"Slip by" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... determined not to close his eyes that night, for fear she should escape him. And in order that she should be doubly guarded, Long stretched himself like a strap all round the room, Broad took his stand by the door and puffed himself out, so that not even a mouse could slip by, and Quickeye leant against a pillar which stood in the middle of the floor and supported the roof. But in half a second they were all sound asleep, and they slept sound the whole ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... told me the tale of what had betid; And first, that under the name of a friend of theirs I was hid, Who was slain by mere misadventure, and was English as was I, And no rebel, and had due papers wherewith I might well slip by When I was somewhat better. Then I knew, though they had not told, How all was fallen together, and my heart grew sick and cold. And yet indeed thenceforward I strove my life to live, That e'en as I was and so hapless I yet might live to strive. It was but few ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... muddle, and we are all muddlers, more or less. It is a matter of degree. Lord, I am sixty. For thirty years I have lived alone; but once upon a time I lived among men. I know life. I sit back now, letting life slip by and musing upon it; and I find my loneliness sweet. I have had my day; and there were women in it. So, when I tell you she loves you, I know. Supposing they find you and take you away?—and she unprepared? Have you thought of that? ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... success in winning the renown that might have been his portion had he acted with snap and celerity of movement in battering the Fenian army before they left Canada. He had the opportunity, the men and the guns, but he let his golden chances slip by while he idly passed away the time "resting" ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... his feet; he, too, was heartily glad of this chance to be rid of his charges, and in no mind to let it slip by. With Barbara's white kerchief in his hand he was about to make another effort to attract the notice of the Carolina, when suddenly he glanced over his shoulder toward the land, his hand fell quickly to his side, and he dropped back into his seat with an ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... alert to detect his advances and respond to them with a due amount of proper maidenly reserve. Finding, however, that he was slow to approach the subject, yet feeling sure of his intentions and fearing lest the opportunity should slip by, she sought to precipitate his movements by a ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... you always talk so much about getting all you can out of life, and not letting the years slip by, and here you deliberately go and deprive yourself of a lot of real good home pleasure by not enjoying people unless they wear ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... saved him then, I should have been perfectly innocent; I will say more, I should have done well, for M. Fouquet is not a bad man. But he was not willing; his destiny prevailed; he let the hour of liberty slip by. So much the worse! Now I have orders, I will obey those orders, and M. Fouquet you may consider as a man arrested. He is at the castle of Angers, this ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had no intention of interfering. The opportunity of ridding the boys of a relentless enemy was imprudently allowed to slip by. ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... that the time has now come to negotiate. England will never again give us the chance of doing so, should we allow this opportunity to slip by. But how shall we negotiate? I must leave it to this meeting to answer that question. If we do not obtain what we ask for, we shall at least stand or fall together. Yet let ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... not careful," she continued, "one lets the years slip by. They can never come again. If one does not live while one is young, there is no ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... seven faults slip by," David explained to the knight; but if he finds more than seven it is all over for ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... believe him to be. It does not seem possible that he can be engaged in such work as this. We are going altogether on supposition—putting two and two together, don't you know, and hoping they will stick. But, in any event, we must not let any chance slip by. If he is interested, we must bring him to time. It may mean the unravelling of the whole skein, dear. Don't look so distressed. Be brave. It doesn't matter what we learn in the end, I love you just the same. You shall ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... swiftnes of Atalanta, beeing but young and vnarmed, no way able to encounter with such a poisonable force, and perceiuing his blacke infectious breath smoaking out at his mouth. Beeing past all hope to slip by him, I deuoutly cried for diuine helpe. And sodeinly turning my backe, as fast as I could runne, I conueighed my fearefull bodie by the helpe of my swift pacing feete, into the inward part of the darke places, penetrating through diuers crooked torments, ambagious passages ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... be hoped to his dying day did that poor penny-a-liner know what a piece of news he allowed in that moment to slip by—news which to him would have meant almost a fortune; and here he was actually rubbing shoulders with ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... knowing that we should meet no more, for my fancy is weakening as the years slip by, and I go ever more seldom into the Lands of Dream. Then we clasped hands, uncouthly on his part, for it is not the method of greeting in his country, and he commended my soul to the care of his own gods, to his little lesser gods, the humble ones, ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... sich a chance to make a dollar slip by. The way you was figgerin' on gittin' that paper, Mr. Curtis, won't work. I know. Uh-huh! I know, because I got ahead of you. I got that paper myself.... And we kin deal if I kin be made to feel safe.... Most ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... Southern and hence presumably ardent in temperament, nor because of his reputation for being "successful" with women; not wholly because he appealed to her on account of his physical disability,—that unfortunate slip by the negro nurse. But because there was in this man the strain of feminine understanding, of vibrating sentiment—the lyric chord of temperament—which made him lover first and last! That is why he had stirred most women he ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... has afforded me unique opportunities to gain knowledge of the whole system required to wage the most terrible war that has ever been known to mankind. I have not let these opportunities slip by. ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... me, little sister," said Lannes. "Why, I like the night for some reasons. You can slip by your enemies in the dark, and if you're flying low the cannon don't have half the chance at you. Besides, I've the air over these regions all mapped and graded now. I know all the roads and paths, the meeting places of the clouds, points suitable for ambush, aerial fields, meadows and forests. ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a car slip by him slowly, noiselessly, easily, and with so little evidence of effort that the old man felt that by urging his horses to just a little faster pace he might have kept ahead. The next morning, the same thing happened again. It was the same car, and this time the old man tightened ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... men to be bluffed in that fashion. They were "out" for the inspector, and did not intend that such an opportunity should slip by unchallenged. ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... wondered how I should find my way through. People mounted on horses and donkeys tower above the moving mass; but the asses themselves appear like pigmies beside the high, lofty-looking camels, which do not lose their proud demeanour even under their heavy burdens. Men often slip by under the heads of the camels. The riders keep as close as possible to the houses, and the mass of pedestrians winds dexterously between. There are water-carriers, vendors of goods, numerous blind men groping their way with sticks, and bearing baskets with fruit, bread, ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... themselves. The man who bemoans ill-fortune is the man too apathetic, too unready, or too cowardly to grasp opportunity. The man who is called fortunate is, on the other hand, he who never lets a chance slip by, who is cool, resolute, and determined. During the time that you have been away you have made friends of two wealthy merchants, and have rendered them both high services; you have also as greatly benefited our neighbour, Sir Ralph De Courcy, and have placed your foot so firmly on the ladder, ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... Delphine, flushing up, "how have you treated me? You would not recognize me; you closed the doors of every house against me; you have never let an opportunity of mortifying me slip by. And when did I come, as you were always doing, to drain our poor father, a thousand francs at a time, till he is left as you see him now? That is all your doing, sister! I myself have seen my father as often as I could. I have not turned ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... figured that the constable would have an eye out on the Carquinez Straits when the ebb started, and that nothing remained for us but to wait for the following ebb, at two o'clock next morning, when we could slip by Cerberus ...
— The Road • Jack London
... all, it was something to have such good-looking relatives. For the first few minutes the well-prepared speech wherewith she had intended to dress down poor Julia lay idle on her lips, and a few sentences of grudging welcome even, managed to slip by. Then suddenly she turned to her sister, and the sight of the adoration for the visitors in Julia's transparent face kindled her anger. Never had such a look as this glowed in Julia Cloud's face for any little Robinson, save perhaps ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... she realises that in thus lingering over her toilet, she is letting some of her precious time slip by for naught, and betakes herself to washing her face ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... the language of the Count of Nassau," he unhesitatingly expressed a contrary opinion, unfolding all the reasons which the king had for being distrustful of the emperor and for not letting this chance of enfeebling him slip by. "May it please your Majesty," said he, "to remember his late passage through France, to obtain which the emperor submitted to carteblanche; nevertheless, when he was well out of the kingdom, he laughed at all his promises, and, when he found himself ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the wild story of her life, when they had as yet exchanged barely a hundred words. But she cared little what Beatrice thought, provided that she could interest her. She had a distinct intention in making the time slip by unnoticed, until ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... is in mind for th' untrussing a poet, I slip by his name, for most men do know it: A critic, that all the world bescumbers With satirical ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... plumes, and the needle-like leaves that let the torrents of air slip through them, is no doubt the reason for this. The outermost pines of the grove shoulder the gale away from the others, yet let it slip by themselves, giving it no grip whereby to tear them up. The resinous roots of the tree not only suffice to hold it upright against the storm, but they last long after the trunk has been cut away. Our forefathers in clear land used ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... Whatever the merits of the work he would have celebrated its appearance by a sounding Feast of Trumpets in Metropolis. He would have done anything to strengthen the tie that attached him to the sources of his spiritual content. But Rickman was not prudent. He let the golden hours slip by while he sat polishing up his blank verse as if he ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... others he felt the wind of movement pass along his back, he saw the trees slip by, and knew the very contact of the ground between the leaps. His movements were natural and easy, light as air and fast as wind; they seemed automatic, impelled by something mighty that directed and contained them. He knew, too, the sensation that others pressed behind him and passed before, ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... slip by, he made the plunge on a Thursday. She was to leave New York on Sunday morning; that much he knew from the daily newspapers, which teemed with Nellie's breakdown and its lamentable consequences. It would be at least a year, the papers said, before she could resume her career on the ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... you treat me so, I WILL see." And she put her small hand upon his and a little scuffle ensued, Tom pretending to resist in earnest but letting his hand slip by degrees till these words ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... But in the night, by some strange alchemy, that jest had been transmuted into a purpose of which she was still doubtful, if not afraid. And yet to go forward seemed less difficult than to go back. For she had let the days of Seth's recovery and convalescence slip by without telling Claire of her experience in the Forbidden Pasture and on the road to Paradise. The duel at the post-office, she argued, surely had made it unnecessary to warn Huntington of Haig's anger. And yet, as their guest, ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... which she could not have explained, the Baroness left her guests and made her way to the narrow, cheerless room where the old governess lay watching the hours of the drying year slip by. In spite of the biting cold of the winter night, the window stood open. With a scandalised exclamation on her lips, the Baroness rushed forward to ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... it," said Winifred, in exaggerated discouragement, "I let the opportunity slip by. He will never ask me again, and as for me—do you think I will ever go to any man with the offer of my love? Not if my heart broke ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... punted out by Gillespie, and another immediately afterwards, from the foot of Bruce, was cleared by Smellie. The half-time signal, however, was given, leaving the Vale of Leven one goal ahead. The strangers had now the kick-off, and made considerable use of it, for the forwards backed up well, and a slip by one of the half-backs of the Queen's Park gave the Vale of Leven a corner-flag kick. The ball was fairly managed, but Bruce, who had it at his toe, was tackled by Smellie, and sent down the field. The Queen's Park had now a brilliant turn at the Leven goal, and several hard shies at ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... in that state, or she spoke so plainly (you know how it occasionally happens) that anyone could have heard her even in the outer tent. When I hung up and went out, there was the captain just saying good night to the men, and the table and benches would not let me slip by before he turned ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... reptiles Frank thought little. The danger was from the naga that was always patrolling the stream night and day, especially the former, on the look-out for trading vessels trying to slip by in the darkness and in the silence of the night. Knowing how sound travelled, he was in agony lest there should be word or whisper to excite ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... your only friend,' nor has she been swept beyond the focus of your love, or you of hers. The bond that existed between you can never be broken, for it was, and still is, the reflection of divine Love that is omnipresent. I am looking forward to our reunion, and shall think of you often as the days slip by. ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... just what I said they might," Ned replied, also in the lowest of tones. "Perhaps the order has gone out to get things ready for us, in case we managed to slip by the river guard and arrived here unexpectedly. In other words, Jimmy, they are salting the mine with ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... questions with a curt "Yes" or "No." He would grow more stiff and surly, the more she tried to win him over: sometimes even he would hurt her by some brusque reply. Then she would be crushed and silent. Their day together would slip by, wasted. But hardly had he set foot outside the house on his way back to the Ecole than he would be heartily ashamed of his treatment of her. He would torture himself all night as he lay awake thinking of the pain he had caused her. Sometimes even, as ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... (Brings out the roll of paper.) Should you like to see what I am doing to make the days slip by? ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... larger vessels put all his smaller ones hors de combat: and in weather that suited the latter, the former could not move about at all. When speed became necessary the two ships left the brig hopelessly behind, and either had to do without her, or else perhaps let the critical moment slip by while waiting for her to come up. Some of the schooners sailed quite as slowly; and finally it was found out that the only way to get all the vessels into action at once was to have one half the fleet tow the other half. It was certainly difficult ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... them fire too soon," replied Sam, "and we can slip by now while they're loading. Don't shoot, Joe!" he exclaimed to the black boy who was manifestly on the point of doing so. "Don't shoot, we've got the best of them now; we are past them and making the distance greater every second. Give them ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... street is now gone, but it stood on part of what is now the goods station of the London & North Western Railway. Nearly all in Crosbie Street were from the West of Ireland, and, amongst them, there was scarcely anything but Irish spoken. I have often thought since of the splendid opportunity let slip by O'Connell and the Repealers in neglecting to revive, as they could so easily have then done, so strong a factor in nationality as the native tongue of our people. My Aunt Nancy could speak the Northern Irish fluently, and, in the course of her ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... courage to ask her if Ah Ben were her father, dreading to expose himself as an impostor and be ordered from the place, which, despite his discovery of the previous night, he could only regard as an unmitigated hardship in the present state of his feelings; and so he had let the hours slip by, constantly hoping that something would occur to explain the whole situation to him. And yet nothing had occurred, and now upon the third day he was as grossly ignorant of the causes which had produced his strange environment as at ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... Thus the lazy hours slip by and the spell of the sea takes hold on you and you lose count of the time and can barely muster up the energy to perform the regular noonday task of putting your watch back half an hour. A passenger remarks that this is Thursday and you wonder ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... on my head or my heels; some of the company took me for a lunatic, no doubt, some thought I was in my second childhood, some that I had not quite got over my last night's wine—though you yourself were the pink of good manners, not showing your consciousness of the slip by any ghost of a smile. It occurred to me to write to myself a little something in the way of comfort, and so modify the distress my blunder gave me—prove to myself that it was not absolutely unpardonable for ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... thinking, sir, how jolly this life is, and for that matter, how jolly everything connected with the Army is. I was wondering why so many young fellows let their earlier manhood slip by without finding out what an ideal place ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... twinkling through the dust of his flight. Now each turned and raced frantically back, dismay written on their perspiring faces. But Satterlee, 2d, like an immovable Fate, stood in the path. The runner from first slowed down indecisively, feinted to the left and tried to slip by on the other side. But the small youth with the ball was ready for him and had tagged him before he had passed. Then Satterlee, 2d, stepped nimbly to second base, tapped it with his foot a moment before the other runner hurled himself upon it, tossed the ball nonchalantly ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... meaning of the situation broke on the Frenchman's mind, he went frantic. By the time he and his herders should be released, the whole eighty-mile width of the Sierras would lie between him and his flocks. He would have to await his chance to slip by the rangers. In the three weeks or more that must elapse before he could get back, the flocks would inevitably be about destroyed. For it is a striking fact, and one on which California John had built his plan, that sheep left to their own devices soon ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... would have been impossible to carry out the escape from Spielberg in the manner I did, if I had had two officers with me in the cell. We could not have hoped to obtain three uniforms, could hardly have expected all to slip by the sentry unnoticed. Lastly, the three of us could not have got post horses. Still, it is quite possible that we might have escaped in some ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... escaped unseen amidst the storm. Many a day he had worked upon the crew, Fanning their fears and doubts until he won The more part to his side. And when they reached That coast, he showed them how Drake meant to sail Southward, into that unknown Void; but he Would have them suddenly slip by stealth away Northward to Darien, showing them what a life Of roystering glory waited for them there, If, laying aside this empty quest, they joined The merry feasters round those island fires Which over many a dark-blue creek illumed Buccaneer camps in scarlet logwood groves, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... grateful across your shoulders; the big trout and the little rise in predestined order, and make their predestined fight, and go their predestined way either to liberty or the creel; the pools and the rapids and the riffles slip by upstream as though they had been withdrawn rather than as though ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Her pillow slip by now was very much askew; one ear pointed northward, the other southeast, and she could only see out of one eye. It was very hot inside and she was gasping for breath. For a palpitating moment they merely stared and panted. Then Patty's mind began ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... Pee-Wee is a bit of a stoic, while his sister shows a tendency to prove a bit of a squealer. But Poppsy is much the daintier feeder of the two. I'll probably have to wean them both, however, before many more weeks slip by. As soon as we get settled in our new shack and I can be sure of a one-cow supply of milk I'll begin a bottle-feed once in every twenty-four hours. Dinky-Dunk says I ought to take a tip from the Indian mother, who sometimes nurses her babe until ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... have been impossible, and General Washington and his army of 15,000 men must have been taken prisoners. Whether this misfortune would have proved conclusive of the war it is now too late to speculate; but so splendid an opportunity was never before let slip by an English general, and the negligence was the more inexcusable inasmuch as the fleet of boats could be seen lying alongside of the American position. Their purpose must have been known, and they could at any moment have been destroyed ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... dwell there, ever more alone, While unrecorded years slip by apace, Forgetting and forgotten and unknown By aught save ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... place of Ferdinand! How does she ever open it? What ages of life slip by as she unfolds it! Women know this by experience! As to men, when they are in such maddening passes, they ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... murdered Stevie he would never let her go. He would want to keep her for nothing. And on this characteristic reasoning, having all the force of insane logic, Mrs Verloc's disconnected wits went to work practically. She could slip by him, open the door, run out. But he would dash out after her, seize her round the body, drag her back into the shop. She could scratch, kick, and bite—and stab too; but for stabbing she wanted a knife. Mrs Verloc sat still under her black veil, in her own house, like a masked ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... lamp waiting for her niece, or had she already lighted it in order to prepare the supper? Olya hoped desperately that her aunt would be in her usual place and the lamp unlit, so that she could slip by into her room unseen and secretly change ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... aboard the boat, which exhales a strong, healthy smell of tar under the hot sun. The long grey walls of the embankments slip by, to be ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... Close at his surest ward each warrior lieth, He wisely guides his hand, his foot, his eye, This blow he proveth, that defence he trieth, He traverseth, retireth, presseth nigh, Now strikes he out, and now he falsifieth, This blow he wardeth, that he lets slip by, And for advantage oft he lets some part Discovered seem; ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... must live out my life now, my hand has grown too unsteady. But would you know what an old man like me will do! You ask me how I got in here. You have put your valet on guard at the hotel entrance. I did not try to slip by him, I've known for fifty years what he will tell me: the gentleman is not in. But with my score here I stood at the corner of the building for two hours in the rain until he went up for a moment. Then I followed him, and while you were speaking to him in ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... she, "I mean a character out of a book. He was such a good business man that he let most of life slip by him. I don't want you to do that." "Well, I'll try not to," sez I, "an' it may be that beginnin' late in life like I am, I won't become enough of a business man to get that way; but the' is one thing sure—I 'm through with my nonsense. ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... his Grace's extreme courtesy of manner and vague assurance of immediate attention to the facts presented to him. It was therefore with no surprise, but a good deal of irritation, that Mr. Morris saw the weeks slip by with but one evasive answer to his demands being sent him. Being importuned to appeal to the British Government on another score—the impressment of American seamen into the English navy—he determined again to urge upon the Minister of Foreign Affairs a settlement of the treaty stipulations ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... clearing of truth; he that should report him asserting it absolutely, unlimitedly, positively, and peremptorily, as his own settled judgment, would notoriously calumniate. If one should be inveigled by fraud, or driven by violence, or slip by chance into a bad place or bad company, he that should so represent the gross of that accident, as to breed an opinion of that person, that out of pure disposition and design he did put himself there, doth slanderously abuse that innocent person. The reporter ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... fashionable restaurant—perhaps even a head-waiter—which from the authority he observed in the demeanor of the lord of the hotel dining room seemed almost all the honor that a person in America might hope to gain. But, in order that no proper opportunity should slip by, he scanned the newspapers in the hope of finding something ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... should have made those blush whom I had accosted in the streets, in the garb of one who had not even the means of locating himself in a decent hotel in this abode of luxury. I had, therefore, resolved to slip by night into the humble suburb, bordering a rivulet which runs through the ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... excitations are the so-called instincts of the organism.... The child never gets tired of demanding the repetition of a game ... he wants always to hear the same story instead of a new one, insists inexorably on exact repetition, and corrects each deviation which the narrator lets slip by mistake.... According to this, an instinct would be a tendency in living organic matter impelling it towards reinstatement of an earlier condition, one which it had abandoned under the influence of external disturbing forces—a kind of organic ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... honor with such a crown to win would not fight for it? But that race was destined. That Prince had himself against him, an enemy he could not overcome. He never dared to draw his sword, though he had it. He let his chances slip by as he lay in the lap of opera-girls, or snivelled at the knees of priests asking pardon; and the blood of heroes, and the devotedness of honest hearts, and endurance, courage, fidelity, were all spent ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... coupled with seriousness and gravity, and if it be on important matters, let our speech be trustworthy and moving from its pathos, and animation, and tone of voice. And on all occasions to let an opportunity slip by is very injurious, but especially does it destroy the usefulness of freedom of speech. It is plain therefore that we must abstain from freedom of speech when men are in their cups. For he disturbs the harmony of a social gathering[454] who, in the midst of mirth ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... "I will slip by Reuben, and you must not fret. Sit here on my knee and go fast asleep until ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... now felt that he must do something. Two splendid chances for striking the Union forces had been allowed to slip by through the failure of his officers to carry out his instructions on time; he felt there must be no further failure. He would concentrate his whole army into one grand effort to crush General Rosecrans and all ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... from the various agencies, that getting a post without training was an impossibility, and most of the training centres asked for at least twenty-five guineas. Perhaps in refusing this offer she was letting a good chance slip by her, and, though she hated to make free use of it, there was always Uncle John's money, to fall ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... his first display of this new mood, which presently became a common one. He was less and less content to let the happy hours slip by, more and more sensitive to the reminders in giant ruin and deserted cell, in a chance encounter with a string of guns and soldiers on their way to manoeuvres or in the sight of a stale newspaper, of a great world process going on in which he ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... a week at sea. Can it be only seven days since we waved adieu to bright eyes on the pier? We begin to feel at home on the ship. The passengers are now known to each other, and hereafter the days, will slip by faster. I went down with the doctor and Vandy to see the Chinamen to-day. What a sight! Piled in narrow cots three tiers deep, with passages between the rows scarcely wide enough for one to walk, from end to end of the ship these ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... knows the value of money; an' Phoebe will help him when she comes up. The months slip by so quickly. By the time I've got the cobwebs out of the farm an' made the auld rooms water-sweet, I dare say theer'll be talk of ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... an hour slip by in restless inactivity. For, no matter what Carson might say or these people in here do, Judith had not yet come in. When Marcia addressed a bright remark to him, he started and stammered: "I beg your pardon!" They laughed at him, ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... not so much that he wanted Mashurina to stay, as that he could not let an opportunity slip by of giving utterance to what had accumulated and was boiling over in his breast. Since his return to St. Petersburg he had seen very little of people, especially of the younger generation. The Nejdanov affair had scared him; he grew more cautious, avoided society, ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... children of the same father, but not of the same mother, were formerly allowed to marry, a decisive proof of mother-descent. The wife remained with her own relatives, and the husband had the right of visiting her by night. The word commonly used for marriage signified to slip by night into the house. It was not until the fourteenth century that the husband's residence was the home of the wife, and marriage became a continued living together by the married pair. Even now when a man marries an only daughter he frequently lives with ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... consequence of this it was possible to squeeze through into the arcade outside. This was what Marnier had done. My precise, gentlemanly, reserved, and methodical acquaintance had deliberately given me the slip by sneaking out of a window like a schoolboy, and creeping round the edge of the inn to the fosse that lay in the shadow of the sand dimes. As I realised this I ...
— Desert Air - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... with his dogs again and stepped on the toboggan, without stopping them, and the great trunks of forest giants seemed to slip by him swiftly, while here and there, by dint of some formation of hillside or gorge, his ears grew conscious of the far-away roar of the great falls. From a little summit he saw the cloud of rising vapor, all of a mile away. At every turn he peered ahead, keenly disappointed ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... was the tall man who had upset me; and a very handsome, high-bred looking man he was. I tried to slip by, but he recognized me ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... of keeping track of time puzzled Robinson very much. It was getting more difficult every day to keep it in his memory. He must write down the days as they slip by, but where and how? He had neither pen, ink, nor paper. Should he mark every day with a colored stone on the smooth side of the huge rock wall within whose clefts he had dug out his cave? But the rain would wash off ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... the moment altogether unfit for revelation by that ill-judged observation as to young Cantor. He should have rushed at his story at once. "Oh, Mr Griffith, I have found the will!" It should have been told after that fashion. He felt it now,—felt that he had allowed the opportunity to slip by him. ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... the College kitchens made A humming sound, less tuneable than bees, 50 But hardly less industrious; with shrill notes Of sharp command and scolding intermixed. Near me hung Trinity's loquacious clock, Who never let the quarters, night or day, Slip by him unproclaimed, and told the hours 55 Twice over with a male and female voice. Her pealing organ was my neighbour too; And from my pillow, looking forth by light Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold The antechapel where the statue stood ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... his twinkling feet and then, near the twenty, he was challenged by a Claflin back. Carmine eluded him, crossed a third line, found himself confronted by the Blue's quarter, attempted to slip by on the outside, was tackled and borne struggling across the side line and deposited ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... though orange juice—diluted at that—was the only beverage served. (I believe that there is a Raisin Day, also, but on account of its horrid association with rice and bread puddings we have let that slip by unnoticed.) ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... for the writer and reader, we agree to let a few years slip by, as they have a way of doing whether we wish to let them or not, we shall find ourselves again in Milton at ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... with some acquaintance or joking with some woman whose face he had remembered, for he loved pretty women and old friends. And so he was always late, and never knew the time. But he never let the dinner-hour slip by. He dined wherever he might be, inviting himself, and he would not go home until late—after nightfall, after a visit to his grandchildren. Then he would go to bed, and before he went to sleep read a page of his old Bible, and during the night—for he never slept for more than an ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... advance and be recognized, at which one of the number would march forward, and, on being identified, the rest of us were allowed to pass the sentinel, who, meanwhile, kept his rifle at a port, his keen eye watching closely, that no enemy slip by under our protection. ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... so great a man as Tom Tufton had become in some affair of this sort; "I will have an eye to them, and if I think they are starting off for the north of the town, I will run at once and fetch you; and we will follow and outstrip them, for they must needs stop at every tavern as they go, and we can slip by and be ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... she might be able to advance Fanny's interests, but Jimmie was such an impossible person! How could she introduce him to a man of Mr. Stafford's polish and distinction? Yet for Fanny's sake she ought not to let any opportunity slip by. Seeing her hesitate, Stafford ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... and worried—hardly knew what I was doing for the first few hours after I left Mauleverer; and I let the time slip by till it was too late to think of travelling yesterday,' answered Ida. 'Old ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... young millionaire who was sacrificing his fortune for love of her, the certainty that Robert had practically eliminated him from any voice in the Kane Company, all came to her ears. She hated to think that Lester was making such a sacrifice of himself. He had let nearly a year slip by without doing anything. In two more years his chance would be gone. He had said to her in London that he was without many illusions. Was Jennie one? Did he really love her, or was he just sorry for her? Letty wanted very much to find ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... watch to-night," said Jones to me after supper. "The mustangs might try to slip by our fire in the night and we must keep a watch or them. Call Wallace when your time's up. Now, ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... my eye caught sight of the official stenographer advertised as free. To an economical soul like mine the opportunity of having a free stenographer for a day and a half was too good to let slip by. So, placing my chair up alongside of his, I took from my pocket a letter which I had just received from my nephew, who had been spending his vacation in the West, and which I had not known exactly how ...
— A Jolly by Josh • "Josh"
... our opponents, and I resolved, if possible, to give them the slip by the way. Accordingly, when within a day's journey of the establishment, I pretended to have sprained my foot so badly, that I walked with the greatest seeming difficulty. My men, who were aware of the ruse, requested me to place my bundle on their sledges, to ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... explanations. Perhaps she had gone for a little stroll, and had lost her way in the fog. She might have dropped in at some house in the neighbourhood, and, talking, let the hours slip by. Ten chances to one, she was even now safe at home; and it was absurd to worry about ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the hypocrite will give us the slip by betaking himself to exterior matters, as to his 'mint and anise and cummin.' (Matt. 23:23) Still neglecting the more weighty matters of the law, to wit, judgment, mercy, faith; or else to the significative ordinances, still neglecting to do to all men as he would they should do ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sadly shook his head. "I shall be very prudent hereafter," said he, "but it is terribly hard to stay in prison with nothing to do. If I had some comrades with me, we could laugh and chat, and the time would slip by; but it is positively horrible to have to remain alone, entirely alone, in that cold, damp cell, where not ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... many rocks and islands—Deenish, Scariff the Hog's Head, and Dursey far away. As I was sitting on the edge of the road an old man came along and we began to talk. He had little English, but when I tried him in Irish we got on well, though he did not follow any Connaught forms I let slip by accident. We went on together, after a while, to an extraordinary straggling village along the edge of the hill. At one of the cottages he stopped and asked me to come in and take a drink and rest myself. I did not like ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... slip by like pearl-gray beads on a rosary, Michael Daragh. I honestly haven't an idea of the date. But I know Dan'l's story. We were sitting on the toppled-over tombstone of a sturdy old patriarch who had buried four wives, just after the postman ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... her religious wars, was advancing toward national unity, and was fast assuming a position of European importance. She now, by taking a hand in the affairs of Italy, endeavored to grasp what she had hitherto let slip by,—namely, the opportunity of becoming the head of the Latin world and, above all, the center of gravity of European politics and civilization. She soon forced herself into the Papacy and into the Empire. From Spain the Borgias first came to the Holy See, and from there later came ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... undertaken. It is said in the 'Scowling' passage of the (Chow) Book of Changes, 'Not being enemies they unite in marriage.' Whilst (the elders are) thinking of making advances to the opponent (family), the proper time (for the marriage of the young couple) is allowed to slip by. In the 'Peach Young' poem of the Book of Odes it is said, 'If the man and woman, duly observing what is correct, marry at the proper time of life, there will be no widows in the land.' To form cliques (political parties) by means of matrimonial connexions is ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... The days slip by, and scarcely leave me time to write. Dinky-Dunk is a sort of pendulum, swinging out to work, back to eat, and then out, and then back again. Olie is teaming in lumber and galvanized iron for a new building of some sort. My lord, in the evenings, sits with paper ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... DEAR SIR,—I cannot too highly appreciate the interest you take in a late event, and happy shall I be to greet you upon the reward due to your exalted and unrivalled services, a manifestation of which has on no occasion been let slip by your ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... know all the places along the road, and they slip by before one can think. Besides, a long journey always seems shorter, because you know it is long. Well, you needn't laugh, you know perfectly well what I mean. Oh, Margaret, I saw a glimpse of blue behind the trees. ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... was difficult coming up, so, so far as I can see, it is dangerous going down." "Yes," said Prudence, "so it is; for it is a hard matter for a man to go down into the Valley of Humiliation, as thou art now, and to catch no slip by the way; therefore, are we come out to accompany thee down the hill." So he began to go down, but very warily; yet he ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester |
