"Lax" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would respect it if she could understand it; for she suspected it had its origin somewhere in Susan's "refined ladylike nature." She knew that once in a while among the women she was acquainted with there did happen one who preferred death in any form of misery to leading a lax life—and indisputable facts had convinced her that not always were these women "just stupid ignorant fools." She herself possessed no such refinement of nerves or of whatever it was. She had been brought up in a loose family and in a loose neighborhood. She was in the habit of making all sorts ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... their opponents are as strong as themselves, and their majorities are never secure, they can venture upon nothing of the kind. All oppositions must affect a prodigious show of political virtue, and must be vigilant and economical, no matter how lax may have been their political morality when in power. But no politician, or party man, has any tenderness for an abuse the profit of which is to accrue to his adversary, and in this way good government may happen to be the result of a weak Ministry ...
— 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
... some things in which the Americans are a little lax, especially in their history. At one of their exhibitions that I visited, for instance, there was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... I did not suspect you of any improper idea, when you offered to share my uncertain fortunes. Render me, I pray you, the same justice at this moment. My moral principles are very lax, it is true, but I am as proud as yourself. I never shall reach my aim by any subterfuge. No; strive to study art. I find you beautiful and seductive, but I am governed by sentiments superior to personal interests. I was profoundly touched by your sympathetic ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... the good-natured Irish boy; Jack Brookes, the irrepressible humorist; Davie Jackson, the true-hearted little lad, on whose haps and mishaps the plot to a great extent turns; and the hero himself, who finds in his experiences at Wynport College a wholesome corrective of a somewhat lax home training. ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... but not wise. He offended the Russian demand for decorum in a czar by riding through the streets on a furious stallion, like a Cossack of the Don. In religion he was lax, favoring secretly the Latin Church. He chose Poles instead of Russians for his secretaries. And he excited general disgust by the announcement that he was about to marry a Polish woman, heretical to the Russian faith. The ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... mint, they are apt to forget justice and mercy. If Jesus were to return, after all these centuries, and were only to do and say just what he did and said about the Sabbath when he was here before, there are many pious Protestants who would think him rather lax in his religious principles. How long he has been with us, and yet we have not ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... the same relationship to China as Corea; and, although the enforcement of the suzerain tie was lax, there was no doubt that at Pekin the opinion was held very strongly that the action of France was an encroachment on the rights of China. But if such was the secret opinion of the Chinese authorities, they took no immediate ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... foundations the incursion of one of the "nobler sex." From the first morning when there resounded the multiplied ringing of bells, and the creaking of boots on the staircase, the glory of the feminine dynasty was departed. Its easy laisser-aller, its lax rule, and its indifference to regular forms were at an end. Mrs. Rothesay could no longer indulge her laziness—no breakfasting in bed, and coming down in curl-papers. The long gossiping visits of her thousand-and-one acquaintances subsided into frigid morning calls, ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... religion and charity; but they have always indulged in the fancies and ideas of the great school of free-thinking philosopher Sofis, whose observance of the ordinances of severe and joyless life is notedly lax. ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... little band that went toward the Alamo, and there were three women and three children in it, but since they knew definitely that Santa Anna and his great army had come there was not a Texan who shrank from his duty. They had been lax in their watch and careless of the future, faults frequent in irregular troops, but in the presence of overwhelming danger they showed not ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... amusements. Mr Ross, although the best of masters, was almost a martinet in his affairs, both in the home circle and among those in his employ. This strict disciplinary method is absolutely essential for comfort and success in such a land. If there is a lax method of living and conducting business, soon everything ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... would assist the weaker party, at first it was of little use; then not even themselves escaped being ill-treated; particularly in the latter months, when injustice was committed through the combinations among the more powerful, and the vigour of every magistracy becomes considerably more lax in the latter part of the year; and now the commons placed hopes in the tribuneship, only on the condition that they had tribunes like Icilius; that for the last two years they had had only mere names. On the other hand, the elder members of the patrician order, though they considered their young ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... were covered with stragglers. Squads of infantry, banding together for protection, toiled along painfully by easy stages, unable to keep pace with the colours, but hoping to be up in time for the next fight; and amongst these were not a few officers. But this was not the worst. Lax discipline and the absence of soldierly habits asserted themselves with the same pernicious effect as in the Valley. Not all the stragglers had their faces turned towards the enemy, not all were incapacitated by physical suffering. Many, without going through the formality of asking leave, were ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... certain to be a cause of friction with foreign Powers. The United States Government had contended in 1812 that a blockade which is to confer any rights against neutral commerce must be an effective blockade, and has not lately been inclined to take lax views upon such questions; but when it declared its blockade of the South it possessed only three steamships of war with which to make it effective. But the policy was stoutly maintained. The Naval Department at the very ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Lord Dorset had travelled; and when made a gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles II., he was not unlike his sovereign in other traits; so full of gaiety, so high-bred, so lax, so courteous, so convivial, that no supper was complete without him: no circle 'the right thing,' unless Buckhurst, as he was long called, was there to pass the bottle round, and to keep every one in good-humour. Yet, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... send the man and the introduction together. This law a Parliament of Sirens had passed, and the slightest breach of it was a bitter offense Equilibrium governs the world. These ladies were bound to be overstrict in something or other, being just a little lax in certain things ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... state, Or still be happy in a virgin's fate: - He must be one with manners like her own, His life unquestion'd, his opinions known; His stainless virtue must all tests endure, His honour spotless, and his bosom pure; She no allowance made for sex or times, Of lax opinion—crimes were ever crimes; No wretch forsaken must his frailty curse, No spurious offspring drain his private purse; He at all times his passions must command, And yet possess—or be refused her hand. All this without ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... the chaplain, turning towards Mrs Pendle, who had asked this question, 'he is a man of lax morals. His boon companion is a tramp ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... also assured the Indians that money would be spent to give them the same position after the war that they had occupied before it, and that the government would not be lax in dealing with their needs. In 1779, when General Haldimand was already in command of all the forces in Canada, he had reiterated his promises, and said that he would do his best to fulfil them, 'as soon as that happy time [the restoration ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... desire. He had already thought of Tom Delamere in this connection, having with him such an acquaintance as one forms around a hotel, and having long ago discovered that Delamere was a young man of superficially amiable disposition, vicious instincts, lax principles, and a weak will, and, which was quite as much to the purpose, a member of the Clarendon Club. Possessing mental characteristics almost entirely opposite, Delamere and the captain had certain tastes in common, and had smoked, drunk, and played ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... heavy and somewhat uncouth, speaking with broad Derbyshire accent, adhering with all his tenacity to his work and to his town position, making good designs, and becoming fairly well-off. But at drawing, his hand swung naturally in big, bold lines, rather lax, so that it was cruel for him to pedgill away at the lace designing, working from the tiny squares of his paper, counting and plotting and niggling. He did it stubbornly, with anguish, crushing the bowels within him, adhering to his chosen ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... necessity for a wider development caused my being sent to a well-known boarding-school for girls in the East. I think now the choice made was unfortunate. The school being situated close to a large city, and the discipline extremely lax, temptation which I was not in any way fitted to resist surrounded me from the day of entrance. In a fashionable drawing-room, in the home of my mother's friends, I first became acquainted with ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... developed, but were not enervated by either sexual excess or inclinations before having offspring, which were necessarily robust and healthy. To obtain the same results in a nation given to indolence and luxury, and lax in its morality, some physical restraint was required, and we therefore find the practice of infibulation coming from the warm countries to the East. The ancients not only infibulated their gladiators to restrain them from venery, but ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... in the choice of his subordinates and unable to retain their confidence; accused of irresolution and even of cowardice; abandoned by Cochrane, who sailed off to Chile and left the army stranded; incapable of restraining his soldiers from indulgence in the pleasures of Lima; now severe, now lax in an administration that alienated the sympathies of the influential class, San Martin was indeed an unhappy figure. It soon became clear that he must abandon all hope of ever conquering the citadel of Spanish power in South America unless ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... now the sitting magistrate, and he committed her to prison with short examination. But the constable, whether from pity or for some consideration of his own convenience, did not wish to take her; and the administration of justice being somewhat lax, she was ordered by that official to go home until he came ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... day," he replied, "such an occurrence would be almost impossible; but you must remember that we are talking of the last century—a century in which, I regret to say, the clergy of the Church of England were sadly lax in the performance of their duties. The followers of Wesley and Whitefield could scarcely have multiplied as they did if the flocks had not been cruelly neglected by their proper shepherds. It was a period in which benefices ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... celebrated during Bairam, the month of rejoicing which amongst Moslems all the world over succeeds the self-mortifications of Ramazan. Even if their external observances of the usages of Islam seem somewhat lax, the Cape Moslems, I found, faithfully observe the month of abstinence, and I remember talking to a most intelligent Malay boy, who was working hard as a mason in the full glare of the midday heat, and was touching neither food nor drink from ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... sheep. The Mexican following was not so sure or fast. He turned back. Gale heard the trenchant bark of the .405. Ladd was kneeling. He shot again—again. The retreating bandit seemed to run full into an invisible obstacle, then fell lax, inert, lifeless. Rojas sped on unmindful of the spurts of dust about him. Yaqui, high above Ladd, was also firing at the bandit. Then both rifles were emptied. Rojas turned at a high break in the trail. He shook a defiant hand, and his exulting yell pealed faintly to Gale's ears. About ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... Walker admits that "the fortunes which have been made are seen to have been the result of dealings in stocks and in titles, the consequences of which, if involving wrong, are rightly charged against the lax legislation which has made such operations possible." "Every person seeking for the services of a common carrier is entitled to know that he is charged no more than his neighbor who obtains the same service under ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... and field to field; on those whose glorious beauty is a fading flower; on those who call good evil and evil good, that put darkness for light, that take away the righteousness of the righteous from him. His terrible denunciation and enumeration of evil indicate a very lax morality in every quarter, added to hypocrisy and pharisaism. He shows what a poor thing is sacrifice unaccompanied with virtue. "To what purpose," said he, "is the multitude of sacrifices? Bring no more vain oblations. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... of instances American masters were refused water, the only excuse being that they had not conformed to all the port or customs regulations. There can be no doubt that many fishing captains were quite too lax in this, presuming on the power of their nation and remembering the liberties enjoyed under reciprocity, while too forgetful of the stern letter of the treaty which the Canadians were executing against them. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... respect that many a High School eleven fails to "make really good." In a team where discipline is lax some of the fellows are sure to rebel at spending "all their time training." Where the coach exercises too limited authority, or when he is too "easy," the team's record is sure to suffer in consequence. Many a High School eleven comes out a tail-ender just because the coach is not strict ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... majority, of Englishmen, have never seen a case of smallpox at all. Not knowing the awful danger they have escaped, through Great Britain having had compulsory vaccination since 1853, they have become lax in their belief in the necessity for the continuance of that precaution. "They jest at scars that never felt a wound." Towns such as Gloucester in England, in which a large number of children have been allowed to grow up unvaccinated, have always been visited sooner or later by a serious ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... mean dat I wuz to mix de special dram dat I done learned from my gran'pappy. So, I pours in a little of dis an' a little of dat, den I shakes it 'twell it foams, den I fills de glasses an' draps in de ice an' de mint. Time de mens drink dat so an' so dey done forgot dey's tired; dey 'lax, an' when de ladies come down de stairs all dredd up, dey thinks dey's angels walkin' in gol' shoes. Dem wuz good times befo' de war an' befo' Marse Peter got shot. From de day Marse Peter rode his big grey hoss off to fight, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... FEBRUARY 2D.—So lax has become Gen. Winder's rule, or deficient, or worse, the vigilance of his detectives,—the rogues and cut-throats,—one of them keeps a mistress in a house the rent of which is more than his salary, that five Jews, the other day, cleared out ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... incoherence; looseness &c adj.; laxity; relaxation; loosening &c v.; freedom; disjunction &c 44; rope of sand. V. make loose &c adj.; loosen, slacken, relax; unglue &c 46; detach &c (disjoin) 44. Adj. nonadhesive, immiscible; incoherent, detached, loose, baggy, slack, lax, relaxed, flapping, streaming; disheveled; segregated, like grains of sand unconsolidated &c 231, uncombined ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... accustomed to think that I could not limit the time for my recitations without great inconvenience, and occasionally allowed one exercise to encroach upon the succeeding, and this upon the next, and thus sometimes the last was excluded altogether. But such a lax and irregular method of procedure is ruinous to the discipline of a school. On perceiving it at last, I put the bell into the hands of a pupil, commissioning her to ring regularly, having myself fixed the times, saying that I would show my pupils that ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... until after the Soulsbys went away, I didn't let myself get downright discouraged. It seemed too monstrous for belief that you should go away out of my life like that. It didn't seem possible that God could allow such a thing. It came to me that I had been lax in my Christian life, especially in my position as a minister's wife, and that this was my punishment. I went to the altar, to intercede with Him, and to try to loose my burden at His feet. But nothing has come of it. I ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... instrument inflicting it—whether, for example, a fist, a stick, a cart wheel, or a piece of heavy machinery. The position of the limb at the time of the injury; whether the muscles were braced to meet the blow or were lax and taken unawares; and the patient's sensations at the moment, such as his feeling something snap or tear, may all furnish information useful ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... Molina's Amar par senas, and, to take an extreme instance, the second act of his Cabellos de Absalon is transferred almost bodily from the third act of Tirso's Venganza de Tamar. It would be easy to add other examples of Calderon's lax methods, but it is simple justice to point out that he committed no offence against the prevailing code of literary morality. Many of his contemporaries plagiarized with equal audacity, but with far less success. Sometimes, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Giver to have pity when, or as much as, He wills. Hence He came when He knew it was fitting to succor, and when His boons would be welcome. For when by the feebleness of the human race men's knowledge of God began to grow dim and their morals lax, He was pleased to choose Abraham as a standard of the restored knowledge of God and of holy living; and later on when reverence grew weaker, He gave the law to Moses in writing; and because the gentiles despised it and would not take it upon themselves, and they who received it ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... in getting his men and the right kind of men together. Lawless Arkansans were unduly desirous of joining the Indian regiments, thinking that discipline there would be lax enough to suit their requirements.[746] Miscellaneous conscripting by ex-officers of Arkansan troops gave much cause for annoyance[747] as did also Cooper's unauthorized commissioning of officers ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... worst changes, and this all the more readily, because at that time no one had a notion of what we call respect for the text, for the idea of the author. As rigidly as the text of the Bible was maintained intact in the very minutest details, so lax was the treatment of the Talmud, which was at the mercy of individual whim. Naturally, the less scrupulous and less clearsighted allowed themselves the most emendations. Accordingly, Rabbenu Gershom felt called upon to put a severe restriction ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... Richard Praty (1438-1446) there is evidence that many of the negligences censured by Bishop Rede were still without correction. The discipline of the monastic houses in Sussex is represented as having become very lax. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... from a contusion in which the skin is forcibly displaced from the subjacent tissues, and lymph vessels are thereby torn across. The cyst is usually situated between the skin and fascia, and contains clear or blood-stained serum. At first it is lax and fluctuates readily, later it becomes larger and more tense. The treatment consists in drawing off the contents through a hollow needle and applying firm pressure. Apart from injury, lymph cysts are met with as the result of the distension of lymph spaces and vessels ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.'" Edwards was not more remarkable for acuteness and subtlety as a reasoner, than for his lax and indiscriminate citations of Scripture. He appeals to this text with such confidence, that he deems no analysis to be necessary. The bare ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... Gallicans, and not a few of the doctors of the Sorbonne, though divided on nearly every other issue, made common cause against the Society. They were assisted in their campaign by Madame de Pompadour, the king's mistress, for whom the Jesuit theology was not sufficiently lax, and by the Duc de Choiseul, the king's prime minister. The well-known Jesuit leanings of Louis XV. and of the royal family generally, imposed a certain measure of restraint upon the enemies of the Society, until ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... when—suddenly a sharp crack like a pistol shot cut the air. The music ceased—one of the violin strings had snapped. At another time the great man would have finished the number on the three remaining strings, but the heat, the lax practice of a holiday season—something, or perhaps everything combined, for the instant overcame him. He stood like an awkward child, gazing down at the ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... people, render them desperate, and drive them, if possible, into open rebellion." It had been a vexatious circumstance, too, that not long before this time he had received a rebuke from the Massachusetts Assembly for having been lax, as they fancied, in notifying them of some legislation of an injurious character, which was in preparation. "This censure," he said, "though grievous, does not so much surprise me, as I apprehended all along from the beginning ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... not meet the rigid requirements of their own belief; and they planned at once a Spanish crusade which was intended to improve the general deplorable condition of public morals and at the same time to modify, in a most radical way, the liturgy of the Spanish Church, which was far too lax in points of discipline. Their conduct at the time of the surrender of Toledo, in 1074, is a most excellent example of the eager, yet thoughtless, way in which they went about their new work. When King Alfonso, after an ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... there was a sentry on duty, an arquebusier, who paced slowly up and down whistling the "Rappel d'Aunis," stopping only to exchange some barrack-room badinage with every serving-wench who, as she went out or came in, found a moment or so to spare for him. It was a lax enough watch, and it was clear that guard duty at the wicket was not so dull a matter as ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... any alteration of Shakspeare's text would be necessary, or would be allowed; as little is it to be supposed that Shakspeare would commence a play in his old-accustomed, various, and unequalled verse, and finish it in the easy, but somewhat lax and familiar, though not inharmonious numbers of a reverent disciple."—Tyas's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... from either," she retorted, with a laugh; "a most substantial reality, as you are bound to confess. Master Wayland, is it not time for you fitly to greet Captain de Croix? He may deem you lax in cordiality." ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... publish that sonnet, in an account of "Frolics with the Hutchinsons," it was necessary to hunt him up, from public-house to public-house, early in the morning. It is because these things are universally known,—because he was seen staggering in the road, and spoken of by drivers and lax artisans as an alehouse comrade, that I speak of him here, in order that I may testify how he was beloved and cherished by the best people in his neighborhood. I can hardly speak of him myself as a personal acquaintance; for I could not venture on inviting him to my house. I saw what it was to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... treated him with kindness, and conciliated him with grapes, showing him the enormity of his offense, I suppose he would have come the next night, and taken the remainder of the grapes. The truth is, that the public morality is lax on the subject of fruit. If anybody puts arsenic or gunpowder into his watermelons, he is universally denounced as a stingy old murderer by the community. A great many people regard growing fruit as lawful prey, who would not think of breaking into your cellar to take it. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to relate I would much rather not tell about, as it concerns what I consider a very shameful episode in my life. The only thing I can urge in extenuation of my conduct is the lax manner in which my earlier life was looked after in my uncle's house, where my worse passions were allowed full play, without that judicious control which parental guidance would perhaps have exercised on my inherent disposition for giving vent ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... said, was a stay-maker, but being a man of wit and parts he betook himself to study, and at a time when the discipline of the inns of court was scandalously lax, got himself called to the Bar, and practised at the quarter-sessions under me, but with little success. He became the conductor of a paper called The Public Ledger and a writer for the stage, in which he met ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... was, I think, directed against this tendency. The agitation with which he once said that corruption had entered into his heart by means of a dream seems to me a proof of this. He took a tolerant view of the lapses of others, and of course the standard of the age was lax in this respect. But I have little doubt myself that here Johnson found himself often confronted with a sensuous tendency which he thought degrading, and which ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... been lax in neighborly solicitude," The Laird continued. "I must send you over a supply of wood from the box factory. We have more waste than we can use in the furnaces. Is this your little man, Nan? Sturdy little chap, isn't he? Come here, bub, and let me ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... code of honor, but with a great contempt for trade and tradesmen. Naturally business fell into the hands of the lower classes who did not share the keen sense of honor so general among their rulers. Hence, there grew up lax ideas of commercial morality, which were fostered by the carelessness in money matters among the nobility and aristocracy. Much of the prevalent Japanese inability to refrain from overcharging, or ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... Milby was then of a lax and indifferent kind. The doctrine of adult baptism, struggling under a heavy load of debt, had let off half its chapel area as a ribbon-shop; and Methodism was only to be detected, as you detect curious larvae, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... and righte delicyous, and more swete than hony or sugre; and it comethe of the dew of hevene that fallethe upon the herbes, in that contree; and it congelethe and becomethe alle white and swete: and men putten it in medicynes for rich men, to make the wombe lax, and to purge evylle blood: for it clensethe the blode, and puttethe out malencoyle. This lond of Job marchethe to the kyngdom of Caldee. This lond of Caldee is fulle gret: and the langage of that contree is more gret in sownynge, that it is in other parties ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... eyes the disapproval she was too wise to utter. At any other time her silent criticism would have galled him; in this case, he took shelter behind it. Let her only go on setting him down for lax and spendthrift, incapable of knowing his own mind. He would be sorry, indeed, for her to guess how matters really stood with him. The truth was, he had fallen a prey to utter despondency, was become so spiritless that it puzzled ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... man enlarged, rather than one of natural bulk. Bedient's recognition of the man was not material; some inner correspondence made him know.... He was sitting upon a rocker, too small and low for him. The long, perfect limbs stretched out would have appeared lax and drunken but for their grace of line. The bow-hand dropped limp, almost to the floor. The other moved the violin about, handled it lightly, familiarly, as one would play with a scarf. Fugitive humor flashed across the face, relieving the ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... did he chide one of his partners, who should have been exerting himself to forward their joint interests in America while he himself was doing what he could in Europe. The other partners, Alfred Vail and Dr. Leonard Gale, were equally lax and seem to have lost interest in the enterprise, as we learn from the following letter to Mr. Smith, of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... little creature possessed a power of acting and of self-control which none of the others could equal. At first they were careful to keep as close to the original event as possible; but after a time, thirsting for variety, they became lax, and the grandmothers were found not only by granddaughters, but by daughters, and cousins, and nieces, and nephews; but the play never varied in the points of extreme poverty and woe, because Dolly refused, with invincible determination, to change ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... one. Discipline was lax, and many of the commanders, instead of occupying the positions assigned to them, had taken up others where better accommodation could be obtained; and much time was lost before the orders reached them. Even then their movements were slow, ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... head with a sudden laugh. 'And the joy of not having any more visits to make! I wonder if you've ever thought of that? Just at first, I mean; for society's getting so deplorably lax that, little by little, it will edge up to us—you'll see! I don't want to idealize the situation, dearest, and I won't conceal from you that in time we shall be called on. But, oh, the fun we shall have had ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... little clerk, by the interment of the bones. But there was still a pretty show. A thief's hand struck off flagrante delicto; a murdered woman's hair; the Abbot's axe, and other tools of crime. The skulls, etc., were sworn to by the constables who had found them. Evidence was lax in that age and place. They all confessed but the landlord. And Manon was called to bring the crime home to him. Her evidence was conclusive. He made a vain attempt to shake her credibility by drawing from her that her own sweetheart had been one of the gang, and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... vigilance there was never a letter from Bob. It sometimes crossed John's mind that his brother might still be alive and well, and that in his wish to abide by his expressed intention of giving up Anne and home life he was deliberately lax in writing. If so, Bob was carrying out the idea too thoughtlessly by half, as could be seen by watching the effects of suspense upon the fair face of the victim, and the anxiety of the ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... may, as the lax slender form in his arms set his heart beating wildly, he was tempted to crush her to his breast and to press his lips savagely, yearningly, upon her tender mouth. Then, in reaction, her helplessness appealed to him and aroused all the ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... put were mingled with vague hints of conjugal violence never properly investigated. The result was his general avoidance not only by the social set dominated by his high-minded father, but by his own less reputable coterie, which, however lax in its moral code, had very ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... stare. Sometimes she leaned there with rigid finger pressed upon her lip, like a statue of Silence; sometimes her hands were pressed pathetically to her breast, like a Mater Dolorosa; sometimes both arms hung lax and limp by her side, like those of a heart-broken creature; and sometimes she wildly clutched empty air, like a Leatherstonepaugh enthusiastically inebriated or gone stark, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... riser; and Imogen, behind the tea-pot and coffee, was always conscious of offering a crisp and charming contrast to lax self-indulgence. But this morning, as they all hemmed her in, fixed her in her rightful place, her cheeks irrepressibly burned with vexation and disappointment. The overheard insolence, too, had been like a ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Juliet talked. She did not offer to sit down again, and after stiffly thanking them both, he said he must be going, and took leave of them. Juliet gave his hand a nervous grip; Barbara's touch was lax and cold; the parting with her was painful; he believed that she felt it so as ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... the course of a journey from Lucerne to Heidelberg. He had to wait two hours at this railway junction; and this time he pleasantly expended in eating many dishes at a restaurant, and amusing the lax porters by teaching them a method of economizing energy in shifting trunks. It should be noted that this friend of mine was not trying to "kill time;" for, like all genuine humanitarians, he of course regards that tragic ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... would make human life intolerable. It is, moreover, false, when so put, as we shall presently prove. Take the easy course, and leave the obligation out of count? This principle is more nearly correct than the other: but it needs interpretation, else it may prove dangerously lax. ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... his adventurous way. And during our trip we came across a little frontier encampment building itself into a primitive wooden town in view of the advent of a railway that was heading that way. It was a characteristic outfit with lax ideas in regard to laws which touched upon personal desires as to gambling, strong drink, Sunday trading and the rest. These men were out to make money as their type has been on most of the frontiers of civilization, and the unwary traveller or the lonely settler who ventured unduly was ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... against the dam expects, Zaretski, village mechanician, In the meantime the mill inspects. Oneguine his excuses says; "But," cried Zaretski in amaze, "Your second you have left behind!" A duellist of classic mind, Method was dear unto his heart He would not that a man ye slay In a lax or informal way, But followed the strict rules of art, And ancient usages observed (For which ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... seizures), which, at principal ports of entry particularly, raise the compensation of those officials to a large sum. It has always seemed to me as if this system must at times work perniciously. It holds out an inducement to dishonest men, should such get possession of those offices, to be lax in their scrutiny of goods entered, to enable them finally to make large seizures. Your attention is ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... the days when I was at an art school. An art school is different from almost all other schools or colleges in this respect: that, being of new and crude creation and of lax discipline, it presents a specially strong contrast between the industrious and the idle. People at an art school either do an atrocious amount of work or do no work at all. I belonged, along with other charming people, to the latter class; and this threw me ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... theoretic interest— the philosopher, [256] the philosophic soul, loves unity, but finds it nowhere, neither in the State nor in its individual members: it is partly also practical, and of the hour. Divided Athens, divided Greece, like some big, lax, self-neglectful person would be an easy prey to any well-knit adversary really at unity in himself. It is by way of introducing a constringent principal into a mass of amorphic particles, that Plato proclaims that these friends will have all things in common; and, challenged ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... understood, that with Victorine's lax ideas of morality, keeping an affaire de coeur from the eyes of the public was all that was necessary to preserve the honor of a woman who chose to indulge ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... I don't think it matters who anybody is in Cairo!" he said with a fine carelessness. "The people whose families are all guaranteed respectable are more lax in their behavior than the people one knows nothing about. As for the Princess Ziska, her extraordinary beauty and intelligence would give her the entree anywhere—even if she hadn't money to ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... him and Murtough, of which some letters have been preserved.[28] The relation between the two men was evidently most friendly. And the archbishop fully exploited his opportunity. Again and again he reminded the king of his duty to repress abuses, the most important of which in his eyes were lax sexual morality, and the consecration of bishops by single bishops, without ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... class, are subject to a terrible danger. Great numbers of mothers actually make their daughters drunkards by ever and again dosing them with brandy. This is done in secret, and imagined to be a most excellent thing. For instance, if the bowels get lax, as is the case in certain stages of disease, brandy is given as a remedy. How little do those who give it know that it is lessening vital energy and making cure impossible! But it is doing nothing else. We have many times over seen the dying sufferer restless ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... the amount of whole milk fed. Ground flax or oil-meal is the best. It is generally fed in the latter form. In some instances the oil-meal is put directly into the milk beginning with a heaping teaspoonful and gradually increasing the quantity. A too lax condition of the digestion would indicate that an excessive amount was being fed. Later the meal may be more conveniently fed when mixed ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... lies in the indefinite prolongation of his liberty of choice. Finality in matters of momentous decision appears painful to him, and the standard of success which would fairly be applied to the policy of the ordinary statesman seems too lax for the man whose shoulders are pressed down with the weight of the kingdom as it is and the kingdom yet to come. Hence his anxiety to drive a brilliant bargain with the Allies and to leave no hold ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the colony he found the revenue laws in a very lax condition. Smuggling was connived at by the venal authorities, and the laws, which were so stringent in the letter, were practically null and void. It is said that Marti could land a contraband cargo, at that time, on the Regla side ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... he should see its relation to the other powers, from the constable to the president. He should know the qualities required in a good executive and should be able to distinguish them in possible candidates. He should know that when the executive is lax the best of laws fall into abeyance, and he should know how such officers can be held up, through criticism by public opinion and penalties, to the fulfilment of duties. The recall should have ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... the preceding; born Philippe Fourchon; daughter of the Fourchon who was the natural grandfather of Mouche; large, and of a good figure, with a sort of rustic beauty; lax in morals; extravagant in her tastes, none the less she assured the prosperity of the Grand-I-Vert, by reason of her talent as a cook, and her free coquetry. By her marriage she had four children, two sons and two daughters. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... wherever obstetrical patients are attended, but only in the hospital can the underlying principles be applied with complete thoroughness and persistence. The hospital is constantly alert, whereas in private houses carelessness or ignorance, or both, often lead to lax technique. As a result, statistical evidence indicates that two to three infections occur among those delivered at home for one ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... come late in life to reside in a colder climate, as England, for example, must run very great hazard indeed—nay, he could almost venture to predict, would fall a victim to the sudden tension of the lax fibres. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... not stringent enough to satisfy modern sentiment. Moreover, commercial considerations entered into the reckoning. Industries in states where the laws were stringent were found to be at a disadvantage in comparison with like industries in states where the laws were lax, and this came to be regarded as a species of unfair competition. The advantages of uniformity and standardization seemed obvious from both the philanthropic and the commercial viewpoints, and Congress determined to take a hand in ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... Although still in the prime of life, he cared nothing for society and held aloof from it. If he went to the trouble to keep in touch at all with people of his own set, it was simply for business reasons. What he seemed to delight in most was the life of Bohemia, with its easy camaraderie, its lax moral code, its contempt for the conventions. He enjoyed the company of women of facile virtue, the gay little supper parties after the theatre, and the glass that inebriates and cheers, in a word, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... slide across his knee, his fingers drop in touching distance of knife hilt. And the hand of the Chief Ranger, hanging lax at his side, suddenly balled ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... discipline as compared with that of the Jains was much more lax, for instance, in the eating of meat. Buddha himself died of dysentery brought on by eating pork. The later Buddhism interprets much more strictly the rule of 'non-injury'; and as we have shown, Buddha entirely ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... health, and about to fall into corruption, lost the perception of life in all things around it; and could no more distinguish the wave of the strong branches, full of muscular strength and sanguine circulation, from the lax bending of a broken cord, nor the sinuousness of the edge of the leaf, crushed into deep folds by the expansion of its living growth, from the wrinkled contraction of its decay.[1] Thus, in morals, there is a care for trifles which proceeds from love and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... there were no Board Schools in those days, and education was somewhat lax, but it will do no harm to note a piece of orthography, which will show the standard at which the middle lower class had then arrived. It is copied from The Times of 29 June, 1837. "(From an Evening Paper)—Last autumn, Mrs. C—-, of London, during ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... of the way." Then he followed in the wake of the inspector, who on hearing the news, hurriedly walked towards the police station. Here they found that the news was true. The constable left in charge of the office was greatly agitated, as it seemed he had been lax in doing his duty. But ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... names were Charles Osborne, Joseph Matson, and James Ralph. The first two were clerks of Charles Brockden, an eminent conveyancer of the town, and the other was a merchant's clerk. Matson was a pious young man of sterling integrity, while the others were more lax in their religious opinions and principles. All were sensible young men, much above the average of this class in intellectual endowments. Osborne and Ralph were imaginative and poetical, and frequently ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... so on. His representation of Incledon was extraordinary: his nose seemed actually to become aquiline. It is a pity I can not put upon paper, as represented by Mr. Mathews, the singular gabblings of that actor, the lax and sailor-like twist of mind, with which every thing hung upon him; and his profane pieties in quoting the Bible; for which, and swearing, he seemed to have an ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... envoys to inform them that the utterances of Prince Bismarck were without any actual importance, as he was now only a private man. This only made matters worse; for the substance of the despatch quickly became known (another instance of the lax control over important State documents which we so often notice in dealing with German affairs), and only increased the bitterness of Bismarck, which was shared by ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... his life had poor Mr Lennard been so perplexed and troubled. He was invited to reconsider opinions which he had held, in a somewhat lax fashion it may be granted, all his life. He had to search for his son, and prevent him if possible from becoming a slave to the system he had just heard so strongly denounced, and he was painfully anxious about the health of his dear little Mary. While he was still in this unhappy ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... originally. His squat figure showed, to be sure, a certain hardiness and vigor gained in his outdoor life, but he had not even the rude grace of a stalwart manhood about him. He sank apologetically into a lax posture, even as he stood. His pale blue eyes lacked fire. His hair, uneven, ragged and hay-colored, seemed dry, as though hopeless, discouraged, done with life, fringing out as it did in gray locks ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... edge to Lady Gertrude's voice which it was impossible to misinterpret. "Professional musicians are very lax—I suppose you would call it Bohemian—in their ideas. That I can quite believe. But you have someone else to consider now. Roger would hardly wish his future wife to be stopping alone ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... dormant energies and be excited by the greatness of his position to display the vigour and decision in which he is not deficient. Unfortunately his reputation is not particularly good; he is considered lax in morals, indifferent in religion, and very loose and pliant in politics. He is supposed to have consented to measures of which he disapproved because it suited his ease and convenience to do so, and because he was actuated by no ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... now that, as a nation, we have been entirely too lax in connection with our immigration privileges, regulations and restrictions. We have been admitting foreigners to our shores in such enormous quantities each year that we have not been able at all adequately to assimilate them, nor have we used at all a sufficiently ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... doubt that many of the garrisons are very far from being efficient. They have been stationed in the forts for many years. Discipline, both among officers and men, is sure to have become lax, and there will be much that young men, going freshly into the matter, will see needs amendment. That the walls are often weak, and the cannon so old as to be almost useless, I am well aware; for sometimes ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... course—that's part of the game. As a matter of fact they've been perfectly free, unless they gave actually public offence. They've distributed their pamphlets and done what they liked. Well, of course it was impossible to be really strict so long as Germany was lax. They could always meet in Berlin, and have their pamphlets printed there; and we could do nothing. But, you see, the whole situation's changed with the Emperor's conversion. He's one of those heavy, consistent men—quite stupid, of ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... cross and sulky, I don't intend to amuse you in the evenings. I was brought up on a stricter plan than the girls of the present day, and I mean while I am with you to bring you up in the same way. I prefer it to the lax way in which young ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... forty days had really begun, Major Belwether became restless for the flesh-pots of the south, although Lenten duties sat lightly enough upon the house of Belwether. These decent observances were limited to a lax acknowledgment of fast days, church in moderation, and active participation in the succession of informal affairs calculated to sustain life in those intellectually atrophied and wealthy people entirely dependent upon ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... error, either from seeing Lithopaedus's name of late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr..., or by mistaking Lithopaedus for Trinecavellius,—from the too great similitude of the names.) published by Adrianus Smelvgot, had found out, that the lax and pliable state of a child's head in parturition, the bones of the cranium having no sutures at that time, was such,—that by force of the woman's efforts, which, in strong labour-pains, was equal, upon an average, to the ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... that long ago this small tribe, whose home was in the Big Black country, was at the head of a loose confederation embracing most of the nations from the Atlantic coast quite into Texas; and adds that the expedition of De Soto severed its lax bonds and shook it irremediably into fragments. Whether this is worth our credence or not, the comparative civilization of the Natchez, and the analogy their language bears to that of the Mayas ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... her blood, as the gossips had long prophesied, or something very like it. Lying with her golden head in her arms, the splendid shoulders lax, she felt a strong impulse toward the water shoot through her form from head to heel at this wet contact with the naked earth. She felt that she could vanish in the tide ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... have any charms for her, and her only thought was to escape the shame which awaited her, and not only did she become lax in her duties, but—and she did not know herself how it happened—all of a sudden she gave vent to her ill temper. She said some rude things to the ladies, of which she afterward repented, ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... desponding; manhood only callous and desperate. Some thought that systems would last their time; others, that something would turn up. His deep and pious spirit recoiled with disgust and horror from such lax, chance-medley maxims, that would, in their consequences, reduce man to the level of the brutes. Notwithstanding a prejudice which had haunted him from his childhood, he had, when the occasion offered, applied to Mr. Rigby for instruction, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... cases which I alluded to in speaking of an "inevitable obscurity;" for, wherever men have been accustomed to use a word in two senses, and have yet supposed themselves to use it but in one, a writer, who corrects this lax usage, and forces them to maintain the unity of the meaning, will always appear obscure; because he will oblige them to deny or to affirm consequences from which they were hitherto accustomed to escape under a constant though unconscious equivocation between the two senses. Thus, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... that "it is too late to save the wild life"; for excepting the dead-and-gone species, that is not true. Let no man say that "we can not save the wild life by law"; for that is not true, either. As long as laws are lax, even law-abiding people ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... awful pleasure bland Spreading o'er the Thunderer's face, When the sound climbs near his seat, The Olympian council sees; As he lets his lax right hand, Which the lightnings doth embrace, Sink upon his mighty knees. And the eagle, at the beck Of the appeasing, gracious harmony, Droops all his sheeny, brown, deep-feather'd neck, Nestling nearer to Jove's feet; While o'er his sovran eye The curtains of the blue films slowly ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... was, perhaps, purely physical. Atufal's presence, singularly attesting docility even in sullenness, was contrasted with that of the hatchet-polishers, who in patience evinced their industry; while both spectacles showed, that lax as Don Benito's general authority might be, still, whenever he chose to exert it, no man so savage or colossal but must, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... towards two o'clock (92 and 93 Fahr.), by which time every voice of bird or mammal was hushed; only in the trees was heard at intervals the harsh whirr of a cicada. The leaves, which were so moist and fresh in early morning, now become lax and drooping; the flowers shed their petals. Our neighbours, the Indian and Mulatto inhabitants of the open palm- thatched huts, as we returned home fatigued with our ramble, were either asleep in their hammocks or seated on mats in the shade, too languid even to talk. On most days ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... to you one simple question," said the other; "and as you answer, I shall read to you your moral horoscope. You have grown in many things more lax; possibly you do right to be so; and at any account, it is the same with all men. But granting that, are you in any one particular, however trifling, more difficult to please with your own conduct, or do you go in all things with ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... the disgrace of the house of Bommaney that old Brown, to his daughter's perplexity and grief, began to show signs of trouble almost as marked as those he had displayed after his old friend's defection. The old boy's newspaper no longer interested him of a morning. He began to be lax about that morning ride which he had once regarded as being absolutely necessary to the preservation of health in London. He had been impassioned with the theatre, and had become a diligent attendant at first-night performances. Even these ceased to have any joy ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... effect I had anticipated; the hat fell from his lax grasp and lay unheeded, while my uncle stared at me in speechless surprise. "These garments, sir," I continued, lowering my voice mysteriously, "are merely a disguise, for it seems there was a possibility of my being apprehended as Galloping ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the fiery roan and screamed in his ear Madeline seemed suddenly to grow lax and helpless. The big horse leaped into thundering action. This was memorable of Bonita of the flying hair and the wild night ride. Florence's hair streamed on the wind and shone gold in the sunlight. Yet Madeline saw her with the same thrill with which ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... By impulse from within, not dimly shown, Nor plainlier in the greatest than the least: And, through the known discovering the unknown, Acknowledgest thy Maker, power supreme, Might, and dominion, deeming His alone. Nor His the lax dominion mayst thou deem That builds up empire, and when built, neglects. Lo! where, afar, sidereal orbits gleam, What first impelled, impelling still, directs: Urges and guides each solar chariot, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... their hot hearts; opals and topazes and rubies and cairngorms and the souls of blue sapphires and purple amethysts playing ghostly over the rest. He dropped into the chair and the tall, black-clothed figure fell into lax lines; his long fingers, the fingers of an artist, a musician, lay on the arms of the chair limply as if disconnected from any central power; there was surely despair, hopelessness, in the man's attitude. His gray ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... his master and mistress. The firm, strong, honest, and just control is respected by servants, and is much preferred to the irresolute one, even when the latter overflows frequently in lax kindness. Each man needs to be made to do his duty, and the power that forces him to do it should be gracious ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... "desolation," is presumably the right interpretation of the blind impulse. [6] And perhaps this is one of the commonest subjective assurances of faith, namely, that our faith grows and declines with what we know intuitively to be our better moods; that when lax we are sceptical, and ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... "Scotichronicon," makes it a reproach to lax prelates that they suffer the common people to vary after their own pleasure the days kept as fast days in honour of Mary. In doing so he recalls that on Saturday, the first Easter Eve, she abode unshakenly in the faith, when the apostles doubted. Good reason, therefore, why Saturday ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... away I saw others and then more at another point in the wall. It was a long lax line of men ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... girls seeking a night's refuge drifted into this working-girls' home. Most of them were "ne'er-do-weels"; some of them were girls of lax morality, though very few were essentially "bad." When, however, they did happen to be "bad," they were very bad indeed. And these lead-pencil inscriptions they left behind them were the frightful ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... three; I wonder what mother would think about it. Would she be terribly shocked? I doubt if the little Mummy has the highest principles in the world; in fact, I don't doubt, for I am quite certain that the Mummy's principles are a little lax, but there, she is the Mummy, and I love her. What a queer thing love is, for Mummy is not the highest-souled woman, nor the most beautiful in the world. Still, she is the Mummy, and I ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... the watch must have been very lax, as Gefhardt soon contrived to open communication with him again, and letters were passed through the window (to which the prisoner had made a false and movable frame) and forwarded to Trenck's rich friends. His appeal was ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... time the simplicity of the people was completely undermined, and while they became more cosmopolitan they also grew more lax. They used the Greek language, and employed Greek writers, as we have seen, to make their books for them, which, though bearing Greek titles, were composed in Latin. The public men performed in the forenoon their civil and religious acts; took ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... impressed everyone at first sight, and more and more the better anyone knew him, as the paragon of a Pontifex. He was not lacking in ecclesiastical unction, but did not wallow in it as had Bambilio. He was pious, but did not think it necessary to advertise it day and night unremittingly. He was not lax in religious matters, but he was no stickler for minute trifles. He inspired confidence by every characteristic of his appearance and behavior. He was a man somewhat over medium height, well built, neither heavy nor large, with an unusually ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... done with such a rag-bag, moralistic ass as this? In spite of all his philanderings, and the resultant qualms due to his fear of being found out, he prospered in business and rose to some eminence in his own community. As he had grown more lax he had become somewhat more genial and tolerant, more generally acceptable. He was a good Republican, a follower in the wake of Norrie Simms and young Truman Leslie MacDonald. His father-in-law was both rich and moderately influential. Having lent himself to some campaign speaking, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... themselves or their friends, and from every county and town the country over came pleas of service rendered and claims for reward. But Jackson needed little urging. He thought, and rightly, that many of the incumbents had grown lax in the performance of their duties, if indeed they had ever been anything else, and that fresh blood was needed in the government employ. He believed that short terms and rapid rotation made for alertness and efficiency. He felt that one man had as much right to public ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... infested with rats, and its discipline was lax, in all save speed and quality of work, and some of his companions were of a dissipated stamp. To add to his discomforts, the line he worked was old and defective; but he improved the signals by adjusting three sets of instruments, and utilising them ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... few, however, venture to take this ground. The ordinary method is to contend for some measure of Church order—for the right and duty of excluding some of the worst—and then to lean on this parable for an argument in favour of a lax and against a stringent administration. We submit that to take your stand on this parable, and thence contend for the exclusion to some extent of the evil from the pale of the Church, is to trample all logical and critical laws under foot. This scripture manifestly either forbids all effort ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... once," said Mr. Gresley, frowning, "and though I put it before her very plainly she showed great obstinacy. Fond as I am of Hester, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that she has an arrogant and callous nature. But we must remember, my love, that Aunt Susan was most lax in all her views, and we must make allowance for Hester, who lived with her till last year. It is only natural that Hester, bred up from childhood in that worldly circle—dinner-parties all through Lent, and Sunday luncheons—should have fallen through want ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... been discovered in a state of intoxication, he leaves school hurriedly and betakes himself to an Army-crammer's where discipline is lax and dissipation easy. Here he keeps half-a-dozen fox-terriers, and busies himself about the destruction of domestic cats. Yet, by dint of much forcing on the part of his Coach, he succeeds in passing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... in Quincy twenty-four hours before he mastered the situation there in all its details. He promptly sent out a decree against the new doctrine of what he called "lax manners." He preached a great sermon in the open air that night. "A man shall kiss his own wife and daughters and no other women," said Smith. The elders who had preached from St. Paul's texts on the subject were accused of error and called ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... eighteen were almost or entirely free from venereal disease, while among thirteen it was very prevalent. Almost without exception, the tribes where syphilis is rare or unknown refuse sexual intercourse with strangers, while those among whom such disease is prevalent are morally lax. It is the whites who are the source of infection among these tribes (A.B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes Among the American Indians," American Journal ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... for his place of business, after lunching at home with his mother. Florence was the person who placed it there; she came hurriedly from somewhere in the neighbourhood, out of what yard or alley he did not notice, and slipped the little oblong sheet into his lax fingers. ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... of reasoning can convince me that outward slovenliness is not a sign of inward and moral supineness. A neglected exterior generally means a lax moral code. The man who considers it too much trouble to sit erect can hardly have given much time to his tub or his toilet. Having neglected his clothes, he will neglect his manners, and between morals and manners we ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... respectable in our government and people, and we may fairly allow to him his opinion on sundry noxious and nauseous developments among us which we hope may prove temporary. As to admiring our institutions, he is probably not fascinated by our lax administration of criminal justice, which leaves at large more unpunished criminals, and especially murderers, than are to be found in any other part of the civilized world, save, possibly, some districts of lower Italy and Sicily. He probably does not admire Tammany Hall or the Philadelphia ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... up the child, limp with sleep, from its crib, and began to dress it. Idella cried, and fought away the hands that tormented her, and made herself now very stiff and now very lax; but Annie and Mrs. Bolton together prevailed against her, and she was dressed, and had fallen asleep again in her clothes while the women were putting on their hats and sacks, and Bolton was driving up to the door with ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... hardly a spot to which one would have resorted for a rest-cure. When not engaged in pressing, the gangsmen were a roistering, drinking crew, under lax control and never averse from a row, either amongst themselves or with outsiders. Sometimes the commanding officer made the place his residence, and when this was the case some sort of order prevailed. The ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... belles, memories of whom hang still about the town, people it with phantom shapes, and give an individual or a family here and there a subtle distinction to-day. There the grasp of Calvinism was most lax. There were the dance, the ready sideboard, the card table, the love of the horse and the dog, and but little passion for the game-cock. There were as manly virtues, as manly vices, as the world ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... i. 68) that he had been a sort of lax talker against religion for some years before he went to Oxford, but that there he took up Law's Serious Call and found it quite an overmatch for him. 'This,' he said, 'was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell |
