|
|
|
More "Slowness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... go was good-natured, harmless Victor Seitz, a Detroit cigar maker, a German, and one of the slowest of created mortals. How he ever came to go into the cavalry was beyond the wildest surmises of his comrades. Why his supernatural slowness and clumsiness did not result in his being killed at least once a day, while in the service, was even still farther beyond the power of conjecture. No accident ever happened in the company that Seitz did not have some share in. Did a horse fall on a slippery road, it was almost sure ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... down conversing with a Midge, turned round and said, "Remember, you Wasp, that you have not brought your sting with you to-day, so pray do not give way to your spiteful nature. The poor Snail has to carry her house on her back, so we should not be angry at her slowness." Some of the other insects said that this was no excuse for the Snail, because she knew that she walked very slowly, and should ...
— The Butterfly's Ball - The Grasshopper's Feast • R.M. Ballantyne
... "as slowness of motion seems to be of etiquette with the people of Hindustan, the disbursing of the money took up so much time that when M. Law was come down as far Rajmehal, he found ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... fishes to the surface; but as the minutes dragged by and not a fish seemed inclined even to nibble, the solemn silence which had brooded on the quartet was broken by sundry fidgetings and wrigglings and suppressed remarks on the variableness of fish and the slowness of fishing. Men enjoy the sport, because they can light their pipes and smoke in expectant ease; but the consolation of tobacco was debarred from boys who were, as Jim put it, "too young to smoke and too old ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... knights, with their horses and attendants; his vassals of Naples and Germany formed a powerful army; and the number of English crusaders was magnified to sixty thousand by the report of fame. But the inevitable or affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumed the strength and provisions of the more indigent pilgrims: the multitude was thinned by sickness and desertion; and the sultry summer of Calabria anticipated the mischiefs of a Syrian campaign. At length the emperor hoisted sail at Brundusium, with a ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... they are the companions of man, and how they shall have an extra chupa of paddy when the sun goes down, and he has delivered to the merchant sahib on the quay his load of gambier; or he reproves them for their slowness and want of interest, and threatens them with the rod, and tells them to look how he holds it above them. If in the course of the harangue one of the dumb listeners pauses to pick a mouthful of young lallang grass by the roadside, the softly crooning ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... moved in a confusing mixture of the miraculous and the natural which baffled calculation as to which element would rule at any given moment. Their faith was feeble, and Christ rebuked them for their slowness to learn the lesson of this very miracle and its twin feeding of the four thousand. They were our true brothers in their failure to grasp the full meaning of the past, and to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... gives no information, sometimes it gives false information. For first, there are very many things which escape the sense, even when best disposed and no way obstructed; by reason either of the subtlety of the whole body, or the minuteness of the parts, or distance of place, or slowness or else swiftness of motion, or familiarity of the object, or other causes. And again when the sense does apprehend a thing its apprehension is not much to be relied upon. For the testimony and information of the sense has reference always to man, not to the universe; and it is a great error to ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... The slowness of all Tom's movements was strangely contrasted with his slight, and symmetrical figure; that looked as if it only awaited the will of the owner to be the most active piece of human machinery that ever responded to the impulses of youth and health. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... as these that this winter at length drew to an end, while my prospects of getting to Germany gradually grew more hopeful, though with a slowness that sorely tried my patience. I had kept up a continuous correspondence with Dresden respecting Rienzi, and in the worthy chorus-master Fischer I at last found an honest man who was favourably disposed to me. He sent me reliable and reassuring ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the French came within gunshot of the English centre (B, B, B), and shortly afterward the firing began, the assailants very properly directing their main effort upon the English rear ships, which, as happens with most long columns, had opened out, a tendency increased in this case by the slowness of the fourth ship from the rear, the "Prudent." The French flag-ship, "Ville de Paris," of one hundred and twenty guns, bearing De Grasse's flag, pushed for the gap thus made, but was foiled by the ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... pupil of Ruy Gomez. He is very discreet and amiable, and possesses much authority and learning. By his agreeable manners, he goes on tampering and disguising much of the disgust which people would feel at the king's slowness and sordid parsimony. Through his hands have passed all the affairs of Italy, and also those of Flanders, ever since this country has been governed by Don Juan, who promotes his interests greatly, as do, still ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... farewell address. Very simply he told his hearers that, when in a few hours' time the boats came to take them to the Peninsula Beaches, they were to know that they were doing the right thing. There was a tense stillness, as he said with suggestive slowness: "I am only the lips of your Church. She has been with you on this ship, and striven not to fail you. And now to God's mercy and protection she commits you. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord give you His ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... or old age. Here she possesses a habitation protected by exceedingly high walls and strongly barred gates. Her hall is called Elvidnir; Hunger is her table; Starvation, her knife; Delay, her man; Slowness, her maid; Precipice, her threshold; Care, her bed; and Burning Anguish forms the hangings of her apartments. The one half of her body is livid, the other half the colour of human flesh. She may therefore easily be recognized; ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... fishermen would emerge upon the sky, walk along for a bit, and sink without haste. Their brown nets, like the cobwebs of gigantic spiders, lay on the shabby grass of the slope; and, looking up from the end of the street, the people of the town would recognise the two Carvils by the creeping slowness of their gait. Captain Hagberd, pottering aimlessly about his cottages, would raise his head to see how they ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... Nevsky we swung on the step of a streetcar bulging with people, its platforms bent down from the weight and scraping along the ground, which crawled with agonising slowness ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... to make that concession in the slowness of their movements. They were plainly being compelled to render deference when they longed to refuse it. Then the middle one of the ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... above, every Thoracic person should avoid working for extremely bony people. The Osseous is as much irritated by the rapid-fire reactions of the Thoracic employee as the Thoracic is by the slowness of the Osseous. ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... The shortage of clothing was felt the more because of the extreme severity of the winter. After the initial difficulties had been passed supplies of this kind were furnished in profusion; but lack of preparation on the part of the War Department and the slowness of Congress to appropriate promptly produced a temporary situation of extreme discomfort and worse. The provision of food supplies was arranged more successfully. Soldiers would not be soldiers if they did not complain of their "chow." But the quality and variety of the food given to the ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... wail, then Mrs. Zapp's elephantine slowness on the stairs from the basement. She appeared, buttoning her collar, smiling almost pleasantly, for she disliked Mr. Wrenn less than she did any ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... be completely held by rapidity of movement and decision of action, I reply that I have wished to report here, at length and completely, all the details of a plan of attack conceived so rapidly that it is only the slowness of my pen that gives an appearance of slowness to the execution. I have wished, by this slowness and precision, to be certain that nothing should be omitted from the conditions under which the strange ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... numbers who allowed their own empty wishes to torment them were weary of the slowness of time, the night ended at last, and daylight appeared, the soldiers were all assembled in one body, and Valentinian advanced into the open space, and mounting a tribunal of some height which had been erected on purpose, he was declared ruler of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... It is the slowness of it all that is so disheartening; the impossibility that dogs the efforts of the high-minded, the kind, the just, of prevailing against tradition and prejudice and stupidity; the grim acquiescence in sanctioned oppression that characterises a certain type of respectable virtue; ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... occasion: "I am sitting at home, patiently waiting for Oliver Twist, who has not yet arrived." And, indeed, "Oliver" gave him considerable trouble, in the course of his adventures, by his disinclination to be put upon paper easily. This slowness in writing marked more prominently the earlier period of my father's literary career, though these "blank days," when his brain refused to work, were of occasional occurrence to the end. He was very ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... was perfectly aware that the British weakness mostly lay in the age of the senior officers and the slowness of promotion. There were majors of over fifty years of age, and if a man were a general at seventy he was considered fortunate and young. The jealousy with which younger men were regarded would have ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... perfect poetic setting the play went on with a stately slowness—that yet was all too fast for the onlookers—and with the perfection of finish that such actors naturally gave to their work amidst surroundings by which they were at once stimulated and inspired. Even the practical defects ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... mahogany and horsehair, awaited the uncle and nephew. As daylight, darkened by the windows, could not penetrate to this corner, the cook had left two dips burning, whose unsnuffed wicks showed a sort of mushroom growth, giving the red light which promises length of life to the candle from slowness of combustion—a discovery ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... see him I could not say. Every impulse and vital force of nature centered in my eyes, and they fastened themselves upon that one irregular shadow in the opposing corner which slowly—oh! with such agonizing slowness—assumed the outlines of a man. My fascinated gaze wandered not nor wearied. When in the moist light of the morning I clearly saw Broussard, haggard, pale and sunken-eyed, watching me thirty feet away, it seemed that I had seen him all ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... the operations undertaken on a larger scale by Princess Metternich to secure me some compensation dragged along with mysterious slowness, and it was to a merchant named Sturmer, whom I had previously known in Zurich, that I owed my deliverance from my present troubles. He had constantly interested himself in my welfare while in Paris, and now by his help I was enabled, first to set my household affairs in order, and then to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... forgiven that blow I dealt him a month ago, when I flattened in his helmet with my blunted axe and stretched him senseless on the ground; in faith, I meant not to hit so hard, but he had been taunting me with my slowness, and seeing an opening for a blow at his head I could not resist it, and struck, as he was always telling ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... lonesome here?" She asked it with a curious soft slowness, a speculative detachment, as if she only half thought of ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... of Hayti and Mexico. While Hayti, it is true, has failed to make great progress in one century, it has made quite as much progress as England made during any equal period immediately after Rome withdrew from it. And that degree of slowness in growth, which with equanimity has been endured by us in Hayti, could certainly be endured by us in islands on the coast of Asia. It cannot be gainsaid that, through our insisting on the policy of non-interference ourselves, and of non-interference by European nations, Hayti has been ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... came with a slowness that meant finality. "Why need to-morrow or a year from now be different from to-day unless we make ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... with infinite slowness, hand in hand, or the arm of one about the waist of the other—neither knowing the look, the age, the religion or even the color of the other. But I know, from the only person fitted to judge, that they loved each other tremendously and spotlessly—these ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... and greatly to the annoyance of the sufferer. This is sometimes accompanied by a sense of fulness in the head, a giddiness, and dulness of the brain, sometimes going so far as to cause an uncertainty in the step, a slowness of comprehension, and a feeling as if one might fall at any moment in some sort of ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... Eastern army of the Union, under McClellan, gave them time to strengthen their defences, and reinforce their army, which had dwindled to a very low ebb during the winter. But while the commander of the East was planning strategy that, by the slowness of its development, if by nothing worse, was destined to dim the lustre of the Union triumphs, and lose the results of a year of war, the West was in motion. Down the Mississippi swept our invincible fleet, with an army on shore to second its operations. Up the Tennessee ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... calling her and finding she did not come, went to look for her. She had gone into the back-yard, and was sitting there in the rain by the side of the water-butt. She was soaked, and her best clothes were spoiled. I must confess that I did not take very kindly to her. I was irritated at her slowness in learning; it was, in fact, painful to be obliged to teach her. I thought that perhaps she might have some undeveloped taste for music, but she showed none, and our attempts to get her to sing ordinary melodies were a ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... by heaven to be the leader of the Hebrew people he hesitated to assume the formidable office on the plea of "impediment and slowness of tongue." But Jehovah reassured him by promising to qualify him for the sublime functions assigned to him: "I will be in thy mouth, and I will teach thee what ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... to men of the grosser clay; for the proverb is pretty, not only on account of the accident of its origin, but because it has a double meaning, 'round' being taken in Tuscany to express not only circular form, but slowness and ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... fleet and army. "All are guilty, and all must perish," was the mandate of Justinian; and the bloody execution was intrusted to his favorite Stephen, who was recommended by the epithet of the savage. Yet even the savage Stephen imperfectly accomplished the intentions of his sovereign. The slowness of his attack allowed the greater part of the inhabitants to withdraw into the country; and the minister of vengeance contented himself with reducing the youth of both sexes to a state of servitude, with roasting alive seven of the principal citizens, with drowning twenty ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... you can copy every curve slowly and accurately, you have made satisfactory progress; but you will find the difficulty is in the slowness. It is easy to draw what appears to be a good line with a sweep of the hand, or with what is called freedom;[3] the real difficulty and masterliness is in never letting the hand be free, but keeping it under entire control at ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... obstacles kept arising at every turn. The dilatoriness of the French Government seems past all belief, and yet, in spite of his faith in the more expeditious methods of his own country, he was fated to encounter the same exasperating slowness at home. It was, therefore, only natural that in spite of the courageous optimism of his nature, he should at times have given way to fits of depression, as is instanced by the following extracts from a letter written to his brother ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... The Emperor had promised her that she should accompany him on his first journey; but he had deceived her, nevertheless, and was about to set out without her! She instantly called her women; but vexed at their slowness, her Majesty sprang out of bed, threw on the first clothing she found at hand, and ran out of her room in slippers and without stockings. Weeping like a little child that is being taken back to boarding-school, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... to spending the winter in draught-free houses, warmed by continuously burning stoves, are more susceptible to the cold than the inhabitants of other parts of Europe, and their army suffered heavy losses; which explains the slowness of the pursuit. ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... who bestow immense benefits spoil them by their silence or slowness of speech, which gives them an air of moroseness, as they say "yes" with a face which seems to say "no." How much better is it to join kind words to kind actions, and to enhance the value of our gifts by a civil and gracious commendation of them! To cure your friend of being slow to ask a ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... night were the same to the occupant of the little room. They passed with equal slowness and impartial darkness. Five days that he could account for crawled by before anything unusual happened to break the strain of his solitary, inexplicable confinement. He could tell when it was morning by the visit of a bewhiskered ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... not dared to recollect you too often by overt acts, dear Madam; as, by the slowness of your answer, you seem to be sorry my memory was so very alert. Besides, it looks as if you had a mind to keep me at due distance, by the great civility and cold complimentality of your letter; a style I flattered myself you had too much good will ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... trusting everything to swift, bitter fight. I fairly trembled in eagerness to grapple with Kirby, hand to hand, and crush him helpless to the earth. I heard his voice, hateful and snarling, as he cursed Rale for his slowness, and the hot blood boiled in my veins, when he jerked the ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... folding them both in his arms, just uttered in a broken voice, "Good-by! God bless you!" and I, embracing my dear friends for the last time, followed him out of the room. It is not the time only that must elapse before I can see her again, it is the terrible distance, the slowness and uncertainty of communication; ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... cheek muscles, pendulous lips, inability to grasp the feed, often a slow and weak movement in chewing, and difficulty and slowness in drinking. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... detested. But he was restless and discontented. He longed to begin the fight, and could not sleep for thinking of it. Like Giovanni, he was strong and revengeful; but Giovanni had from his mother a certain slowness of temperament, which often deterred him from action just long enough to give him time for reflection, whereas the father, when roused, and he was roused easily, loved to strike at once. It chanced one evening, in a great house, that Saracinesca came ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the room very slowly, are injurious, for exactly the same reasons. A firm light quick step, a steady quick hand are the desiderata; not the slow, lingering, shuffling foot, the timid, uncertain touch. Slowness is not gentleness, though it is often mistaken for such; quickness, lightness, and gentleness are quite compatible. Again, if friends and doctors did but watch, as nurses can and should watch, the features sharpening, the eyes growing almost wild, of fever patients who are listening for ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... as regards close contact with the power of the chief nations of the world, were really in a state of political isolation which no longer exists. This arose from our geographical position—reinforced by the slowness and uncertainty of the existing means of intercommunication—and yet more from the grave preoccupation of foreign statesmen with questions of unprecedented and ominous importance upon the continent of Europe. A policy of isolation was for us then practicable,—though ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... very important. Two or three of the leading newspapers had first hinted at and then openly condemned the incompetence and slowness of the police. Such censure, as we all know, is very common, and in nine cases out of ten it is unjust. They who write it probably know but little of the circumstances;—and, in speaking of a failure here and a failure there, make no reference ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... kind to Mr. Wood, in their own way, but they were a little impatient of his slowness to be sociable, and had, I think, a sort of feeling that the ex-convict ought not only to enjoy evening parties more than other people, but to be just a little ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... still to call impatiently under the lozenge-paned window of the old school-room, "Gracie, Gracie, are you not done with lessons yet? Do come out and play." And how dreary "Noel and Chapsal" used to grow all of a sudden when that invitation came, and with what relentless slowness the hands of the old clock dragged through the lesson-hour still ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... opinion generally, and therefore of legislative opinion, has been in England at once gradual, or slow, and continuous. The qualities of slowness and continuity may conveniently be considered together, and are closely interconnected, but they are ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... of their slowness of mind, they [the masses] require always, however, a certain period before they are ready even to take cognizance of a matter, and only after a thousandfold repetition of the most simple concept will they ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... newspapers containing accounts of American misfortunes. But that fortunate battle was not fought until a few days after the eight Commissioners had signed their compact. It is an interesting illustration of the slowness of communication which our forefathers had to endure, that the treaty crossed the Atlantic in a sailing ship in time to travel through much of the country simultaneously with the report of this farewell victory. Two such good pieces of news ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... Julian for a companion. His health was not so firm as it had been. A change seems to have fallen on him with some suddenness on his return to America; for some years, ever since the hard winter of "The Scarlet Letter" at Salem, he had complained of fatigue in writing and of lassitude and slowness of mind; after the winter in Rome he felt this with new weariness, as he says when he practically ended his notebooks in Switzerland, not having the vital impulse to continue them, and in the intervening time he ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... Ragsdale, he would snatch them from him, and throw them into the fire; and in this way, it is believed, many of Collins's finest pieces were destroyed. Such of his Odes as were published, on his own account in 1746, were not popular; and, disappointed at the slowness of the sale, the poet burnt the remaining copies with his ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... for weeks in private about the lethargy of the people—the slowness of men to enlist. But they seemed to me to complain with insufficient reason. For now they come by thousands. They do need more men in the field, and they may conscript them, but I doubt the necessity. But I run across such incidents as ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... filled with a dense peaty mass not reduced to mold, the result of centuries of sphagnous growth, which had reached a thickness of nearly 2 feet above the remains. When we reflect upon the well-known slowness of this kind of growth in these northern regions, attested by numerous Arctic travelers, the antiquity of the ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... might be appropriated to these objects, but Mr. Jewett and other heads of departments wished to apply the rule from the beginning. Henry refused to do so, and looked with entire satisfaction on the slowness of completion of what was, in his ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... to a high speed, we seem to live in a very tranquil world. At night, when the glare of the sun passes out of our atmosphere, the stars and planets seem to move across the heavens with a stately and solemn slowness. It was one of the first discoveries of modern astronomy that this movement is only apparent. The apparent creeping of the stars across the heavens at night is accounted for by the fact that the earth turns upon its axis once in every twenty-four hours. When we ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... it is possible for a man ever to thoroughly understand a woman?" he asked, with a retrospective slowness, directed, I was sure, towards ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... before it. A mile and a half lay between her and the big cottage on the hillside—the most arduous part of the journey by far. She walked and ran as though pursued, scudding over the road with a swiftness that would have amazed another, but which seemed the essence of slowness to her. Thoughts of robbers, tramps, wild beasts, assailed her with intermittent terrors, but all served to diminish the feeling of shyness that had been interfering with ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... slowness, as is at once illustrated by the fact that its shining scales may frequently be met with entirely unchanged in the soil. Its persistence is dependent on the small quantity of alkaline constituents which it contains; and for this reason ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... taxes the bodily organs more. If we attempted to eat uncooked, the more fibrous vegetables, the grains, and unripe fruit, it would be quite true, but it is not so of the ordinary food of vegetarians. A slowness of digestion does not necessarily imply a greater strain on the system. As vegetables, in particular, are for the longest period of time in the intestines, and undergo the greater part of their digestion there, a gentle and slow process of digestion in that organ ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan
... Moreover, he didn't have to share it with anybody, because there was no one else who thought of looking for food there. He knew when he was well off. So Grandfather Quack grew fat and was happy. The only things that bothered him were the slowness with which he had to pick up seeds, one at a time, and the slowness with which he could paddle about, for you couldn't really call it swimming. But in spite of these things he was happy and made the ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... bride. Had he been quite intimate with her he would have given her the manuscript of his speech, and occupied himself by saying it to her as a lesson which he had learnt. As he could not do this he recapitulated to her all his engagements, as though excusing his own slowness as to matrimony, and declared that what with the property and what with Parliament, he never knew whether he was standing on his head or his heels. But when he paused he had done nothing towards naming a certain ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... my miserable childhood, ripened under this last trial. The count was delighted when he could jeer at me for not putting in practice the principles or the rules he had explained; if I reflected before I played he complained of my slowness; if I played fast he was angry because I hurried him; if I forgot to mark my points he declared, making his profit out of the mistake, that I was always too rapid. It was like the tyranny of a schoolmaster, the despotism of the rod, of which I can really give you no idea unless I compare ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... Prince Schwarzenberg burned his ships; he said to himself that if his action were disavowed, he could go and raise cabbages on his estate; but if it were approved, he would be at the top of the wave. Abandoning then the customary slowness and scruples of diplomacy, he answered without hesitation that he was ready, and made an engagement with the Duke of Cadore, Minister of Foreign Affairs, for the next day, at the Tuileries, to sign the marriage contract of ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... impatient of the extreme slowness with which reforms were meted out, proposed to send a deputation with a petition for a civic guard, and the expulsion of the Jesuits, to whom the delay was attributed, and who were regarded as the worst enemies of the liberal Pope. The principal ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... gives it to herself. (Maire signs the paper with the slowness of one unaccustomed to writing) It will be a great change for us when we come ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... the vacuum with extreme slowness, for fear that the gases distributed through the blood, becoming free on account of the difference of their tension from that of rarified air, might escape in the vessels and so bring on immediate death. Moreover, I watched, every moment, the effects of the vacuum ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... time? His fingers itched for his watch, because his obsession was the flight of hours. But on the second day out a wireless message came, relaying from Cairo. The man did not dare open it on deck. He took it to his cabin and there with the slowness of deep fear, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... forward again and put his fine white paw on the edge of the saucer. Hermione lifted it down with delicate slowness. This deliberate, delicate carefulness of movement ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... frankly, and he had not noticed the moment's slowness or, if he did, took it for the passing of ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... less and less accurate. A copper ball was often used to decrease this change, but even that was subject to error. This method is still sometimes used, but for uniform results, a platinum ball, which will not scale or change in weight, is necessary, and the cost of this ball, together with the slowness of the method, have rendered the practice obsolete, especially in view of ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... most obvious. Let there be separation or not, slavery has just entered upon the road which leads to abolition, more or less rapid, but infallible. If there be no separation, this immense progress will he effected with more wisdom and slowness; violent means will be averted, the benevolent influence of the Gospel will pave the way for progressive and peaceful transformation by preaching, to the slaves as to the masters, more of their duties than of their rights. ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... at a one-horse fly pace, had made its way with comfortable jaunting slowness from Riversford to St. Rest, its stout, heavy-faced driver being altogether unconscious that his fare was no less a personage than Miss Vancourt, the lady of the Manor. When a small, girlish person, clad ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... example, the second of Peter—began to be more extensively known, the general reception and use of it would be a slow process, not only from the difficulty of communication in ancient as compared with modern times, but also from the slowness with which the churches of one region received any thing new from those ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... reefs out of her immense mainsail, and had set an enormous gaff-topsail above it, we had drawn so far ahead of her as to bring her a couple of points upon our weather quarter, whereupon we tacked, the advantage gained being solely due, I imagined, to the slowness of her crew in making sail. When we were round, and full upon the other tack, she was still quite three miles distant, and bore about a point on our lee-bow; but of course she very soon drew out athwart our hawse, and now everything seemed to depend upon which was the more weatherly ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... his slowness as head of the deputation and was glad, he said, to have a word apart with these two. The room could not seat seven and for the moment the other four were at the bar, where standing was so much easier ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... shown that the two succeeding conjunctions will take place at the points q, q', r, r' respectively 8 deg. in advance of Q, Q', R, R'. Thus we see that the points of conjunction will travel with extreme slowness in the same direction as that in which the planets revolve. Now since the angular distance between P and R is 120 deg., and since in a period of three synodic revolutions or 21,758 days, the line of ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... were dead the undertones of the sea linger in lulling harmonies. The tepid tide on the warm sand crisply rustles and hisses as when satin is crumpled and smartly rent. Weird, resonant tappings, moans, and gurgles come from a hollow log drifting, with infinite slowness. Broken sighs and gasps tell where the ripples advancing in echelon wander and lose their way among blocks of sandstone. As the tide rose it prattled and gurgled, toying with tinkling shells and clinking coral, each tone separate and distinct, however ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... sea retreated, and great spaces were left uncovered everywhere, as if the Channel was slowly drying up; then with the same lazy slowness the waters rose again, and continued their everlasting coming without any heed ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... Mehemet Pasha, he retired, after some skirmishes, to Bolbeck, where he established his camp, and was joined by Abaz Pasha, his nephew, at the head of 800 men. But his presence was required in other quarters. Divisions had broken out at several points, and the slowness with which the operations of the siege of Saint Jean d'Acre was carried on had damped the ardour ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... English Protestant, to give them better intelligence. But don't you begin to be impatient for the events of all our West Indian expeditions? The Duke,(596) who is now the soul of the Regency, and who on all hands is allowed to make a great figure there, is much dissatisfied at the slowness of General Braddock, who does not march as if he was at all impatient to be scalped. It is said for him, that he has had bad guides, that the roads are exceedingly difficult, and that it was necessary to drag as much artillery as he does. This is not the first time, as witness in Hawley,(597) ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... to suspend, so dubious was the value of most stock contracts. Manufactured products were little salable, and the prices of agricultural painfully sank. Factories began to run on short time, many closed entirely, many corporations failed. The peculiarity of this crisis was the slowness with which it abated. No date indeed can be set as its term, its evil effects dragging on through years, so that the ill times of 1893-94 may be regarded as the same fever, intermittent ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... upheaval slid away into Wyoming. Eighty miles, yet they were clear with the clearness that only altitudinous country can bring; alluring, fascinating, beckoning to him until his being rebelled against the comparative slowness of the train, and the minutes passed in a dragging, long-drawn-out sequence that was almost ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... peace!" answered Mizraim, as Nahoum passed from the room, and walked hastily towards the hall where he should find Ebn Ezra Bey. Nearing the spot, he brought his step to a deliberate slowness, and appeared not to notice the stately Arab till ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the evening's chores, stalling the cow and throwing into her manger the scanty supply of night fodder that could be afforded. Then she sat down to milk, and accomplished that operation so slowly that Whitey turned her head as far as the stanchions would permit to see what this slowness meant. ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... the masters of modern science: "When men invented the locomotive, the child was learning to go; when they invented the telegraph, it was learning to speak." He looked forward to the manhood of mankind, as assuredly the nobler in proportion to the slowness of its developement. What might not be expected from the prime and middle strength of the order of existence whose infancy had lasted six thousand years? And, indeed, I think this the truest, as well as the most cheering, view that we can take of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... and sympathy, any defects of your own—pardon the expression—should correct or compensate these by opposite qualities? And supposing that, with such sobriety and strength of character as I have described, there should be connected a certain slowness, formality, and coldness of manner, which might not at first be attractive to a man of your vivacity, let not this repel you: when once you have learned to consider this manner as the concomitant and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... yours was partly the cause of our slowness. He was always wanting to have the orders for fire and blood in neat formal despatches, signed by me, and copied by clerks. However, I hope you are satisfied now, with the butcheries and ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... upon the grains which were improved by selection in pre-historic times, because they were annuals and quick yielders. The heavy yielding plants, the engines of nature, are the trees, which have in most cases remained unimproved and largely unused until the present time because of the slowness of their generations and the absence ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... event Nelson joins the fleet under Sir Hyde Parker, at Yarmouth Relations between him and Parker Nelson's disapproval of the plans for the expedition Evident change in his general disposition Anecdote of Nelson and the turbot The fleet collected off the Skaw Parker's slowness and Nelson's impatience Alarming reports of the Danes' preparations Nelson's attitude and counsels Accuracy of his judgment of the conditions Tact and discretion in his dealings with Parker His letter to Parker upon the general situation ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... a slowness that only increased its threatening aspect, the cloud to the northward joined the vast overhanging canopy that had been seen earlier in the day. By half-past six in the evening it was black as the densest night, the murk only being lighted by the constant ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... succeed where Magnus had failed. He wanted to be governor of the State. He had put his teeth together, and, deaf to all other considerations, blind to all other issues, he worked with the infinite slowness, the unshakable tenacity of the coral ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... oratorical and a declamatory mind like Burke's, and the least oratorical of all poets, yet under this difference of form and temper there is a striking likeness in spirit. There was the same energetic feeling about moral ideas, the same frame of counsel and prudence, the same love for the slowness of time, the same slight account held of mere intellectual knowledge, and even the same ruling sympathy with that side of the character of Englishmen which Burke exulted in, as "their awe of kings and reverence for priests," "their sullen resistance of innovation" ...
— Burke • John Morley
... exhibited its usual slowness in realising the gravity of the situation; yet it may be excused for believing that it had only to deal with local tumults such as those which had been so easily suppressed in Italy. The force of eight thousand men which it put into the field under the praetor Lucius Hypsaeus may have ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a transparent skin, and such little feet, and such winning ways—but bless me, you're nervous! Why neighbour, what's the matter? I swear to you,' continued the dwarf dismounting from the chair and sitting down in it, with a careful slowness of gesture very different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up unheard, 'I swear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast or kept so warm. I thought it was sluggish in its course, and cool, quite cool. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... began to rain, not a sweeping storm, but the cold, penetrating drizzle of great heights. Now their bearskin coats protected them in part, but the animals shivered, and the way became so slippery that they had to advance on those heights with exceeding caution and slowness. The rain soon turned to snow, and then back to rain again, but the happy temperament of the Little Giant was able to extract ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... the importance of ferry-boats as a means of traffic distribution has already been greatly reduced by the construction of bridges and tunnels which provide for the greater part of the passenger and vehicular traffic. The North River, however, by reason of its greater width and the comparative slowness of its currents, is by far the more important waterway for the use of ocean-going vessels of the larger classes. In this river the conditions for the construction of bridges, within the limits of commercial convenience, seem to be practically prohibitory. ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles W. Raymond
... sister-in-law of W.J. Stillman, Paul, brother of W.J. Stillman, Russie, son of W.J. his illness his death Stillman, Thomas B., brother of W.J. Stillman, William James early life and training religious experience intellectual slowness love of nature and struggles of conscience runs away from home returns attends school in New York city, living with his eldest brother goes to a school at De Ruyter, N.Y. mental slowness disappears college education decided ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... this space of time the two hundred and fifty Youths that went towards the Road Where The Silent Ones Walk, had come very nigh thereto; having gone very warily and with some slowness, because, as may be, of the lesson of ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... apologies as they could. "They would not have come on this untimely errand could they have known." They begged forgiveness for their slowness to perceive. ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... whom the simple-minded young officer had owed promotion after promotion. General Michael had fixed upon Agar as his last hope—his last chance of doing something brilliant in this deathly country, which moved with a slowness that ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... telegraph-board. If he is not immediately available a two-dollar broker will execute the order." Here comes the reply: "3000 at 92 was all he could get at the price." (Time, 1 min. 35 sec.) To those who are used to the aggravating slowness of the telephone in London, that in New York is a revelation of rapidity, and so much does it enter into the daily life of the community that it would now give something like a stroke of paralysis to the City if all the telephone-wires should be suddenly swept ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... to be noted is that the whole movement back to Jehovah was a one-man movement. It was Hezekiah's doing and his only. No priest is named as prominent in it, and the slowness of the whole order is especially branded in verse 34. No prophet is named; was there any one prompting the king? Perhaps Isaiah did, though his chapter i. with its scathing repudiation of 'the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of March, the two British plenipotentiaries met those of the allies in the town-house at Utrecht; where the lord privy seal addressed himself to them in a short speech, "That the negotiation had now continued fourteen months with great slowness, which had proved very injurious to the interests of the allies: That the Queen had stayed thus long, and stopped the finishing of her own peace, rather than leave her allies in any uncertainty: That she hoped they would now be all prepared to put an end to this great work; and therefore had commanded ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... 1828, the conquering march of the Russians to Adrianople had awakened that people to a passing thrill of national consciousness. Other travellers,—for instance, Cyprien Robert in the "thirties,"—noted their sturdy patience in toil, their slowness to act, but their great perseverance and will-power, when ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... already set forth, with that 'written answer,' which the Twelve She-deputies returned in to seek. Slim sylph, she has set forth, through the black muddy country: she has much to tell, her poor nerves so flurried; and travels, as indeed to-day on this road all persons do, with extreme slowness. President Mounier has not come, nor the Acceptance pure and simple; though six hours with their events have come; though courier on courier reports that Lafayette is coming. Coming, with war or with peace? It is time that the Chateau also should determine on one thing or ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... waited it seemed to them that never before had simple tasks, such as fitting a key into the lock, been performed with such exasperating slowness, and the girls fairly danced with impatience. The older folks smiled indulgently, and Mr. Sanderson chuckled as he pulled Evelyn's ear and inquired inanely, "if she were having ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... that Joseph wasted no words. What has fallen out? he said, and Nicodemus asked him if he knew Phinehas, the great money-changer in the Temple. Joseph nodded, and, holding his hands before the fire, Nicodemus told his story very slowly, exasperating Joseph by his slowness; but he did not dare to bid him to hasten, and, holding himself in patience, he listened to him while he told that Phinehas was perhaps the worst of the extorters, the most noisy and arrogant, a vicious and quarrelsome man, who, yester-morning, was engaged with a rich ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... the baron, a slowness of apprehension, which is far from being natural to you, and perhaps imagine, that by not seeming to understand me, I should believe there were no grounds for me to forbid you my house; but, young man, I am not so easily deceived; and since you oblige me to speak plain, must ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... they drove along, feeling wearied with the length of the way, impatient at the slowness of their progress, and eager to reach their journey's end. But little was said. All had talked till all were tired out. Even Minnie Fay, who at first had evinced great enthusiasm on finding herself leading the way, and had kept turning back constantly ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... of geological history, at whatever point its study is taken up: the lesson of the almost infinite slowness of the modification of living forms. The lines of the pedigrees of living things break off almost before ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... away into the water. The hymn-singers ceased their melodies, absorbed in anticipating what would happen next. At last, after many orders and goings to and fro, the engines started again, this time, of course, the starboard paddle, deeply immersed, moved by itself. We progressed with infinite slowness, and in a most peculiar manner, but we did progress, and that was the main thing. The passengers ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... without much difficulty, though with great slowness. You will fancy they might have gone fast enough, their retreat being thus secured for them. But there were many obstacles to prevent a rapid advance. Each lateral passage they came to—and there were numbers of these—had to be marked for future examination, and the ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... notes and left them with Mr. Hardie; the bills he took to his desk to note them on the back of the receipt. Whilst he was writing this with his usual slowness and precision, poor Dodd's heart overflowed. "It is my children's fortune, ye see: I don't look on a sixpence of it as mine: that it is what made me so particular. It belongs to my little Julia, bless her:—she ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... make way for you again, and did not perceive that by getting rid of your creditors he once again put you into a position to be his rival. I don't know whether I hate him most for the hardness of his heart, or despise him for the slowness ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... Zehru was busy at the moment with his work upon Mapes, Blake quickly grasped at the faint chance the presence of the rubberized cloth offered him. Working with infinite slowness and caution, he edged his right foot over an inch at a time, dragging the rest of ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... a peculiarly impressive effect when displayed in an exalted station. He was indefatigably industrious; worked on an average eight hours a day for fifty-four years; had great tenacity of will; that kind of solid judgment which comes of slowness of brain, and withal a most majestic port and great dignity of manners. He had also as much kindliness of nature as the very great can be expected to have; his temper was under severe control; and, in his earlier years ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... in with some subordinates, and commanded that the prisoners be conducted to the jail-yard. The King was overjoyed—it would be a blessed thing to see the blue sky and breathe the fresh air once more. He fretted and chafed at the slowness of the officers, but his turn came at last, and he was released from his staple and ordered to follow the other prisoners ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Humble-bee, who was walking up and down conversing with a Midge, turned round and said, "Remember, you Wasp, that you have not brought your sting with you to-day, so pray do not give way to your spiteful nature. The poor Snail has to carry her house on her back, so we should not be angry at her slowness." Some of the other insects said that this was no excuse for the Snail, because she knew that she walked very slowly, and should ...
— The Butterfly's Ball - The Grasshopper's Feast • R.M. Ballantyne
... did that deed was no other than the hand of the Venetian girl, Paolina Foscarelli," said the lawyer, with deliberate and impressive slowness, emphasizing his words with extended ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... chink three inches in width; and they next looked about them for means of egress. After trying in vain to dislodge one of the floor logs, they proceeded to dig a passage through the earth underneath the floor. Discouraged by the slowness of their progress in this undertaking, and drenched with the rain which poured in through the crevice in the door, they began to give themselves up for lost. Their only hope was that McMurray or some one of the neighbors would come to ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... bound to the dismal thought of your test and its terrors, free yourself from it every time, by concentrating upon the weight of your body, or the slowness of the slowest breaths you can draw. Keep yourself truly free, and these feelings of discouragement and all other mental distortions will steadily lose power, until for you they are no more. If they last longer than you think they should, persist in ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... made several passes with her hands before the closed eyelids. They trembled slightly, but did not open. Again and again those hands waved to and fro before Bernardine with the slowness and ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... and his breakfast was on the table in his fore-cabin. He sat down, glanced at the pile of letters beside his plate, propped the morning paper against the teapot, and commenced his meal. He ate with the deliberate slowness of a man accustomed to having meals in solitude, who has schooled himself ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... you took these shirts out, Lizzy," said Berlaps, in a tone meant to reprove her for the slowness with which ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... the beginning of winter, the plenipotentiaries of the several belligerents assembled at Nimeguen, where the congress for peace was held. The Hollanders, loaded with debts and taxes, and seeing the weakness and slowness of their allies, the Spaniards and Germans, prognosticated nothing but misfortunes. Their commerce languished; while that of England, now neutral amid all these quarrels, flourished extremely. The Prince of Orange, however, ambitious of glory, urged another ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... himself on having Diego at his command, for not often is such an one found among the poorer and laboring class of Mexicans, combining the power and ability to serve in manifold ways, with a love of work for its own sake as well as for the reward it brings—very different from the general slowness and ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... see nothing except the desirable cause, and close upon it the desirable effect, rids us of doubt and makes our minds strongly intuitive. That was the process going on in poor Rosamond, while she arranged all objects around her with the same nicety as ever, only with more slowness—or sat down to the piano, meaning to play, and then desisting, yet lingering on the music stool with her white fingers suspended on the wooden front, and looking before her in dreamy ennui. Her melancholy ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... plead the obrepens senectus. Did I not, moreover, make it an apology for a certain absence, which some of your friends may have experienced, when you have not on a sudden made recognition of them in a casual street-meeting; and did I not strengthen your excuse for this slowness of recognition by further accounting morally for the present engagement of your mind in worthy objects? Did I not, in your person, make the handsomest apology for absent-of-mind people that was ever made? If these things be not so, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... for a string in her brain seemed to be pulled by a persistent knocking at the door. With great slowness the door opened and a tall human being came towards her, holding out her ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... the subject; his observations are these:—"It is a groundless complaint, that very few are endowed with quick apprehension, and that most persons lose the fruits of all their application and study through a natural slowness of understanding. The case is the very reverse, because we find mankind in general to be quick in apprehension, and susceptible of instruction, this being the characteristic of the human race; and as birds have from nature a propensity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... eyes came on, with a strange slowness, and as they came they moved from side to side as if their owner walked unevenly. Nothing could have exceeded the horror with which I awaited their approach,—except my incapacity to escape them. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Secretary of the Treasury, was endeavoring to interfere with the politics of the State, and to put Judge Folger into the governor's chair. There was a suspicion that "the machine'' was working too easily and that some of its wheels were of a very bad sort. All this, coupled with slowness in redeeming platform pledges, brought on the greatest disaster the Republican party had ever experienced. In November, 1882, Mr. Cleveland was elected governor by the most enormous majority ever known, and the defeat extended not only through ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... the Americans English newspapers containing accounts of American misfortunes. But that fortunate battle was not fought until a few days after the eight Commissioners had signed their compact. It is an interesting illustration of the slowness of communication which our forefathers had to endure, that the treaty crossed the Atlantic in a sailing ship in time to travel through much of the country simultaneously with the report of this farewell victory. Two such good pieces of news coming together set the people wild with delight. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... into potential force of steam or air at high temperature and pressure, and then applied by means of suitable heat engines to produce the motions we require. It is probably to this circumstance that we must attribute the slowness of the human race to take advantage of the energy of combustion. The history of the steam engine hardly dates back 200 years, a very small fraction of the centuries during which man has ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... fume of sulphur into all the air, as that there was no freedom above for the stink to pass away. And in every place were the rocks of the Gorge very thick and slippery with strange growths; so that it was a sorrow to walk upon them. And all that time was there an heavy wetness and slowness in the air; and a smell, beside the stink of the fire-pits, as that I did go forward through a place ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... Schwarzenberg burned his ships; he said to himself that if his action were disavowed, he could go and raise cabbages on his estate; but if it were approved, he would be at the top of the wave. Abandoning then the customary slowness and scruples of diplomacy, he answered without hesitation that he was ready, and made an engagement with the Duke of Cadore, Minister of Foreign Affairs, for the next day, at the Tuileries, to sign the marriage contract of the Emperor of the French, King of ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... masters of their own time, and was perhaps in their case, the best that could be adopted; for slowness of progress, which is its greatest objection, was rather desirable in ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... was, who now stood before me under the arcades of the Palais Royal. I held out my hand, with a word or two of apology for my slowness ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... near. She appeared out of a grove of cork-trees, and came straight towards me; and I stood up and waited. She seemed in her walking a creature of such life and fire and lightness as amazed me; yet she came quietly and slowly. Her energy was in the slowness; but for inimitable strength, I felt she would have run, she would have flown to me. Still, as she approached, she kept her eyes lowered to the ground; and when she had drawn quite near, it was without one glance that she addressed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the same day, the last will be in full possession of its faculties and doing the active work of life before the child has left its cradle. Life is the cradle of eternity. As the man is to the animal in the slowness of his evolution, so is the spiritual man to the natural man. Foundations which have to bear the weight of an eternal life must be surely laid. Character is to wear forever; who will wonder or grudge that it cannot be developed in ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... de Conde, iii. 221; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii., 9; J. de Serres, ii. 58, 59; De Thou, iii. 139. The historian of the reformed churches, as well as Beza in his letter of March 28th (Baum, ii., App., 176), complains bitterly of the slowness and parsimony of the Parisian Protestants, who seemed to be unable to understand that war was actually ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... borders of his buckler drives; Pass'd thro' and pierc'd his groin: the deadly wound, Cast from his chariot, roll'd him on the ground. Whom thus the chief upbraids with scornful spite: "Blame not the slowness of your steeds in flight; Vain shadows did not force their swift retreat; But you yourself forsake your empty seat." He said, and seiz'd at once the loosen'd rein; For Liger lay already on the plain, By the same shock: then, stretching out his hands, The recreant thus his wretched ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... know,' he said presently, with a curious slowness and suavity, 'I should greatly like to know why you asked ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... answered with a sneer he had misread my slowness and hesitation. 'It will not happen, Monsieur. And in any case the thought need not harass you. I ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... round the walls, saw a pair of old Delft vases still empty, and said eagerly, pointing, "I will bring some for those. There is a tree—a cherry tree," the nurse remembered afterwards that she had spoken with a remarkable slowness and clearness, "just above the otter cliff. You don't know where that is. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and n's:—here (more obviously) is mastery of literation. In the second paragraph, notice how the rhythm suddenly hurries when Markheim is startled to his feet; and in the last sentence, consider the monotonous and measured slowness of the ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... do not seem warranted in saying even that it is a Movement: for to every Movement are thought to belong swiftness and slowness, and if not in itself, as to that of the universe, yet relatively: but to Pleasure neither of these belongs: for though one may have got quickly into the state Pleasure, as into that of anger, one cannot be in the state quickly, nor relatively to the state of any other ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... generals on the Confederate side in the Civil War, "Stonewall" Jackson, was noted for his slowness. With this he possessed great application and dogged determination. If he undertook a task, he never let go till he had it done. So, when he went to West Point, his habitual class response was that ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... spaces, then broken boulders to clamber over, then steep, rugged climbs, when they grasped the rough rocks with both hands and moved on with painful slowness. It seemed to the girl that they had been climbing for long, tedious hours since they had slipped out of their saddles; though to him she said nothing, locking her lips stubbornly, she knew that at last she was tired, very tired, that an end of this laborious ascent ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... must be remembered that in 1909 Austria had mobilized against Serbia and Montenegro,[9] and in 1912-13 Russia and Austria had mobilized against one another without war ensuing in either case. Moreover, in view of the slowness of Russian mobilization, it is difficult to believe that a day or two would make the difference between security and ruin to Germany. However, it is possible that the Kaiser was so advised by his soldiers, and genuinely believed ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... on with slowness and deliberation, musing at every step, and stopping ever and anon to rest myself by springs and tufted bay- trees; when insensibly we began to leave the cultivated lands behind us, and to lose ourselves in shady wilds, which, to all appearance, no mortal had ever trodden. Here were no ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... needs also a large gift of faith and of hope. The smallness of the Christian Church in the midst of a dense mass of heathenism; the apparent inadequacy of earthly means to convert that great people to Christ; the slowness of progress and the fewness of results—all these tend to depress and discourage the worker. And he needs to offer for himself, as for his people, the prayer which Elisha offered in behalf of the young man,—"O Lord, I pray thee open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... would be so, confuse your tongue or mine,—and make exquisitely miserable that moment of rising before the audience! But our Solicitor-General rose to his legs a happy man, with all that grace of motion, that easy slowness, that unassumed confidence which belongs to the ordinary doings of our familiar life. Surely he must have known that he looked well in his wig and gown, as with low voice and bent neck, with only half-suppressed laughter, he whispered into the ears of the gentleman who sat next to him some ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... passed and that it would begin to strike twelve all over again. Between the last and next to the last tones, there struck in very abruptly, as if irritated and scolding, another bell, which was apparently out of patience with the slowness of its colleague. As the two iron tongues were silenced, and the stillness of death sank over the whole house, I suddenly seemed to hear, in the corridor before my chamber, something halting and shuffling along, like the unsteady steps of an old man. At last my door opened, and there entered slowly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... by a corresponding amount of exportation, not consisting, however, by any means, exclusively of articles new to commerce. [Footnote: Many of these articles would undoubtedly have been made known to the Greeks and Romans and have figured in their commerce, but for the slowness and costliness of ancient navigation, which, in the seas familiar to them, was suspended for a full third of the year from the inability of their vessels to cope with winter weather. The present speed and ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... teeth, no such strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare. But even from hence, that is, from the smoothness of the tongue, and the slowness of the stomach to digest, Nature seems to disclaim all pretence to fleshy victuals. But if you will contend that yourself was born to an inclination to such food as you have now a mind to eat, do you then yourself kill what you would ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... trembling hate of those below. She feels herself fearfully isolated between two perils. No one to defend her but her lord, or rather the money they pay him: but then to find that money, to spur on the peasant's slowness, and overcome his sluggish antagonism, to snatch somewhat even from him who has nothing, what hard pressure, what threats, what cruelty, must be employed! This was never in the goodman's line of business. The wife brings him to the mark by dint of ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... have been patient and quiet. Nearly one-fourth of the contributions of the general citizens came from the pockets of the Committee. Instead of hearing from enterprising Chicago, and ambitious Boston, they are talking about the slowness and the dulness of New York's appreciation, of the delays in its contributions. Let the example of our patriotism and munificence be an example for them to imitate; and this city of Boston—let their people there ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... upon his ship, and sailed round and round the anchored vessel, so as to give her two broadsides to her one, and from the slowness with which she worked at her springs upon her cables, it was evident that she must be now very weak handed. Still the pertinacity and decided courage of the Russian captain convinced Captain Wilson, that, in all probability, he would sink at his anchor ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... fine, so we all turned out. The night was uncertain: sometimes entirely clouded, sometimes partially, but objects were pretty well seen when the sky was clear: the latter part was much steadier. From the interruption by clouds, the slowness of finding with and managing a large instrument (especially as their finding apparatus is not perfectly arranged) and the desire of looking well at an object when we had got it, we did not look at many objects. ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... forward with cruel slowness, and the precious moments sped by with no less cruel haste. It was five minutes past three when they found themselves on the platform ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... movement I make is determined in general by the end that I have in view; but in what way does my arm approach the object? how far do the other parts of my body follow this impulsion? What will be the degree of slowness or of the rapidity of the movement? What amount of force shall I employ? This is a calculation of which my will, at the instant, takes no account, and in consequence there is a something left ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of heart unimpaired. In fencing and in riding he was a match for any of his soldiers, and his swimming saved his life at Alexandria; the incredible rapidity of his journeys, which usually for the sake of gaining time were performed by night—a thorough contrast to the procession-like slowness with which Pompeius moved from one place to another— was the astonishment of his contemporaries and not the least among the causes of his success. The mind was like the body. His remarkable power of intuition revealed itself in the precision and practicability ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... on the night of the golden wedding both these men were riding, one northward, the other southward, toward each other on the Widewood road. Widewood house was between them. Both moved with a wary slowness and looked and listened intently, constantly, and in ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... were there any signs that these ideas jarred a little in certain strongholds of conservatism. Even in the darkest period of American neutrality Page's faith in the American people remained complete. After this country had entered the war and the apparent slowness of the Washington Administration had raised certain questionings, Page never doubted that the people themselves, however irresolute and lukewarm their representatives might be, would force the issue to its only logical end. Even ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... favour him by kicking the unhappy leader to death. An occasional benevolent Christian complied with his request to the extent of a dig with a stout boot under the rib; but every now and then, the furibund jarvey apologised to us for the slowness of our course by asking—"Won't I serve him out when I gets a whip!" A whip he at last got, and made up for lost time by belabouring the lazy culprit in a very scientific manner; and having got us all into a gallop, he became quite pleasant and communicative. All the people ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... inducement is often less attractive than on government lands. For instance, it is stated that in England, due to the many requirements of law and custom, it takes on an average eight years, and in some cases even longer, to close a coal lease after the terms have been agreed upon. The slowness of exploration and development on the great land grants in the United States, and on the tracts of the large timber companies, also illustrates the retarding effect of private ownership. It is partly this situation that is making ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... themselves as bubbles made by falling rain upon the lake. The delays incident to a wagon-train are legion. Occurring among the foremost wagons, they increase so rapidly that notwithstanding proper precaution and slowness in front, a rear-guard will often be kept running. The profanity produced by a single chuck hole in a narrow road appears to increase in arithmetical proportion as the wagons successively approach, and teamsters in the rear find their ingenuity taxed to preserve their reputation ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... his half-pint in the private bar of the Red Lion with the slowness of a man unable to see where the next was coming from, and, placing the mug on the counter, filled his pipe from a small paper of tobacco and shook his head slowly at ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... of Louis de Clameran was swollen with desire, and he felt that he should go mad if the horses crawled with such torturing slowness: he would like to spring from the old stage, and fly to ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... with tender sounds. Though all the winds were dead the undertones of the sea linger in lulling harmonies. The tepid tide on the warm sand crisply rustles and hisses as when satin is crumpled and smartly rent. Weird, resonant tappings, moans, and gurgles come from a hollow log drifting, with infinite slowness. Broken sighs and gasps tell where the ripples advancing in echelon wander and lose their way among blocks of sandstone. As the tide rose it prattled and gurgled, toying with tinkling shells and clinking coral, each tone separate and distinct, however thin and faint. My solitary watch gives the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... came into collision. In a sharp fight at Koheroa the natives were driven from their entrenchments with some loss, and any forward movement on their part was effectually stopped. But, thanks to what seemed to the colonists infuriating slowness, the advance up the Waikato was not begun until the latter part of October, and the conquest of the country not completed ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... there nothing that can be done to quicken that inner action, the slowness of which has paved the way for all this mischief? This might be done in two ways. After the affected parts, say the face, have been secured in this pack of flour, it will be easy to place a hot blanket, soaked partly, ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... not with sufficient confidence or ability on his part to manoeuvre his troops." It is very doubtful whether Warren ever put his opinion in so strong a way as thus quoted by Hooker from memory. His report does speak of Gibbon's slowness in coming up, and of his thus losing the chance of crossing the canals and taking the breastworks before the Confederates filed into them. But beyond a word to the effect that giving the advance to Brooks's division, after the capture of the heights, "necessarily ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... they are a little sensitive upon the subject, feeling evidently that if the matter got abroad, it might injure the sale of the really excellent porgy oil which is the product of their sole manufacturing interest. This reluctance to advertise the skeleton in their closet, superadded to the slowness of these obtuse, fishy, matter-of-fact people to recognize the transcendent importance of the case, must be accepted as explanation of the fact that John Newbegin's spirit has been on earth between three and four months, and yet the singular circumstance ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... ornament. The teaching of the University is based entirely on the mediaeval principle of mnemonics, and as there are no examinations, no degrees, no limits to the duration of any given course, nor is any disgrace attached to slowness in learning, it is not surprising that many students, coming as youths, linger by the fountain of Kairouiyin till their hair is gray. One well-known oulama has lately finished his studies after twenty-seven years at the University, ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... his mother was displeased, began in the same instant to be frightened; he hurried on as fast as he could, without understanding one word more of what he was reading; his precipitation was worse than his slowness: he stumbled over the words, missed syllables, missed lines, made the most incomprehensible nonsense of the whole; till, at length, Mrs. Harcourt shut the book in despair, and soon afterward despatched Herbert, who was also in ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... who was visibly shaken by the conflict of opinions within his political household and not a little alarmed at the possibility of war with Spain. The Secretary of State was coolly taking the measure of his chief. "There is a slowness, want of decision, and a spirit of procrastination in the President," he confided to his diary. He did not add, but the thought was in his mind, that he could sway this President, mold him to his heart's desire. In this first trial of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... don't want it. Here, take it, and hurry back: think of your map," Meg returned, in a very fever of impatience at his slowness. ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... other cleared his throat and spoke with painstaking and judicial slowness. "Why, I may say, nothing of it, except, ah, according to your own reasoning, there is nothing to prevent your getting out, hitting the frost, so to speak, for a matter of ten miles. You can make ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... two rival ladies, had already been questioned. Curiosity was satisfied for the time; the public was feeling almost fatigued. Several more witnesses were still to be heard, who probably had little information to give after all that had been given. Time was passing. Ivan walked up with extraordinary slowness, looking at no one, and with his head bowed, as though plunged in gloomy thought. He was irreproachably dressed, but his face made a painful impression, on me at least: there was an earthy look in it, a look like a dying man's. His eyes were lusterless; he raised them and looked slowly ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... appeared at the edge of the garden of the Villa Androud a woman walking unsteadily, with a sort of frantic slowness. She made her way across the garden and drew near to the terrace, beyond which light shone out from the drawing-room through the tall window space. Close to the terrace she stood still, and she looked ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... overcome, or the adversary subdued, while he was meditating on the propriety, or on the means, of effecting the desired end. He envied their promptitude, while they never saw reason to envy his wisdom; for his conscience, tender and not strong, frequently transformed slowness of determination into irresolution: while a delicacy of the sympathetic nerves tended to distract him from any predetermined course, by the diversity of their vibrations, responsive to influences from all quarters, and destructive to unity ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... principles of all things, whereof one is the father and the other the mother; the former, Light, and the latter, Darkness. Pythagoras thought that the Dependencies on Light were warmth, dryness, lightness, swiftness; and those of Darkness, cold, wet, weight, and slowness; and that the world derived its existence from these two principles, as from the male and the female. According to Porphyry, he conceived two opposing powers, one good, which he termed Unity, the Light, Right, the Equal, the Stable, the Straight; ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of pen, now quite doomed - to resume - ) I have not put pen to the Bloody Murder yet. But it is early on my list; and when once I get to it, three weeks should see the last bloodstain - maybe a fortnight. For I am beginning to combine an extraordinary laborious slowness while at work, with the most surprisingly quick results in the way of finished manuscripts. How goes Gray? Colvin is to do Keats. My wife is still ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... content of knowing that all were at least safe, the time passed with deadly slowness, for the days grew to weeks, the weeks to months, bringing no change. Denied, as he was, the outdoor life, the fresh air to which he had been accustomed, little Prince Akbar grew pale and thin. But his spirits did not flag, and he would ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... 63. The slowness with which powders subside, depends partly on the specific gravity of the substance, and partly on the magnitude of the particles themselves. Bodies, in falling through a resisting medium, after a certain time acquire ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... over the shoulder of an artist-boy, who, seated at his easel, was copying one of the Gorgon-heads that stood out on the faded tapestry. She had dismissed us wholly from her thoughts, and, giving play to her native fun and coquetry, was taunting the youth with the slowness of his labors and the little progress he had made since she last inspected his work. No wonder that she laughed at the taste of the boy or his employer. Graver heads than hers might question the motive which had set the painter such a model. Imagination ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... a fever of excitement; but he merely waved to her indulgently and went on fitting a candle into a socket with exasperating slowness. ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... consisted perhaps more in the absence of active bad qualities, than in the possession of good ones; in other words, it was negative rather than positive. Their phlegmatic, apathetic temperament, coldness of desire and deadness of feeling, want of curiosity and slowness of intellect, make the Amazonian Indians very uninteresting companions anywhere. Their imagination is of a dull, gloomy, quality and they seemed never to be stirred by the emotions—love, pity, admiration, fear, wonder, joy, orenthusiasm. These ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... of the innumerable, inexplicable noises a great wood gives forth. She suffered, indeed, intensely; yet Prosper never knew it. He played upon her, quite unconsciously, by wondering over the difficulties of the road, the slowness of their going, the probable speed of the Abbot's dogs and foresters, and so on. Her meekness and cheerful diligence delighted him. The nuns of Gracedieu, he promised himself, should know what a likely novice ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!" Luke xxiv. 25. Mark you here, slowness to believe is a piece of folly. Ay! but sayst thou, I do believe some, and I believe what can make against me. Ay, but sinner, Christ Jesus here calls thee fool for not believing all. Believe all, and despair if thou ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... vexations in addition to the slowness and overcrowding of the trains. Police search the travellers for evidences of "speculation," especially for food. The police play, altogether, a much greater part in daily life than they do in other countries—much ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... strong soul hides profound emotions and close estimation of men and things and events. Not a fold of his face quivered. His mouth and forehead were impassible; but his eyes moved and lowered themselves with a noble, almost tragic slowness. There was, in fact, a whole drama in the motion ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... very purposes in question, and the whole superstructure of Christian morals is grounded on their deep and ample basis. Sometimes these truths are represented in Scripture, generally, as furnishing Christians with a vigorous and ever present principle of universal obedience. And our slowness in learning the lessons of heavenly wisdom is still further stimulated, by almost every particular Christian duty being occasionally traced to them as to its proper source. They are every where represented ...
— 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
... could be seen that the three vessels ahead were commencing to come back, but with terrible slowness. Code, lashed in the weather-rigging, studied them for more than an hour through his glasses. Then he leaped ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... she feared that he would never be more. There was nothing imposing about him. He had lifted her out of sordid want, but he would not raise her to the pinnacle of greatness. The bland flat face of Mr. Early and his commanding slowness of movement impressed her imagination much as a great stone image might its votary. Here was indeed the truly illustrious. She devoured every floating newspaper paragraph that concerned Sebastian; for she was still under the dominion of the idea that greatness in the dailies constituted greatness ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... it gives false information. For first, there are very many things which escape the sense, even when best disposed and no way obstructed; by reason either of the subtlety of the whole body, or the minuteness of the parts, or distance of place, or slowness or else swiftness of motion, or familiarity of the object, or other causes. And again when the sense does apprehend a thing its apprehension is not much to be relied upon. For the testimony and information of the sense has reference always to man, not to the universe; and it is a great error to ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... us as a people, and we have not done well by him. We did not help him to find his work. We did not consider his slowness, nor the weariness of his flesh, the sickness he came with, nor the impoverishment of his line. We are not finding their work for his children. We have sent them home from school because they were not clean. We complain that they waste what we give them; that they are ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... which ought to have been ready for sea at a moment's warning. Orders were sent to prepare; the Earl of Rutland was commissioned to raise troops; and the queen, though without sending men, sent a courier with encouragements and promises. But when every moment was precious, a fatal slowness, and more fatal irresolution hung about the movements of the government. On the 29th Wentworth wrote again, that the French were certainly arming and might be looked for immediately. On the 31st, the queen, deceived probably by some emissary of Guise, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... circumstance very grievous to persons in ill health. These inconveniences, however, were over-balanced by other agreemens. We no, sooner quitted Lyons, than we got into summer weather, and travelling through a most romantic country, along the banks of the Rhone, had opportunities (from the slowness of our pace) to contemplate ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... act with extreme slowness, I fully admit. Its action depends on there being places in the polity of nature, which can be better occupied by some of the inhabitants of the country undergoing modification of some kind. The existence of such places will ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... any. Either that time is relative—no, that's so elementary he wouldn't mention it. Maybe he's figured out a variable time of some kind or other. Anyway, you girls' slowness in producing has given the old boy a big lift, and I'm mighty ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... prayers and breakfast I suffer my customary persecution at the hands of the cook. That is to say, I am obliged, being the housekeeper, to order what we have to eat. Oh, how I hate inventing dinners! and how I admire the enviable slowness of mind and laziness of body which have saved Eunice from undertaking the worries of housekeeping in her turn! She can go and work in her garden, while I am racking my invention to discover variety in dishes without overstepping the limits of economy. I suppose I may confess it privately ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... colours, it must be because you have nailed them to the mast and are blind to reason. I may add, however, that the Viceroy of India sent a telegram to the President of the United States, to which he got a reply in seven hours and forty minutes, but the slowness of this message was accounted for by the fact of accidental and partly unavoidable delay in transmission both in Washington and London. At 1:30 a.m. of the 24th the traffic of the line became pressing, and all complimentary messages ceased with one from Bombay, which ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... gentleman believe in the everlasting slowness of that mule of mine, my story ain't worth a ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... would-be imitators elsewhere is the "dictatorship of the proletariat." Let us consider what that means. Dictatorship means despotism, and whether it is that of a Tsar or a Kaiser, an oligarchy or a Bolshevik administration, it is despotism—nothing more and nothing less. Impatience with the slowness of the mass of the people is only to be expected in all who see what human existence could be made on this planet, how enjoyable and pleasurable life might be made by light and pleasant labour for ...
— Bolshevism: A Curse & Danger to the Workers • Henry William Lee
... bestow immense benefits spoil them by their silence or slowness of speech, which gives them an air of moroseness, as they say "yes" with a face which seems to say "no." How much better is it to join kind words to kind actions, and to enhance the value of our gifts by a civil and gracious ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... deep breathing will often put persons to sleep when all other devices fail. The lungs should be filled to their utmost capacity, and then emptied with equal slowness, repeating the respiration about ten times a minute, instead of eighteen or twenty, the natural rate. Those who fall asleep upon first going to bed, and after a few hours awake, and are unable to sleep again, may find relief by getting out of bed, and rubbing the surface ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... upon his pillow, and she knew the trick of making every ounce of energy count. Inspired by her example, Mrs. West put forth all her strength and as a result of their combined efforts she rose with ponderous slowness into a sitting position. The rest was easy. With Persis boosting and panting encouragement, the unhappy exponent of other people's theories regained her feet and tottered to ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... answer," said the Admiral, with more slowness of speech even than usual, "and a just reproof. But this paper should tell what I wish to learn," ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... one. I have been, and still am, particularly anxious to guard against disappointment on your part, as I know the effect that such a disappointment is apt to produce upon a person's life. The harassing slowness of Chancery proceedings is proverbial; I am therefore especially desirous that you should not ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... government exhibited its usual slowness in realising the gravity of the situation; yet it may be excused for believing that it had only to deal with local tumults such as those which had been so easily suppressed in Italy. The force of eight thousand ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... "The slowness and delay of the deity in punishing the wicked used to seem[807] to me a very dreadful thing, but now in consequence of his speech I come as it were new and fresh to the notion. Yet long ago I was vexed when I heard that line ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... anyone who is capable of feeling pity. Compassion makes a man observe and note his faults, his want of power to do any good thing, and weakness in all that pertains to the glory of God; his lukewarmness and slowness, the multitude of his faults, the waste of his time, and his positive shortcomings in virtue and good conduct. All this makes a man truly sorry for himself. Then his compassion for himself makes him consider ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... Seraskier Mehemet Pasha, he retired, after some skirmishes, to Bolbeck, where he established his camp, and was joined by Abaz Pasha, his nephew, at the head of 800 men. But his presence was required in other quarters. Divisions had broken out at several points, and the slowness with which the operations of the siege of Saint Jean d'Acre was carried on had damped the ardour ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... more strictly correct, to regard rhythm as a property of poetic numbers, than to identify it with them. It is their proportion or modulation, rather than the numbers themselves. According to Dr. Webster, "RHYTHM, or RHYTHMUS, in music [is] variety in the movement as to quickness or slowness, or length and shortness of the notes; or rather the proportion which the parts of the motion have to each other."—American Dict. The "last analysis" of rhythm can be nothing else than the reduction of it to its least parts. And if, in this reduction, it is "identical ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... regards close contact with the power of the chief nations of the world, were really in a state of political isolation which no longer exists. This arose from our geographical position—reinforced by the slowness and uncertainty of the existing means of intercommunication—and yet more from the grave preoccupation of foreign statesmen with questions of unprecedented and ominous importance upon the continent of Europe. A policy of isolation was for us then practicable,—though ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... restoring him to a sound mind, in spite of professional perversion? In fine, if man had been so grossly enslaved in moral nature from the beginning of the world down to the year 1789 or thereabouts, how was it possible that notwithstanding the admitted slowness of civilising processes, he should suddenly spring forth the very perfectible and nearly perfected being that Condorcet ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... to a worthier faith. If, as Chaumette believed, mankind are the only Providence of men, surely in that faith more than in any other are we bound to be very solicitous not to bring the violent hand of power on any of the spiritual acquisitions of the race, and very patient in dealing with the slowness of the common people to leave their ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... day as one in charge of three or four tables Herbert made some very serious mistakes. He was complained of for slowness, he turned over a sauce-boat, he broke a glass, and he forgot to charge for the cigar which the portly gentleman in the corner had taken after his lunch. And this cigar was a half-crown Corona, for the portly gentleman either had not yet grasped the full meaning of War economy or was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... intellectual arrogance which the arguments of theologians show lurking beneath their expressions of humility, there is no reason why this admission should not be made unreservedly, without the anthropomorphic qualifications by which its effect is commonly nullified. The time is surely coming when the slowness of men in accepting such a conclusion will be marvelled at, and when the very inadequacy of human language to express Divinity will be regarded as a reason for a deeper faith and more ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... the man that gets excited and irritable should be looked upon as an undesirable person. The person of good breeding now speaks with slowness and deliberation. He is cultivating more and more of a reposeful attitude. He is consciously attentive and holds his mind to one thing at a time. He shuts out everything else. When you are talking to anyone give him your ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... Here is a whole volume of geology in a paragraph. The thunder of continental convulsions is God's voice; the mountains rise by God's power; the waters haste away unto the place God prepared for them. Our slowness of geological discovery is perfectly accounted for by Peter. "For of this they are willingly ignorant, that by the word of God there were heavens of old, and land framed out of water, and by means of water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... two hours at the most, and still they were nowhere in sight. He was getting very impatient sitting there, keeping the captives under such strict guard. He determined to have something to say later about the slowness of the police. He would write an article for the paper, that was what he would do. If that was the way they always acted, was it any wonder ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... I feel sure that if those other five submarines had been ready with the K-2, we might have had another story to tell. Possibly the slowness of the Brooklyn Navy Yard—which is notorious, I understand—may have spoiled the one chance that America ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... slightness stood her in good stead, for being united with extreme suppleness, it gave her a grace of movement resembling that of some skimming mountain bird or sea- swallow, which flies with amazing swiftness yet seeming slowness. Angela never moved quickly,—no one had ever seen her in what is termed a "rush," or a vulgar hurry. She did everything she had to do without haste, without noise, without announcement or assertion of any kind;—and all that she did was done as perfectly ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... fossils it must have been, though the inevitable process of decay that had been staved off for a time, and had, through the extinction of bacteria and fungi, lost ninety-nine hundredths of its force, was nevertheless, with extreme sureness if with extreme slowness at work again upon all its treasures. Here and there I found traces of the little people in the shape of rare fossils broken to pieces or threaded in strings upon reeds. And the cases had in some instances been bodily removed—by the Morlocks as I judged. The place ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... heavy, busy, bold,' &c. I wonder the learned Scriblerus has omitted to advertise the reader, at the opening of this poem, that Dulness here is not to be taken contractedly for mere stupidity, but in the enlarged sense of the word, for all slowness of apprehension, shortness of sight, or imperfect sense of things. It includes (as we see by the poet's own words) labour, industry, and some degree of activity and boldness—a ruling principle not inert, but turning topsy-turvy the understanding, and inducing an ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... obstacle to its plans, regards that obstacle as an enemy, and remarks in language brutally frank, though not wholly elegant: "We will lick him first and then decide who is right." In 1770 King George III, who fretted at all seasons at the slowness with which he was able to break down the ascendency of the Whigs, manipulated the Government so as to make Lord North Prime Minister. Lord North was a servant, one might say a lackey, after the King's own heart. He abandoned lifelong traditions, principles, fleeting whims, prejudices even, ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... the Duke about the slowness of the task. Leonardo worked alone, allowing no pupil or helper to touch the picture. Five good, lively men could do the job in a week—"I could do it myself, if allowed," the good Prior said. Often Leonardo would stand with folded arms and survey the work ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... the stable, so that William was obliged to watch the horse while it was feeding, for there were several others in the stable, all standing like wild beasts, ready to devour each other's portion of corn: this, with the slowness of the servant and other hindrances, took up much time, and we were completely starved, for the morning was very cold, as I believe all the mornings in that desolate ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... buck.[1] Of course he's right," said Charteris rudely. And as time went on, it became clearer to the two young men that Rukn-ud-din was right. True, the garrison of Agpur made great capital of the escape across the flooded river, and were continually condoling with the besiegers on the slowness of their horses, or prophesying great results from Sher Singh's personal influence in raising up sympathisers in the north. It was quite evident that they meant it to be believed that Sher Singh was ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... make question, her face become as the rosy dawn. "A diary is a book of so great intimacy that the writing there in is to be looked upon only by the eyes of him who writes - or - perhaps - one other," she make answer with slowness. ...
— Seven Maids of Far Cathay • Bing Ding, Ed.
... until it was grown to manhood or womanhood, and when the bottle was half-emptied the mother returned it to me. How much time all this occupied I do not know, but the child took the milk with extreme slowness. I may say that it took the milk drop by drop. A great deal ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... we suppose that its members brought their earnings of all kinds into the common stock while they were unable to bind it by improvident individual engagements. The true enigma of the Patria Potestas does not reside here, but in the slowness with which these proprietary privileges of the parent were curtailed, and in the circumstance that, before they were seriously diminished, the whole civilised world was brought within their sphere. No innovation of any kind was attempted till the first years of the Empire, when the acquisitions of ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... you begin to be impatient for the events of all our West Indian expeditions? The Duke,(596) who is now the soul of the Regency, and who on all hands is allowed to make a great figure there, is much dissatisfied at the slowness of General Braddock, who does not march as if he was at all impatient to be scalped. It is said for him, that he has had bad guides, that the roads are exceedingly difficult, and that it was necessary to drag as much artillery ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... the later editions of the "Origin of Species" he found himself constrained to lay greater stress on these than he had originally done. Substantially, Mr. Chambers held much the same opinion as to the suddenness or slowness of modification as Mr. Darwin did, nor can it be doubted that Mr. Darwin knew this ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... Herbert would confide in her very soon. People very rarely were reserved with Elisabeth; she was often amazed at the rapidity with which they opened their inmost hearts to her. Probably this accounted in some measure for her slowness in understanding Christopher, who had made it a point of honour not to open ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... friend, and now one of his aids, following his leader, leaped into the first of the small barges or row-boats that were to take the troops from the frigates to the Danish shore. His young general and king, impatient at the slowness of the clumsy barges, while yet three hundred yards from shore, stood upright in the stern, drew his sword, and exclaimed: "I am wearied with this pace. All you who are for Denmark follow me!" And then, sword in hand, he ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... with force in the fourth line and lingering intonations in the last line. The pitch of the second stanza should be higher, and it will be easily attained because of the predominance of the thin vowels. The third stanza calls for a pitch lower than the first and a slowness and solemnity of movement quite in contrast to the moderate rate of the first and the liveliness and gaiety of the second. It will be seen in these readings that there is an overlying melody in the stanzas, quite distinct from the rhythm that depends upon the meter, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... followed one another with intolerable slowness. March began, and dragged its weary length along, and still the darkness increased in the Guardian's skies. From Boston the Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy losses were beginning to come with the frequency and regularity of the shots from a rapid-fire gun. The East was thoroughly disorganized, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... which came in the following spring. If any plans were formulated after the last ship sailed in October, it ordinarily took eighteen months before the royal approval could be had for putting them into effect. The routine machinery of paternalism thus ran with exasperating slowness. ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... reacted upon PREMIER. He spoke with unusual slowness, further developing tendency of recent growth to drop his voice ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... down: a good three-quarters of an hour's work, during which I raged about the deck like a man with a strong toothache. The transition from the wild sea to the comparative immobility of the lagoon had wrought strange distress among my nerves: I could not hold still whether in hand or foot; the slowness of the men, tired as dogs after our rough experience outside, irritated me like something personal; and the irrational screaming of the seabirds saddened me like a dirge. It was a relief when, with Nares, and a couple ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... themselves in the paper before their eyes. The merchant's clerk will not write like the lawyer or the poet. Even nations are distinguished by their writing; the vivacity and variableness of the Frenchman, and the delicacy and suppleness of the Italian, are perceptibly distinct from the slowness and strength of pen discoverable in the phlegmatic German, Dane, and Swede. When we are in grief, we do not write as we should in joy. The elegant and correct mind, which has acquired the fortunate habit of a fixity of attention, will write with scarcely ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com
|
|
|
