"Slowest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would he run desperately across, as he had dashed through the flood? That was with him. His hand was on the lever, and we were helpless; but, if there was time, it would be mere foolhardiness to go upon the trestle at any but the slowest speed, and without giving all but one an opportunity to walk across. One, surely, was enough to go down with the engine, if ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... I may remark does not make for speed in the boat mounting such canvas. Partly to this sail, partly to the amount of trading affairs we attended to, do I owe the credit of having made a record trip down the Rembwe, the slowest white ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... is a very vague and indefinite expression,' said the doctor, tapping his white shirtcuff with his nail in his slowest and most deliberate manner. 'It may mean a great deal, or it may mean very little. I don't want in any way to alarm you, or to alarm your husband; but there's certainly a marked incipient tendency towards tubercular ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... or later as desired. This device was designed specially as an inexpensive method of changing the common slide valve into an automatic cut off. The cut off would not be as quick as in other cases we have cited, depending here upon the movement of the lower valve alone, and that, too, is in its slowest movement; whereas in the other cases, the edges approaching each other, by the differing movement of the valves the cut off is very rapid, provided the distance to travel is not long. In this device considerable noise must result by the cut off valve striking the cut off blocks, and a considerable ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... beside Miss Peppy, opposite to Sir Richard Doles, who was one of the slowest, dullest, stupidest men I ever met with. He appeared to me to have been born without any intellect. When he told a story there was no end to it, indeed there seldom was anything worthy the name of a beginning to it, and it never by the ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... of speed since the morning puzzled Dierich Brower. The reason was this. When three run in company, the pace is that of the slowest of the three. From Peter's house to the edge of the forest Gerard ran Margaret's pace; but now he ran his own; for the mule was fleet, and could have left them all far behind. Moreover, youth and chaste living began to tell. Daylight grew ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... desired result of quickening the boys' movements; Dick, if the slowest in the water, being the sharper of the two in getting into his clothes. Rover was even speedier still, having only to give himself one good shake, administering in the action a shower-bath of drops to the Captain, when, there he was all ready, with a smart new curly black ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Hiyei. The little gunboat Akagi and the converted steamer Saikio Maru had orders not to engage, but nevertheless pushed in on the left of the line. Aside from their two battleships, the Chinese had nothing to compare with these eight new and well-armed cruisers, the slowest of ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... mouthpiece for Tolstoi's poor simple little gospel. Tolstoi according to Captain Marshall, I should be inclined to define him; but I must give Mr. Tree his full credit in the matter. When he crucifies himself, so to speak, symbolically, across the door of the jury-room, remarking in his slowest manner: "The bird flutters no longer; I must atone, I must atone!" one is, in every sense, alone with the actor. Mr. Tree has many arts, but he has not the art of sincerity. His conception of acting is, literally, to act, on every occasion. Even in the prison scene, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... center of the furnace, and heat until pots show a low red, about 1,325 to 1,350 deg.F. Then fill the furnace by putting the cold pots on the outside or, the section nearest the source of heat. This will give the work in the slowest portion of the furnace a chance to come to heat at the same time as the pots that are nearest the ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... drawing to a close. Enough has been said to make it plain to the slowest intellect among us, what is gained by having been born in the twentieth century, instead of in the nineteenth, and by being born a Canadian, instead of to any other land. There can hardly be to-day such ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... consequences of lost trophies; these are usually lost at a later period, and the loss of them does not become generally known so quickly; they will therefore not fail to appear even when the scale turns in the slowest and most gradual manner, and they constitute that effect of a victory upon which we can always count in ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... the slowest boy on earth, and had been sacked at three places in two weeks, so his parents had apprenticed him to a naturalist. But even he found him slow. It took him two hours to give the canaries their seed, three to stick a pin through a dead butterfly, and four to ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... nations, Thou knowest if the deaf world heard! Heard not now to her lowest Depths, where the strong blood slowest Beats at her bosom, thou knowest, In her toils, in her dim tribulations, Rejoiced ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... upright carriage; his stick was so thin that the most malevolent could not insinuate that it was of any possible use in walking; his teeth had put on all the vigour and freshness of a second spring. Hence his look was the slowest of possible clocks in respect of his age, and his manner was equally as much in ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... be about the first time that you haven't," snapped Lulu. "I think you are just about the slowest, most blundering ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... had left behind them. There was bustle and confusion in the street, but there did not appear to be any pursuit; so that Schreckenwald followed his route down the river, with speed and activity indeed, but with so much steadiness at the same time, as not to distress the slowest horse of his party. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... however, that, for every person who thus gains more than usual, there is necessarily some other person who gains less. The loser, if things took place as Hume supposes, would be the seller of the commodities which are slowest to rise; who, by the supposition, parts with his goods at the old prices, to purchasers who have already benefited by the new. This seller has obtained for his commodity only the accustomed quantity of money, while there are already some things ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... read old Daddy Gilpin? Slowest of men, even of English men; yet delicious in his slowness, as is the light of a sleepy eye in woman. I always supposed "Dr. Syntax" was written to make fun of him. I have a whole set of his works, and am very proud ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... by day and to keep stationary by night. Each night two of us slept by a smouldering fire and the third circled about the herd as the steers lay sleeping or chewing their cuds. The circling was done at the horse's slowest walk. Our horses were good, our food good, and my two companions ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... drive her away; but she always eluded their grasp, and the next moment reappeared among the rest, moving along with slow and solemn step. At length, when the attendants had all fallen back, she found herself close behind Bertalda, and now slackened her pace to the very slowest measure, so that the widow was not aware of her presence. No one disturbed her again, while she meekly and reverently ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... tortoise is the symbol of the summer solstice, as the snail, which occurs only as a head ornament in the manuscripts and not independently, is the symbol of the winter solstice; both, as the animals of slowest motion, represent the apparent standstill of the sun at the periods specified. This explains why the month Kayab, in which the summer solstice falls, should be represented by the head of a tortoise, which has for its eye the sun-sign Kin (Foerstemann, Zur Entzifferung ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... panther, man has learned his lesson slowest of all, the lesson of acquiescence in ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... of a caravan is that of its slowest beast, and very arduous such journeys often are, for there is no shade, and the dust raised by the caravan envelops the slowly moving travellers, while the fierce sun is reflected from the rocks, which often become too hot to touch. On the other hand, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... Ulysses was nine days in sailing from Ismarus the city of the Ciconians, to the country of the Lotus-eaters—a period of time which to-day would breed anxiety in the hearts of the underwriters should it be occupied by the slowest tramp steamer in traversing the Mediterranean and Black Seas ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... Naturally, British soldiers carry out orders; if other troops do not, then the British troops have to do all the work. The situation produced is that the highest paid soldier does no work and the lowest paid all the work. It soon percolates to the slowest Sussex brain that discipline does not pay. Nothing but the wonderful sense of order in the make-up of the average Englishman has prevented us from becoming an Anglo-Canadian rabble, dangerous to Bolshevik and Russian alike. I am told that Brigadier Pickford had done his best ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... unanswerable," replied the polite Italian; "that is to say, so far as she goes. Yes! I agree with her. John Bull does abhor the crimes of John Chinaman. He is the quickest old gentleman at finding out faults that are his neighbours', and the slowest old gentleman at finding out the faults that are his own, who exists on the face of creation. Is he so very much better in this way than the people whom he condemns in their way? English Society, Miss Halcombe, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... night we pushed our way slowly, for in such a march none may go swifter than the slowest, namely, the carts and the waggons. Thus it befell that the Maid and the captains were in more thoughts than one to draw back to Compiegne, for the night was clear, and the dawn would be bright. And, indeed, after stumbling ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... given and declined, but this one was evidently in earnest, and the consideration of the captain decided Honora on accepting it, but not without much murmuring from Lucilla. Caroline and Horatia were detestable grown-up young ladies, her aunt was horrid, Castle Blanch was the slowest place in the world; she should be shut up in some abominable school-room to do fancy-work, and never to get a bit of fun. Even the being reminded of Wrapworth and its associations only made her more cross. She was of a nature to fly from thought or feeling—she was keen to perceive, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her sense of increasing age she had a strong desire to play in the yard and climb about in the woodhouse. Already the business of being grown up began to pall upon her, the outlook dreary that included nothing but a whole hour at the piano, an endless care of her skirts, and the slowest kind of walk through Washington Square and down to Derby Wharf, where—no matter in which direction and for what purpose they started ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of times the carriage may be stopped. The speed of the motor is uniform, being about 500 revolutions a minute, and is so arranged that it gives a multiplied power for climbing hills and the lower the rate of speed the greater power is furnished by the motor. The slowest that the carriage can be driven is three miles an hour and the speed can be increased to fourteen or fifteen miles an hour. The power is transferred from the driving wheel of the motor, which runs horizontally with the main ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... of a Painter consisted only in this kind of imitation, Painting must lose its rank, and be no longer considered as a liberal art, and sister to Poetry: this imitation being merely mechanical, in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best; for the Painter of genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in which the understanding has no part; and what pretence has the Art to claim kindred with Poetry but by its power over the imagination? ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... all its court be like itself. I was in the world a virgin sister,[1] and if thy mind well regards, my being more beautiful will not conceal me from thee; but thou wilt recognize that I am Piccarda,[2] who, placed here with these other blessed Ones, am blessed in the slowest sphere. Our affections, which are inflamed only in the pleasure of the Holy Spirit, rejoice in being formed according to His order;[3] and this allotment, which appears so low, is forsooth given to us, because our vows were neglected ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... the most remarkable of the three. His mind was wonderfully prompt, firm, just, supple, and inventive, and he possessed a vigor of character which no obstacle could daunt, no conflict weary; he pursued his designs with an ardor as exhaustless as his patience, whether through the slowest and most tortuous ways, or the most abrupt and daring. He excelled equally in winning men, and in ruling them by personal and familiar intercourse; he displayed equal ability in leading an army or a party. He had the instinct of popularity and the gift of authority, and he let ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... produced only two seeds—and there is no plant so unproductive as this—and their seedlings next year produced two, and so on, then in twenty years there would be a million plants. The elephant is reckoned to be the slowest breeder of all known animals, and I have taken some pains to estimate its pro!)able minimum rate of natural increase; it will be under the mark to assume that it breeds when thirty years old, and goes on breeding ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... the critical solution of the textual problems of these Lays, it is impossible to get out of the text any form of narrative that shall resemble the English mode. Even where the story of Helgi is slowest, it is quicker, more abrupt, and more lyrical even than the Lay of Finnesburh, which is the quickest in ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... not dare hope it. "The race is not always to the slowest and the dearest." This was in ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Johnny," she called; "I've been expecting you for an hour. What kept you? Gee! but these smoked guys are the slowest you ever saw. They ain't on, at all. Come along in, and I'll make this coffee-coloured old sport with the gold epaulettes open one for you right off ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... that he could no longer defend all the women, so he made up his mind to leave those that had the slowest horses to the mercy of the enemy, while he would go on with those that had the faster ones. When he found that he must leave the women, he was excited and rode on ahead; but as he passed, he heard some one call out to him, "Don't leave me," and he looked ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... standing-room for his progeny. Linnaeus has calculated that if an annual plant produced only two seeds—and there is no plant so unproductive as this—and their seedlings next year produced two, and so on, then in twenty years there would be a million plants. The elephant is reckoned the slowest breeder of all known animals, and I have taken some pains to estimate its probable minimum rate of natural increase. It will be safest to assume that it begins breeding when thirty years old, and goes on breeding ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... humours of a boy, towards whom restraint may be kindness. And do not be discouraged that it is so, my liege, or angry with your brother for telling the truth; since the best fruits are those that are slowest in ripening, and the best horses such as give most trouble to the grooms who train them ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... seems to offend the eyes; And he has most whose lot the least supplies. Its firmest virtue seems but poor and low; Its solid truth seems change to undergo; Its largest square doth yet no corner show A vessel great, it is the slowest made; Loud is its sound, but never word it said; A semblance great, the shadow ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... appointed place rather than join in the discreditable conspiracy, and strove by his unaided dexterity to enable Wong Ts'in to complete the tenscore embellished plates by the appointed time. Yet already he knew that in this commendable ambition his head grew larger than his hands, for he was the slowest-working among all Wong Ts'in's craftsmen, and even then his copy could frequently be detected from the original. Not to overwhelm his memory with unmerited contempt it is fitting now to reveal somewhat more of ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... the scene so full of joy Which welcomes now this warrior-boy, As fathers, sisters, friends all run Bounding to meet him—all but one Who, slowest on his neck to fall, Is yet the happiest ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... piqued into emulating Orpheus, and, six weeks after her confinement, she put this rock into motion,—they eloped. Poor gentleman! it must have been a severe trial of patience to a man never known before to transgress the very slowest of all possible walks, to have had two events of the most rapid nature happen to him in the same week: scarcely had he recovered the shock of being run away with by my aunt, before, terminating forever his vagrancies, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by subjecting her neighbors, the Latins, first, then the little peoples of the south, the Volscians, the AEquians, the Hernicans, later the Etruscans and the Samnites, and finally the Greek cities. This was the hardest and slowest of their conquests: beginning with the time of the kings, it did not terminate until 266, after four centuries ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... flings up her windows, claps hands, as the Avengers, with their shrilling drums and shalms tramp by; she will then sit pensive, apprehensive, and pass rather a sleepless night. (Deux Amis, iii. 165.) On the white charger, Lafayette, in the slowest possible manner, going and coming, and eloquently haranguing among the ranks, rolls onward with his thirty thousand. Saint-Antoine, with pike and cannon, has preceded him; a mixed multitude, of all and of no arms, hovers on his flanks and skirts; the country once more ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the sun's rays on the sultry plain. What would they have given for a bush even to afford them any shelter from the noonday sun, for the crowns of their heads appeared as if covered with live coal, and their minds began to wander. The poor horses moved at the slowest pace, and only when driven on by Omrah, who appeared to suffer much less than his masters. Every now and then he handed to them the pipe, but at last even that had no longer any relief. Speech had been for some hours totally lost. Gradually the sun sunk down to the horizon, and as his scorching ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... them ever more intelligent and crafty so they might be sent to hunt without a huntsman. At last they grew too knowing for their masters. Then Those Others, realizing their menace, tried to kill them all with traps and tricks. But only the most stupid and the slowest were so disposed of. The others withdrew into underground ways such as this, venturing forth only in the dark ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... watched the swift coming of the dawn; how, heated with the work and the climbing, he felt the cold dew chilling his very bones; how afraid he was he would begin to shiver and shake like a leaf before the time came for the advance. "It was the slowest half-hour in my life," he declared. Gradually the silent stockade came out on the sky above him. Men scattered all down the slope were crouching amongst the dark stones and dripping bushes. Dain Waris was lying flattened ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... quarter that, if any on this earth, might be thought sacred from change. Oh, fearful are the motions of time, when suddenly lighted up to a retrospect of thirty years! Pathetic are the ruins of time in its slowest advance! Solemn are the prospects, so new and so incredible, which time unfolds at every turn of its wheeling flight! Is it come to this? Could any man, one generation back, have anticipated that an English dignitary, and speaking on a very delicate religious ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... lengthy undertaking. A whole fleet was collected, containing merchant, convict, and transport vessels, all under the convoy of the ships of war belonging to the Company; and, as no straggler might be left behind, the progress of the whole was dependent on the rate of sailing of the slowest, and all were impeded by the disaster of one. The Union, in which a passage was given to the chaplain, contained, besides the crew, passengers, the 59th Regiment, some other soldiers, and young cadets, all thrown closely together for many months. She ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... in the tropics. The Kafirs of South Africa used to stake down their prisoners (among them a poor friend of mine) upon an ant-hill and they were eaten atom after atom in a few hours. The death must be the slowest form of torture; but probably the nervous system soon becomes insensible. The same has happened to more than one hapless invalid, helplessly bedridden, in Western Africa. I have described an invasion of ants in my "Zanzibar," vol. ii. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... trees are the two specimens of microcycas from the swamps of Cuba. These Methuselahs of the forest are at least 1,000 years old, according to the botanists. They are among the slowest growing of living things, and neither of them is much taller than a man. They were seedlings when Alfred the Great ruled England, and perhaps four feet high when Columbus first broke through the western seas. In the four centuries of Cuban ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... these goblins, who has been trying to cure you of your follies. To be good friends with you, my rough-spoken, overbearing sir, it was verily requisite that you should have treated me with a little more civility. Wisdom, experience, strength of mind, may often be learnt from those in whom one is the slowest to look for them. If however, my good companions, you would like to know which of you all will die first, I have a way of telling you that in ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... selection as slowly us possible, without drawling. Read it again and again, increasing the rate of movement at each reading, until it can be read no faster without the utterance becoming indistinct. Reverse this process, reading more and more slowly at each repetition, until the slowest movement is obtained. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... there. Very rarely did one settler have another neighbor at a distance of less than two hundred miles. It meant arduous and continual riding, and a horse with any defect was worse than useless because the speed of the gang had to be the speed of the slowest horse ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... healthy adult between 65 and 75, the most common number being 72. In the same individual, the pulse is quicker when standing than when lying down, is quickened by excitement, is faster in the morning, and is slowest at midnight. In old age the pulse is faster than in middle life; in children it is quicker ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... men may, at any moment, depend upon her handiness in going about, so as to avoid any suddenly discovered danger, should possess the best possible sailing powers. The Admiralty, however, makes its selection upon other principles, and exploring vessels will be invariably found to be the slowest, clumsiest, and in every respect the most inconvenient ships which wear the pennant. In accordance with the rule, such was the "Rattlesnake"; and to carry out the spirit of the authorities more completely, she was turned out of Portsmouth ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... road, writing in 1783, thus describes the post-boy service. The picture is not a very creditable one to the Post Office. "The post at present," says he, "instead of being the swiftest, is almost the slowest conveyance in the country; and though, from the great improvement in our roads, other carriers have proportionably mended their speed, the post is as slow as ever. It is likewise very unsafe. The mails are generally intrusted to some idle ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... notoriously set at nothing by generous souls, who have fervently devoted themselves to an overwhelming purpose. There have been instances of persons, exposed to all the horrors of famine, where one has determined to perish by that slowest and most humiliating of all the modes of animal destruction, that another, dearer to him than life itself, might, if possible, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... the slowest and most conservative of all industries should find a spot of the earth so rich that it started a stampede almost like the rush to the Klondike, of men who sought sudden riches in tilling ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... hands of the potter, or marble under the chisel of the sculptor. Great changes occur in the history of nations, but they are brought about slowly, like the changes in the frame of nature, upon which the puny arm of man hardly makes an impression. And, speaking generally, the slowest growths, both in nature and in politics, are ...
— Statesman • Plato
... the change from the first period of actual imitation of nature was succeeded by many centuries of the very slowest progress. Renouf speaks,[77] however, of "the astonishing identity that is visible through all the periods of Egyptian art" (for you could never mistake anything Egyptian for the produce of any other country). "This identity and slow movement," ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... little man with sagging frame, dim lamps and feeble ignition. Anxiously he pressed the salesman to tell him which of us used cars in the wareroom was the slowest ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... moments before the last sigh of mortality was breathed; and still heard the eager, "Kiss me, Edward, once, before I die!"—a new light broke upon him,—and he was suddenly stung by sharp and self-reproaching thoughts. Had he not killed her, and, by the slowest and most agonizing process by which murder can be committed? There was in his mind a startling perception that such was the awful crime of which he had ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... may be finished by one of two methods. In the first method as in finishing ordinary cabinet work, the pieces should be stained and filled. In applying filler, run the lathe at the slowest speed after the material has dried sufficiently to rub into the pores of the wood. If the highlights are to be brought out, as in the case of oak, stain and then give a light coat of shellac, and apply ...
— A Course In Wood Turning • Archie S. Milton and Otto K. Wohlers
... Lovelace The lady is disappointed at the Doctor's telling her that she may yet live two or three days. Death from grief the slowest of deaths. Her solemn forgiveness of Lovelace, and prayer for him. Owns that once she could have loved him. Her generous concern for his future ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... honor me with an interview," he said, in his slowest, softest, most irresistible manner. "I can ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... probably the greatest number of cylinders that can be successfully arranged in circular form. Of the twelve types of 1910, only two were water-cooled, and it is to be noted that these two ran at the slowest speeds and had the lowest weight ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... of years. Once his glossy brown coat was the pride of some Mexican's heart, but time has added to his color also, and now he is blue. His eyes are sunken and dim, his ears no longer stand up in true donkey style, but droop dejectedly. He has to trot his best to keep up with Sheba's slowest stride. About every three miles he balks, but little Cora Belle doesn't call it balking, she says Balaam has stopped to rest, and they sit and wait till he is ready to trot along again. That is the kind of layout which drew up before our door that evening. ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... the publication of this circular was a grave military offense, and if the purpose was to abate an evil, by making an appeal that would be heeded by me, the mode taken was one of the slowest and worst ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... discourse with Mr. Coventry. But by the way Mr. Coventry was saying that there remained nothing now in our office to be amended but what would do of itself every day better and better, for as much as he that was slowest, Sir W. Batten, do now begin to look about him and to mind business. At which, God forgive me! I was a little moved with envy, but yet I am glad, and ought to be, though it do lessen a little my care to see that the King's service is like to be better attended than it ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... new methods of transportation made their appearance at almost the same time—the steamboat, the canal boat, and the rail car. Of all three, the last was the slowest in attaining popularity. As early as 1812 John Stevens, of Hoboken, aroused much interest and more amused hostility by advocating the building of a railroad, instead of a canal, across New York State from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, and for several years this indefatigable spirit journeyed from ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... improvement in means of defence and of attack may be illustrated in this way. Suppose a number of not very swift hares and a number of slow-running dogs were placed on an island where there was plenty of food for the hares but none for the dogs, except the hares they could catch; the slowest of the hares would be first killed, and the swifter preserved. Then the slowest-running dogs would suffer, and having less food than the fleeter ones, would have least chance of living, and the swiftest dogs would be preserved; thus the fleetness of both dogs and hares would ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... Alf up a little bit,' she said. 'He's entirely too poky. Carrie, that man is the slowest stick that ever lived. I wish some pretty, dashin' gal like Dixie Hart would flirt with him good and hard. If you wasn't so old I'd git you to do it. My first husband was different; he was a great ladies' man. That is the only thing ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... buoyant, rollicking Allegro with joyous answer. Anon the outer revel breaks in with shock almost of terror. And now in climax of joy, through the festal strum across the never-ceasing thread of transformed meditation resound in slowest, broadest ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... and the cold rain and the stone buildings—and then to find the world's relation to his daughter. That had been spared before. He kept it from me, and there was such a sustaining from his friends and power. Those most concerned are slowest to learn exactly what the world thinks of them.... It did not come until afterward, and then it almost killed me. I was clinging to a sorrow almost sacred, and I found that the world saw only the shame and madness of my plight. I suddenly saw it in the eyes of the people—how they ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... to the "envelope" which is a stock and turnover case when finished. Each guest is given her turnover case to finish as a souvenir. Give prizes for the best initial, the one completed first and for the slowest. ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... the bishops to rouse their dioceses by preaching the instant duty of war for the Holy Sepulcher. The enthusiasm spread everywhere like an infection under ripe conditions. France took the lead; Germany with slower step; the Italians slowest of all, except the Normans who dwelt among them. England contributed least of all, the Normans being still busy in holding what they had won, and Anglo-Saxons too discouraged over their own defeats. Spain had her own anti-Mohammedan battle to fight. Some noblemen, unable to prevent ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... had ridden a mile, the Marylanders turned off to a house where they were to take up some letters, promising to rejoin us before we had gone a league. But we traversed more than that distance, at the slowest foot-pace, without being overtaken, and at length determined to wait for the laggards, drawing back about thirty paces off the path, into a glade where there was partial shelter from the icy wind that swept past, laden with coming snow. There ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... exciting scenes on the way over, except when some wild and woolly Canadian tried to jump overboard because of seasickness. We were a long time crossing, because the fastest transport had to cut her speed down to that of the slowest, and the voyage was anything but a pleasant one. When we finally steamed into Plymouth, the gray-backs outnumbered the soldiers by many ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... vessels were protected without sacrificing the offensive power of the larger. Not only so; in case of injury to the boilers or engines of one, it was hoped that those of her consort might pull her through. To equalize conditions, to the slowest of the big ships was given the most powerful of the smaller ones. A further advantage was obtained in this fight, as at Mobile, from this arrangement of the vessels in pairs, which will be mentioned ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... cocked for the boatswain's whistle and the call to the watch to bear a hand and get the anchor aboard. Just a moment and you will feel the pulse of the screw, hear the clink-clank of shovels and slice-bars, tinkling faintly up the ventilator; one bell will sound in the engine room and under slowest speed she will fall away from the sheltering beach, round the fragrant greenery of the Glades rocks and, free from their buttressing, prance exultantly to four bells and a jingle out into the surgent tumult of the ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... soon to travel much farther and in an opposite direction. After the parting was over, and I well on my way, I was strongly tempted to return; and my walk back to Poultney (twelve miles) was one of the slowest and ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... supposed there could be any such virtue in tar-water as immediately to carry off a quantity of water already collected. For my delivery from this I well knew I must be again obliged to the trochar; and that if the tar-water did me any good at all it must be only by the slowest degrees; and that if it should ever get the better of my distemper it must be by the tedious operation of undermining, and not by a ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... son, who acted as ganger or overseer, would find a bricklayer's assistant, male or female, sitting in the shade doing nothing. Women are employed largely as day-labourers, and more often than not it was the woman who was the slowest to obey. The overseer would tell her peremptorily to get up and go to work. The woman would pretend not to hear him. The command would be repeated in louder tones. The woman would continue to wear an air of supreme indifference, and would remain ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... family-party better than I do,' said the colonel, looking at her as he spoke. 'Of all things on earth, it is the slowest.' ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... highest speed attained by mail coaches in England to have been 10 5/8 miles per hour, in Scotland 10 1/2, and in Ireland 9 1/8. That there were still some terribly bad roads for some of the cross-country mail coaches is shown by the fact that the slowest speed was 6 miles in England, 7 in Scotland, and 6 ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... risk—of course there was risk; but the whole idea of a general chase rests upon the fact that, for one reason or another, the extreme speed of the ships in each fleet will vary, and that it is always probable that the fastest of the pursuers can overtake the slowest of the pursued. The resulting combats compel the latter either to abandon his ships, or to incur a general action, which, from the fact of his flight, it is evident he has reason to avoid. In this case many of the retreating French were crippled,—some went ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... have a multiplicity of stages, all of the slowest, all of the most incredible nature, whereas the Wasp cannot found a race except on the express condition of complete success from the first attempt. We will not insist further upon the insurmountable objection; we will admit that, amid ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... accordance with his means. He had been left an orphan at nine years old: his father and mother were drowned when they were being ferried across the Oka in the spring floods. He had been educated at a private school, where he had the reputation of being one of the slowest and quietest of the boys, and at his own earnest desire and through the good offices of a cousin who was a man of influence, he obtained a commission in the horse-guards artillery; and, though with some difficulty, passed his examination first as an ensign and then as a ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... alpha particles, actually helium nuclei consisting of two protons and two neutrons. By far the most massive of the decay particles, it is also the slowest, rarely exceeding one-tenth the velocity of light. As a result, its penetrating power is weak, and it can usually be stopped by a piece of paper. But if alpha emitters like plutonium are incorporated in the body, they pose a serious ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
... family life in America has been breaking down. For 20 years the wages of working people have been stagnant or declining. For the 12 years of trickle down economics we built a false prosperity on a hollow base as our national debt quadrupled. From 1989 to 1992 we experienced the slowest growth in a half century. For too many families, even when both parents were working, the American ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... stump of the mizen-mast she commonly griped too much, so as to render the steerage very difficult, and yet this had been carried, whenever it could be, in order to keep pace with the merchantmen, the slowest of which went nearly as fast under ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... this time he had a long accumulation of reasons for hating her: Dora's persistent and increasing competency was not short of flamboyant, and teachers naturally got the habit of flinging their quickest pupil in the face of their slowest and "dumbest." Nevertheless, Ramsey was unable to deny that she had become less awful lookin' than she used to be. At least, he was honest enough to make a partial retraction when his friend and classmate, ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... overview: Germany's affluent and technologically powerful economy- the fifth largest national economy in the world - has become one of the slowest growing economies in the entire euro zone, and a quick turnaround is not in the offing in the foreseeable future. Growth in 2001-03 fell short of 1%. The modernization and integration of the eastern German economy continues ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... disgrace to Paris under an armed guard, the informer sitting triumphant above him crowned with laurel—the frantic rabble exulting in his humiliation, and with difficulty restrained from laying violent hands upon him. Charles X. on the contrary, travels, with his family, in open day, by the slowest and easiest journeys, under the respectful escort of the commissaries of the new government; and the people, every where, so far from any vulgar display of insolent triumph, touch their hats in silent ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... couplet of the song was repeated three or four times before proceeding to the next, and those songs which were of the slowest measure and least emotional in character were selected for the earlier hours of the festivals. None of the songs was lengthy, even the longest, in spite of the repetitions, rarely lasting ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... must never rest content as long as another man possesses that which he has not. Christ did not believe in equality of payment when He told the parable of the ten talents and the unprofitable servant. Socialism would reduce all labour to the pace of the slowest. Above all, Christ was not a Socialist when He bade the young man who had great possessions sell all that he had and give it to the poor. What School of Socialism has ever issued such a command? On the contrary, Socialists are enjoined ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... hour. If, further, we adopt an ingenious suggestion of Professor Perry's, and imagine the descent to the line made down a very slowly rotating staircase at the centre of a big rotating wheel-shaped platform, against a portion of whose rim the slowest platform runs in a curve, one could very easily add a speed of six or eight miles an hour more, and to that the man in a hurry would be able to add his own four miles an hour by walking in the direction of motion. If the reader is a traveller, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... their being three mistresses to be obeyed the youngest mistress a thought too lax and the second one undoubtedly too severe, still no girl could live with these high-principled, much-enduring women without being impressed with two things which the serving class are slowest to understand—the dignity of poverty, and the beauty of that which is the only effectual law to bring out good and ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... always found that the two timepieces told the truth; at least, that they agreed with each other. Nevertheless, in his own private heart, Ned Hooper thought that clock— and sometimes called it—"the slowest piece of ancient ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... antelopes, hares, foxes, lions, leopards, horses, zebras, and many others, have reached very nearly the same degree of speed. Although the swiftest of each must have been for ages preserved, and the slowest must have perished, we have no reason to believe there is any advance of speed. The possible limit under existing conditions, and perhaps under possible terrestrial conditions, has been long ago reached. In cases, however, where this ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... in the conflict of authority. But now he threw down his pen and clicked his key to cut in with the "G.S.," which claims the wire instantly. Then distinctly, and a word at a time so that the slowest operator on the line could get it, he spelled out the message: "All Agents: Stop and hold all trains except first and second fast mail, west-bound. M'Tosh fired, and office in hands ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... and beautiful thing to see that king of horses—sweep back around the slowest of his mustangs, shake his head at the barking guns, and then circle forward again as though he would show the laggard what running should be. The cowpunchers could have shot him as he veered back; they could have salted him with ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... knowledge which youth are to acquire, and of which we are ignorant?' Men say that the sun, moon, and stars are planets or wanderers; but this is the reverse of the fact. Each of them moves in one orbit only, which is circular, and not in many; nor is the swiftest of them the slowest, as appears to human eyes. What an insult should we offer to Olympian runners if we were to put the first last and the last first! And if that is a ridiculous error in speaking of men, how much more in speaking of the Gods? They cannot be pleased at our telling falsehoods about ...
— Laws • Plato
... and appeal to the private judgment or perception of the reader. But it is no better than the last resource of an empiric, the last refuge of a sciolist; a refuge which the soundest of scholars will be slowest to seek, a resource which the most competent of critics will be least ready to adopt. Once admitted as a principle of general application, there are no lengths to which it may not carry, there are none to which it has not carried, the audacious fatuity ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the fun had waxed furious and wine had set the slowest tongue wagging and every eye a-sparkle, other guests streamed in to join the orgy—the most beautiful ladies of the Court, from the Duchesse de Gesores and Madame de Mouchy to the Regent's own daughter, the ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... his tail some gay ribands she bound, Marrowbones, cherrystones, Bundle'em jig. And then at the races he tript o'er the ground, And bore off the prize, 'ere a flea could hop round: Though the slowest of Donkeys the winner is found, He's an ambling, scambling, Braying-sweet, turn-up feet, Mane-cropt, tail-lopt, High-bred, ...
— Deborah Dent and Her Donkey and Madam Fig's Gala - Two Humorous Tales • Unknown
... MORSE. [Slowest, save for SOL POTTER] 'Tes rare lucky us was all agreed to hiss the curate afore us began the botherin' old meetin', or us widn' 'ardly 'ave 'ad time to settle ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
