"Mechanically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on those bright hopes pondered Whereof yon gay fancies were the type; And my hand mechanically wandered Towards my left-hand pocket for ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... and pleasant there on the soft natural couch of sand and fir-needles, and after a time Sam's head began to bow and nod, and then, just as he was dropping off fast asleep, the cigarette, which he had been puffing at mechanically, dropped from his lips and fell in ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... door of the room behind her and idly cleared a scrap of paper from a chair. Mechanically her hands went to the litter on his desk and she had straightened it all before she realised that there was no longer any need. To-morrow would bring a voice she did not know; would usher a stranger into her room to take her measure from behind a barrier of formality. ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... with freedom, spirit, and precision. Yet his work showed no sign of conventionality, no adherence to prescribed rules. Every outline, every fold of drapery, every attitude was pregnant, to the artist's own mind at any rate, with meaning. In spite of its symbolism, what he wrought was never mechanically figurative, but gifted with the independence of its own beauty, vital with an inbreathed spirit of life. It was a happy moment, when art had reached consciousness, and the artist had not yet become self-conscious. The hand and the brain then really worked together for the procreation of new ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... way out: I always carried my note-book and pencil tied to my jacket pocket, and generally walked with them in my hand. It is impossible to begin observing too soon, or to observe too much: if the excursion is long, little is ever done on the way home; the bodily powers being mechanically exerted, the mind seeks repose, and being fevered through over-exertion, it can endure no train of thought, or be brought ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... scores but hundreds of times during one night, one rather felt the need of a change, but still even the sound of his flute was a great relief in the dreary night marches. Occasionally, when the fancy took him, and he made some variations in the airs, the camel men, who slept while mechanically walking, would join in to sing ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... stools on either side of it. With the released hand he had snapped the catch of an electric pocket-lamp, and in its blue glare he drew the revolver away from my head, and stepping aside, but always covering me with his weapon, motioned me to the further stool. I obeyed him mechanically, and he pulled the table a little towards him, sat down on the other stool, and, resting his elbow on the table ledge, poked the revolver within a few inches of ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... stroke fell, marking him from the nape all down the spine, so that he now bore upon his back in red the sign the ass carries in black, a piercing shriek assailed Angus's ears, and his arm, which had mechanically raised itself for a third ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... imperturbable, who was speaking. He was regarding Harry rather quizzically, as the boy mechanically brushed the mud ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Colonel 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 reel with the Black ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... ethnologists are agreed in describing as among the lowest of the African races, and which, it may be remarked, are even at the present day addicted to cannibalism. The West African soldier is a mere machine, who mechanically obeys orders, and never ventures, under any circumstances, to act or think for himself. Should an African be placed on sentry, he fulfils to the letter the orders read to him by the non-commissioned officer ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... half mechanically commenced rowing. He had made no reply to the enthusiastic interrogatory of the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... by like 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 felt much more keenly . . . confiscated his crickets. ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 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
... ourselves in what was seemingly a big English town oddly grouped about a nucleus of French churches. This was St. Omer, grey, spacious, coldly clean in its Sunday emptiness. At the street crossings English sentries stood mechanically directing the absent traffic with gestures familiar to Piccadilly; and the signs of the British Red Cross and St. John's Ambulance hung on club-like facades that might almost have claimed ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... at her and his mouth moved mechanically. 'No, I didn't get it by the first post. Perhaps it's there now.' With his eyes still fixed on her, he moved back ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... eye to the long run; you're in better order—if your legs don't break down!—and you can keep it up for more years. Oh we're practical—we're practical!" St. George repeated, going to the table and taking up all mechanically the bundle of proofs. But, pulling off the wrapper, he had a change of attention that appealed afresh to our hero. He lost himself a moment, examining the sheets of his new book, while the younger man's eyes wandered ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... Mechanically the orders were obeyed, and the ship berthed; and the three adventurers gathered aft beside the house and waited, with galloping pulses and a perfect vacancy of mind, the coming of the stranger who might mean so much to ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... important fact (as we shall see more fully when we treat of the digestive power of the secretion) that when the tentacles become inflected, owing to the central glands having been stimulated mechanically, or by contact with animal matter, the secretion not only increases in quantity, but changes its nature and becomes acid; and this occurs before the glands have touched the object on the centre of ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... against hers, she immediately looked at him fondly, and her breasts rose and fell tumultuously as she mechanically ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... Tennyson, in surveying those costly piles, from those of a man fresh from a distillery or from a warehouse of cotton fabrics, or even from those of many fashionable women, whose only aesthetic accomplishment is to play languidly and mechanically on an instrument, and whose only intellectual achievement is to have devoured a dozen silly novels in the course of a summer spent in alternate sleep and dalliance! Nor does familiarity always give a zest to the pleasure which arises from the creations of art or the glories of nature. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... with his restless and burning eye, the Strangler continued his maneuvers with so much patience, that Djalma, still sleeping, but no longer able to bear this vague, annoying sensation, raised his right hand mechanically to his face, as if he would have brushed away an importunate insect. But he had not strength to do it; almost immediately after, his hand, inert and heavy, fell back upon his chest. The Strangler saw, by this symptom, that he was attaining ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... sense of failure—not knowing what to say or what to do next—Mrs. Ferrari mechanically obeyed. Lady Montbarry, rising on the sofa for the first time, watched her with undisguised scrutiny as she crossed the room—then sank back into a reclining position once more. 'No,' she said to herself, 'the woman walks steadily; she is not intoxicated—the only other possibility ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... for his rudeness, Judge Ostrander again turned his back and walked away from her to an old-fashioned bookcase which stood in one corner of the room. Halting mechanically before it, he let his eyes roam up and down over the shelves, seeing nothing, as she was well aware, but weighing, as she hoped, the merits of the problem she had propounded him. She was, therefore, unduly startled when with ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... ideas. But tormenting visions of Mara and her admirer pursued him, and he discoursed mechanically, his reasoning on the woman question having become a matter of rote ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... his father mechanically. The next room contained some ten or twelve subordinate executives who eyed ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... Intendant, or a compromise, by asking what he so earnestly desired—the hand of Patience. Mr Heatherstone observing to Edward that he did not look so well, said supper was ready; and that they had better go into the next room. Edward mechanically followed. At supper he was tormented by the incessant inquiries of Clara, as to what was the matter with him. He did not venture to look at Patience, and made a hasty retreat to bed; complaining, as he well might do, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... the taffrail, where I stood gazing blankly down into the black water, thinking, I am afraid, some rather rebellious thoughts. I must have stood thus for at least five minutes before I realised that my hands were gripping a life-buoy, one of six that were stopped to the rail. Still acting mechanically, and with no very definite purpose, I drew forth my pocket-knife, severed the lashing, passed the buoy over my head and shoulders, thrust my arms through it, climbed the rail—and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... different in kind to the rapid unconscious action of a man playing a difficult piece of music on the piano? There may be in degree, but as a man who sits down to play what he well knows, plays on when once started, almost, as we say, mechanically, so, having eaten his dinner, he digests it as a matter of course, unless it has been in some way unfamiliar to him or he to it, owing to some derangement or occurrence with which he is unfamiliar, and under which therefore he is at a loss how to comport ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... the unhappy man sank down before the table with its load of proofs, on which lay outspread the three forged letters to Rabelais. He gazed at them blankly, and mechanically read: 'Maitre Rabelais, vous qu'avez l'esprit fin et subtil!' The characters seemed to go round and round in a mixture of ink, dissolved into broad blots of sulphate of iron, which to his imagination went on spreading, till they reached his whole collection of originals, ten or twelve thousand, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... boarding house was not a long one, and we said very little on the way. My companion had quietly relieved me of my small articles of baggage; and I had mechanically taken the offered arm as though I had known him all my life. I could not see much of the town in the dark, and what I did see did not impress me with a very exalted idea of its liveliness—the inhabitants apparently considering it sinful to show any ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... will be evident, I am sure, that there is ample justification for the biological dictum that a living individual is a mechanism. Not only is the organism composed always of cell units grouped mechanically in tissues and organs and organic systems; not only are the operations which make up its life constant and regular under similar conditions; not only is the whole creature mechanically connected with the inorganic world; but above all the whole activity of a biological individual is concerned ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... Theodora almost to lift her away, and support her into the next room, where Sarah was waiting. Even thought and anxiety seemed to be gone; she sat where they placed her, and when they began to undress her, put her hand mechanically to her dress, missed the fastening, and let it drop with a vacant smile that almost overcame Theodora. They laid her in bed, and she dropped asleep, like an infant, the instant her head was on the pillow. Theodora thought it cruel ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... address his mother, knowing that in spite of himself he should speak violently. He sat twitching the water-worn pebbles with the end of his cane, switching them and turning them over. She, with a vague look in her eyes, had picked up three or four little stones and was slowly and mechanically dropping them from one hand into the other. Then her unsettled gaze, wandering over the scene before her, discerned, among the weedy rocks, her son Jean fishing with Mme. Rosemilly. She looked at them, watching their movements, dimly understanding, with motherly instinct, that they ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... father knew the tricks of the trade, my mother could be counted on to throw all her talent and tact into the business. Of course she had no English yet, but as she could perform the acts of weighing, measuring, and mental computation of fractions mechanically, she was able to give her whole attention to the dark mysteries of the language, as intercourse with her customers gave her opportunity. In this she made such rapid progress that she soon lost all sense of disadvantage, and conducted ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... sat at the table turned his face as it were mechanically towards that blessed breath from the snows. His chin was propped on his hand. He ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... a smile and a kind word for every one as before; she had eaten mechanically; but she had lain with wide-open eyes all night, and still no one had seen a single tear upon her cheeks. This was why they ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... mechanically answered the first lieutenant, who, as he looked at his commander, at first thought that he had gone out of his mind; but he soon saw that something extraordinary had happened to cause this sudden change in their destination, and without ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... bewildered little brain as to where she was, or what she was going to do, only one thing obvious in the surrounding uncertainties—that she could not remain standing on the platform in the pouring rain. She gave up her ticket mechanically, passed through the gate, and followed the muddy road leading to the cottages. She was very tired, she had never felt quite so tired before, and her knees trembled as they had done that day when the fever came on at the convent; she was so dizzy too, that she ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... pictures! But the pictures must not betray one single feature of unreality, or the whole effect is spoiled; a moral may be pointed or a tale adorned, but the child has lost his natural food. We need such works as that under present notice to keep children from starving,—works that are not mechanically adapted to children, but which come to them as their own fresh, pure thoughts come, bringing them pictures like those which their own ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... Diana. She had eaten mechanically everything that had been put before her, but she had tasted nothing. She had one thought in her mind that excluded everything else—to hide from the probing eyes that watched her ceaselessly the overmastering fear that augmented every moment. One thing she ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... mechanically and looked round the dull little room, and the dulness of it, the dinginess, the unhomelikeness of it struck on his heart as it had never ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... not spoken. She walks like one in a trance to the quaint old chair Mrs. Mounteagle draws forward. She sits down mechanically and gazes at the colours in the carpet, just as she did once ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... not there. A terrible storm came over her, as if she were drowning. She was possessed by a devastating hopelessness. And she approached mechanically to the altar. Never had she known such a pang of utter and final hopelessness. It was beyond death, so utterly ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... muscle, however closely we hedge in the field of legitimate activity. Prone to temptation as men are, and beset by a thousand wrong impulses, we may well seek to block this and that path of possible wrongdoing without fear of turning them mechanically into saints. On the contrary, we should hasten to use the experience of the past to avert needless temptations from ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... if more there were, bounded off from the sudden iron stillness within her. Mechanically she raised the receiver to the hook, for was not her talk with Meeghan's quite finished? Jack Dalhousie had killed himself. Sackcloth and ashes would not get a telegram to him now.... And then, some flying remembrance of the bearer of the tidings struck ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... opened her eyes, and Karen repeating her admonition in the same key, the child got up and went mechanically out of the room, as if ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... the Banner, two weeks after the night of their composition, as he was finishing a campaign for the Fifth Parallel bonds. He picked up the Banner one evening at twilight in a house in Pleasant township, and seeing Watts' initials under some verses, read them at first mechanically, and then reread them with real zest, and so deeply did they move the man from the mooring of the campaign that seeing an accordion on the table of the best room in which he was waiting for supper, Barclay picked it up and fooled with it for half an hour. It had been a dozen ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... themselves in the absence of rooks from such places. My senses ought to have been better instructed than to expect rooks in London, but they had been so educated to the sight and sound of rooks everywhere else in England that they mechanically demanded them in town. I do not even know what birds they were that sang in the spaces; but I was aware of a fringe of sparrow-chirpings sharply edging their song next the street; and where the squares were ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... mounted guard over Anders and Oblooria, who, however, were allowed to remain inside the ring to witness the combat. A warrior now advanced to Leo and presented him with a small bundle of spears. He took them almost mechanically, thanked the giver, and laid them down at his feet without selecting one. Then he stood up, and, crossing his arms on his breast, gazed full at his opponent, who made a hideous face at him and ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... lonely scientist sat there in the pilot-house, plunged in deep thought, and mechanically performing the simple operations necessary to enable him to alter the course of the ship from time to time, the mirror-like discs of the scuttles in the walls of the pilot-house gradually underwent a subtle change of colour—from deepest black, through ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... irresolutely, sitting down on the edge of the berth and staring blackly at the opposite wall, "I suppose you are right, Nan Sherwood. You usually are. But I do know one thing." She stirred impatiently and mechanically straightened her pretty white hat. "And that is that I won't enjoy myself one bit till we make those men stop following us around and trying to get into our room with skeleton keys. I suppose that is what he had. Oh, dear, it does seem as if something were ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... recurrently find themselves and each other in the gardens and the woods, and on the waters which they tell each other of and together delight in. The effect is that which is truest to youth and love, for these transmutations of emotion form the disguise of self which makes passion tolerable; but mechanically the result is a series of nature poems. More genuinely dramatic are such pieces as "The Feud," "Ku Klux," and "The Lynchers," three out of many; but one which I value more because it is worthy of Wordsworth, or of Tennyson in a Wordsworthian mood, is "The Old Mill," where, with all the wonted ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... Ptolemaic variety. Lastly, he cites "the construction of a sphere, most suitable for recognizing the planets," but unfortunately it is not clear from the description whether or not the model planets were actually to be animated mechanically. ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... luggage by a respectable old four-wheeler, got into the hansom beside her, and put his hand inside her arm, and bade her be of good cheer that she should have such a pleasant morning to welcome her to London, she said "Yes," mechanically, and only looked out in a wistful fashion at the great houses and trees of Euston Square, the mighty and roaring stream of omnibuses, the droves of strangers, mostly clad in black, as if they were going to church, and the pale blue ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... M. le Marquis?" repeated the old man mechanically. "I have the right to know," he added with ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... voice came from the sunlight and he gripped his musket as he started forward. He had caught only the last words, and he repeated them half mechanically, as he stepped out from the brushwood. Once again, when he stood on the trampled broom-sedge, he said them over with a nervous jerk, "Wait until they come within fifty yards—and, for God's sake, boys, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... week, pencil held, but mechanically; thumb not used in clasping (245). Twelfth week, eighty-fourth day, contra-position of thumb reflexive (245, 246). Thirteenth week, thumb follows fingers more readily (246). Eleventh week, head balanced occasionally. Twelfth week, some gain in holding ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... excited manner, appearing nervously impatient. And, as if mechanically, the midshipman repeats the order, imitating the mien of his superior. The men execute it, but slowly, and with seeming reluctance. They know their officers to be daring fellows, both. But now they deem them rash, even ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... in God only upon the word of those, who have no more idea of him than themselves. Our nurses are our first theologians. They talk to children of God as if he were a scarecrow; they teach them from the earliest age to join their hands mechanically. Have nurses then more true ideas of God than the children whom ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... mechanically, for he had lost himself in the girl's enthusiasm, and felt the storm ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... continuing, the 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 left in the inkstand cavity of Rupert's desk, were still lying ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... and as it turned out to be very dirty, took up the big yellow book that Ivan had noticed at first lying on the table, and put it over the notes. The book was The Sayings of the Holy Father Isaac the Syrian. Ivan read it mechanically. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... she repeated mechanically, and Thad's mother departed with obvious reluctance. In five minutes she was back with a cup of tea which Annabel swallowed in hopes of thus purchasing immunity from further kindly attentions. And Mrs. West, bearing away the empty ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... her cheeks as quickly as it had come and she shook her head, he went on more slowly and there was no longer a wistful tremble in his voice to thrill her to her heels. "You remember the night when you offered me friendship instead of love and I scornfully refused the half loaf?" She nodded almost mechanically, her eyes on her fingers as they pleated a fold of her frock. "Well, I've changed my mind. Mary Rose has shown me that friends may have a big place in one's life and if you can't give me anything more I'm going to be ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... of keys to Selwood. And Selwood, who was feeling strangely apathetic about the present proceedings, took them mechanically and glanced carelessly ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... to hope for convalescence in every line of our faces. Then we feel an unconquerable longing to rush from the room and from the poor creature. We leave the house, we wander at random through the streets; at last, overdone with fatigue, we sit down at a table in a cafe. We mechanically take up a copy of L'Illustration and our eyes fall at once upon the solution of its last riddle: Against death, there ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... head into the cow's side, hangs on by a teat, and dozes, while the bucket, mechanically gripped between his knees, sinks lower and lower till it rests on the ground. Likely as not he'll doze on until his mother's shrill voice startles him with an inquiry as to whether he intends to get that milking done to-day; other times he is roused ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... awaiting Gray when, late that afternoon, he mounted the stairs to his office—Tom Parker and Judge Halloran—and something in their formal, awkward greeting sent a quick chill of alarm through him. Mechanically he ushered them into his private room and offered them chairs. He heard himself chatting casually enough, but neither his own words nor theirs conveyed much meaning to him. Nelson, it seemed, scorned no advantage, however dishonorable. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... control deck of the Space Lance, waiting for Bill Sticoon to come aboard, Tom found his concern for Roger overriding his enthusiasm for the race. When Sticoon appeared and began to prepare the ship for blast-off, Tom went through the motions mechanically. The Space Lance was scheduled to leave first, with Kit Barnard following at the exact time interval of their arrivals. The Deimos tower operator's voice droned over the loud-speaker on the control deck of the Space Lance " ... ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... up the papers mechanically and glanced over them. His face settled. Gambler that he was with the fortunes of men and the reputations of women, he knew that he had lost. He tried one more card—it was a ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... fear of his bed came over him, and in order to see it no more he passed into his smoking-room. Mechanically he took a cigar, lighted it, and began to walk about. He was cold. He went toward the bell to waken his valet; but he stopped with his ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... lost," answered Edward, speaking mechanically. "Our ally and friend the Earl of Warwick was killed in desperate fight. My father is a prisoner in the enemy's hands. Edward of York is even now making his triumphant entry into London, which will receive him with ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... work of the house; 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 ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Mechanically I followed Godfrey down the ladder, and, guided by the flaring lights, made my way back to the car. I climbed silently into my seat, while Godfrey started the motor. Then we rolled slowly up the driveway, and stopped before the door of a house ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... observed at the time, and the height of the river determined. Some minutes after, the pail of water was agitated, and two samples of one pint each measured out. The measure graduated by weighing at 60 degrees Fahrenheit 7,295.581 grains of distilled water. After standing a day or two, the matter mechanically suspended would subside to the bottom. Nearly two thirds of the clear supernatant liquid was next decanted, while the remaining water, along with the sediment, was in each instance poured upon a double filter, the two parts of which had previously been agitated, to be of equal ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "Juana," in the superb tale of "The Maranas," as also the story of "La Grenadiere," was written in a single night. He gives at the same period this account of his habits of work: "I must tell you that I am up to my neck in excessive work. My life is mechanically arranged. I go to bed at six or seven in the evening, with the chickens; I wake up at one in the morning and work till eight; then I take something light, a cup of pure coffee, and get into the shafts of my cab until four; I receive, I take a ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... drew up repeatedly till their thirst was satisfied. I then desired them to draw me up again, which they attempted; and I had reached nearly the mouth of the well, when I was unfortunately seized with a fit of sneezing; upon which the boys mechanically, as they had been accustomed to do in school, one and all let go their hold, crossed their arms, and exclaimed, "God have mercy upon our venerable tutor!" while I tumbled at once to the bottom of the well, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... notice of the question. Still looking at Mirabel, he pointed down the stairs once more. With vacant eyes—moving mechanically, like a sleep-walker in his dream—Mirabel silently obeyed. Mr. Rook turned ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... so that he could provide for her! Mechanically he rummaged his clothes press for the suit he was to take to Hawksley. Well, why not? He could settle five thousand a year on her. His departure for the Balkans—he might be gone a year or more—could be legally construed as desertion. And with pretty clothes and freedom she would soon ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... world now, whips the little, mountain horse who gallops with his light tinkling of bells.—That train which will pass by Aranotz, that vessel which will start from Bordeaux—an instinct impels Ramuntcho not to miss them. Mechanically he hastens, no longer knowing why, like a body without a mind which continues to obey an ancient impulsion, and, very quickly, he who has no aim and no hope in the world, plunges into the savage country, into the thickness of the woods, in all that profound blackness of the night of ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... to the fingers with little rings loosely set in the edge. The horns were scrivelloes, elephant-tusks of small size. At times a horrid braying denoted the royal titles, and after every blast the liege lord responded mechanically, 'Kwamina Blay! atinasu marrah' ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... he almost stammered. "What d'you mean?" He felt mechanically at his tie. "I don't understand you," he said. Then, recovering himself, as the strangely fierce expression died away from the eyes which had learnt what they wanted to know, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... bachelor room at the Club, he realised that fever was on him again: his eyeballs burning; little hammers beating all over his head. Mechanically, he picked up two letters that lay awaiting him: one from his father, one from Jeffers, congratulating him, in rather guarded phrases, on ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... kindness, I stood gazing after him till he disappeared behind the bulwarks; and then, mechanically putting the knife in my pocket, I remained for a while without ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... tried to think, again for a while, in her helpless puzzled way. Then she went on, speaking rapidly, and rather mechanically, it ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... dressing did he notice the handkerchief on the table. If its presence had suggested a significance a few hours before, he no longer disturbed himself by thinking about it. A bit of carelessness on the girl's part, that was all. He would return it. Mechanically he put the crumpled bit of cambric in his coat pocket ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... myself away from the wall, trembling and sick with dread. Mechanically I dressed myself, and stared out at the gold of the sun which was now pouring its radiance full on the sea. The beauty of the scene moved me not at all—nothing mattered. All that my consciousness could take in was that, according to what I had heard, Rafel was dead,—drowned in the sea over ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... He kept calling mechanically even after perigee was long past, praying for an answer from the powerful transmitters below or from a searching ship. But when there was no slightest whisper in his phones or answering flare among the stars, Johnny came to the end of faith. Even of awareness, for his own ears did not ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... glass to carry out his design, throwing his interest and personality into the work, a labourer sits leisurely before a large cartoon, on which he glues pieces of mosaic the prescribed colour and size, mechanically fitting them over the design until it is completely covered. Then this sheet of paper, with the mosaic glued to it, is slapped on to the plaster wall, having the stones next to the plaster, so that, until it is dry, all that can be seen is the sheet of paper apparently fixed ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... She rose mechanically and went into the erstwhile dressing-room quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping children. He waited in the doorway, and she handed out to him pile after pile of his underwear, following the last ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... "Mechanically, yes. I went through the motions," he said. "That's a beautiful rod. It was the most useful thing I had along. Going to the club? ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... into a large restaurant so as to hear voices around me. There were only a few vacant places, and I found a seat in a corner near a table at which three people were dining. I gave my order, and while my eyes mechanically followed the white-gloved hand pouring soup into my plate from a silver cup, I listened to the ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... emotion, and the nausea of disgust, the fear, the desire of waking the coachman who was nodding on the box, of giving him her address, and telling him to drive her home. But she remained with her face against the window, mechanically looking at the dark passage, that was illuminated by a gas lamp, at the "actors' entrance," through which men were continually hurrying, who talked in a loud voice, and chewed the end of a cigar which had gone out. She remained ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... see them: keep on dancing," he hissed in her ear. He had no distinct plan in what he said, but spoke merely from an instinct of self-preservation, which told him that when they stopped the Indians would be upon them. But as she mechanically, and really more dead than alive, obeyed his direction and resumed the dance, and he in his excitement was treading on her feet at every step, the thought flashed upon him that there was a bare chance of escaping violence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... features, and the eyes seemed to bury themselves out of sight in the cavernous sockets, too dry for tears. These withdrawing fits were not uncommon, but they had become frequent this summer, and at the reception he had mechanically passed the welcome and given the hand-shake. But then the abstraction became so dense that he let an old friend stand before him without a glance, much less the usual hearty greeting expected. The newcomer, alarmed, ventured to arouse him. He shook off his absence ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... language of the speaker and another of the vocalist. This distortion may be due to affectation or to ignorance, but in either case we could well do without it. In cases where the actual production of the voice is mechanically stiff, rigid, and therefore distorted, it is not likely that we can secure a free and flexible musical elocution. We do occasionally meet singers whose diction is delightful to hear because of its absolute freedom and complete naturalness, but these only serve to heighten ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... with the bombardment, had room for only two clear thoughts—the one, that I was standing with a foot on the firing-step, my revolver cocked in my hand; the other, that, when the mine gave the grand signal, I should clamber mechanically over the parapet and rush into turmoil. Hurry up with that mine—oh, hurry up! My limbs at least were shivering with impatience to be ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... at the church had ceased playing, and the young man who was seated at it began turning over a pile of music which lay beside him. But this he did mechanically—he was not going to play again that evening, he did it as an accompaniment to perplexed thought. He remained so long silent that Benny Dodd, who had been "blowing" for him, ventured out from among the shadows cast by the organ ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... us. We used a sort of Calvinistic manual which began by setting forth that mankind was absolutely in God's power. He was our maker, and we had no legal claim whatever to any consideration from Him. The author then mechanically built up the Calvinistic creed, step by step, like a house of cards. Systematic theology was the great business of our academical life. We had to read sermons to the President in class, and no sermon was considered complete and proper unless it unfolded ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... Instinctively, or mechanically, the coachman pulled up. No one could suppose designedly; since there was sufficient likelihood of his having an overturn. Still, as the mud was soft, by bearing on the near rein, with a sharp cut of the whip, he might easily clear ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... natural arrangement of substances acting freely in a fluid state, and concreting together, each substance, whether more simple or more compound, directing itself by its internal principle of attraction, and affecting mechanically those that are concreting ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... He was mechanically turning over the leaves of his diary, meanwhile, and now his eye fell upon the first record made ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Mabel mechanically detached one of the little gold pins from her collar and handed it to Mrs. Allison, who examined it closely for a moment, then dropping it with a little cry, again ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... respect. The horses of the Staff had been embarked, the steamer's gig was awaiting the general at the boat steps; and Barrios, after a fierce stare of his one eye, began to take leave. Don Jose roused himself for an appropriate phrase pronounced mechanically. The terrible strain of hope and fear was telling on him, and he seemed to husband the last sparks of his fire for those oratorical efforts of which even the distant Europe was to hear. Antonia, her red lips firmly closed, averted her head behind the raised fan; and young Decoud, though he felt ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... than the creaking clapboard flapping in the wind. When you get an order from your employer, school yourself to move mechanically to the action implied. Glory in it. Be sure, only, that you are carrying out the wishes of your superior. Make it your pleasure. It will become an intense delight. Suppose that you are allowed a holiday. You return to your home and find a command to appear at your ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... that battle I have no remembrance whatever; from the moment the first gun was fired to the end of the day I was as one paralyzed. I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I moved mechanically; but happily my will or my instinct kept me in my place in the regiment. When all was over, and silence followed the din, I fell to the ground insensible. Happily for me the doctors declared I was in a state of high fever, and I so remained for a fortnight. As soon as ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... cigarette case and offered it to Geoffrey. This, too, was symbolic. Geoffrey took a cigarette mechanically, and sucked ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... said, she was high spirited, and for an instant she was filled with indignation. She shut her eyes, and her heart seemed to stop its beating. She heard Quincy's voice, "Look out for the curve, Miss Mason." She dropped the left rein and mechanically gave the right one a strong, sharp pull with both hands. Quincy grasped the reins, but ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... in the permanent way on railways. The air ships, whose length varies from fifty to five hundred feet, have rudders for giving a vertical or a horizontal motion, and several strengthening keels that prevent leeway when turning. They are entirely on the principle of birds, maintaining themselves mechanically, and differing thus from the unwieldy balloon. Starting as if on a circular railway, against the wind, they rise to a considerable height, and then, shutting off the batteries, coast down the aerial slope at a rate that sometimes touches five hundred miles an hour. When near ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... Mechanically, and still thinking of nothing but Irene's deliverance, she fulfilled the task which she was accustomed to perform every day at the sound of this brazen clang, and went to her room to fetch the golden ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... him in that feeble way common with persons of weak character,—for people differ as much in their mode of performing this trifling act as Gideon's soldiers in their way of drinking at the brook. The Doctor took his hand and placed a finger mechanically on ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... themselves and, having settled down in corners, began mechanically unfolding evening journals. For after all, whatever happens, one must read the papers! Without that, life would indeed be insupportable! Felix had bought Mr. Cuthcott's, but, though he turned and turned the sheets, they seemed to have no sense till these words ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... tiny petals, mechanically, and held them in the palm of my hand studying them for some moments before the mystery of their presence there became fully appreciable to me. Then I began to wonder. The petals (which I was disposed to class as belonging to some species of Curcas or Physic Nut), ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... the other woman at the door. They stop for conversation. Two men meeting under the same condition would mechanically draw away a few paces, out of the route of persons passing in or out of the shop. No particular play of the mental processes would actuate them in so doing; an instinctive impulse, operating mechanically and ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... possibility was there now that he should care for Robarts, or any other human being; he that was to be swept at once into the dung-heap? In this frame of mind he walked up South Audley Street, and crossed one side of Grosvenor Square, and went almost mechanically into Green Street. At the farther end of Green Street, near to Park Lane, lived ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... The thought crossed her mind, but she knew that she could do nothing. Had all the Lovels depended upon it, she could not have drawn that other trigger. She took the pistol, put it back into its former hiding-place, mechanically locked the little door, and then seated herself in ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... he refilled the mug and handed it to Don, who took it mechanically, and placed it to his lips, one drop suggesting another till he ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... his strong clasp had hurt her. His look answered hers. Then the child lowered her eyes, while a furious color dyed her cheeks and neck; and Ivan could have shouted aloud at what he saw and knew. Confidently he demanded of her more dances, and more and more. And she granted them mechanically, neither thinking nor caring for appearances, nor for any other person in those rooms. She was like one in a dream. Vladimir de Windt, marvelling at the recklessness of the affair, came once to the twain, thinking ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Mechanically he labored on and on, turning the tremendous problem in his brain, striving in vain for some solution, some grasp at effective opposition. And, as he thought, a kind of dumb hopelessness settled down about him, tangible almost as a curtain black ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... of something better to do, he was mechanically looking over a package of old papers that had belonged to his father, he came across a contract of partnership between his parent and a certain Ralph Darrell. It was for the opening and development of ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... answered Lal Singh, dropping the mouthpiece of his pipe. He had spoken mechanically. When he saw who his visitor was his eyes ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... then been twelve hours upon our legs. Poor Ivaskin found himself exceedingly tired and overcome with fatigue; probably he was more sensible of it for want of a supply of snuff; for every step he took his hand dived mechanically into his pocket, and drew out his huge empty box. We had scarcely got into the tent, when the weather set in exceedingly rough and wet. We congratulated ourselves that we had not staid out another day, the Hospodin's box was replenished, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... with a wooden leg, dressed as a sailor. As he hopped slowly down the street with the aid of a crutch, his grizzled beard and scowling face turned mechanically to right and left, sweeping the street with threatening eyes that gave him the look of a retired pirate, begging the tribute that he had taken by force in better days. The song ended abruptly, and he wiped the sweat from his face with an enormous ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... his ear the fool of his imagination, that he thought I was speaking Arabic, and made a faint attempt to get out the only word or two of that language which he knew. I then repeated, with as much distinctness as I could command: "Did—you—leave—Jaffa—to-day?" He stammered mechanically, through his chattering teeth, "Y-y-yes!" and we immediately dashed off at a gallop through the bushes. When we last saw him, he was standing as we left him, apparently not ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... 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 necessary in every case where the psychical factor ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... of physical nature, giving and receiving, action and reaction balance each other mechanically and automatically. What we gain in power we lose in speed or volume, and vice versa. This makes it possible for the mechanic, the scientist and the astronomer to predict with mathematical precision for ages in advance the results of certain ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... it too late, I did not know it until—until I was dead. Hush!" Again I tried to interrupt her, for I thought her mind was wandering. "I died psychically with Herbert. That was when we first saw the light on the island. Since then I have lived mechanically, but it has only been life in so low a form that I do not now know what has happened between that time and this. And I could not now speak as I am speaking save by a will power which is costing me very ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... stumbled across the road, and mechanically touched his cap. The old gentleman stood beaming benignly at ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton |
