"Erratic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stone Greeting the smiling East Is not so purple, I must own, As that erratic beast. She lived unknown, that Cow, and so I never chanced to see; But if I had to be one, oh, The ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... classes of society except, perhaps, that which Thackeray made his peculiar field. The historians, too, furnish singular contrasts: the vehement pugnacity of Freeman is a foil to the serene studiousness of Acton; the erratic career of Froude to the concentration of Stubbs. The influence exercised on their contemporaries by recluses such as Newman or Darwin may be compared with the more worldly activities of Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce. Often we see equally diverse elements in ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... "Rodeur's" prow is turned toward it, for there is hope, there rescue! As the stranger draws nearer, the straining eyes of the French helmsman discerns something strange and terrifying about her appearance. Her rigging is loose and slovenly, her course erratic, she seems to be idly drifting, and there is no one at the wheel. A derelict, abandoned at sea, she mocks their hopes of rescue. But she is not entirely deserted, for a faint shout comes across the narrowing strip of sea and is answered from the "Rodeur." The two vessels draw ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... was left quite bewildered by these erratic proceedings, but she had no mind to question them; so many stories were rife in the Home of the eccentricities embodied in the charitable phrase "Mis' Blair's way" that she would scarcely have been amazed had her terrible room-mate chosen to drive a coach and four up the chimney, ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... were erected, and barrels of beer were broached. Suddenly, several hundred skaters, each bearing a lighted lamp at his waist-belt, emerged from the crowd, and shot under the bridge on to the Serpentine, and commenced quadrilles, polkas, and divers figures; in a few minutes their erratic motions were illuminated by red, blue, crimson, and green fires, lighted on the banks, and by rockets and other lights. This fantastic and beautiful exhibition ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... observations agreed with those of Tycho Brahe, and won for Maestlin the professorship of astronomy in the University of Heidelberg. No man had so clearly proved the supralunar position of a comet, or shown so conclusively that its motion was not erratic, but regular. The young astronomer, though Apian's pupil, was an avowed Copernican and the destined master and friend of Kepler. Yet, in the treatise embodying his observations, he felt it necessary to save his reputation for orthodoxy by calling the comet a "new and horrible prodigy," ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... erratic simply in not being in accordance with the fixed rules taught by the academies; but in all that I did there was a unity of purpose, and a plan which my commanding general understood ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... away to follow some new toy balloon of erratic possibilities, and Crane wound through the narrow passage which led to the paddock. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... was jarred through all her members; but she tore loose. And then, in erratic leaps and bounds, she kept on across the fields and woods towards Easton, never rising very high, but occasionally sinking so that she trailed across the treetops, threatening the whole party with death and the flying machine itself ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... agree with me to prosecute the search of the picturesque in a carriage; a waggon, a spring-cart, even a post-chaise might do, but the carriage upsets everything. I longed to slip out unseen, and to run away by myself in amongst the hills and dales. Erratic and vagrant instincts tormented me, and these I was obliged to control, or rather, suppress, for fear of growing in any degree enthusiastic, and thus drawing attention to the "lioness," the authoress, the artist. Sir J. K. Shuttleworth is a man of ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... innumerable pigeons, "Allah's announcers,"[1] swirled in clouds from the arcades, mosques, and minarets surrounding the Haram, and from the Ka'aba itself, and began winging erratic courses all about the Forbidden City. Men, birds, and animals alike, all shared the terror of this unheard-of outrage when—according to ancient prophesy—the Great Devils of Feringistan should desecrate ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... erratic fox-hunter such as I am,—a fox-hunter, I mean, whose lot it has been to wander about from one pack of hounds to another,—can understand the melancholy feeling which a man has when he first intrudes himself, ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... in the dreary-looking block of flats in Holloway, attended through the day by the erratic ministrations of Doris, and at night by the yearning tenderness of Ethel, Basil Hayward dragged out a weary martyrdom, that prayed only for release. In vain Ethel murmured over him, that to work for him was a glory ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... earth—or at least that portion of it—for his own; so, when he was constrained to make a choice, he settled himself in the wider, more fertile coulee, which he thereafter called the Flying U. While it is good policy to locate as near as possible to the source of those erratic little creeks which water certain garden spots of the northern range land, it is also well to choose land that will grow plenty of hay. J. G. Whitmore chose the hay land, and trusted that providence would insure the water supply. Through all these years ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... view of the earth, some people accept the mere fact of his soaring for sublimity, and mistake his dim vision of earth for proximity to heaven." And in like manner, when a thinker frees himself from all the trammels of fact, and propounds a "bold hypothesis," people mistake the vagabond erratic flights of guessing for a higher range of philosophic power. In truth, the imagination is most tasked when it has to paint pictures which shall withstand the silent criticism of general experience, and to frame hypotheses which shall withstand the confrontation with ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... by the most futile reasons. It is lawful, it is even necessary, to refuse assent to the dictates of such a conscience. To persons thus afflicted the authoritative need of a prudent adviser must serve as a rule until the conscience is cured of its morbid and erratic tendencies. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... high respect for her. But there is one other plain question I would like to ask you, in view of your rather erratic behavior." ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... lending in 2001 when the government failed to institute several anticorruption measures. Despite the return of strong rains in 2001, weak commodity prices, endemic corruption, and low investment limited Kenya's economic growth to 1%. Growth fell below 1% in 2002 because of erratic rains, low investor confidence, meager donor support, and political infighting up to the elections. In the key December 27, 2002 elections, Daniel Arap MOI's 24-year-old reign ended, and a new opposition government ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... truly amiable, erratic genius is a portrait of Dickens's own father, "David Copperfield" being Dickens, and "Mrs. Nickleby" (one can hardly believe it) is said to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... silken cable, Swell, ye sails, by zephyrs kissed, Bearing me the walnut table Thumped by BETHMANN-HOLLWEG'S fist; Steering, not by course erratic, Safe to the appointed wharf, Bring, O bark, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... vigorously played was the instrument which created inspiration. It would take a volume to tell of all that was said and done on that great and memorable occasion—how the plump little Miss Gambarts fluttered about like erratic flowers, or like captivating comets drawing a long tail of the Partridge Bay young men after them; how, as the evening wore on, all social distinctions were swept away and the servants were invited to exchange duty in the kitchen for dancing in the hall; how Le Rue danced so often with Elise ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... he could devote fifty years to the study of this work, he might come to be without great faults; but neither native nor foreign scholars can really make anything out of it. Some regard it as a Book of Fate. One erratic genius of the West has gone so far as to say that it is only a vocabulary of the language of some old Central ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... faces stiff competition in international markets with the end of the global quota system. However, other sectors, notably the automotive and electronics industries, are rising in importance within Turkey's export mix. In recent years the economic situation has been marked by erratic economic growth and serious imbalances. Real GNP growth has exceeded 6% in many years, but this strong expansion has been interrupted by sharp declines in output in 1994, 1999, and 2001. Inflation, in recent years in the high double-digit range, fell to 9.3% by 2004 - a ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... my dear erratic master has managed for years and years to cultivate the farm of La Haye and to bring up my godson in the fear of the Lord and the practice of land surveying is a proof that the late Mr. Matthew Arnold was hopelessly wrong in his categorical declaration ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... wantonness and ease" is to find the regeneration of his life—the rebaptism of his soul? Of what avail thy meek prudent household virtues to one whom Fortune screens from rough trial?—whose sorrows lie remote from thy ken?—whose spirit, erratic and perturbed, now rising, now falling, needs a vision more subtle than thine to pursue, and a strength that can sustain the reason, when it droops, on the wings ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... condor's weary wing Hath yet ascended! Let the rising thought Beyond the confines of this vapoury vault Be lifted, to the boundless void of space, How dread, how infinite! where other worlds, Ten million and ten million leagues aloft, In other precincts with their shadows roll. There roams the sole erratic comet, borne 210 With lightning speed, yet twice three hundred years Its destined course accomplishing. Then whirled, Far from the attractive orb of central fire, Back through the dim and infinite abyss, Dread flaming visitant, ere thou return'st, Empires ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... came to Idlewild to stay, how long I did not dream. Nor did I dream how often he was to come, for he was like an erratic comet. Fresh he would arrive, and cleanly clad, from grand folk who were his friends as I was his friend, and again, weary and worn, he would creep up the brier-rose path from the Montanas or Mexico. And without a word, when his wanderlust gripped him, he was off and away into that great ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... spite of well-meant attempts to substitute new constructions for the old, all had been disintegration. French society was to be reorganized only after further pulverizing; cohesion would begin only under pressure from without—a pressure applied by the threats of erratic royalists that they would bring in the foreign powers to coerce and arbitrate, by the active demonstrations of the emigrants, by the outbreak of foreign wars. These were the events about to take place; they would in the end evolve from the chaos ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... might make it harder to see Dorothy. He drank hard. But drink never affected him except to make him more grimly tenacious in whatever he had deliberately and soberly resolved. Drink did not explain—neither wholly nor in any part—this conduct of his. It, and the more erratic vagaries to follow, will seem incredible conduct for a man of Norman's character and position to feeble folk with their feeble desires, their dread of criticism and ridicule, their exaggerated and adoring notions of the master men. In fact, ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... been the old lady's companion for many years. And to Magsie, as they all called her, young Mr. Hoyt had paid some decided attention not many months before. Mrs. Frothingham had seen fit to disapprove these advances then, but she was an extraordinarily erratic and cross-grained old lady, and her silence now had forced her nephew uncomfortably to suspect that she might ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... saddle, and on the ground they were fleet and sure footed, but in the air they were extremely unreliable. They used their wings with much power, but were not responsive to the reins, and in flying pursued the most erratic courses. What was worse, they were seldom able to alight after an aerial flight on all four feet at once, having a disagreeable habit of approaching the earth vertically, and headfirst, so that the rider, unless he were strapped on, was usually unseated while forty or fifty feet in the air, with ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... reached their full development. As for Stanton, a man of much narrower mind, but acute, devoted, and morally fearless, kept in the War Department as a sort of tame tiger to prey on abuses, negligences, pretensions, and political influences, this was one among a hundred smaller erratic doings, which his critics have never thought of as outweighing his peculiar usefulness. His departmental point of view can easily be understood. Recruits, embarrassingly, presented themselves much faster than they could be organised ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... procession of nations in time, like the erratic phantasm of a dream, go forward without reason or order? Or, is there a predetermined, a solemn march, in which all must join, ever moving, ever resistlessly advancing, encountering and enduring ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... tight-fitting crenulate casing about the lower half. The cirri are sharply pointed, much broader at the base, and the two sets are so placed that, looked at from above, they have the appearance of a twisted cord. (Fig. 31 b.) Movement erratic; sometimes the animal swims steadily forward with mouth in front; again it shoots across the field of the microscope, either backward or forward or sideways, through the action of its powerful cirri. It is often quiet, usually mouth downward, ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... the tragedy. The old man had always been cranky and erratic, and he'd played the despot on Hikihoho so long that he'd got the idea in his head that there was nothing wrong with the king—or the princess either. When Armande was eighteen he sent for her. He had slews and slathers of money, as Yankee Bill would say. He'd built the big house on Hikihoho, ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... the first eleven, and behind them stood Wesley Blair, the best full-back that Hillton Academy had possessed for many years. The full-back on the second eleven was Ned Post, a veteran player, but "as erratic as a mule," to use the ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... no tower. A Viking rests on its fins. Anyway, it took off. It climbed ten miles, then went on an erratic course. We couldn't control it. Fortunately it crashed on the Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range, which is a closed military area nearby, so no one was hurt. At first we thought it was just one of those typical accidents that happen during rocket research. ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... were the denizens of this underground colony; their six little legs carrying their curious globular bodies backward and forward over the disturbed area from which the stone had been removed. At first the movements of the ants were extremely erratic and purposeless. Panic and alarm appeared to be the order of the day during the few minutes which elapsed after removal of the stone. But soon the eye could discern movements of purposive kind on the part of the alarmed residents. There was "racing and chasing" in ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... trust him greatly. But it was Soapy Stone and young Cullison that interested Flandrau most. The former played like a master. He chatted carelessly, but he overlooked no points. Sam had the qualities that go to make a brilliant erratic player, but he lacked the steadiness and the finesse ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... famous woman, by Miss Thomas, is the only one in existence. Those who have awaited it with pleasurable anticipation, but with some trepidation as to the treatment of the erratic side of her character, cannot fail to be pleased with the skill by which it is done. It is the best production on George Sand that has yet been published. The author modestly refers to it as a sketch, which it undoubtedly ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... spoils, And hardier Sic erratic toils, While both their ease forego; For ease, which neither gold can buy, Nor robes, nor gems, which oft belie, ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... very erratic in their course. Slides and faults throw them far from their true line, and sometimes the lode is represented by a number of lenticular (double-pointed in section) masses of quartz of greater or less length, either continuing point to point or overlapping, "splicing," as the miners call it. ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... excellencies in design and finish that had brought him fame. Francois, the younger son, was not forgotten though, and the father bethought him of some useful industry at which he might earn a living, and decided on clockmaking as the most suitable. Now mark the erratic workings of fate. The eldest son, from whom so much was expected, proved a comparative failure, inasmuch as that, instead of progressing, his work was distinctly inferior to that of his father.[1] Francois, ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... the dog and the rose this instinctive principle is reversed. With them we think of the artificial as the archetype; the earth-born as the erratic exception. We think vaguely of the wild dog as if he had run away, like the stray cat. And we cannot help fancying that the wonderful wild rose of our hedges has escaped by jumping over the hedge. Perhaps ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... very slight degree under the notice of certain good-natured people with whom Malkin was on friendly terms, and hearing that the children, Bella and Lily, aged fourteen and twelve respectively, were about to undertake alone a journey to the Continent, the erratic hero felt it incumbent upon him to see them safe at their mother's side. Instead of returning forthwith, he lingered in Normandy for several weeks, striking off at length, on the summons of a friend, to Orleans, whence he was only to-day returned. Two or three letters had kept Earwaker ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... the finest ideals have insisted that these should be shared by the multitude. In a newspaper of sixty years ago there is this contemporary character sketch: "Ralph Waldo Emerson is the most erratic and capricious man in America. He is emphatically a democrat of the world, and believes that what Plato thought, another man may think. What Shakespeare sang, another man may know as well. As for emperors, kings, queens, princes, or presidents, ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... guilt amounted to two or three kisses, the world already chose to believe the worst of both. Mme. de Bargeton paid the penalty of her sovereignty. Among the various eccentricities of society, have you never noticed its erratic judgments and the unaccountable differences in the standard it requires of this or that man or woman? There are some persons who may do anything; they may behave totally irrationally, anything becomes them, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... postillion's authority for speaking. But it is, I am told, a finer test to embellish much gentleman-apparel, than to walk with dignity totally unadorned. This simply tries the soundness of our faculties: that tempts them in erratic directions. It is the difference between active and passive excellence. As there is hardly any situation, however, so interesting to reflect upon as that of a man without a penny in his pocket, and a gizzard full of pride, we will leave Mr. Evan Harrington to what fresh adventures may ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... friend and I returned in time for a late dinner), I wandered among the Roman remains of the place by the light of a magnificent moon, and gathered an impression which has lost little of its silvery glow. The moon of the evening before had been aqueous and erratic; but if on the present occasion it was guilty of any irregularity, the worst it did was only to linger beyond its time in the heavens, in order to let us look at things comfortably. The effect was admirable; it brought ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... as mistaken as were all those others who foretold my future; indeed he struck farther from the centre than any one else; he did not understand that my liking for natural history was no more than a temporary and erratic excursion of my unformed mind; he could not know that the cold glass and the formal, rigid arrangements of dead science had not power to hold ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... He is erratic and often queer. He believes, with Emerson, that "with consistency a great soul has nothing to do." And he is, of course, "a great ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... a long expected dinner suddenly snatched away from it; but the worse he became the louder M'Allister shrieked with laughter. The latter was now simply rolling about the room—for it could not be termed walking, it was so erratic—holding his sides and laughing, whilst the tears were chasing each other down his cheeks. He kept trying to speak, but had no sooner stuttered out the words, "Heh, mon! heh, mon!" than he was off again into another wild paroxysm of laughter, and ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... of Rugen erratic blocks on the seashore are called Adeborsteine, "stork-stones," and on such a rock or boulder near Wrek in Wittow, Dr. Haas says "the stork is said to dry the little children, after he has fetched them out of the sea, before he brings them to ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... his way back, beginning to sweat with the effort. The Navaho was an old ship. A lot of the handholds were missing, and he had to throw himself along by erratic leaps. He was gaining proficiency, but not enough to handle himself if the ship blasted off. Time was growing short when he reached the aft bunkroom where the other ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... was returning to position, but with a series of erratic swoops that seemed to close ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... in Joy's mind on Gail. Nobody took her seriously. She was just a reckless, erratic creature who said and did as she pleased, and paid the penalty. Joy never felt so ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... the Chelyuskin Peninsula. But probably it was only a river, which widened out near its mouth into a broad lake, as several of the Siberian rivers do. All about the clay plains I was tramping over, enormous erratic blocks, of various formations, lay scattered. They can only have been brought here by the great glaciers of the Ice Age. There was not much life to be seen. Besides reindeer there were just a few willow-grouse, ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... 'Vogons'; see the {Bibliography} in Appendix C and note that Arthur Dent actually mispronounces 'Vogons' as 'Bogons' at one point] 1. The elementary particle of bogosity (see {quantum bogodynamics}). For instance, "the Ethernet is emitting bogons again" means that it is broken or acting in an erratic or bogus fashion. 2. A query packet sent from a TCP/IP domain resolver to a root server, having the reply bit set instead of the query bit. 3. Any bogus or incorrectly formed packet sent on a network. 4. By synecdoche, used to refer to any bogus thing, as in "I'd like to go to lunch ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... unnecessary to our narrative to relate the erratic discourse that ensued. The old man eluded the annihilating blows of his adversary, as the light armed soldier is wont to escape the efforts of the more regular warrior, even while he annoys him most, and an hour passed away without bringing any of the numerous ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... across the cloud-rack fluctuant and erratic As the strong star smiles that lets no mourner mourn, Hymned alike from lips of Lesbian choirs or Attic Once at evensong and morning newly born, Clear and sure above the changes of dramatic Tide and current, soft ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... positions when the launch, executing another of its erratic evolutions, again swept by. A second later they were startled by a crash followed by screams and cries for help. Leary whistled shrilly to attract the Governor's attention ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... had been odder than ever the last day or so. He had ceased even to pretend that his guest's presence was anything but an annoyance. He had refused utterly to enter into any connected conversation and had been restless and erratic to a degree. "Too muchy moon-devil," according to Li Ho. That very afternoon he had met them coming down from their talk upon the rocks and the ironic courtesy of his greeting had been little less than baleful. At supper ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... that," Duvall replied, "but she did not. She is mentally rather erratic, and she at once conceived the idea that you had singled her out for persecution; that, in fact, you were envious of her abilities and meant to prevent her ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... 20, appeared a statement of the test to ascertain the accuracy of the meter used, which showed that in an aggregate of twelve tests it varied nearly three per cent in its record from the actual quantity delivered, while at times it was so erratic that it varied in one instance over ten ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... upon all investigation and questioning. In this way Wagner stood for the Christian concept, "Thou must and shalt believe". It is a crime against the highest and the holiest to be scientific.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} The "Flying Dutchman" preaches the sublime doctrine that woman can moor the most erratic soul, or to put it into Wagnerian terms "save" him. Here we venture to ask a question. Supposing that this were actually true, would it therefore be desirable?—What becomes of the "eternal Jew" whom a ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... sleeping guest it seemed like a beautiful dream. That Poppy Tyrell should be sitting in his cabin and looking to him as her only friend seemed almost incredible. A sudden remembrance of Flower subdued at once the ardour of his gaze, and he sat wondering vaguely as to the whereabouts of that erratic mariner until his meditations were broken by the entrance of the boy with the steaming coffee, followed by Bill ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... Elfride's erratic mind had from her youth upwards been constantly in the habit of perplexing her father by hypothetical questions, based on absurd conditions. The present seemed to be cast so precisely in the mould of previous ones that, not being given to syntheses ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... the Irish were negroes, and then we should have an advocate in the Hon. Baronet. His erratic humanity wanders beyond the ocean, and visits the hot islands of the West Indies, and thus having discharged the duties of kindness there, it returns burning and desolating, to treat with indignity and to trample upon the ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... the proclamation of the Republic they began to consider various projects of carrying the revolution into their own countries. Plans were being discussed for organizing legions to invade foreign countries, and a number of the German communists entered heartily into the plan of Herwegh, the erratic German poet—"the iron lark"—who led a band of revolutionists into Baden. "We arose vehemently against these attempts to play at revolution," says Engels, speaking for himself and Marx. "In the state of fermentation ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... solution of the riddle of that cut which had adorned Young Denny's chin as he had been. And yet, even while he hesitated, feeding his imagination upon the choicest of premonitory tit-bits, he knew he meant to go ahead. He was magnifying the unfathomed peril that existed in his erratic, hair-trigger old brain alone merely for the sake of the complacent pride which resulted therefrom—pride in the contemplation of his ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... scarcely surprising that the signs of the times should have been misread. Maurice had helped Charles against the Schmalkaldic League before; yet everything depended on his discarding the apparently erratic politics of his past career, and displaying in full measure the organising and military genius of which he had given promise, though it still remained to be conclusively proved. He did in fact prove ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... that Thomas Mugridge's erratic soul brought him into the scene. He had been listening at the galley door, but he now came out, ostensibly to fling some scraps over the side, but obviously to see the killing he was certain would take place. He smirked greasily up into ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... he would dine at some cheap, even dubious, restaurant lower down in the city, where the erratic chefs from all countries of the world spread their national cookery for the omnivorous American. Something might happen there out of the routine—he might come upon a subject without a predicate, a road without an end, a question without an answer, a cause without an effect, a gulf ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Royson's placid temper was again ruffled, and he might have said nasty things about Fate had not that erratic dame suddenly thought, fit to alter his fortunes. As the street narrowed between lofty buildings, so did the blaring thunder of the music increase. The mob closed in on the soldiers' heels; the whole roadway was packed with moving men. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... England. I was now sixteen, and continued in the house of my parents, passing my time chiefly in philological pursuits. But it was high time that I should adopt some profession. My father would gladly have seen me enter the Church, but feared I was too erratic. So I was put to the law, but while remaining a novice at that pursuit, I became a perfect master of the Welsh language. My father soon began to feel that he had made a mistake in the choice of a ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... conjecture, and not erroneously, to have been mine. All I can say is, that, when I lost my way last evening, my first feeling was one of a melancholy satisfaction; for it seemed to me that destiny itself had determined to contribute towards my aim and desire, and to forward me freely in the erratic progress, which, in a gloomy mood, I had most desperately and, perhaps, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... could speak of her various experiences without being laughed at or put down as a lunatic. At the same time I am bound to confess that Mrs Peters, although extremely interesting, was also rather agitating, and certainly much too erratic to make an entirely satisfactory Chatelaine. She was given to reading "Aurora Leigh," instead of ordering dinner, and had to be sent for occasionally to sit at the head of the table, with a volume of Browning or Tennyson firmly clutched in her reluctant ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... thought he understood all, especially as Jim's visits to Kyley's shanty were comparatively rare of late. Meanwhile, Jim had written once to Lucy, but had received no answer—a fact that did not disturb him, however, as the postal service on the fields and in the Bush was extremely erratic. He was quite satisfied now that he had been in love with his shipmate all the time, but it was not easy to account for Aurora. Certainly he had been very fond of her: he was fond of her still, and could not bring himself ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... precocious youth adopted the new religion. The struggles of young William Penn with his ambitious father, were long and bitter. He was beaten and turned out of doors by his angry parent, then taken back by the erratic but kind-hearted father and sent to France to be lured with gayety and dazzled with promises of wealth and distinction; but William Penn had the courage of his convictions and yielded not one whit of his religious ideas. Conscious of being right, he was ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... satisfy their idea of studies from the life. Their schemes of colour are limited to harmonies in crimson lake, cobalt and gamboge, their skies are very blue, their grass arsenically green, and their perspective as erratic as ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... of antisocial behavior can't be allowed. The poor fellow who thinks he's better than anyone else has to be segregated from normal society and treated for his aberrations. But not punished! Heavens no! His erratic behavior isn't his fault, ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... gnome went along in front of them, when suddenly he began walking right up, in the water. When the others came up to the same place, to their surprise, they found themselves doing the same thing. They couldn't possibly stay on the ground. 'I don't want to go up,' said erratic Cricket, kicking, and shamefaced Will called to the sparkling gnome, to know what was the matter. 'Nothing at all,' he called back, cheerfully, 'only gravity doesn't happen to act just there. Sometimes it doesn't and then you're just as likely ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... generous in Mr. Austin to assume that 'her Radical friend' had been prompting her. However, she thanked him in her heart for the calm he had given her. To be able to imagine Nevil Beauchamp intellectually erratic was a tonic satisfaction to the proud young lady, ashamed of a bondage that the bracing and pointing of her critical powers helped her to forget. She had always preferred the society of men of Mr. Austin's age. How old was he? Her father would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... perceive they fit perfectly by putting them over the back of my hand. I make him assure me of the fit, and then buy the pair and proceed to take my old ones off and put the new on grimly. If they split or the fingers are too long—glovemakers have the most erratic conceptions of the human finger—I have to buy ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... had a sure, accurate drop-kicker!" reflected Captain Butch hopelessly. "One who could be depended on to average eight out of ten trials, we'd have a fighting chance with Ballard. Deke Radford is a wonder. He can kick a forty-five-yard goal, but he's erratic! He might boot the pigskin over when a score is needed from the forty-yard line, and again he might miss from the twenty-yard mark. Oh, for a kicker who isn't brilliant and spectacular, but who can methodically drop ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... would be deeply vexed, not by the conduct or the fate of Bras, but by her being the heroine of so mad an adventure. She knew that he wished her to be serious and subdued and proper, like the ladies whom she met, while an evil destiny seemed to dog her footsteps and precipitate her into all sorts of erratic mishaps and "scenes." However, this adventure was likely soon to have an end. She could go no farther. Whatever had become of Bras, it was in vain for her to think of pursuing him. When she at length reached a broad and smooth road leading through the pasture, she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... Ireland's Case; Meaning thereby the case of his shop,- Of curate, vicar, rector, bishop, And all those other grades seraphic, That make men's souls their special traffic, Tho' caring not a pin which way The erratic souls go, so they pay.— Just as some roguish country nurse, Who takes a foundling babe to suckle, First pops the payment in her purse, Then leaves poor dear to—suck its knuckle: Even so these reverend rigmaroles Pocket the money—starve the souls. Murtagh, however, in his glory, Will tell, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Bar-ree-e!" That day spent in the country made him angry for a week, and he worked sulkily at Julian's, all the time tormented by a desire to know where Clifford was and what he might be doing. This culminated in an erratic stroll on Sunday which ended at the flower-market on the Pont au Change, began again, was gloomily extended to the morgue, and again ended at the marble bridge. It would never do, and Selby felt it, so he went to see Clifford, ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... changing their places, and as it were wandering about the sky. It is certain that the Babylonians at a very early date distinguished from the fixed stars those remarkable five, which, from their wandering propensities, the Greeks called the "planets," and which are the only erratic stars that the naked eye, or that even the telescope, except at a very high power, can discern. With these five they were soon led to class the Moon, which was easily observed to be a wandering luminary, changing her place among the fixed stars with remarkable rapidity. Ultimately, it came ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... evening of Thursday, the twenty-seventh, it was fairly well occupied, but not to any great extent. One couple attracted my attention by reason of the gentleman's erratic steering. Had he been my partner I should have suggested a polka, the tango not being the sort of dance that can be picked up in an evening. What I mean to say is, that he struck me as being more willing than experienced. Some of the bumps she got would have made me cross; but ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the road chased each other like the figures in a zoetrope. Now and then with a shock and rattle they went through sleeping moonlit villages, which must have stirred an instant in their sleep as at the passing of a fugitive earthquake. Sometimes in an outlying house a light in one erratic, unexpected window would give them a nameless hint of the hundred human secrets which they left behind them with their dust. Sometimes even a slouching rustic would be afoot on the road and would look after them, as after a flying phantom. But still MacIan stood up staring at earth and heaven; and ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... have taken her to Taylor's, and have spent all the money I had on such a luncheon as neither of us had ever eaten before. Whatever else I am, I am not a snob of that sort. I show my colors. I led her into a little cross-street which I had noticed in our erratic morning pilgrimage. We stopped at a German baker's. I bade her sit down at the neat marble table, and I bought two rolls. She declined lager, which I offered her in fun. We took water instead, and we had dined, and had paid two cents for our ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... robust a stage-driver as ever extricated a coach from a quagmire. The team, playful through long confinement, tugged at the reins, and Sandy, who was at the bits, occasionally shot through space like an erratic meteor. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... his suiting his composition to erratic themes. Beverley had painted borders for a woodland scene. Sullivan liked the work and complimented Beverley, who immediately said: "Yes, and if you could compose something to fit it now." Instantly, Sullivan, ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... a qualm of conscience. The child really was too simple to be made game of. Besides, he felt sure that she had spoken the truth, so far as she herself was concerned. She didn't know where her erratic aunt had gone; and any further questioning would only frighten her without winning him the knowledge he sought. He therefore took the parcel back, said some soothing words and made his way across the walk to his taxi. But the number he gave the chauffeur was that of the house ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Milton must have sounded as y. On the whole, it is quite clear that Milton read his Hebrew with minute precision. To see how just this verdict is, let anyone compare Milton's exactness with the erratic and slovenly transliterations in Edmund Chidmead's English edition of Leon Modena's Riti Ebraici, which was published only two years later than Milton's paraphrase ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... bringing proofs of the new science before the commission. These were M. de Foissac, M. Dupotet, M. Chapelain, and M. de Geslin. It would be but an unprofitable, and by no means a pleasant task to follow the commissioners in their erratic career, as they were led hither and thither by the four lights of magnetism above mentioned; the four "Wills-o'-the-Wisp" which dazzled the benighted and bewildered doctors on that wide and shadowy ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... f. Jovial f. Natural f. Mercurial f. Celestial f. Lunatic f. Erratic f. Ducal f. Eccentric f. Common f. Aethereal and Junonian f. Lordly f. Arctic f. Palatine f. Heroic f. Principal f. Genial f. Pretorian f. Inconstant f. Elected f. Earthly f. Courtly f. Salacious and sporting f. Primipilary f. Jocund and wanton f. Triumphant f. Pimpled f. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... unpublished letter from Governor Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, to a gentleman in Philadelphia, for a copy of which we are indebted to General Duncan S. Walker. The other letter of Wise—previously quoted—shows us his part and interest in the proposed conspiracy against Fremont; but the erratic Governor had, after the lapse of nearly two years, become an anti-Lecompton-Douglasite, and was ready to give confidential warning of designs with which he was only too familiar. As this was written nearly three weeks before Yancey's "Scarlet Letter," ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... ammunition pouches, some flung away by wounded men, some belonging to the dead. As the bush-fires licked from the lower slopes of the Sari Bair towards Chocolate Hill this lost ammunition exploded, and it sounded like erratic rifle-fire. The fires glowed and spluttered all night, and went on smoking in the morning. I had to go up to Chocolate Hill about some sand-bags for our hospital dug-outs next day, and on the way up I noticed a human pelvis and ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... nebulous but suggestive remark that the newspaper occupies the borderland between literature and common sense. Literature it certainly is not, and in the popular apprehension it seems often too erratic and variable to be credited with the balance-wheel of sense; but it must have something of the charm of the one, and the steadiness and sagacity of the other, or it will fail to please. The model editor, I believe, has yet to appear. Notwithstanding the traditional reputation ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was batting and making good use of his opportunity; he was, it will be remembered, a magnificent though erratic hitter. Flower bowled him a short-pitched, fast ball, rather wide of the off-stump. Many men might have left it alone, for the ball was rising, and the slips were crowded, but Mallinson timed the ball splendidly, and drove ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... in the fugitive's path was narrow and dense. Below it, in a patch of hillocky pasture ground, sloping to a pond of steel-bright ice, a red fox was diligently hunting. He ran hither and thither, furtive, but seemingly erratic, poking his nose into half-covered moss-tufts and under the roots of dead stumps, looking for mice or shrews. He found a couple of the latter, but these were small satisfaction to his vigorous winter appetite. Presently he paused, lifted his narrow, cunning nose toward ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... He never entirely shook off his erratic use of negatives. See, also, Lamon, 424; Tarbell, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... and Fred fancied they heard an exclamation, but they could not be certain. There was no perceptible commotion about the skylight, but the flickering, erratic movement which had puzzled them ceased on the instant. Whether the shot had accomplished anything or not could only be conjectured, but Mickey was of the opinion that the exchange was equally without ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... as wrong to infer from this that the taint was universal, as it would be to gauge our own social morality by the erratic matrons and fast young ladies with whom satirical essayists delight to point their periods. The human heart is stronger than the corruptions of luxury, even among the luxurious and the rich; and the life of struggle and privation ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... of sight—but what? Who? Brant was unable to get it out of his head that all this secrecy centred around Naida. With those incautiously spoken words as a clew, he suspected that Murphy knew something about her, and that knowledge was the cause for his present erratic actions. Perhaps Hampton knew; at least he might possess some additional scrap of information which would help to solve the problem. He looked at his watch, and ordered his horse ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... magnetically drawing me to him!" With this thought, I heaped my parcels into the arms of Habu. He had been observing my erratic footwork with amazement, and now burst ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... can walk out in Beaulieu," he cried; "they shall not say it of me that I came back in rags. Look, here is a watch which I shall return to you, for it is mine; and, like its owner, it is erratic in ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... infirmities,—cannot but endear him to our deepest affections, while his unrivalled endowments command our highest admiration. To illustrate what is here alluded to, let the reader recall Burke's noble generosity towards that erratic victim of genius and grief,—the painter Barry; or his instantaneous sympathy in behalf of Crabbe the poet, when almost a foodless wanderer in our vast metropolis; and our estimate of Burke's excellencies as a man, will not ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... supple and erratic as our understanding; it is the shoe of Theramenes, fit for all feet. It is double and diverse, and the matters are double and diverse too. "Give me a drachm of silver," said a Cynic philosopher to Antigonus. "That is not a present befitting a king," replied ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... ascertain the course of social development among the Greeks, the inquirer is met by an initial difficulty. The Greeks were not one great people like the Israelites, migrating into and settling in a new country, flowing with milk and honey. Their movements were erratic and various, and took place at very different times. Several partial migrations are described in Homer, and others are referred to as having taken place only a few generations back. The continuation of unsettled life must have had the effect of giving cohesion to the individual ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm
... naval preparations had been pushed with great vigor. A powerful squadron under Admiral Cervera, which had assembled at the Cape Verde Islands before the outbreak of hostilities, had crossed the ocean, and by its erratic movements in the Caribbean Sea delayed our military plans while baffling the pursuit of our fleets. For a time fears were felt lest the Oregon and Marietta, then nearing home after their long voyage from San Francisco of over 15,000 miles, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... cared little for individuals. He did not believe (as some one has said) that the history of mankind is the history of its great men. Great men with him were but larger atoms, obeying the same impulses with the rest, only perhaps a trifle more erratic. With them or without them, the course of things would ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... stony but anxious silence. The train continued its erratic progress, sometimes stopping altogether for a time, with whistle blowing repeatedly; sometimes creeping along the metals as though feeling its way to safety. At last, after a somewhat prolonged wait, the guard, whose hoarse voice they had heard on the platform of the small ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the creature, realising that again it was being cheated, started in pursuit. With leaps and bounds that seemed erratic and purposeless, it gradually diminished the distance between itself and the running man. Once it alighted on the outstanding branch of a gnarled tree, then from thence it took shelter in a clump of shrubs, then across the stream, swimming to the opposite shore; for the running man had ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Senor." They moved. The erratic Arizona breezes twisted the dust of their going. Senor Johnson watched them dwindle. With them seemed to go the joy in the old life. No longer did the long trail possess for him its ancient fascination. He had ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... found the idea amusing, therefore our payment. One of our editors will work your manuscript into less-erratic typescript for eventual publication. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... erratic and uncertain in her voyages. She evidently sailed to the principal islands of the South Seas, and did business with them all. From one of these voyages, Henry, her captain, returned with a wife—a dark-haired, dark-eyed, ladylike girl—for whom he built a small cottage beside ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... population but supplies only about 50% of food needs and accounts for only 4% of GDP. Subsistence farming and cattle raising predominate. Diamond mining and tourism also are important to the economy. The sector is plagued by erratic rainfall and poor soils. Substantial mineral deposits were found in the 1970s and the mining sector grew from 25% of GDP in 1980 to 35% in 1997. Unemployment officially is 21% but unofficial estimates place it closer to 40%. On the plus side is the ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... at bat the visitors did not do as much. Perhaps Frazer managed to tighten up, and pitch better ball. He was very erratic, and could never be depended on to do consecutive good work. In every other inning the heavies could not seem to gauge his work at all, and he mowed them down. Then they would come at him again like furies, and knock ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... the lions were still leaping upon new victims. Fear-maddened horses still menaced them with their erratic bolting from one side of the enclosure to the other. Bullets from the guns of the defenders who remained alive but added to the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in a high-tensioned ball team. There were three other chief pitchers on the nine, Toe Barter, Sam Willard and Slim Cooney. Slim and Toe were veterans, and the mainstays of the team, and Sam Willard was one of those chaps so often seen in baseball, a brilliant but erratic performer. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... exclusive right of "calling students to the bar,"[A] also of "disbarring" a barrister for questionable practices,—a right exercised by Gray's Inn in 1864 in the case of the late erratic but brilliant Dr. Kenealy, counsel for the notorious Tichborne "claimant." From their decision no court, as such, can give relief. The disbarred one has only the right of appeal to and review by certain of the judges. The Inns neither ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... divided them everywhere, and large, unruffled pools reflected the sun. The layers of melting ice bared the ground to their feet; it belonged to the great division of sedimentary earth, and the result of the action of the water, which is so common on the surface of the globe. Still a few erratic blocks were seen of a singular nature, foreign to the soil where they were found, and whose presence it was hard to explain. Schists and different productions of limestone were found in abundance, as was also a sort of strange, transparent, colorless crystal, which has ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... sound reasonable, and the lad was unsatisfied; whatever the cause of the redskin's erratic conduct, his captive could not ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... brown of the land can be seen numerous grey spots; these are erratic boulders of granite. Through glasses one could be seen perched on a peak at least 1300 feet ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... not over aquatic, Says he rows 'like a mangle'—what trash! That his swing and his time are erratic; That he puts in his oar with a splash. But these wonderful judges of rowing, If we win will be loud in applause; And declare 'the result was all owing To that ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... distempers. This last circumstance serves to decide the healthiness of climates in every latitude. Sudden changes from heat to cold are every where dangerous; but, in countries where little caution is used in dress, they must often prove fatal. The winds in Carolina are changeable and erratic, and, about the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, commonly boisterous. In summer, they are sultry and suffocating; in winter, cold and dry. Beyond doubt, the flat maritime part is a most unhealthy situation, and the first settlers ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt |
