such moments all the light and music of the world seemed distilled into her veins, and forced up in bubbles of laughter to her lips and eyes. Amherst had never seen her thus, and he watched her with the sense of relaxation which the contact of limpid gaiety brings to a mind obscured by failure and self-distrust. The world was not so dark a place after all, if such springs of merriment could well up in a heart as sensitive as hers to the burden and toil ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... of the hard lines of the elder Woodbury's face, as though some favour of import had been done him. He touched a bell-cord and lowered himself with a little grunt of relaxation into a chair. The chair was stoutly built, but it groaned a little under the weight of the mighty frame it received. He leaned back and in his face was a light which came not altogether from the comfortable ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... with reality is temporarily abandoned. In so far as sleep is psychologically determined, it is a regressive phenomenon. It is interesting that the most frequent euphemism or metaphor for death is sleep. Sleep is a normal regression. It does not always give the unstable individual sufficient relaxation from the demands of adaptation and so pathological regressions take place, one of which we believe stupor to be. It is important to note that objectively the resemblance between sleep and stupor is striking. So far as mental activity in either ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch

... His secretaries may have pondered over them in securing material for their chief, but Lloyd George has been too busy doing things to devote much time to ancient philosophical reflections or to learned economic theories. It is easy to understand how his temperament found satisfaction and relaxation at the same time in the cut-and-thrust work of Dumas and Weyman. I ought, perhaps, to add that he explained with a smile how politics did not leave him much time for serious reading just then. They have certainly left him still less since ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... or antipatriotic interests counteract the force of those nobler sympathies and antipathies which he has in right of his Country; and lastly the belt or girdle of his mind has never been stretched to utter relaxation by false philosophy, under a conceit of making it sit more easily and gracefully. These sensations are a social inheritance to him: more important, as he is precluded from luxurious—and those which ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... against their own wishes.[297] The friends of these knights and country gentlemen flocked to their prisons; and when they petitioned for more liberty and air during the summer, it was policy to grant their request. But it was also policy that they should not reside in their own counties: this relaxation was only granted to those who, living in the south, consented to sojourn in the north; while the dwellers in the north were to be lodged in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... for air. How often he had seen it now, and never without the same wild sense of revolt and protest! At last the hideous membrane was loosened, the child got relief, and lay back white and corpse-like, but with a pitiful momentary relaxation of the drawn lines on its little brow. Robert stooped and kissed the damp tiny hand. The child's eyes remained shut, but the fingers made a feeble ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... salvation. Consequently, the ecclesiastical cage is more strict in its confinement than the secular cage; if the bars are not so strong and not so rough, the grating, finer and more yielding, is more secure, closer and better maintained; they do not allow any holes or relaxation of the meshes; the precautions against worldly and family interference, against the mistakes and caprices of individual effort, are innumerable, and form a double or even triple network. For, to school discipline ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the history of civilized mankind. To be sure, some editorial writers behave as if the erotic calamity of the day were something unheard of, and as if it demanded a new remedy. The historical retrospect leaves no doubt that periods of sexual tension and of sexual relaxation, of hysteric erotic excitement and of a certain cool indifference have alternated throughout thousands of years. And whenever an age was unusually immoral and lascivious, it was always also a period in which under the mask of scientific interest or social frankness or aesthetic openmindedness ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... mortification. They were in a manner confined to a small fortified town, and all their conduct narrowly watched. Their accommodation was mean: their letters were opened; and they were daily insulted by injurious libels. The Dutch deputies would hear of no relaxation, and no expedient for removing the difficulties that retarded the negotiation. In vain the plenipotentiaries declared, that the French king could not with decency, or the least regard to his honour, wage war against his own grandson: the deputies insisted upon his effecting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... days in bed, the relaxation of body which attended them, enabled Alexandra to think more calmly than she had done since Emil's death. She and Frank, she told herself, were left out of that group of friends who had been overwhelmed by disaster. She must certainly see Frank Shabata. Even in the courtroom her heart ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather



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