"Slowness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... weak for the tasks and the needs of daily life, too weak to move about, to walk, to do all that we do every day. She was rather pretty; with a transparent, spiritual beauty. And she ate with extreme slowness, as if she were almost incapable of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the supreme legislative authority, and where coercive laws are yet in a degree destitute of vigor, where the climate and manners can add but little to their energy, where the spirit of party, private interest, slowness and national indolence, slacken, suspend, and overthrow the best concerted measures; although so situated he has found out a method of keeping his troops in the most absolute subordination; making them ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... they resumed their walk, strolling on with the slowness of unaccustomed holiday-makers from one path to another—through budding shrubberies, past grass-banks sprinkled with lilac crocuses, and under rocks on which the forsythia lay like sudden sunshine. Everything about her seemed new and miraculously lovely to Ann ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... there can be no reasonable doubt, and a mere nominal belief has never been considered by any body of missionaries as a sufficient proof of conversion. True, our progress has been slow, and our difficulties have been great; but let me ask, my dear sir, has the slowness of your own journey to this point, and its great difficulty, damped your ardour or induced you to think it scarcely worth your while to ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... was Clavering, and he fancied he recognized the Sheriff in another; but he could not discern Torrance anywhere. He turned his eyes ahead and watched the bluff rise higher, though the white levels seemed to flit back to him with an exasperating slowness. Beyond it a faint grey smear rose towards the blue; but the jaded horse demanded most of his attention, for the sod was slippery here and there where the snow had lain in a hollow, and the beast stumbled ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... go was good-natured, harmless Victor Seitz, a Detroit cigar maker, a German, and one of the slowest of created mortals. How he ever came to go into the cavalry was beyond the wildest surmises of his comrades. Why his supernatural slowness and clumsiness did not result in his being killed at least once a day, while in the service, was even still farther beyond the power of conjecture. No accident ever happened in the company that Seitz did not have some share in. Did a horse fall on a slippery road, it was almost sure ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... down conversing with a Midge, turned round and said, "Remember, you Wasp, that you have not brought your sting with you to-day, so pray do not give way to your spiteful nature. The poor Snail has to carry her house on her back, so we should not be angry at her slowness." Some of the other insects said that this was no excuse for the Snail, because she knew that she walked very slowly, and should ...
— The Butterfly's Ball - The Grasshopper's Feast • R.M. Ballantyne
... "as slowness of motion seems to be of etiquette with the people of Hindustan, the disbursing of the money took up so much time that when M. Law was come down as far Rajmehal, he found ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... fishes to the surface; but as the minutes dragged by and not a fish seemed inclined even to nibble, the solemn silence which had brooded on the quartet was broken by sundry fidgetings and wrigglings and suppressed remarks on the variableness of fish and the slowness of fishing. Men enjoy the sport, because they can light their pipes and smoke in expectant ease; but the consolation of tobacco was debarred from boys who were, as Jim put it, "too young to smoke and too old ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... knights, with their horses and attendants; his vassals of Naples and Germany formed a powerful army; and the number of English crusaders was magnified to sixty thousand by the report of fame. But the inevitable or affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumed the strength and provisions of the more indigent pilgrims: the multitude was thinned by sickness and desertion; and the sultry summer of Calabria anticipated the mischiefs of a Syrian campaign. At length the emperor hoisted sail at Brundusium, with a ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... they are the companions of man, and how they shall have an extra chupa of paddy when the sun goes down, and he has delivered to the merchant sahib on the quay his load of gambier; or he reproves them for their slowness and want of interest, and threatens them with the rod, and tells them to look how he holds it above them. If in the course of the harangue one of the dumb listeners pauses to pick a mouthful of young lallang grass by the roadside, the softly crooning ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... moved in a confusing mixture of the miraculous and the natural which baffled calculation as to which element would rule at any given moment. Their faith was feeble, and Christ rebuked them for their slowness to learn the lesson of this very miracle and its twin feeding of the four thousand. They were our true brothers in their failure to grasp the full meaning of the past, and to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... gives no information, sometimes it gives false information. For first, there are very many things which escape the sense, even when best disposed and no way obstructed; by reason either of the subtlety of the whole body, or the minuteness of the parts, or distance of place, or slowness or else swiftness of motion, or familiarity of the object, or other causes. And again when the sense does apprehend a thing its apprehension is not much to be relied upon. For the testimony and information of the sense has reference always to man, not to the universe; and it is a great error to ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... The slowness of all Tom's movements was strangely contrasted with his slight, and symmetrical figure; that looked as if it only awaited the will of the owner to be the most active piece of human machinery that ever responded to the impulses of youth and health. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... as these that this winter at length drew to an end, while my prospects of getting to Germany gradually grew more hopeful, though with a slowness that sorely tried my patience. I had kept up a continuous correspondence with Dresden respecting Rienzi, and in the worthy chorus-master Fischer I at last found an honest man who was favourably disposed to me. He sent me reliable and reassuring ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the French came within gunshot of the English centre (B, B, B), and shortly afterward the firing began, the assailants very properly directing their main effort upon the English rear ships, which, as happens with most long columns, had opened out, a tendency increased in this case by the slowness of the fourth ship from the rear, the "Prudent." The French flag-ship, "Ville de Paris," of one hundred and twenty guns, bearing De Grasse's flag, pushed for the gap thus made, but was foiled by the ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... pupil of Ruy Gomez. He is very discreet and amiable, and possesses much authority and learning. By his agreeable manners, he goes on tampering and disguising much of the disgust which people would feel at the king's slowness and sordid parsimony. Through his hands have passed all the affairs of Italy, and also those of Flanders, ever since this country has been governed by Don Juan, who promotes his interests greatly, as do, still ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... farewell address. Very simply he told his hearers that, when in a few hours' time the boats came to take them to the Peninsula Beaches, they were to know that they were doing the right thing. There was a tense stillness, as he said with suggestive slowness: "I am only the lips of your Church. She has been with you on this ship, and striven not to fail you. And now to God's mercy and protection she commits you. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord give you His ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... or old age. Here she possesses a habitation protected by exceedingly high walls and strongly barred gates. Her hall is called Elvidnir; Hunger is her table; Starvation, her knife; Delay, her man; Slowness, her maid; Precipice, her threshold; Care, her bed; and Burning Anguish forms the hangings of her apartments. The one half of her body is livid, the other half the colour of human flesh. She may therefore easily be recognized; ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... fishermen would emerge upon the sky, walk along for a bit, and sink without haste. Their brown nets, like the cobwebs of gigantic spiders, lay on the shabby grass of the slope; and, looking up from the end of the street, the people of the town would recognise the two Carvils by the creeping slowness of their gait. Captain Hagberd, pottering aimlessly about his cottages, would raise his head to see how they ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... Nevsky we swung on the step of a streetcar bulging with people, its platforms bent down from the weight and scraping along the ground, which crawled with agonising slowness ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... to make that concession in the slowness of their movements. They were plainly being compelled to render deference when they longed to refuse it. Then the middle one of the ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... above, every Thoracic person should avoid working for extremely bony people. The Osseous is as much irritated by the rapid-fire reactions of the Thoracic employee as the Thoracic is by the slowness of the Osseous. ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... The shortage of clothing was felt the more because of the extreme severity of the winter. After the initial difficulties had been passed supplies of this kind were furnished in profusion; but lack of preparation on the part of the War Department and the slowness of Congress to appropriate promptly produced a temporary situation of extreme discomfort and worse. The provision of food supplies was arranged more successfully. Soldiers would not be soldiers if they did not complain of their "chow." But the quality and variety of the food given to the ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... wail, then Mrs. Zapp's elephantine slowness on the stairs from the basement. She appeared, buttoning her collar, smiling almost pleasantly, for she disliked Mr. Wrenn less than she did any ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... be completely held by rapidity of movement and decision of action, I reply that I have wished to report here, at length and completely, all the details of a plan of attack conceived so rapidly that it is only the slowness of my pen that gives an appearance of slowness to the execution. I have wished, by this slowness and precision, to be certain that nothing should be omitted from the conditions under which the strange ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... numbers who allowed their own empty wishes to torment them were weary of the slowness of time, the night ended at last, and daylight appeared, the soldiers were all assembled in one body, and Valentinian advanced into the open space, and mounting a tribunal of some height which had been erected on purpose, he was declared ruler of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... It is the slowness of it all that is so disheartening; the impossibility that dogs the efforts of the high-minded, the kind, the just, of prevailing against tradition and prejudice and stupidity; the grim acquiescence in sanctioned oppression that characterises a certain type of respectable virtue; ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... occasion: "I am sitting at home, patiently waiting for Oliver Twist, who has not yet arrived." And, indeed, "Oliver" gave him considerable trouble, in the course of his adventures, by his disinclination to be put upon paper easily. This slowness in writing marked more prominently the earlier period of my father's literary career, though these "blank days," when his brain refused to work, were of occasional occurrence to the end. He was very ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... was perfectly aware that the British weakness mostly lay in the age of the senior officers and the slowness of promotion. There were majors of over fifty years of age, and if a man were a general at seventy he was considered fortunate and young. The jealousy with which younger men were regarded would have ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... perfect poetic setting the play went on with a stately slowness—that yet was all too fast for the onlookers—and with the perfection of finish that such actors naturally gave to their work amidst surroundings by which they were at once stimulated and inspired. Even the practical defects ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... mahogany and horsehair, awaited the uncle and nephew. As daylight, darkened by the windows, could not penetrate to this corner, the cook had left two dips burning, whose unsnuffed wicks showed a sort of mushroom growth, giving the red light which promises length of life to the candle from slowness of combustion—a discovery ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... see him I could not say. Every impulse and vital force of nature centered in my eyes, and they fastened themselves upon that one irregular shadow in the opposing corner which slowly—oh! with such agonizing slowness—assumed the outlines of a man. My fascinated gaze wandered not nor wearied. When in the moist light of the morning I clearly saw Broussard, haggard, pale and sunken-eyed, watching me thirty feet away, it seemed that I had seen him all ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... the operations undertaken on a larger scale by Princess Metternich to secure me some compensation dragged along with mysterious slowness, and it was to a merchant named Sturmer, whom I had previously known in Zurich, that I owed my deliverance from my present troubles. He had constantly interested himself in my welfare while in Paris, and now by his help I was enabled, first to set my household affairs in order, and then to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... forgiven that blow I dealt him a month ago, when I flattened in his helmet with my blunted axe and stretched him senseless on the ground; in faith, I meant not to hit so hard, but he had been taunting me with my slowness, and seeing an opening for a blow at his head I could not resist it, and struck, as he was always telling ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... lonesome here?" She asked it with a curious soft slowness, a speculative detachment, as if she only half thought of ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... of Hayti and Mexico. While Hayti, it is true, has failed to make great progress in one century, it has made quite as much progress as England made during any equal period immediately after Rome withdrew from it. And that degree of slowness in growth, which with equanimity has been endured by us in Hayti, could certainly be endured by us in islands on the coast of Asia. It cannot be gainsaid that, through our insisting on the policy of non-interference ourselves, and of non-interference by European nations, Hayti has been ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... came with a slowness that meant finality. "Why need to-morrow or a year from now be different from to-day unless we make ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... with infinite slowness, hand in hand, or the arm of one about the waist of the other—neither knowing the look, the age, the religion or even the color of the other. But I know, from the only person fitted to judge, that they loved each other tremendously and spotlessly—these ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... and greatly to the annoyance of the sufferer. This is sometimes accompanied by a sense of fulness in the head, a giddiness, and dulness of the brain, sometimes going so far as to cause an uncertainty in the step, a slowness of comprehension, and a feeling as if one might fall at any moment in some sort of ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... Eastern army of the Union, under McClellan, gave them time to strengthen their defences, and reinforce their army, which had dwindled to a very low ebb during the winter. But while the commander of the East was planning strategy that, by the slowness of its development, if by nothing worse, was destined to dim the lustre of the Union triumphs, and lose the results of a year of war, the West was in motion. Down the Mississippi swept our invincible fleet, with an army on shore to second its operations. Up the Tennessee ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... calling her and finding she did not come, went to look for her. She had gone into the back-yard, and was sitting there in the rain by the side of the water-butt. She was soaked, and her best clothes were spoiled. I must confess that I did not take very kindly to her. I was irritated at her slowness in learning; it was, in fact, painful to be obliged to teach her. I thought that perhaps she might have some undeveloped taste for music, but she showed none, and our attempts to get her to sing ordinary melodies were a ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... by heaven to be the leader of the Hebrew people he hesitated to assume the formidable office on the plea of "impediment and slowness of tongue." But Jehovah reassured him by promising to qualify him for the sublime functions assigned to him: "I will be in thy mouth, and I will teach thee what ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... to men of the grosser clay; for the proverb is pretty, not only on account of the accident of its origin, but because it has a double meaning, 'round' being taken in Tuscany to express not only circular form, but slowness and ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... fleet and army. "All are guilty, and all must perish," was the mandate of Justinian; and the bloody execution was intrusted to his favorite Stephen, who was recommended by the epithet of the savage. Yet even the savage Stephen imperfectly accomplished the intentions of his sovereign. The slowness of his attack allowed the greater part of the inhabitants to withdraw into the country; and the minister of vengeance contented himself with reducing the youth of both sexes to a state of servitude, with roasting alive seven of the principal citizens, with drowning twenty ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... you can copy every curve slowly and accurately, you have made satisfactory progress; but you will find the difficulty is in the slowness. It is easy to draw what appears to be a good line with a sweep of the hand, or with what is called freedom;[3] the real difficulty and masterliness is in never letting the hand be free, but keeping it under entire control at ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... obstacles kept arising at every turn. The dilatoriness of the French Government seems past all belief, and yet, in spite of his faith in the more expeditious methods of his own country, he was fated to encounter the same exasperating slowness at home. It was, therefore, only natural that in spite of the courageous optimism of his nature, he should at times have given way to fits of depression, as is instanced by the following extracts from a letter written to his brother ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... The Emperor had promised her that she should accompany him on his first journey; but he had deceived her, nevertheless, and was about to set out without her! She instantly called her women; but vexed at their slowness, her Majesty sprang out of bed, threw on the first clothing she found at hand, and ran out of her room in slippers and without stockings. Weeping like a little child that is being taken back to boarding-school, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... to spending the winter in draught-free houses, warmed by continuously burning stoves, are more susceptible to the cold than the inhabitants of other parts of Europe, and their army suffered heavy losses; which explains the slowness of the pursuit. ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... who bestow immense benefits spoil them by their silence or slowness of speech, which gives them an air of moroseness, as they say "yes" with a face which seems to say "no." How much better is it to join kind words to kind actions, and to enhance the value of our gifts by a civil and gracious commendation of them! To cure your friend of being slow to ask a ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... night were the same to the occupant of the little room. They passed with equal slowness and impartial darkness. Five days that he could account for crawled by before anything unusual happened to break the strain of his solitary, inexplicable confinement. He could tell when it was morning by the visit of a bewhiskered ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... not dared to recollect you too often by overt acts, dear Madam; as, by the slowness of your answer, you seem to be sorry my memory was so very alert. Besides, it looks as if you had a mind to keep me at due distance, by the great civility and cold complimentality of your letter; a style I flattered myself you had too much good will ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... trusting everything to swift, bitter fight. I fairly trembled in eagerness to grapple with Kirby, hand to hand, and crush him helpless to the earth. I heard his voice, hateful and snarling, as he cursed Rale for his slowness, and the hot blood boiled in my veins, when he jerked the ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... folding them both in his arms, just uttered in a broken voice, "Good-by! God bless you!" and I, embracing my dear friends for the last time, followed him out of the room. It is not the time only that must elapse before I can see her again, it is the terrible distance, the slowness and uncertainty of communication; ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... cheek muscles, pendulous lips, inability to grasp the feed, often a slow and weak movement in chewing, and difficulty and slowness in drinking. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... detested. But he was restless and discontented. He longed to begin the fight, and could not sleep for thinking of it. Like Giovanni, he was strong and revengeful; but Giovanni had from his mother a certain slowness of temperament, which often deterred him from action just long enough to give him time for reflection, whereas the father, when roused, and he was roused easily, loved to strike at once. It chanced one evening, in a great house, that Saracinesca came ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the room very slowly, are injurious, for exactly the same reasons. A firm light quick step, a steady quick hand are the desiderata; not the slow, lingering, shuffling foot, the timid, uncertain touch. Slowness is not gentleness, though it is often mistaken for such; quickness, lightness, and gentleness are quite compatible. Again, if friends and doctors did but watch, as nurses can and should watch, the features sharpening, the eyes growing almost wild, of fever patients who are listening for ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... as regards close contact with the power of the chief nations of the world, were really in a state of political isolation which no longer exists. This arose from our geographical position—reinforced by the slowness and uncertainty of the existing means of intercommunication—and yet more from the grave preoccupation of foreign statesmen with questions of unprecedented and ominous importance upon the continent of Europe. A policy of isolation was for us then practicable,—though ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... very important. Two or three of the leading newspapers had first hinted at and then openly condemned the incompetence and slowness of the police. Such censure, as we all know, is very common, and in nine cases out of ten it is unjust. They who write it probably know but little of the circumstances;—and, in speaking of a failure here and a failure there, make no reference ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... kind to Mr. Wood, in their own way, but they were a little impatient of his slowness to be sociable, and had, I think, a sort of feeling that the ex-convict ought not only to enjoy evening parties more than other people, but to be just a little ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... still to call impatiently under the lozenge-paned window of the old school-room, "Gracie, Gracie, are you not done with lessons yet? Do come out and play." And how dreary "Noel and Chapsal" used to grow all of a sudden when that invitation came, and with what relentless slowness the hands of the old clock dragged through the lesson-hour still ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... opinion generally, and therefore of legislative opinion, has been in England at once gradual, or slow, and continuous. The qualities of slowness and continuity may conveniently be considered together, and are closely interconnected, but they are ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... of their slowness of mind, they [the masses] require always, however, a certain period before they are ready even to take cognizance of a matter, and only after a thousandfold repetition of the most simple concept will they ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... newspapers containing accounts of American misfortunes. But that fortunate battle was not fought until a few days after the eight Commissioners had signed their compact. It is an interesting illustration of the slowness of communication which our forefathers had to endure, that the treaty crossed the Atlantic in a sailing ship in time to travel through much of the country simultaneously with the report of this farewell victory. Two such good pieces of news ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... Julian for a companion. His health was not so firm as it had been. A change seems to have fallen on him with some suddenness on his return to America; for some years, ever since the hard winter of "The Scarlet Letter" at Salem, he had complained of fatigue in writing and of lassitude and slowness of mind; after the winter in Rome he felt this with new weariness, as he says when he practically ended his notebooks in Switzerland, not having the vital impulse to continue them, and in the intervening time he ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... Ragsdale, he would snatch them from him, and throw them into the fire; and in this way, it is believed, many of Collins's finest pieces were destroyed. Such of his Odes as were published, on his own account in 1746, were not popular; and, disappointed at the slowness of the sale, the poet burnt the remaining copies with his ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... for weeks in private about the lethargy of the people—the slowness of men to enlist. But they seemed to me to complain with insufficient reason. For now they come by thousands. They do need more men in the field, and they may conscript them, but I doubt the necessity. But I run across such incidents as ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... filled with a dense peaty mass not reduced to mold, the result of centuries of sphagnous growth, which had reached a thickness of nearly 2 feet above the remains. When we reflect upon the well-known slowness of this kind of growth in these northern regions, attested by numerous Arctic travelers, the antiquity of the ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... might be appropriated to these objects, but Mr. Jewett and other heads of departments wished to apply the rule from the beginning. Henry refused to do so, and looked with entire satisfaction on the slowness of completion of what was, in his ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... to a high speed, we seem to live in a very tranquil world. At night, when the glare of the sun passes out of our atmosphere, the stars and planets seem to move across the heavens with a stately and solemn slowness. It was one of the first discoveries of modern astronomy that this movement is only apparent. The apparent creeping of the stars across the heavens at night is accounted for by the fact that the earth turns upon its axis once in every twenty-four hours. When we ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... it is possible for a man ever to thoroughly understand a woman?" he asked, with a retrospective slowness, directed, I was sure, towards ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... before it. A mile and a half lay between her and the big cottage on the hillside—the most arduous part of the journey by far. She walked and ran as though pursued, scudding over the road with a swiftness that would have amazed another, but which seemed the essence of slowness to her. Thoughts of robbers, tramps, wild beasts, assailed her with intermittent terrors, but all served to diminish the feeling of shyness that had been interfering with ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... slowness, as is at once illustrated by the fact that its shining scales may frequently be met with entirely unchanged in the soil. Its persistence is dependent on the small quantity of alkaline constituents which it contains; and for this reason ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... taxes the bodily organs more. If we attempted to eat uncooked, the more fibrous vegetables, the grains, and unripe fruit, it would be quite true, but it is not so of the ordinary food of vegetarians. A slowness of digestion does not necessarily imply a greater strain on the system. As vegetables, in particular, are for the longest period of time in the intestines, and undergo the greater part of their digestion there, a gentle and slow process of digestion in that organ ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan
... Moreover, he didn't have to share it with anybody, because there was no one else who thought of looking for food there. He knew when he was well off. So Grandfather Quack grew fat and was happy. The only things that bothered him were the slowness with which he had to pick up seeds, one at a time, and the slowness with which he could paddle about, for you couldn't really call it swimming. But in spite of these things he was happy and made the ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... bride. Had he been quite intimate with her he would have given her the manuscript of his speech, and occupied himself by saying it to her as a lesson which he had learnt. As he could not do this he recapitulated to her all his engagements, as though excusing his own slowness as to matrimony, and declared that what with the property and what with Parliament, he never knew whether he was standing on his head or his heels. But when he paused he had done nothing towards naming a certain ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... my miserable childhood, ripened under this last trial. The count was delighted when he could jeer at me for not putting in practice the principles or the rules he had explained; if I reflected before I played he complained of my slowness; if I played fast he was angry because I hurried him; if I forgot to mark my points he declared, making his profit out of the mistake, that I was always too rapid. It was like the tyranny of a schoolmaster, the despotism of the rod, of which I can really give you no idea unless I compare ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... Prince Schwarzenberg burned his ships; he said to himself that if his action were disavowed, he could go and raise cabbages on his estate; but if it were approved, he would be at the top of the wave. Abandoning then the customary slowness and scruples of diplomacy, he answered without hesitation that he was ready, and made an engagement with the Duke of Cadore, Minister of Foreign Affairs, for the next day, at the Tuileries, to sign the marriage contract of ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... impatient of the extreme slowness with which reforms were meted out, proposed to send a deputation with a petition for a civic guard, and the expulsion of the Jesuits, to whom the delay was attributed, and who were regarded as the worst enemies of the liberal Pope. The principal ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... gives it to herself. (Maire signs the paper with the slowness of one unaccustomed to writing) It will be a great change for us when we come ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... the vacuum with extreme slowness, for fear that the gases distributed through the blood, becoming free on account of the difference of their tension from that of rarified air, might escape in the vessels and so bring on immediate death. Moreover, I watched, every moment, the effects of the vacuum ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... time? His fingers itched for his watch, because his obsession was the flight of hours. But on the second day out a wireless message came, relaying from Cairo. The man did not dare open it on deck. He took it to his cabin and there with the slowness of deep fear, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... forward again and put his fine white paw on the edge of the saucer. Hermione lifted it down with delicate slowness. This deliberate, delicate carefulness of movement ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... slowness, steadily. Nevertheless, it was hot work. The sun rose over the bank and shone on him through the limbs of the uprooted tree. His hat was on the ground alongside of him. The sweat ran down his face, streaking it and wilting his collar flat. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... frankly, and he had not noticed the moment's slowness or, if he did, took it for the passing of ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... less and less accurate. A copper ball was often used to decrease this change, but even that was subject to error. This method is still sometimes used, but for uniform results, a platinum ball, which will not scale or change in weight, is necessary, and the cost of this ball, together with the slowness of the method, have rendered the practice obsolete, especially in view of ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... most obvious. Let there be separation or not, slavery has just entered upon the road which leads to abolition, more or less rapid, but infallible. If there be no separation, this immense progress will he effected with more wisdom and slowness; violent means will be averted, the benevolent influence of the Gospel will pave the way for progressive and peaceful transformation by preaching, to the slaves as to the masters, more of their duties than of their rights. ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... at a one-horse fly pace, had made its way with comfortable jaunting slowness from Riversford to St. Rest, its stout, heavy-faced driver being altogether unconscious that his fare was no less a personage than Miss Vancourt, the lady of the Manor. When a small, girlish person, clad ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... example, the second of Peter—began to be more extensively known, the general reception and use of it would be a slow process, not only from the difficulty of communication in ancient as compared with modern times, but also from the slowness with which the churches of one region received any thing new from those ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... reefs out of her immense mainsail, and had set an enormous gaff-topsail above it, we had drawn so far ahead of her as to bring her a couple of points upon our weather quarter, whereupon we tacked, the advantage gained being solely due, I imagined, to the slowness of her crew in making sail. When we were round, and full upon the other tack, she was still quite three miles distant, and bore about a point on our lee-bow; but of course she very soon drew out athwart our hawse, and now everything seemed to depend upon which was the more weatherly ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... his slowness as head of the deputation and was glad, he said, to have a word apart with these two. The room could not seat seven and for the moment the other four were at the bar, where standing was so much easier ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... shown that the two succeeding conjunctions will take place at the points q, q', r, r' respectively 8 deg. in advance of Q, Q', R, R'. Thus we see that the points of conjunction will travel with extreme slowness in the same direction as that in which the planets revolve. Now since the angular distance between P and R is 120 deg., and since in a period of three synodic revolutions or 21,758 days, the line of ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... were dead the undertones of the sea linger in lulling harmonies. The tepid tide on the warm sand crisply rustles and hisses as when satin is crumpled and smartly rent. Weird, resonant tappings, moans, and gurgles come from a hollow log drifting, with infinite slowness. Broken sighs and gasps tell where the ripples advancing in echelon wander and lose their way among blocks of sandstone. As the tide rose it prattled and gurgled, toying with tinkling shells and clinking coral, each tone separate and distinct, however ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... sea retreated, and great spaces were left uncovered everywhere, as if the Channel was slowly drying up; then with the same lazy slowness the waters rose again, and continued their everlasting coming without any heed ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... Mehemet Pasha, he retired, after some skirmishes, to Bolbeck, where he established his camp, and was joined by Abaz Pasha, his nephew, at the head of 800 men. But his presence was required in other quarters. Divisions had broken out at several points, and the slowness with which the operations of the siege of Saint Jean d'Acre was carried on had damped the ardour ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... English Protestant, to give them better intelligence. But don't you begin to be impatient for the events of all our West Indian expeditions? The Duke,(596) who is now the soul of the Regency, and who on all hands is allowed to make a great figure there, is much dissatisfied at the slowness of General Braddock, who does not march as if he was at all impatient to be scalped. It is said for him, that he has had bad guides, that the roads are exceedingly difficult, and that it was necessary to drag as much artillery as he does. This is not the first time, as witness in Hawley,(597) ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... to suspend, so dubious was the value of most stock contracts. Manufactured products were little salable, and the prices of agricultural painfully sank. Factories began to run on short time, many closed entirely, many corporations failed. The peculiarity of this crisis was the slowness with which it abated. No date indeed can be set as its term, its evil effects dragging on through years, so that the ill times of 1893-94 may be regarded as the same fever, intermittent ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... upheaval slid away into Wyoming. Eighty miles, yet they were clear with the clearness that only altitudinous country can bring; alluring, fascinating, beckoning to him until his being rebelled against the comparative slowness of the train, and the minutes passed in a dragging, long-drawn-out sequence that was almost ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... peace!" answered Mizraim, as Nahoum passed from the room, and walked hastily towards the hall where he should find Ebn Ezra Bey. Nearing the spot, he brought his step to a deliberate slowness, and appeared not to notice the stately Arab till ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the evening's chores, stalling the cow and throwing into her manger the scanty supply of night fodder that could be afforded. Then she sat down to milk, and accomplished that operation so slowly that Whitey turned her head as far as the stanchions would permit to see what this slowness meant. ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... the masters of modern science: "When men invented the locomotive, the child was learning to go; when they invented the telegraph, it was learning to speak." He looked forward to the manhood of mankind, as assuredly the nobler in proportion to the slowness of its developement. What might not be expected from the prime and middle strength of the order of existence whose infancy had lasted six thousand years? And, indeed, I think this the truest, as well as the most cheering, view that we can take of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... and sympathy, any defects of your own—pardon the expression—should correct or compensate these by opposite qualities? And supposing that, with such sobriety and strength of character as I have described, there should be connected a certain slowness, formality, and coldness of manner, which might not at first be attractive to a man of your vivacity, let not this repel you: when once you have learned to consider this manner as the concomitant and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... slowness of our progress, and told us that, as the next water was three days in front, if we traveled so slowly we should never get there at all. The utmost endeavors of the servants, cracking their whips, screaming and beating, got only nineteen miles out of the poor beasts. We had thus proceeded forty-four ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... yours was partly the cause of our slowness. He was always wanting to have the orders for fire and blood in neat formal despatches, signed by me, and copied by clerks. However, I hope you are satisfied now, with the butcheries and ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... upon the grains which were improved by selection in pre-historic times, because they were annuals and quick yielders. The heavy yielding plants, the engines of nature, are the trees, which have in most cases remained unimproved and largely unused until the present time because of the slowness of their generations and the absence ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... event Nelson joins the fleet under Sir Hyde Parker, at Yarmouth Relations between him and Parker Nelson's disapproval of the plans for the expedition Evident change in his general disposition Anecdote of Nelson and the turbot The fleet collected off the Skaw Parker's slowness and Nelson's impatience Alarming reports of the Danes' preparations Nelson's attitude and counsels Accuracy of his judgment of the conditions Tact and discretion in his dealings with Parker His letter to Parker upon the general situation ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... a slowness that only increased its threatening aspect, the cloud to the northward joined the vast overhanging canopy that had been seen earlier in the day. By half-past six in the evening it was black as the densest night, the murk only being lighted by the constant ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... succeed where Magnus had failed. He wanted to be governor of the State. He had put his teeth together, and, deaf to all other considerations, blind to all other issues, he worked with the infinite slowness, the unshakable tenacity of the coral ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... oratorical and a declamatory mind like Burke's, and the least oratorical of all poets, yet under this difference of form and temper there is a striking likeness in spirit. There was the same energetic feeling about moral ideas, the same frame of counsel and prudence, the same love for the slowness of time, the same slight account held of mere intellectual knowledge, and even the same ruling sympathy with that side of the character of Englishmen which Burke exulted in, as "their awe of kings and reverence for priests," "their sullen resistance of innovation" ...
— Burke • John Morley
... exhibited its usual slowness in realising the gravity of the situation; yet it may be excused for believing that it had only to deal with local tumults such as those which had been so easily suppressed in Italy. The force of eight thousand men which it put into the field under the praetor Lucius Hypsaeus may have ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a transparent skin, and such little feet, and such winning ways—but bless me, you're nervous! Why neighbour, what's the matter? I swear to you,' continued the dwarf dismounting from the chair and sitting down in it, with a careful slowness of gesture very different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up unheard, 'I swear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast or kept so warm. I thought it was sluggish in its course, and cool, quite cool. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... began to rain, not a sweeping storm, but the cold, penetrating drizzle of great heights. Now their bearskin coats protected them in part, but the animals shivered, and the way became so slippery that they had to advance on those heights with exceeding caution and slowness. The rain soon turned to snow, and then back to rain again, but the happy temperament of the Little Giant was able to extract ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... the importance of ferry-boats as a means of traffic distribution has already been greatly reduced by the construction of bridges and tunnels which provide for the greater part of the passenger and vehicular traffic. The North River, however, by reason of its greater width and the comparative slowness of its currents, is by far the more important waterway for the use of ocean-going vessels of the larger classes. In this river the conditions for the construction of bridges, within the limits of commercial convenience, seem to be practically prohibitory. ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles W. Raymond
... sister-in-law of W.J. Stillman, Paul, brother of W.J. Stillman, Russie, son of W.J. his illness his death Stillman, Thomas B., brother of W.J. Stillman, William James early life and training religious experience intellectual slowness love of nature and struggles of conscience runs away from home returns attends school in New York city, living with his eldest brother goes to a school at De Ruyter, N.Y. mental slowness disappears college education decided ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... this space of time the two hundred and fifty Youths that went towards the Road Where The Silent Ones Walk, had come very nigh thereto; having gone very warily and with some slowness, because, as may be, of the lesson of ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... apologies as they could. "They would not have come on this untimely errand could they have known." They begged forgiveness for their slowness to perceive. ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... whom the simple-minded young officer had owed promotion after promotion. General Michael had fixed upon Agar as his last hope—his last chance of doing something brilliant in this deathly country, which moved with a slowness that ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... telegraph-board. If he is not immediately available a two-dollar broker will execute the order." Here comes the reply: "3000 at 92 was all he could get at the price." (Time, 1 min. 35 sec.) To those who are used to the aggravating slowness of the telephone in London, that in New York is a revelation of rapidity, and so much does it enter into the daily life of the community that it would now give something like a stroke of paralysis to the City if all the telephone-wires should be suddenly swept ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... to be noted is that the whole movement back to Jehovah was a one-man movement. It was Hezekiah's doing and his only. No priest is named as prominent in it, and the slowness of the whole order is especially branded in verse 34. No prophet is named; was there any one prompting the king? Perhaps Isaiah did, though his chapter i. with its scathing repudiation of 'the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of March, the two British plenipotentiaries met those of the allies in the town-house at Utrecht; where the lord privy seal addressed himself to them in a short speech, "That the negotiation had now continued fourteen months with great slowness, which had proved very injurious to the interests of the allies: That the Queen had stayed thus long, and stopped the finishing of her own peace, rather than leave her allies in any uncertainty: That she hoped they would now be all prepared to put an end to this great work; and therefore had commanded ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... 1828, the conquering march of the Russians to Adrianople had awakened that people to a passing thrill of national consciousness. Other travellers,—for instance, Cyprien Robert in the "thirties,"—noted their sturdy patience in toil, their slowness to act, but their great perseverance and will-power, when ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... already set forth, with that 'written answer,' which the Twelve She-deputies returned in to seek. Slim sylph, she has set forth, through the black muddy country: she has much to tell, her poor nerves so flurried; and travels, as indeed to-day on this road all persons do, with extreme slowness. President Mounier has not come, nor the Acceptance pure and simple; though six hours with their events have come; though courier on courier reports that Lafayette is coming. Coming, with war or with peace? It is time that the Chateau also should determine on one thing or ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... waited it seemed to them that never before had simple tasks, such as fitting a key into the lock, been performed with such exasperating slowness, and the girls fairly danced with impatience. The older folks smiled indulgently, and Mr. Sanderson chuckled as he pulled Evelyn's ear and inquired inanely, "if she were having ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... that Joseph wasted no words. What has fallen out? he said, and Nicodemus asked him if he knew Phinehas, the great money-changer in the Temple. Joseph nodded, and, holding his hands before the fire, Nicodemus told his story very slowly, exasperating Joseph by his slowness; but he did not dare to bid him to hasten, and, holding himself in patience, he listened to him while he told that Phinehas was perhaps the worst of the extorters, the most noisy and arrogant, a vicious and quarrelsome man, who, yester-morning, was engaged with a rich ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore |
