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Slackness   Listen
noun
Slackness  n.  The quality or state of being slack.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Slackness" Quotes from Famous Books



... satrap: he could easily have incited the province to rebel, for its losses in troops during the wars in Europe had been severe, and a secret discontent was widespread; but Xerxes, warned in time, despatched horsemen in pursuit, who overtook and killed him. The incapacity of the king, and the slackness with which he held the reins of government', were soon so apparent as to produce intrigues at court: Artabanus, the chief captain of the guards, was emboldened by the state of affairs to attempt to substitute his own rule for that of the Achaemenids, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... physically, quite as positively as though she were some old aunt who had for twenty years seemed to be the same adult, plump, uninteresting age. Gertie's solid flesh, the monotony of her voice, the unimaginative fixity of her round cheeks, a certain increasing slackness about her waist, even the faint, stuffy domestic scent of her—they all expressed to him her lack of humor and fancy and venturesomeness. She was crystallized in his mind as a good friend with a plain soul and sisterly tendencies. Awkwardly ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... no other people is for a mission of the spirit. Such a mission was ours till a century ago; we renounced it, because through political slackness of will-power we fell out of step; we did not keep pace with the other nations in internal political development, and, instead, devoted ourselves to the most far-reaching developments of mechanism and to their counterpart in bids for power. It was Faust, lured away from his ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau

... as to the dress of graduates are still in force, and partially observed at conferment of degrees, examinations, &c., but there is consideredable slackness as to them. It is only too common to see a Dean 'presenting' in a coloured tie, although his undergraduates are all compelled to ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells

... may be—they belong to the body of death, not to the body of life, and are "sin." "Call sin a lump—none other thing than thyself," says "The Cloud of Unknowing."[67] Capitulation to it is often brought about by mere slackness, or, as religion would say, by the mortal sin of sloth; which Julian of Norwich declares to be one of the two most deadly sicknesses of the soul. Sometimes; too, sin is deliberately indulged in because of the perverse satisfaction which this yielding to ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... servants and adherents to their law, the steadiness and zeal of their perverse loyalty, and the faithfulness with which they stand by him and each other! How must his heart have distended with false glory, while he contrasted these qualities of his subjects with the insensibility and slackness of his British enemies! This notice has, however, no especial propriety in this place; for, as far as concerns Bonaparte, his pride and depraved confidence may be equally fed by almost all the conditions ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... One would think that there was not much room for choice, but we saw that some are bold enough to hint that the spiritual good may outweigh the bodily pain. They remind us of a Treitschke or a Bernhardi writing smugly of the moral grandeur of war, the need to brace the slackness of human nature periodically by war, the chivalry and devotion it calls out, and ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe

... negligence, scorn, default, inadvertence, omission, slackness, disregard, inattention, oversight, slight, disrespect, indifference, remissness, thoughtlessness. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... came in our way. From La Charite, which was beset in the last days of November, we had perforce to give back, for the King sent us no munitions of war, and for lack of more powder and ball we might not make any breach in the walls of that town. And so, by reason of the hard winter, and the slackness of the King, and the false truce, we fought no more, at that season, but went, trailing after the Court, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... judgement to go against her by default, and began to treat her accordingly. Her confinement was rendered more rigorous, and henceforth the still pending negotiations respecting her return to her own country were carried on with a slackness which evidently proceeded from the dread of Mary, and the reluctance of Elizabeth, to bring to a decided determination a business which could not now be ended either with credit or advantage to the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... way up the shrouds. Reuben found it much more difficult than it looked. He had seen the sailors running up and down, and it looked as easy as mounting a ladder; but the slackness of the ratlines—which, as the sailor told him, was the name of the pieces of rope which answered to the rounds of a ladder—made it at first awkward. When they reached the main top the sailor told him to sit down, and look round quietly, till he ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... appeared before their pickets in a misty dawn in April. But to us they never did come. And the effort to be always ready, with so little hope of ever having any reward, was a real test of discipline—continuing as it did month after month in a country where unrelieved monotony tempted us all to the slackness of utter boredom. ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... missiles, allowing them no repose. Toward the evening many of the French withdrew to refresh themselves and take off their armor; the King himself was of this number; the Flemings, perceiving this slackness, and divining the cause, poured forth from their encampment in three divisions, which at first drove all before them, and reached as far as the King's tent, then in full preparation for supper. The monarch himself, without armor or helmet, was fortunately not recognized; his secretary, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... his work, and, with a boy, work as a rule means study. A boy should work, and should work hard, at his lessons—in the first place, for the sake of what he will learn, and in the next place, for the sake of the effect upon his own character of resolutely settling down to learn it. Shiftlessness, slackness, indifference in studying are almost certain to mean inability to get on in other walks of life. I do not believe in mischief-doing in school hours, or in the kind of animal spirits that results in making bad scholars; and I believe that those boys who take part ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... who had been obliged to tell the vicar's wife about Priscilla's children's treat and who did not punctually return books. I will not go so far as to say that not to return books punctually is sinful, though deep down in my soul I think it is, but anyhow it is a symptom of moral slackness. Emma was quite good so long as she was left alone. She could walk quite straight so long as there were no stones in the way and nobody to pull her aside. If there were stones, she instantly stumbled; if somebody pulled, she instantly went. She was weak, amiable, well-intentioned. ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... each in turn Some splendid task assigning. Hector fix'd His eyes on Paris, and him stern rebuked. Thy sullen humors, Paris, are ill-timed. The people perish at our lofty walls; 400 The flames of war have compass'd Troy around And thou hast kindled them; who yet thyself That slackness show'st which in another seen Thou would'st resent to death. Haste, seek the field This moment, lest, the next, all Ilium blaze. 405 To whom thus Paris, graceful as a God. Since, Hector, thou hast charged me with ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... staircase that she had always dreaded, rolling and bumping with a horrible noise on the wooden steps down to the shop, where the electric lights had just been switched on. She rolled sideways, and lay, with a curious slackness in her limbs, in front of the cashier's desk. One of the shopmen, startled by the noise, turned, and then, with a look of horror on his face, ran to the door. He bumped into Jonah, who was coming ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... Corner, I see "Socialist Notes" filled, month after month, with a monotonous tale, "there is a reduction of wages at" such and such a place; so many "men have been discharged at ——-, owing to the slackness of trade." Our hearts sank lower and lower as summer passed into autumn, and the coming winter threatened to add to starvation the bitter pains of cold. The agitation for the eight hours' day increased in strength as the unemployed grew more numerous week by week "We can't stand it," a sturdy, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... the night did a crafty something which to the pony was altogether unaccountable. He unloosed both front and rear cinch of his saddle, so they hung entirely free in wide bands beneath the pony's belly. He tested their slackness with his hand several times, stopping instantly when the more and more surprised pony turned his head to see what new thing in his experience might be going on, and, seeing, gave a delicate bounce ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... easy-going good temper. And to the consternation of an already thoroughly demoralized team, it brought also the serving out, in a heap as before—this cruel and messy trick, more perhaps than any other one thing, marked the men's wretched slackness and incompetence; qualities generally more cruel in their effects than any harshness or over-severity—of fish representing in the aggregate rather less than half a day's ration for each ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... much when their anger is fierce, as that when it is appeased they do not punish at all, but forget the matter entirely, and resemble lazy rowers, who lie in harbour when the sea is calm, and then sail out to their peril when the wind gets up. So we, condemning reason for slackness and mildness in punishing, are in a hurry to punish, borne along by passion as by a dangerous gale. He that is hungry takes his food as nature dictates, but he that punishes should have no hunger or thirst for it, nor ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... we have now adduced, it is obvious what is meant by such phrases as a brisk demand, and a rapid circulation. There is a brisk demand and a rapid circulation, when goods, generally speaking, are sold as fast as they can be produced. There is slackness, on the contrary, and stagnation, when goods, which have been produced, remain for a long time unsold. In the former case, the capital which has been locked up in production is disengaged as soon as the production is completed; and can be immediately employed in further production. ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... a weight Of agony had pressed the Sufferer down: The word, by others dreaded, he can hear Composed and silent, without visible sign 230 Of even the least emotion. Noting this, When the impatient object of his love Upbraided him with slackness, he returned No answer, only took the mother's hand And kissed it; seemingly devoid of pain, 235 Or care, that what so tenderly he pressed Was a dependant on [13] the obdurate heart Of one who ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... Nation is not quite satisfied with the Government, and has been alluding to "the extreme slackness of Cabinet methods," and complains that "situations are not thought out beforehand." The Government, apparently, is now taking the lesson to heart, for H.M.S. Foresight, we read, has now replaced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various

... must not be endangered. Only manoeuver cleverly, and, with that finesse which distinguishes Madame the Ambassadress, endeavor to find out from Mame how many volumes he still has on hand, and see if he will be able to oppose the new edition by slackness of sale ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... bottle a few yards away, in ignorance of the fact that she had an audience. It is a lazy occupation at the best of times and her rendering of it was no exception to the rule. For whole minutes on end she would sit quite still gazing out to sea; and then, as if suddenly realising her slackness, she would continue the ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... morning, but in all my dreams I was sure I was doing some one an injustice in not attending to his wants. What those wants were I could not tell, but a fluttering, whispering, bolt-fumbling, luring, loitering some one was reproaching me for my slackness, and through all the dreams I heard the howling of Tietjens in the garden and the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... my votaries, Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake Should tender, nor pour out the dog's hot life; Lest at my fane the priests disconsolate Should dress my image with some faded poor Few crowns, made favors of, nor dare object Such slackness to my worshippers who turn 80 Elsewhere the trusting heart and loaded hand, As they had climbed Olumpos to report Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne— I interposed: and, this eventful night (While round ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... that life to her was an eternal housekeeping,—from the beginning of the day to the end she was on the job. Though she had a maid this did not relieve her much, for she constantly fretted and fumed over the maid's slackness. Everything had to be spotless all the time; she could not bear the disordered moments of bedtime, of the early morning hours, of wash day, of meal preparation, of the children's room, etc. She was obsessed by cleanliness and order, and her exasperated efforts, her reaction to any untidiness ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... years' standing, the eternal rival, the obstacle to all his ambitions. The other three dignitaries did not advance with the same vigour, and the long cords floated loosely in their weary or careless hands with significant slackness. The priests were indifferent by profession. Indifferent were the servants of his household, whom he never called anything but "chose," and whom he treated really like "things." Indifferent was M. Louis, for whom it was the last day of servitude, a slave become emancipated, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... Shoulders should be long and sloping, well laid back, fine at the points, and clearly cut at the withers. The Chest deep and not broad. BACK AND LOIN—The Back should be short, straight, and strong, with no appearance of slackness. The Loin should be powerful and very slightly arched. The fore ribs should be moderately arched, the back ribs deep; and the dog should be well ribbed up. HIND-QUARTERS—Should be strong and muscular, quite free from droop or crouch; the thighs ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... so reclining the soldiers recognised the Suffet Hanno, he whose slackness had assisted to lose the battle of the Aegatian islands; and as to his victory at Hecatompylos over the Libyans, even if he did behave with clemency, thought the Barbarians, it was owing to cupidity, for he had sold all the captives ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... benevolent Creator. The doctor set aside the question as to the origin of evil; but granted the extensive existence of evil in the universe; to remedy which, he said, the Gospel was proclaimed; and after some of the customary commonplaces, he ascribed much of the existing evil to the slackness of Christians ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... the religious temperament. The virtues are a tendency to mysticism, a need to concern oneself with the unseen; the vices, a non-immunity to fanaticism and bigotry. They came down now from their mountains determined to combat the slackness; the indifference, the materialism of the world. The virus of intolerance was in the air,—a spirit like the germ of plague or any epidemic; one religion catches it from another. Let it be about, and you are in danger of catching it, unless your faith is based on ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... who hail from cold climates retain this characteristic in Africa. Those born in its disintegrating heats are usually overtaken in the early thirties by physical weariness or, as some choose to call it, "slackness" that only fine ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... Netherlands. Making his way out through the other side of the camp he proceeded on his journey. The news was important, for if the mutiny continued it would give the Prince of Orange time to prepare for the forward march of the enemy. He passed several other camps, but observed everywhere the same slackness of discipline and the absence ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... nearly to her waist, was dressed in a crimson satin dressing-gown, warmly padded, and much stained and splashed. She had fine dark eyes, and was young, bold-looking, and handsome; but when she came nearer, the moist pallor of her skin, the slackness of her lower lip and jaw, and an eager and worn expression in her fine eyes, gave her a thirsty, reckless leer that filled Marian with loathing. Her aspect conveyed the same painful suggestion as her voice had done before, but more definitely; for it struck ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... Two spirits at their head Cried weeping; "Blessed Mary sought with haste The hilly region. Caesar to subdue Ilerda, darted in Marseilles his sting, And flew to Spain."—"Oh tarry not: away;" The others shouted; "let not time be lost Through slackness of affection. Hearty zeal To serve ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... like a wooden top from Germany—the land of little carved figures, of large wine-vats, and of humming-tops. The Baron had tried to think; but after passing the bridge at Gournay, the soft somnolence of digestion had sealed his eyes. The horses understood the coachman's plight from the slackness of the reins; they heard the footman's basso continuo from his perch behind; they saw that they were masters of the situation, and took advantage of their few minutes' freedom to make their own pace. Like intelligent slaves, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... the written law, the Pharisee had to take on himself the still heavier burden of the oral law, which was equally binding. It was a seminary education of the most rigorous kind. St Paul cannot reproach himself with any slackness during his novitiate. He threw himself into the system with characteristic ardour. Probably he meant to be a Jerusalem Rabbi himself, still practising his trade, as the Rabbis usually did. For he was unmarried; ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... from the enlargement of the aperture, while the higher tones are produced by contracting the opening. Variations of pitch in the human voice are also effected by elongation and contraction of the vocal cords with comparative slackness or tension, ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

... her left shoulder and as she played she was holding forth animatedly to a girl friend who had evidently dropped in from some store or office during the lunch hour. Now and again the fat man paused in his vocal efforts to reprimand her for her slackness. She paid no heed. There was something gruesome, uncanny, about the way her fingers went their own way over the defenceless keys. Her conversation with the frowzy little ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... impede the march of his mercy to the predestined point; no casualties defeat his great design; and no lapse of years, or revolution of centuries, diminish the ardour of infinite love, to secure the felicity of his people. The Lord was never "slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness;" for it must never he forgotten, in estimating the movements of eternal Providence, that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... has shared by a tax on war profits. The Anglophobe elements in Italian public life have made the utmost of this folly or laxity in relation more particularly to the consequent dearness of coal in Italy. They have carried on an amazingly effective campaign in which this British slackness with the individual profiteer, is represented as if it were the deliberate greed of the British state. This certainly contributed very much to fortify Italy's disinclination to slam the door on the ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... had no great speed with our talk and with our eating; but in the end did make somewhat to hurry, because that we did be conscious that we leaned to slackness. And indeed, we came down then pretty speedy from the rock where we did sleep; and had forward to our way ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... to enlist, the early indifference of the majority of Canadians, the unemployment and distress of the winter of 1914-15, the heartlessness of Germany, Canada stirred by the valor of her first battalions, recruiting general throughout the country, the slackness of the United States, financial and political profiteering in all countries, smaller European nations playing for position, Italy joining the Allies, the debacle of Russia, the awful casualty lists, the return of disabled soldiers, the ceaseless war work of our women, the United States at last ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens

... but that was such a slow business. I still felt that dream and that slackness in my limbs. I was so stiff; that heavy gloom, that slow passing of time still lingered—just as in my dream—in my slow breathing. I still saw that forest and, shut up as I was, with not a single touchstone for my thoughts, I began to doubt if my dream was done and I had to feel ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... the Sidneys, it is true, were sixteenth-century ideals. Eighteenth-century ideals were proverbially low. England, then, had not recovered from the frivolities inaugurated after the Restoration. The slackness and unbelief among the clergy, and the looseness of morals in society were notorious, but this degeneration could not have been universal. There are always a few Noahs and their families left to repeople the world with righteousness after a deluge of degeneracy, and Browning is quite right ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... of slackness in the iron trade, or any other trade the same difficulty might beset the operative?-Yes, he might be in want of supplies. I have no doubt that the operatives in Lancashire and the manufacturing districts often suffer what our Shetland fishermen have no conception of. ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... was vainly engaged for nearly half a year in rounding-up this replica of the Mexican Villa. So demoralized had the army become from long licence that this guerrilla warfare was waged with all possible slackness until a chance shot mortally wounded the chief brigand and his immense following automatically dispersed. During six months these pests had ravaged three provinces and menaced one of the most strongly fortified cities in Asia—the old capital of China, ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... opinion of them; but went nearly the length of Maurice (when mentioned to him) that they had not that specific faculty of understanding which lies beneath the reason. Peel was odd, in the contrast of a familiar first address, with slackness of manner afterwards. The Duke of Wellington took the greatest interest in the poor around him at Strathfieldsay, had all of eloquence except the words. Mr. Rogers quoted a saying about Brougham that he was not so much a master of the language as mastered by it. I doubt very much the truth of ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... the village at arrow's point: but as he had not had time to check up the shortage in his clothes before leaving home, he did not recognize Pio under the description. He told the Indians, on general principles, that it was, as they supposed, a monster who had scented their slackness in religious affairs, and who would certainly call again if they did not amend, and next time would not be ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase

... honorable mode, inasmuch as the accusations came not before them invested with any judicial authority. But an opposite party, headed by Spikeman, strenuously insisted on another course. They contended, that in a matter of the kind, severity, and even what might look like precipitation, was better than a slackness, which might defeat their object. They pressed the point, that such was the number of letters received (some of them by private persons) reflecting on the character of Sir Christopher, it was impossible the information they contained should be concealed from the public, and that, consequently, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... full fast on ev'ry side, No slackness there was found; And many a gallant gentleman ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... the fundamental cause of the slackness or inactivity of the Vendeans, was still more the change, that had taken place in the political and military state of France since the coronation of Napoleon. They knew, that the time when they struck terror into the blues, and made themselves masters ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... harmony in his composition by simply dropping out whatever jars, or suggests a discord, rules also in the spiritual life. To omit, says Stevenson, is the one art in literature: "If I knew how to omit, I should ask no other knowledge." And life, when full of disorder and slackness and vague superfluity, can no more have what we call character than literature can have it under similar conditions. So monasteries and communities of sympathetic devotees open their doors, and in their changeless ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... a woman east or west, and I never will take it. And O sweet-voiced queen," he said, "what ails you to be fretting after me; and remember now your silver and your gold, and your silks and stuffs, and remember the seven hounds I gave you at Cruadh Ceirrge, and every one of them without slackness till he has killed the deer. And do not be crying tears after me, queen with the white hands," he said; "but remember your constant lover, Aodh, the son of the best woman of the world, that came out from Spain asking ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory

... worked a year and a half. She, too, earned $9 a week in full weeks. But there had been only twenty-two such weeks in that period. For seventeen weeks she had earned $6 a week. For four weeks she had been idle because of slackness of work, and for nine weeks recently she had been too ill to work, having developed tuberculosis. Dora, too, did her own washing. She made her own waists, and went to evening school. She had paid $2.75 a week for partial board and for lodging. The food, not included ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... honest in the first instance. With ancestors from both countries, he had deliberately chosen the country to which he felt the greatest attachment. He remembered his long travels in Germany, he remembered on his return his growing disapproval of English slackness, her physical and moral decadence. Her faults had inspired him not with the sorrow of one of her real sons, but with the contempt of one only half bound to her by natural ties. The ground had been laid ready for the poison. He had started ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... most was Catharine's "stiff and obstinate" refusal to bow to his will. Wolsey's advice that "your Grace should handle her both gently and doulcely" only goaded Henry's impatience. He lent an ear to the rivals who charged his minister with slackness in the cause, and danger drove the Cardinal to a bolder and yet ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... went into the holiest to intercede. 'A thousand years with the Lord is as one day'; and after this manner of counting, he has not been gone yet full two days into the holiest. 'The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness'; 'he will come quickly, and will not tarry' (2 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... of men, concerning the strength of our flesh, outward means, in these kingdoms. For as the apostle Peter speaks in like phrase, tho' to another occasion, "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness:" so I may say, no man, no kingdoms, are strong to any purpose, as the Lord ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... clos'd full fast on ev'ry side, No Slackness there was found. And many a gallant Gentleman ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... round at Appleby Hundred, wanting to know, for some purpose of his own, why the redcoats and Cherokees were hanging on so long; and this much he overheard one night when he was outlying under the window of the withdrawing-room. He says she was in a pretty passion at the baronet's slackness, stamping her foot at him and lashing him with the taunt that he was afeard of one or ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... conjecturally rising from a lower floor, called, and a lock was rattled. The woman told Luigi to enter. He sent a glance behind him; he had evidently been drained of his sprightliness in a second; he moved in with the slackness of limb of a gibbeted figure. The door shut; the woman led him downstairs. He could not have danced or sung a song now for great pay. The smell of mouldiness became so depressing to him that the smell of leather struck his nostrils refreshingly. He thought: "Oh, Virgin! it's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... I saw the professor he was in charge of a newspaper kiosk in Palermo, looking older and more dilapidated and still waiting for the manna to fall from heaven. He complained of the slackness of trade. He also complained that the work was too hard and was killing him; so that, one way or the other, he intended to shut up the kiosk and look ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones

... first three hours, the camels were kept going at the top of their speed; but as they neared Berber, there was a perceptible slackness. Ahmed Bey and Gregory rode backwards and forwards along the line, keeping them together, ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... in her physical and moral slackness, she sat and thought with some bitterness of a 'young woman' who had recently entered the shop which employed her, and, by dint of a clever tongue, was gaining the ear of the authorities, to the disturbance of some ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... sport, and his midday meal of cold potatoes had not been invigorating. These he had grabbed, and, having done them up hastily in newspaper, had bolted with them out of the house. He had been fined heavily for slackness during the week, and Mr. Button's inevitable wrath at docked wages he desired to undergo as late as possible. Then, the sun had blazed furiously during the last six imprisoned days, and now the long-looked ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... shoot one of their own class instead of the hated agent is a fact so irresistibly comic as to provoke a quantity of hilarious comment. As laughter dies away, however, another expression of feeling takes place, and the slackness of the master in not being ready with his pistol, and his want of presence of mind to pursue the murderer and avenge his servant's death, are spoken of with the fiercest indignation. But nobody appears to care about the general and social aspect of ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... to analyse. In games at Public and High School Jack was always Captain and Tony his right-hand man, held to his place and his training partly by his admiring devotion to his Captain but more by a wholesome dread of the inexorable disciplinary measures which slackness or trifling with the rules of the game would inevitably bring him. Jack Maitland was the one being in Tony's world who could put lasting fear into his soul or steadiness into his practice. But even Jack at ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... regard the justice of God, neither do they consider the time in which it must be advanced, which will be when men drop under the wrath of God as fast as hail in a mighty storm (2 Peter 3:9; Psa 50:21,22). Now, therefore, look to it all you that count the long-suffering and forbearance of God slackness; and because for the present He keepeth silence, therefore to think that He is like unto yourselves. No, no; but know that God hath His set time for every purpose of His, and in its time it shall be advanced most marvelously, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... other occupants of the tent went out of the lines to play stump-cricket. Silver was in the middle of a story in one of the magazines, so did not accompany them. Kennedy cried off on the plea of slackness. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... a slackness inside the leg and in the hips, Macbluir's clothes fitted me well enough, and presently I reappeared in the captain's cabin rigged out in the mate's shore suit of purplish drab, and brass-buckled shoes that came high over the instep, with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... charge of any description, and during the same period I find that your colleagues on the beat have been exceptionally busy. I repeat that I do not accuse you of neglecting your duty, but these things tell with the magistrates and convey a general suggestion of slackness." ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... elaboration of the sacramental rite, the laity in many parts of Europe came from slackness less frequently to receive communion. As early as Bede, in England, though not in Rome, communions were very infrequent. English and French Synods tried to insist on communion three times a year, but could not enforce the rule. Innocent ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... not by the unreasoning though natural impatience for freedom entertained by the negro—whom Canning had truly described as "possessing the form and strength of a man, but the intellect of a child"—but by the slackness and supineness of the local Legislature, too much under the influence of the timid clamors of the planters to listen to the voice of justice and humanity, which demanded to the full as emphatically, if somewhat less vociferously, the immediate deliverance of the slave. ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... progress of business, but looked at him a good deal out of the corners of his eyes, frequently came to poke the counting-house fire for him, and once, as he was locking up for the day (the mill was then working short time, owing to the slackness of trade), observed that it was a grand evening, and he "could wish Mr. Moore to take a bit of a walk up th' Hollow. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... relation, one mood, one emotion succeeds and obliterates the other, till nothing very potent can remain connected with that particular object. But it matters not how different the course of the various emotions which have expressed themselves in movements of slackness, agitation, energy, or confusion; it matters not through what circumstances our vigour may have leaked away, our nerves have been harrowed, our attention worn out, so long as those movements, those agitations, slackenings, oppressions, reliefs, fatigues, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... still the same face which in the earlier acts could be superficially good-humoured and sometimes royally courteous. But now the atmosphere of blood, which pervades the whole tragedy, has entered into the man and subdued him to its own nature; and an indescribable degradation, a slackness and puffiness, has overtaken his features. He has breathed the air of carnage, and supped full of horrors. Lady Macbeth complains of the smell of blood on her hand: Macbeth makes no complaint—he has ceased to notice it now; but the same ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to have troubled your Highness." Yet Lord Grey protests in the same letter that he has never taken the life of any, however evil, who submitted. At the end of the Desmond outbreak, the chiefs in the different provinces send in their tale of death. Ormond complains of the false reports of his "slackness in but killing three men," whereas the number was more than 3000; and he sends in his "brief note" of his contribution to the slaughter, "598 persons of quality, besides 3000 or 4000 others, and 158 slain since his discharge." The end was that, as one of the chief actors writes, Sir Warham St. ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... The slackness of James towards the Popish agents, who had resumed their intrigues in the country, has been referred to. Those best informed in public affairs both in England and Scotland shared the indignation and alarm in the matter which were expressed by the ministers. One day, in the very year after ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... shoulder muscles. In a little he climbed out and helped Mike rig a windlass over the hole. Mike pottered a good deal, and stood often staring vacantly, studying the next detail of their work. When he was not using them, his hands drooped helplessly at his sides, a sign of mental slackness never to be mistaken. He was willing, and what Murphy told him to do he did. But it was Murphy who did the hard work, who planned ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... Family are now used as the boys' and the girls' houses, and are uncommonly good specimens of early Western architecture. The whole village is a pattern of neatness, with flagged walks and pleasant grassy court-yards and shade-trees; but I noticed here and there a slackness in repairs which seemed to show the want of a ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... rebuke, Which might have well becom'd the best of men To taunt at slackness.—Canidius, we Will fight ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... cause, and not look to superficial trifles such as possible variations and improvements in order and machinery, and polity or creed, or anything else, as the means of changing and bettering the condition of things, but to recognise this as being the one sole cause that hinders—the slackness of our own hold on Christ's hand, and the feebleness and imperfection of our own spiritual life. Dear brethren, there is no worse sign of the condition of churches than the calm indifference and complacency in the present condition of things which visits very many of us; it is like ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... Mr Prosser, pushing his head through the open window. 'Laziness—slackness—that's the curse of the modern young man. Where shall I tell him ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... Schools admitted by private arrangement. Nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock the most fastidious." Mim swearing most horrible and terrific, in a pink calico pay-place, at the slackness of the public. Serious handbill in the shops, importing that it was all but impossible to come to a right understanding of the history of David without ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens

... have to make two or three attempts before they succeed. This, very naturally, is a horrid nuisance to the constables and magistrates, and gives them no end of trouble. Sometimes, however, the magistrates are frankly outspoken about the matter, and censure the prisoners for the slackness of their attempts. For instance Mr. R. S—-, chairman of the S—- B—- magistrates, in the case the other day of Ann Wood, who tried to make away with herself in the canal: "If you wanted to do it, why didn't you do it and get it done with?" demanded the indignant Mr. R. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... well. As Phorbas I heard of you first, when it was represented to me that you had murdered your late master and been cleared by that indulgent humanitarian, Lollius Corbulo; that the case was a most flagrant miscarriage of justice and that such slackness would breed a crop of such murders unless temptation was counteracted by severity. I then directed Cassius Ravillanus to deal with ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... be mentioned, not an ounce of malice in the head of Wain's house. That by telling the captain of cricket that Mike had shirked fielding-practice he might injure the latter's prospects of a first eleven cap simply did not occur to him. That Burgess would feel, on being told of Mike's slackness, much as a bishop might feel if he heard that a favourite curate had become a Mahometan or a Mumbo-Jumboist, did not enter his mind. All he considered was that the story of his dealings with Mike showed him, Firby-Smith, in the favourable and ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... said unto me, I will liken my judgment unto a ring: like as there is no slackness of the last, even so there is no swiftness of ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous

... she knows about it. But I give you my word she ain't going to lose a good husband through any slackness of mine. You won't find me wasting my opportunities as you ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... had gone to find some silver ore; and Miss Southern gave me a look that made me mad. It hinted that she thought my statement much too thin! Then she remarked that the managers felt that their teachers must concentrate on their work and divided interests made for slackness. In short, as Agatha had not come back, they had got somebody else to ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... time the capabilities of the men—especially with regard to speed—were carefully watched and noted: and whenever there was a slackness of work and it was necessary to discharge some hands those that were slow or took too much pains were weeded out: this of course was known to the men and it had ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... hard work to the trade guilds, as being the chief gainers from the invasion, they maintained central control, authorizing the text of the play, distributing the scenes amongst those responsible for their presentation, and visiting any slackness with proper pains and penalties. Under able public management Miracle Plays soon became a yearly ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... a sigh, 'you're right; it's all very poor and crude; what's to be done? I haven't had the training I ought to have had; besides, one's cursed Slavonic slackness gets the better of one. While one dreams of work, one soars away in eagle flight; one fancies one's going to shake the earth out of its place—but when it comes to doing anything, one's weak and ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... the Highlands—we are to have an importation from Baden or Bavaria, without even the protecting solemnity of a tariff. If this be true, it seems to us that government is bound to interpose by the most stringent measures. It is monstrous to think, that whereas, for many years past, for mere slackness of labour, we have been encouraging emigration among the productive classes of our countrymen to a very great degree; draining, as it were, the mother country to found the colonies, and therein resorting to the last step which a paternal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... victory of the Allies, our failure will not be through any shortage of men, but through a shortage of gear and organizing ability. It will not be through a default of the people, but through the slackness ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... order to skulk out of danger; so he treated them with extreme leniency in only putting them on duty as a 'company of Invalids.' But the slur stuck fast. The only other exceptions to the general efficiency were a very few instances of cowardice and many more of slackness. The militia order-books have repeated entries about men who turned up late for even important duties as well as about others whose authorized substitutes were no better than themselves. But it should be remembered that, as a whole, the garrison did exceedingly good service and that all the ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... known, Hugh Sorel was not devoid of a certain feeling akin to contempt, both for his young master's taste, and for his forbearance in not having pushed matters further with a being so helpless, meek, and timid as Christina, more especially as such slackness had not been his wont in other cases where his fancy had ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... has been but carelessly fastened and has worked loose, and because, by our own faults, we have not 'abode in the truth,' it has come to pass that there is 'no truth in us.' We have set before us in the text the one condition on which all Christian progress depends, and if by any slackness we loosen the girdle of truthfulness, and admit into our religious life any taint of unreality, if our prayers say just a little more than is quite true, and our penitence a little less, we shall speedily find that hypocrisy ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... horizontal. Further it can be completely rotated about its long axis. The table-top itself is composed of a sheet of copper wire gauze loosely suspended from the long sides of the tubular frame. The slackness of the gauze bed permits of an india rubber hot water bottle, or an electrotherm being placed under the animal, and if during the course of an experiment it is necessary to reverse the animal, the table-top ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... what purpose I know not. Nor did I stop to inquire, for, being stung by the taunt of the man-at-arms, I was on Foxface in a moment, stamping upon him with my iron-shod feet, and then lifting him unceremoniously up by the slackness of his back covertures, I turned him over and over like a wheel, tumbling him out of the doorway into the outer hall with an astonishing clatter, shedding knives and daggers as ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... is, we can best know by contemplating the characters which have sometimes lighted up the old times. Men were then devoutly persuaded that their eternal salvation depended on their having true beliefs. Any slackness in finding out which beliefs are the true ones would have to be answered for before the throne of Almighty God, at the sure risk and peril of everlasting damnation. To what quarter in the large historic firmament can ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... to-day, when a poor cousin to the cholera—this cursed enteritis—lays me by the heels; fills me with desperate longing to lie down and do nothing but rest. More than half my Staff and troops are in the same state of indescribable slackness and this, I think, must be the reason the Greeks were ten long ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... and do recommend my Son Leandro the Bearer to you with request that he may be admitted in that Universitie till such time as I shall arrive at home; his studies he will make you acquainted withall; This kindness shall supply the want of your slackness: ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... prayers in Kaffir, and Mr. Robertson preached on the Sunday evenings. The numbers of attendants were not large, and the most work was done by the school that the Robertsons collected round them. The indifference and slackness of the English at Durban made it all the harder to work upon the Kaffirs; and, in truth, Archdeacon Mackenzie's residence there was a troublous time. The endeavour, by the wish of the Bishop, to establish a weekly ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... coming and going of the Greek and Ottoman fleets. They were indeed the decisive factor; for without the supporting squadron Rashid would have found himself in the same straits as his predecessors at the approach of autumn, while the slackness of the islanders in keeping the sea allowed Mesolonghi to be isolated in January 1826. The rest was accomplished by the arrival of Ibrahim on the scene. His heavy batteries opened fire in February; his gunboats secured command of the lagoons, and forced Anatolikon ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... the planters, to their imperious bearing toward the enfranchised blacks, to their harsh expedients for keeping in dependence the large and much the best class of blacks, who wanted to become freeholders, to the slackness and unfaithfulness with which the wages of the people were often paid, to the debasing influences of the plantation, which drove off the more self-respecting, and to the waste, dishonesty, and shortsightedness inevitable ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... suffered from this association. Where the mission of S. Boniface had been purely spiritual, the work of his successors was often hampered by the ambition of the emperors. In the lands alike of Eastern and Western Franks the Church was often led to lean on the State, and the results, of slackness, corruption, weakness, were inevitable. The rich endowments which were poured upon the Church were not always wisely given or wisely used. The Caesars themselves showered gifts: Otto the Great surpassed ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton

... they were still very vague ideas I have no doubt he found me rhetorical. I can imagine myself talking of the White Man's Burthen, and how in Africa it had seemed at first to sit rather staggeringly upon our under-trained shoulders. I spoke of slackness and planlessness. ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... of the community would meet once a week; for their enterprises would have grown, and the business of such a parish community might easily be over one hundred thousand pounds, and would require constant thought. There would be no slackness on the part of the council in attending, because their fortunes would depend on their communal enterprises, and they would have to consider reports from the managers and officials of the various departments. The co-operative community ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... in suing out the writ, and also the slackness of bailiffs, etc., in executing it, see [R. Cosen], An Apologie of and for Sundrie proceedings by Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall (1st ed., London, 1591), 64-5. Speaking of the great charges incurred in suing out the writ Cosen writes: "So that I dare auowe in Sundrie Diocesses ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware

... being hauled mile by mile through the dirty avenues of life. His attention was caught by the ever repeated phenomena of the squalid street. Block after block, mile after mile, it was the same thing. No other city on the globe could present quite this combination of tawdriness, slackness, dirt, vulgarity, which was Cottage Grove Avenue. India, the Spanish-American countries, might show something fouler as far as mere filth, but nothing so incomparably mean and long. The brick blocks, of many shades of grimy red and fawn color, thin as paper, cheap ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... The natives were not allowed to go to their labors, that is, their farms, without permission of the governor, or of his agents and officers, and even of the priests as Morga says. Those who know the administrative slackness and confusion in a country where the officials work scarcely two hours a day; those who know the cost of going to and returning from the capital to obtain a permit; those who are aware of the petty retaliations of the little tyrants will well understand how with this crude ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal

... still be bent, still plotting, where And when, and how thy business may be done, Slackness breeds worms; but the sure traveller, Though he alights sometimes, still goeth on. 250 HERBERT: ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... exceeded the ordinary outlay in time of peace. Alone of all the European princes, Frederic had a treasure laid up for a day of difficulty. Above all, he was one, and his enemies were many. In their camps would certainly be found the jealousy, the dissension, the slackness inseparable from coalitions; on his side was the energy, the unity, the secrecy of a strong dictatorship. To a certain extent the deficiency of military means might be supplied by the resources of military art. Small as the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the grip there is another point of difference. It is necessary that in the making of this stroke the right hand should do more work than the left, and therefore the club should be held rather more loosely by the left hand than by its partner. The latter will duly take advantage of this slackness, and will get in just the little extra work that is wanted of it. In the upward swing carry the club head just along the line which it would take for an ordinary drive. The result of all this arrangement, and particularly of the slackness of the left hand and comparative tightness of the right, ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... with arms folded, his chin on his chest, his long moustache hanging. His back was round and slack, so that the lower part of his abdomen stuck forward, though he was not stout. His cheek was healthy, brown-red, and he was muscular. Yet there was about him this physical slackness, a reluctance in his slow, sure movements. His eyes were keen under his dark brows, but reluctant also, as if he were ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... They have plenty of time for everything. The climate disinclines them to active exertion. There is little immigration. Trade, except in the four seaports,[71] is not brisk, and even there it is not brisk in the American sense of the word. The slackness of the black population, which has to be employed for the harder kinds of work, reacts upon the white employer. I have visited no new English-speaking country where one so little felt the strain and stress of modern life. This feature of South African society, though it implies a slow material ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... clear she must be in a bad way. She couldn't find her places at church as Sally Rann could, she had often been tittering when she "curcheyed" to Mr. Irwine; and these religious deficiencies were accompanied by a corresponding slackness in the minor morals, for Bessy belonged unquestionably to that unsoaped lazy class of feminine characters with whom you may venture to "eat an egg, an apple, or a nut." All this she was generally conscious of, and hitherto had not been ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... Uncertain, heartless, unresisting, fly: Such were the Trojans once; nor dar'd abide, No, not an hour, the strength and arms of Greece; And these are they, who now beside our ships, Far from their city walls, maintain the fight, Embolden'd by our great commander's fault, And slackness of the people, who, with him Offended, scarce are brought to guard our ships. And, feebly fighting, are beside them slain. E'en though the mighty monarch, Atreus' son, Wide-ruling Agamemnon, be in truth Wholly to blame in this, that he hath wrong'd ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... itself in a general slackness. A certain impatience in the manner of Mr. Garvace presently got upon his nerves. Relations were becoming strained. He asked for a rise of salary to test his position, and gave notice to leave when ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... bedrooms by Hermie. The Fifth were prepared for trouble, but to their surprise no notice was taken of the incident at head-quarters. Possibly Mademoiselle was aware that her late efforts at discipline were regarded by Miss Beasley with as little favour as her former slackness, and considered it useless to appeal to her Principal. She took the hint, however, and in future terminated the lesson punctually at the half-hour, so on this occasion the girls considered that they had most ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... good works, according to that passage: "The goodness of God leadeth to repentance,"[184] and that other of the Ninevites: "Let us do penance to see if peradventure He will pity us."[185] And thus mercy is so far from authorising slackness, that it is on the contrary the quality which formally attacks it; so that instead of saying, "If there were no mercy in God we should have to make every kind of effort after virtue," we must say, on the contrary, that it is ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... pluck in every sport they care for, his common sense makes him the friend of Tommy Atkins as well as his officer, and the affairs of his regiment are so admirably managed that there is no enervating air of slackness about the barracks from the first monitory note of "Reveille" to the last wailing ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... precision. There was no lack of understanding, nor yet of authority; but the old continuous interest had quite departed; he grew readily fatigued, and fell to yawning; and he carried into money relations, where it is certainly out of place, a facility that bordered upon slackness. True, since we had no longer the exactions of the Master to contend against, there was the less occasion to raise strictness into principle or do battle for a farthing. True, again, there was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... back on his cushions, a thin-legged, paunchy figure, whose features had lost their shapely mould under the touch of dissipation. The nose hung long and fleshy between the pouched skin of his cheekbones, the eyes showed a tell-tale slackness in the under eyelid, where it merged into the loose wrinkles below. The lower part of the face was covered by a long but sparse moustache, through which at times could be discerned that terrible protrusion of the upper lip that seems the herald of senility. ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... water, he found it difficult to work the crank. The plunges threw him against the coaming, and the sea poured in over it continually. There are not many men who feel equal to determined toil before their morning meal, and the physical slackness is generally more pronounced if they have been up most of the preceding night; but Carroll recognized that he had no choice. There was too much sea for the boat, even if they could have launched her, and he could make out no spot on the beach where it seemed possible ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... ferment in all parts of Italy, portended a speedy irruption of the Republicans into an almost defenceless land where they were sure of a welcome from the now awakened populace. So long as Toulon held out, Piedmont and Milan were safe. Now, the slackness of Austria enabled her future destroyer to place his foot on the first rung of the ladder of fame, and prompted those mighty plans for the conquest of the Italian States which were to ensure her ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... personages so obtained in generally—is in great evidence, and "Lygdamis and Cleonice" supply a large proportion of the early and all the middle of the eighth volume, the second of the Fourth Part. There is, however, much more business than usual at the end to make up for any slackness at the beginning. In a side-action with the Lydians both Cyrus and the King of Assyria are captured by force of numbers, though the former is at once released by the Princess Palmis, as well as Artames, son of Cyrus's Phrygian ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... overwhelming of all theories! And the years are passing; and there are twenty-four hours in every day, out of which they work only six or seven; and it needs only an impulse, an effort, a system, in order gradually to cure the mind of its slackness, to give "tone" to its muscles, and to enable it to grapple with the splendours of knowledge and sensation that await it! But the regret is not poignant enough. They do nothing. They go on doing nothing. It is as ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett

... Laxity.— N. laxity; laxness, looseness, slackness; toleration &c. (lenity) 740; freedom &c. 748. anarchy, interregnum; relaxation; loosening &c. v.; remission; dead letter, brutum fulmen[Lat], misrule; license, licentiousness; insubordination &c. (disobedience) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... [Cheers.] It would be horrible for us to think that those who fall fall through our neglect. It would be a still more ghastly reflection to think that those who fell have given their lives in vain through any slackness or selfishness on the part of any one of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... above themselves. The General Will, on the other hand, represents what is greater than the individual volition of those who compose the society of which it is the will. On occasions, this higher will is more apparent than at other times. But it may, if there is social slackness, be difficult to distinguish from a mere aggregate of voices, from the will of a mob. What is interesting is that Rousseau, so often associated with doctrine of quite another kind, should finally recognize the bond ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... mustn't make a mistake at the beginning," Joe said, hurriedly. "I may not be the kind of man you're looking for. If I went in—" He hesitated, stammering. "It seems an ungrateful thing to say, but—but there wouldn't be any slackness—I couldn't ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... clearly enough to forgive him for his too primitive methods. The pure Osseous boss soon becomes disgusted because the Alimentive is so lacking in system. He usually comes out all right in the end, but the orderly Osseous is too exasperated by what he considers the Alimentive's slackness, to wait for ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... Anacreon may be found here, and that it is all the more sensible because at least in some cases the originals are much higher poetry than the pseudo-Teian. To the form and style of Meleager Moore could not pretend; but as these are rather songs on Greek motives than translations from the Greek, the slackness and dilution matter less. But the strictly miscellaneous division holds some of the best work. We could no doubt dispense with the well-known ditty (for once very nearly the "rubbish" with which Moore is so often and so unjustly charged) where Posada rhymes of ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... demanded from him, before plunging definitely into it, he was oppressed with a sense that the two years lying before him constituted a problem which would be harder to solve than any which had yet been set him. It seemed to him in a moment which was one of some slackness and reaction, that he had been growing too fast. He had been making friends besides in far too many camps, and the thought, half attractive, half repellent, of all those midnight discussions over smouldering fires, which Oxford was preparing for him, those fascinating moments of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... those fowls are going to arrive. They should have been here to-day. If they don't come to-morrow, I shall lodge a complaint. There must be no slackness. They must bustle about. After tea I'll show you the garden, and we will choose a place for a fowl run. To-morrow we must buckle to. Serious work ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... shall be regulated, as far as possible, by the conditions of the labour market, so that in a very bad year of unemployment they can be expanded, so as to increase the demand for labour at times of exceptional slackness, and thus correct and counterbalance the cruel fluctuations of the labour market. The large sums of money which will be needed for these purposes are being provided by the Budget of Mr. Lloyd-George, and will be provided in an expanding volume in the years to come through ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... brother,— Good gentleman!—the wrongs I have done thee stir Afresh within me; and these thy offices, So rarely kind, are as interpreters Of my behind-hand slackness!—Welcome hither, As is the spring to the earth. And hath he too Expos'd this paragon to the fearful usage,— At least ungentle,—of the dreadful Neptune, To greet a man not worth her pains, much less The adventure of ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare

... that day I went into training, and I kept myself in training for many months. I had delayed my experiments for very nearly six weeks on various excuses because of my dread of this first flight, because of the slackness of body and spirit that had come to me with the business life. The shame of that cowardice spurred me none the less because it was probably altogether my own secret. I felt that Cothope at any rate might suspect. Well,—he ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells



Words linked to "Slackness" :   lassitude, looseness, negligence, remissness, laxness, play, slack, inanition, lethargy



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