"Celerity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were fired at sunset, the whole immediately shoved off, being evidently much alarmed at the report; and most of them, hoisting their sails, endeavoured to reach the shore with all possible celerity. ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... against them, would no longer have his entire forces at his disposal, and by attacking him at that juncture it might be possible to check his power before it became irresistible. Having sketched out his plan of campaign, Croesus prepared to execute it with all possible celerity. Egypt and Chaldaea, like himself, doubtless felt themselves menaced; he experienced little difficulty in persuading them to act in concert with him in face of the common peril, and he obtained from both Amasis and Nabonidus promises of effective ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... asleep in his chair when Haldane entered, and he stole by him and made preparations for departure with silent celerity. Then, valise in hand, he touched his old friend, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... the mink once more delivered his thrust. Feinting towards the enemy's right, he swerved with that snake-like celerity of his, and bit deep into the tender upper edge of the fox's thigh, where it ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... finding him earnest in his intention of serving the government, and that there was no hope of engaging him in their new sedition, sought to waylay and destroy him on his march, but his vigilance and celerity prevented ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... battle, and the first brunt was left to Captain Credence. Presently, however, Emanuel appeared "with colours flying, trumpets sounding, and the feet of his men scarce touched the ground; they hasted with such celerity towards the captains that were engaged that . . . there was not left so much as one Doubter alive, they lay spread upon the ground dead men as one would spread dung on the land." The dead were buried "lest the fumes and ill-favours that would arise ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... assassin; that a very great lord, son of the Holy Father, was intending for those parts, and would probably take the same means to secure himself the position of her third husband. The writer proposed that the Lord Gregorius, whose virtue and celerity of judgment were well known throughout Italy, should journey out to Nona with all reasonable despatch and repossess himself of the lady. "Thus your lordship," it concluded, "may happily become fourth husband of a lady, whose charms are of a sort so noble and perdurable that they are ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the different combinations are executed with sufficient skill the instructor will devise series of movements to be memorized and executed at the command assault. The accuracy and celerity of the movements will be carefully watched by the instructor, with a view to the correction ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... side of the doore in the like aulter or stylipode vpon the table thereof, there was ingrauen a yoong man of seemly countenance,[A] wherein appeared great celerity: he sate vpon a square seate adorned with an ancient manner of caruing, hauing vpon his legge a paire of half buskens, open from the calfe of the legge to the ancle, from whence grew out on either ancle a wing, and ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... aiming a sharp arrow that resembled the Yuga fire in energy, he sped it at that fierce wanderer of the night. Beholding that arrow, blazing as Indra's bolt, thus coursing towards him, the high-souled Ghatotkacha baffled it by the celerity of his movements. With eyes red in wrath, he once more shouted fiercely, frightening all thy troops, like the clouds that appear at the end of the Yuga. Hearing those fierce roars of the terrible Rakshasa, Bhishma the son of Santanu, approaching the preceptor, said these words, 'These fierce ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Watson, moving towards the door with unusual celerity for a blind man who had found himself ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... accomplished and he was forced to say approximately pleasant things to a lady whose decidedly ballet-like attire in the surf—or, to be precise, on the beach above high-water-mark, where, for some occult reason, she usually saw fit to do the most of her bathing—joined to the exceeding celerity of her conduct generally, had marked her during the preceding season as the conspicuous centre of one phase of life at the Pier. Nor was Mr. Port's lot made happier as he listened to the brisk discussion that ensued in regard to the organization of the yachting party, and found that its two remaining ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... work now, which he had been told was urgent and was to be done carefully? The ink was still quite fresh, the writing was very careless, even if legible; it was no business hand. Schlieben frowned; he was strangely irritable to-day. At any other time he would have been struck by the celerity with which the boy had finished the work he had neglected; but to-day the careless writing, the inkspots in the margin, the slipshod manner in which it had all been done, which seemed to him to point to a want of ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... rising sun dispelled the shadows of the night, Tarzan found himself again upon the verge of a great forest into which his guide plunged, taking nimbly to the branches of the trees through which he made his way with the celerity of long habitude and hereditary instinct, but though aided by a prehensile tail, fingers, and toes, the man-thing moved through the forest with no greater ease or surety than did the ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... completion of the ceremony, the church bells pealed merrily, and the minstrels played their most enlivening strains. The rushes were strewn on the ground at the foot of the May-pole, and arbours were formed, with marvellous celerity, in different parts of the green, with the branches of the trees. At the same time, the ancient Cross was decorated with boughs and garlands. The whole scene offered as pretty and cheerful a sight as could be desired; but there was one beholder, as will presently appear, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... of one hundred and sixty pounds, the company had dwindled and faded away to a few old topers and the bored but affable Watts. There was a constant stream of customers from the outer world, but so soon as they were served they drank their liquor quickly and departed with the utmost celerity ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... in her beautiful bosom. She wore no ornaments in her dark hair, which was, as indeed might be said of Kate, "when unadorned, adorned the most." The gray-headed old butler, (as brisk as his choicest champagne,) and the two steady-looking old family servants, going about their business with quiet celerity—the delicious air of antique elegance around them—the sense of profound seclusion—of remoteness from the exciting hubbub of the world—in every respect this was a Christmas dinner after one's own heart! Oh the merry and dear old Yatton! And as if there ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Because such reviewers as had noticed his book wrote of his "poetry" using inverted commas to advertise their scorn, and because nobody bought the volume despite its slimness, he became the idol of men and women who also wrote that which nobody read, and in consequence developed souls with the celerity that ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... sense of the danger of his position by footsteps on the path outside, which, coming nearer and nearer, were evidently aimed at the summer-house. With a silence and celerity of which any brave would have been proud, he got ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... of the brilliant achievements of our infant Navy, a signal triumph has been gained by Captain Lawrence and his companions in the Hornet sloop of war, which destroyed a British sloop of war with a