"Backwardness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they were suitable to his state and services. On February 8, 1668, we find him writing to Evelyn, his mind bitterly occupied with the late Dutch war, and some thoughts of the different story of the repulse of the Great Armada: "Sir, you will not wonder at the backwardness of my thanks for the present you made me, so many days since, of the Prospect of the Medway, while the Hollander rode master in it, when I have told you that the sight of it hath led me to such reflections on my particular interest, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be too surprised, so I just rattled off some of the usual congratulations. Gerard didn't say a word. He simply looked and looked, and there was something beautiful to me in his shame and backwardness and hesitation. ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... of which has just been laid on our table. When we mention that it is edited by Mr. Parker Pillsbury and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, all the world will immediately know what to expect from it. Those two writers can never be accused of having nothing to say, or of backwardness in saying it. Each has separately long maintained a striking individuality of tongue and pen. Working together, they will produce a canvas of the Rembrandt school—Mrs. Stanton painting the high lights and Mr. Pillsbury the deep darks. In fact, the new journal's real editors are Hope ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... steadily on, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left. There was no hesitation or faltering in his step, and the two youths pressed after him, ashamed of their moment's backwardness. The sun had managed to pierce through the haze, and was shining now with some of its wonted brilliancy. As Raymond turned the corner and saw before him the whole of the little hamlet, he almost wished the sun had ceased to shine, the contrast between the beauty ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... dollars on board, and that her figure-head was of solid gold. As, however, we had no such treasure, and the meeting was unavoidable, and might be hostile, I put myself into a complete posture of defense, with a determination neither to show backwardness nor suspicion. The day arrived, and the pirates swept up the river; eighteen prahus, one following the other, decorated with flags and streamers, and firing both cannon and musketry; the sight was interesting and curious, and heightened by the conviction ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... backwardness in the mere verbal scholarship, on which so large and precious a portion of life is wasted,[42] in all that general and miscellaneous knowledge which is alone useful in the world, he was making rapid and even wonderful progress. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... has considerable scope for exploiting its potential in hydropower and tourism, areas of recent foreign investment interest. Prospects for foreign trade or investment in other sectors will remain poor, however, because of the small size of the economy, its technological backwardness, its remoteness, its landlocked geographic location, its civil strife, and its ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... the brain and the nerves feel strain; and it is of the essence of defence that it exhausts quicker than does offence. {p.045} It lacks intrinsically the moral tension that sustains; when the forward impulse is removed, the evil spirit of backwardness finds room to enter. As hours pass, this difference in moral conditions affects those ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... clothing and beds and blankets, assisted to fill the hospital with patients, and rendered the purchase of these articles absolutely indispensable at any price, and on any terms on which they might be procured. I feel myself inclined to suppose, that the backwardness which displayed itself at this time in the government to dispatch the stores which were demanded, arose from a conviction that the supplies which had been previously sent in such abundance were sufficiently ample ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... encouragement to this work, that I might do as much as I can, in this little time granted, and gained for preparation and delivery; I would advise, exhort, resolve, and so prevent irreverence, backwardness, and doubting; that neither the ignorant may profane, nor the refractory contemn, nor the scrupulous question this holy ordinance of God, as unholy needless, ambiguous. Let this encouragement then be received in words: 1. ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... that, notwithstanding his sympathy with Satan, he almost invariably sided with his master, in regard of any angry reflection or seditious movement, and even when unjustly punished himself, the occasional result of a certain backwardness in self-defence, never showed any resentment—a most improbable statement, I admit, but nevertheless true—and I think the rest of his character may be left to the gradual dawn of ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... something like this in his wonderful book, Germany and Democracy: 'For what would happen if we Germans emerged victorious from this war? Our victory would only mean a strengthening of the dynastic principle of arbitrary power all along the line. Those of us who bewail the political backwardness of our Fatherland must realize that a German victory would prolong this backward condition for centuries. And not only Germany, but the whole of Europe, would have to suffer ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... possible, and proceed up to them.... After taking the Doctors directions in regard to my people ... I set out for my quarters about 12 oclock, time enough to go over them and found every thing in the utmost confusion, disorder and backwardness.... Got Blankets and every other requisite from Winchester, and settl'd things on the best footing I cou'd, ... Val Crawford agreeing if any of those at the upper quarter got it, to have them remov'd into my room and the Nurse ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... would not consciously or unconsciously harbour such feelings. And this is not because woman is purer or more virtuous than man: why, virtue and purity are not very different from vice if they are not free from evil feeling. I attribute this simply to the backwardness of woman. The mournful feeling of compassion and the pang of conscience experienced by a modern man at the sight of suffering is, to my mind, far greater proof of culture and moral elevation than hatred and aversion. Woman is as tearful and ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... You have never of yourselves come to any salutary decision in regard to the war. No single event do you ever discern before it occurs—before you have heard that something has happened or is happening. Perhaps there was room for this backwardness until now; but now we are at the very crisis, and such an attitude is possible no longer. {42} Surely, men of Athens, it is one of the gods—one who blushes for Athens, as he sees the course which events are taking—that has inspired Philip with this restless activity. If ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be chirping on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what peril soever. His backwardness in the university hath set him thus forward; for had he not truanted there, he had not been so hasty a divine. His small standing, and time, hath made him a proficient only in boldness, out of which, and his table-book, he is furnished for a preacher. His collections of study are the ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... besiegers might have entered without much difficulty, yet was there no assault made. Having noticed this carefully, Captain Weddell went to the Persian general to learn his purposes; when, to excuse the backwardness of his people, he pretended that the breach was too difficult to be assaulted with any hope of success. Yet we knew the contrary, as an English youth, who was servant to the master of the Jonas, bolder than any of the Persians, had gone up the breach to the very top of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... interests. In the Army, it happened during the earlier part of the war that some companies or regiments made much slower progress in training than others; and a whole Division was delayed for months because of the backwardness of a single regiment. When the psychological tests were introduced, these slow-learning units were found to contain a disproportionate number of men of low intelligence. From that time on, it was ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... will be glad to know me?" asked the minister, somewhat uneasily. "I have long shrunk from children, because they often show a distrust,—a backwardness to be familiar with me. I have even been ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... advantages I proposed to myself in going to Pernambuco I was soon put by that design through the refractoriness of some under me, and the discontents and backwardness of some of my men. For the calms and shiftings of winds which I met with, as I was to expect, in crossing the Line, made them who were unacquainted with these matters almost heartless as to the pursuit ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... way Captain Sutter's environment and the results of his enterprises were in significant contrast to the inactivity and backwardness of his neighbors. He showed what an energetic man could accomplish with exactly the same human powers and material tools as had always been available to the Californians. Sutter himself was a rather short, thick-set ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... measure, account for an observation we must have frequent occasion to make; that the conversation of men of very moderate capacities is often preferred to that of men of superior talents; in which the world act more wisely than at first they may seem; for, besides that backwardness in mankind to give their admiration, what can be duller or more void of pleasure than discourses on subjects above our comprehension? It is like listening to an unknown language; and, if such company is ever desired by us, it is a sacrifice to our vanity, which imposes on us to believe that we ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Posthumus; and she deserves it better. Of all Shakespeare's women she is perhaps the most tender and the most artless. Her incredulity in the opening scene with Iachimo, as to her husband's infidelity, is much the same as Desdemona's backwardness to believe Othello's jealousy. Her answer to the most distressing part of the picture is only, 'My lord, I fear, has forgot Britain.' Her readiness to pardon Iachimo's false imputations and his designs against ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... a hasty way, but I think correctly, I have thrown the chief burden of backwardness in school, or retardation, upon physical defects. But our special topic is eye trouble. How much of this burden must be referred to this specific source? It is difficult to say exactly. But knowing as we do the great prevalence of ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... of thirty yards or more, which all told. Had either the Mandara or the sheikh's troops now moved up boldly, they must have carried the town and the heights above it. Instead of this, they kept on the other side of the wady, out of reach of the arrows. The Felatahs, seeing their backwardness, made so desperate an attack that the Arabs gave way. The Felatah horse came on. Had not Barca Gana and Boo-Khaloum, with his few mounted Arabs, given them a very spirited check, not one of their band would have lived to see the ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... time the new levies arrived slowly in the American camp, and many of those who were sent were mere boys utterly unfit for active service. The several States discovered much backwardness in complying with the requisitions of Congress, so that there was reason to apprehend that the number of troops necessary for besieging New York could not be procured. This made Washington turn his thoughts more seriously to the southward than he had hitherto done, but all his movements ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... obtaining some certainty; and at last, when my impetuosity had brought on the fatal battle, it was he who bought with his own life the avowal of your captivity. I had hoped to have fulfilled Friedel's trust, and to have redeemed my own backwardness; but it is not to be. While I was yet lying helpless on my bed, the Emperor has taken it out of my power. Mother, you receive him from ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... names of Marx and Engels came into existence; the "Young Hegelians," the "Tuebingen School," and finally Feuerbach himself are summoned from the grave to which the Revolution of 1848 had consigned them. Still, ancient history as these controversies are from the German standpoint, such is the backwardness of philosophy among English-speaking peoples, that we find Engels exposing again and again fallacies which persist even in our time, and ridiculing sentiments which we receive with approbation in ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... of doubtful nationality, being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but of surprising clearness of conviction on the highest problems. He had gone nearly beside himself on the Sunday, because of a general backwardness to indorse his definition of mind as "a living, thinking substance which cannot be felt, heard, or seen"—nor, I presume, although he failed to mention it, smelt. Now he came forward in a pause with another contribution ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... danger is for the timid and the unskilful. The skilful rider, when apparently courting danger in the field, deserves no more credit for courage than for sitting in an arm-chair, and the unskilful no more the imputation of timidity for backwardness than if without practice he declined to perform on the tight-rope. Depend upon it, the bold bad ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... restraints, as may have been perceived before this. 'You don't say so, Humpage? Now I'm sorry to year it; I really am sorry to year that! Not but what, if you look into it, you'll find there's been a backwardness in doing one's duty somewhere about, yer know. P'raps, if you'd been more of an uncle to him, now, if you don't mind my saying so, he'd have turned out different. You should have kept a tighter hand on him, and as likely as not he wouldn't have felt the temptation ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... conceived some contempt for my heroe, on account of his behaviour to Sophia. The former of these will blame his prudence in neglecting an opportunity to possess himself of Mr Western's fortune; and the latter will no less despise him for his backwardness to so fine a girl, who seemed ready to fly into his arms, if he would open them ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... your question why the scattholds remain undivided, the general backwardness of improvement, and want of agricultural skill and capital, are the immediate causes. The present tenantry are so ignorant of the means of turning these commons to any proper account, that the fee-simple of most of them would, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... given a chance in open field with the arm of the flesh to back him, Knox's courage was tenacious and indomitable. It was only for lonely martyrdom that he never thought himself ready, and few historians have a right to throw the first stone at him for his backwardness. ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... brings a reaction with it—this reaction has not set in in this country, and no strong desire for the necessity of it, no craving for the counterbalancing influence of a Nietzsche, has arisen yet in the British mind. I cannot help pointing out the grave consequences of this backwardness of England, which has arisen from the fact that you have never taken any ideas or theories, not even your own, seriously. Democracy, dear Englishmen, is like a stream, which all the peoples of Europe will have to cross: they will come out of it cleaner, healthier, and stronger, but while ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... in nature a kind of backwardness, which did not befriend him, nor suit with the motion of the court, so there was in him an inclination to arms, with a humour of travelling and gadding abroad, which had not some wise men about him laboured to remove, and the Queen laid in her command, he would, out of his own native ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... certain that my brother was resolved never to marry, I never should have once thought of doing it; but since this was his determined, unalterable resolution, I judged it fit to overcome a natural disinclination and backwardness, and to put myself in the way of doing something for a family not the worst in Scotland; and, therefore, gave my hand to Mr Stewart, the consequence of which has proved more happy than I ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... the territorial power of aristocracies which, under cover of administrative titles, converted whole provinces into family estates and claimed over their tenants the divine right of unlimited and irresponsible sovereignty. To investigate all the reasons for the political backwardness of these eastern peoples would carry us far afield. But one reason lies on the surface. Outside the free towns they had produced no middle class; and their towns were neither numerous nor wealthy enough to be important in national politics. They were not even represented ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... of these qualifications, and he it was whom Pitt designed to act the leading part in the coming year, "a greater part," he modestly wrote after receiving his appointment, "than I wished or desired. The backwardness of some of the older officers has in some measure forced the Government to come down so low. I shall do my best and leave the rest to fortune, as perforce we must when there are not ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the Queen for one of the Commissioners to be appointed by Her Majesty for the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland.... This choise, however honourable to me, was very far from giving me the least pleasure or satisfaction, for I had observed a great backwardness in the Parliament of Scotland for an Union with England of any kind whatsoever, and therefore doubted not but, after a great deal of expense in attending a Treaty in England, I should be oblidged to return with the ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... and combined with iron, if possible; and with respect to the latter, there are seasons of the year too well known to the planters to need any explanation. The only difference (if there is any) depends on the geographical situation of the place, with respect to its temperature, or in the backwardness or advancement of seasons, and even on the duration of the same—in which circumstances the planter takes advantage of ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... said Hastings (but mentioning neither the time nor place where the same was held); in which conversation, after reciting the allegations of the said Hastings relative to several particulars of the delay and backwardness of the Rajah in paying the aforesaid extra demand, and his resolution to exact from the Rajah "a considerable sum of money to the relief of the Company's exigencies," he proceeds in the following words: "That, if he [the Rajah] consented, you [the said Warren Hastings] were desirous of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... woods and roads. Caesar, incensed at this indignity, endeavoured by the most assiduous and flattering attentions to gain to his side Cneius Pompey, at that time dissatisfied with the senate for the backwardness they shewed to confirm his acts, after his victories over Mithridates. He likewise brought about a reconciliation between Pompey and Marcus Crassus, who had been at variance from (13) the time of ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... fortune in battle, and hoped to be thereby at length delivered from all their miseries: nay, they desired that Moses would immediately lead them against their enemies without the least delay, that no backwardness might be a hindrance to their present resolution. So Moses sorted all that were fit for war into different troops, and set Joshua, the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, over them; one that was of great courage, and patient to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... detect the form crouched behind her spreading skirts, the face peering under her falling sleeve, and once again doubt attained mastery over his mind. If Honour had meant really to rebuke him for his backwardness, then was he indeed the most blessed of men, but perhaps she was only mildly chaffing Charteris's friend. It was not like her, but could one moment at parting give the lie to the experience, the settled certainty, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... prince. They were immediately seized, committed to custody, brought to trial, condemned and executed. No legal crime was proved against these brothers: it was only alleged, that at the battle of Flouder they had not done their duty in supporting the king; and as this backwardness could not, from the course of their past life, be ascribed to cowardice, it was commonly imputed to a more criminal motive. The evidence, however, of guilt produced against them was far from being valid or convincing; and the people, who hated them while living, were much ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... doubts the importance of the tetrahedral form, let him consider how evolution would have been hampered if the land of the globe were arranged as isolated masses in low latitudes, while oceans took the place of the present northern continents. The backwardness of the indigenous life of Africa shows how an equatorial position retards evolution. The still more marked backwardness of Australia with its kangaroos and duck-billed platypuses shows how much greater is the ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... workers, from the point of view of production, than they are at present by the capitalists. The Bolsheviks oppose self-government in industry every where, because it has failed in Russia, and their national self-esteem prevents them from admitting that this is due to the backwardness of Russia. This is one of the respects in which they are misled by the assumption that Russia must be in all ways a model to the rest of the world. I would go so far as to say that the winning of self-government ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... and returning again to the Lord, by entering anew into covenant with him, whether personal made in baptism, or at the Lord's table, or under affliction and trouble, or national vows and covenants entered into by ourselves or our fathers. And in a use of lamentation, he bewailed the backwardness of these lands, and particularly of this nation, to this duty; in that, now after sixty years and upwards of great defections from, and grievous breaches of our covenants by people of all ranks; yet there appears so little ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... label, a solid, sedate individual, sedately dressed, sedately conversational. Even without his conversation (which was addressed to a friend seated by his side, and touched chiefly on such topics as the backwardness of Roman hyacinths and the prevalence of measles at the Rectory), one could have gauged fairly accurately the temperament and mental outlook of the travelling bag's owner. But he seemed unwilling to leave anything ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... long lived in a state of backwardness, have a sudden fit of cleanliness, in imitation of more advanced nations, they are apt to clean the outside walls only, and to leave all their accustomed filth hidden behind them. I mention these terrible prisons because, during the visit of the squadron to Naples, I was guilty of snatching ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... but surely such cannot serve as rules by which to regulate my conduct while I remain ignorant of them, nor can I imagine it to be my duty, or the expectation of Congress, that I should blindly fall into the sentiments of any man, especially when I think this backwardness to give proper support to our cause at the Courts of Europe, may be accounted for on other principles. That it does actually exist, I can now no longer doubt. However, Congress will make up their own judgment upon this point from the letters of the Minister himself, and from other ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... then rolling a little, and I had taken no food for three days, so that I felt tempted to tell him that I had rather wait till after breakfast; but I knew that I must "take the bull by the horns,'' and that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or backwardness, I should be ruined at once. So I took my bucket of grease and climbed up to the royal-mast-head. Here the rocking of the vessel, which increases the higher you go from the foot of the mast, which is the fulcrum of the lever, and the smell of the grease, which offended my fastidious senses, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... question whether the nebular hypothesis is, or is not, confirmatory of the pentateuchal account of the origin of things. Mr. Gladstone appears to be prepared to enter upon this campaign with a light heart. I confess I am not, and my reason for this backwardness will doubtless surprise Mr. Gladstone. It is that, rather more than a quarter of a century ago (namely, in February 1859), when it was my duty, as President of the Geological Society, to deliver the Anniversary Address, [5] I chose a topic which involved ...
— Mr. Gladstone and Genesis - Essay #5 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... of their magazines. This individual, ennobled by the royal authority, and given a place at the royal table, gained great influence over his new master, whom he stimulated by alternately reproaching him with his backwardness in the past, and putting before him the prospect of easy triumphs over Rome in the future. He pointed out that the emperor, with the bulk of his troops and treasures, was detained in the regions adjoining the Danube, and that the East was left almost undefended; he magnified the services which ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... exceedingly fond of him, and that the other professors in the different sciences had equal reason to be satisfied with him? What I have above stated, together with the report of M. de Keralio, bear evidence of his backwardness in almost every branch of education except mathematics. Neither was it, as Sir Walter affirms, his precocious progress in mathematics that occasioned him to be removed to Paris. He had attained the proper age, and the report of him was favourable, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... insignificant. The total number of mines at work in 1903 was only nine; their output consisted of phosphates, with a small amount of zinc and tin. Brandy, leather and cork goods, and coarse woollen stuffs are manufactured in many of the towns, but the backwardness of education, the lack of good roads, and the general poverty retard the development of commerce. The more northerly of the two Madrid-Lisbon railways enters the province on the east; passes south of Plasencia, where ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... continue these notes as to the backwardness of portions of the country compared with its general level of culture, because I have dealt with the evidence elsewhere.[244] What I am anxious to point out here is that the faculty of such people as these to think, not in terms of modern science but in terms of their own psychological conditions, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... with him he had developed indolence into a philosophy. Here he was just over forty, and explaining to the world, explaining all through the week-end to this American—until even God could endure it no longer and the smash stopped him—how excellent was the backwardness of Essex and English go-as-you-please, and how through good temper it made in some mysterious way for all that was desirable. A fat English doctrine. Punch has preached it ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... ticket almost to a man, Jefferson proposed that the period of residence required by the naturalization laws to qualify a voter should be shortened. He had no objection to coercion before 1787. Speaking of the backwardness of some of the colonies in paying their quota of the Confederate expenses, he recommends sending a frigate to make them more punctual. 'The States must see the rod, perhaps some of them must be made to feel it.' His somersets of opinion and conduct are endless. Once he talked ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... captain, as she took his bat. 'You won't sty in long, I lay,' he said, as he sent the old bowler fielding and took the ball himself. He was a young gentleman who did not suffer from excessive backwardness. ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... preparations for sea. On the following night I stood my first watch. During the first few days we had bad weather, and I began to feel the discomforts of a sailor's life. But I knew that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or of backwardness, I should be ruined at once. So I performed my duties to the best of my ability, and after a time I felt somewhat of a man. I cannot describe the change which half a pound of cold salt beef and a biscuit or two produced in me after having taken no sustenance ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... put upon a committee to draw and report resolutions. These resolutions pledged a cheerful cooeperation "in any measures, however serious," which the government might deem necessary and a support of the same with "lives and fortunes." The Federalists, learning too late that their backwardness at this crisis was a blunder, caused a town meeting to be called at Faneuil Hall a few days later. This also (p. 052) Mr. Adams attended, and again was put on the committee to draft resolutions, which were only ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... life, when all is over, the sun forth again, and our out-fought enemy only a blot upon the leeward sea. I love to recall, and would that I could reproduce that life, the unforgettable, the unrememberable. The memory, which shows so wise a backwardness in registering pain, is besides an imperfect recorder of extended pleasures; and a long-continued well-being escapes (as it were, by its mass) our petty methods of commemoration. On a part of our life's map there lies a roseate, undecipherable haze, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... did reach Srinagar we found that our friends had abandoned all idea of an expedition to Astor, partly on account of expense, but principally on account of the backwardness of the season, which practically precluded ladies from crossing the Tragbal and Boorzil Passes for some time. The merits and demerits of the Tilail district and Baltistan came up for review, and then we almost decided to go to Leh until we reflected that the return ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... "old Russians'' to his reforms. That Alexander's reign, which began with so large a promise of amelioration, ended by riveting still tighter the chains of the Russian people was, however, due less to the corruption and backwardness of Russian life than to the defects of the tsar himself. His love of liberty, though sincere, was in fact unreal. It flattered his vanity to pose before the world as the dispenser of benefits; but his ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... his good word, and his esteem; all which I have likewise had, in a greater measure, from his excellent duchess, the patroness of my poor unworthy poetry. If I had not greater, the fault was never in their want of goodness to me, but in my own backwardness to ask, which has always, and, I believe, will ever, keep me from rising in the world. Let this be enough, with reasonable men, to clear me from the imputation of an ungrateful man, with which my enemies have most unjustly taxed me. If I am a mercenary ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... then suddenly the important question would be asked, the important subject mooted. On this occasion, however, the Khan came with unusual rapidity to his point. A few inquiries as to the Colonel's health, a short oration on the backwardness of the crops, a lengthier one upon his fidelity to and friendship for the British Government and the miserable return ever made to him for it, and then came a question ludicrously inapposite and put with the solemn naivet, of ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... which, I ran up stairs, and found her stalking about the room in her shift and under petticoat only; I would immediately have retired as became me, but she bade me come in, and air a clean shift for her; which operation I having performed with some backwardness, she put it on before me without any ceremony, and I verily believe was ignorant of my sex all that time, as being quite absorbed in contemplation. About four o'clock in the afternoon I was ordered to lay the cloth, and place two covers, which I understood were for my mistress and ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... thought of, that has not been thought of already? They are in no hurry; they look upon the matter as arranged. But in decency, we cannot show any backwardness; it does ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... would be regarded as a perpetual barrier; only Mark might prefer to wait until he had settled down to the more serious practice of the profession, about which no man could be keener. The truth was that Carrissima was prone to search for a variety of explanations for his backwardness, all ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... associates made a poor figure in their return; they were publicly reproved for their backwardness. Hewson was wounded in body and more in mind, for the bad success of his ill-laid design. He could not hold up his head before Edmund; who, unconscious of their malice, administered every kind of comfort ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... employ the mental faculties, but also give work to the hands, such as gardening, carpentering, or the tending of animals, are specially to be recommended; and if by these the mind can be kept awake, the grand object of teaching is answered, and backwardness in reading, writing, or those kinds of knowledge which other children at the same age have acquired, is of very little moment. Many epileptics have an indistinct articulation, and almost all have a slouching gait, and an awkward manner. The former can often be corrected ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... great courage, and their self-governing communes, are quite cut off from what is called (in the fashionable street in Frankfort) The True, The Beautiful and The Good. There is a real sense in which one can call such backwardness barbaric, by comparison with the Kaiserstrasse; and in that sense it is true ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... tinctured all his thoughts; she was the compound extract of all that was chemically pure and officinal—the dispensatory contained nothing equal to her. But Ikey was timid, and his hopes remained insoluble in the menstruum of his backwardness and fears. Behind his counter he was a superior being, calmly conscious of special knowledge and worth; outside he was a weak-kneed, purblind, motorman-cursed rambler, with ill-fitting clothes stained with chemicals and smelling of socotrine aloes ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... republic's name, imposed a partial blockade for several months. This blockade, combined with the effects of the UN sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro, cost the economy approximately $1 billion in 1992 according to official figures. Macedonia's geographical isolation, technological backwardness, and potential political instability place it far down the list of countries of interest to Western investors. Resolution of the dispute with Greece and an internal commitment to economic reform ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... alone? You can do me no good; you know nothing on earth about me; you may actually do me harm; I am in better hands than yours. I know my own sincerity of purpose; and I am determined upon taking my time." Since I have been a Catholic, people have sometimes accused me of backwardness in making converts; and Protestants have argued from it that I have no great eagerness to do so. It would be against my nature to act otherwise than I do; but besides, it would be to forget the lessons which I gained in the experience of my ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... settlement of vitally important questions the consideration of which need not have been postponed because the constitutional question still remained in dispute. Therefore, though I seem to throw upon the Nationalist party the chief blame for our present political backwardness, and, so far as politics affect other spheres of national activity, for our industrial depression, candour compels me to admit that Irish Unionism has failed to recognise its obligation—an obligation recognised by the Unionist party in Great Britain—to ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... principalities, none large, some extremely small, and all practically independent of the feeble German kings. [37] This weakness of the central power condemned Germany to a minor part in the affairs of Europe, as late as the nineteenth century. Yet Germany found some compensation for political backwardness in the splendid city life which it developed during the later Middle Ages. The German cities, together with those of Italy and other European lands, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... plying the loom, extracting the Tyrian dye, practising chemistry, though ignorant of its very name, despised and oppressed, and only tolerated when he furnished Religion with her trappings or War with arms. Thus the growth of chemistry was slow, and by reason of its backwardness it was longer than any other art in ridding itself of the leading-strings of magic and astrology. Practical discoveries must have been made many times without science acquiring thereby any new fact. For to prevent a new discovery ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... there was also a corresponding backwardness. The nominal district of Woodhall Spa consisted of outlying portions of the parishes of Woodhall, Langton, Thornton and Thimbleby, these villages themselves being distant from four and a half to seven miles. A person standing in ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... indolence an inherent characteristic of the native, or is it true, as a foreign traveller has said in speaking of a country whose inhabitants are of the same race as these, that this indolence is only a fabrication to excuse our own laziness, our backwardness and the faults ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... royal-mast-head, down. The vessel was then rolling a little, and I had taken no sustenance for three days, so that I felt tempted to tell him that I had rather wait till after breakfast; but I knew that I must "take the bull by the horns," and that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or of backwardness, that I should be ruined at once. So I took my bucket of grease and climbed up to the royal-mast-head. Here the rocking of the vessel, which increases the higher you go from the foot of the mast, which is the fulcrum of the lever, and the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... spirit, if not of true penitence, certainly of keen remorse, and strong self-crimination. In the autumn of 1763 he became the comforter of his friend, Lloyd, in the Fleet, supported him in confinement, and opened a subscription for the discharge of his heavy debts, which, owing to the backwardness of ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... presence till he was old enough to be a soldier. When the call to arms went out, every man of the required age was expected at the muster, and the last comer was tortured to death in the presence of his comrades as a lesson against backwardness. ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."[599] Who can describe that life? and who can sufficiently tell of the grace of Him who hath secured it to men? And who should not feel amazed at the backwardness of sinners to prepare for it—so free and beneficently offered? Truly the glory of God is great in his salvation! The redeemed through eternity will find the glad work of declaring that glory undone. Would that sinners now, by accepting of the great salvation, would begin here, and ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... Board of Trade has nothing to do with the food scales of ships, but Mr. Gray hints that the Legislature will have to interfere unless shipowners look to it themselves. The ease with which preserved foods of all kinds can be obtained and carried now removes the last shadow of an excuse for backwardness in this matter, and in particular the provision of a large supply of potatoes, both fresh and dried, ought to be an unceasing care; this is done on board American ships, and to this is doubtless owing in ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... the old folk, and Jim had his plate of porridge ladled out for him; but hardly a word would he speak, but sat with his spoon in his hand staring at Cousin Edie. She shot little twinkling glances across at him all the time, and it seemed to me that she was amused at his backwardness, and that she tried by what she said ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... French-Canadian agriculture, despite the warm official encouragement given to it, make such relatively meager progress? There are several reasons for its backwardness. The long winters, which developed in the habitant an inveterate disposition to idleness, afford the clue to one of them. A general aversion to unremitting manual toil was one of the colony's besetting sins. Notwithstanding the small per capita acreage, accordingly, ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... new house and refurnish, &c.—so that artificial means for stopping inventions will be adopted; and partly by the fact that though all inventions breed in geometrical ratio, yet some multiply more rapidly than others, and the backwardness of one art will impede the forwardness of another. At any rate, so far as I can see, the present is about the only comfortable time for a man to live in, that either ever has been or ever will be. The past was too slow, and the future will ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... of the ambiguity in which we lay as to the length of the rope and the height of the precipice—and that this gentleman was to climb down from fifty to seventy fathoms on a pitchy night, on a rope entirely free, and with not so much as an infant child to steady it at the bottom, a little backwardness was perhaps excusable. But it was, in our case, more than a little. The truth is, we were all womanish fellows about a height; and I have myself been put, more than once, hors de combat by a less affair than ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lower the sanguine spirits of the Prime Minister to the level of prudence. All the letters of Pitt at that time exude confidence from every line. He hopes that Dumouriez will succeed in overthrowing the regicides at Paris. The backwardness of the Prussians in supporting Coburg does not deter him from ordering to Flanders all the available British and mercenary troops, in order to besiege Dunkirk, and otherwise help the Imperialists. As if this is not enough, on or just before 1st April he treats with Malouet, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... difference was with archbishop Parker, whom he highly offended by his backwardness in proceeding to extremities against the puritans, a sect many of whose scruples Grindal himself had formerly entertained, and was still inclined to view with respect or pity rather than with indignation. Cecil, who was his chief friend and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... I made a long and very fatiguing march to Choongtam, but the coolies were not all able to accomplish it. The backwardness of the flora in descending was even more conspicuous than on the previous day: the jungles, at 7000 feet, being gay with a handsome Cucurbitaceous plant. Crossing the Lachoong cane-bridge, I paid the tribute of a sigh to the memory of my poor dog, and reached my old camping-ground at Choongtam ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... not-to-be-proud-of performance, had not the boy's mother that week visited her home and there, in the presence of other people, talked considerably about her boy's progress in school, his rapid advance as compared with that of our little dreamer, her relative stupidity and backwardness. And so this boy's mother had continued for some time in the same strain. This caused our little girl to feel much embarrassed—in fact, ashamed and mortified. She had felt that way for several days past, it had made her cry, had made her feel miserable and unhappy; so much so that she had ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... 'backwardness' of persons to appear in defence of Miss Monk's book. We promise to appear as often on the subject as you are willing to publish our communications. In one of the paragraphs you publish, our book is spoken of as one of the evils arising from a 'free press.' We think, sir, that 'a free press' ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... better environments the whites represent as a whole a higher state of civilization. But I hold that this is true not because of race identity but rather because of individual embarrassment. Give a white child and a colored child the same environment and their progress or backwardness, I hold, would be essentially the same under the same stimulants and encouragements. Wherever colored and white children have been put to comparative tests too little attention has been paid to difference of ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... added "I beg you won't take what I've said amiss, ma'am, for we mothers of families are more used to speak out than maiden ladies. And I should not have said so much, but only I was afraid you would misconstrue my son's backwardness, and so that he might be flung out of your favour at last, and all for nothing but having too much ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... to be noted in this connection is that this shape of the head seems to bear no direct relation to intellectual power or intelligence. Posterior development of the cranium does not imply a corresponding backwardness in culture.... Europe offers the best refutation of the statement that the proportions of the head mean anything intellectual.... In our study of the proportions of the head, therefore, we are measuring merely ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... drive you, Miss Rolleston?" asked she, suspecting, from his backwardness in coming forward, that the object of her intentions might be ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... enjoined to renew his inquiries, and was asked every night whether he had yet heard of Pekuah; till, not being able to return the Princess the answer that she desired, he was less and less willing to come into her presence. She observed his backwardness, and commanded him to attend her. "You are not," said she, "to confound impatience with resentment, or to suppose that I charge you with negligence because I repine at your unsuccessfulness. I do ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... him again, and quite entreated that no such step might be taken, as I had no authority for presentation but to the duchess. However, Lady Crewe was only provoked at my backwardness, and charged Mr. Grattan not to heed me. "Tell the duke," she cried, "that Madame d'Arblay is our Madame de Stael! tell him we are as proud of our Madame d'Arblay as he can be of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... the end of which it was Eustacia's duty to enter as the Turkish Knight. She, with the rest who were not yet on, had hitherto remained in the moonlight which streamed under the porch. With no apparent effort or backwardness she came in, beginning— ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... this had led to a sharp controversy with Mr. Pusey, as he was then, who thought that Mr. Rose[41] had both exaggerated the fact itself and had not adequately given the historical account of it. He had the prudence, but not the backwardness, of a man of large knowledge, and considerable experience of the world. More alive to difficulties and dangers than his younger associates, he showed his courage and his unselfish earnestness in his frank sympathy with ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... yet—it's an evidence of the backwardness of your sex—to a conception of the Bismarck idea in diplomacy. If a man praises one woman, you still think he's in love with another. Do you mean that because Tom didn't praise the elder sister so much, he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... toilet as elsewhere, she required small assistance from Flora, whom she dispatched to tidy up the sitting-room instead. The good little lady was armed cap-a-pie by seven-fifteen, at which time a glance into Carlisle's room revealed much backwardness there, not concealed by the appearances of haste. Hugo would have to wait, that was clear; and just as it was clear, up Mr. Canning's name ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... he had acted. It was only, therefore, by the urgency of a despairing effort, as a dernier ressort, these had now sought the presence as petitioners, and naturally they dreaded denial. Noting the Condesa's backwardness—a thing new but not displeasing to him, since it gave promise of influence over her—Santa Anna ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... Editorial prophets of the Continental-Democratic Movement, have in their leading-articles shown themselves disposed to vilipend the late Manchester Insurrection, as evincing in the rioters an extreme backwardness to battle; nay as betokening, in the English People itself, perhaps a want of the proper animal courage indispensable in these ages. A million hungry operative men started up, in utmost paroxysm of desperate protest against their lot; and, ask Colacorde and company, How many shots ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... luck lies there: If your Archduchess, Marie Louise the fair, Would straight accept my hand, I'd offer it, And throw the other over. Faith, the Tsar Has shown such backwardness in answering me, Time meanwhile trotting, that I have ample ground For such withdrawal.—Madame, now, again, Will your Archduchess ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... servant whom he called Robert, a stout ruddy fellow, who was very jovial with every post-boy and ostler on the road. The gentleman, being placed next to me by the chance of our billets, lost no time in opening the conversation, a step which my rustic backwardness would long have delayed. He invited my confidence by a free display of his own, informing me that he was attached to the household of Lord Arlington, and was returning to London on his lordship's summons. For since his patron had been called to the ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... see that the king needs a counterpart in such a wife, he being impulsively generous; he blames his daughter for her backwardness in not coming to town with Ulysses, whereat the latter frames one of his smallest fibs in excuse of the maiden. Still further, the king in a surprising burst of admiration, wishes that Ulysses, or "such an one as thou art," might stay and be called his son-in-law. ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... Frenchwoman would have done; she then cried a little more, and at length relieving me, assured me that I was the ghost of her son, who had some time before been killed by a spear-wound in his breast. The younger female was my sister; but she, whether from motives of delicacy, or from any imagined backwardness on my part, did not think proper to kiss me. My new mother expressed almost as much delight at my return to my family, as my real mother would have done, had I been unexpectedly restored to her. As soon as she left me, my brothers, and father (the old man who had previously been ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... bosom to match-making regrets; and the walk of the pair together, alone under the propitious laming heavens, appeared to her now as an opportunity lost. From sisterly sympathy, she fancied she could understand Tony's liberty-loving reluctance: she had no comprehension of the backwardness of the man beholding the dear woman handsomer than in her maiden or her married time: and sprightlier as well. She chatted deliciously, and drew Redworth to talk his best on his choicer subjects, playing over ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... paper, there came to Friedrich another unexpected remarkable Document: a LETTER from Kaiser Joseph himself, who is personally running about in these parts, over in Bohemia, endeavoring to bring Army matters to a footing; and is no doubt shocked to find them still in such backwardness, with a Friedrich at hand. The Kaiser's Letter, we perceive, is pilot-balloon to the Kaunitz episcopal Document, and to an actual meeting of Prussian and Austrian Ministers on the Bavarian point; and had been seen to be a salutary measure by an Austria ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... sufficient; many sailors who are now in the service of the merchants, may not return soon enough to lay claim to the bounty, who would gladly accept it, and who will either not serve the crown without it, or will serve with disgust and complaints; as the loss of it cannot be imputed to their backwardness, but to an accident against which they could ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... festivals in all the London churches.[1000] We find, it is true, a High Church writer of this date, regretting that of late years the observance of these days had not been so strict as heretofore. He attributed this backwardness mainly to superstitious scruples derived from Puritan times, and to the immoderate pursuit of business.[1001] The wonder rather was, that having been, for a considerable portion of the previous century, 'neglected ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... that the non-arrival of supplies must be owing either to accident or delays in the voyage, and not to any backwardness on the part of government in sending them out. We now found that our disappointment was to be ascribed to both misfortune and delay. The Lady Juliana, we have seen, sailed in July last, and in the month of September following his majesty's ship Guardian, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... entry into my constituency I duly established myself in my apartments, where I spent most of the afternoon writing cheques. The restoration of the North Transept proved to be in an even more deplorable state of backwardness than I had feared; but the Dean ultimately left me with the utmost expressions of goodwill, promising to reassure the most exacting spirits in Cathedral society as to my soundness on the questions of (1) Disestablishment and (2) ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... told him by his father. His eagerness for knowledge did not extend to the ordinary primary studies, however, and, aside from the single exception of the study of physiology, he proved himself an indifferent pupil. His backwardness was a sore trial to his father, who was desirous that his son should enter the ministry; but as the young Linnaeus showed no liking for that calling, and as he had acquitted himself well in his study of physiology, his father at last decided to allow him to take ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... drawing a comparison between the House of Lords and the French Senate: "It was but a few weeks since he had read an official comment in the Moniteur, coming from the highest source, on the inefficiency, the want of patriotism, energy, and the backwardness to fulfil the high destinies to which they were called, that characterized that illustrious body, the Senate of France. He had no disposition to cut down our tribunal to that life interest on which the Senate of France ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... offered to fight them, it is thought that the duke was determined to surrender, being so persuaded by his confessor. This example, it is very likely, would have been followed by the rest. But this opportunity was lost, not through the negligence or backwardness of the lord admiral, but through the want of providence in those who had the charge of furnishing and providing for the fleet: For, at that time of so great advantage, when they came to examine into the state of their stores, they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... herself she shall find, certain means of securing her reputation, and preventing all the pernicious consequences of her pleasures. It is necessary, therefore, that, beside the infamy attending such licences, there should be some preceding backwardness or dread, which may prevent their first approaches, and may give the female sex a repugnance to all expressions, and postures, and liberties, that have an immediate relation to ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... them presents of such things as were about us. Having then made signs to them that we wanted to view the premises, my friend Attago immediately got up, and going with us, without showing the least backwardness, gave us full liberty to ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... the total loss of New Netherland is threatened. The English, to cloak their plans, now object that there is no proof, no legal commission or patent, from their High Mightinesses, to substantiate and justify our rights and claims to the property of this province, and insinuate that through the backwardness of their High Mightinesses to grant such a patent, you apparently intended to place the people here on slippery ice, giving them lands to which your honors had no ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... however, is slowly realizing, through the development of organized capitalism in industry and government, and the increase of hired laborers, that it is not nature alone that civilization must contend against, not merely ignorance or poverty or the backwardness of material development, but, more important than all these, the systematic opposition of the employing and governing classes to every program of improvement, except that which promises still further to increase their ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... book-illumination, before he had been brought over into this country by William the Conqueror.[251] (A character, by the bye, who, however completely hollow were his claims to the crown of England, can never be reproached with a backwardness in promoting learned men to the several great offices of ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of the lagoons, through which the largest craft are towed to and from the ports by row-boats. In the model of the sea-going vessels there has apparently been little change from the first. Yet in spite of all this backwardness in invention, the city is full of beautiful workmanship in every branch of artificing, and the Venetians are still the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... allowed the sunlight to play merrily upon our path. "He says in his heart that if this thing be of God, the Maid will come again when the time draws near; but that if it is phantasy, or if she be deluded of the Devil, perchance his backwardness will put a check upon her ardour, and we shall hear no more of it. The Abbe Perigord, his Confessor, has bidden him beware lest it be a snare of the Evil One"—and as he spoke these words Bertrand crossed himself, and I did the like, for the forest is an ill place in which to talk of the Devil, ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the same, May 6.-Backwardness of the season. Marriages. Masquerades. New establishment at Almack's. Intercourse ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... their due weight to the arguments of the Chancellor, and felt the danger which war would involve at once to his own authority at home, and to the position of England in Europe. This he had impressed upon his brother; and James rightly ascribed the King's backwardness to Clarendon, and found a convenient medium of remonstrance in his wife, whom he instructed to explain to her father the Duke's annoyance at finding him his chief opponent "in an affair upon which he knew his heart was so much set." ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... first epoch is from birth to the age of six, during which 25 per cent of all cases commence, usually associated with mental backwardness, and some due to organic brain trouble. The second epoch is ten to twenty-two, the time of puberty and adolescence, during which time no less than 54 per cent of all cases commence. This is, par excellence, the age of onset ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... the plates, into which each one crumbled a bit of bread, and they began to eat. Then the old woman doled out to each his portion of boiled meat and vegetables, and, as they ate, the cobbler discoursed briefly upon the future of Spain and the reasons for national backwardness,—a topic that appeals to most Spaniards, who ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... the next morning the count (who, though he did not agree with the whole of his friend's doctrine, was, however, highly pleased with his argument) began to bewail the misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist each other in their necessities; but what vexed him, he said, most, was the cruelty of the fair: for he intrusted Wild with the secret of his having had an intrigue with Miss Theodosia, the elder of the Miss Snaps, ever since his confinement, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... This backwardness to generalize a rule, found so necessary practically to be followed, may be resolved into that flattering conceit of human dignity, which is yielded reluctantly, inch by inch, as plain demonstration wrests it away. And further, self-love conceals itself, ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... the expences of the Company in their Indian settlements, and to reform abuses, returned for answer, That, "however low and inadequate their finances might be to admit of extraordinary expences, yet they deemed it expedient not to shew any backwardness in adopting similar measures to those pursued by other Europeans trading to China; and that they had, accordingly, nominated Mr. Titsingh as chief, and himself (Mr. Van Braam) as second Embassador to the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... throughout life. Not to have the singing and talking, and the varied interest of coloured objects and toys, means a falling away from the best mental development, and a taciturn nurse, or a nurse with a base accent, means backwardness and needless difficulty with the beginning of speech. Not to be born within reach of abundant changes of clothing and abundant water, means—however industrious and cleanly the instincts of nurse and mother—a lack of the highest possible cleanliness ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... and his son felt keenly and spoke strongly. There was so much of sympathy and fellow-feeling between them, that there was no backwardness on Norman's part in telling his whole trouble, with more confidence than schoolboys often show towards their fathers, and Dr. May entered into the mortification as if he were still at school. They did not go into the house, but walked long up and ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... discussion raised by Molesworth's inconvenient resolution, and that he was continually urged and pressed by his followers to attack the Government, they persisting in the notion that the Ministers might be driven out, and always complaining that the moderation of the Duke and the backwardness of Peel alone kept them in their places. The discontent and clamour were so loud and continued that it became absolutely necessary for Peel, if he meant to keep the party together, to gratify their impatience for action, and he accordingly concocted this amendment in such terms ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... smart in red lavalavas and white drill coats, and being all of them of the obstreperous, no-good class like Peter, they were soon the terror of the island. Not that Mr. Clemm didn't keep them tight in hand, but when it came to an order of court or any backwardness in taxes he never seemed to care much whom they plundered and beat, which was what they reveled in and thirsted ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... Zoroastrian religion admitted a month's intercalation at the end of a period of 120 years, and that at the time of the fall of the Persian Empire there had indeed been one intercalation during their sojourn in Khorassan, but once they were in India this usage had been abandoned; hence the backwardness by one month from the computation of the Kadmis. The latter declared on the other hand that the intercalation was forbidden in the Zoroastrian calendar, that it was only meant for political emergencies, and that this mode of calculation had ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... the interest of better physical, mental, and vocational opportunities for all, includes not only the better care of all incompetent for self-control, self-support, and self-direction, it also is coming to include a far more searching investigation of the causes of degeneracy and backwardness, and many children are thereby lifted from the hopeless classes to the group of those requiring only special care and teaching to be able to be classed ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... which had so much encouraged him in times of trial and difficulty, and he could not endure the solitude in a strange land after Lucy's death. A great longing for his native land awoke in him, he wished to return to Spain, to that land he had so often ridiculed, and which now in spite of its backwardness seemed to him so attractive. He thought of his brothers, fixed like plants to the stones of the Cathedral, never interesting themselves with what took place in the world, never seeking for news of him, as though ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... left a slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us. We stumble and are impatient at the least dividing of one visible congregation from another, though it be not in fundamentals; and through our forwardness to suppress, and our backwardness to recover any enthralled piece of truth out of the gripe of custom, we care not to keep truth separated from truth, which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all. We do not see that, while we still affect by all means a rigid external formality, we may as soon ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... demand, we have seen a score of times in every schoolroom. Coupled with these facial features are apt to be found on closer investigation a lack of interest in both work and play, an impaired appetite, restless sleep, and a curious general backwardness of development, both bodily and mental, so that the child may be from one to four inches below the normal height for his years, from five to fifteen pounds under weight, and from one to three grades behind ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... force been used to extort their assent, Sir Thomas would have been the first to have told us so. But he suppressed an election that appears to have been voluntary, and invented a scene, in which, by his own account, Richard met with nothing but backwardness and silence, that amounted to a refusal. The probability therefore remains, that the nobility met Richard's claim at least half-way, from their hatred and jealousy of the queen's family, and many of them from the conviction of Edward's pre-contract. Many might concur from provocation ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... history the medal has crossed the Atlantic. It was awarded to Franklin in 1753, Agassiz in 1861, Dana in 1877, and J. Willard Gibbs in 1902. The long time that elapsed between the first and the second of these awards affords an illustration of the backwardness of scientific research in America during the greater part of the first century of our independence. The year of my visit the medal was awarded to Mr. Joule, the English physicist, for his work on the relation ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... great deal to be said for the rule of the enlightened autocrat. "But," he said, "the mischief is that you can't guarantee a succession of enlightened autocrats; so we must make the best of the rule of the majority." The backwardness of England in education used to make him wring his hands. To lack of education he attributed the tawdriness and vulgarity of popular taste. I thought my own political and social views were advanced: to Paul I was little better than a Whig with a veneration ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... organization, will step into the gap. It may be—but I do not think this is likely—that the time of rites and ceremonies and formal creeds is PAST, and churches of any kind will be no more needed in the world: not likely, I say, because of the still far backwardness of the human masses, and their considerable dependence yet on laws and forms and rituals. Still, if it should prove that that age of dependence IS really approaching its end, that would surely be a matter for congratulation. It would mean that ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... himself in total darkness than he bitterly reproached himself for his late backwardness, and, inwardly resolving not again to miss any opportunity which presented itself, he entered the window, groped along the room into the hall, and found his way very slowly and after much ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of them,—that He could not go away until He had left these men strong enough to stand by themselves, and to lay the foundations of the Church. Therefore He yielded to the plea of their very faithlessness and backwardness, and with this wonderful word of condescension and appeal bade them say for how many more days He must abide in the plain, and turn His back on the glories that had gleamed for a moment on the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... with the carriage, and on that still, sweet April evening we drove him to Stormfield much as we had driven him two years before. Now and then he mentioned the apparent backwardness of the season, for only a few of the trees were beginning to show their green. As we drove into the lane that led to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... was only in the 4th grade. His retardation was the result of having been changed back and forth from foreign-speaking to English schools and having been sent away to an institution for truancy. In spite of his backwardness Robert had a fund of remarkably accurate scientific and other information which a mature person might envy. We found our regular series of tests were all done unusually well, except those which called for foresight and planfulness. It was interesting to note that when a ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... thought himself to be in any great danger. One thing, at any rate, is evident: had an Irish mob threatened to burn down a Roman Catholic church, or a Roman Catholic orphan asylum, or threatened any of the institutions or property of the Roman Church, he would have shown no such backwardness or fear. The mob would have been confronted with the most terrible anathemas of the church, and those lawless bands quailed before the maledictions of the representative of "God's vicegerent on earth." It is unjust to suppose that ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... appear naked: those of Otaheite seem however to be an exception to this rule; to show themselves in public, with or without clothing, appears to be to them a matter of equal indifference, and the exposition of any part of their bodies, is not attended with the least backwardness or reluctance; circumstances from which we may reasonably infer, that among them, clothes were not originally invented to cover shame, but either as ornaments, or as a defence against the cold. But a still more striking singularity ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... this voyage in his collection. Tasman discovered New Zealand on the 13th September, 1642, but did not land on it, an unfortunate event having given him a total distrust of the natives. Some of them, after a good deal of backwardness and seeming fear, ventured to go on board the Heenskirk, which was the consort of his own vessel, named the Zee-Haan. Tasman, not liking their appearance, and being apprehensive of their hostile intentions, sent seven of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... an aberration." You see the most hostile of Chopin's critics does not deny his talent; indeed, Rellstab sometimes, especially subsequently, speaks quite patronisingly about him. I shall take this opportunity to contradict the current notion that Chopin had just cause to complain of backwardness in the recognition of his genius, and even of malicious attacks on his rising reputation. The truth of this is already partly disproved by the foregoing, and it will be fully so by ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks |
