"Insecure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... This was his ordeal, to sit, nerveless and insecure, on the brink of the precipice. But Hazard, lying safely in his crevice, now had to face his own ordeal, but one of a different nature. When Gus began to slide—as he soon must—would he, Hazard, be able to take in the slack and then meet the shock as the other tautened the rope ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... between the houses Commercial Questions Irish Manufactures East India Companies Fire at Whitehall Visit of the Czar Portland's Embassy to France The Spanish Succession The Count of Tallard's Embassy Newmarket Meeting: the insecure State of the Roads Further Negotiations relating to the Spanish Succession The King goes to Holland Portland returns from his Embassy William is ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and soon the expected troops arrived, and the expedition started for White River to join Captain Brent. The captain was stationed there to impress Red Cloud, and had written to headquarters that this chief did not seem impressed very deeply, and that the lives of the settlers were insecure. Reinforcements were accordingly sent to him. On the evening before these soldiers left Laramie, news came from the south. Toussaint had escaped from jail. The country was full of roving, dubious Indians, and with the authentic news went a rumor that the jailer had received various ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... doctrine of evolution, as applied to the organic world, took in Darwin's hands, would prove to be final or not, was, to me, a matter of indifference. In my earliest criticisms of the Origin I ventured to point out that its logical foundation was insecure so long as experiments in selective breeding had not produced varieties which were more or less infertile; and that insecurity remains up to the present time. But, with any and every critical doubt which my sceptical ingenuity could suggest, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... perpetually founding new Orders. An asceticism thus enforced could not always be accompanied by the ardent exaltation necessary to maintain it, and in its artificial efforts at self-preservation it frequently fell from its insecure heights to the depths of unrestrained license.[77] This fatality of all hazardous efforts to overpass humanity's normal limits begun to be realized after the Middle Ages were over by clear-sighted thinkers. "Qui veut faire l'ange," said Pascal, pungently summing up this view of the matter, "fait ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and frosts of the chill sea-air in that exposed situation might be death to him in his weak state; or whether he had better climb the next hill, and pierce the depth of some shady wood, in which he might find a warm and sheltered though insecure repose, subject to the approach of any wild beast that roamed that way. Best did this last course appear to him, though with some danger, as that which was more honourable and savoured more of strife and self-exertion, than to perish without a struggle the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the end of the ladder and slid down a rope. He felt curiously corky and insecure, but still when he reached the bottom he sank up to his knees in impalpable mud. He could foggily see Tazzuchi a few paces away waiting for him, and he went up to him at once. If the men in the boat, acting on orders, cut his air-tube, he wanted ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Washington to commit it. All this would be proved by unimpeachable witnesses. The attorney added that the duty of the jury, however painful it might be, would be plain and simple. They were citizens, husbands, perhaps fathers. They knew how insecure life had become in the metropolis. Tomorrow our own wives might be widows, their own children orphans, like the bereaved family in yonder hotel, deprived of husband and father by the jealous hand of some murderous female. The attorney sat ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... and that "Magnus of Angus was the son of a sister of a former Earl of Caithness," and states that "Skene's arguments are plausible, but there is no very good evidence in support of them." Skene's argument rests mainly on the names "Johanna" and "Magnus," by itself an insecure foundation, and one which it is hoped to explain or remove, adopting the argument from "Magnus," a name which constantly recurs, and rejecting the argument from "Johanna," a name which never again ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... occurred to anyone that actors might also be remunerated in a similar way. In olden days the actor's profession was not favourably regarded by the general public; his social position was particularly insecure; he was looked upon as of close kin to the rogue and the vagabond, and with degrading possibilities in connection with the stocks and whipping-post never wholly remote from his professional career. An Elizabethan player, presuming to submit his personal claims and merits to the consideration ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... country around Cross creek, (now Fayetteville,) and on to the immediate vicinity of Wilmington. Here Gen. Rutherford created a belief before his arrival that his forces were much larger than they really were. In consequence of this belief Major Craig, in command of the post, deeming his situation then insecure, immediately evacuated Wilmington and fled to Charleston. This was the only post in North Carolina held by the British, and with the flight of Craig all military operations ceased within her borders. This campaign closed the Revolutionary ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... emperors who from a private station arrived at the empire by corrupting the soldiery. They sustained their elevation only by the pleasure and fortune of those who advanced them, two foundations equally uncertain and insecure. They had neither the experience nor the power necessary to maintain their position. For, unless men possess superior genius or courage, how can they know in what manner to govern others who have themselves always been accustomed to a private station? ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... the walls with respect to apparent solidity and stability, it was found that nearly all are in fair or good condition. The only portion that would seem in special danger is the central section of the southern exterior wall. This section seems insecure, and might at any time be overthrown by a heavy wind following a rain storm. This section was not, unfortunately, braced or tied to the stronger interior wall when the protective works were ...
— The Repair Of Casa Grande Ruin, Arizona, in 1891 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... whole is seen at a glance, and there is little of the mystery and shadow generally to be found in a large Gothic interior. Also the actual design of the pillars is poor. They do not fit well on to the arches above them. They seem almost insecure. ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... and interesting, but the ride was spoiled by my insecure seat in my saddle, and the increased pain in my spine which riding produced. Once in crossing a stream the horses have to make a sort of downward jump from a rock, and I slipped round my horse's neck. Indeed ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... the Rattlesnake Mountains, where often the indistinct trail led him through dark and narrow defiles, or along the brink of dangerous precipices, where the ground was of loose stones, perilously insecure. The mountain torrents, swollen by recent rains, had to be crossed unhesitatingly, and without the help of bridges. But all these dangers and difficulties were familiar to him, and he passed through ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... about 12,800 feet, I found myself at the foot of a sheer drop in the bed of the avalanche channel I was tracing, which seemed absolutely to bar further progress. It was only about forty-five or fifty feet high, and somewhat roughened by fissures and projections; but these seemed so slight and insecure, as footholds, that I tried hard to avoid the precipice altogether, by scaling the wall of the channel on either side. But, though less steep, the walls were smoother than the obstructing rock, and ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... insecure place, and crawled, with stoppages, along the poop. In the dark and on all fours he resembled some carnivorous animal prowling amongst corpses. At the break, propped to windward of a stanchion, he looked down on the main deck. It seemed to him that the ship had a tendency to stand ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... I think so, too, and wish every hour in the day that the sheriff had been less cautious. Oliver cannot be tried until next May, when the general court meets, and I am greatly distressed over this fact, for the jail is old and most insecure, and he may get out at any time. The fear and dread of him is on my ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... country in different portions of the State. These grants had not been respected by the succeeding Governments, or else the records had been lost or carried from the country for a time; hence very many conflicting claims made insecure the titles of the proprietors now settled upon these tracts, and were fruitful of endless litigation. To remedy this evil, a statute was recommended by Governor Poindexter and enacted into a law, compelling suit to be commenced by all adverse claimants by a certain day. This effectually ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... to come. Thy title disputed, thy principality new and unestablished, thou, above all men, must link thy new race with the ancient line of kings and kaisars. Matilda is the descendant of Charlemagne and Alfred. Thy realm is insecure as long as France undermines it with plots, and threatens it with arms. Marry the daughter of Baldwin—and thy wife is the niece of Henry of France—thine enemy becomes thy kinsman, and must, perforce, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... general with the knowledge that there was no one fit to supply his place, dispirited the Mexicans, and they retreated; but since that time they have proved to the Texans how insecure they are, even at this moment England and other European governments have thought proper, very hastily, to recognize Texas, but Mexico has not, and ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... and retraced our steps along the edges of chasms where the ice was disintegrated and insecure, and succeeded at length in finding a bridge which bore us across the crevasse. This error caused us the loss of an hour, and after walking for this time we could cast a stone from the point we had attained to the place whence we had been compelled ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... entered by the window. The building, which was new and of brick, showed very little damage from the flood, but in far different case was the one opposite, on which his eyes were eagerly bent, and whose cheap and insecure foundations he could see the flood was already undermining. There were boats around the house, and men hurriedly removing trunks and valuables, but the one figure he expected to see was not there. He tied his own boat to the window; there was evidently no chance of an interview now, but ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... it was really a little harder than they had bargained for, because of their insecure footing. Accordingly, after several attempts that did not meet with much success, Tom had the other end of the rope carried to the scouts who were ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... means a sly dog, was indeed absurd; but it is fair to say that in comparison with Dickens he felt himself a man of the world. Nevertheless, that world of which he was a man is coming to an end before our eyes; its aristocracy has grown corrupt, its middle class insecure, and things that he never thought of are walking about the drawing-rooms of both. Thackeray has described for ever the Anglo-Indian Colonel; but what on earth would he have done with an Australian Colonel? What can it matter whether Dickens's ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... ate peppermints, dusted their fingers, folded their hands, composed their lower thoughts, and invited the naked muse of poetry to deliver her most improving message. They had greeted Carol affectionately, and she tried to be a daughter to them. But she felt insecure. Her chair was out in the open, exposed to their gaze, and it was a hard-slatted, quivery, slippery church-parlor chair, likely to collapse publicly and without warning. It was impossible to sit on it without folding the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... personal interest of the sovereign in the elevation of those able servants of the crown. The consequence was, success in all the enterprises of Catharine, the rapid advance of the nation in European influence, the establishment of an insecure throne on the strongest footing of public security, the popularity of a despotism, the comparative civilization of a people half Asiatic, and who but half a century before had been barbarians, and the personal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... 3, 27, xv. 8, xvi. 6; but this would be an equally appropriate and almost more necessary warning in post-exilic times, especially upon the lips of men whose profession was in part that of moral education. [Footnote 1: The text of xxix. 18a is too insecure (cf. Septuagint) to justify us in saying that prophecy still ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... that, he talked vaguely of conspirators against the republic, and calumniators of himself. There was not a single bold, definite, unmistakable sentence in the speech from first to last. The men of the Plain were insecure and doubtful; they had no certainty that among conspirators and calumniators he did not include too many of themselves. People are not so readily seized by grand phrases, when their heads are at stake. The sitting was long, and marked by changing currents and reverses. When they broke up, all ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... was still an insecure portion of the English dominion. In 1287, Rees ap Meredith, whose services to Edward had been largely rewarded with grants of land and a noble English wife, commenced levying war against the king's sheriff. His excuse was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... helpless, hopeless, or bewildered, but dumb and clinging on; like a man who holds an insecure footing against a hurricane. ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... a curious attitude that she found difficult to explain, but it seemed to her that to tackle Mrs. Considine in her husband's house was dangerous, that it would give to Gabrielle an unreasonable but inevitable advantage. At Lapton Mrs. Payne felt she was a stranger, insecure of her ground, and therefore in an inferior position; and this struck her more forcibly when she reflected that, though she was confident of the rightness of her conclusions, the actual evidence that she possessed ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... clear-sighted personages at the palace. If I were a great lord, instead of being, as I am, a mere country gentleman who seems to be placed where he is to transact your business for you, the monarchy would not be as insecure as I now think it is. What becomes of a throne which does not bestow dignity on those who administer its government? We are far indeed from the days when a king could make men great at will,—such men as Louvois, Colbert, Richelieu, Jeannin, Villeroy, Sully,—Sully, ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... he allowed them to sink into disuse. He forbade the further mooting of the confiscation project; and to him is due the first permission of the bishops to send heretics to the stake.[87] If English tradition is to be trusted, the clergy still felt insecure; and the French wars of Henry V. are said to have been undertaken, as we all know from Shakspeare, at the persuasion of Archbishop Chichele, who desired to distract his attention from reverting to dangerous subjects. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... that Napoleon was much agitated on perusing them, and that he launched into abuse of the inefficiency of the police. Rapp added that he did not confine himself to complaints against the agents of his authority. "Is, then, my power so insecure," said he, "that it may be put in peril by a single individual, and a prisoner? It would appear that my crown is not fixed very firmly on my head if in my own capital the bold stroke of three adventurers can shake it. Rapp, misfortune never comes alone; this is the complement ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Naples?" Violet asked her conductor, with a contemptuous curl of her mobile lip, as she and Captain Winstanley took their seats in a roomy old fly, upon which the luggage was being piled in the usual mountainous and insecure-looking style. ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... house of the manor. It lay like an old frigate storm-shattered and flung aground to rot. The hospitable doors were planked shut, the windows, too; the floors of the verandas were broken and the roof was everywhere sunken and insecure. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... twenty-five years, first to divide, and finally to destroy that which no external force, nor combination of external forces could subdue? Is it not already the boast of the minions of despotism that they have rendered our government insecure? With what jubilation did they catch the tidings of our recent rebellion, as the harbinger of their own redemption from the fate of political decadence and downfall, which our all-absorbing greatness was beginning to make so manifest to the willing apprehension of ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... combined capital under such appellations as the "Metropolitan Co-operative" or the "Universal Supply Stores" endeavours to increase its display behind plate-glass windows of immodest size, the life of old buildings seems painfully insecure. ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... even where it touches higher soil, touches nothing better than the continuation of this clay. In spite, therefore, of the shallowness and narrowness of the upper river there always existed this impediment which an insecure soil would present to the formation of any considerable settlements. The loneliness of the stretch below Kelmscott is due to an original difficulty of this kind, and the one considerable settlement upon the upper river at Lechlade ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... jumped on to the processional biers and were being carried round the hall by staggering youths, screaming with alarm and laughter; if one of them lost her balance and fell she was captured with shrieks of merriment and forced to mount her insecure eminence again. Presently the car of Dionysus came to wreck over the body of an unconscious toper, but no one stopped to set it right; and though the hapless representative of the god howled loudly to them to stop while he extricated himself from the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... nineteenth century knows well how insecure his tenure is. His motto must be, "Let us eat and drink, for to- morrow we die;" and, therefore, the first objects of his rule will be, private luxury and a standing army; while if he engage in public works, for the sake of keeping the populace quiet, they will be certain not to ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... oppose successfully any single spiritual truth. Science cannot overthrow Faith; but it shakes it. Its own doctrines, grounded in Nature, are so certain, that the truths of Religion, resting to most men on Authority, are felt to be strangely insecure. The difficulty, therefore, which men of Science feel about Religion is real and inevitable, and in so far as Doubt is a conscientious tribute to the inviolability of Nature ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... quite reassured by the arrival of the soldiers, and the sight of Rio Frio was very reviving. We got a very tolerable dinner from the Bordelaise in the forest-valley; and although the next part of the road is reckoned very insecure, we had no longer any apprehension, as besides having an escort, the fact that some of the robbers had been taken a few hours before, made it very unlikely that they would renew their ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... rain have disclosed the brown mud beneath. A wooden ladder (with half the rungs missing) leads to the guest-chamber, a large bare room, devoid of furniture of any kind, with smoke-blackened walls and rotten, insecure flooring. A number of rats scamper away at our approach. I wonder what on earth they can find to eat, until Gerome points out a large hole in the centre of the apartment. This affords an excellent ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... rose in a sharp gust, rattling the insecure windows and sighing forlornly about the corners of the house. The door unlatched itself, swung inward hesitatingly, and hung wavering for a moment on its sagging hinges. A formless cloud of gray fog blew into the warm, steamy room. But whatever ghostly visitant had paused ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... Canaanites; for at first, before they were at all discovered, they took a full view of the city of Jericho without disturbance, and saw which parts of the walls were strong, and which parts were otherwise, and indeed insecure, and which of the gates were so weak as might afford an entrance to their army. Now those that met them took no notice of them when they saw them, and supposed they were only strangers, who used to be very curious in observing everything ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... returned Markheim. "It is very pleasant to stand here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would not hurry away from any pleasure—no, not even from so mild a one as this. We should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at a cliff's edge. Every second is a cliff, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... of the past weeks had altered her world, shaken it to its insecure foundations, and inevitably affected her outlook. Life seemed a melancholy thing: how ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... Rancocus, this was certainly not the time to do it, even if it were now to be done at all; we say 'now,' since the visits of the savages would make any species of property on that island, from this time henceforth, very insecure. It was therefore determined to abandon the voyage, and to shape their course back to the Peak, with as little delay as possible. As there were indications of shell-fish, sea-weed, &c., being thrown ashore at the Volcano, two of the hogs were put ashore there to seek their fortunes. According to ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... caution already given, against needlessly opening and shutting the hives, or in any way meddling with the bees so as to make them feel insecure in their possessions. Such a course tends to discourage them, and may seriously diminish the ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... the town and in the schools was insecure. Out of her silent, independent way of life had sprung a misunderstanding that, at least once, had taken definite form and had come near driving her from the town and schools. That she did not succumb to the storm of criticism that for some weeks beat about ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... acknowledged here that Canadians have no answers for such questions and short shift for the questioner. They are too busy making history to talk about it. It is only the woman insecure of her social position who prates about it. It is only the nation uncertain of herself that bolsters a fact with an argument. Canada is too busy with facts for any flamboyant arguments. It is an even wager that ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... and is not too long a ride. The weather has set in suddenly very hot, which rather tries everybody, but gloriously fine clear air. I hope you will get this, as old fat Hassan will take it to the office in Cairo himself—for the post is very insecure indeed. I have written very often, if you don't get my letters I suppose they interest ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... with us to the meeting, when, to tell the truth, he did not shoot as well as usual, for—as afterwards appeared—in riding into Northchester he had stopped to help to lift up a great tree that was insecure on its timber waggon, and even his hands shook a little from the exertion. Besides, Eustace had discovered that Harold's new bow shot better than his, and had insisted on changing, and Harold had not so proved the powers of Eustace's as to cure ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ships and noble argosies, as far back only as 1849 there were no stable docks, no properly constructed wharfs, no convenient landing places. Here only were clay banks, which gave no promise of the great future with its commercial grandeur, and everything was insecure and unsatisfactory, especially in rainy weather, which began in November and continued with more or less interruption until April. The new comer, not cautious to secure a sure footing would sometimes ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... consequence of the almost continued hostilities between the northern and southern Indians, these expeditions were very frequent, and tended somewhat to retard the settlement of the valley, and render a residence in it, for some time, insecure and unpleasant. Between the Alleghany mountains and the Ohio river, within the present limits of Virginia, there were some villages interspersed, inhabited by small numbers of Indians; the most [40] of whom retired north west of that river, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... Elphinstone had strength and courage to meet disaster unmoved, it would have been different. But now, when all things looked threatening, when certain loss—possible ruin—lay before them, when the misfortunes of some, and the treachery of others were making the very ground beneath their feet insecure, could he leave the feeble old man to struggle through these difficult and dangerous times alone? He knew his uncle too well to believe that he would willingly accept help from him, their relations being changed, and he knew that no skill ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... of some loyal gamekeepers on the edge of the forest; but these, not considering their houses safe as hiding-places, took him into the forest, where he lay hidden for three days under a great fallen fir tree, they bringing him food and drink. Finding even this place insecure, he went deeper into the woods and sought shelter under a lofty fir tree which stood on a hill in the midst of a marsh. The place has ever since ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... possible to evade. Hitherto, inquiries into the solar movement have been hampered by the necessity for preliminary assumptions of some kind as to the relative distances of classes of stars. But all such assumptions, especially when applied to selected lists, are highly insecure; and any fabric reared upon them must be considered to stand upon treacherous ground. The spectrographic method, however, here fortunately comes into play. "Proper motions" are only angular velocities. They tell ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... petty, self-conscious American who hates the English, the provincial Englishman who hates the German, the socially insecure German who hates the Frenchman, the Englishman, and the American. Those of us who are poised, secure, satisfied, and at bottom proud of our race, our breeding, and our country, are neither irritable nor irritating in the matter of international relations. We have enough to do, and let ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... against the back wall of snowy marble from Mars' arctic quarries. Besides, that glass, proof though it was against anything but an atomic explosion, still made every true art lover feel disquietingly insecure. ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... rules an infringement upon their privilege of law-making but an infringement upon the civil rights of His Majesty's subjects and subversive of the laws of the province, rendering the enjoyment of liberty and property altogether insecure and precarious, and giving to the judges an arbitrary authority. And the Assembly without further ceremony proceeded to impeach the Chief Justices of Quebec and Montreal, at the instance of Mr. Stuart, the ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... be imagined, under the best set of circumstances for the Liberals. The Nationalist members were still faithful to their alliance, which had cost Ireland so much, and which was to cost her yet more, and this enabled the Liberals to remain in office with a shifting and insecure majority of about 42 when all their ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... plans over; they're very insecure. It plays right into the hands of his enemies, too, and of course Gordon's press bureau will ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... ordinarily large, the system gave rise almost exclusively to great estates; and not only so, but the occupiers of these possessions, which might be resumed by the state at pleasure and were in law always insecure, were afraid to invest any considerable amount in their cultivation—by planting vines for instance, or olives. The consequence was, that these lands were mainly turned to account ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... may have been the origin of chieftainship. The man who made the rain would naturally become the chief. In the same way Chaka [the famous Zulu despot] used to declare that he was the only diviner in the country, for if he allowed rivals his life would be insecure." Similarly speaking of the South African tribes in general, Dr. Moffat says that "the rain-maker is in the estimation of the people no mean personage, possessing an influence over the minds of the people superior even to that of the king, who is likewise compelled to yield to the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... love of discovering a mystery and her insatiable curiosity; and at last led her to thoroughly search Agatha's room for any papers bearing on the subject. Quite by accident she came upon the secret drawer in the dressing-case. The fastening had become insecure, and, trembling at her audacity, Jane carried the packet to her lover, begging him to return it to her when he had possessed himself of its secret. The next move was to get her to leave the study windows unfastened, and here Jane's fortitude ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... few days nothing happened; then, determined to set out on an expedition to La Mancha (the delay had been due to the insecure state of the roads), Borrow sent his passport (24th Nov.) for signature to ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... in the next half hour was the order to let go the anchor, on the point of being given, as the wind baffled, and as often was it countermanded, to take advantage of its reviving. These were feverish moments, for the ship was now so near the reef as to render her situation very insecure in the event of the wind's rising, or of a sea's getting up, the sand of the bottom being too hard to make good holding-ground. Still, as there was a possibility, in the present state of the weather, of kedging the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... would have seen that Carmen played the guitar badly because she was not interested in Jean Jacques' singing. He would have known that she had come to that stage in her married life when the tenure is pitifully insecure. He would have seen that the crisis was near. If he had had any real observation he would have noticed that Carmen's eyes at once kindled, and that the guitar became a different thing, when M. Colombin, the young schoolmaster, one ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the shuffling and chuckling negro, Tom and Ned went to the rather insecure stable where the mule Boomerang was kept. That is, the stable was insecure from the standpoint of a jail. But the sight of the giant Koku marching up and down in front of the place, armed with a big club, ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... country's expense; and so it is with all the other monopolists, they naturally unite together, and it requires their mutual aid and all their combined power and influence to preserve a system which they know stands upon rather an insecure foundation, and if once broken in upon would soon fall to pieces; and thus it is that we are subjected to the sugar monopoly, and though it is manifestly our interest to buy this important necessary of life (as well as every other) in any quarter of ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... laughing, "for no other reason than that it is an uncertain calling—one that is liable to sudden reverses—what is termed gambling—and whatever renders property insecure is sure to obtain odium among those whose principal concern is its accumulation; those who consider the responsibility of others of essential importance ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Pompeii is a truly sumptuous place. Sofas, tables, and chairs in our sitting-room are made of buffalo horns, very cleverly pieced together, but torturing the senses with suggestions of impalement. Sitting or standing, one felt insecure. When would the points run into us? when should we begin to break these incrustations off? and would the whole fabric crumble at a touch into ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... agitated man's cane. Then he remembered that Sanderson was carrying an iron-pointed cane. As Archie smiled and looked about him, he saw on the seat beside him a neat little morocco-bound book with a silver clasp. It had evidently slipped from the insecure dress-pocket of a lady who had been sitting there. Archie picked it up and turned it over and over in his hands. It is a painful thing to be compelled to make excuse for one of whom we would fain speak well, but it must be admitted that at this point in ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... expenditure, and so get into a state of hopeless poverty on a good estate. If there are cases where industrious sober men are the worse for having an old lease, it should be remembered that the most insecure of all tenures is a lease dependent on a single bad life, which may drop at any hour. But there are other causes of the facts urged against long tenures, for which the legislature is responsible, not the unimproving tenant. Dr. Hancock ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... unsatisfactory, and were out of repair and leaking a large proportion of the time. The Kitson lights were given only a short trial, but were found unsatisfactory, owing to the necessity of moving them frequently and having to set them up in insecure positions. Electric lights were installed by Mr. Bradley, on ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... deal of ingenuity in the fruitless attempt to prove that even their dialect has its roots deep down in the soil of classical English. And when their proofs are demanded they are indeed a sorry few. A vast edifice of mistaken pride has been established upon the insecure basis of three words—fall, gotten, and bully. These once were familiar English, and they are English no more. The word "fall," "the fall of the leaf," which so beautifully echoes the thought of spring, survives only in our provinces. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... (c) Holland.—One or other of these countries would have to declare war on Germany unless her neutrality were violated, and in both cases the overseas communication would be so vulnerable to mine or torpedo attack as to be in the highest degree insecure. ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... of another woman. She could not separate him from his genius; and his genius had long ago overleapt the social gulf. And now, without poor Flossie, without the safeguard of his engagement, she felt herself insecure and shelterless. More than ever since he ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... and can see nothing to forbid them now for Ireland if Mr. Gladstone were to take that side. If he did it would be carried against Mr. Parnell by a vast majority of votes. No mere political measure can cure famine and rackrent or insecure tenure; but if the agrarian evil be appeased, no hatred of England on the part of Irish leaders will suffice to make Ireland discontented. If Mr. Gladstone fixedly opposes, if he says 'Honour compels me'—his Midlothian defence of the Egyptian war!—I should not the ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... regulators was the only reliable legal power, and when, consequently, the vigilance of the citizens kept it comparatively pure. The second indicates a later period, when the people no longer felt insecure, and there was in fact no necessity for the system; and when, not having been disused, it could not but be abused. We derive both from an old citizen of the country, who was an actor in each. One of them, the first, has ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... common, property insecure, and safe deposit vaults were scarce, it was common for men to bury treasure in time of trouble and to forget it when they were dead. Whoever accidentally found it "struck pay dirt" and hastened to locate his claim. An extraordinary jewel, too, was a bonanza. The infant capitalists of that ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... securities that Hallam deemed insecure, and by this time Hallam had begun to wonder what was the matter with Tandy. He knew, or thought he knew, that the man must have greatly more money invested somewhere than these things represented. He had a great curiosity to know what the other investments were, but he did ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... their purpose. . . . Again a turn found them on their feet, and like snarling beasts they bounded back to the attack. Shirts were torn from their backs, warm, gummy blood on their sweating bared bodies rendered their grips insecure. . . . After what seemed to the watchers a frenzied eternity, their efforts began slowly to slacken. Their grips became more feeble, their hoarse rasping gasps for breath more labored. . . . The Chief attempted groggily to dodge a blow. Shane recovered his balance, rushed ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... was very little use in going on with the conversation, for it was obvious that Evelyn did not wish to say anything in particular, but to impress upon him an image of herself, being, for some reason which she would not reveal, unhappy, or insecure. He was very tired, and a pale waiter kept walking ostentatiously into the middle of the room and ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... but it does not trouble me,—Very likely not. It does not trouble you, perhaps, to see stone after stone, buttress after buttress, foundation after foundation, removed from the walls of Zion, until the whole structure trembles and totters, and is pronounced insecure. Your boasted unconcern is very little to the purpose, unless we may also know how dear to you the safety of Zion is. But if you make indignant answer,—(as would to Heaven you may!)—that your care for GOD'S honour, your jealousy for God's oracles, is every whit as great ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... of a jangling at the janitor's bell. Our opportunity for talk was slipping away. And we were both still undecided, both blunderingly nervous and insecure. We were hurried into clumsy phrases that afterwards we would have given much ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... bucket of white-wash, reset the broken glass herself, and then moved chattels and personals into the vacancy, and given it a more homelike appearance than it had worn for half a century. If the truth were known, Helen's chief fancy for the room, shaky and insecure as both floor and ceiling seemed, was that dim panel-portrait blistering there above the fire or peeling off with mouldy flakes in past days,—for she had still many a longing for the old family-pictures that once her shiftless father, ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... often pitiable in the extreme. Most of them had been living in the trenches for weeks exposed to all kinds of weather, their clothes were often sodden and caked with dirt, and the men themselves showed clear traces of exposure and insecure sleep. In most cases they had lain in the trenches for hours after being wounded, for as a rule it is impossible to remove the wounded at once with any degree of safety. Indeed, when the fighting is at all severe they must lie till dark before it is safe for the stretcher-bearers ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... a door in her heart that had hitherto been closed, and learning a largeness of view and sympathy in the process. Her fault had ever been, no doubt, to estimate slow and accurate methods too highly, and to believe that all was insecure and untrustworthy that was not painfully accumulated. Now she saw that genius could accomplish without effort or trouble what no amount of homely energy could effect, and a new horizon was unveiled to her. But on the boy it did not ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... gravely, "there is one way of escape. I have often thought of it, and once I thought I had taken the first step towards it; but it is beset with many great obstacles, and to be a priest makes one timid and insecure." ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... things that no one wrote about because every one understood and every one had taken up an attitude. There were in England and America, and indeed throughout the world, two great informal divisions of human beings—the Secure and the Insecure. There was not and never had been in either country a nobility—it was and remains a common error that the British peers were noble—neither in law nor custom were there noble families, and we altogether lacked the edification one found in Russia, for example, of a poor nobility. A peerage was ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... Bernardone, was a wealthy cloth-merchant. We know how different was the life of the merchants of that period from what it is to-day. A great portion of their time was spent in extensive journeys for the purchase of goods. Such tours were little short of expeditions. The roads being insecure, a strong escort was needed for the journey to those famous fairs where, for long weeks at a time, merchants from the most remote parts of Europe were gathered together. In certain cities, Montpellier for example, the fair was perpetual. Benjamin of Tudela ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... whirl so dizzies, she breathes short; The serpent spirals seem to fold Laocoon-like about her limbs. Tarantula-bitten victims so Whirl madly. Shrinks her head and swims; This is not glory's ardent glow, But fever's hectic, herald sure Of dread corruption, if unstayed. Dance on the footing insecure Of the keen edge of War's red blade, Rather than this mad dervish spin, Drunk with that poison-breath; The music is the devil's din, The dance—the modern Dance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... present myself. I seem to be a consciousness, vague and insecure, placed between two worlds. One of these worlds seems clearly "not me," the other is more closely identified with me and yet is still imperfectly me. The first I call the exterior world, and it presents itself to me as existing in Time and Space. ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... most precious possession, its security is the first and highest essential—not the life of him who takes life, but the life which is exposed defenceless to his hateful hand. In no country in the world, civilized or savage, is life so insecure as in this. In no country in the world is murder held in so light reprobation. In no battle of modern times have so many lives been taken as are lost annually in the United States through public indifference to the crime of homicide—through disregard of law, through bad government. ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... for a very speedy bird, much faster than our bob white, dwelling in the rounded sagebrush hills, travelling in flocks of from twenty to several thousand, exceedingly given to rapid leg work. We had to climb hard after him, and shoot like lightning from insecure footing. His idiosyncrasies were as strongly impressed on me as the fact that human beings walk upright. Here, however, I had to ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... have celebrated with all becoming rites the marriage of Fausta and Calpurnius, hastened at the urgency of Gracchus, who feeling still very insecure of life, and doubtful of the continued tranquillity of the city, wished to bestow upon Calpurnius the rights of a husband, and to secure to Fausta the protection of one. Gracchus seems happier and lighter ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... large groups of pretty girls. He felt very light and insecure in his new gun-metal-finish pumps now that he had taken off his rubbers and essayed the slippery floor. He tried desperately not to use his handkerchief too conspicuously, though ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... author. Still, this spirit touches and moves the heart. He saw the wrongs and the goodness, the truth and the untruth, and he knew the minds of men. This cosmopolitan saw Russia, the enemy of the peace of Europe, and foresaw its vast advancing, aggressive power. He warned the English how insecure was their then faulty hold upon the American colonies. In these essays we find vigorous and thrilling protests against cruelty to animals. These appeals then were rare indeed, and even now are only revealed in any earnestness through a slowly dawning purer ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... social foundations; and one incomplete form, the Roman, which acted as an adornment of life, derived from the Greek. Now all these bases, the mythical and the politico-social, have changed; our alleged culture has no stability, because it has been erected upon insecure conditions and opinions which are even now almost ready to collapse.—When we thoroughly grasp Greek culture, then, we see that it is all over with it. The philologist is thus a great sceptic in the present conditions of our culture and training . that is his mission. Happy is he if, like ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... interesting feature of this debate is the hearty approval given by friends of the North to the Government's entire line of policy and conduct in relation to America. Their play at the moment, feeling insecure as to the fixity of governmental policy, was to approve heartily the neutrality now existing, and to make no criticisms. Later, when more confident of the permanency of British neutrality, they in turn became critics on the score of failure, in ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... and failed—and tried again with a like unsatisfactory result. Piggy still lay nestled in his swinging stye. True, once or twice he had cocked out his head with an enquiring squeal as the pole now and then received an extra hard shake, making the foundations of his house rather insecure. The affair was at length decided in an unlooked-for manner. As the thirty could not get the pork out, the latter took the initiative and got out himself—of course falling overboard, where he was secured by an amphibious ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... of the discovery and the necessity for taking steps to utilise its value, for now they were almost helpless—the greater part of their ammunition was gone; their force was weakened by the loss of two men; and, worst of all, it was terribly insecure, for at any moment the Indians might get over their fright, and come back to bury their dead. If this were so, they would find that the task had already been done, and then they would search for and find ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... trifling feat,—this climbing upon the carcass of the dead whale. Nor was it to be done without danger. The slippery epidermis of the huge leviathan,—lubricated as it was with that unctuous fluid which the skin of the sperm-whale is known to secrete,— rendered footing upon it extremely insecure. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... vices of barbarism and refinement, without their virtues. Other kings before him (such as Richard III) were tyrants and murderers out of ambition or necessity: they gained or established unjust power by violent means: they destroyed their or made its tenure insecure. But Henry VIII's power is most fatal to those whom he loves: he is cruel and remorseless to pamper his luxurious appetites: bloody and voluptuous; an amorous murderer; an uxorious debauchee. His hardened insensibility to the feelings of others is strengthened ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... fogs concealed. Amid the snowdrifts which surround A stream, by winter's ice unbound, Impetuously clove its way With boiling torrent dark and gray; Two poles together glued by ice, A fragile bridge and insecure, Spanned the unbridled torrent o'er; Beside the thundering abyss Tattiana in despair unfeigned ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... till at length they emigrated in a body to the Ricara nation, where they formed themselves into two villages, and joined those of their countrymen who had gone before them. In their new residence they were still insecure, and at length the three villages ascended the Missouri to their present position. The two who had emigrated together still settled in the two villages on the northwest side of the Missouri, while the single village took a position on the southeast side. In this situation they were found ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... banks that support stunted willows and a few pines; we encamped about three miles farther on and in the course of the next day's march perceived several holes on the ice and many unsafe places for the sledges. Our companions said the ice of this river is always in the same insecure state, even during the most severe winter, which they attributed to warm springs. Quitting the river we crossed a portage and came upon the Methye Lake and soon afterwards arrived at the trading posts on its ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... the Bible. One of the earliest notices of the metal is in connexion with the conquest of Judea by the Philistines. To complete the subjection of the Israelites, their conquerors made captive all the smiths of the land, and carried them away. The Philistines felt that their hold of the country was insecure so long as the inhabitants possessed the means of forging weapons. Hence "there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel; for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears. But the ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... at the outset that the differences exhibited in the moral judgments of individuals or of peoples are of minor significance. They are facts to be dealt with in the light of some theory. An ethical theory which ignores them must rest upon a narrow and insecure foundation. It is exposed to assault from many quarters. It may, in default of better means of defence, be compelled to take refuge behind the blind wall of dogmatic assertion. On the other hand, a theory which gives ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... Nerbudda; but the main body say they came from Ajmer in the sixteenth century. They were notorious in the eighteenth century for their lawlessness, and gave the imperial Mughal officers much trouble in the neighbourhood of Agra, rendering the communications between that city and Etawah insecure. In the Mutiny they broke out again, and are generally a turbulent, ill-conducted sept, always ready for petty acts of violence and cattle-stealing. They are, however, recognised as Rajputs of good position and intermarry with the best ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... the carnage had reached its height. No man could count upon life for twenty-four hours. The tall, the wise, the reverend heads had been taken off, and now the humbler ones were insecure upon their shoulders. Fouquier-Tinville had erected a guillotine in his court-room, to save time and transportation. Newsboys sold about the streets printed lists of those who were to suffer that day. "Voici ceux qui ont gagne a la loterie de la ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... by, my dear, be happy and brave." The next day he wrote again on the same subject: "I have yours of the 27th, with those of Hortense and M. Napoleon enclosed. I have asked you to go back to Paris; the season is too bad, the roads too insecure and detestable, the distance too great for me to allow you to come so far to me when my affairs detain me. It would take you at least a month to get here. You. would be sick when you got here, and then, perhaps, you would have to start back; it would be madness. Your ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... place. The other nine boys in the dormitory, with the doubtful exception of Elgood, had promised that they would stick to this assertion in case of their being asked. The question was, "Would Charlie promise the same thing?" If not, the boys felt doubly insecure—insecure about the stability of their falsehood and ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... of such learning and such equity would have received in some sort, their reward. I look upon them as so many old cabinets of ivory and tortoise-shell, scratched, flawed, splintered, rotten, defective both within and without, hard to unlock, insecure to lock ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... no longer heard the shouts of encouragement from the cowpunchers. He was clinging desperately to his insecure seat, with legs pressed tightly against the pony's sides. As yet he had not seen fit to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... pecuniary cares. The fervent heat of a poet's imagination may glow as brightly in poverty as in opulence, but the gentle yet prolonged enthusiasm of the historian is likely to be quenched when the resources of life are too insecure.[7] ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... me as extremely felicitous and eloquent. That of Lyell's "under-pinning" (After a eulogium on Sir Charles Lyell's heroic renunciation of his old views in accepting Evolution, Sir J.D. Hooker continued, "Well may he be proud of a superstructure, raised on the foundations of an insecure doctrine, when he finds that he can underpin it and substitute a new foundation; and after all is finished, survey his edifice, not only more secure but more harmonious in its proportion than it was before."), is capital. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... six or eight feet apart: the foundation joists rest on these, so as just to keep the flooring from touching the earth. I did not like this plan (which is the usual one) at all, as it seemed to me so insecure for the house to rest only on these stones. I told the builder that I feared a strong "nor'-wester" (and I hear they are particularly strong in the Malvern Hills) would blow the whole affair away. He did not scout the idea as much as I could have wished, but held out hopes to me that the ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies half doubled, occasionally skulked along. A great many of the tenements had shop-fronts; but these were fast closed, and mouldering away; only the upper rooms being inhabited. Some houses which had become insecure from age and decay, were prevented from falling into the street, by huge beams of wood reared against the walls, and firmly planted in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have been selected as the nightly haunts of some houseless wretches, for many of the rough boards which ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... hen's: I felt sure that when he drank he must tilt his head back as hens do in order that the liquid may run their throats. But his method of keeping himself upright, together with certain spasmodic contractions of his fingers and the nervous "uh-ah, uh-ah" which punctuated his insecure phrases like uncertain commas, combined to offer the suggestion of a rooster; a rather moth-eaten rooster, which took itself tremendously seriously and was showing off to an imaginary group of admiring hens situated somewhere in the background ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... upon a hunt and on the scent for game; the yoked goose, after more than one expression of its sense of dignity, retires a little out of the way; and now the ground sparrow, deeming his thistle or over-hanging Barberry-bush insecure against the incursions of all these comers and goers, regrets at a short and watchful distance, and with all the anxiety of a politician, that he had not built more wisely under covert of the other side ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... to have sent you the whole of Reka Dom this mail. But a most unexpected fall of snow has made the travelling so insecure that it is considered a risk to wait till Monday, and I must send off what I can to-day. It is so nearly done that I am not now afraid to send off the first part (which will be more than you will want for May), and you may rely on the rest by next mail; and the remainder of Mrs. O. as rapidly ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... been suffered to mingle with this stream of living water throughout all its course; if our assurance of salvation were made to depend upon our knowledge that every word of the Bible was of divine origin, our hopes of eternal life would be altogether insecure. ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... abroad arms and legs in search of strong supports; in another moment I was brought up with a jerk. My hands now rested on the narrow ledge where my feet had been a moment before, and one foot was propped by some insecure support whose nature I could not ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... only at rare times, when he stood high on a serac, could he see his way for more than a few yards ahead. Pierre aimed straight for the foot of the buttress, working thus due north. And he was wrong. Garratt Skinner knew it, but said not a word. He stood upon insecure ledges and supported Delouvain upon his shoulders, and pushed him up with his ice-ax into positions which only involved the party in further difficulties. He took his life in his hands and risked it, knowing ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... crest at that point, some three hundred feet above the glacier, was comparatively easy, but when it was reached there stretched ahead of us miles and miles of ice-blocks heaved in confusion, resting at insecure angles, poised, some on their points, some on their edges, rising in this chaotic way some 3,000 feet. Here one would have to hew steps up and over a pinnacle, there one must descend again and cut around a great slab. Our wisest ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... Roman Empire, commerce was rendered insecure, and, indeed, it was almost completely put a stop to by the barbarian invasions, and all facility of communication between different nations, and even between towns of the same country, was interrupted. In those times of social confusion, there were periods of such poverty and distress, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... one back of that!" Nelson's amazement destroyed the insecure hold he had thus far maintained upon himself. Furiously he cried: "You're out to get ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... was so gratifying while it lasted that his manner assumed a certain austerity as one who had determined to be virtuous at any cost. Morally he was on stilts for the moment, and the sense of elevation was as novel as it was insecure. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... and he therefore returned to camp and sent three men in an Indian canoe to try if they could double the point and find some safer harbour for our boats. At every flood-tide the sea broke in great swells against the rocks and drifted the trees against our establishment, so as to render it very insecure. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... were before. But they vote for peace, and the people wish for peace; and therefore they represent the opinions of the people. The people wish for peace—so do I! But for what peace? Not for a peace that is made to-day and will be broken to-morrow! Not for a peace that is more insecure and hazardous than war. Why did I wish for peace at Lisle? Because war was then more hazardous than peace; because it was necessary to give to the people a palpable proof of the necessity of the war, in order to their cordial concurrence with that ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... loosened his fastenings; he had then managed to take the door off the wardrobe. He had moved the bed in front of the window, and by pushing the wardrobe door three parts out of the window and lodging the inside end of it under the rail at the head of the bed, he had provided himself with a sort of insecure platform outside the window. All this he did without making the least sound. He must then have got through the window, and stood on the little platform. With his fingers he would just be able to reach the outer edge of the wide ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... at Portland Point would have been very insecure had it not been for the protection afforded by Fort Frederick across the harbor. The Indians had not yet become accustomed to the idea of British supremacy. Their natural allegiance—even after the ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... lasted no longer than the noble Majorian or the ignoble Severus. East and West had united their strength in a great expedition to put down the incessant Vandal piracies, which made all the coasts of the Mediterranean insecure.[14] It failed through the treachery of the eastern commander Basiliscus, to whose evil deeds we shall have hereafter to recur. This disaster shook the credit of Anthemius, and Ricimer also tired of his father-in-law. He went to Milan, ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... this was a disadvantage that might have rendered all his strength and address unavailing, had not the foliage and the lesser branches of the tree, interfered with the swing of the long and heavy weapon of his adversary, and the footing being too insecure to permit it to be used with full effect. As Browne steadied himself and drew back for a sweeping blow, Atollo shook the boughs upon which he stood, so violently, as greatly to break the force of ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... not in the affections that the defects of Michael's character were found. These were warm, full of the flowing milk of human kindness. Weakness, however, was apparent in the more solid portions of the edifice. His morals, it must be confessed, were very lax—his principles unsteady and insecure—and how could it be otherwise? Deprived of his mother at his birth, and from that hour brought up under the eye and tutelage of a man who had spent a life in the education of one idea—who regarded money-making as the business, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... frenzy aggravated, as it was, by the proceedings against the Templars, the signal of witch persecutions throughout France. The historian of France draws a frightful picture of the insecure condition of an ignorantly prejudiced society. Accusations poured in; poisonings, adulteries, forgeries, and, above all, charges of witchcraft, which, indeed, entered as an ingredient into all causes, forming their ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... study out a new course. By toiling like a sailor at the pump of a sinking ship, I had taken advantage to the uttermost of the respite Galloway's help had given me. My property was no longer in more or less insecure speculative "securities," but was, as I had told Langdon, in forms that would withstand the worst shocks. The attacks of my enemies, directed partly at my fortune, or, rather, at the stocks in which they imagined it was still invested, and partly at my ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... her. I knew it with absolute certainty. I knew it from her insecure temperament, her adventurousness, her needs. I knew it from every line she had written me in the last three months. I knew it intuitively. She had been unfaithful. She must ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... valuable safeguards," he said, after exchanging greetings. "It was only won after a struggle, in a time of public animosity toward all intellectuals, and even now, our professional position would be most insecure without it." ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... two capes or headlands, often used synonymously with gulf; though, in strict accuracy, the term should be applied only to those large recesses which are wider from cape to cape than they are deep. Exposed to sea-winds, a bay is mostly insecure. A bay is distinguished from a bend, as that a vessel may not be able to fetch out on either tack, and is embayed. A bay has proportionably a wider entrance than either a gulf or haven; a creek has usually a small inlet, and is always much less ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... none but a pure spirit can have an infinite force such as is manifested in the eternal motion of the world. Creation cannot be demonstrated with scientific rigor, hence it is not safe to build so important a structure as the existence of God upon an insecure foundation. Show that eternity of the world leads to God, and you are safe no matter what the ultimate truth turns out to be concerning the origin of the world. For if the world originated in time there is no doubt that God ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... description of the woman like one of those anatomical zodiacs in the Farmers' Almanac." She turned her horse, without warning, through a break in the fence; and, putting him at a smart run, jumped a stream with a high insecure bank beyond, and went with a pounding rush up a sharp incline. He followed, but more conservatively; and, at the solid fence she next took, he shouted that she'd have to continue on ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer |
