"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mysterious country where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed idea that he must only work because he was a carpenter, but at every carpenter's shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on account of work being so slack, and finding himself at the end of his resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman, stone sawer; he split ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... closed. Archie waited a few moments, then went to the window and hauled in the slack. Presently the bag appeared over ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... hill country, the tide of population swept out. For the gulch hamlets between the Timanyonis there was still an industrial reason for being; but the railroad languished, and Angels became the weir to catch and retain many of the leavings, the driftwood stranded in the slack water of the outgoing tide. With the railroad, the Copperette Mine, and the "X-bar-Z" pay-days to bring regularly recurring moments of flushness, and with every alternate door in Mesa Avenue the entrance to a bar, a dance-hall, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... slack day before them on the morrow, there being a temporary lull in the form-work which occurred about once a week, when there was no composition of any kind to be done. The Sixth did four compositions a week, two Greek and two Latin, and except for these did not bother themselves very ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... enough to be sure that she would thrust her matrimonial happiness with Oliver unsparingly upon his attention; while he, on the other hand, being provided with no corresponding Olivette, would be left, a sort of emotional celibate, with his slack times and his afternoons and his general need for flattery and amusement dreadfully upon his own hands. He would be tormented by jealousy. In which case—and here he came to verities—his work would suffer. It wouldn't grip him while all these vague ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... all will be well dissolved; and if perhaps any more Faeces remain, they will be very few, cast them away, for they are good for nothing. Put the Solution into a glass-Gourd, with a Head luted upon it, set it into Balneum Mariae, with its receiver to take the Spirits, distil slowly with a slack heat, till all the Spirit of Wine be come over, pour it in again upon the dry matter, draw it off again as before; this pouring in & abstracting continue so often, till you see the Spirit of Wine ascend over the ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... double. In my youth I rarely spent any care in keeping my hair in order, because of my inclination for other pursuits more to my taste. My gait is irregular. I move now quickly, now slowly. When I am at home I go with my legs naked as far as the ankles. I am slack in duty and reckless in speech, and specially prone to show irritation over anything which ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... ten knots good now, and with every jerk the painter of the seine-boat chafed and groaned in the taffrail chock. The skipper from the boat called for more line. "Slack away a bit, ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... came in a broken chorus, as the crew, partially sobered by the words, hurried to the long-boat, where a line of small kegs lay in the sand. A moment later they were gone, plowing up the hillside. Jeremy stood where he had been left. A tall, slack-jointed pirate in the most picturesque attire strolled over to the boy's side and looked him up and down with a roguish grin. Under his cloak Jeremy had on fringed leather breeches and tunic such as most of the northern colonists ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... clump of trees on the edge of the field. Their shade invited like a beckoning hand. Little beads of perspiration stood on her forehead. A warm lassitude spread through her body, turning her muscles slack. Hadn't Gertrude said Aunt Jessica didn't let them work in too hot ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... more necessary, as it was essential that the wood under the hippopotamus hide should be preserved from internal as well as external influences. If the wood had shrunk after it had been once covered, parts of the hide would become slack, and serious inconveniences would have ensued. I never knew one of our Swan vessels to spring a leak or to wear out. The vessels built under my rule will exist unimpaired for many centuries, whilst those built under the former system were broken to pieces on account ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... handsome man, a man thought well of. You have great provisions upon your cart. This man has nothing but the unwashed shirt which hangs on his slack back. It will not become you to march handcuffed with his like, going between two policemen to ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... deck-beams, savagely, as the upward heave of the sea made the frames try to open. "Come back to your bearings, you slack-jawed irons!" ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... on this side, and he was gradually and steadily lowered down. Presently those above felt the rope slack. Another minute and it swung loosely. It was drawn up again, and Malcolm, placing one of the men at the loophole, with instructions to listen intently for any sound of alarm or conflict, turned his attention to ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... fasten the plumb line to a nail or other suitable projection. On coming down to the lower floor it is often found that the bob has been secured either too high or too low. When fastening the line give it plenty of slack and when the lower floor is reached make a double loop in the line, as shown in the sketch. Tightening up on the parts AA will bind the loop bight B, and an adjustable friction-held loop, C, will be had for adjusting the bob accurately either up or down. —Contributed by Chas. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... day Cynthia went up to the hotel and oversaw the preparation of Jeff's meals and kept taut the slack housekeeping of the old Irish woman who had remained as a favor, after the hotel closed, and professed to have lost the chance of a place for the winter by her complaisance. She submitted to Cynthia's authority, and tried to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is only his fossil-like way of treating the subject, but certainly the Major shows a very slack interest, Sally thinks, in the identity of this namesake of hers. He does, however, ask absently, what sort of way did he speak ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... legs is short, but I slog along slack at the knees an' don't worry my muscles none, an' I can sure walk every piker ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... of thing was alvays going on, and on holidays one disregarded it as a matter of course. Week-davs, in the slack time after the midday meal, then perhaps one might worry about the Empire and international politics; but not on a sunny Sunday, with a pretty girl trailing behind one, and envious cyclists trying to race you. Nor did our young people attach ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... successful artisans, take care to publish in the off season. Thus within the last few weeks we have had novels from Eden Phillpotts, Miss Beatrice Harraden, Anthony Hope, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and Miss Marie Corelli. At this rate the autumn will soon become the slack time; August will burn and throb with a six-shilling activity; publishers' clerks will form a union; and the Rt. Hon. W.F.D. Smith, M.P., who has always opposed an eight hours day, will bring in a Bill for an eight ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... of sentimental rubbish," he said. "It seems to me it's only a hindrance—this caring so much for people. It gets in a man's way. Not that it matters to you just now. You've got a slack time. You ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... and so did I. Now that it was all over I felt different from what I used to do, only half the man I once was. If we stayed in the Hollow for a month the police might think we'd gone straight out of the country and slack off a bit. Anyhow, as long as they didn't hit the trail off to the entrance, we couldn't be in a safer place, and though there didn't seem much to do we thought we'd manage to hang it out somehow. One day we were riding all together in the afternoon, when we happened to come near the gully ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... War Correspondent, who is counting the butter at Copenhagen, that great activity is manifesting itself among the officers and men of the German Slack-Water Fleet. This is owing to the fact that they are learning a new German National Anthem which has just been introduced into the Fleet, set to an old English tune. A rough translation of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... the industrial system. My idea is to make it compulsory for every man to undergo military training, about a couple of months every year, and call the men up to the camp in times of trade depression. You wouldn't have to call them all up at once ... trades aren't all slack at the same time ... and you'd arrange the period of training as far as possible to fit in with the slack time in each job. I mean, people who are employed in gasworks could easily be trained in the summer without dislocating the gas industry ... colliers, too, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... your heart to alleviate the unseen woes which will never come into painful contact with your sensibilities, to bestow pleasures in which you yourself have no immediate share. It will tell your hearts especially in the case of this very Hospital for Consumption not to be slack in giving, because so much of what you will give—it is painful to recollect how much—will be spent, not in prevention, not even in cure, but in mere alleviation, mere increased bodily ease, mere savoury food, even mere passing amusements for wearied minds. Be it so. If (which God ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... wares, and her basket is small, She earns her own living by these, when at all. She's there with her baby in wind and in rain, In frost and in snow-fall, in weakness and pain. She trades and she trades, through the good times and slack— No home and no food, and no cloak to her back. She's kithless and kinless—one friend at the most, And that one is silent: the telegraph post! She asks for no alms, the poor Jewess, but still, Altho' she is wretched, forsaken and ill, She cries Sabbath candles to ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... now gone if Cooper, who had already recovered his feet, had not immediately cut the sheet with his knife; there was no time to slack it; and, even as it was, the lower part of the sail was drenched, and the boat full of water. "Ship the helm!" ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... imagination, mistook himself for a person of importance very easily. He rattled away, and attacked this person and that; sneered at Lady John Turnbull's bad French, which her ladyship will introduce into all conversations in spite of the sneers of everybody; at Mrs. Slack Roper's extraordinary costume and sham jewels; at the old dandies and the young ones;—at whom didn't he ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... next halt Hooja the Sly One managed to find enough slack chain to permit him to worm himself back quite close to Dian. We were all standing, and as he edged near the girl she turned her back upon him in such a truly earthly feminine manner that I could scarce repress a smile; but it was a short-lived smile for on the instant ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... straight; his eyes had the deep, varying blueness of lake water. Little wisps and burrs, odors of the forest clung about his clothing; a beard covered his slack, formless mouth. When he told the Homesteader's daughter how the stars went by on heather planted headlands and how the bucks belled the does at the bottom of deep canons in October, she heard in it the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... within about four yards of a point immediately beneath the enemy. There it struck sharply upward, and before it had faded from my gaze at the place whence it had set out I heard a horrid thump and a piercing scream, and my poor uncle shot forward, with a slack rope higher than the limb to which he was attached. Here the rope tautened with a jerk, arresting his flight, and back he swung in a breathless curve to the other end of his arc. The ram had fallen, a ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... had their headquarters. The flash revealed to me every point of the situation. I saw at once where I was, and how I got there: that the tide had turned while I was swimming, and with a much briefer interval of slack-water than I had been led to suppose,—that I had been swept a good way down stream, and was far beyond all possibility of regaining the point ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... work is slack and members are unemployed, will advocate shorter hours at the same rate of pay so as to make ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... distinctly the general make-up of the train. The train was composed of coach bodies, mostly from Thorpe and Sprague's stage coaches, placed upon trucks. The trucks were coupled together with chains, leaving from two to three feet slack, and when the locomotive started it took up the slack by jerks, with sufficient force to jerk the passengers who sat on seats across the tops of the coaches, out from under their hats, and in stopping, came together with such force as to send them ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... You see we're both pretty young in the profession and we aren't as well known as we hope to be later on. We have to take what we can get on the small-time circuits, and we know that if we make good there we'll get on the big-time circuit sooner or later. Just now things are slack in the theatrical line as they always are in summer. We've got our lines out for a job in the fall, but nothing definite has come of it yet. So we thought we'd come down to the seashore for a few weeks and get a little of the sea air ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... revealed himself to me. To one of my friends he had appeared as an eagle, which meant that he was to be a warrior, keen and victorious; and to another as a fox, so that he studied cunning; but without any vision I did not know what to make of myself. My heart was slack as a wetted bowstring. ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... well. Billy, in an ordinary business suit, was not the man of the world of Graduation night, yet there was a new maturity in his eyes and the set of his jaw that Lydia liked without really observing it. Old Lizzie watched the two as they climbed the slope to the woods. Billy strode along with the slack, irregular gait of the farmer. Lydia sprang over the ground ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Boma sprawled amongst the low burnt-up hills, and every day the doctor with his bad liver came across in his boat under the blinding sunshine to within shouting distance, and put a few weary questions. The formalities were slack enough. Nilssen usually made the necessary replies (as he liked to keep himself in the doctor's good books), and then the boat ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... portraiture, and a knowledge of patting clay and using a chisel has saved many a sculptor, but technical equipment alone never made an illustrator, because he deals too directly with life in action. Slack drawing and impatience of method will always be pardoned in an ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... Germany?" Colonel Holt asked. "The Germans seem to be getting slack about prisoners lately. O'Malley and Jones got back a ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... for running away (if that should be advisable), or, if you are in pursuit, the strides they lend themselves to will make your enemy's escape impossible. Seriously now, are not these refinements of yours all child's play—something for your idle, slack youngsters to do? If you really want to be free and happy, you must have other exercises than these; your training must be a genuine martial one; no toy contests with friends, but real ones with enemies; danger must be an element in your character- development. ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... all of them musical. There were swift actions, too: a Kanaka crawled out upon the bowsprit to make taut a slack stay, while two others with pulley-blocks swarmed aloft. Occasionally the canvas snapped as the wind veered slightly. The sea was no longer rolling brass; it was bluer than anything he had ever seen. Every so often a wall of water, thin and jade-coloured, would rise up ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... go down," said Raffles, promptly; "we'll slack it up here for a bit instead. No, Bunny, you stay where you are! I'll fetch you a drink and a deck-chair, and you shan't come down till you ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... to alter it? Couldn't you set up a proper Government to-morrow, if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you, instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to think, I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest. All you can think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as far as your imagination carries you. And perhaps ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... will retain and hold fast the doctrine of redemption, and so by that have, through faith, an inlet into all the abounding mercy of God, must not deal in God's matters with a slack hand. It is not enough for them that would do so, to be content with sermons, family duties, and other public assemblies for worship, but there must be a continual exercise of the mind about these matters, and a labour of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... were judiciously varied, and protracted by a constant succession of entertainments of various descriptions. Mr. Chalons exhibited many of his most surprising deceptions in the rotunda; where also young Gyngell displayed some capital performances on the slack-wire. In the long room the celebrated fantoccini exhibition, with groupes of quadrille dancers, enlivened the scene. In one walk of the garden, Mr. Gyngell's theatre of arts was erected, where were exhibited balancing, the Ombres Chinoises, gymnastic exercises, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... his work was done and that he had earned his rest. The stallion was pretty well spent, and after a few minutes of struggling he stood with feet far spread, nostrils dilated and eyes wide, watching me as I edged toward him, taking in the slack of the rope as I advanced. A dozen times he reared and tried to break away; but always I spoke soothingly to him and after an hour of effort I succeeded in reaching his head and stroking his muzzle. Then I gathered a handful of grass and offered ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... amid the masts and shrouds, They hung above the wave; The sky o'erhead was dark with clouds, And dark beneath, their grave. The water leaped against its prey, Breaking with heavy crash, And when some slack'ning hands gave way, They ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... had tripped and fallen. Bettles stopped long enough to grip him by the slack of his furs, then headed for a pile of cordwood already occupied by a number of his comrades. Yellow Fang, doubling after one of the dogs, came leaping back. The fleeing animal, free of the rabies, but crazed with ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable part in electioneering. Squires hid their ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... is the circus, a sort of travelling Astley's theatre, which belongs to a company in New York. This show visits all the large towns, once during the summer season. The performances consists of feats of horsemanship, gymnastics, dancing on the tight and slack rope, and wonderful feats of agility and strength; and to those who have taste and nerve enough to admire such sights, it possesses great attractions. The company is a large one, often exceeding forty persons; it is provided with good performers, and an excellent brass ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... wall of the tent is stretched to complete the rectangle. Wall pins are then driven through these loops. Each corner pin should be directly in rear of the corresponding front corner pin, making a rectangle. Unless the canvas be wet, a small amount of slack should be allowed before the corner pins are driven. According to the size of the tent one or two men, crawling under the tent if necessary, fit each pole or ridge or upright into the ring or ridge pole holes, and such accessories as hood, fly, and brace ropes are adjusted. If a tripod be ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... And now I can pay you back a little. But perhaps you won't mind, dearest, if I don't write anything very long, for I expect I ought to take it easy—for a bit—I can't think why I should have felt so slack. I never knew anything about nerves before. But the doctor has been very nice and understanding—a real, decent fellow. He declares I shall be as fit as a fiddle, long before the ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... saw that her efforts were to be of little avail. Rope lay pitifully slack and unresponsive. At the end of an hour's work Ferguson bent over her with ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... skillfully to the black's weight on the rope. For a few minutes the animal at the loop end of the riata struggled desperately—plunging, tugging, throwing himself this way and that; but always the experienced cow-horse turned with his victim and the rope was never slack. When his first wild efforts were over and the black stood with his wide braced feet, breathing heavily as that choking loop began to tell, the strain on the taut riata was lessened, and Phil went quietly toward the ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... Like dogs that snarl about a bone, And play together when they've none, As by their truest characters, Their constant actions, plainly appears. 30 Rebellion now began, for lack Of zeal and plunders to grow slack; The Cause and covenant to lessen, And Providence to b' out of season: For now there was no more to purchase 35 O' th' King's Revenue, and the Churches, But all divided, shar'd, and gone, That us'd to urge the Brethren on; ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Perhaps I ran twenty yards, perhaps fifty; I do not know. I heard the steps behind me, quick as my own. Then I fell headlong on the road—tripped up! I understood. They had stretched a rope across my path; as I fell a man bounded up from either side, and I found the rope slack under my body. There I lay on my face; a man knelt on me, others held either hand; my face was pressed into the mud of the road, and I was like to have been stifled; my hand-bag had whizzed away from me. Then ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... slack week we took the opportunity to see a certain amount of Antwerp, and to call on many officials and the many friends who did so much to make our work there a success and our stay a pleasure. To one lady we can never be sufficiently grateful. She placed at our disposal her magnificent house, a ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... at the imminent risk of neck and limbs, had taken from the celebrated eyry in the neighborhood, called Gledscraig. As he was by no means satisfied with the attention which had been bestowed on his favourite bird, he was not slack in testifying his displeasure to the falconer's lad, whose duty it was ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... on his horse, as he usually did, his left hand holding a slack rein, his right resting on his hip, with bent head and dreamy eyes, he made his first steps along that incline, at once glorious and fatal, which was to lead him to a throne—and ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... there was no sign of humanity, not a soul upon the solitary road, not a living thing upon the desolate hills that rose on either side in jagged points to the sky. Corona talked a little with the head-keeper who rode beside her with a slack rein, letting his small mountain horse pick its own way over the rough path. He told her that few people ever passed that way. It was the short road to Saracinesca. The princes sometimes sent their carriage round by the longer way and rode ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... there wide awake and made no sign of displeasure, Torarin turned off at the first road that led westward to the sea. He flicked the horse with the slack of the reins and made ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... if spicier features incline to be slack There is always the Chief of the State to attack; We have standing instructions to cake him with mud And a couple of columns reserved for his blood. Oh, yes, there is Peace, but our property thrives— We are having, I tell you, the time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... round its shoulders, Tom galloping his own horse hard behind. By the most skilful manipulation of the lariat, Edna's horse was compelled to slacken its pace, Tom getting nearer and nearer by degrees and taking in the slack until he was right alongside. He soon brought the runaway to a stand-still, and directed me to release Edna's foot from the stirrup, which I did. She sank to the ground, completely exhausted. And little wonder. Her hands were cut and bleeding with the tenacious grip ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... to receive it, and the postmaster-general who permits the department to exceed that simple duty and intermeddle with the rights of the people should not only be impeached and removed from office in one time and two motions, but taken by the slack of the pantalettes and pitched headlong into the penitentiary. It appears that the indignant people assaulted the nigger postmaster. That is indeed to be regretted; still I can but wonder that they do not shoot the whole umbilicus out of every impudent tool of a petty ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... my younger Brother, by any and every means, to watch and pray against a slack or low view of his function as a preacher. From very many quarters at the present day we are invited to slight our sermon-labour. Sometimes it is "work," organization, committees, which is set against the sermon; sometimes it is the reading-desk and the Communion Table—the liturgical functions of ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... stretched string that gives out musical notes; the slack one is dumb. And if we desire that we may be able to be sure, as our Master was, when He said, 'I know that Thou hearest me always,' we must pray as He did, of whom it is recorded that 'He prayed the more earnestly,' and 'was heard in that He feared.' The word rendered ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... awake nights. When I drew the tender alongside he stepped in without further urging and sat down in the stern. I rowed ashore. Fortunately for the tender feelings of my cousin there wasn't a soul in sight when we landed. I fastened the boat, and then, with the oars on my shoulder and the slack of the codline in my hand, start him ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... at the opening, but the attendance of all others was cruelly slack. To hear the attack, the people came in crowds; to hear the defence, they scarcely came in t'ete- 'a-t'etes! 'Tis barbarous there should be so much more pleasure given by the recital of guilt than by ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Brother Vickers wanted a call ter the church in the Cove, bein' ez his relations live hyar-abouts, an' he kem up an' preached a time or two. But he didn't git no call. The brethren 'lowed Brother Vickers war too slack in his idees o' religion. Some said his hell warn't half hot enough. Thar air some powerful sinners in the Cove, an' nuthin' but good live coals an' a liquid blazin' fire air a-goin' ter deter them from the ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... advancing toward us at a brisk canter and the drum turned fast, taking up the slack of the tether; but, as though not satisfied with this rate of progress, several soldiers were running back and jumping up to haul in the rope. The sergeant who took care of the telephone was hard put to it to coil down the twin wires. He skittered about over the grass with the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... new acquaintance; "it was the manner in which he beat every one who attempted to contend with him, till, in an evil hour, he entered the ring with Slack, without any training or preparation, and by a chance blow lost the battle to a man who had been beaten with ease by those who, in the hands of Broughton, appeared like so many children. It was the way of fighting of him who first taught Englishmen to box scientifically, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... what he did, and certainly not knowing why he did it, walked quickly out on to the floor, seized the huge hook attached to the lower pulley of the tackle that hung from the roof-beam, pulled up the slack of the rope-bandage on the hind part of the machine, and stuck the hook into it, then walked quickly back. The hauling-rope of the tackle had been carried to the iron ring of a trap-door in the corner near ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... and heart, or tie strap or rope over handkerchief or folded shirt wrapped about limb. If arm, put baseball in arm pit, and press arm against this. Or, for arm or leg, tie folded cloth in loose noose around limb, put cane or umbrella through noose and twist up the slack very tight, so as to compress ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... against which the raging torrent of the highland tributaries spent itself without doing extraordinary damage in that immediate region. Bridges which might have been lost in a smaller flood like that of 1902 were actually standing in slack water by the time the mountain torrents appeared in force. These streams caused much destruction higher up in the mountains, but in the Central Basin their energy became potential—a gathering of forces to be loosed upon the lower valley. A discussion of the effects of this will be taken ...
— The Passaic Flood of 1903 • Marshall Ora Leighton
... ecclesiastical matters in Norfolk were in a very slack state—rectors and vicars lived away from their parishes, subscribing amongst them to pay the salary of a curate to undertake the church services. As his duties were consequently manifold some parishes were without his presence on Sunday for a month and sometimes longer. The ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... queerly. "Me, I'd call that riding, what we done," he retorted grimly. "I'm so sore I can hear my muscles squeak. Well, get down here and I'll show yuh how to stretch as yuh tack. And be sure you don't leave a hair's breadth of slack anywheres, or it'll all have to come off and be done ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... them, "Ah, there's no deceit in children. If I had had some, I should not have been the arch-rogue I am.". The industrious poor of Edge-hill found in Williamson a ready friend in time of need, and when work was slack many a man has come to the pay-place on Saturday, who had done nothing all the week but dig a hole and fill it up again. Once, on being remonstrated with by a man he had thus employed, on the uselessness of the work, Williamson said, "You do as you are told—you ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... dismissed, And now was travelling towards his native home. 425 This heard, I said, in pity, "Come with me." He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up An oaken staff by me yet unobserved— A staff which must have dropt from his slack hand And lay till now neglected in the grass. 430 Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared To travel without pain, and I beheld, With an astonishment but ill suppressed, His ghostly figure moving at my side; Nor could ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... A huge hand seized the slack of Thomas's shorts and the boy was heaved up to the muscular shoulder. The two faces were now on the same level and twinkling gray blue eyes were looking into ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... are yet in their leading-strings as to some parts of literature, there is the more room for improvement; and I am confident that the genius of my fellow-citizens will not be slack in the important work. You will please to recollect, sir, that during one hundred and sixty years of our childhood we were in our nonage; respecting our parent and looking up to her for books, science, and improvements. From her we borrowed much learning and some prejudices, which time alone ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... enclosure the youths threw down their weapons before them, and with the help of the initiated men divested themselves of the huge folds of native cloth in which they were enveloped, each man revolving slowly on his axis, while his attendant pulled at the bandage and gathered in the slack. The weapons and the cloth were the offerings presented by the novices to the ancestral spirits for the purpose of rendering themselves acceptable to these powerful beings. The offerings were repeated in like manner on four successive days; and as each youth was merely, as ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... came out, this time anxiously to consult sea and sky. The squall had cleared away, but the sky remained overcast. The two schooners, under all sail and joined by a third, could be seen making back. A veer in the wind induced them to slack off sheets, and five minutes afterward a sudden veer from the opposite quarter caught all three schooners aback, and those on shore could see the boom-tackles being slacked away or cast off on the jump. The sound of the surf was loud, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... pale blue; the cold freshened the spirits of the boys, and tightened their nerves and muscles, till they were like bow-strings. No doubt the winter was coming, but the sun, although his day's work was short and slack, was still as clear as ever. So gladsome was the world, that the boys received the day as a fresh holiday, and strenuously forgot to-morrow. The wind blew straight from Rothieden, and between sun and wind a bright thought awoke in ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... by suddenly leaning forward with her body, at the same time, for an instant, letting the rein slack and touching the neck with her bridle hand. She began to draw away ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... small assistance, he takes upon himself the responsibility of making this little working mate of his keep busy when in harness. Tad and Eric, the rear dogs, are the largest and heaviest of the pack, and perhaps the best haulers. Their traces are never slack, and they attend strictly ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... coincident, Miss Christie, one up and t'other down," said Dick lightly. "Work being slack at present at Devil's Ford, I reck'ned I'd take a pasear down to 'Frisco, and dip into the vortex o' fash'nable society and out again." He lightly waved a new handkerchief to illustrate his swallow-like intrusion. ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... paper. Here was Hilo and there was our objective, 128 degrees west longitude. With the northeast trade blowing we could travel a straight line between the two points, and even slack our sheets off a goodly bit. But one of the chief troubles with the trades is that one never knows just where he will pick them up and just in what direction they will be blowing. We picked up the northeast trade right outside of Hilo harbour, but the miserable breeze was away around into ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... the church and held thanksgiving services. A stillness brooded over the town. Life hardly moved; the strands hung slack. Thanksgiving soon changed to revival. Services lasted a week. The ministers preached terrible sermons, burning with terrible words. "Repent before it is too late. Twice God has warned this town." People vowed vows and sang as they had never ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... religion, and the happiness to be found in it, though the oracles of God in all ages have testified from heaven how certain and possible it is, though many have found it in experience and left it on record to others, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly of it, and so slack pursuit of it, as if we did not believe it at all. Truly, my beloved, there is a great mistake in this, and it is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but truly, I conceive there is nothing in the world so practicable ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the yeoman at the end of his long room, surrounded by his friends: glasses are filled, and a song is the cry, and a song is sung well suited to the place; it finds an echo in every heart—fists are clenched, arms are waved, and the portraits of the mightly fighting men of yore, Broughton, and Slack, and Ben, which adorn the walls, appear to smile grim approbation, whilst many a manly voice joins ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... hung slack, as a great back-wave lifted the boat on its crest and carried it seawards. But suddenly the strain came, carrying the two men on shore nearly off their feet, and grinding on the gunwale of the boat with a creak which could be heard even ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... he glanced furtively up toward Willem's room in the bedroom gallery above his head. Then he picked up the photograph and looked at it long with eyes full of trouble and apprehension. It was the full-length cabinet likeness of a plainly dressed young woman with a pretty, slack face. And the face's weakness was half redeemed by a stamp of settled sadness that was not devoid ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... come the command, and some men would go down into the smother of the lee rail and haul in or slack away sheets, while others at the mastheads would shift top- and ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... law of the Camp confined the girls to the pasture, but as it was the last week of the quarantine, they were beginning to grow a little slack about rules. The five victims of the salt cure waited until Miss Huntley and Nurse Robinson were enjoying their afternoon siesta; then, without waiting for any permission, they climbed the fence into the lane, found a thin place in the hedge, and scrambled into ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... neither was he sober. Why should he be the latter? he demanded seriously of himself. His glass was empty, the champagne was all gone. Mrs. Gilbert Bromhead was perceptibly leaning on Christian Wager, her skill blurred; Evadore's face was damply pallid, her mouth slack; she left the table, the room, hurried and unsteady, evidently about to repeat the thickness of the act that had marred her enjoyment of the night club; Claire was openly contemptuous ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Salerno, warranted to prevent toothache and death by drowning; and not far off, against another pillar, a tumbler was showing off his tricks on a small platform; while a handful of 'prentices, despising the slack entertainment of guerilla stone-throwing, were having a private concentrated match of that favourite Florentine sport at the narrow entrance ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Violet showed no signs of getting over it, no signs, at any rate, of settling down. On the contrary, before very long she slipped into her old slack ways. With all her fierce vitality it was as if she had no strength to turn her hand to anything. The charwoman came every week. (That was no more ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... steadfast, on her track, Not to be shaken off, untiring bent; And how awhile the fire from each grew slack, The shatter'd masts to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... had been tinkering about in the various barges, shallops and canoes tied to the mossy piles, left their employments and scrambled up upon the platform, and a trio of youthful darkies, fishing for crabs with a string and a piece of salt pork, allowed their lines to fall slack and their intended victims to walk coolly off with the meat, so intense was their interest in the oncoming sail. A knot of negro women had left the great house kitchen and stood, hands on hips, chatting volubly with a contingent from the quarters, their red and yellow turbans nodding up and ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... aft to the spanker-sheet! Stand by to slack off and haul in! Man the braces for wearing ship, the rest o' you! Hard up the wheel! Check in port main and starboard cro'-jack braces! Shiver the topsail! ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... they may safely go on to accuse Dickens of bad grammar. The truth is that his grammar is not only good but strong; it is far better in construction than Thackeray's, the ease of whose phrase sometimes exceeds and is slack. Lately, during the recent centenary time, a writer averred that Dickens "might not always be parsed," but that we loved him for his, etc., etc. Dickens's page is to be parsed as strictly as any man's. It is, apart from the matter of grammar, a wonderful ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... fallen away in name and in fact." Some believe that the Germans are descended from the Galatians. There may be something to that. For the Germans are not unlike the Galatians in their lack of constancy. At first we Germans are very enthusiastic, but presently our emotions cool and we become slack. When the light of the Gospel first came to us many were zealous, heard sermons greedily, and held the ministry of God's Word in high esteem. But now that religion has been reformed, many who formerly ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... erase the stain from the honour of his family. But hard facts soon restored the equilibrium of his naturally prudent soul. The worst feature of the army was not that it had been beaten, but that it had not been commanded. The reins of discipline had been so slack that licence and indulgence had sapped its fighting strength. The tyranny of circumstances demanded a peaceful sojourn in the province, and Albinus ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... though no aphonia. The patient had gone to work as a sort of nurse for the old woman under protest, for she did not wish to do anything outside of her own light housekeeping, although the added income was sorely needed since work was slack in her husband's place of employment. The pain in her side caused her to quit work as nurse, much to her husband's dissatisfaction until she convinced him that her pain and disability were marked. It was evident that despite the controversies ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... at the very outset, in getting men to ship for service on the regular cruisers. Privateers were being fitted out in every port; and on them the life was easy, discipline slack, danger to life small, and the prospects for financial reward far greater than on the United States men-of-war. Accordingly, the seafaring men as a rule preferred to ship on the privateers. At no time in ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to undo the elaborate lacing, without going out on the yard and climbing down the sail, unlacing as they go? So far as I am able to judge, their method is a most simple and effective one, for all that they do is to lower the sail, gather in the slack at the bottom, and as there are several sheets up and down the breech of the sail, the thing is done with the ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... the weight Our own weaknesses create; Crook the knee and shut the lip, All for tamer fellowship; Load our slack, compliant clay With ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... the party broke up. The bicycles were brought round, and the four went gaily out of the front door to light lamps and see to suspiciously slack tyres. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... at the older man. The latter's eyes were half-closed and his pose was slack, as if he were languidly enjoying the warmth, but Jim thought he had been listening. Then he wondered why the other's short description had given him so distinct a picture; he could see the rugged blue ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... air was damp It made my curls hang slack As they kissed my neck and back While I footed the salt-aired ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... slackest of theatre conductors, the slackest of the slack old school. I may have mentioned that once I had the misfortune to play the piano part in a number of his trios; and though these are the only compositions of his known to me they suffice. A man who had the patience to plod through the task of writing such dreary stuff and the presumption to ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... one looked farther, and saw the prince, like the princess, absorbed in the business at the auction block, his slack elegance of the raffish aristocrat forgotten, all his being tense with purpose, strung taut—as taut at least as that soft body, only half-masculine in mould and enervated by loose living, could ever be. One thought of a rather elderly ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... heard the two knapsacks come bumping along until they slid over the eaves above me, and swung down to my station, when I seized the lasso's end and braced myself as well as possible, intending, if he slipped, to haul in slack and help him as best I might. As he came slowly down from crack to crack, I heard his hobnailed shoes grating on the granite; presently they appeared dangling from the eaves above my head. I had gathered in the rope until it was taut, and then hurriedly told him to drop. He hesitated a moment ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... nothing alow to slack his haste] His haste shall not be abated by my slowness. It ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... in the bow of your boat," I said. He did so. I drew in the slack until a fair towing length remained and made it fast. While he was busy I ventured to glance at Miss Colton. Her eyes were snapping with fun and she seemed to be enjoying the situation. But, catching my look, her expression changed. ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... perfect thing,—and perhaps we never shall. But the desire, the search, the faith, must not fail us, as at times they seem to do. At times the very tides of the ocean seem to fail,—when the currents cease to run. Yet when they are at slack here, they are at flood on the other side of the world, turning already to ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... might The gift fully and fast set, which had God to him given, That war-deer did hold. Long was he contemned, While the bairns of the Geats naught told him for good, Nor him on the mead-bench worthy of mickle The lord of the war-hosts would be a-making. Weened they strongly that he were but slack then, An atheling unkeen; then came about change To the fame-happy man for every foul harm. Bade then the earls' burg in to be bringing, 2190 The king battle-famed, the leaving of Hrethel, All geared with gold; was not 'mid the Geats then A treasure-gem better of them ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... down with a blow of one enormous fist upon the mouth, and while he was yet stretched upon the deck kicked him savagely in the stomach. Then he allowed him to rise, caught him by the neck and the slack of his overcoat, and ran him forward to where a hatchway, not two feet across, opened in the deck. Without ado, he flung him down into the darkness below; and while Wilbur, dizzied by the fall, sat on the floor at the foot of the vertical companion-ladder, ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... expense of $43,000 in money and labor, so that we could plant gardens and set out some fruit trees. A man was allowed $1.50 and a man and team $3 per day for labor. Our ditch ran through some formation that would slack up like lime; and as whole sections of it would slide, it kept us busy nearly all the time the following year enlarging and repairing the canal. Our labors only lessened as our numbers increased, and the banks became more solid, so that today (1894) we ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... 29th, the ice being slack for a short distance, we shifted the Hecla half a mile to the northward, into a less insecure berth. I then walked to a broad valley facing the sea near us, where a considerable stream discharged itself, and where, in passing in the ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... of the cutter when he re-ascended on the deck, he would have discovered Smallbones hanging on by the rudder chains; for had the fog not been so thick, Mr Vanslyperken would have perceived that at the time that he cut Smallbones adrift it was slack water, and the cutter was lying across the harbour. Smallbones was not, therefore, carried away by the tide, but being a very fair swimmer, had gained the rudder chains without difficulty; but at the time that Smallbones was climbing up again by the rope, he had perceived the blade of a ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... changes to be always equally able and fit for strenuous work. There are days in every girl's life when she is not capable of her best work, and when a wise and sympathetic teacher will see that it is better for her to do comparatively little. And yet these slack times are just those in which there is the greatest danger of a girl indulging in daydreams, and when her thoughts need to be more than usually under control. These times may be utilised for lighter subjects and for such manual work as does not need great physical ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... recognition, appeal made through digestive organs, had disappeared. Nevertheless, he lavished upon her unwonted affection until Felipe gently but firmly urged him forward again. Then again he proceeded, pulling all of the load this time, bringing about a slack in the traces of the mare and a consequent bumping of her hind legs against the cart which seemed to awaken ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... The work is slack for the moment, but a great attack is expected at Nieuport, and they say the Kaiser is behind the lines there. His presence hasn't brought luck so far, and I hope it won't ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... us out of the high mountains and into a narrow valley when the stream became more moderate in its speed and we floated along easily enough. In a little while after we struck this slack water, as we were rounding a point, I saw on a sand bar in the river, five or six elk, standing and looking at us with much curiosity. I signaled for those behind to go to shore, while I did the same, and two or three of us took our guns and went carefully ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... plain, Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again, "Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honours we paid you erewhile? Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack! ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning |
