"Mechanically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all parts of the community. Community planning is as essential to satisfactory "community housekeeping" as the plan of a house is for the convenience of the home. An architect is needed to plan a home for the community, a community structure which is mechanically sound and efficient and withal both beautiful and comfortable, just as much as for designing a house. So the art of "town planning" is extending from the cities to the country and some of our landscape ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... He sipped his wine mechanically, looking about that marvellous room, with its subdued saffron lights, its glitter of glass and silver, its beautiful women in their elaborate toilets, its deft, correct servants; its array of tableware—cut glass, chased ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... a book on board of a pirate, he had taken it with him when he returned to the Enterprise, and had shown it to Clara, who immediately recognised it as the property of Francisco. The book was saturated with the salt water, and as Edward mechanically turned over the pages, he referred to the title-page to see if there was any name upon it. There was not; but he observed that the blank or fly-leaf next to the binding had been pasted down, and that there was writing on the other side. In its present state it was easily detached from the cover; ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... the grim silence it seemed strangely incongruous that the measured business of a ship's life should be going forward as usual. Something within the newcomer's consciousness stirred to that voice of authority. Mechanically, like some huge, hideous toy, he raised first one arm, then the other, and hitched himself halfway up on the stern seat. His mouth opened. His face wrinkled. He seemed groping for the meaning of a joke at which he knew he ought to laugh. Suddenly from his lips in surprising volume, raucous, ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Mechanically enclosed impurities are also frequently present, and it is to these that the colour is often due. A remarkable case of enclosed impurities is presented by the so-called Fontainbleau limestone, which consists of crystals of calcite of an acute ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... of nuns speedily arrived, headed by Sister Agatha, who held an open letter in her hand. Zuleika gazed at this letter in silent dismay. It was hers, the one Giovanni had written her! How had it got into Sister Agatha's possession? She mechanically felt in her bosom where she had secreted it, as she thought, safely. Her hand touched only the empty envelope. The note must have fallen upon the floor of the school-room and been found by some malicious pupil, who, after reading it and discovering its ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... out of bed and to the dresser where her father's pistol was kept, lifted the ugly weapon from its case and mechanically cocked it. Tom had taught her to use a rifle, but she had never been allowed to handle a revolver, though she had watched him so often that she was familiar with its mechanism, and had no thought of fear as she sped fleetly ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... He had applauded her mechanically, and it was not that circumstance which caused the second rush of scarlet over her face. This time she could track it definitely to its origin. A lover's favourite song is one that has been sung by his love. She detected herself now in the full apprehension of the fact ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of his plans to very few persons—to those only whose assistance he wanted. The rest mechanically followed their leaders and the impulse which was given to them; they passively awaited the realisation of the promises they had received, and on the faith of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... movement and facilitating entry of other roots. But no cover crop that I am aware of will effectively penetrate firm plowpan or other resistant physical obstacles. Such a barrier forces all plants to root almost exclusively in the topsoil. However, once the subsoil has been mechanically fractured the first time, and if recompaction is avoided by shunning heavy tractors and other machinery, green manure crops can maintain ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... stripped themselves nearly as bare as their own sailors, and were cheering, thrusting, hewing, and hauling, here, there, and everywhere, like any common mariner, and filling them with a spirit of self-respect, fellow-feeling, and personal daring, which the discipline of the Spaniards, more perfect mechanically, but cold and tyrannous, and crushing spiritually, never could bestow. The black-plumed senor was obeyed; but the golden locked Amyas was followed; and would have been followed to the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... genius to nature? For you, O broker, there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... faces, appearing to run towards us. The chorus-master's white-gloved hand flung upward. A roar of voices struck upon my ear, but whether my own were of them I could not say; if I were singing at all it was unconsciously, mechanically. Later, I found myself standing in the wings beside the thin lady; the stage was in the occupation of the principals. On my next entrance my senses were more with me; I was able to look about me. Here and there a strongly-marked face among the audience ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... reason, leaning over the oak banister to strain her eyes through the silence of the brown, sun-flecked depths below. She lingered there till, somewhere in those depths, she heard the closing of a door; then, mechanically impelled, she went down the shallow flights of steps till ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... thoughts returned to the gun in her hand. For a moment she had forgotten it. Suppose her finger, while she was talking, had mechanically closed on the trigger. She blanched. "Take it," she said, holding the gun out in both hands and ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... waiting for you, to have luncheon." She went out in a trance. She hardly understood anything that the other said to her. She ate the things that they put on her plate; she listened without knowing what she heard, talking mechanically with the farming-women, who inquired about her health; she let them embrace her, and herself kissed the cheeks offered to her; and then got ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... reply; his task done; he sat by the fire waiting. He had gone after this fellow, driven by fate; he had saved him, driven by fate. Now what had fate next in store? He warmed his wrinkled hands mechanically and waited, while the thought came to him with bitterness that his darling's life lay at the mercy of this man who had nothing better to do, on coming back from the very jaws of death, than make jests. But old Fog was mistaken; the man had something better to do, and did it. Perhaps ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... to the Pacific was always preceded by bands of enterprising settlers, who planted themselves beyond the frontier and beckoned to the flag to follow. The great empires of antiquity were enlarged mechanically by conquest and annexation. They were mosaics, not growths. The cohesive power of a common ethnic bond was lacking; so was the modern substitute for this to be found in close economic interdependence maintained by improved ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... royal governors, as it also attended the figure of the Gray Champion, is also in Scott's manner, though more subtly effected. In "Edward Randolph's Portrait" the appearance of the picture on the faded canvas is mechanically accounted for, but at the moment of its discovery this same supernatural expectancy, as it were, is aroused in the beholders; the incident itself recalls the appearance of the portrait of old Lord Ravenswood at the marriage ball of "The Bride of Lammermoor," though the analogy may very likely ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... people who stood talking, there followed a gentleman of easy carriage, with handsome features and thin hair. He was looking for Alma, and as soon as his eyes perceived her, they fell. Of what Mrs. Strangeways said, Alma heard not a syllable; she bowed mechanically, clutching her fan as though in peril of a fall and this the only thing within reach; she knew that Redgrave bent solemnly, silently; and then, with sudden relief, she ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... Mechanically she shook hands and her lips murmured some vague response. She heard the door of the flat close behind him, followed almost immediately by the clang of the iron grille as the lift-boy dragged it across. It ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... to the first floor, while Pathfinder remained as a sentinel below. Our heroine was in that state in which the body exerts itself, apparently without the control of the mind. She relighted the candle mechanically, as her companion had desired, and returned with it below, where he was waiting her reappearance. No sooner was Pathfinder in possession of the light than he examined the place carefully, to make certain no one was concealed in the fortress, ascending to each floor in succession, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... obtained the knowledge through a dream.[867] Another Cetnad for obtaining information regarding length of life was addressed to the seven daughters of the sea. Perhaps the incantation was repeated mechanically until the seer fell into a kind of trance. Divination by dreams was also used by ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... number of the Day?" he asked, quite mechanically, as he saw the woman putting by a large piece of paper. She did not understand what he meant, but she handed him the sheet; it was a woodcut, representing a meteor, which had appeared ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... and while Aggie was on her knees washing the slabs of the passage that led through to the back door, the master, as she always called him now that Cosmo was his pupil, happened to come from his room, and saw and addressed her. She rose in haste, mechanically drying her hands in ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... both vegetable and animal life develops from an egg) of some animals rather high in the one tree of mundane life, which has a common root and a stump, but two stems, the vegetable and the animal, can be mechanically fertilized ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... spell. Molly gave way to an agony of crying; Morton said brokenly, "Oh, what will we do?" and Sara, stooping mechanically to lift the unconscious little cause of all this trouble, gave a long, quivering sigh, and murmured helplessly, "God ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... Robert took the plaster mechanically, and, sick at heart and speechless, rose to go, forgetting even his bonny leddy in ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Improvers.—All things considered, no class of plants grown upon the farm are so beneficent in the influence which they exert upon the land as clovers. They improve it by enriching it; they improve it mechanically; and they aid plant growth by gathering and assimilating, as it were, food for ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... embarrassment shining in his eyes. "I reckon that wasn't the snake that bit you, Ferguson," he said. "The one that bit you is back on the trail. He ain't goin' to die till sundown. Not till sundown," he repeated mechanically, grimly; "Ferguson ain't goin' ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... steps, and in the evening landed again at the mouth of the river after a severe day's toil. We were in no cheerful mood. Oliver did not sing as usual while preparing for camp. Neither did I have much to say; but I fell to work, mechanically preparing the much-needed meal. We ate in silence ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... office. He set diligently to work by the declining winter light, until he was interrupted by the entrance of his Chinese waiter to tell him that supper—which was the meal that Mulrady religiously adhered to in place of the late dinner of civilization—was ready in the dining-room. Mulrady mechanically obeyed the summons; but on entering the room the oasis of a few plates in a desert of white table-cloth which awaited him made him hesitate. In its best aspect, the high dark Gothic mahogany ecclesiastical sideboard and chairs of this room, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... at this reception, looked down mechanically, with his hand on his waistcoat and his cravat, and did not dare to ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... his employers, the great engineer of the Isle of Dogs, to whom Charity had apprenticed him in his fourteenth year. Faithful attempts to improve his position in the works were met, as it would seem, by indifference and ingratitude. He did his work mechanically but without enthusiasm. Had he confessed the truth, he would have said, "I was not born to labor with my hands." A sense of inherited superiority, a sure conviction, common to youth, that he would become a leader, of men, conduced to ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... only mechanically. His mind was occupied with thoughts of two women who had made a profound impression upon his by no means susceptible heart that day. He was thinking of those two young girls, so utterly unlike. Blanche ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... discover that we were the—the miscreants?" I asked, quoting mechanically from the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to the fire and sat down on a bench, opening and shutting the scissors mechanically. Jo was in the light, and Charley's eyes again ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... meanwhile, with anxious aspect, sat on the sofa near a small table, busy with some embroidery, her fingers mechanically travelling to and fro; but every little while she cast a troubled glance towards her husband, whose pen went scratch, scratch, over ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... shells of the beans, and releasing the kernels or "nibs," from which the shells and dust are winnowed by a powerful blast. It is accomplished by carrying the beans mechanically to the cracking machine at a considerable height, whence husks and nibs are allowed to fall before the winnower: the separated nibs are assorted according to size. Some of the shells find their way to the Emerald Isle, to be used by the peasants for ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... a sinking heart, and turned away. Once more his fingers mechanically felt for the ring box but he experienced no thrill this time, when he found it ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... no little ingenuity to accomplish the act when the nails are short. Yet one may come to the stage of perfection at which one bites one's nails when one is absorbed in thought about other things. And one may learn to slander one's neighbor almost as mechanically and unthinkingly as one swallows ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... wine with her lips and looked to the others. Barlow, still surly, tossed off his drink at a gulp. Bruce drank slowly, a little, and set his glass down. Betty did not lift her eyes and kept her hands in her lap. Ruiz tasted eagerly and his eyes sparkled and widened. Kendric mechanically set his glass to his lips, drank sparingly and marveled. For never had he tasted vintage like this. Its fragrance in his nostrils rose with strange pleasant sensation to his brain; a drop on his palate seemed to pass directly ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... Mr. Palmer was incapable of answering him. Alister turned from him, and in his excitement mechanically followed Rob, who was turning a corner of the house. It was not the way to the gate, but Rob had seen Mercy peeping round that same corner—anxious in truth about her father; she feared ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Presidential office for nearly eight years now, and much has been done in which I take great pride. But this is not personal pride. It is pride in the people, in the Nation. It is pride in our political system and our form of government—balky sometimes, mechanically deficient perhaps, in many ways—but enormously alive and vigorous; able through these years to keep the Republic on the right course, rising to the great occasions, accomplishing the essentials, meeting the basic challenge ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... get through it again. If one drop of water has percolated through the dyke, there will be a roaring torrent soon. There is all the difference between once and never; there is small difference between once and twice. By habit we come to do things mechanically and without effort, and we all like that. One solitary footfall across the snow soon becomes a beaten way. As in the banyan-tree, each branch becomes a root. All life is held together by cords of custom which enable us to reserve ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... of sociality, as to get master of this SHORT HAND, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words. For my own part, by long habitude, I do it so mechanically, that, when I walk the streets of London, I go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind in the circle, where not three words have been said, and have brought off twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... scarcely gone when the last Oxford post arrived, and a letter was brought up for Falloden. It was addressed in his father's hand-writing. He opened it mechanically; and in his preoccupation, he read it several times ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from the chair which she had mechanically sunk into while waiting for him to speak, and ceased to be the kindly, generous soul she was, in asserting herself as a gentlewoman who had a contumacious servant to treat with. "You will ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... are looking upon the most indolent people in the world—not lazy like Russians or Irish, but elegantly indolent, walking so slowly, playing meditatively with their beads—for nearly every man carries his string of jet or amber beads, which he mechanically tells, though without a thought of prayer. They walk with half-closed eyes, and whilst they seem to be thinking, they are but taking a passive pleasure in existence. They sit down together at their ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... she was always working at it, but knew nothing at all about it. She strummed on her piano all day long, for want of anything else to do, or from affectation, or because it gave her pleasure. Sometimes she rattled along mechanically. Sometimes she would play well, very well, with taste and soul—(it was almost as though she had a soul: but, as a matter of fact, she only borrowed one). Before she knew Christophe, she was capable of liking Massenet, Grieg, ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... extend his influence far beyond the office hours and the strictly medical relations. And yet, on the other hand, there is no department of medicine in which the treatment might not profit by the psychotherapeutic influence. With a few vague words of encouragement mechanically uttered, or with a routine of tricks of suggestion by bread pills and colored water and tuning forks, not much will be gained even in the ordinary physician's practice. Subtle adjustment to the personal needs and to the individual conditions is ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... her questions cheerfully but mechanically. Sometimes he stared at her in a cold, impersonal way and gave no answer, as if her questions were an impertinence and she were not of sufficient importance ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... bowed, as if he were master of the situation, which, in fact, he fully appeared to be. Confident and gracious, he offered Marget his arm, and she took it mechanically, such being the force of suggestion, exercised by a strong man's mind, especially with many eyes looking on. Mechanically, also, I held out my arm to Marget's mother and, while our small world still wondered, I found myself in a foursome ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... attentions of the women, that these pitiable but cruel creatures were warned by the chief that, if anything befell us, they themselves would get into dire trouble. All this time, I could not seem to think or concentrate my mind on the events that had happened. I acted mechanically, and I am absolutely certain that neither Gladys nor myself realised ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... violent start, he wondered what set of brain-cells had been stirred to reproduce rhymes that he had, or so he deemed, long ago forgotten. And still musing, he almost mechanically went ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... to paint, mechanically at first, and then as he warmed to his subject and became interested in his conception, ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... sample which led me to seek for another method, this way could not be employed, for the specimen had been taken from the surface, and was covered and penetrated by vegetable growths which could not be entirely removed mechanically. Add to this the fact of the presence of iron pyrites and the probable occurrence of carbonates in the rock, and it will be at once seen that no reliance could be placed on the results ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... consider what is meant by a "mineral species" and find out what relation exists between that subject and chemical composition. Now by a "mineral species" is understood a single substance, having (except for mechanically admixed impurities) practically a constant chemical composition, and having practically identical physical properties in all ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... Roger Broom's voice which sent across the water that ominous shout so appalling to Trent's ears. Mechanically George swam toward the place where the dark head had risen, but as he took his first stroke a second head appeared beside the other, then ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... yet dark," Mary has brought spikenard in a marble cup, if not to anoint the sacred Dead at least to pour it on the threshold of the sealed tomb, with tears and prayers. She has fled to tell St. John and St. Peter of the sacrilege of the open tomb,—has followed them back, still mechanically clasping her useless spikenard,—has seen them go in where her trembling knees refused to follow, and then go homeward, as we can see them in the distance, ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... box—packed away, and lost to memory for years—an hour ago I found a musty package of gilt paper, or rather, a roll it was, with the green-tarnished gold of the old sheet for the outer wrapper. I picked it up mechanically to toss it into some obscure corner, when, carelessly lifting it by one end, a child's tin whistle dropped therefrom and fell tinkling on the attic floor. It lies before me on my writing table now—and so, too, does the roll entire, though now a roll ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... uniting in himself the offices of chancellor of the exchequer and first lord of the treasury. But Bute still acted behind the scenes. He pulled the strings, and Grenville and the rest of the cabinet answered his motions, as mechanically as though they had been so many puppets. Grenville, indeed, seems to have been chosen by the king and Bute, as a willing instrument for carrying their plans ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Mildred stood looking at the portrait of her lover. She studied his face long and intently, then crossing the room she mechanically took a volume from the shelf, and as she opened it her eyes fell on ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... Simmons. He was still wiping perspiration from his forehead, and he mechanically repeated to Warden the words he had uttered to himself immediately after Lawler left his office: "I'm glad it's over. I've been dreadin' it. He's the only one in the whole bunch that I was afraid of. There'll be hell to pay in this section, now—pure, unadulterated hell, ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... make for not having attended your Majesty's Council to-day, and the more so as his absence arose from an inadvertence which he is almost ashamed to mention. But having got on horseback to ride to the station, with his thoughts occupied with some matters which he was thinking of, he rode mechanically and in a fit of absence to the Nine Elms Station,[20] and did not recollect his mistake till he had got there; and although he made the best of his way afterwards to the Paddington Station, he could not get ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... at Ghosam, of which the details had worked out so mechanically, had been necessitated by the attitude of the tribesmen of Bajaur and the adjoining valleys. Great gatherings had collected, and up to the 7th of September there had been every sign of determined opposition. So formidable did the combination appear, that Sir ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... began Webb, to his officers, as he mechanically opened the first packet, "that Field took fire at Wilkins's growls about the bother of keeping his funds, so the youngster stowed his money with Hay. He insisted on turning over everything before he left, so I receipted to him. Let's see," he continued, glancing at the memorandum ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... suddenness of the blast, Paul groped his way through the bank to the refuge of his car. Mechanically he put one hand on the lever and glanced ahead for obstacles. Crossing the street, not twenty yards ahead, tripped the most dangerous one conceivable—the beautiful ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... her contemplations;—the grating of his key in the outer door,—of his step in the ante-room. Mechanically she rose, and advanced to meet the truant who had kept her watching,—who had so often kept her watching,—so often been forgiven. A momentary glimpse of his countenance convinced her that he was in no mood ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... of factories in which this stupendous production was to be carried out, and it has been possible to find it only by subdividing work closely, and entrusting a large variety of machinery and fitting to women, with the help of the fullest possible equipment of jigs and all available appliances for mechanically defining and facilitating the work, and of instruction by skilled men. By this means an output has been obtained that will compare favorably with that of any class of workers in any country. Comparing, for instance, our ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... rolling up a couple of shirts, a few pairs of socks, and some collars, he paused, his hands resting on the parcel. He did not seem to know himself, and it was difficult to believe that he really intended to leave the house in this disreputable fashion. Mechanically he continued to add to his parcel, thinking all the while that he must go, otherwise his play ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... had their ears cut off, were skinned alive, or in other ways cruelly tortured. A Spaniard called Boves distinguished himself among the worst criminals. He systematically organized the work of destroying Americans. His theory was that no American should live, and he simply destroyed them mechanically, for he thought that that was the only thing to do with them. Bolivar, himself, in a letter sent to the governor of Curacao on October 2, 1813, makes the most eloquent exposition of facts, and shows clearly the reasons he had for the ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... passed, and Jimmie resumed his strokes, mechanically turning the canoe out of the trough. Geraldine opened the magazine and began to scan the editor's note under the title. "Why," she exclaimed tremulously, "did you know about this? Did you ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... to improve clay soils is by using coarse vegetable manures, large quantities of stable, manures, ashes, chips, sawdust, sand, or any similar materials, which will tend to break up and lighten the soil mechanically. Lime and land plaster are also valuable, as they cause chemical changes which tend to break up ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... the flags outside the garden door, speech, calm and restrained, of which she could not distinguish the import. Mechanically Damaris gathered the scattered house-keeping books lying before her upon the table—baker's, butcher's, grocer's, corn-chandler's, coal-merchant's—into a tight little heap; and, folding her hands on the top of them, prayed simply, almost ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... herself moved stiffly and with unsteady limbs as she began to remove her own outer garments. The girl mechanically followed her example. She was a pitiable object in the strong light of the electrolier. Muddy from head to foot, water-stained and bedraggled, her face streaked with dirt, she was the most unattractive ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Inn. One of them gently closed the door and locked it. One was in soiled every-day clothes, the other in immaculate evening dress. The latter doffed his opera hat with the most engaging smile imaginable. The girl and I looked up at him in blank bewilderment, and set our cups down so mechanically that the warm amber liquid ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... man, taken by surprise, said mechanically, "Would Miss Bates have given them to her?" He had fallen into the habit of referring to the childish old woman with, all due form, for he saw Bates ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... cat and gently put it outside. Then he did close the window, and the shutters, and bolted them, and took up the Geiger counter, and mechanically ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... He obeyed mechanically, and walked in silence by her side. They reached the cottage and entered. Margaret said: "Here he is, mother;" ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... the heavens were steady again, John and Michael found themselves alone in the darkness. John was treading the air mechanically, and Michael without knowing ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... master began mechanically to look over the desks for forgotten or mislaid articles, and to rearrange the pupils' books and copies. A few heartsease gathered by the devoted Octavia Dean, neatly tied with a black thread and regularly ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... understand," said the stranger, hastily. He was pulling back the rings of a silk netted purse, which he had drawn mechanically from his pocket, and which, from some sudden start of his, fell chinking on to the floor. Whatever the thought was which startled him, he thought it so sharply that he looked up in fear that he had said it aloud. But he had not spoken, and the miller had ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Mechanically they swept the ice and snow with their eyes. It was a homogeneous scene, devoid of contrasts or bold contours, dreary, desolate, and monotonous,—the ice-packed sea, the slow slope of the beach, the background of low-lying hills, and over all thrown the endless mantle of snow. "No trees, no bluffs, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... that design and pictorial representation serve each a different purpose in printing. Yet they are similar mechanically in that each requires a printing surface (type, borders, ornaments, and engravings) which may be prepared by the same mechanical procedures. The picture exists for its own interest or as an illustration for the text. As such it is merely an element ...
— Applied Design for Printers - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #43 • Harry Lawrence Gage
... their little circle. It was as though she expected someone to arrive. She was in that state which is not normal and yet not abnormal—a kind of trance in which she did ordinary things in a natural way, yet mechanically, without ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in a tremendous tone, operated instantaneously upon the Jew; his hand, which had closed upon Holloway's guineas, opened; he laid the money down upon the table, but mechanically seized his box of trinkets, which he seemed to fear would be the next seized, as forfeits. No persons are so apprehensive of injustice and fraud as those who are themselves dishonest. Mr. Carat, bowing repeatedly to Alderman Holloway, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... The fair queteuses had not been very successful, and that chiefly amongst the lower classes. The fatigue was terrible, walking for so many hours on that bad pavement with thin satin shoes, so that at length our feet seemed to move mechanically, and we dropped on our knees before each altar like machines touched by a spring, and rose again with no small effort. Of all the churches we entered that night, the cathedral was the most magnificent, but the most beautiful and tasteful was San Francisco. The crowd there was so dense, that ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... He walked mechanically, like a machine set to go, and going without consciousness or effort—without a question or a thought, without a glance to ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... accurately curving whiskers meeting at their dimpled chins, lounged about with a certain unconscious dignity that made them contentedly indifferent to any novelty of their surroundings. For a while the two races kept mechanically apart; but, through the tactful gallantry of Garnier, the cynical familiarity of Raymond, and the impulsive recklessness of Aladdin, who had forsaken his enchanted Palace on the slightest of invitations, and returned with the party in the hope of again seeing the Princess ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... over the low stone mantelpiece. It was just midnight, but Monsieur Joseph was not in bed. He looked a quaint figure, in a dressing-gown and a tasselled night-cap, and he sat at the table writing a long letter. He started when Riette touched the door, and Angelot saw that his hand moved mechanically towards a pair of pistols that lay beside him. Monsieur Joseph did not trust entirely to his ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... the darkness, and, at last, the rain subsiding somewhat, Jim stopped, partly to rest his smoking horse, and partly to feed his half-famished companions. Benedict ate mechanically the food that Jim fished out of the basket with a careful hand, and the boy ate as only boys can eat. Jim himself was hungry, and nearly finished ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... abruptly rose from her seat. Almost mechanically she moved over to a mirror, and, removing her hat, deftly patted her beautiful hair till it assumed its wonted appearance. And ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... the effusions of genius though known were never once remembered. Oh, no! I obtained, with great difficulty and as an unmerited favour a charitable condescension of power that knew not very well if it ought to be so kind to a being so unprotected, yes, I obtained—the office of usher! The honour of mechanically hearing declensions, conjugations, and rules of syntax and prosody, repeated by beings who detested the labour to which they were compelled, was conferred upon me! beings who looked on me, not as a benefactor, but as a tyrant! And tyrants all teachers indubitably are, under our present modes ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... finer, the substance instead of the shadow. It can elect men who resemble it closely, who follow its sentiments closely, who are in fact so nearly identical with itself that they may be trusted to do surely, instinctively, almost mechanically that which it would itself do, if it were itself an immense legislative assembly. They would vote, without doubt, according to circumstances, but also as their electors would vote if they were governing directly. In this way democracy preserves its legislative ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... through two more rooms, into one fitted as an office. The billionaire sat at a desk, busy over some legal papers he was reading, but he rose at once and came forward with hand extended to meet Eaton. The young man took his hand mechanically. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... became a part of me, all the more, no doubt, that it was denied me. Our aim in the world is beauty and happiness; but we are late in learning that they exist in the will and imagination, and not in this or that accredited and venerable thing or circumstance that is mechanically obtruded on our unready attention. If you were put down in the Garden of Eden, and told that you might stay there an hour and no more, what would you do? How would you "improve" your time? Would ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... mechanically. We passed through a passage thickly carpeted, and paused before a green baize door. This door opened noiselessly, and I found myself in ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... were real, all right. No doubt of that. None whatever. Mechanically, he counted them. Twenty. Most of them were feeding, but four of them seemed to be standing a little apart from the others, watching the forest, ...
— The Asses of Balaam • Gordon Randall Garrett
... ticking vehicle and the impatient driver. Meadows went mechanically, paid the driver, shouldered the bag, and carried it into the hall of the Lodge. He then perceived that two grinning and evidently inquisitive footmen, waiting in the hall for anything that might turn up for them to do, had been watching the whole scene—the arrival of the taxi, and the meeting between ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... woman appeared with a fat baby in her arms. Mechanically she unloosened the pail from the bent nail on the end of the pole and put it down, watching the man as he unwound the reins from the hook. Again the long-eared animals stretched their muscles at his hoarse command. He paid no more attention to the woman, ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... sounded solemn, and those words "oath" and "open court" made me feel frightened. But I saw he held up his hand, palm out, and mechanically I held up mine. "Yes," I repeated after him, "I can take my oath in open court." My voice sounded very loud to me, and clear, and not ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... Twice and thrice, however, they were both driven back again round some comparatively sheltered corner by the mere fury of the wind, which battled with them as stubbornly as though it were the disembodied spirits, of the ancient defenders of the place; and when, mechanically, and almost of necessity, Richard's arm sought the young girl's waist, whose garments made it more difficult for her to advance than for him, she did not reject its welcome aid. Then, just as his disengaged ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... mechanically, though sky and sea and mountains seemed to be seething together, as if in ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... that afternoon, was the man's heart in his labor. While his hands mechanically performed their appointed tasks and his brain as mechanically did its part, the man himself was not there. He had gone far, far, away into his Yesterdays. Once again, in his ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... at the first landing a door was thrown open. Mechanically, Ben followed the servant into the room, but he had not made half a dozen steps when he looked around in surprise and bewilderment. Novice as he was, a glance satisfied him that he was in a gambling house. The double room ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the stirrup the Dauphin mechanically closed his knees, as a rider does to renew his grip after it has been relaxed. But with the tightening of the grip the bay started as if goaded by a vicious double rasp of the spurs, swerved violently, shaking his head till the chains ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... ready to saddle and bridle the tethered beast. The officers were also silently preparing—buckling on their swords, taking revolvers from their belt-holsters, and filling the chambers from their cartridge-pouches, quite mechanically, without taking their eyes off the watchers on the wall. But in spite of all these preparations no sounds were heard save those made by the horses—an impatient stamp or pawing at the stones, followed by a snort or a ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... perish by the immutability of their maxims, and, still more, by the universal law that whatever becomes a routine loses its vital principle, and, having no longer a mind acting within it, goes on revolving mechanically, though the work it is intended to do remains undone. A bureaucracy always tends to become a pedantocracy. When the bureaucracy is the real government, the spirit of the corps (as with the Jesuits) bears down the individuality ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... mechanically moved from the spot where they had been standing. Aristide, embroidering his theme, mechanically accompanied him; and, such is democratic France, and also such was the magnetic, Ancient Mariner-like power of Aristide—did not I, myself, ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... little accustomed to wine, obeyed mechanically, swallowing down each glass a gorge deployee, as he was awoke from his meditations by the return of the bottle, and then filling up his glass again. Newton, who could take his allowance as well as most people, could not, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... The victim mechanically looked round the room in which he found himself—an anteroom full of choice flowers and of furniture that must have cost twenty thousand francs. The servant, on his return, begged monsieur to wait in the drawing-room till the company came ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Sunday afternoon, and she would not trespass upon her rule because she had guests that day. Except for the confusion to which Kinney's unexpected gift had put her, she would have waited for him to join the others before she began to clear away the dinner; but now she mechanically began, and Kinney, to whom these domestic occupations were a second nature, joined her in the work, equally absent-minded in ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... doleful and ready to cry, but seemed unconscious of any fault; he had killed a man, but that was rather an honourable act than a crime, and he only seemed to regret that it had turned out so unsatisfactorily. He did not seem to have much appetite, but swallowed his yam mechanically in great lumps. The boys shunned him visibly, all but Macao, who squatted down close before him, and gave him food with wild hatred in his eyes, and muttering awful threats. Icy-cold, cruel, with compressed lips and poisonous looks like a serpent's, he hissed his curses and tortured Belni, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... cabinet, La Corriveau opened one more secret drawer, and took out, with a hesitating hand, as if uncertain whether to do so or no, a glittering stiletto, sharp and cruel to see. She felt the point of it mechanically with her thumb; and, as if fascinated by the touch, placed it under her robe. "I may have need of it," muttered she, "either to save myself OR to make sure of my work on another. Beatrice Spara was the daughter of a Sicilian bravo, and she liked this poignard better than even ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... with the mechanical structure and the conditions under which it has been prepared, and is an important factor in estimating the value, as the nutrients are often greatly decreased because of large amounts of water. The water in substances as flour and meal is mechanically held in combination with the fine particles and varies with the moisture content, or hydroscopicity, of the air. Oftentimes foods gain or lose water to such an extent as to affect their weight; for example, ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... at the head of the rapid, which we had mistaken for another considerably farther down; our Canadian still acted as guide—the blind leading the blind—and after two hours' walk we fell upon our own tracks again;—the poor fellow had yielded so completely to despair, that he walked about mechanically, scarcely knowing or caring whither he went; he was therefore ordered to the rear, and Primeau succeeded as leader. We saw nothing more of our tracks, but encamped in the evening with much the same prospects as before. I felt extremely weak, having carried Primeau's pack along ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... his feet again, and now stood outside the circle leaning against a young oak-tree, half stunned, mechanically rubbing the twigs and dead leaves from the sticky black paint that masked his visage. I wheeled on him and bade him remain where he was until the council's will was made known; then I walked into the circle; and when they cried out that I had ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... Isaac, and Jacob by the name Jehovah; while the book of Genesis abounds with the contrary fact. This alone convinced me beyond all dispute, that these books did not come from one and the same hand, but are conglomerates formed out of older materials, unartistically and mechanically joined. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... hastened from the room, gained his carriage, and ordered the coachman to drive to Downing Street. He drew down the blinds, and leaned back. A certain languor became visible in his face, and once or twice, he mechanically put ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her head, and looked up with a shrinking in her eyes, as though she feared to see something hateful—a shrinking which turned first to wonder, then to dread, then to a lively joy, and then again to awe. She rose mechanically, with a great gasp; her lips parted, as though to speak, but no words came. The dog, too, saw him, and growled, then ran up and sniffed, and leaped upon him with a yelp of joy. He waved it down, and there ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... with a baron's coronet, when Beatrix was engaged to the young gentleman from whom she parted, and afterwards the gilt crown of a duchess figured on the cover, which also poor Beatrix was destined never to wear. Lady Castlewood opened the case mechanically and scarce thinking what she did; and behold, besides the diamonds, Esmond's present, there lay in the box the enamelled miniature of the late Duke, which Beatrix had laid aside with her mourning when the King came into the house; and which the poor heedless ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... again, I held the open volume as before, resting on my knees. Now, however, I perceived that it had opened at a place some pages in advance of the passages which had excited me; but, feeling no desire to go back to resume my reading just where I had left off, my eyes mechanically sought the top of the page before me, and ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... and shrieked, are now sending forth leaves of tender green and the voice of the wind caressing them is softened to a tone as musical as the song of birds. Flowers are springing up, not in the rigid rows or precise squares of a mechanically inclined horticulturist, but surprising one by elbowing themselves out of the narrowest crevices, or peeping bashfully out from behind fallen trees, or clinging almost upside down to the side of an ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... renegade was again calm. A tear stood trembling in his eye, and that pitying drop spoke of affections long subdued, but not entirely extinct in the breast of him who had but few tears to bestow. Soon, however, his glassy eyes were fixed, and as Bermudo raised mechanically his long sinewy fingers to his burning forehead, his countenance became the index of a mind engaged in scenes far away. It was a deep though momentary abstraction, for as Caneri gazed in amazement, the renegade awoke from his trance, and became aware ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... confusion of mind yet to know or think about the business. And her appetite was gone. Dr. Sandford provided for her with kind care, what she liked too; but nothing was good to Daisy. She broke bread and swallowed milk mechanically; the more substantial food she refused utterly. Bread and milk ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... a dream. Anne could never clearly recall it afterwards. It almost seemed as if it were not she who was teaching but somebody else. She heard classes and worked sums and set copies mechanically. The children behaved quite well; only two cases of discipline occurred. Morley Andrews was caught driving a pair of trained crickets in the aisle. Anne stood Morley on the platform for an hour and . . . which Morley ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... look of his eyes he was lost in dreams, and as his hand played mechanically through his long beard, there seemed to rise before him out of the flood of the years that had rushed behind, forms that were once young when he was young, and which were now—who can say where? The bottle which the waiter ...
— Good Blood • Ernst Von Wildenbruch
... further, and at three in the morning of the 10th were compelled to halt from downright exhaustion and fatigue. The horses and sheep were knocked up. The poor boy was so tired and sleepy that he could scarcely sit upon his horse, and I found myself actually dosing as I walked: mechanically my legs kept moving forwards, but my eyes were every now and then closed in forgetfulness of all around me, until I was suddenly thrown down by getting entangled amongst the scrub, or aroused by a severe blow across ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre |
