"Against time" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... himself in word or thought which makes the ancient dry bones stir again to life. "It is better to live rich than to die rich"; "no man is a hypocrite in his {168} pleasures"; "it is the business of a wise man to be happy"; "he that runs against time has an antagonist not subject to casualties"; "the great excellence of a writer is to put into his book as much as his book will hold"; "there are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money"; "no woman is the worse for ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... the aid of Masonic influences, he escaped detection, and accomplished his aim. The result of his observations was a report of considerable length, in which every striking incident of the sale was narrated with accurate fidelity. Although written mostly on the rail and against time, under circumstances which would be fatal to the labors of any man not inured by newspaper experience to all sorts of literary hardships, the style is clear, distinct, and often eloquent. The scene and the transaction are brought vividly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... a great comfort that I have finished the serial story, and "Jackanapes"?—so that I am now quite free, and never mean to write against time again. I know you never cared for the serial; however, it is done, and tolerably satisfactory I think. "Jackanapes" I do hope you will like, picture and all. C—— sent Mr. Ruskin "Our Field," and I am proud to hear he says it is not a mere story—it's a poem! Great praise ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... their heads—that is, except one, and I suspect she is talking in her sleep. They were all here as usual, and Mr. Archibald thought he would break the spell by telling a fishing story. He told me he was going to try to speak against time; but it wasn't of any use. She just slid into the middle of his remarks as a duck slides into the water, and then she began an oration. I really believe she did not know that ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... was lined with bales of wood-pulp stacked ready for shipment. Farther down its length the cranes were rattling their chains, swinging their burdens out over the holds of the vessel taking in its moist cargo. The stevedores were vociferously busy, working against time. For, in the brief open season, time was the very essence of the success demanded for the mills. The noise, the babel of it all was usually the choicest music to ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... competition suited Bert thoroughly. He was as quick as any of his companions, cooler than many of them, and had by this time acquired a very good understanding of the chief principles of arithmetic. He greatly enjoyed the working against time, which was the distinctive feature of the contest. It brought out his mental powers to their utmost, and he looked forward to "arithmetic day," with an eagerness that was not caused entirely by what his father had promised him in the event of his being ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... Bonnet worked busily, glancing often at the clock. She was writing a theme, and writing against time. At one-forty-five her paper must be in Professor Howe's hands. There was a strained expression in her eyes as, elbow on desk, she ran her fingers through her hair by way of ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... Majesty's Council, it being the election day. It was a long sermon, from Esther x. 3. Had much to say concerning the duty of Magistrates to support the Gospel and its ministers, and to put an end to schism and heresy. Very pointed, also, against time-serving Magistrates. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of the Titanic disaster were Washington A. Roebling, 2d, and Howard Case, London representative of the Vacuum Oil Company. Both were urged repeatedly to take places in life-boats, but scorned the opportunity, while working against time to save the women aboard the ill-fated ship. They went to their death, it is said by survivors, with smiles on ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... to me at that time than a place where, upon rare occasions, one dined in splendour, went to a huge and gilded music-hall, cultivated a bad headache, and presently sought to ease it by eating a nightmarish supper, and eating it against time. My allowance at Cambridge had, no doubt fortunately for my digestion, allowed of but few excursions to the capital; but my friend Wheeler lived within twenty miles of it, and I figured him already burgeoning as a magnate of Moorgate Street. Therefore I had ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... chasing, engraving and carving in relief on fine stones and steel, and many others which both in number and in difficulty surpass those of painting. And alleging, further, that those things which stand longest and best against time and can be preserved longest for the use of men, for whose benefit and service they are made, are without doubt more useful and more worthy to be held in love and honour than are the others, they maintain that sculpture is by so much more noble than painting as it is more easy ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... streets they rode at a pace that seemed to Willard Holmes more fitting for ladies' gentle exercise than for two men bound on an errand against time. The eastern man urged his horse ahead, but his companion held back and Holmes was forced to check his speed and wait for the other to come up with him. To the engineer's attempts at conversation the other answered only in monosyllables or ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... family and that Society, of which James and his son seemed to him the representatives. He had made a restitution to young Jolyon, and restitution to young Jolyon satisfied his secret craving for revenge-revenge against Time, sorrow, and interference, against all that incalculable sum of disapproval that had been bestowed by the world for fifteen years on his only son. It presented itself as the one possible way of asserting once more the domination of his will; of forcing James, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... make the best possible use of her comprehensive industrial organization and of her preparedness for war and throw the greatest possible number of men into the fighting line at the earliest possible moment. She was practically in a race against time; and time was with the Allies. While they retained command of the sea the United States and other neutral nations overseas, once their plants for manufacture were completed, could pour ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... anxiously. He knew that out there somewhere another heavy German gun had come into action; he knew that it was a good deal slower in its rate of fire, but that once it had secured its line and range it could practically obliterate the light field guns of the battery. The battery was fighting against time and the German gunners to complete their task before they could be silenced. The first team was crippled and destroyed, and another team, rushed out from the cover of the trees, was fallen upon by the shrapnel tornado, and likewise swept out ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... road. He seldom entered the Sun building in person: the atmosphere of an evening paper, he would say, was all very well if you liked that kind of thing. Mr. Anthony, the Murat of Fleet Street, who delighted in riding the whirlwind and fighting a tumultuous battle against time, would say the ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... resisted, what wonders and what orgies have they beheld! These six giants of antiquity, looking over Anti-Lebanon in the East, and down upon the meandering Leontes in the South, and across the Syrian steppes in the North, still hold their own against Time and the Elements. They are the dominating feature of the ruins; they tower above them as the Acropolis towers above the surrounding poplars. And around their base, and through the fissures, flows the perennial grace of the seasons. The ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Our contemporary tells us, for example, of one momentous writer who was reduced to dictating blindfold "because the facial peculiarities of first one and then another amanuensis" upset her equanimity. Then there is the tragic story of Mr. R.L. HITCHENS, who, being engaged to write an article against time, sent out for a stenographer, who on arrival proved to be a man with a large black beard of so sinister an aspect that Mr. HICHINS was forced to dismiss him and write the article in his own hand. Yet Mr. HICHENSis ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... need for drastic changes in various departments was only too apparent; Canisius not only secured the good he aimed at, but by his tact escaped the odium which so frequently attaches to the crusader against time-honoured abuses. As he accepted none of the emoluments belonging to his offices, he was the more free to insist on the perfect probity with which the administration of the funds of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... returned to the trenches. "'Ere yer are, sir, I've started this 'un for yer," one man shouted. He threw off his equipment, and began to dig as he had never dug before. Each spadeful was safety for another inch of his body. It was fighting against time for protection of life and limb. The work was engrossing, exhilarating. Some of the men were too tired, too apathetic, too lazy to dig trenches as deep as they might have done. They had to ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... his portrait on the title page,) were heeled and tapped for him by the hands of CRISPIN himself. They are still in excellent order, although, in these very shoes, Mr. P. walked his celebrated match against Time, beating that swift old party and doing his 1000 miles in 24 h., 12 m., 30 s. Between Mr. P. and shoes there is a well-marked resemblance. The shoe has a sole and he has a soul; the shoe is both useful and ornamental, and so is he; the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... man, who plays croquet and the flute, pleads guilty to having cultivated the Nine, and affects a simpering pooh-pooh when he is impeached with having inspired that wicked but so witty bit of scandal in the local paper. By singularity of pairing, his fast friend is the muscular sub, who walks against time, and can write his initials with a ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... Dick's gallant race against time had not been fruitless. A squadron of constabulary had reached the ground at the critical ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... realized that all must be risked in one desperate cast of the dice. "I and time against all men," says the proverb. No fresh caravan would be likely to come till spring. Meanwhile they must play against time. Burning the packet to ashes, they replaced it with a forged order instructing the commander on the Pacific to treat the exiles with all {113} freedom and liberality, and to forward them by the first boat outward ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... a dull plopping sound in his brain. Then, slowly, an ache came out of the blackness, and the beginning of sound. He was fighting out of the unconsciousness, fighting against time and the monster who'd ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... nor is this avoidable. I am obliged to leave all my drawings unfinished as the last days come, and the point possible of approximate completion fatally contracts, every hour to a more ludicrous and warped mockery of the hope in which one began. It is impossible not to work against time, and that is killing. It is not labor itself, but competitive, anxious, disappointed labor ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... rather wish, t'were Henryes arme: Who thankes thy painfull quill; and holds it more To be thy Subiect now, then King before. By thee he conquers yet; when eu'ry word Yeelds him a fuller honour, then his sword. Strengthens his action against time: by thee, Hee victory, and France, doth hold in fee. So well obseru'd he is, that eu'ry thing Speakes him not onely English, but a King. And France, in this, may boast her fortunate That shee was worthy of so braue a hate. Her suffring ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... of even a mustang to be ridden downhill rapidly, he kept on with unabated speed until he broke onto the well-established trail which led to the Jordan house. Then a second touch of the spurs brought the pony close to a full gallop. In fact, Perris was riding against time, for he guessed that Lew Hervey, after quitting the trail of Alcatraz, would veer straight towards the home place and there lay before Marianne an account of how the chosen hunter had allowed the stallion to slip through his hands. ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... of war, they were checked in part by a feeling of shame, and partly by considerations of expediency. Still, to go hand in hand with them, to be a party to their proceedings, this they absolutely refused, now that they saw them marching against time-honoured friends of the city like the Phocians, and blotting out states whose loyalty in the great Persian war was conspicuous no less than their friendship to Athens. Accordingly the People passed a decree ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... though modest crow. He pulls down the scale at ten stone and a half and add a pound or two. His previous performances in the pedestrian line have not been numerous. He once achieved a neat little match against time in two left boots at Philadelphia; but this must be considered as a pedestrian eccentricity, and cannot be accepted by the rigid chronicler as high art. The old mower with the scythe and hour-glass has not yet laid his mauley heavily on the Bantam's frontispiece, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... they were—had rumbled along toward the wilderness, one on top of the other, with George Locke and Mike Shannon as pilots, watching for breakers ahead. In the corral, our supplies were being packed on the horses, Bill Shea and Pete, Tom Sullivan and Tom Farmer and their assistants working against time. In crates were our cooking-utensils, ham, bacon, canned salmon, jam, flour, corn-meal, eggs, baking-powder, flies, rods, and reels, reflector ovens, sunburn lotion, coffee, cocoa, and so on. Cocoa is the cowboy's friend. Innumerable blankets, "tarp" beds, and war-sacks lay rolled ready for the pack-saddles. ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... style himself and his friend; and we know how the life of any hack, legal or literary, in a curacy, or in a marching regiment, or at a merchant's desk, is dull of routine, and tedious of description. One day's labour resembles another much too closely. A literary man has often to work for his bread against time, or against his will, or in spite of his health, or of his indolence, or of his repugnance to the subject on which he is called to exert himself, just like any other daily toiler. When you want to make money by Pegasus (as he must, perhaps, who ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... functions, not recognizing the fact, and surprisingly indifferent to it, that the rest of the body had ceased to be of any use a generation or more in the past. And it is remarked that "these thoracic and abdominal organs and their physiological action being kept alive and active, as it were, against time, and the silent and unconscious functional activity of the great sympathetic and its ganglia, show a tenacity of the animal tissues to hold on to ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... get into the habit of giving chapter and verse for every fact and extract; but I am too lazy, and generally in a hurry, having to consult books against time, when ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... his best to appear calm; it was a poor best. At fifty-two one cannot run impromptu hurdle races against time, and show no effects. ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... race against time, too, for dusk was falling, and I knew that it would be impossible to get out of St. Die by any ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... Lincoln said of the song and how he had sung it. But who cares now what Lincoln said? It was something kind, you may be sure, with a tear and a laugh in it, and the veterans laughed, while their eyes grew moist as they always did when Watts told it. Then they fell to carnage again—a fierce fight against time, against the moment when they must leave their old companion alone. Up hills they charged and down dales, and the moon rose high, and cast its shadow to the eastward before they parted. First Dolan edged away, and then the general went, waving his hand military fashion; and the colonel ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... was really a relay race against time. Stations were built at intervals averaging fifteen miles apart. A rider's route covered three stations, with an exchange of horses at each, so that he was expected at the beginning to cover close to forty-five miles—a good ride when one ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... individual, judging from the experience of my friends. Emissions are generally accompanied by lascivious dreams, but at times take place when I dream that I am hurrying to catch a train, or to micturate against time. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... shamed him Allison contrived to pass on to his daughter all such bits of gossip which dribbled down to him; that is, all which appertained strictly to Stephen O'Mara's race against time, and not to the opposition which he was meeting. Her excitement was a bubbling thing, innocent of suspicion or premonition, but he was like a war-worn veteran who stands watching column after column wheel into position, waiting the word to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... one or two of those round him, "it is harder to run against time than against another fellow. You must make up your minds for that; and I would advise you to try to get the two best in our house to enter for each event, so as to get the spur of a close race. Our times are sure to ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... maid selected that moment for answering the bell. Things were getting uncomfortably personal. Tabs had the idea that Maisie had been talking against time till she should hear the footsteps of her reenforcements. As the maid entered, she turned towards her ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... fight at these vast distances to protect our supply lines and our lines of communication with our allies—protect these lines from the enemies who are bending every ounce of their strength, striving against time, to cut them. The object of the Nazis and the Japanese is to separate the United States, Britain, China and Russia, and to isolate them one from another, so that each will be surrounded and cut off from sources of supplies and reinforcements. It is the old familiar Axis policy ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... mouth widened in a grin. "Me, I never went lookin' fer nothin, I wouldn't put under my vest, Joe," he declared convincingly. So that was it! He was thinking against time. Moonshiners as well as would-be murderers they were—and Joe drunk and giving them away like a fool. Casey wished that he knew where Hank and Paw were at this moment. He hoped, too, that Joe was right—that Hank and Paw were drunk. He'd have the three of them tied in a row before ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... other individuals, (in which case his inflexible regard to truth would have been violated, had he affected diffidence,) but with speculative perfection[851]; as he, who can outstrip all his competitors in the race, may yet be sensible of his deficiency when he runs against time. Well might he say, that 'the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned[852],' for he told me, that the only aid which he received was a paper containing twenty etymologies, sent to him by a person then ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... descending to Chambery, where we halted for six hours to snatch a brief sleep. Then on again by Bourg and Macon. We took it in turns to drive—three hours each. While one slept in the back of the car, the other drove, and so we went on and on, both day and night, for the next forty-eight hours—a race against time and ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... against time," she told him. "If I can get you into the cabin before the reaction comes, I can save you. Try with every ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... towers, the dwellings, of a vast, deserted city, one of those, I could not doubt, that had existed before the flood, and which had lain submerged for thousands of centuries; the fretwork of the coral-insect was over all (that worker against time, so slow, so certain), in one monotonous web ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... cultivated in the valleys and plains that separate them. About twelve miles to the eastward of Ukamba live a tribe called Wasongo, and to the west, at twenty miles' distance, are the Waquanda. To-day was fully verified the absolute futility of endeavouring to march against time in these ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... specious arts of make-believe. Wouldn't the pages he still so freely dispatched by the American post have been worthy of a showy journalist, some master of the great new science of beating the sense out of words? Wasn't he writing against time, and mainly to show he was kind?—since it had become quite his habit not to like to read himself over. On those lines he could still be liberal, yet it was at best a sort of whistling in the dark. It was unmistakeable moreover that the sense of being in the dark now pressed ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... a step nearer, "yet if Guinness were in his grave now, I fancy he would think my business of more importance to him than life itself would be." He was talking against time, she saw—talking while he inspected her to see whether she were willfully lying or believed what she said. He was a man who by rule believed the worst: the disagreeable, incredulous smile came back. "These are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... necessary to his well-being, and the boat carried as passengers a couple of men, who, though professional gamblers, Crayme found very jolly company when they were not engaged in their business calling. Besides, Captain Crayme was running against time with an opposition boat which had just been put upon the river, and he appreciated the necessity of having the boat's bar well stocked and freely opened to whoever along the river was influential in making or marring the reputation of steamboats. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... odd differences in the speed of different people, too. Some got on as if they were doing a match against time; others stopped to say a prayer on every step. This man touched every stair with his forehead, and kissed it; that man scratched his head all the way. The boys got on brilliantly, and were up and down again before the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Sanderson, talking against time, spoke so fast. It was too condensed. Bittacy hardly followed that last bit. His mind floundered among his own less definite, less sorted thoughts, till presently another sentence from the artist startled ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... defeat the majority was by talking the bill to death. I never knew this method to be used successfully but once, because in the trial of endurance the greater number wins. The only successful talk against time was by Senator Carter, of Montana. Carter was a capital debater. He was invaluable at periods when the discussion had become very bitter and personal. Then in his most suave way he would soothe the angry elements and bring the Senate back ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... him to eat the china clay, the bleaches, the plaster of Paris, the sulphate of barytes, the scores of adulterants now used to mix with the fibre, and, so far, the wise pages of the old literature are, in the race against Time with the modern rubbish, heavily handicapped. Thanks to the general interest taken in old books now-a-days, the worm has hard times of it, and but slight chance of that quiet neglect which is necessary to his, existence. So much greater is the reason why some patient entomologist ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... against in debate are wearying monotony, over-hammering—too frequent, too hard, too uniform an emphasis—too much, or too continued heat, too much speed, especially in speaking against time, a loss of poise in the bearing, a halting or jumbling in speech, nervous tenseness in action, an overcontentious or bumptious spirit. Bodily control, restraint, good temper, balance, are the saving qualities. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... passenger; and when the stenographer came back the work was attacked with that end in view. But after an hour's rapid dictating, a long-drawn whistle signal announced the incoming of the train he was trying to make and warned him that the race against time had failed. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Writing against time, he is said to have felt like a convict himself. The irregular dribbling out of the story so injured the reputation of the journal that for a time its circulation was reduced ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... submergence of certain Frenchwomen by husbands too old for war, but important in matters of State. They bored me so that I only escaped betraying acute misery by summoning all my powers of resistance and talking against time until I could make a graceful exit. They were, these women (who looked quite happy), mere echoes of the men to whom their eyes wandered in admiration and awe. The last thing I had imagined, however, was that the men would ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... in the light and spoke earnestly. At times he gesticulated with rapid passionate motions, such as one unconsciously uses when deeply absorbed. Now and again, with the bodily motions that we have learned to connect with the French, his shoulders were shrugged expressively. He was obviously talking against time; for his every motion showed intense concentration. No spectator could have mistaken the nature of his speech. Passion supreme, abandon absolute, were here personified. As he spoke, he gradually leaned farther forward toward ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... play, feverishly, nervously, with all the weird force of her nature. She was like a very sick person seeking a desperate remedy—racing against time. It was her habit to take her breaking heart thus to the great masters, to interpret their thoughts in their music, welding their melodies to the needs of her own sorrow. She only had half an hour. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... instead of a guinea and a half, it would not only put a stop to piracy abroad, but the reduced price would induce many hundreds to put it into their library, and be independent of the hurried reading against time, and often against inclination, to which they are subject by book-clubs and circulating libraries; and that this is not the case, is the fault of the public itself, and not of the author, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... words, not things, together; for speech-makers now are estimated, not by the merit, but by the length of their harangues; they are minuted as we do galloping horses, and their goodness rated according as they hold out against time. For example, a gentleman lately coming into a coffee-house, and expressing himself highly pleased with some debates which he had just then heard, one of his acquaintance begged the favour that he would tell the company ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... heard of him, Mr. Richard Bellamy is the kind that seizes on a big chance, and doesn't lose it by running after smaller ones," said Finucane. "If he has played against time and wins, they call him ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... had proved as sleepless from fleas as that of Bukowitza from bugs, and, what with the fatigue of the race against time and the lack of any sleep for forty-eight hours, the next day found me laboring under an attack of illness which left me absolutely helpless, with a raging headache and cholera morbus. I dragged myself out into the sun and ordered my horse boy to bring me a bucket of water ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... burning of the vessel, followed by the long privation and struggle that had lasted through forty-three fearful days and across four thousand miles of stormy sea. All that Mark Twain had to do was to listen and make notes. That night he wrote against time, and next morning, just as the vessel was drifting from the dock, a strong hand flung his bulky manuscript aboard and his great beat was sure. The three-column story, published in the "Sacramento Union" of July ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... conquering an army of aged men took all Alatta for themselves, and their kings reigned thereafter in the city of Zoon. And sometimes the men of Zeenar listened to the strange tales that the old Alattans told of the years when they made battle against Time. Such of these tales as the men of Zeenar remembered they afterwards set forth, and this is all that may be told of those adventurous armies that went to war with Time to save the world and the gods, and were overwhelmed by the ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... with you if you flag yourself, Sir," the boy explained. "That's a Second Camp team from the Technical Schools loading against time ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... had taken a look at the camp just before sunrise, and had confirmed his convictions that it was a bad place for him. He had been to the spring for water, drinking enough to last him a good while, and then he had made a race against time for the nearest bushes. He lay now with his sharp-pointed, wolfish ears pricked forward, listening to the tokens of another ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... morning's Obligatoires, his ardor to cut all the weeds out at once had to be restrained rather than prompted. He could not be persuaded to take five minutes for rest out of every twenty, and he could not get over his life-long habit of working against time. The Altrurians tried to make him understand that here people must not work against time, but must always work with it, so as to have enough work to do each day; otherwise they must remain idle during the ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... adjournment of the legislature, and Judge Folger having spoken against this motion, I spoke in its favor and did what I have never done before in my life and probably shall never do again—spoke against time. There was no "previous question'' in the Senate, no limitation as to the period during which a member could discuss any measure, and, as the youngest member in the body, I was in the full flush of youthful strength. I therefore announced my intention ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... lose his self-command. He sustains no trial that can make him worthy of a divine contemplation. Amongst all the extravagancies of human nature, never yet did we hear of a person who harboured a sentiment of private malice against Time for moving too rapidly, or against Space for being infinitely divisible. Even animated annoyers, if they are without spite towards ourselves, we regard with no enmity. No man in all history, if we except the twelfth Caesar, has nourished a deadly feud against flies[54]: ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... almost completely for the next four days or so. There were excitements, seeing somebody at headquarters, wiring business wires, writing friendly letters against time, steering a forlorn small native and a more forlorn small dog, who were sharing my fortunes, down to the coast. At last I was there, and discussing shipping news with new-found keenness. My prospects of getting off ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... recording the time of a race is looked upon as childish. The reason given is, that horses that have run or trotted separately against time will often show quite contrary results when matched against each other, and that the one that has made the shortest time on the separate trial will frequently be easily beaten on the same track by the one that showed less ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... strong," he said, and went on with whatever fantastic thoughts came into his mind. He was talking against time. He told of the new world his Tao had built, of men harnessing the lightning and flying through the air; of cannon that roared like the thunder and threw death and destruction upon those that the Tao ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... numbers he often contributed from a hundred to a hundred and fifty pages in a single month)—this prodigious haste would not of itself account for the puerilities, the touches of bad taste, the false pathos, the tedious burlesque, the more tedious jactation which disfigure his work. A man writing against time may be driven to dulness, or commonplace, or inelegance of style; but he need never commit any of the faults just noticed. They were due beyond doubt, in Wilson's case, to a natural idiosyncrasy, the great characteristic ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... broke in, with renewed eagerness to talk against time. "It's like being content with words, and having no need of music. It's like being satisfied with photographs, and never ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... events. The strongest evidence, however, lies in the atmosphere of truth that pervades Chapters LV.-LVII. of Lavengro. They are convincing. At one time or another during his career, it would appear that Borrow wrote against time from grim necessity; otherwise he must have been a master of invention, which everything that is known about him clearly ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... edition of "South on the Bones." He went early to college and studied pneumatics. He then came home, talked eternally, and played upon the French-horn. He patronized the bagpipes. Captain Barclay, who walked against Time, would not walk against him. Windham and Allbreath were his favorite writers,—his favorite artist, Phiz. He died gloriously while inhaling gas—levique flatu corrupitur, like the fama pudicitae in Hieronymus. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... per day, in ditches well prepared. Indeed, we have seen our man James, lay twelve rods of two-inch tiles, in a four-foot ditch, in forty-five minutes, when he was not aware that he was working against time. This is at the rate of sixteen rods an hour, which would give just 160 rods, or a half-mile, in a day of ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... a youngster. Even before landing, the pilot had assured me that a "baby" was on sale at the Comptoir, but on inquiry it proved to have died. I was by no means sanguine of success—when the fight is against Time, the Old Man usually wins the day. The short limits of my trip would not allow me to wander beyond the coast and the nearer riverine regions, where frequent villages and the constant firing of muskets have taught all wild animals that flight is ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... "We're playing against time," I added. "Every day we leave the King where he is there is fresh risk. Every day I masquerade like this, there is fresh risk. Sapt, we must play high; we must force ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... quite certain that he was, for otherwise things wouldn't revolve around him in such funny long sweeps. Then his mind was suddenly clear again. The Claflin quarter was hurling his signals out hurriedly, despairingly, fighting against time. Don didn't listen to those signals for he knew where the attack would come. And he was right, for once more the blue right guard and tackle sprang at him to bear him back. And then the runner smashed into sight, ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... conveyed thither. If that could be done, we should have no fear of his finding his way back, if not in our time, in that of our posterity. However red-hot he might have been on starting, he would be cool enough, no doubt, on his arrival at the goal; yet we should have no objection to back him against Time for a trifle—Time, we observe, in almost all matches being beat, often indeed by the most miserable hacks, that can with difficulty raise a gallop. Time, however, possibly runs booty; for when he does make play, it must be confessed that he is a spanker, and that nothing has been seen ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... "Speak against time, there's a dear fellow! Spin out the case as long as you can, and don't let the jury retire for at least three quarters of an hour. I know you can do it better than any ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... character the American is apt to wear abroad as well as at home. When he travels, he is wont to be in a hurry, and to examine curious cities as if he were making sharp bargains against time. In spite of the wonderful power of adaptation which makes him of all men the best cosmopolitan, he never is quite perfect in his assumption of another nationality, and he generally falls short of a thorough appreciation of its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... doctor was talking against time. He had instructions not to give her that letter until there could be no doubt of the fate which had befallen the rescuers. A mist came over her eyes, but she bit her lower lip fiercely, and the white teeth left their deep impress. The dog squirmed uneasily ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... death. I have relatives, but prefer to stay here. I am so much more independent. I suppose I shall have to move some day. This part of the city is beginning to change so." Miss De Voe was merely talking against time, and was not sorry when Peter shook hands, ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... cannot tune those discords of narration, Which may be names at Moscow, into rhyme; Yet there were several worth commemoration, As e'er was virgin of a nuptial chime; Soft words, too, fitted for the peroration Of Londonderry drawling against time, Ending in 'ischskin,' 'ousckin,' 'iffskchy,' 'ouski: Of whom we ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Vereker stopped in their walk to lean on the wooden rail above the beach that skirted the two inclines, going either way, up which the waggons had been a couple of hours ago scrambling over the shingle against time, to land one more load yet while the ebb allowed it. They could hear the yeo-yeo! of the sail-hoisters at work on the big mainsail abaft, and wondered how on earth she was going to be got clear with so little sea-way and the wind dead ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... this, Jim Plimsoll," he said. "I'm runnin' this end of it. He's talkin' against time. You come down an' help remove this fence," he shouted up at the smiling Mormon, "or I'll start something. It ain't on yore property and it's hindering the carrying out of ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Beauchamp but that he is now in Scotland, chin-deep in heather, killing grouse against time for a bet of some hundreds, which he has persuaded some simpleton to make with him. No man knows better than Beauchamp how to get paid for amusing himself. I had never heard, and don't believe, that Beauchamp is going to take a wife. Whatever you know of this, pray tell me; and say whose ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... against time, though he wasted few words. All that he said went home to many of the laborers. While he was still talking the whistle of the ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... those discords of narration,[hk] Which may be names at Moscow, into rhyme; Yet there were several worth commemoration, As e'er was virgin of a nuptial chime; Soft words, too, fitted for the peroration Of Londonderry drawling against time, Ending in "ischskin," "ousckin," "iffskchy," "ouski," Of whom we ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... knew South Africa as few men did, said of it that it was an "essay in which for whole pages a truth expressed in brilliant epigrams alternates with mistakes or misstatements which would scarcely be pardoned in a special war correspondent hurriedly writing against time." So dangerous is the quality ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... impulse to shout with laughter. Didn't go in for racing! He was going in for racing with a vengeance—a race against time and the police. What was he to ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... part of these speeches were inexpressibly wearisome, and ministers were condemned to sit and listen to the stale arguments, which were all that the opposition could make. Never before in a legislative body was there such an amount of quibbling and higgling, and "speaking against time;" and it was not till September 19 that the third reading came on, the obstructions in committee having been so formidable and annoying. On the 22d of September the bill finally passed in the House of Commons by a majority of one hundred and six, after three months ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... thrown up strong intrenchments behind them. Most of the guns were still in position to sweep the breaches, and another week, at least, should have been occupied in preparing the way for an assault. But Wellington was forced here, as at Ciudad, to fight against time. Soult was close at hand, and the British had not sufficient force to give him battle, and at the same time to continue the siege of the town; and it was therefore necessary either to carry the place at once, at whatever cost of life, ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... that the old jurist was talking against time. While he seemed absorbed in his tale as were the others, this absorption was only superficial. With their inner senses they all seemed to be waiting, waiting for the dread ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... a half hour before me, while the gorgers in 'Maritime Calais' are busy feeding against time; and while I stand in the place, listening to the wheezy old chimes, I recall a pleasant excursion, and a holiday that was spent there, at the time when the annual fetes were being celebrated. Never was there a brighter day: all seemed to be new, and the very quintessence ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... I am writing against time and the post runner. But you know what kind messages we both send to you. May you have as good a time as possible so far ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... daughter-in-law. But today she had spoken her mind with all the energy which comes of suppression. She had relieved herself with a flow of words of all the pent-up hostility that had been growing within her since that first meeting in this same room. She had talked rapidly, for she was talking against time. The Town Council of the principal city in Derek's constituency in the north of England had decided that tomorrow morning should witness the laying of the foundation stone of their new Town Hall, and ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... a mess to-day you know. It's my cleaning up day to-day. I'm not a bit tidy I know, but I do like to 'ave a go in at things now and then. You got to take us as you find us, Elfrid. Mercy we wasn't all out." She paused. She was talking against time. "I am glad to see you again," ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... to run with lightning speed for two or three miles and fetch back from a given spot a kind of toy lance planted in the ground. Then, having successfully passed the triple ordeals of fasting, stabbing, and running against time, and without food and water, the candidate, under the eyes of his admiring father, is at length received into the ranks of the bravest warriors, and is allowed to take a wife. At the close of the ceremony, the flow of blood from the candidate's really serious flesh- ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... played and won as hard a match against time as I ever knew in the days of my youth. The proofs, happily, arrived by the first post, so I got to work at them before 9, polished them off by 12, and put them into the post (myself) by 12.5. So you ought to have them by 6 P.M. And, to make your mind easy, I have just telegraphed ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... hand and a tool from his belt pouch, he struggled not only against the stubborn metal but against time. That strange mental communication had ceased. Though he was sure that he still received a trace of it from time to time, just enough to reassure him that the prisoner was still alive. And each time ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... provokingly tautologous as a member of parliament's speech, who is in aid of the whipper-in, speaking against time. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... I've rather a faculty for letting things worry me," he laughed. "If one didn't always have to work against time, at high pressure——" ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... of the motor ride against time strung him to the highest possible pitch and he had not quite recovered ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... the battle sight is always used; the firing is against time and at a field target (Target D), and from ranges 200, 300, and ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... half an hour before, and should have sent it out to be mutilated by the blue pencil of a copy editor; but as the city editor had twice appeared at the door of the local room, as though looking for some one to send out on another assignment, both Conway and Bronson kept on steadily writing against time, to keep him off until some one else came in. Conway had written his concluding paragraph a dozen times, and Bronson had conscientiously polished and repolished a three-line "personal" he was writing, concerning a gentleman unknown to fame, and who would remain unknown to fame ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... and the threatening looks of the weather, sallied forth in quest of her. He had gone but a few rods, when he met Mr. George Frederic Augustus, with his pocket handkerchief tied over his hat, and his coat buttoned up to the chin, "striking out," as sailors say, like a man walking against time. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... and the race against time was continued. Somewhere ahead, on the southern trail, a gang of whisky smugglers were plying their trade. Inspector Fyles had said, ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... idyllic peacefulness, the stirring week came to an end. "Its evening closed on a quiet scene of school routine, as if doubt and risk, turmoil and confusion and fear, weary head and weary hand, had not been known in the place. The wrestling-match against time was over, and happy dreams came down ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... suggestion, to convince you that we can't build a ship, that we can't expect to get away from this island by our own endeavours, unless we go about it in the proper and sensible way. That means, first of all, that we must safeguard ourselves against time. We've got to live and we've ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... into his chair, got the confusion quieted, and with muttered threats of the penitentiary for him and everybody concerned in the affair, they got back to business again with the desperate haste of men working against time. And our jury ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... surrounded Martin, all talking admiringly and at once, until it seemed to him that they were talking against time for ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... in a new Preface, that this is "one of the most ambitious and least satisfactory" of his books; and explains that it was written against time, when he was on the verge of a serious illness. It is superfluous, therefore, to criticise it in detail, but one or two points in relation to the ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... back, harks for'ard. No: puzzlement is his portion. Who was who, when everybody turned out to be somebody else? Where was the Money? or more important, Where is the Interest? "Well, that I cannot tell," quoth he, "but 'twas a famous queer Sto-ree!" Perhaps the Baron, reading against time, did not do it justice; or, perhaps he did. Anyway, meeting a Lady-Stevensonian admirer, the Baron ventured to communicate to her his great disappointment; whereupon she timidly whispered, "Well, Baron, to tell you the truth, I quite agree with you. I found it awfully tedious—except the sensations; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... the pelts. Marcel was better than his word. He lived on the trail, and the Indians were given no rest. Keeko, borne on the uplift of success, knew no weariness when the effort promised treasure. They were working against time. Each of them knew it. And Marcel had the whole season mapped ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... deacon led off in a long-drawn debate on sundry matters of no importance, and of less interest to the audience, members of which attempted in vain, by motions and votes, to cut it short. When it had become sufficiently apparent that the gentlemen were "talking against time" to prevent speaking, there were calls for speakers. The chairman replied that it was a "business meeting, but Rev. Mr. ——, from Illinois, would lecture in the evening." Several gentlemen rose to protest. One said he "had walked seven miles that his wife and daughters might ride, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... with the intention of talking against time, with the hope that some one might happen along, and assist in capturing ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... in Chicago was remarkable in many respects. All the sessions were good. There was no talking against time. There were no displays of eloquence. No one spoke for effect. The ruling desire seemed to be to get at the facts, and to learn ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... dark at the beck of a woman's smile, a woman who was another man's wife, but a woman who had set on fire a whole circle of men of which he was a part. He was riding against all caution to win a bet, riding against time to get there before two other men who were riding as hard from other directions to win the woman who belonged to an absent husband, win her and run away with her if he could. It was the culmination ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... run, breathe as in walking, keeping the body slightly bent forward, and the elbows gripped close to the sides. Under no circumstances start out by competing with any one, or by trying to run against time. Such a course will result in final failure, and may bring on ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... in the woods, sometimes walking against time among the hills, sometimes seated on the ground, brooding. The night was without breath, without coolness. Occasionally he climbed a rounded elevation from which the clubhouse was discernible. No lights twinkled among the barren trees. All in that wilderness seemed asleep save himself. ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... shells—can we keep ahead of them with guns and our ammunition? That means everything. These men have the nerve to go through these infernos, provided their friends at home do not desert them. If the munition worker could see what I have seen, he would toil as though he were racing against time to save ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... to the place that contains it. Perhaps the eye of the critic cannot point out a fault, which the hand of the artist can mend: perhaps too, the attentive eye cannot survey this pile of building, without communicating to the mind a small degree of pleasure. If the materials are not proof against time, it is rather a misfortune to be lamented, than an error to be complained of, the country ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... know. Poor Snap' (stooping down to fondle him, and at the same time to hide her face from me, for she was talking against time to conceal her great confusion and agitation at seeing me. That was ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker's mind. He that runs against time has an ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... manoeuvring; and I'm not ashamed to confess that I'm no match for him. He was in here one day when I had the Haygarth pedigree spread out on the table, and I know he smelt a rat. We must beware of him, Hawkehurst, and we must work against time if we don't want him to ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... this fact has largely lowered the artistic ideals and debased the artistic taste in Japan appears to be the general opinion. Much of the present-day work of Japan in lacquer, as in other articles, is certainly to my mind artistic and beautiful in the extreme, but obviously, men working almost against time to turn out "curios," for which there is a persistent demand on the part of visitors who are not always by temperament or training fitted to appreciate the artistic or the beautiful, are unlikely to produce such fine or original ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery |
