Note the contractions and relaxations of the muscles.

There are scores of tiny muscles about the head, face, and eyes, which, by their alternate contractions and relaxations, impart to the countenance those expressions which reflect the feelings and passions of the individual.

These contractions and relaxations of the various parts of the heart follow one another so regularly that the result is called the rhythmic action of the heart.

We may form some idea of this, by the suddenness and violence of its cries, by the sudden contractions and relaxations of its limbs and body, and by its palpitating heart and difficult breathing.

She makes some Relaxations in Etiquette.

A little plot of ground was railed off in the garden of the Tuileries for the dauphin's amusement; and one of her favorite relaxations was to watch him working at the flower-beds himself with his little hoe and rake; though, as if to mark that they were in fact prisoners, both she and he were followed wherever they went by grenadiers of the city-guard, and were not allowed to dispense with their attendance for a single moment.

Grotius was freely allowed during his close imprisonment all the relaxations of study.

I believe, on the contrary, that the Eastern imagination is singularly prone to invest outward things with a symbolic character; and that relaxations on points of form are valued by them, chiefly because they are held necessarily to imply concessions on substantial matters.

Afterwards, however, he received my letter of July, intimating censure for the relaxations of the rules restricting the residence of Europeans, and a difference of opinion as to the Government leaving Calcutta.

From Newfoundland and her continental possessions all our productions, as well as our vessels, were excluded, with occasional relaxations, by which, in seasons of distress, the former were admitted in British bottoms.

Whether any such Relaxations of Morality, such little jeux desprit, ought not to be allowed in this intended Seminary of Politicians, I shall leave to the Wisdom of their Founder.

Once more the analogies of the sleep of Jesus suggest the Christian right, and even duty, of those relaxations, which are necessary, at times, to loosen the strain of life and restore the freshness of its powers.

This change can not fail to prove beneficial to the trade between the United States and that colony, and the advantages likely to flow from it may lead to greater relaxations in the colonial systems of other nations.

I am very averse to trouble of any sort, so that the necessity for the simplest manual operations will rouse me to indignation: but if a thing will contribute largely to my ever-growing voluptuousness, I will undergo a considerable amount of labour to accomplish it, though without steady effort, being liable to side-winds and whims, and purposeless relaxations.

The attempt, by a man whose "relaxations" were botany and ornithology, but who had no claims to be called an expert, to defeat Darwin on his own groundand the dignified horror of a Churchman at some deductions from evolutionis eminently characteristic of the period.

But now there are so many at Home whose nearest and dearest are in the trenches, and who require no telling of the horrors of the war, that I have tried here to show there is a lighter side to war, to let them know that we have our relaxations, and even find occasion for jests, in the course of our business.

Yet, since the right of setting an uncertain and arbitrary value upon life has been disputed, and since experience of past times gives us little reason to hope that any reformation will be effected by a periodical havock of our fellow-beings, perhaps it will not be useless to consider what consequences might arise from relaxations of the law, and a more rational and equitable adaptation of penalties to offences.

If my Scotch friends insist, let us call it one of his quite obscure, unpopular, and minor titles; one of his relaxations.

Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality, and reserve; yet, perhaps, the relaxations of that severity were not very elegant.

" The relaxations of "England's queen" with her maids of honour were not, if we may credit the existing memoirs of her court, precisely such as modern fastidiousness would assign to the "fair vestal throned by the west.

But because the Mind cannot be always in its Fervours, nor strained up to a Pitch of Virtue, it is necessary to find out proper Employments for it in its Relaxations.

Whether any such Relaxations of Morality, such little jeux desprit, ought not to be allowed in this intended Seminary of Politicians, I shall leave to the Wisdom of their Founder.

In this case Dreams look like the Relaxations and Amusements of the Soul, when she is disincumbred of her Machine, her Sports and Recreations, when she has laid her Charge asleep.

" By retiring from the world Mrs. Mountjoy had not intended to include such slight social relaxations as Mrs. Armitage's party, for Harry on turning round encountered her talking to another Cheltenham lady.

He was as fixed as ever in his resolution of making this a penance year, and believed himself so entirety recovered as to be able to do without relaxations.