celerity so unexampled and with a slaughter of the enemy so disproportionate to the loss in the Hornet as to claim for the conquerors the highest praise and the full recompense provided by Congress in preceding cases. Our public ships of war in general, as well as the private armed vessels, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... Southampton roads. The Frederic August hurried to get away as soon as possible, and transacted business with dizzying celerity. The cargo of passengers and baggage was enormous. Two launches approached the transatlantic and discharged an avalanche of Germans residents in England who invaded the decks with the joy of those ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... being touched, down comes the flint, strikes against the steel, elicits a spark, which falling among the powder, ignites it, when the flame extends, enters the barrel, causes the explosion, propels the ball, and the mark is attained—all of which incidents, by reason of the celerity with which they happen, seem to take place in the twinkling of an eye. So also in deglutition: by the elevation of the root of the tongue, and the compression of the mouth, the food or drink is pushed into the fauces, when the larynx ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... found in the fact, that an Indian dog of the same species bit M. Verdier in his heel, setting his teeth in precisely the same spot, where, some years before, a Tartar dog had placed his, making but a single scar. He caused an Iroquois cur to be tied by his tail to a log of wood, and the celerity with which he drew it, yelping and screaming over a bed of ice, fully convinced M. Verdier that he was a legitimate descendant from those which perform the part of dray-horses among the Tartars. So much for canine resemblances, which one would think of little importance, yet were the chief prop ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... left Newport, which have not been preserved, and of Howe's dispositions to receive the expected attack in New York Bay, the lessons are not tactical, but strategic, and of present application. Chief among them undoubtedly stands the value of celerity and watchfulness, combined with knowledge of one's profession. Howe learned of his danger by advices from home three weeks after D'Estaing sailed from Toulon. He had to gather in his cruisers from the Chesapeake and outside, get his ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... without previously ascertaining where the next water could be procured; and to have done this would have caused us great delay, and much additional toil. By having them with us we were enabled to move with confidence and celerity; and in following their guidance we knew that we were taking that line of route which was the shortest, and the best practicable under the circumstances. Upon arriving at any of the watering places to which ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... exists. Their habits of skill enable them at once to supply such armies as only freedom can muster, with arms and munitions such as only free industry can create. Free society is terrible in war, and afterwards repairs the mischief of war with celerity almost as great as that with which the ocean heals the seams gashed in it by the keel of ploughing ships. Free society is fruitful of military genius. It comes when called; when no longer needed, it falls back as waves do to the level of the common sea, that no wave may be greater ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... safety into the forest, that small party journeyed on with all celerity that they were able to achieve until, some little time before dawn, they came to where was a lake of water in an open meadow of the forest. Here they rested for a little while, for Queen Helen had fallen ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... suddenness and celerity the plan of the campaign developed. First the control of Korea was secured, then the command of the sea, then the Yalu was crossed; and while one division of the army was pouring into Manchuria, ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... to what extent Simn Bolvar's name is honored among us. France admires in him not only that intrepidity and celerity in enterprise, that vision and that constancy which are the qualifications of a great general, but pays homage to his virtue to his political talent, which are guaranty of independence and order—the essentials of the freedom of the country, ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... unchecked. As her choice had to be made with extreme celerity, and from those shelves nearest the piano, it was in the nature of things that it was not invariably a happy one. For some time she had but moderate luck, and sampled queer foods. To these must be reckoned ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... moon, round and full, was just rising, making the gloom below more sweet. A full moon is poison to some; they shut it out at every crevice, and do not suffer a ray to cross them; it has a chemical or magnetic effect; it sickens them. But I am never more free and royal than when the subtile celerity of its magic combinations, whatever they are, is at work. Never had I known the mere joy of being so intimately as to-night. The river slept soft and mystic below the woods, the sky was full of light, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... usual celerity with which such things are done in our country, was to take place on the next day. Too often the haste appears indecent, and it may be that in some instances the body has been buried before life deserted it. It would seem that the family ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... cavalry work disappeared. It is no longer possible for an army to "live on the country as it goes." Food and supplies must be brought up from depots in the rear through an entirely separate and specialized department of the military organization, which does its work with a celerity certainly undreamed of in former days, even as late as our own ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... kind. It seems silly ter mind it at all; only, when it does come, it sort o' takes the backbone right out o' my knees, and they double up so's I have ter set down. There, ye see? I'm pert as a sparrer, now!" And, with stiff celerity, Pete resumed ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... for the same reason make no record of the next four or five interviews I had with Mr. Jaffrey. It will be sufficient to state that Andy glided from extreme infancy to early youth with astonishing celerity—at the rate of one year per night, if I remember correctly; and—must I confess it?—before the week came to an end, this invisible hobgoblin of a boy was only little less of a reality to me than to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... hoped, his youthful audience did not remain to hear. They had vanished with amazing celerity, and the captain, as he walked pensively up to the door and shut it, could hear them marching jauntily down the passage shouting and laughing over ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... had taken just about fifteen seconds. The trial of the next hobo came off with equal celerity. The bailiff said, "Vagrancy, your Honor," and his Honor said, "Thirty days." Thus it went like clockwork, fifteen seconds to ...
— The Road • Jack London
... of calling promptly at Mrs. Norman's. He remembered the time when he had waited a day or two before calling on Miss Huntington and had found her gone, with its train of misunderstandings. So he had no intention of repeating the error. In Love as in War, Success attends Celerity. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... in thought and fertile in expedients, with a celerity and vigour which bore down all objections, arranged the whole conduct of the business. To avoid suspicion, he determined instantly to quit her, and, as soon as he had executed his commission with Mr Monckton, to hasten to London, that the necessary preparations ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... she had passed through those moments of frenzied despair, after Jeff's return from Orrville, her decision had been taken with lightning celerity. Her back was to the wall, and she meant to fight for all she yearned, desired, by every art she possessed. She knew nothing of the reason which had made her husband return to her. It was sufficient that he had done so. ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... emigrants took the direction of Italy. Those who landed at Naples brought with them an infectious disorder, contracted by long confinement in small, crowded, and ill-provided vessels. The disorder was so malignant, and spread with such frightful celerity, as to sweep off more than twenty thousand inhabitants of the city, in the course of the year, whence it extended its devastation ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... enemy in whose ranks they had received their best military lessons. Such a force very far exceeded that of the Carolinians. Mustering but two thousand men, Col. Montgomery found it advisable to urge his march upon the nation with equal celerity and caution. Having reached a place called Twelve-mile River, within twenty miles of the Indian town of Estatoee, he advanced by night upon it, secretly, and with a view to its surprise. In his march, surrounding the town ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... the great interrogation. But they were a practical breed, the men of the Northland, with a wholesome disregard for theories and a firm grip on facts. And to not a few of them Karen Sayther was a most essential fact. That she did not regard the matter in this light, is evidenced by the neatness and celerity with which refusal and proposal tallied off during her four weeks' stay. And with her vanished the fact, and only ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... by the federal government exclusively. Again, it is a great convenience to the states to have but one coinage, and but one system of weights and measures, which can only be insured if the regulation of these matters is intrusted to the federal government. The certainty and celerity of post-office communication is impeded, and its expense increased, if a letter has to pass through half a dozen sets of public offices, subject to different supreme authorities: it is convenient, therefore, that all post-offices should ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... intend to get wedded at all. It is the result of competition. A great many men are hungering and yearning for wives, and there are very few girls for them to choose among. So matches are made without very extensive preliminaries. The ladies appear to like this celerity. Perhaps they are unwittingly philosophic, and reflect that, with months of courting, they can really know little more of a man than they did the first hour they met him, because he is naturally on his best behaviour then. Marriage is a ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... one alone, who being mounted on a fleet Turkey courser, by mere speed in flight got himself out of the circle of the ropes. But when Carpalin perceived him, he ran after him with such nimbleness and celerity that he overtook him in less than a hundred paces; then, leaping close behind him upon the crupper of his horse, clasped him in his arms, and brought him ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... seemed to preclude the possibility of escaping him upon the open beach. There was but a single alternative—the rude skiff—and with a celerity which equaled his, I pushed the thing into the sea and as it floated gave a final shove and clambered in over ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... permit a person to approach very closely, but when they have viewed him they dive into their holes with wonderful celerity. They are difficult to kill. If hit they usually succeed in getting underground before ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... their purse was low, the old man would accompany him to the scene of his labors, and constantly urge him on, by repeating Luca, fa presto, (hurry Luca) which became a byword among the painters, and was fixed upon the young artist as a nickname, singularly appropriate to his wonderful celerity of execution. He afterwards traveled through Lombardy to Venice, still accompanied by his father, and having studied the works of Correggio, Titian, and other great masters, returned by way of Florence and Leghorn ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... he exhibited the powers of a past-master in stirring up men's prejudices, and creating divisions among his rivals; but his methods, whether practised in law or in politics, were neither modern nor moral. He marshalled forces with equal celerity ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and for the routes he wished to be pursued during his absence by the troops who should remain in the interior. At this moment I observed in him the development of that vigorous character of mind which was excited by obstacles until he overcame them—that celerity of thought which foresaw everything. He was all action, and never for a moment hesitated. On the 16th of July, at four in the morning, he was on horseback and the army in full march. I cannot help doing justice to the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... whole-hearted interest and enthusiasm she evinced in her hunts for wild flowers, she applied to them the same dogged determination and untiring efforts she showed in her long search for hidden bird nests, with the inevitable result that her brain, naturally alert and brilliant, grasped with amazing celerity both the easy and the hard lessons of the ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... to Guernsey, and the most natural explanation of that voyage is that she had hoped and expected to obtain concealment, hospitality, and a refuge in the house of her relative. Instead of conceding her these privileges for any length of time, Lord Danby evidently speeded the parting guest with great celerity. ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... had now shown the energy and celerity which hitherto had so often marked the Southern. Hooker, with seventy thousand splendid troops, had gone behind Lee and now three divisions were united in the forest close to Chancellorsville. Sedgwick, with his formidable corps, lay in the plain of Fredericksburg, facing Jackson, and thousands of ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... plenty of other helpers to render the surgeon all the assistance he needed in his work, with far more celerity and ability than Annie could have supplied. But while sense lingered in the little patient's eyes, it was to the woman he turned for the pity and aid which did not fail him; it was through her that he drew from One mightier than all, the spiritual strength ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... immovability, firmness, security, impregnability; fortress, stronghold, citadel; swiftness, celerity, rapidity, expedition, quickness, haste. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... another anniversary of our Association. It seems but yesterday since we held our last annual meeting, but while we have been busy here and there, the fugitive moments have hurried us along almost with the celerity of thought through another year. Were it not an established usage of our society, that something like a report be rendered of the past, the pen of your secretary would have remained silent. The thought has often arisen, what ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... with the accompaniments of his or her particular business, and to it they went manfully. A fairy glazier put in new panes to the shattered windows, fairy carpenters replaced the doors upon their hinges, and fairy painters, with inconceivable celerity, made cupboards and closets as fresh as paint could make them; one fairy housemaid laid and lit a roaring fire, while another dusted and rubbed chairs and tables to a miraculous degree of brightness; a fairy butler uncorked bottles of fairy wine, and a fairy cook laid ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... Hafiz we must be very sparing in our citations, though it forms the staple of the "Divan." He has run through the whole gamut of passion,—from the sacred to the borders, and over the borders, of the profane. The same confusion of high and low, the celerity of flight and allusion which our colder muses forbid, is habitual to him. From the ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... at this time with his army about twenty leagues distant, making war upon the Rajaputs; but immediately on receiving notice of the approach of the Portuguese fleet, he hastened to his capital with all possible celerity. He had already used such precautions as not to excite suspicions in Husseyn of his fidelity, though little inclined to assist him, and he was now anxious not to exasperate the viceroy in case of his proving victorious. Taking ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... The wonderful celerity with which the Imp wolfed down that ice cream was positively awe-inspiring. In less time almost than it takes to tell the plate was empty. Yet scarcely had he swallowed the last mouthful when he heard ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... parent birds. That a legless, wingless creature should move with such ease and rapidity where only birds and squirrels are considered at home, lifting himself up, letting himself down, running out on the yielding boughs, and traversing with marvelous celerity the whole length and breadth of the thicket, was truly surprising. One thinks of the great myth of the Tempter and the "cause of all our woe," and wonders if the Arch One is not now playing off some of ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... doctor's instructions, and smiled at his steady swearing as the wrappings were removed and the blisters redressed. They walked across to the hoist, entered the cage, and felt the sinking sensation as they were dropped, rather than lowered, to the six-hundred-foot level. The celerity of the descent almost robbed him of breath, but he thought of sturdy old Bells' boast, that he had "never run a cage into the sheaves, nor dropped it to the sump, ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... navy were lifted out of the hold with the aid of the cargo winch and placed in position, one forward and the other aft. Thereupon the mate took charge of the Costa Rica, while Mike Murphy drilled his crew in range finding and celerity in loading the piece. Pointing the gun was entirely up to Murphy and, needless to state, the task was in capable hands, as was frequently demonstrated during target practice as ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... that further argument would be of no use to him. He consequently gathered up his effects with as much celerity as possible, and after washing the blood stains from his face and hands, and casting upon Fred a parting glance of hatred and revenge, he left the room amid the jeers and ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... of some thirty yards away it stopped short, and from the near end of it rose into the air what I at first thought a great white bird. Its ascent was so smooth and easy and regular that I could not realize its extraordinary celerity, and was lost in admiration of its grace. To this day the impression remains that it was a slow, deliberate movement, the ram—for it was that animal—being upborne by some power other than its own impetus, and supported through the successive stages of its flight with infinite ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... was made more quickly than either West or Ingleborough had anticipated; in fact, the celerity was wonderful considering that the cavalry brigade was burdened with the great convoy of wagons captured ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... She could make up her mind quickly with regard to the exact material she required. Her choice was practically made before she entered a shop, her taste in colour and texture was excellent, and with her to guide them, Hester and Molly got through their business with great celerity. Many parcels were piled up on the front seat of the landau, but work as they would, the girls could not get through their necessary shopping in the morning. Hester therefore determined to lunch at a ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... by which the visitor is shot up to the higher storeys of a sky-scraper, would suggest a certain directness and celerity in official methods that is calculated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... vigorous face, and a voice and pronunciation far more refined than poor Mr. Touchett's; also the sermons were far more interesting, and even Rachel granted that there were ideas in it. The change was effected with unusual celerity, for it was as needful to Mrs. Mitchell to be speedily established in a warm climate, as it was desirable to Mr. Touchett to throw himself into other scenes; and the little parsonage soon had the unusual ornaments of tiny children with ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is lost, the men are by no means up to the speed which they will attain in a few days, when in full practice and training. Their nerve, muscle, eye, endurance, will be all at, so to speak, concert-pitch, and sheep after sheep will be shorn with a precision and celerity even awful ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... some minutes to spare; the clock points to 11.38; we must start at 11.45 by the Great Western express, the "Dutchman," as it is familiarly called, after that mysterious sailor who came and went with such alarming celerity. ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... country rang with the praises of the blue-jackets. Indeed, a record of sixty-four French vessels captured, besides many American vessels which were recaptured from their captors, was enough to arouse feelings of pride throughout the nation; and the celerity with which France seized upon the proposal for peace showed well the reputation which our navy had gained beyond the ocean. For months after the peace was signed, the names of Bainbridge, Truxton, Stewart, and Talbot were household words throughout ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... tired by its flight, the woodcock drops into the underwood, and is then completely lost to the sportsman; for, once on the ground, it runs with the greatest celerity, its wings working rapidly like a couple of paddles, and vanishing beneath the leaves, falls fainting ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... slender figure leisurely and joyously disported itself in the water. Then at length it returned to the little pile, negligently guarded by the dogs, there was a faint radiance of flesh, a white towel flashed swiftly to and fro for a few moments. Then with amazing celerity the figure had resumed its original appearance, and, decorously proceeding shorewards, disappeared among the sand dunes on the way to ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... they offered the meat to the almost-helpless man, they were glad to see that he had the full use of his arms and fingers. Reaching for a knife that lay under him, he began to cut off pieces of fat with celerity. These he ate ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... Cathedral bell-ringer, and the gaoler of Alice Benden. He obeyed the summons of the pompous voice with obsequious celerity, for it belonged to no less a person than the Lord Bishop of Dover. His Lordship, having caught sight of the bell-ringer as he crossed the precincts, had called him, and Perkins came up, his hat in one hand, and pulling his forelock ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... a welcome to the little lad's appearance, and with his tail beat a friendly tattoo upon the kennel floor; but the woman spoke no word. With impassive face she watched the shivering little figure as it hurried into its clothes, and then, with celerity born of experience, went about the making of a fire. Suddenly a hitherto unthought-of possibility flashed into the boy's mind, and leaving his work he came back ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... Wharf, Quebec, at half-past two; being only 24 hours and a half under way between the two cities, with a strong head wind all the way. She is most superbly fitted up, and offers accommodation for passengers in every respect equal to the best hotel in Canada. In short, for celerity and security, she well {133} deserves the name of Swiftsure. America cannot boast of a more useful and expensive undertaking by one individual, than this of Mr Molson's. His Excellency, the Governor-in-chief, set out for ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... for the time he was compelled to waste upon a subject so foreign to that which he had most at heart, he strode on through the Dominicans' gardens, entered the town, and casting his cloak around the lower part of his face, and pulling down his bonnet to conceal the upper, he continued the same celerity of movement through bye streets and lanes, hoping to reach his own house in the Wynd without being observed. But when he had continued his rate of walking for ten minutes, he began to be sensible it might be too rapid for the young woman ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... vigour of mind which he enjoyed when he began to compose these Memoirs, I should not now need to represent him in this preface, in which he desires, firstly, to return his thanks to his readers and critics in Spaceland, whose appreciation has, with unexpected celerity, required a second edition of his work; secondly, to apologize for certain errors and misprints (for which, however, he is not entirely responsible); and, thirdly, to explain one or two misconceptions. But he is not the Square he once was. Years of imprisonment, and the still heavier ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... seats, accompanied by a pelting of more substantial missiles. In an instant the yellow hair and common dress lay on the ground, and those who knew him not by the features could by the Imperial ornaments recognise the Emperor Gallienus. With no less celerity his followers, the Goth and the Christian excepted, disencumbered themselves of their exterior vesture, and stood forward in the character ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... the team picked up immediately. It recovered its old-time solidarity, and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in the traces. At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, were added; and the celerity with which Buck broke them ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... greater distance than the depth of the original hole there was no sign of pouch or jewels. Tarzan's brow clouded as he discovered that he had been despoiled. Little or no reasoning was required to convince him of the identity of the guilty party, and with the same celerity that had marked his decision to unearth the jewels, he set out upon the trail ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... fifteen-pfennig luncheon in the street, and climbed step by step the gastronomical stairway in Germany all the way up to a supper at the court, where eight hundred odd people were served with a care and celerity, and with hot viands and irreproachable potables, that made one think of the "Arabian Nights," I offer my experience and my opinion with some confidence. You can get enough to stave off hunger for a few pfennigs, you can get a meal for something under twenty-five ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... changed rapidly for the worse, to the disappointment and with the condemnation of her acquaintances. She lay in bed half the morning, dawdled over her breakfast, and trailed her way from place to place, ageing too, with marvellous celerity. ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... the Forrests, but first of the peanut-carriers. Neither Nimrod nor Sandow has anything on me. I carry the peanuts on a knife, a silver knife. The peanuts are animated by the devil. I carry the peanuts with grace and celerity and in quantity. The peanut never sprouted that ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... "fast-fish," or whale that has been struck, is to escape from the boat by sinking under water. After this, it pursues its course downward, or reappears at a little distance, and swims with great celerity, near the surface of the water. It sometimes returns instantly to the surface, and gives evidence of its agony by the most convulsive throes. The downward course of a whale is, however, the most common. A ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... mere dry fibres, which might be pulled by any misfortune that threatened himself, but were not sufficiently elastic to be moved by the miseries of others. His joints were inserted compactly, and with celerity they had performed all the animal functions, without any of the grace which results from the ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... blood lust was in his eyes. He was standing on the slab in front of the idol, then made a great leap and started for the broken wall where I was. I saw then that the lump on his neck had swollen to the size of a big goitre. His whole body was a-quiver. There was an animal-like celerity in his movements that made me shudder. Then I knew that I dared not let him get on the same side of the wall as me. But he leaped at the gap from a distance that I would have thought no human could ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... weeks after the marriage we all departed for the Continent, where we remained for the six following years, Gabrielle and myself receiving instructions in every accomplishment suitable to our position. It was charming to witness with what celerity my beautiful sister acquired every thing she undertook, for she was as anxious as her lord to adorn the high station to which she now belonged. Wherever we went the fame of Lady Treherne's beauty went with us, while her fascination of manner and high-bred ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... not once look backward to observe what his passengers were doing. He was propelling his boat through the water with his usual celerity, his head occasionally turning slightly as he glanced first at one shore and then the other, as though looking for some sign ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... falls increases as it falls, the more needful that we give the right direction and impulses to the life. It will be a dreadful thing if our downward course acquires strength as it travels, and being slow at first, gains in celerity, and accrues to itself mass and weight, like an avalanche started from an Alpine summit, which is but one or two bits of snow and ice at first, and falls at last into the ravine, tons of white destruction. The lives of many ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... to live in the gardener's cottage, which had been cleaned, repaired, and furnished with the celerity which is explained by three words: Paris; French workmen; money! I was as much in love as the Count could possibly desire as a security. Would the prudence of a young man of five-and-twenty be equal to the part I was undertaking, involving a friend's ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... sense Dumas' facetious description is correct: the New Mountain was born with extraordinary celerity, and woods, lake and village—familiar and beloved landmarks to the people of Baiae and Pozzuoli—disappeared at its birth. But the event was no peaceful act of Nature; on the contrary, it was accompanied by loud rumblings, by showers of red-hot stones, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... goes before. Without making any delay in any part of Macedonia, he marched with great haste against Domitius; and when he was come within about twenty miles of him, wheeled on a sudden towards Cassius Longinus in Thessaly. He effected this with such celerity, that news of his march and arrival came together; for to render his march expeditious, he left the baggage of his legions behind him at the river Haliacmon, which divides Macedonia from Thessaly, under the care of Marcus Favonius, with a guard of eight cohorts, and ordered him to build a ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... he knew must bring him onward in the path of life; and in this how little did he resemble the generality of other convicts, who feel as if time were bringing about the day of their departure with painful and more than ordinary celerity! At length the interviews between him and all those whom he wished to see were concluded, with the exception of three, viz.—John O'Brien and his own parents, whilst only two clear days intervened until ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... managed, and unremittingly maintained intimidation; and accordingly never in our history has a measure of such revolutionary character and of such profound importance as the Eighteenth Amendment been put through with anything like such smoothness and celerity. The intimidation exercised by the AntiSaloon League was potent in a degree far beyond the numerical strength of the League and its adherents, not only because of the effective and systematic use of its black-listing methods, but also ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... be a spirited animal, but she mounted him with the ease and celerity of a boy—riding astride, in the mountain fashion. "I haven't a long skirt," she carelessly remarked to Alice. That was all the explanation she offered, and Ben thought he had never seen anything more alert, more graceful, than her slim figure poised alertly in the saddle, her face glowing, her ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... his anatomy for fighting, in the ordinary sense of the word, when molested, he will "snap" at his opponent with such celerity as to take even the most watchful by surprise; while his strength of jaw, combined with its comparatively great length, enables him to inflict severe punishment at the first grab. It was probably owing to ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... their dead on their shoulders with great celerity, and went inland, leaving the neighbouring villages deserted. The narrator here remarks: "Such was the end of the peace that the captain hoped for and sought for, the means of discovering the grandeur of the land, and all was contained ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... competent mind acts with lightning celerity. Beverley now understood that Long-Hair was stealing him away from the other savages and that the big villain meant to cheat them out of their part of the reward. Along with this discovery came a fresh gleam of hope. It would be far easier ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... in full activity. The knights of the popinjay received and requited the hospitable entertainment of their captain, who, though he spared the cup himself, took care it should go round with due celerity among the rest, who might not have otherwise deemed themselves handsomely treated. Their numbers melted away by degrees, and were at length diminished to four or five, who began to talk of breaking up ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... looked on with approval. Then came a rattling feu de joie with shouts of 'Long live the King!' and 'Long live our seigneur!' This over, the seigneur invited the whole gathering to refreshments indoors. Brandy and cakes disappeared with great celerity before appetites whetted by an hour's exercise in the clear spring air. They drank to the seigneur's health, and to the health of all his kin. At intervals some guest would rush out and fire his musket once again at the maypole, returning for more hospitality with a sense of duty well ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... from outside," he said, "and we're going to level all these slums—and shift into tents on to the moors;" and he began to tell me of many things that were being arranged, the Midland land committees had got to work with remarkable celerity and directness of purpose, and the redistribution of population was already in its broad outlines planned. He was working at an improvised college of engineering. Until schemes of work were made out, almost every one ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... remarkable feature in this great growth was the celerity with which it was achieved. The period between the Persian and the Peloponnesian war was only sixty years in duration. Yet in that brief space of time the great growth we have chronicled took place, and the architectural splendor of the city was consummated. The devastation of the unhappy Peloponnesian ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... more than once in the ages to seize the likeness and express the significance of Arrival, the arrival of a whole civilization. To do this, art must refine and re-refine upon itself; it must use methods of unapproached delicacy, of unimagined subtlety and celerity. It is easy enough to catch the look of the patrician in the upper air, of the plebeian underfoot, but to render the image of a world-bourgeoisie, compacted in characters of undeniable verisimilitude, that will be difficult, but it will be possible, and the success will be ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... and satiated camels sped on with the celerity of gazelles. Saba remained behind, but there was no fear that he would get lost and not appear at the first short halt for refreshments. The dromedary on which Idris rode with Stas ran close to the one on which Nell was mounted, so that the children could easily ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... then, they came upon the advance guard of a column sent off a week earlier by the expert at Pesqueira with instructions to arrive at Las Flores before sunset that very day. Instantly the twenty-nine charged; with equal celerity the advance guard bolted. From the crest of a rocky pass Philip looked down on a column of fully a thousand men. The situation was critical. It called for prompt handling. Five men held the horses; twenty-three spread themselves among the rocks; Philip unslung his ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... lost, for Simeon had an extraordinary gift of celerity. It was eleven minutes to seven. Nevertheless, Arthur felt the pincers, and the feel of the pincers made him look ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... bustling mother were of material assistance to Mrs. Pemberthy; and the presence of Sophie in that house of mourning—where the mourning had been speedily got over and business had begun again with commendable celerity—was a considerable source of comfort to young Reuben, when he had leisure after business hours which was not always the case, to resume those tender relations which had borne to him last autumn such happy ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... at her celerity—she was in the market-place. The eyes of all naturally took the direction of the well-born fisherwoman. Still pity held the tongue of scorn in thrall, and Swanhilda saw her basket speedily emptied. Once more within her castle walls, she beheld a running spring ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... the story of his youth, was born on July 24, 1802, and died on December 5, 1870. He was a man of prodigious vitality, virility, and invention; abounding in enjoyment, gaiety, vanity, and kindness; the richness, force, and celerity of his nature was amazing. In regard to this peculiar vivacity of his, it is interesting to remember that one of his grandparents was a full-blooded negress. Dumas' literary work is essentially romantic; his themes are courage, loyalty, honour, love, pageantry, and adventure; he ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... perfect liberty to reenforce the place with a garrison equal, if not superior, to my command. The rebels held high, commanding ground, and could see every movement of our men and boats, so that the only possible hope of success consisted in celerity and surprise, and in General Grant's holding all of Pemberton's army hard pressed meantime. General Grant was perfectly aware of this, and had sent me word of the change, but it did not reach me in time; indeed, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... present in a guise more beseeming his high reputation as an Indian-fighter. So, going at once to his own cabin, where he kept all his war and martial rigging perpetually ready for use in a minute's notice, he dashed through the process with a celerity quite astonishing in one who was usually so heavy and deliberate in his motions. First, he drew on his moccasins, each of which was roomy enough to hide a half-grown raccoon; then, over his buckskin breeches he tied a pair of bear-skin leggins, hairy and wide; then, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... it.] In short, the whole Palace is built of these canes, which (I may mention) serve also for a great variety of other useful purposes. The construction of the Palace is so devised that it can be taken down and put up again with great celerity; and it can all be taken to pieces and removed whithersoever the Emperor may command. When erected, it is braced [against mishaps from the wind] by more than ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... than five minutes every approach to the Residency was held by men with fixed bayonets, and fourteen rounds of ball-cartridges each in their belts, and every road round Klang was being patrolled by pickets. I knew instinctively that it was "humbug," arranged to show the celerity with which the little army could be turned out; and shortly an orderly arrived with a note—"False alarm;" but Klang never subsided all night, and the Klings beat their tom-toms till daylight. I am writing at dawn now, in order that my ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... that her labour was not in vain, and that the boy would get well, his little sister, whom she had nursed quite as assiduously, grew rapidly worse, and died at noon. As is frequently observed in such diseases, this increased in virulence with every new case. It spread with astonishing celerity through the Row, baffling the efforts of the best physicians in W——; and finally, the day after Hester's death, as Irene sat trying to comfort the poor mother, a neighbour ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... in the interim, were constantly kept upon the alert by the vigilant Sallust, who chased one cup by another with a celerity which seemed as if he were resolved upon exhausting those capacious cellars which the reader may yet see beneath the house of Diomed. The worthy merchant began to repent his choice, as amphora after amphora ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... came, the same number of hands were busy cooking and transferring with alarming celerity such steaming food as was available from the different fires to the mouths of the famished coolies. Happiness reigned in camp, and ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... "it is impossible to have a policeman at the back of each colored man's chair, and a squad of soldiers at each crossroad, to detect with certainty, and punish with celerity, each invasion of his rights. We tried provisional governments and found them a failure. It seemed like leaving our former allies to be mocked with the name of freedom and tortured with the essence of slavery. The ballot is our weapon of defense, ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... weeks, his new trunk and portmanteau; for a few weeks only—he had no notion of making, ultimately, any great change in his plans. It was obvious that James Prince was looking forward to a year or two of harassing procedure in the courts, for old Jehiel's estate was unlikely to smooth out with celerity; but Raymond was clearly of no use at home, even as a mere source of sympathy. A fortnight after his grandfather's ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... Elector of Baden, who was more than seventy-five years old, and had come with his son and grandson, appeared as if vassals of the new Charlemagne, the second Theatre Francais had been summoned from Paris, and played before this public of Highnesses. Every one was struck by the celerity with which this crowned soldier had acquired the appearance of a sovereign belonging to an old line, while he still preserved the language and appearance of a soldier. One day he asked the hereditary Prince of ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... celerity the English army was transferred to South Africa, and all eyes and hearts followed it. The pride of the castle and of the cottage was there; the heir to vast estates, and the support of his widowed mother's old age; the scape-grace ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... nor cloud, that, the instant the fire touched the tinder-like leaves, it flashed up as from a parcel of scattered gunpowder; and, bursting with almost explosive quickness all around, and swiftly leaping from bough to bough and treetop to treetop, it spread with such astonishing celerity that he found it hard on his heels, or whirling in a hot cloud over his head, at every pause he made to throw in a new but now unnecessary torch, in his rapid and constantly quickened run through the slash. And when, after running some distance into the open field, to escape the stifling smoke ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the Narraganset, and esteemed at the time the swiftest boat on the Hudson River. I must confess I was rather timid when I did so, for the reckless manner in which the crack boats are run, in order to maintain their character for celerity, is proverbial, and, as may be supposed, is little consonant with safe travelling. The almost constant recurrence of steam-boat explosions and consequent sacrifice of life, reports of which are daily to be seen in the newspapers, weighed somewhat heavily on my mind, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... those which might be backed to run a victorious race with the tale of evil fortune; and clearly for the reason that man's livelier half is ever alert to speed them. They travel with an astonishing celerity over the land, like flames of the dry beacon-faggots of old time in announcement of the invader or a conquest, gathering as they go: wherein, to say nothing of their vastly wider range, they surpass the electric wires. Man's nuptial half is kindlingly concerned in the launch of a new couple; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... toiling with such unremitting assiduity, without stopping a few minutes to aid him in his task; and, as no one of his occasional assistants was acquainted with the degree of help which the Dwarf had received from others, the celerity of his progress lost none of its marvels in their eyes. The strong and compact appearance of the cottage, formed in so very short a space, and by such a being, and the superior skill which he displayed in mechanics, and in other ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... substantially as odours are given forth by many substances. Since the days of Newton inquiry has forced us to the conviction that these effects of temperature are produced by vibrations having the general character of waves, which are sent through the spaces with great celerity. When a ray of light departs from the sun or other luminous body, it does not convey any part of the mass; it transmits only motion. A conception of the action can perhaps best be formed by suspending a number ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... crusading; Henry VIII always marrying, and Charles I always having his head cut off; Alfred rapidly and in rotation making his people's clocks and spoiling their cakes; and King John pulling out Jews' teeth with the celerity and industry of an American dentist. Anything is good that shakes all this stiff simplification, and makes us remember that these men were once alive; that is, mixed, free, flippant, and inconsistent. It gives the mind a healthy kick to know that Alfred ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... not attempt to follow him. I knew the uselessness of such a proceeding. Just for the fraction of a second his hurrying silhouette had shown on the top of the fence, and then it had melted into the surrounding shadows of the dawn with a silence and celerity which, more than anything else, told me how difficult it ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... chicken, which one of the women cooked—a proceeding which an Indian woman can accomplish with greater celerity and success than any I have hitherto encountered. This fowl was simply delicious, and, with boiled eggs and tortillas in addition, served as an admirable means of refreshing our starving bodies, and we partook of all heartily, in spite of ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... was in his element. He saw victory perched upon the mast of the Leta D. He moved with a celerity that amazed me, when I remembered how exasperatingly slow he could be, fooling with kites. ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... other armies of the North, that department combines skill, vigor, humanity, and efficiency to an astonishing degree. Its results are exhibited not only in the small mortality of the camps, but in the celerity of its operation on the field of battle, and the great proportion of lives preserved after the terrible wounds inflicted by deadly fragments of shell and the still more deadly rifle bullet. Military surgery has attained a degree of proficiency during the experiences of the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... advantage does the London and Birmingham Railway hold out? Only one,—celerity of motion; and, after all, the ten miles an hour is absolutely slower than the coaches, some of which go as fast as eleven or twelve miles an hour; and, with the length of time that the engine and its cumbrous train requires ere it can stop, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... have seen him or heard. He poured his own drink and shoved the bottles toward his friend, who helped himself with skilful celerity. ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... Marco behind; and, launching into the plains of shining sea, saw turret after turret, and isle after isle, fleeting before me. A pale greenish light ran along the shores of the distant continent, whose mountains seemed to catch the motion of my boat, and to fly with equal celerity. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... quarters we halted in Wady Solaf, as I found myself somewhat feverish, and in want of repose. We saw great numbers of red-legged partridges this day; they run with astonishing celerity along the rocky sides of the mountains, and as the Bedouins do not like to expend a cartridge upon so small a bird, they are very bold. When we lighted our fire in the evening, I was startled by the cries of Hamd "to take care of the ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... ends. The large measure of liberty of speech and of the press safely accorded when there is ample time to correct false doctrines and to redress grievances through common methods, is incompatible with the rigorous promptitude, energy, celerity, and unity of action necessary to the preservation of national existence in times of rebellion. If an individual be suspected of conspiring against his country, at such a time, to leave him at liberty while the usual processes of law were being undertaken, would perhaps ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... and started away with celerity. He thought it wise to put as great a distance as possible between himself and the tall and stalwart hunter, fearing that he would repent his leniency and end his ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... his scattered fleet, and setting more sail, held on his course. Indeed they could do no other, for the English had gotten the advantage of the wind, and their ships being much easier managed, and ready with incredible celerity to come upon the enemy with a full course, and then to tack and retack and be on every side at their pleasure. After a long fight, and each of them had taken a trial of their courage, the lord admiral thought proper to continue the fight no longer, because there ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... advanced against the man with three legions and fighting a great battle near Zela drove Pharnakes in flight from Pontus, and completely destroyed his army. In reporting to one of his friends at Rome, Amantius,[557] the celerity and rapidity of this battle, he wrote only three words: "I came, I saw, I conquered." In the Roman language the three words ending in the like form of verb, have a brevity which is not ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... horses, leaving his own weary beasts in their stead, while Hobson's force, finding no remounts, grew steadily less in number from the exhaustion of his horses. The people, through fear, even fed and watered the horses of Morgan's men with the greatest promptness, thus adding to the celerity of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... ranger made vocal answer, and they could soon see him moving athwart the hillsides, zigzagging in the trailer's fashion, dropping down with incredible swiftness. He was alone, and leading his horse, but his celerity of movement and the tones of his voice ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... who stood candidates at the election. The double summons was no sooner intimated to him, than he threw down his bason, and retired with precipitation, leaving the squire in the suds. Timothy, incensed at this desertion, followed him with equal celerity into the street, where he collared the shaver, and insisted upon being entirely trimmed, on pain of the bastinado. The other finding himself thus arrested, and having no time to spare for altercation, lifted up his fist, and discharged it upon the snout of ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... once over, with the inevitable sadness that such scenes must entail, the boys' spirits rose with wonderful celerity. True, they looked back with fond glances at the peaceful homestead where their childhood had been passed, as they reached the ridge of the undulating plain from which the last glimpse of the red roofs and tumbling water was to be had. Raymond even ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a little cry. Hugo, obvious for once, said, "Why, she's fainted!"—in an incredulous voice. Considerably better in action were the experienced Works people. MacQueen sprang for a water-bucket with a celerity which strongly suggested practice. A stout, unstayed buncher filled a long-felt want by flinging open a window. One from a neighboring machine sat on the floor, Miller's head on her lap. Two ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... one principle more potent than life itself. It is a movement whose celerity springs from an unknown motive power. Man is no more acquainted with the secret of this revolution than the earth is aware of that which causes her rotation. A certain something, which I gladly call the current of life, bears along our choicest thoughts, makes use of most people's ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... know not;—nor can I tell how far the free importation of it might be detrimental to our public finances;—I cannot, however, help thinking, that it is so great an object to this country to keep down the prices of provisions, or rather to check the alarming celerity with which they are rising, that means ought to be found to facilitate the importation, and introduction into common use, of an article of Food of such extensive utility. It might serve to correct in some measure, the baleful influence of another article of foreign produce, ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... word was spoken to the crew, they could sense the situation by the sharp commands emanating from the conning tower and the celerity with which the navigating officer and his assistant were working the ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... in the village, and armed with ladders dashed up at a run and reached the fortress at several points; but to insure success, not only celerity, but silence was needed. It ought to have been a surprise; but Colonel Dufour, who commanded one column, ordered the advance to be sounded, and marched boldly to the assault. The column was repulsed, and the colonel received ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... born, he was educated first at Kilkenny, and afterwards at Dublin, his father having some military employment that stationed him in Ireland: but, after having passed through the usual preparatory studies, as may be reasonably supposed, with great celerity and success, his father thought it proper to assign him a profession, by which something might be gotten; and, about the time of the revolution, sent him, at the age of sixteen, to study law in the Middle Temple, where ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson |
