When some young girl incurs spinal disease from some slight fall, which she ought not to have felt for an hour, or some business man breaks down in the prime of his years from some trifling over-anxiety, which should have left no trace behind, the popular verdict may be 'Mysterious Providence;' but the wiser observer sees the retribution for the folly of those misspent days which enfeebled the childish constitution instead of ripening it.

Capt. F.W. von Herbert ("Bye Paths in the Balkans") wrote (some years before the present war): "The Bulgars as Christian subjects of Turkey exempt from military service, have tilled the ground under stagnant and enfeebling peace conditions, and the profession of arms is new to them.

Age, that enfeebles other men's designs, But heightens thine, and thy free draught refines.

Six weeks saw me immersed in all the dissipation that the city afforded, and in three months I had an empty purse, enfeebled health, and a hardness of heart which would have taken some men years to acquire.

But while this softer art their bliss supplies, It gives their follies also room to rise; For praise, too dearly loved or warmly sought, Enfeebles all internal strength of thought, And the weak soul, within itself unblessed, Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.

Under such a governor, the young prince had but little chance of receiving a wholesome education, even if there was not a settled design to enfeeble his mind by neglect.

We narrow our lives and enfeeble our powers when we try to reject any of these things, or unlawfully escape them, or are yet indifferent to them.

This plea, therefore, by removing an objection to a particular clause, will strengthen the great argument against the tenour of the bill, that instead of lessening, it will increase the consumption of those liquors which are allowed to be destructive to the people, to enfeeble the body, and to vitiate the mind, and, consequently, to impair the strength and commerce of the nation, and to destroy the happiness and security of life.

But this ought not to surprise us in the present case: for our lot, until of late, has been singularly prosperous, and great prosperity enfeebles men's spirits, and prepares them to despond when it shall have passed away.

While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung, And to the trembling chords these tempting verses sung: 'Behold, ye pilgrims of this earth, behold!

In a word, she was a strong and lovely symmetrya woman whose heart had not enfeebled her head, but whose head could never freeze her heart.

The spread of the representative system destroys that singularity, and must (however little we may like it) proportionally enfeeble our preponderating influenceunless we measure our steps cautiously and accommodate our conduct to the times.

It cannot enfeeble the intellect.

140, n. 1; (1773) much enfeebled, ii. 208; want of power, v. 57; (1774) feeble, iv.

Besides, those that are addicted to this slender way of discourse, for the most part, do so weaken and enfeeble their judgement, by contenting themselves to understand by colours, features, and glimpses; that they perfectly omit all the more profitable searching into the nature and causes of things themselves.

It appears to me, that since the spirits which the distillers produce are allowed to enfeeble the limbs, and vitiate the blood, to pervert the heart, and obscure the intellects, that the number of distillers should be no argument in their favour!

Should she see him entera tottering and enfeebled old man, broken by the sufferings which he had borne so proudly for science?

As I write I must unceasingly study what is the line of least intellectual resistance along which my thought may enter the differently constituted mind; and to that line I must subtly adjust, without enfeebling my meaning.

It was one of those tragedies of life which enfeeble the most faithful memories at a blow shatter nerves beyond the faculty of revival, cloud the mind for ever, or turn the hair grey in an instant.

the laborious intellectual habits of this people, and their trying "text," are considered of no account,)cancer of the stomach,disease of the liver,dyspepsia,enfeebled nutrition, and consequent emaciation,dryness of the mouth,"the clergyman's sore-throat" and loss of voice,irritability of the nervous system,tremulousness,palpitation and paralysis,and, among the moral ills, loss of energy, idleness, drunkenness.

It is only when the expansion shall be carried beyond the faculties of the General Government so as to enfeeble its operations to the injury of the whole that any of the parts can be injured.

3. For by their disputes they kept constantly enfeebling in one way or another the good order of their government; consequently, all these objects so to speak for which they were formerly accustomed to wage the greatest wars they gained in timenot without factional quarrels, to be sure, but still with small difficulty.

Sugar, too, whilst a necessary condiment for the food of children, if given in the form of sweetmeats, and their indulgence, long persisted in, may so enfeeble the organs of digestion as to cause worms.

Lorenzo deliberately set himself to enfeeble the people by luxury, partly because he liked voluptuous living, partly because he aimed at popularity, and partly because it was his interest to enervate republican virtues.

Was it my fault that in the first assault The Canoniers were slayne, whereby our strength, Our mayne offensive strength, was quite defeated And our defensive part so much enfeebled That possibility to subsist was lost, Or by resistance to preserve one life?