"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prayer, especially that of the morning, meekness, compunction, careful self-examination every evening, fasting, humility, alms, &c. In Pa. 43, p. 146, he thus apostrophizes the rich: "Hear this, you all who are slack in giving alms: hear this, you who, by hoarding up your treasures, lose them yourselves: hear me you, who, by perverting the end of your riches, are no better by them than those who are rich only in a dream; nay, your condition is fair worse," &c. He says that the poor, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... many tribes of people who in the slack anti-British days became robbers, in various kind, and preyed on the people. They are being restrained and reclaimed little by little, and in time will become useful citizens, but they still cherish hereditary traditions of crime, and are a difficult lot to deal with. By ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... pate that erst at church or fair, So smooth and silky, shew'd his morning's care, Which all uncouth in matted locks combin'd, Now, ends erect, defies the ruffling wind; His neck-band loose, and hosen rumpled low, A careful lad, nor slack at labour shew. Nor scraping chickens chirping 'mongst the straw, Nor croaking rook o'er-head, nor chatt'ring daw; Loud-breathing cow amongst the rampy weeds, Nor grunting sow that in the furrow feeds; Nor sudden breeze ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... to grumble about, sir; but I must say that it has been more slack than it was. We have all done our best, but we have missed you terribly; and the men don't seem to take quite as much pains with their drill as they used to do, when you were in command. However, that will be all right now that you have come back again. I have ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... a cove about five miles higher up the coast than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the Moskoe-stroem, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack-water again, when we weighed and ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... most of this privilege, and competes with his fellow-manufacturers to the utmost in the market: so that the distribution of wares is organized on a gambling basis, and as a consequence many more hands are needed when trade is brisk than when it is slack, or even in an ordinary condition: under the stimulus also of the lust for acquiring this surplus value of labour, the great machines of our epoch were invented and are yearly improved, and they ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... What to resolve upon?—So many cares Entangle me at once, and rend my mind, Pulling it diff'rent ways. My love, compassion, This urgent match, my rev'rence for my father, Who yet has ever been so gentle to me, And held so slack a rein upon my pleasures. —And I oppose him?—Racking thought!—Ah me! I know ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... seasons, times, Let all remind the soul of heaven; Our slack devotion needs them all; And faith, so oft of sense the thrall, While she, by aid of Nature, climbs, May hope ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... catching sight of a strapping-looking fellow in blue overalls, a trunk on one shoulder, a carpetbag in his hand, called out: "John, dear, come here! I want ye. Here, Mike! You and Bobby get that steamer baggage out on the sidewalk, and don't be slack about it, for it goes to Hoboken, and there may be a block in the river and the ferry-boats behind time. Wait, ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... closed. Archie waited a few moments, then went to the window and hauled in the slack. Presently the bag appeared over the edge ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... me. "You cannot give a better sign," said he. "My only fear of you was, that you would dash into debate at once, like a tumbler jumping from a precipice; and that, like him, all that you would have gained by it would be broken limbs for life. If the fellow had kept to his slack-rope and his stage, he would have been safe enough, and gained some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... knapsacks come bumping along until they slid over the eaves above me, and swung down to my station, when I seized the lasso's end and braced myself as well as possible, intending, if he slipped, to haul in slack and help him as best I might. As he came slowly down from crack to crack, I heard his hobnailed shoes grating on the granite; presently they appeared dangling from the eaves above my head. I had gathered in the rope until ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... very hard on me. I've come here to my native place to settle down, and if I settle I've got to marry, and I have never seen a girl whom I would rather marry and settle with than Miss Mayberry. She may be a little slack about taking care of the baby, but I'll talk to her about that, and I know she will keep a closer eye on him. Now if you want to see everybody happy, don't prejudice Mrs. Cristie against that girl. Give ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... opened slightly and his slack lower jaw tightened in a ghastly little grimace. The transported Pablo seized him and shook him furiously, meanwhile deluging Don Mike with a stream of affectionate profanity that fell from his ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... The "slack" Beowulf, like the sluggish Brutus, ultimately reveals his true character, and is presented with a historic sword of honor. It is "laid on his breast" (l. 2195) as Hun laid Lāfing on Hengest's ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... anxious to gain your suffrage to his views, he endeavours rather to conciliate your opinion than conquer it by force. Still there is enough of tenacity of sentiment to prevent, in London society, where all must go slack and easy, W.C. from rising to the very top of the tree as a conversation man, who must not only wind the thread of his argument gracefully, but also know when to let go. But I like the Scotch taste better; there is more matter, more information, above ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... illumined the horizon and the Texan's voice blended with a low rumble of thunder. "With the force of water the way it is," he explained, "we can't move this boat an inch. It'll carry to the middle on the slack of the line, an' in the middle we'll stay. It'll be uphill both ways from there an' we can't budge her an inch. Then, either the line'll bust, or the river will keep on risin' till it just naturally ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... requires a brisk oven, but not too hot, or it would blacken the crust; on the other hand, if the oven be too slack, the paste will be soddened, and will not rise, nor will it have any colour. Tart-tins, cake-moulds, dishes for baked puddings, pattypans, &c., should all be buttered before the article intended to be baked is put in them: things to be baked on ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... came down through bare rocks, then through twisted mountain-pines, then through green and lovely valleys, and so into the plains of northern Italy. He saw the mountain torrents leap and flash, and grow always bigger and stronger. He saw them slack their speed and widen their beds in the upland valleys. He saw them grow sluggish, tawny with mud, ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... hemp, in order to procure the necessary elasticity and guard against the wire-rope parting when the terrific strain should be put upon it. After this the hemp portion of the tow-rope was secured to bollards on the quarter-decks of both craft, the slack of the hawsers attached to the kedge-anchors was taken up, the skippers stood by their respective engine-room telegraphs, and, at a signal from Wong-lih, the San-chau went slowly ahead until the towing hawser was taut. Steam was then given to the ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... slack day in a way, although I have been on my feet since early morning. A great number of shells have landed near our camp at W. Beach at various times to-day, coming from Krithia or Achi Baba. It is strange ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... pair of sportsmen slack! You never mark, though trout or jack, Or little foolish stickleback, Your baited snares may capture. What care has SHE for line and hook? She turns her back upon the brook, Upon her lover's eyes to look In ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... reports not only of Sir John Boswell, but of the other two English knights, were so strong that he dared not express his discontent. He himself had twice been engaged with pirates, but had gained no particular credit, and indeed had, in the opinion of his comrades, been somewhat slack in the fray. He was no favourite in the auberge, though he spared no pains to ingratiate himself with the senior knights, and had a short time before been very severely reprimanded by the bailiff for striking ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... surely, "That he be found faithful," and that he truly dispense, and lay out the goods of the Lord; that he give meat in time; give it, I say, and not sell it; meat, I say, and not poison. For the one doth intoxicate and slay the eater, the other feedeth and nourisheth him. Finally, let him not slack and defer the doing of his office, but let him do his duty when time is, and need requireth it. This is also to be looked for, that he be one whom God hath called and put in office, and not one that cometh uncalled, unsent for; not one that of himself presumeth to ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... the horse's mouth, cursing in low, abrupt sentences. The horse stopped, the blades slipped, again tearing up a hill of corn. From sheer rage the boy was silent, then he jumped from the cultivator, and gathering the slack of the reins, hit the horse about the head with all his might. His face was dry and white, his eyes blazing. As he continued to strike the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... certain native tone or temper in the pupil's psychological constitution than on anything else. Some persons appear to have a naturally poor focalization of the field of consciousness; and in such persons actions hang slack, and inhibitions seem to exert ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... O'er Wibsey Slack aw coom last neet, Wi' reekin heead and weary feet, A strange, strange chap, aw chonced to meet; He made mi start; But pluckin up, aw did ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... of Maimie's visit sped by on winged feet. To Ranald they were brimming with happiness, every one of them. It was the slack time of the year, between seeding and harvest, and there was nothing much to keep him at home. And so, with Harry, his devoted companion, Ranald roamed the woods, hitching up Lisette in Yankee's buckboard, put her through her paces, and would now and then get ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... growled the other, watching him suspiciously. "You've been lying low for a long time, and it's not like you to slack off except when ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... jagged spurt of flame; The window seemed a furnace door That gave upon a bed of ore; The thunder rumbled out the muttered Words that his failing tongue had uttered— Another flash, a rending crack— The old man crumpled like a sack; I felt his stringy arms go slack. How could he sit so dead, so still! While wind ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... knoll close to the water was Chris flat on his back, his mouth open, fast asleep. A half dozen fine bass lay on the grass beside him, the end of his fishing line was tied to one ebony leg, and a coil of slack line lay upon ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... trigger." But since the ordinary pull is a jerk that affects the aim, some genius has invented the new method. So we are taught first to grip the small of the stock with the full hand, the thumb along the side, and with the forefinger to take up the slack of the trigger till it engages the mechanism, and then to take a little more, till presently the gun will go off. At this point, while using the sling to secure a good aim, the shooter should squeeze, that is, he should slowly and ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... at the School. It was an absolutely inconspicuous house. There were other houses that were slack or wild or both, but the worst of these did something. Shields' never did anything. It never seemed to want to do anything. This may have been due in some degree to Mr. Shields. As the housemaster is, so the house is. He was the most inconspicuous ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... to Lucy Morris asking her to be his wife. That was three weeks since, and as the barrier against him at Fawn Court had been removed by Lady Fawn herself, the Fawn girls thought that as a lover he was very slack; but Lucy was not in the least annoyed. Lucy knew that it was all right; for Frank, as he took his last walk round the shrubbery with her during that visit, had given her to understand that there ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... on his horse, as he usually did, his left hand holding a slack rein, his right resting on his hip, with bent head and dreamy eyes, he made his first steps along that incline, at once glorious and fatal, which was to lead him to a throne—and ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... school and continued a tradition; only the school and tradition were Scotch, and not English. While the English language was becoming daily more pedantic and inflexible, and English letters more colourless and slack, there was another dialect in the sister country, and a different school of poetry tracing its descent, through King James I., from Chaucer. The dialect alone accounts for much; for it was then written colloquially, which kept it fresh and supple; and, although not shaped for heroic flights, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Before he knew it, he was standing with his back to Angele's grave, was facing the north, facing the line of pear trees and the little valley where the Seed ranch lay. At first, he thought this was because he had allowed his will to weaken, the concentrated power of his mind to grow slack. And once more turning toward the grave, he banded all his thoughts together in a consummate effort, his teeth grinding together, his hands pressed to his forehead. He forced himself to the notion that Angele was alive, and to ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... minutes more and they were at the fork in the way, and, leaving the trail to Cragg's, the girl pulled into the grass-grown, less-traveled trail to the south, which entered the timber at this point and began to climb with steady grade. Letting the reins fall slack, she turned to her mother with reassuring words. "There! Now we're safe. We won't meet anybody on this road except possibly a mover's outfit. We're in ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... Ambassador and half the Embassy staff were on leave in England. As matters were very slack just then, the Charge d'Affaires and the Second Secretary had gone to Finland for four days' fishing, leaving me in charge of the Embassy, with an Attache to help me. My servant came to me early one morning as I was in bed, and told me that an ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... walked fifty miles without stopping or eating. I slept under a shed that night, and the very next day found work at good wages on some steamers the Erie Railroad was then building for the Lake Superior trade. With intervals of other employment when for any reason work in the ship-yard was slack, I kept that up all winter, and became quite opulent, even to the extent of buying a new suit of clothes, the first I had had since I landed. I paid off all my debts, and quarrelled with all my friends about religion. I never had any patience ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... bracing himself strongly against any tell-tale jerk, with the additional security of an anchor obtained by driving the pick of his ax deeply into the surface ice. It was Bower's business to keep the rope quite taut both above and below; but the American was sure that he was gathering the slack behind him with his right hand while he carried the ax in his left, and did not ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... If I like, I can dae my darg wi' ony man,' he replied rather ironically. 'Pit oot the kale, Leezbeth, or we'll be burnt to daith. Are ye slack yersel' that ye can come ower here at wan o'clock ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... places in France," serving under John, Duke of Bedford, in the "Hundred Years' War," and after fighting in eleven battles within the space of two years he won knighthood at the duke's hands at St. Luce. In the churchyard was buried William Newton, the Minstrel of the Peak, and Samuel Slack, who in the last quarter of the eighteenth century was the most popular bass singer in England. When quite young Slack competed with others for a position in a college choir at Cambridge, and sang Purcell's famous air, "They that go ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... here," said Mr. Cram to the attorney and his companion, "and I'll bring Tom to you in a minute. He's having a lush with some of his pals; though I thought we were going to have a mill, for Jack Perkins, who is to be hanged o' Monday, roused out his slack jaw at him for some quarrel about a gal, and Tom don't bear such like easily. Howsumdever, they made it up and clubbed a gallon. Stay, I'll get you a candle end;" and leaving them in the dark, not much, if the truth must be told, to the satisfaction of John Ayliffe, he rolled away along the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... ended we can do nothing," said his father. "Meantime, Cicely child, we shall be here at hand, and be sure that I will not be slack to aid thee in what may be thy duty as a daughter. So rest thee in that, my wench, and pray that we may be led to ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a good demand continues for the home trade, and occasionally a small advance upon the last July rates is paid on such sorts suitable for that branch, but there is almost no demand for export, the consumption of the article in foreign countries being this year unusually slack. The shipments to Russia, since the opening of the season, amount to only 2,209 chests, against 3,439 chests during the same time last year. A public sale was held yesterday, in Liverpool, of about 400 chests of East India, and 120 serons of Caracas. Of the former about 100 chests were withdrawn ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... deck-beams, savagely, as the upward heave of the sea made the frames try to open. "Come back to your bearings, you slack-jawed irons!" ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... made by following, towards the longer loop, the direction as numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and is terminated by the loop, 6, 7, 6, finally passing it over the head of the post, A. This knot holds itself, the turns being in opposite directions. To untie it, we slack the turns of the cable sufficiently to again pass the loop, 6, 7, 6, over the post, A, and turn the ends in the contrary direction to that in which they were made (as 5, 4, 3, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... quickly and rounded to while her weather fore and mizzen yards flew forward until they touched the starboard backstays and the men hauled in the slack of the braces. With the main yard square to check her way the jibs drooped down along the stays. "Mr. Broadrick, you may let go the starboard anchor and furl sails." The mate grasped a top maul and struck the trigger of the ring stopper ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... one of our firm—gave me a week's notice to quit: 'work was slack,' he said, 'and they didn't want so many girls.' But I'm just as sure as sure can be that Mr. Snipe's at the bottom of it, for I've been at the store, as I told you, four years and more, and they always reckoned me one of their best hands, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... Wilkins worked hard at first, and his ability, his shrewdness, confounded us, as it had confounded Silas Upham. Then, he began to slack, as boys put it. Small duties were ill done or not done at all. But we liked him, were, indeed, charmed by him. As Ajax remarked, Fascination does not trot in the same class ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... my future life; although I feel myself truly four-square against the blows of chance. Wherefore my wish would be content by hearing what sort of fortune is drawing near me; for arrow foreseen comes more slack." Thus said I unto that same light which before had spoken to me, and as Beatrice willed was ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... thee, good master," quoth Stutely, springing to his feet, "that thou hast chosen me for this adventure. Truly, my limbs do grow slack through abiding idly here. As for two of my six, I will choose Midge the Miller and Arthur a Bland, for, as well thou knowest, good master, they are stout fists at the quarterstaff. Is it not so, ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... of it which are subject to the annual inundation. The chief employment of this material by the Assyrians was for bricks, which were either simply dried in the sun, or exposed to the action of fire in a kiln. In this latter case they seem to have been uniformly slack-baked; they are light for their size, and are of a pale-red color. The clay of which the bricks were composed was mixed with stubble or vegetable fibre, for the purpose of holding it together—a practice ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... his wharfage and was edging the Belle Julie up to it. The bow men paid out slack, and Griswold and the black, dropping from the swinging stage, trailed the end of the wet hawser up to the nearest mooring-ring. Though haste in making fast is the spring-line man's first duty, Griswold took a fraction of a second to look around him. The mooring-ring ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... slack for the great gland specialist, Stanley Fenwick. Is this all he can find for his pretty nurse ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... slack, aren't you?" inquired Peter, his deep-set blue eyes twinkling with humor. "I've eaten two hours back. This lying a-bed is mighty bad for your ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... main clue-garnets, some o' you!" yelled the captain. "Clue up! Weather main-braces, the rest o' you! Slack away to looward! Round wi' the yards, you farmers—round wi' 'em! Down wi' the wheel, there! Bring her up three points and hold her. H——l an' blazes, what's he firin' ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... as they pace the deck, so as to brace the body and keep their trowsers up at the same time; their gait is loose, and their dress loose, and their limbs loose; indeed, they are rather too fond of slack. They climb like monkeys, and depend more on their paws than their legs. They tumble up, but never down. They count, not by fingers, it is tedious, but by hands; they put a part for the whole, and call themselves ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... drinking their wine; when the first explosion threw them off their seats, and struck them against the carlings of the upper deck, so as to stun them. Captain Pellow, however, had sufficient presence of mind to fly to the cabin windows, and seeing the two hawsers, one slack in the bit and the other taut, threw himself with an amazing leap, which he afterwards said, nothing but his sense of danger could have enabled him to take, upon the latter, and by that means saved himself from the general destruction, though his face had been badly cut against the carlings, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... ROOFS OF HOUSES.—Slack Stone Lime in a large tub or barrel with boiling water, covering the tub or barrel to keep in the steam. When thus slacked pass six quarts through a fine sieve. It will then be in a state of fine flour. To this add one quart Rock Salt and one gallon of Water. Boil the mixture and skim ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... it were reached a climax, when, instead of the line breaking or Mark going over the side, the strong cord, which had been hissing here and there through the water, suddenly grew slack, and the tension was taken off Mark's muscles and mind to give place to ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... leaping upon their victims and "seizing" them with malevolent delight. The concrete comparison was ready to their hand in the attack of fierce beasts of prey; and as the tiger leaps for the head to break the neck with one stroke of his paw, the wildcat flies at the face, the wolf springs for the slack of the flank or the hamstring, so these different disease demons appear each to have its favorite point of attack: smallpox, the skin; cholera, the bowels; the Black Death, the armpits and the groin; and pneumonia, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... I am not going anywhere in particular," Captain Wilson replied. "The chief says he thinks that things have got rather slack, since I have been away. There are several bands of bush rangers, who have been doing a deal of mischief up country; so to begin with, he wishes me to make a tour of inspection, and to report generally. ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... said her elderly friend. "Besides, there's nothin' amiss with him, settin' aside his foolishness. I've a-thought sometimes, now, o' buildin' a boat down here, an', when the time came, makin' believe to exchange. Boat-buildin' is slack just now, but I might trust to tradin' her off on someone—when he'd done with her—which in the natur' of things can't be long. I've a model o' the old Pass By hangin' up somewhere in the passage behind the shop. We might run her up in two months, fit to launch, an' finish her ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... If the rope snapped when it was taut, those on board would feel the spring of it, and I should be without doubt discovered before I could sever the other: whereas, if the severance was made when the rope was slack, there would be no shock, and the men would be aware of nothing until the vessel swung round on the tide. I so timed my knife work, therefore, that the last strand was cut through when the bow was dipping. The moment it was done I sank down ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... determination that did not spring altogether from love of the sport. The water of the British Columbian river in which he stood knee-deep was icy cold; his rubber boots were badly ripped and leaky, and he was wet with the drizzle that drove down the lonely valley. It was difficult to reach the slack behind a boulder some distance outshore, and the arm he strained at every cast ached from hours of assiduous labor; but there was another ache in his left side which was the result of insufficient food, and though the fish ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... bullet, and nodded his approbation with a smile, but again receded into the bushes, suffering the slack of the twine to fall down in an easy curve into the ravine: so that the double communication would scarce have been perceived, even by one looking for ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... expanse of Dedlow Marsh told unpleasantly on the birds, and that the season of migration was looked forward to with a feeling of relief and satisfaction by the full grown, and of extravagant anticipation by the callow brood. But if Dedlow Marsh was cheerless at the slack of the low tide, you should have seen it when the tide was strong and full. When the damp air blew chilly over the cold glittering expanse, and came to the faces of those who looked seaward like another tide; when a steel-like glint marked the low hollows ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... as was his wont when grog was being passed. The rum he consumed seemed to affect him very little. No one ever heard him sing, though his cruel face, with its awful, livid scar, would lean forward and sway to and fro with the rhythm of the choruses. He could walk a reeling deck or climb a slack shroud as well, to all appearances, when he had taken a gallon as most men when they were sober. From Newfoundland to Trinidad he was known among the pirates as a man whose head would stand drink like a sheet-iron bucket. This reputation was made possible by the fact that he was no talker ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... that a man should accept the first pains and mortifications of this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him, as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his own labor and self-denial? Health, bread, climate, social position, have their importance, and he will give them their due. Let him esteem Nature a perpetual counsellor, and her perfections ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... often a great many Christian labourers to be seen in the Jewish Guberniums, in consequence of their business being slack in their ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... by poor Robert's son, and if he will be such a fool as to run after blood and wounds, I have no more to say! Though 'tis pity of the old name! Ha! what's this? 'Wedded against my will—no troth plight.' Forsooth, I thought my young master was mighty slack. He hath some other matter in his mind, hath he? Run into some coil mayhap with a beggar wench! Well, we need not be beholden to him. Ha, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... have said so much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable part in electioneering. Squires hid ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... mainly by its wits or industry, and make itself rich, or shabbily subside into that lower stratum known to social geologists by a deposit of Kidderminster carpets and the peculiar aspect of the fossils constituting the family furniture and wardrobe. This slack-water period of a race, which comes before the rapid ebb of its prosperity, is familiar to all who live in cities. There are no more quiet, inoffensive people than these children of rich families, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... published. Even the right of translation, if you will look at the bottom of the title-page, is somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing can exceed the patronage which he suffers at the hands of the critic, and is compelled to submit to in sullen silence. When the book-trade is slack—that is, in the summer season—the pair get on together pretty amicably. 'This book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the seaside, and lounged over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or even, ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... beating or whether the throbbing came from the pulses in his finger tips. As well as he could he bound up the wounds with handkerchiefs and stanched the bleeding. With ice-cold water from the stream he drenched the bruised face. A faint sigh quivered through the slack, ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... had a way with him, as Michael was quickly to learn, when the man's hand reached out and clutched him, half by the jowl, half by the slack of the neck under the ear. There was no threat in that reach, nothing tentative nor timorous. It was hearty, all-confident, and it produced confidence in Michael. It was roughness without hurt, assertion without threat, surety without seduction. To him it was the most natural ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... the many changes necessary, in his opinion, to bring the business to a paying basis. All which information Gard accepted for testing purposes, but gathered from the total the fact that through ill health on the part of the departing captain, the ropes all round had got slack and that the tightening of them would be a matter of no ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... hollow of their hands: And, notwithstanding our own great extremity, they were given it, to teach them some humanity, instead of their accustomed barbarity both to us and other nations. Some put leaden bullets into their months, to slack their thirst by chewing them. In every corner of the ship, the miserable cries of the sick and wounded were sounding lamentably in our ears, pitifully crying out and lamenting for want of drink, being ready to die, yea many dying for lack ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... figure is fat, his features flat, his voice unmanageable, his action ungraceful, and, as Diggory says, 'I defy him to extort that d——d muffin face of his into madness.' I was very sorry to see him in the character of the 'Elephant on the slack rope;' for, when I last saw him, I was in raptures with his performance. But then I was sixteen—an age to which all London condescended to subside. After all, much better judges have admired, and may again; but I venture to 'prognosticate ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... then, and haul aft the leeward. Slack out the mizzen sheet a little, Jack. That's it; now she's off ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... Nor was Franklin slack. Hovering with his great division in the plain below and knowing that he was beaten, he nevertheless turned one hundred and sixteen cannon that he carried with him upon Jackson's front and swept all the woods and ridges ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his watch. It was half-past five. It was the slack time of the day in such a region, as he well knew, yet he was curious to see. In all his score of years of wandering and studying social conditions over the world, he had carried with him the memory of his old ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... began to insist upon payment of his debts. Spring was at hand, the store would soon be closed up, for business was slack in the summer, and besides, Foxy had ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... on the ground, to rest. Trevison had meditated, not without a certain wry humor, upon the strength and the protracted potency of Manti's whiskey, for not once during his home-coming had Levins shown the slightest sign of returning consciousness. He was as slack as a meal sack now, as Trevison lifted him from the pony's back and let him slip gently to the ground at his feet. A few minutes later, Trevison was standing in the doorway of the cabin, his burden over his shoulder, the weak ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the Finnish sailors were hauling in the slack hawsers, and the bearded stevedores on the floating quay tugged at the gangway. Many of our presumed passengers had only come to say good-bye, which they were now waving and shouting from the shore. The rain fell dismally, and a black, hopeless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... foul interior the first thorough washing it ever received, driving the despoilers before it with the force of a battering-ram, yet even then, unsatisfied, following up its victory. With perhaps half a dozen soldiers and as many mill-hands hauling on the slack of the hose behind him, through a north window came the tall, slender, serious-faced person of Mr. Davies, a laughing young lance corporal manning the butt with him, and, aiming low and driving discipline and punishment at the rate ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... catch the first streak of the Norwegian coast above the horizon, as if it was something he hardly dared hope that he should live to see. He paced up and down for hours together, anathematising through his teeth the old tub with her slack sails and rolling motion—they seemed to be drifting, not sailing; and from the restlessness and impatience he exhibited, it began to be whispered among the crew that the Englishman must have a screw loose somewhere. When the dim outline of Lindesnaes became discernible ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you, instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to think, I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest. All you can think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as far as your imagination ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... it with my line. My expectation was that as the spar parted and fell it would be held hanging by my tackle until I could get down to the deck again and lower it away; and that really was what did happen—only as it fell there was a bit of slack line to take up, and this gave such a tremendous jerk to the cross-trees that I was within an ace of being shaken out of them and of going down to the deck with a bang. But I didn't—which is the main thing—and ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... put his hands on the arms of the chair, and kissed me violently, twice. The fire that consumes the world ran scorchingly through me. Every muscle was suddenly strained into tension, and then fell slack. My face flushed; I let my head slip sideways, so that my left cheek was against the back of the chair. Through my drooping eyelashes I could see the snake-like glitter of his eyes as he stood over me. I shuddered and ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... sleep I lay a-dream With the goblins and the bears Winding like mad arabesques Through my slack and heated brain. ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... of the swollen river. The barge was first to feel its influence, and was hurried towards the river against the strongest efforts of its boatmen. One by one the other and smaller boats contrived to get into the slack water of crossing streets, and one was swamped before his eyes. But James Smith kept only the barge in view. His difficulty in following it was increased by his inexperience in managing a boat, and the quantity of drift which now charged the current. Trees torn by their roots ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... slack for the moment, but a great attack is expected at Nieuport, and they say the Kaiser is behind the lines there. His presence hasn't brought luck so far, and I ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... small forks, the notches not deep; they should be stout and solid, of a thickness proportionate to their length. The number of props needed for the nets will vary—many or few, according to circumstances; a less number if the tension on the net be great, and a larger number when the nets are slack. (19) ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... A large ship was bearing down towards us from the eastward. We had our whole sail set, and as the sun shone on it, I hoped that we might now possibly be seen. I was not so sanguine as some of the men had suddenly become on seeing the ship. I knew that too often a very slack look-out is kept on board many ships, and even then only just ahead to see that no vessel is in the way or likely to get there. The topsails and more than half the courses of the stranger had already appeared above the ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... glanced furtively up toward Willem's room in the bedroom gallery above his head. Then he picked up the photograph and looked at it long with eyes full of trouble and apprehension. It was the full-length cabinet likeness of a plainly dressed young woman with a pretty, slack face. And the face's weakness was half redeemed by a stamp of settled sadness that was not devoid of a ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... together. You are both of you negligent of social duties—duties they are, Ruthie, for man was not born to serve alone—though Phil is far better than you, with your queer habits, and Heaven only knows where you got them, neither your father nor your dear sainted mother was slack ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... silence his comrade commenced to struggle into his underclothes and "fatigue-slacks." Yorke snapped the line and reeled in the slack. "Stiff!" he kept ejaculating "stiff! Yes, by gad! and I can make a pretty good guess who that stiff is! . . . Burke'll have all the evidence he wants—now. You beat it, Reddy, as soon as you're fit ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... well in double harness, it seems to me," he responded. "I can't see that either is taking all the load while the other soldiers and lets the traces slack." ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... I seized it with my hands, below the part that gave; then—one fierce little run back—and I brought him level with the edge. He clutched at Elsie's hand. I turned thrice round, to wind the slack about my body. The taut rope cut deep into my flesh; but nothing mattered now, except to save him. 'Catch the cloak, Elsie!' I cried; 'catch it: pull him gently in!' Elsie caught it and pulled him in, with wonderful pluck and calmness. We hauled him over ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... half-fainting form of the Leopard Woman. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her muscles had all gone slack, so that her body felt soft and warm. Kingozi, waiting, remembered her as she had looked the evening of his call—silk-clad, lithe, proud, with blood-red lips, and haughty, fathomless eyes, and the single ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... better tieing are employed than is usual. It takes four strands of No. 10 to give the same working stress as a -in. threaded rod and the tieing in of four strands of wire so that they will be without slack and give is a task requiring some skill. Bolts are much more easily placed and made tight. In the matter of cost of metal left in the wall, the question is between the cost of scrap gas pipe and of wire; the pound ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... was alvays going on, and on holidays one disregarded it as a matter of course. Week-davs, in the slack time after the midday meal, then perhaps one might worry about the Empire and international politics; but not on a sunny Sunday, with a pretty girl trailing behind one, and envious cyclists trying to race you. Nor did our young people attach any great ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... in the captive's place, Scarcely could see the outline of his face. I smiled, and laid my cheek against his back: "Loose thou my hands," I said. "This pace let slack. Forget we now that thou and I are foes. I like thee well, and wish to clasp thee close; I like the courage of thine eye and brow; I like thee better than my ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... round-cheeked, blue-eyed rogue who takes my thumb in all his fingers when we go walking. His jumpers are slack behind and they wag from side to side in an inexpressibly funny manner, but this I am led to believe springs not from any special genius but is common to all children. It is only recently that he learned to walk, for although he was forward ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... than these might endanger the peace was shown about the same time at certain Tennessee mines where prevailed the bad system of farming out convicts to compete with citizen-miners. Business being slack, deserving workmen were put on short time. Resenting this, miners at Tracy City, Inman, and Oliver Springs summarily removed convicts from the mines, several of these escaping. At Coal Creek the rioters were resisted by ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the sound of the lone sentry's tread As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, And he thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed, Far away in the cot on the mountain. His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim, Grows gentle with memories tender, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, For their mother,—may Heaven ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... which were her native trade. In busy times she could afford to hire over one of the Saltash fish-women—the Johnses or the Glanvilles; you'll have heard of them, maybe?—to lend her a hand: but in anything like a slack season she'd be down at low water, with her petticoat trussed over her knees, raking cockles with her own hands. Yes, yes, a powerful, a remarkable woman! and a pity it was (I've heard my mother say) to see such a healthy, strong couple ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... powers developing, and glory in the thought that they have been given him for his own joy and that of humanity. Then when temptation comes to him, and he remembers how its indulgence has left him slack and bored, it will seem to him like a candle-flame in the sun of his happiness, a wretched little mean and unworthy thing breaking in on and threatening to ruin the peace and harmony of his life. And so he will ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... pilot on board the Resolution, who imagined the tide was setting against us. In this, however, he was much deceived; as we found, upon making the experiment, that it set to the northward till ten o'clock. The next morning he fell into a similar mistake; for, at five, on the appearance of slack water, he gave orders to get under weigh; but the ignorance he had discovered, having put us on our guard, we chose to be convinced, by our own observations, before we weighed; and, on trying the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... that work was unusually slack in his own yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in order to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was on night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord therefore of his days. But ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... standing to arms while others ate; but dinner-time is slack time, even among animals, and it was close ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... years we've known. You can't do it. This war won't last forever—" Mr. Doolittle's voice was tinged with regret—"and it will be time enough to go in for playing the deuce with business when business gets slack again. That's the time for reforms, George,—when ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... anticipation of an immediate advance east, feared that such an obstacle would hamper them. When I saw Foch on this afternoon, however, he was all in favour of the inundation. He told me he thought the enemy was very "slack" in the north, that fresh French troops were being landed at Dunkirk, and that he still expected to see his hopes of an early advance realized. It was impossible to be closely associated with Foch and not come under the spell of his sanguine temperament, which was always a ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... talk in that way before Sally, father, for her head is full of all sorts of vanity now; and as to Mara, I never did see a more slack-twisted, flimsy thing than she's grown up to be. Now Sally's learnt to do something, thanks to me. She can brew, and she can make bread and cake and pickles, and spin, and cut, and make. But as to Mara, what does she do? Why, she paints pictur's. Mis' Pennel was a-showin' ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... steed,—his slack hand fell; upon the silent face He cast one long, deep, troubled look, then turned from that sad place. His hope was crushed, his after fate untold in martial strain: His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... fields—perforce they were no more than slaves. As for the vital industries, everything prospered. The members of the great labor castes were contented and worked on merrily. For the first time in their lives they knew industrial peace. No more were they worried by slack times, strike and lockout, and the union label. They lived in more comfortable homes and in delightful cities of their own—delightful compared with the slums and ghettos in which they had formerly ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... being slack for a short distance, we shifted the Hecla half a mile to the northward, into a less insecure berth. I then walked to a broad valley facing the sea near us, where a considerable stream discharged itself, and where, in passing ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... was a grey-headed man, slack in the twist but limber in the joints—distinguished by a constant lowering of the eye and a spasmodic twitching of the corners of the mouth. He was active and nimble, and in moments of excitement much given to spitting Gaelic oaths like a wild-cat. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... infantile knuckles with harness soap. Out of the love that he bore for the beautiful dumb brutes grew an understanding that in time became almost uncanny. All the jockeys and hostlers said there was magic in the lad's hands. He could ride anything on hoofs with a slack rein; and the worst biter in the stable would take a bridle from him as ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... said Morley, turning it over and over admiringly. "If that isn't the cleverest thing I ever saw. This little screw regulates the slack, doesn't it? Does your legal mind get on ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... hazardous passage from one ship to the other. The "Thisbe" had but slight way on her; the hawser was consequently somewhat slack, and the weight of the people on it brought it down into the water. The lieutenant and several of the men clung on, but the midshipman was by some means or other washed off. Unable to swim, he cried out ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... find we are in a great fright about Plunket's motion on the 16th. The Opposition are fortunately split upon it, but our country support is very slack upon it, and if Plunket don't make a better case than he did before, we shall be in a scrape—in fact, it will come to the question of whether the Irish Government is to stand or fall, or whether the Catholic or Protestant ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... or finally by a lacustrine or marine basin which receives its waters. Wherever it lets fall solid material, its channel is raised in consequence, and the declivity of the whole bed between the head of the embankment and the slack of the stream is reduced. Hence the current, at first accelerated by confinement, is afterwards checked by the mechanical resistance of the matter deposited, and by the diminished inclination of its channel, and then begins again to let fall the earth it holds in suspension, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... to Van der Kemp, who deftly caught it and held on tight. Another was flung to Moses, who also caught it and held on—slack. At the same moment, Nigel saw a large block with a hook attached ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... weak and faint desire Strive against God most high— Never be slack in service, never tire Of sacred loyalty; Nor fail to wend unto the altar-side, Where with the blood of kine Steams up the offering, by the quenchless tide Of Ocean, Sire divine! Be this within my heart, indelible— Offend not with thy tongue! Sweet, sweet ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... Winter was the ranchman's "slack season"; but Roosevelt found, nevertheless, that there was work to be done even at that time of year to test a man's fiber. Activities, which in the ordinary Eastern winter would have been merely the casual incidents of the day's work, took on some of the character of Arctic exploration in ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... Strange how few, After all's said and done, the things that are Of moment. Few indeed! When I can make Of ten small words a rope to hang the world! "I had you and I have you now no more." There, there it dangles,—where's the little truth That can for long keep footing under that When its slack syllables tighten to a thought? Here, let me write it down! I wish to see Just how a thing like that ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... much as it does in washing dishes. I guess Andrew's books must be some good after all because he surely does mull over them without end. I can forgive his being a shiftless farmer so long as he really does his literary chores up to the hilt. A man can be slack in everything else, if he does one thing as well as he possibly can. And I guess it won't matter my being an ignoramus in literature so long as I'm rated A-1 in the kitchen. That's what I used to think as I polished and scoured and scrubbed and dusted and swept and then ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... rap. A Prussian hussar on a grey horse goes by at a dash. From other shops, the noise of striking blows: Pounds, thumps, and whacks; Wooden sounds: splinters—cracks. Paris is full of the galloping of horses and the knocking of hammers. "Hullo! Friend Martin, is business slack That you are in the street this morning? Don't turn your back And scuttle into your shop like a rabbit to its hole. I've just been taking a stroll. The stinking Cossacks are bivouacked all up and down the Champs Elysees. I can't get the smell of them out of ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... the havoc did not slack, Till a feeble cheer the Dane To our cheering sent us back;— Their shots along the deep slowly boom:— Then ceased—and all is wail, As they strike the shatter'd sail, Or in conflagration pale ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... job. I give you my word on the book that I never raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound Tonga who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... up? It's beastly when a friend marries,—and I grant he's rather young,—but I should say it's the best thing for him. A decent woman—and you have proved not one thing against her—a decent woman will keep him up to the mark and stop him getting slack. She'll make him responsible and manly, for much as I like Rickie, I always find him a little effeminate. And, really,"—his voice grew sharper, for he was irritated by Ansell's conceit, "and, really, you talk as if you were mixed up in the affair. They pay a civil visit to your rooms, ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... voice went on; only when it stopped was she aware of the mother's serene attitude of waiting, of polite regret at being present at a disagreeable scene; then the girl's lips resumed their sweetness, the beautiful hands fell slack upon her knees, the head lifted and, turning, rested peacefully against the cushion of her chair. The table was violently shaken. A small ornament upon it leaped into the air and fell in Kate's lap. She sprang to her feet with a cry of alarm, shaking the thing away as if ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... planned, and possibly are now finished, still other works, by which the perilous roadstead outside this harbor shall be transformed into a secure anchorage of sixteen hundred acres. Past events warrant us in believing that these improvements will be pursued with no slack hand, until astonished Europe finds another Cherbourg, a safe harbor, ample means of repair, and frowning guns to repel all invaders. Imprudent Young France, indeed, whispers now that Algiers makes the Mediterranean a French lake. But ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... the ground, I took hold of the rope and shook it. I am not generally nervous, but I was a little nervous then. I did not shake the grapnel loose. Then I let the rope go slack, for a foot or two, and gave it a big sweep to one side. To my great delight, over came the grapnel, nearly falling on our heads. I think I saw Maiden's Heart make a grab at it as it came over, but I am not sure. However, he poked his head over the ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... supported by a buttress of splendid blocks of squared stone, resting on the rock in the bed of the river, one side being considerably worn away by the action of the water. The longer span was hung very slack, the woodwork forming the pathway was not too safe, and the general shaky appearance was ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... an open one. Things in the trade were slack; and as Soames had reflected before making up his mind, it had been a good time for building. The shell of the house at Robin Hill was thus completed by the end ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
