"Looseness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Williams' sojourn in the Northern States, we do not learn that he was in any position to prove his skill as a soldier, excepting in those qualities which are too often under-estimated by the public. His regiment when he took command of it, was rather noted for looseness of discipline, and did not stand upon a mark with others of the line, but in a very short time, under Williams' prompt and active organization, it became equal if not superior, in thorough discipline, to any in ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany
... too, had to be contrived so as to prevent any escape of the emanations through joints. It is lathe turned and circular, a 'dead fit.' By means of a special contrivance any slight looseness caused by wear and tear of closing can be adjusted. And another feature. That is the appliance for preventing the loss of emanation when the door is opened. Two valves have been inserted into the door and before it is opened tubes with mercury are passed through which ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... grandfather was still on the porch, and her sister was out of the house, Plutina possessed herself of the new revolver, with its holster, which, after slipping down her gown from the shoulder, she attached under the left arm-pit. The looseness of the ill-fitting garment concealed the weapon effectually enough. For ready access, the upper buttons to the throat were left unfastened, in seeming relief against the heat of midday. Thus equipped, the girl ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... antagonism on Rosemary Roselle; he visualized her as a thoughtless and capricious female, idling in vain luxury, cutting with a hard voice at helpless and enslaved human beings. He condemned his former looseness of being, his playing with insidious and destructive forces. A phrase, "Babylonish women," crept into his mind from some ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... sparkle with preparedness. He went over it bolt by bolt, nuts, screws, wires, and wings passing under his careful and critical eye. He looked at and tested the tension of the wires, the swing of the rudder, the looseness of the ailerons. Satisfied at last that everything was perfectly in tune, he turned and gave a critical ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... looseness, lightness and warmth, which can be obtained from the union underclothes, a princess skirt and dress, with a shoe that allows full development and use of the foot. While decoration and elegance are desirable, they should not sacrifice ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... up suddenly at some part of the upward or downward swing, and, as surely as there is a ball on the tee, when it does so there will be mischief. Depend upon it the instinct of activity will prevent the right hand from going through with the swing in that indefinite state of looseness. Perhaps a yard from the ball in the upward swing, or a yard from it when coming down, there will be a convulsive grip of the right hand which, with an immediate acknowledgment of guilt, will relax again. Such a happening is usually fatal; it certainly deserves to be. Slicing, pulling, sclaffing, ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... classificatory system broke down, and individuality came to its own. Yet there had always been a clearly felt difference between the conclusions of the biological sciences and those dealing with lifeless substance, in the relative vagueness, the insubordinate looseness and inaccuracy of the former. The naturalist accumulated facts and multiplied names, but he did not go triumphantly from generalisation to generalisation after the fashion of the chemist or physicist. It is easy to see, therefore, how it came about that the inorganic sciences were regarded ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... written so much and so well as Dryden in his various prefaces. Whatever has been said since is either expansion or variation of what he had said before. His general theory may be stated as an aim at something between the literalness of metaphrase and the looseness of paraphase. "Where I have enlarged," he says, "I desire the false critics would not always think that those thoughts are wholly mine, but either they are secretly in the poet, or may be fairly deduced from him." Coleridge, with his usual cleverness of assimilation, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... handsome with their gold lustre and silky sheen. In these rugs a number of warp threads are crossed by the metal threads and overspread, so that the lines or ribs are brought out more prominently. This in part accounts for the softness and looseness of the texture. ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... her, on whom they had hoped to work their vengeance. As I was soon discovered to have shared my mother's heresy, I was dragged from her dead body, imprisoned in a solitary cloister, and treated with severity, which the Abbess assured me was due to the looseness of my life, as well as my spiritual errors. I avowed my marriage, to justify the situation in which I found myself—I implored the assistance of the Superior to communicate my situation to my husband. She smiled coldly ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... noticed that the foliage was turning yellow on many of them and upon investigation I found that the trees were very loose in the ground. At first I thought that planting operations and heaving of the ground by frost in the spring might be the cause, but in testing the looseness of one of these trees, I found that I could pull it out of the ground easily. There I saw what appeared to be the marks of an axe. I was completely convinced that I had personal enemies who went around nights chopping off the roots of my trees, for I knew that most of my neighbors were completely ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... July number of THE CONTINENTAL, I notice some editorial remarks upon a portion of my article 'Touching the Soul,' which appeared in the June number. For these remarks I am under obligation to you, as pointing out the looseness of my phraseology, whereby I have failed to convey the idea I intended; for which looseness the only excuse must be that my mind was occupied more with the thought than with the expression, and the latter was so absorbed in the former as to have suffered ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... with a certain wild looseness in their talk that—But I have no right to judge others by mere appearance. Nor is it this that has made me anxious, and, if you ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... those simple, busy, gifted artists to whose acquaintance Martie had looked forward. The more distinguished members of his company he hardly knew; the others were semi-successful men like himself, women too poor and too busy to waste time or money, or other women of a more or less recognized looseness of morals. Martie detested them, their cologne, their boasting, their insinuations as to the personal lives of every actor or actress who might be mentioned. They had no reserves, no respect for love or marriage or parenthood; they told stories entirely beyond her understanding, and ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... and none that proved afterward. What he had seen at the corner of Palace Square nearest the Vistula was not the face of a Latin woman, nor was any looseness of common birth evident in it. The key might have had to do with the little hat she wore, just a hat for wearing on the head, a protection against sun and rain, and with the austerely simple black dress; but these weathered exteriors again were effective ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... gun. The blood surged to his head. There was a singing in his ears. He felt his heart thumping as though he were suddenly seized with some illness. Rochester's figure, tall, graceful, debonair, notwithstanding the looseness of his shooting clothes, and his somewhat rigid attitude, seemed suddenly to loom large and hateful before his eyes. He saw nothing else. He thought of nothing else. It was the man he hated. It was the man who understood what he was, the worst side of him—the man whom his instincts ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... certain that vi. 13-vii. 9 is the song which accompanied the "sword-dance" (as the last words of vi. 13 should probably be translated) performed by the bride on the eve of her wedding day. This would explain the looseness of the arrangement, no special attempt being made to unify the songs, though it may be conceded that the noble eulogy of love in viii. 6, 7, as it is the finest utterance in the book, was probably intended as ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... desire, with that vigor and certainty the public so much admires, and rightly so. The golden mean should be observed; between undue tension, which implies inability to control, whether it be in the larynx or the breathing apparatus, and a looseness inconsistent with neat and certain results, the voice-producer must choose, with that common sense so indispensable to success in all undertakings, but which will never be adequately encouraged till students ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... before and after the instant seemed brilliant with intelligence, seemed as it were to be brilliant with idiocy. He was a heavy, healthy-looking man, who looked all the larger because of the loose, light coloured clothes that he wore, and that had in their extreme lightness and looseness, almost a touch of the tropics. But a closer examination of his attire would have shown that even in the tropics it would have been unique; but it was all woven according to some hygienic texture which no human being had ever heard of before, and which was absolutely necessary even for a day's ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... color, consistency, and ingredients of the stools. Most frequently they are dark colored and of very offensive odor. They are of a more liquid character than is natural, except when, as is sometimes the case, periods of constipation alternate with periods of unnatural looseness. Tormina, or griping, is usually present, but not so severe as in the acute affection. Tenesmus, or straining, often accompanies it. The appetite is impaired, there is general debility, and the patient is nervous and irritable. The complexion becomes sallow, the skin ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... and looseness of the information one receives in answer to that much abused question, "Is he better?" would be ludicrous, if it were not painful. The only sensible answer (in the present state of knowledge about sickness) would be "How can I know? ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... intrusted. By which it came to pass that judicatories, EVEN THEN, were the seats of injustice and iniquity. And many in their armies, by miscarriages, became their plague unto the great prejudice of the cause of God, the great scandal of the gospel, and the great increase of looseness and profanity throughout all the land." But, since the time of that acknowledgment there has still been more and more degeneracy, so that judicatories have consisted of, and been filled with perjured traitors to God and their country. And armies made up of these plagues marshalled ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... confusion of material and immaterial in the acts ascribed to the angels. Dr. Johnson, who wished for consistency, would have had it preserved "by keeping immateriality out of sight." And a general arraignment has been laid against Milton of a vagueness and looseness of imagery, which contrasts unfavourably with the vivid and precise detail of other poets, of Homer ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... Why does he entertain himself with lewd Comedies? Has he a mind to discharge his Priestcraft, and flesh himself up for a Poet? Yes, this is the consequence, by using to see these smutty things, he'll learn to write 'em. What need I mention the Sham-Oaths, and looseness of Farce, or the Fustian raving against the Gods in Tragedy, were these things really unconcern'd with Idolatry, a Parson, of all Mankind, should not be known to ogle them, for were they not highly ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... place, endeavour to settle him in his religion, as the basis of all our other hopes, and the more to be considered in regard of the looseness of the place where you are. I doubt not but you have well considered of the resolve to travel to Italy, yet I have this to say for my fond fears (besides the imbecility of my sex) my affections are all contracted into one head: also I know the hotness of his ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... well-developed legs, shoes like army slippers, and a ponderous nose, was Columbus, Cato, or Cockelorum Tibby, the tragedian, was more than I could tell. Several robust ladies attracted me; but which was America and which Pocahontas was a mystery; for all affected much looseness of costume, dishevelment of hair, swords, arrows, lances, scales, and other ornaments quite passe with damsels of our day, whose effigies should go down to posterity armed with fans, crochet needles, riding whips, and parasols, with here and there one holding ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... Minister's eye and saw that he had forgotten the purpose of the dinner, being dimly conscious that that purpose was now idle. Cargill and Vennard had ceased to talk like rebels. The Home Secretary had subsided into his old, suave, phrasing self. The humour had gone out of his eye, and the looseness had returned to his lips. He was an older and more commonplace man, but harmless, quite harmless. Vennard, too, wore a new air, or rather had recaptured his old one. He was saying little, but his voice had lost its crispness and ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... near end. 3. And finally, he has a conviction that the evolutionary doctrines of the day are not only untrue, but thoroughly bad and irreligious. This belief, and the natural anxiety with which he contemplates their prevalence, may excuse a certain vehemence and looseness of statement which were better avoided, as where the geologists of the day are said to be "broken up into bands of specialists, little better than scientific banditti, liable to be beaten in detail, and prone to commit ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... of political doctrine as a state of mind. Abhorrence of the forces liberated by the French Revolution was the dominating emotion. To the Federalist leaders democracy seemed an aberration of the human mind, which was bound everywhere to produce infidelity, looseness of morals, and political chaos. In the words of their Jeremiah, Fisher Ames, "Democracy is a troubled spirit, fated never to rest, and whose dreams, if it sleeps, present only visions of hell." So thinking and feeling, they had witnessed the triumph of Jefferson with genuine alarm, ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... of Plautus and Terence comes from Anne Dacier,[8] and Echard's footprints can be tracked in the snows of Cicero, Scaliger, Rapin, Andre Dacier, the Abbe D'Aubignac, and Dryden. Having set the Ancients against the Moderns, Echard is able to attack the looseness of English double plots by pointing to Terence's success within a similar structure. He is also able to praise Terence's genteel style. Against this, Echard admits, along with his precursors, Plautus' superiority in point of vis comica, which he defines, interestingly, ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... pianoforte; this will be found very handy. Should the rapping or sounding all round the border not reveal any weak spot, we may be sure the seat of the complaint is to be sought for elsewhere; possibly there is looseness in the interior and ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... actual life found vent in violence and debauchery, were gratified by the dramatic representation of the worst crimes and most vitiated tastes. The Puritans brought about reformation and self-restraint, by enforcing a new code of morals all the more rigid from the looseness which on every side they found to combat. In closing the theatres, they were actuated, in Mr. Green's words, by the hatred "of God-fearing men against the foulest depravity presented in a poetic ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... writing on trifling matters brings on a certain looseness of style and thought; but the public will have it, and the demand creates the supply of a flimsy, pleasant, literary article. The best leaders are now written by fine scholars. In travelling over the country I have been amused by ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... purely a matter of sympathetic sensations. In listening to a faulty singer the hearer feels a sensation of tightness and contraction of the throat. A well used voice awakens exactly the opposite sensation, that of looseness and freedom ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... and the common failing of wishing to be thought satirical often runs through whole families in country places, to the great annoyance of their neighbours. To be struck with incongruity in whatever comes before us does not argue great comprehension or refinement of perception, but rather a looseness and flippancy of mind and temper, which prevents the individual from connecting any two ideas steadily or consistently together. It is owing to a natural crudity and precipitateness of the imagination, which assimilates nothing properly to itself. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... at this till she caught the heat of Glenister's gaze. Some boldness of his look brought home to her the actual situation, and a stain rose in her cheek. She noted him more carefully; noted his heavy shoulders and ease of bearing, an ease and looseness begotten of perfect muscular control. Strength was equally suggested in his face, she thought, for he carried a marked young countenance, with thrusting chin, aggressive thatching brows, and mobile mouth that ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... is known to all Chinamen, operate variously according to their taste, thus:—"All sour medicines are capable of impeding and retaining; bitter medicines of causing looseness and warmth as well as hardening; sweet possess the qualities of strengthening, of harmonising, and of warming; acids disperse, prove emollient, and go in an athwart direction; salt medicines possess the properties of descending; those substances that are hard and tasteless open the ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... of the chimney whence I had come. I was resolved that nothing would make me descend by that awesome crack, so I kept on eastward along the top to look for a better way. I found one about a mile farther on, which, though far from easy, had no special risks save from the appalling looseness of the debris. When I got down at length, I found that it was near sunset. I went to the place I had bidden my native look for me at, but, as I had feared, there was no sign of him. So, making the best of a bad job, I had supper and ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... indurated. His digestive powers have always been good, and he had been in the habit of making his meals at times entirely of animal food. His bowels have always been regular, and rather inclined to looseness, but never disordered. He is five feet eight inches high, of a very thin and spare habit of body, with thin dark hair, inclining to baldness; complexion rather dark than fair; eyes dark hazel; of very studious habits when free from active engagements; with great powers ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... error. He took advantage of his official station to vent his spleen and gratify his petulance in a variety of ways incompatible with the courtesy of a gentleman. It may excite a grave smile at the present day to find Washington charged by this very small-minded man with looseness in his way of writing to him; with remissness in his duty towards him; and even with impertinence in the able and eloquent representations which he felt compelled to make of disastrous mismanagement in military affairs; and still ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... from the capital, in the year 157 B.C. His father was a small farmer, and he was himself bred to the plough. He joined the army early, and soon attracted notice by his punctual discharge of his duties. In a time of growing looseness, Marius was strict himself in keeping discipline and in enforcing it as he rose in the service. He was in Spain when Jugurtha[4] was there, and made himself especially useful to Scipio; he forced his way steadily upward, by his mere soldierlike ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... Eastern books of the description which we call "light literature," and the ancestral tale-teller never collects a larger purse of coppers than when he relates the worst of his "aurei." But this looseness, resulting from the separation of the sexes, is accidental, not necessary. The following collection will show that it can be dispensed with, and that there is such a thing as comparative purity in Hindu literature. The author, indeed, almost always takes the trouble to ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... as the whole relation is carefully garbled of all the levity and looseness that was in it, so it all applied, and with the utmost care, to virtuous and religious uses. None can, without being guilty of manifest injustice, cast any reproach upon it, or upon our design in ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... knew that his great safeguard was the affection of Russell. For Edwin's sake, and for shame at the thought of Edwin's disapproval, he abstained from many things into which he would otherwise have insensibly glided in conformation to the general looseness of the school morality. But Russell's influence worked on him powerfully, and tended to counteract a multitude ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... time. It was not a good time. That old world was more dissolute than ours. There was an old king with mistresses openly in his train, to whom the great folks of the land did honour. There was a nobility, many of whom were mad and reckless in the pursuit of pleasure; there was a looseness of words and acts which we must note, as faithful historians, without going into particulars, and needlessly shocking honest readers. Our young gentleman had lighted upon some of the wildest of these wild people, and had found an old ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... religious atmosphere which surrounds the college is as genial and cheerful as the natural atmosphere which bathes the hills and valleys around in October days. It has no element of sectarianism or bigotry. Free alike from cant, from looseness and indifference, the religious tone of the college is ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... over the world in our day a great wave of intellectual and {100} spiritual discouragement and despondency. What with philosophical pessimism and social agitations and literary decadence and political corruption and moral looseness, a great many persons are beginning to feel that the end of the century is an end of faith, and are not able to discern in the darkness of the time any morning star. As one distinguished author has said: "This is not a time of the eclipse of faith, but a time of the collapse of ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... of him see what use time was to be when all the strategy of his own side seemed to have miscarried. Anyhow, the blackguards would be sold, for they would not find the Princess. But he felt a horrid void in the pit of his stomach, and a looseness about his knees. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... friend, in the very looseness of her prating has let out the truth. Or rather—a common custom with her—she has talked in her sleep. Her very weakness has, however, given a point to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... even the looseness of law, legislation, and justice, that is so widely spreading itself over the land, is not exactly unsuited to sustain the rapid settlement of a country. No doubt men accomplish more in the earlier stages of society when perfectly unfettered, than when brought under the control of those principles ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... when wiping the dishes, she would stand in bewilderment and chagrin because she had pulled in two halves a cup or a tumbler. It was as if, in her fear and self-mistrust, she put too much strength into the effort. There was no looseness or abandon about her. Everything was gripped stiff with intensity, and her effort, overcharged, closed in ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... reliance might be placed on their fidelity, and that they knew of three or four other men in Leyden "as firm as trees and fierce as lions," whom they would engage—a fustian worker, a tailor, a chimney-sweeper, and one or two other mechanics. The looseness and utter recklessness with which this hideous conspiracy was arranged excites amazement. Van Dyk gave the two brothers 100 pistoles in gold—a coin about equal to a guinea—for their immediate reward as well as for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in the same bath together they tend to enter into combination and form a colour lake that precipitates out in the dye-bath, causing the loss of material alluded to above, while some of it gets mechanically fixed on the cotton, in a more or less loose form, and this looseness causes ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... absurd embellishments in which the latest compilers muffled them up, express the heart of the people itself. They mark a poetic interval between the gross communism of the primitive villa, and the looseness of the time when a growing burgess-class made ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... like to hold thee by the garment; no Jacobs here, who will not let thee go, till thou bless them; none to prevail with thy Majesty,—every one is like to give Christ a free passport and testimonial to go abroad, and are almost Gadarenes, to pray him to depart out of their coasts. There is a strange looseness and indifferency in men's spirits concerning the one thing necessary. Men lie by and dream over their days, and never put the soul's estate out of question; none will give so much pains, as to clear their interest in thee, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... virorum, so to heart, that for shame and grief he made away with himself, [1682]Jovius in elogiis. A grave and learned minister, and an ordinary preacher at Alcmar in Holland, was (one day as he walked in the fields for his recreation) suddenly taken with a lax or looseness, and thereupon compelled to retire to the next ditch; but being [1683]surprised at unawares, by some gentlewomen of his parish wandering that way, was so abashed, that he did never after show his head in public, or come into the pulpit, but pined away with melancholy: (Pet. Forestus med. observat. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... thee, God shall him inspire, To pardon this offence, this fault commit By hasty wrath, by rash and headstrong ire, To call the knight again; yield thou to it: And though the youth, enwrapped in fond desire, Far hence in love and looseness idle sit, Year fear it not, he shall return with speed, When most you wish him ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... is a word which appears to be used with a considerable amount of looseness. In addition to the meaning implied by necrosis (namely, 'death' of the part), caries is generally used to indicate that there is also a condition of rottenness, decay, and stench. It is particularly applied, in fact, when the death of the ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... rocks. The rhythm (to touch one of the various things) the rhythm of that 'Duchess' does more and more strike me as a new thing; something like (if like anything) what the Greeks called pedestrian-metre, ... between metre and prose ... the difficult rhymes combining too quite curiously with the easy looseness of the general measure. Then 'The Ride'—with that touch of natural feeling at the end, to prove that it was not in brutal carelessness that the poor horse was driven through all that suffering ... yes, and how that one touch of softness acts back upon ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... a figure, as he swung against the blackened wall, his scarecrow clothes hanging on him, their once decent material making their pinning together of buttonless places, their looseness and rents showing dirty linen, more abject than any other squalor could have made them. Antony Dart's blood, still running warm and well, was doing its normal work among the brain-cells which had stirred so evilly through the night. When he had seized the ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... always with something that he wants to say but can only suggest. Here, for example, is a personal statement, line by line more or less inarticulate, but as a whole clear enough. With all the mental incompleteness, the verbal looseness, the fumblings and gropings of the traditional Baboo, it is a genuine piece of irony. Seldom can a convert to Christianity ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... pressure, decreasing the resistance to the passage of the electric current;" and, also, "the jolting motion would be a make-and-break, and the articulate sounds would be impaired. There can be no virtue in a speaking telephone having a jolting motion." "Delicacy of contact is a virtue; looseness of contact is a vice." "Looseness of contact is a great virtue in Hughes' microphone;" and "the elements which work advantages in Hughes' are detrimental to the good working of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... heart of the sulphur rose. Admiration was, I repeat, the first impression. But the second was criticism. There was something subtly wrong with the face, some coarseness of expression, some hardness, perhaps, of eye, some looseness of lip which marred its perfect beauty. But these, of course, are afterthoughts. At the moment I was simply conscious that I was in the presence of a very handsome woman, and that she was asking me the reasons ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... the minister of the Free College Church without being "built up" in all the Christian graces. He is an uncompromising foe to the Scarlet Lady, to the materialistic tendencies of the present day, to looseness and infidelity, of every kind, in religious matters; and some would perhaps object that his sermons are too strongly impregnated with the Confession of Faith, the Deed of Demission, and the Shorter Catechism. But ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... (when free to move), and of the grounds of a reasonable expectation that they will so fall. If it should be worth anybody's while to seek for examples of such misuse of language on my own part, I am not at all sure he might not succeed, though I have usually been on my guard against such looseness of expression. If I am guilty, I do penance beforehand, and only hope that I may thereby deter others from committing the like fault. And I venture on this personal observation by way of showing that I have no wish to bear hardly on the preacher for falling into an error for which ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... poetry with a verbal literalness; he deprives himself of scope to give a billowy motion, a heightened color, a girded vigor, to choice passages. The rhythmical languor consequent on this verbal conformity, this lineal servility, is increased by a frequent looseness in the endings of lines, some of which on every page, and many on some pages, have—contrary to all good usage—the superfluous eleventh syllable. Milton never allows himself this liberty, nor Mr. Tennyson in epic verse so little pretentious as "Idyls ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... to surprise me, and I often found myself insisting that the looseness and grace with which this garment flapped about the colonel's thin legs was only possible in a brand-new coat having all the spring and lightness of youth in its seams. I was always mistaken. I had only to look at the mis-mated buttons and the raveled edge of the lining fringing the tails. ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... them are unhappy in consequence, we may see growing up from day to day a fashion of thinking that is extremely mischievous to the community, to manners, to the stability of families, and to domestic happiness and virtue.'[29] Looseness of opinion as to the family and the conditions of its wellbeing and stability, was a flaw that ran through the whole period of revolutionary thought. It was not surprising that the family should come in for its share of destructive criticism, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... 'aye!' I am na weak! She that worked evil and looseness, harlotry, strife, and shame, shall she na have her hire? As, Sunday by Sunday, I wad ha' set her in kirk, before the congregation, for the stern rebuking of her sin, so, mak no doubt, the Lord pursues her now! Aye, He shakes His wrath before her eyes! Wherever she turns she ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... The looseness of the grants of power to the President has been more than once the subject of animadversion.[15] This and the unity of the office furnished a text for opponents of the Constitution while its ratification was pending. "Here," according to Hamilton, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... long water-weeds, lily-roots and stems, and mud, with a few sticks woven into the foundation. The site was cunningly chosen, so that the roots and stems of a large alder gave it secure anchorage; and the whole structure, for all its apparent looseness, was so well compacted as to be secure against the sweep of the spring freshets. About six feet in diameter at the base, it rose about the same distance from the foundation, a rude, sedge-thatched dome, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... shouted back. "Call it a numba one shoe and then see if you can't find that lost foot in it, some'eres. Or try a little flour, and see if it won't feel more at home. I've hea'd of a shoe that give that sensation of looseness by not ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in England, vol. ii., p. 151. The other characteristics which Dr. Waagen discovers in Turner are, "such a looseness of treatment, such a total want of truth, as I never before ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Suddiya in search of tea some short time ago. It had just passed flowering; all the plants looked well, better I think than those of Kujoo. The soil was very much like that of the Kujoo and Negrigam jungles, and was remarkable for its great dryness and looseness, in spite of the long continued and heavy rains. That near the surface was dark brown, below yellow brown, and the deeper it was examined the more yellow it seemed to become. We satisfied ourselves that its depth extended lower than two feet from the surface. The space the plant ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... their sons to marry as soon as they are set up; and the reason they give for it is, the wickedness of the age, that youth are drawn in a hundred ways to ruinous matches or debaucheries, and are so easily ruined by the mere looseness of their circumstances, that it is needful to marry them to keep them at home, and to preserve them diligent, and bind them ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... then to be insulted as well as pillaged. Last Sunday I went to church. It is a place I trouble not often. Didn't the cure lash the hotel-keepers? I grant you he hit all the trades, except the one that is a byword for looseness, and pride, and sloth, to wit, the clergy. But, mind you, he stripeit the other lay estates with a feather, but us hotel-keepers with a neat's pizzle: godless for this, godless for that, and most godless of all for opening our doors during mass. Why, the law forces us to open at all hours ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... one-third of the houses to be fairly well conducted, some of them models of excellent management and pure living; but the other two-thirds were charged with looseness beyond description. The number of inmates in some cloisters was kept below the required number, that there might be more money to divide among the monks. The number of servants sometimes exceeded that of the monks. Abbots bought and sold land in a fraudulent ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... make it exceedingly liberal. Men are taken for what they are, not for what they believe, and this principle accepted in one respect is easily extended to others. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that broadness of theology is the same thing as looseness of doctrinal belief. ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... "being tired of wandering, and wishing to end his days in that holy place." He spent the last four years of his life at Loreto as a votary of the Virgin, painting a series of pictures which are distinguished by the same sort of apparent looseness and carelessness which we noticed in Titian's late style; a technique which, as in Titian's case, conceals a profound ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... seemed to yearn fer companions. After that, the sisters drove her in to town to school in the old buggy which their father had brought from England. However, she managed to see me quite often, and I encouraged her, although, mind ye, I never let her know the looseness o' the ways o' a tavern. The sisters had the Methodist parson picked out fer her, an' he, poor man, was fair crazy fer her heart, too, but she had the givin' o' it herself, and this it was that caused ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... plan for a League, having in mind Colonel House's suggestion that I consider a way to modify it so that it would harmonize with my views. The more I studied the document, the less I liked it. A cursory reading of the plan, which is printed in the Appendix (page 281), will disclose the looseness of the language and the doubtful interpretation of many of the provisions. It showed an inexpertness in drafting and a fault in expression which were chargeable to lack of appreciation of the need of exactness or else to haste in preparation. ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... Page dictated; but his personal letters he wrote with his own hand. He himself deplored the stenographer as a deterrent to good writing; the habit of dictating, he argued, led to wordiness and general looseness of thought. Practically all the letters published in these volumes were therefore the painstaking work of Page's own pen. His handwriting was so beautiful and clear that, in his editorial days, the printers much preferred it as "copy" to typewritten matter. This habit is especially surprising ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... livers." By pouring a pint of boiling water on a handful of the plant—stems, flowers and leaves—an [19] excellent gargle may be made for a relaxed throat; and a teacupful of the same infusion may be taken cold three or four times in the day for simple looseness of the bowels; also for passive losses of blood. In France, Agrimony tea is drank as a beverage at table. This herb formed an ingredient of the genuine arquebusade water, as prepared against wounds inflicted by an arquebus, or hand-gun, and it was mentioned by Philip de Comines in his account of ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... hay and all the grass, the artillery and the train were obliged to take from the fields the green barley and oats, and the army altogether ruined the population where it passed. The men obliged to disperse during a part of the day as foragers, got into the habit of disbanding and of looseness of discipline, and the impossibility manifested itself to keep in order and in ranks the multitude of different races, different in languages, who with their many vehicles represented ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... accompanied by looseness of the bowels may be and often is the result of milk being used from diseased cows, or it may be the consequence of such carelessness in handling it that disease-producing bacteria are later allowed to contaminate it. It should also never be forgotten that where children ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... poem as contra-distinguished from the drama. While the drama presents incident, the oratorio relates, expounds, and celebrates, presenting it to the fancy through the ear instead of representing it to the eye. A great deal of looseness has crept into this department of music as into every other, and the various forms have been approaching each other until in some cases it is become difficult to say which term, opera or oratorio, ought to be applied. Rubinstein's ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... contraction or expansion. In the second place, the extremities of the angle leaves are wrought into rich flowing lobes, and bent back so as to lap against their own breasts; showing lateness of date in exact proportion to the looseness of curvature. Fig. 3 represents the general aspect of these later capitals, which may be conveniently called the rose capitals of Venice; two are seen on service, in Plate VIII. Vol. I., showing comparatively early date by the experimental form of the six-foiled ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... necessary to impose. He then landed. But he found his situation very far from such as comported with his ideas of royal authority and state. Charles was a gay, dissipated, reckless young man. The men whom he had to deal with were stern, sedate, and rigid religionists. They were scandalized at the looseness and irregularity of his character and manners. He was vexed and tormented by what he considered their ascetic bigotry, by the restraints which they were disposed to put upon his conduct, and the limits with which they insisted ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... members of the greek church are very ignorant. Papists also are in general ignorant of divine things, and very vicious. Nor do the bulk of the church of England much exceed them, either in knowledge or holiness; and many errors, and much looseness of conduct, are to be found amongst dissenters of all denominations. The lutherans in Denmark, are much on a par with the ecclesiastics in England; and the face of most Christian countries presents a dreadful scene of ignorance, hypocrisy, and profligacy. Various ...
— An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens • William Carey
... time during which a machine will continue to perform its work effectually, will depend chiefly upon the perfection with which it was originally constructed upon the care taken to keep it in proper repair, particularly to correct every shake or looseness in the axes—and upon the smallness of the mass and of the velocity of its moving parts. Everything approaching to a blow, all sudden change of direction, is injurious. Engines for producing power, such as windmills, ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... D.F. III. 67 notices a certain looseness in the use of tenses, which Cic. displays in narrating the opinions of philosophers, but no ex. so strong as this is produced. Ut aut approbet quid aut improbet: this Halm rejects. I have noticed among recent ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the looseness of this gentleman's character was, that he respected and admired his sister Amy. The feeling had never induced him to spare her a moment's uneasiness, or to put himself to any restraint or inconvenience on her account; but with that Marshalsea taint upon his love, he loved her. The same rank ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... of this glamorous love-making—Krishna embracing one woman, dancing with another and conversing with a third. The background is a diagram of the forest as it might appear in spring—the slack looseness of treatment befitting the freedom of conduct adumbrated by the verse. The large insects hovering in the branches are the black bees of Indian love-poetry whose quest for flowers was regarded as symbolic of urgent lovers pestering their mistresses. In style the picture illustrates ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... had to toil there all day until the sun went down. He and his fellow slaves had to work in all types of weather, good as well as bad. Although the master or the overseer were not as cruel as some he had heard of they tolerated no looseness of work and in case a person was suspected of loafing the whip was applied freely. Although he was never whipped, he has heard the whip being applied to his mother any number of times. It hurt him, he says, because he had to stand back unable to render any assistance whatever. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... huge mistake of believing that we would stand out—that we dared not support France in face of our troubles and divisions at home. She counted on the pacific influences in a Liberal Cabinet, on the looseness of the ties which bound us to our Dominions, on the "contemptible" numbers of our Expeditionary Force, on the surrender of Belgium. She had willed the War; the tragedy of Sarajevo gave her the excuse. There is no longer any need to fix the responsibility. ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... with faces of averted meekness, or haughty uplifts of brows and noses, as suited best their different characters. Mistress Mary was, no doubt, the fairest of them all, and yet there was more than that in the cause for her advantage over them. She kept all her admirers by the very looseness of her grasp, which gave no indication of any eagerness to hold, and thus aroused in them no fear of detention nor of wiles of beauty which should subvert their wills. And, furthermore, Mary Cavendish distributed her smiles as impartially ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... carpet of golden and silken tissue. In the middle of the eleventh century, Adhemar II., viscount of Limoges, had in his city a quarrel of quite a different sort with the monks of the abbey of St. Martial. The abbey had fallen into great looseness of discipline and morals; and the viscount had at heart its reformation. To this end he entered into concert, at a distance, with Hugh, abbot of Cluni, at that time the most celebrated and most respected of the monasteries. The abbot ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... seeking labor, hastened the deterioration and gave rise to problems where only tendencies existed before. Neighborhood life is conspicuously lax and the spirit of the community quite naturally comports with the looseness and immorality of the district. Though such conditions are plainly evident, no organized influence has been projected to correct them. As with the neighborhood, so with housing, crime, delinquency, education, recreation, industry, and the like, the conditions which retard developmental habits must ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... for making a plaster for the chest (in croupiness or cold inside the chest), or for mixing with warm water to make an emetic, extract of ginger or sirup of ginger (for summer complaint and griping looseness of the bowels if long continued), perhaps some soda mint tablets (for sour stomach caused by overeating), are other simple remedies. Of course the Scout should learn to read the little clinical thermometer, and one should be carried in the ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... compositions in Grieg-ton Smith has seized the fascinating looseness of the Griegorian tonality and its whimsicality. The "Humoresque" is a bit of titanic merriment; the "Mazurka" is most deftly built and is full of dance-fire; the "Arietta" is highly original, and the "Capricietto" ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... death-bed to obey this summons. The flesh of his face had shrunk, and left the lines of his countenance sharp. His eye-sockets were cavernous; the dark eyes had an unnatural lustre. His hair and beard were abandoned to neglect. His garments hung with strange looseness about him. He stood there, just within the door, his gaze fixed on Egremont, a gaze wherein suspicion and reproach and all unutterable ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... That virus is, to all intents and purposes, a seed. It is sown as yeast is sown, it grows and multiplies as yeast grows and multiplies, and it always reproduces itself. To Pasteur we are indebted for a series of masterly researches, wherein he exposes the looseness and general baselessness of prevalent notions regarding the transmutation of one ferment into another. He guards himself against saying it is impossible. The true investigator is sparing in the use of this word, though the use of it is unsparingly ascribed to him; but, as a matter ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... of interpretation do not compel us, in cases like this, to receive the severest literal significance of a word as conveying the meaning which a popular doctrine holds in the minds of its believers. There is almost always looseness, vagueness, metaphor, accommodation. But take the term before us in its strictest sense, and mark the result. When a fire is extinguished, it is obvious that, while the flame has disappeared, the substance of the flame, whatever ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... and of many soles, the outside whereof of the profaner sort are plated over with a lift of silver, which is fastened with small nails with broad silver heads. Most of these are or have been slaves, though love have set them loose at liberty to enslave souls to sin and Satan; and for the looseness of their lives, and public scandals committed by them and the better sort of the Spaniards, I have heard them say often, who possessed more religion and fear of God, they verily thought God would destroy ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... has a carriage, then, this niece of the doctor?" interrupted Porthos, one of whose faults was a great looseness of tongue. "A nice ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... about acknowledging the consummate alteration of his life. They proclaimed, as from a watch-tower, the arrival of enemies. The cheeks were no longer firm, but heavy and flaccid. The mouth was deformed by the down-drawn looseness of the sensualist, and the complexion beaconed with an unnatural scarlet that was a story to ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and carelessness of composition. 1. Pointless badinage and padded scenes. 2. Inconsistencies of character and situation. 3. Looseness of dramatic construction. 4. Roman admixture and topical allusions. 5. Jokes on the dramatic machinery. 6. Use of stock ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... deposits it in others; by which means their courses are gradually altered; new Islands are formed, and alluvial soil accumulated in some parts of the rivers, while it is washed away in others; and this is more or less the case according to the looseness of the soil, and the bends of the river: so that a man may have a growing estate, or he may see his land diminishing from year to year without the power ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... morning to night, and, even at the beginning of the rain, not so much as stir a few yards to shelter, but continue in it without necessity, till they were, as we say, wet through and through. And that is soon effected by the looseness and spunginess of the plaiding; but the bonnet is frequently taken off, and wrung like a dishclout, and then put on again. They have been accustomed from their infancy to be often wet, and to take the water ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... cannot be a sound trichotomy as applied either to human nature or Divine. Surely Power is an expression of Will and not co-ordinate with it. The common division, Power (or Will), Wisdom, and Love is more to the point. Yet Dr. Rashdall identifies the two triads by what I must needs think a looseness of reasoning.' The Margaret Professor of Divinity hardly seems to recognize that he is criticizing the Angelical Doctor and not myself. If Dr. Sanday had had the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, the result, if less metaphysically subtle, might ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... his greatness that his style, never distinguished, and often lax, has not impaired the vitality of his prose. The heart which beats in his works, the knowledge of human nature, the dramatic vigour of his character, the nobility of his whole being win the day against the looseness of his manner, the negligence of his composition, against the haste of fatigue which set him, as Lady Louisa Stuart often told him, on "huddling up a conclusion anyhow, and so kicking the book out of his way." In this ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... amid wisps of white hair, and a scraggy throat which asserted its working muscles visibly whenever he spoke, laughed or took food. His way of shaking hands expressed his moral flabbiness in the general dampness, looseness and limpness of the act,—not that he often shook hands with his pupil, for though that pupil was only a boy made of ordinary flesh and blood like other boys, he was nevertheless heir to a Throne, and in strict ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... that knew no mean, either to intermit his studies or call upon them again. When he hath set himself to writing he would join night to day, press upon himself without release, not minding it, till he fainted; and when he left off, resolve himself into all sports and looseness again, that it was almost a despair to draw him to his book; but once got to it, he grew stronger and more earnest by the ease. His whole powers were renewed; he would work out of himself what he desired, but with such excess ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... the Written Law; they were indifferent to dogmas that had not reason or Scriptures to support them. The writings of Moses have scarcely any recognition of a future life, and hence the Sadducees disbelieved in the resurrection of the dead,—for which reason the Pharisees accused them of looseness in religious opinions. They were more courteous and interesting than the great body of the people who favored the Pharisees, but were more luxurious in their habits of life. They had more social but less religious pride than their rivals, among whom pride took ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... jealousy. But this life was unspeakably wearisome, after the first novelty had worn away. Cornelia lived in an age when many of the common proprieties and decencies of our present society would have been counted prudish, but she could not close her eyes to the looseness and license that pervaded her mother's world. Woman had become almost entirely independent of man in social and economic matters, though the law still kept its fictions of tutelage. Honourable marriages were growing fewer and fewer. Divorces were multiplying. The morality of the time can be ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... thing, but let this suffice. It is delightful to see how a good man may live in the midst of the ungodly, and keep his garments unspotted, and his name unsullied by the adverse influences around him. What a rebuke such a life is to many who excuse their looseness and irregularities because they are thrown among the irreligious; and how stimulative it becomes to others that are similarly situated, and trying to live consistently in the midst of all their ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... discharge, and the fear of an imaginary contagion, make the nurses very unwilling to introduce their fingers into the reluctant little patient's mouth, and without this scrutiny all is in vain. The physician is compelled to set the example, to try the looseness of the teeth with his own fingers, and to ensure the nurse's entire knowledge of ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... excrescencyes of litle rocks and craigs, which makes exceidingly to the commendation of the places. In thes craigs are built in houses, which be the vertue of Antiperistasis is cold in summer and hot in winter, tho their be some of them they dare not dwell in in winter by reason of the looseness of ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... who know 'tis generally allowed, that the Infidelity and Looseness of the Age is very much owing to the Play-Houses; who have observed, that the Zeal of particular Persons have decreased, and their Strictness of Life abated, by their going to Plays; and do think that the Gospel obliges them to discourage, ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous
... puma, lynx and wild-cat we fancy it might work admirably. The net should be of stout cord, and should be secured to a heavy square frame work, tilted as in the coop trap, already described. There should be plenty of slack in the net, and the looseness should be drawn flat over the framework in folds. The contrivance may be set by a large figure four trap, page (107), or the device described under the coop ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... besides that it was written to order, no man in England could then write impartially in that quarrel; but it is not more one-sided and uncandid than the pamphlet which it answers, and Bacon is able to recriminate with effect, and to show gross credulity and looseness of assertion on the part of the Roman Catholic advocate. But religion had too much to do with the politics of both sides for either to be able to come into the dispute with clean hands: the Roman Catholics meant ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... Bethel and Aurora communities is the looseness of the bond which keeps the people together. They might break up at any time; but they have remained in community for thirty years. Their religious belief is extremely simple, and yet it seems to suffice to hold them. ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... brief excursion from the sheets before him, how obviously their interest quickens and their eyes brighten. Even they, in the depths of their hearts, would rather be spoken to, though such a practice might mean, now and then, a little looseness in expression, a little breakdown in the preacher's grammar. More than this may be said:—It has seemed to us, as the result of attending many churches, that in such sanctuaries as we have referred to ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... Weib, und Gesang." Beneath his unlimited faith in pleasure lie natural shrewdness, an excellent early education, and certain principles of honesty and good fellowship, which are all the more clearly defined from his moral looseness in details which are identified in the Anglo-Saxon mind with total depravity. In such a man, the appreciation of the beautiful in nature may be keen, but it will continually vanish before humour or mere fun; while having no deep root in life or interests in common with the settled ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... bookseller's invention, though a rather happy one; and the personal setting, which is in Boccaccio a mere framework, has here considerable substance and interest. In the second place, the accusation of looseness is wildly exaggerated. There is one very coarse but not in the least immoral story in the Heptameron; there are several broad jests on the obnoxious cloister and its vices, there are many tales which are not intended virginibus puerisque, and there is a pervading flavour of ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... Once on a time was an a— gut; Now to a nobler office put, By favour or desert preferr'd From giving passage to a t—; But still, though fix'd among the stars, Does sympathize with human a—. Thus, when you feel a hard-bound breech, Conclude love's bow-string at full stretch, Till the kind looseness comes, and then, Conclude the bow relax'd again. And now, the ladies all are bent, To try the great experiment, Ambitious of a regent's heart, Spread all their charms to catch a f— Watching the first unsavoury wind, Some ply before, and some behind. My lord, on fire amid the dames, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... the Latin tongue. The inaptitude of English for the purposes of speech is even more conspicuous, and is again well illustrated in our oratory. Gladstone was an orator of acknowledged eloquence, but the extreme looseness and redundancy into which his language was apt to fall in the effort to attain the verbose richness required for the ends of spoken speech, reveals too clearly the poverty of English from this point of view. The same tendency ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... reforming zealot were blended together in a common hostility to the Church and a common resolve to substitute personal religion for its dogmatic and ecclesiastical system. But it was this want of organization, this looseness and fluidity of the new movement, that made it penetrate through every class of society. Women as well as men became the preachers of the new sect. Lollardry had its own schools, its own books; its pamphlets were passed ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... your chaste bed, And, like a murd'rer, sent you to your grave, Do but go with me to my mother's house; There shall you live in secret for a space, Only to see the end of such lewd lust, And know the difference of a chaste wife's bed, And one whose life is in all looseness led. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... off abruptly and stood there at the window for a time, motionless and thoughtful. She was a tall girl, of a broad-shouldered, athletic type, a college girl by the sign of the austere cut of her gown, but a western girl by the sign of the flying ends of the scarf about her throat, the unafraid looseness of her bright hair. Her face, lit by her amber eyes and crowned by those loose masses of hair, had a rare, dusky-gold beauty. Despite her hair she was dark-skinned, smooth and warm like bisque, and that same gold-dusted radiance that was ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... pull through—perhaps, five per cent. These are called "salted horses," and are very valuable; as, although they are not proof against the disease, they are not so liable to take it. A salted horse may be known by the peculiar looseness and roughness of his skin, and also by a certain unmistakable air of depression, as though he felt that the responsibilities of life pressed very heavily upon him. He is like a man who has dearly bought his experience; ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... maintain Imperial unity, and yet (as it is alleged without lessening their strength) contain within their limits States each of which enjoys a large amount of independence. That neither the German Empire nor the Austro-Hungarian monarchy suffer inconvenience from the looseness of the connection between the States which they each contain is one of those assertions more easily made than proved to be true; but supposing its truth to be, for the moment and purely for the sake of argument, admitted, there will still be found considerable difficulty ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... consequence. That it eases phthisical cough there can be no doubt; in fact, some of the patients scarcely took their cough mixtures at all—an unmixed boon to phthisical sufferers with delicate stomachs. Its power of checking phthisical looseness of the bowels was very marked, and experiment proved that this was not merely due to the well known astringent properties of boiled milk. It also gave great relief to the dyspnoea. For phthisical night sweats it is utterly useless; but these ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... of speakers then, this time a private, still too rangy, but his looseness of frame seeming already to conform to ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... degree; he played equally with nature and with his colors. Light, with all its prismatic varieties, seems to have been the chief object of his studies; individuality of form or color he was wholly indifferent to. The looseness of execution in his latest works has not even the apology of having been attempted on scientific principles; he did not work upon a particular point of a picture as a focus and leave the rest obscure, as a foil to enhance it, on a principle ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... Mr. Morgan[23] distinguishes two principal grades or stages of culture, namely Savagery and Barbarism. There is much looseness and confusion in the popular use of these terms, and this is liable to become a fruitful source of misapprehension in the case of any statement involving either of them. When popular usage discriminates between them it discriminates in the right ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... at least, are genuine," laughed Crochard. "The Prince was most indignant at having to remove them. My heart bled for him—but there was no other way. Beyond a little tightness across the shoulders, and a little looseness about the waist, they do ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... the same qualities. Writing generally as a man of affairs, for practical ends, he makes no attempt at elegance and is informal even to the appearance of looseness of expression. Of conscious refinements and also, in his stories, of technical artistic structural devices, he has no knowledge; he does not go out of the straight path in order to create suspense, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... rekindled, at first with a faint glow upon his cheek and a sparkle in his eye; but the table soon overflowed with wine, mirth, and laughter. He drank without reflection, and soon spoke with warmth and looseness ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... often as they dry." It is not improbable that the hint was taken from this circumstance for the anodyne necklaces, which, some time ago, were in such repute, as the Doctor, some little way further on, prescribes the same root for the looseness, fevers, and convulsions of children, during the time of teething, mixed, to make it appear more ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... horses, on wines, on women, on politics, on all things, except that which had created our acquaintance. His remarks were those of a strong, ill-regulated mind, which had made experience supply the place of the reasoning faculties; there was a looseness in his sentiments, and a licentiousness in his opinions, which startled even me (used as I had been to rakes of all schools); his philosophy was of that species which thinks that the best maxim of wisdom is—to despise. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for March is notable for an increase in size. "A Visit to Niagara Falls", by Andrew R. Koller, is an intelligent and animated piece of description, which promises well for the development of its author. What looseness of construction exists may be charged to youth. "An Ambition and a Vision", by Nettie A. Hartman, is a neat and grammatically written little sketch, probably autobiographical, describing the evolution of an amateur. Greater cultivation of rhetorical taste would improve ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... reason why the novel is still held to be inferior to the drama is to be found in its looseness of form. The novel is not strictly limited, as the play must be by the practical necessities of the theater; and the practitioners of the art of fiction permit themselves a license of structure which cannot but be enfeebling to the artists themselves. Few of ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... Higgleby, taking out a cigar that in shape and looseness of wrapping closely resembled its owner, "now that's settled, let's get down to brass tacks. Here's a copy ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... posture. I can also admit the stiffness of the Elbow, in smooth and Swift Division; for which it is most properly apt; but Cross and Skipping Divisions cannot (I think) be so well express'd without some consent or yielding of the Elbow-Joint unto the motion of the Wrist.... This motion or looseness of the Wrist I mention, is chiefly in Demi-semiquavers; for, in Quavers, and Semiquavers too, we must allow so much stiffness to the wrist as may command the Bow on and off the String, at every ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... deep black, slightly clouded on the sides, his feet alone and a spot over each eye being of a full tawny or bright brown hue. He has the broad short truncated muzzle of the mastiff, and the lips are still more deeply pendulous. There is also a singular general looseness of the skin on every part ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... hopes were futile. He must even take her to supper, shamming. He finally went about and asked how she was getting along. The actors were all dressing, talking, hurrying about. Drouet was palavering himself with the looseness of excitement and passion. The manager mastered himself only ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... this will keep us from being offended with the loose and blotted handling of David Cox. There is no other means by which his object could be attained. The looseness, coolness, and moisture of his herbage; the rustling crumpled freshness of his broad-leaved weeds; the play of pleasant light across his deep heathered moor or plashing sand; the melting of fragments of white mist into ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... his pulse; nor can I think myself overpaid for the time spent in reading the life of Malherbe, by being enabled to relate, after the learned biographer, that Malherbe had two predominant opinions; one, that the looseness of a single woman might destroy all her boast of ancient descent; the other, that French beggars made use, very improperly and barbarously, of the phrase noble gentlemen, because either word ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... studying any one of them for more than a few moments at a time —only so long, in fact, as it can be followed under a microscope; when we remember, too, the imperfection of the compound microscopes which made high powers practical impossibilities; and, above all, when we appreciate the looseness of the ideas which pervaded all scientists as to the necessity of accurate observation in distinction from inference, it is not strange that the last century gave us no knowledge of bacteria beyond the mere fact of the existence of some extremely minute organisms in ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... house or relatives, rather than the act of the wife, who was not "a person" in the case. Indeed, in the olden time a woman was not a person in the eye of the law, but rather a chattel. The case is somewhat different under the new codes,[26] but the looseness of the marriage tie is still a scandal to thinking Japanese. Since the breaking up of the feudal system and the disarrangement of the old social and moral standards, the statistics made annually from the official census show that the ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... Albany, who was the mother of the fair and free young waltzing-women in New York, and who floats back to me through the Rhinebeck picture, aquiline but easy, with an effect of handsome highbrowed, high-nosed looseness, of dressing-gowns or streaming shawls (the dowdy, the delightful shawl of the period;) and of claws of bright benevolent steel that kept nipping for our charmed advantage: roses and grapes and peaches and currant-clusters, together with turns of phrase and scraps of remark that fell as by quite ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... In looseness of the bowels we give a teaspoonful of lemon juice in a little hot water and sugar. That has as much effect as is desirable, and it has no bad effect whatever. Or enema injections may be employed. (See Diarrhoea, Dysentery, Enema). Even infants are treated with "brandy," till ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... the river Jordan, to sundry other lake and river systems; points out the endless variations between writers describing the salt formations at Usdum; accounts rationally for these variations, and quotes from Dr. Anderson's report, saying, "From the soluble nature of the salt and the crumbling looseness of the marl, it may well be imagined that, while some of these needles are in the process of formation, others are ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... this resume of this little work it is proper that I should warn the younger members of the race against despondency, and against the looseness of character and habits that is singularly consequential of a despondent spirit. Do not be discouraged, give up, and throw away brilliant intellects, because of seeming obstacles, but rather resolve to BE SOMETHING AND DO SOMETHING ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... we sheltered ourselves from heat and storms, and I expounded to him the arts of building and furnishing. Here we wandered into misunderstandings and cross-purposes, due largely, I must admit, to the looseness of my expressions. For a long time I had great difficulty in making him understand the nature of a house. To him and his attendant Selenites it seemed, no doubt, the most whimsical thing in the world that men should build houses when they might descend into ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... person, if indeed a human being it was that bore the light he had seen, had passed up the tower. After a momentary hesitation, he determined to ascend the stair-case, but its ruinous condition made this an adventure of some difficulty. The steps were decayed and broken, and the looseness of the stones rendered a footing very insecure. Impelled by an irresistible curiosity, he was undismayed, and began the ascent. He had not proceeded very far, when the stones of a step which his foot had just quitted, loosened by his weight, gave way; and dragging with them those adjoining, ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... Restoration, it was not till Puritanism had shown all its intolerance, all its narrowness, and all its helplessness, that the Church was able to settle the real basis and the chief lines of its reformed constitution. It is not, as Mr. Gladstone says, "a heroic history"; there is room enough in the looseness of some of its arrangements, and the incompleteness of others, for diversity of opinion and for polemical criticism. But the result, in fact, of this liberty and this incompleteness has been, not that the Church has ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... my wife will be furious with you—furious, I say. And here she comes, too," he said, brightening, as he ever did, at sight of his lovely wife, who had remained his sweetheart, too; and this I am free to say, that, spite of the looseness of the times and of society, never, as long as I knew him, did Sir Peter forget in thought or deed those vows he took when wedded. Sportsman he was, and rake and gambler, as were we all; and I have seen him often overflushed with wine, but never heard from his lips a blasphemy or foul jest, never ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... England, Balzac did not do any of this miscellaneous work extremely well. Very shrewd observations are to be found in his reviews, for instance his indication, in reviewing La Touche's Fragoletta, of that common fault of ambitious novels, a sort of woolly and "ungraspable" looseness of construction and story, which constantly bewilders the reader as to what is going on. But, as a rule, he was thinking too much of his own work and his own principles of working to enter very thoroughly into the work of others. His politics, those ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac |
