"Tardiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suspension," as they were? Such are the words of the opinion Barthelemy expressed when writing, in 1755, to the Count de Caylus. Winkelmann, who was present at these excavations a few years later, sharply criticised the tardiness of the galley-slaves to whom the work had been confided. "At this rate," he wrote, "our descendants of the fourth generation will still have digging to do among these ruins." The illustrious German hardly suspected that he was making so accurate a prediction as it has turned ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... is independent in action who has been earnest and thorough in preparation and self-culture. "Not for school, but for life, we learn;" and our habits—of promptness, earnestness, and thoroughness, or of tardiness, fickleness, and superficiality—are the things acquired ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... hot coffee and while he was drinking it, those on the bank informed him that there was a white boat just coming around the bend in the distance, so he concluded to wait for it. Soon after, Mr. Brown, pulling lazily along, arrived. Paul rated him soundly for his tardiness. The reporter was sound asleep, doubled up in a pile of hay at the bottom of the boat. At five o'clock that evening, exactly twenty-four hours after they started, they tied up at the levee in New Orleans where they were received by about ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... young lady friend of yours, Nelly?" asked my father. "Is she one of the unreliable sort—a little addicted to tardiness, that is?" ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... the German States have remained in dishonorable tranquillity at home. I have more reason to complain of you than you of me; for you have constantly refused me your approbation and assistance; and even when you have granted succors, you have rendered them fruitless by the scantiness and tardiness of your supplies, and compelled me to dissipate my own revenues, and ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... of the final failure of the Reformation was the tardiness with which it came to France. It did not begin to make its really popular appeal until some years after 1536, when Calvin's writings attained a gradual publicity. This was twenty years later than the Reformation came forcibly home to the Germans, and in those twenty years it had made its greatest ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the dinner was nearly over when Buck, having announced himself with a whoop as he rode up, entered, banging the door loudly behind him. He greeted the strangers with a careless wave of the hand and sat down at the table. His mother placed food silently before him. No explanations of his tardiness were asked and none were offered. The attitude of his father indicated clearly that the boy represented the earning power of the family. He was a big fellow with broad, thick wrists, and a straight black eye. When he had eaten, he broke into ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... changes of the more sensitive air. Hence, so far as we can see at present, trees appear to be simply bad conductors, and to have no more influence upon the temperature of their surroundings than is fully accounted for by the consequent tardiness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tardiness, Sikes pushed Oliver before him; and they entered a low dark room with a smoky fire, two or three broken chairs, a table, and a very old couch: on which, with his legs much higher than his head, a man was reposing at full length, smoking a long clay pipe. He was dressed in ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... concurred in opinion with the October Club; but it was not in his power to quicken the tardiness of Harley, whom he stimulated as much as he could, but with little effect. He that knows not whither to go, is in no haste to move. Harley, who was perhaps not quick by nature, became yet more slow by irresolution; and was content ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... {ant. 132} lateness &c adj.; tardiness &c (slowness) 275. delay, delation; cunctation, procrastination; deferring, deferral &c v.; postponement, adjournment, prorogation, retardation, respite, pause, reprieve, stay of execution; protraction, prolongation; Fabian policy, medecine expectante [Fr.], chancery ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the contrary, I assure you. In fact, I did make off, for a considerable distance; not rapidly as a youth might do, but with self-reproach at my tardiness. But the sound ceased coming; and then I remembered how wholly we are in the hand of the Lord. A sense of the power of right rose within me, backed up by a strong curiosity; and I said to myself that if I went home, with nothing more than that to ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Obedient to the directions of Mr. Jones the fishermen prepared to launch their boat, which had been seen in the background of the view, with the net carefully disposed on a little platform in its stern, ready for service. Richard gave vent to his reproaches at the tardiness of the pedestrians, when all the turbulent passions of the party were succeeded by a calm, as mild and as placid as that which prevailed over the beautiful sheet of water that they were about to rifle of ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the land. It had come late that season, but its rare beauty compensated for its tardiness. Its golden mellowness permeating the hazy air, had also, it seems, crept into the heart of Dorian Trent. The light coating of frost which each morning lay on the grass, had by noon vanished, and now the ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... course, of all mankind—its falling occasionally into the background being satisfactorily accounted for by the French descent of her existing dynasty, by the visible deterioration in the royal manufacture of cigars, and, more than either, "by the tardiness of military promotion." This last grievance was the sting. "If justice had been done," exclaimed the new-feathered warrior, rising in his stirrups, and waving his hand, as if he was in the act of cleaving down a Moor, "I should long since have been a general. If I had been a general, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... between the United States and Spain, and to mark the progress which may have been made in accomplishing those objects in which we have been promised her co-operation. It must be acknowledged with regret that little or no advance has been made. The tardiness in this respect, however, cannot be said to be in any way imputable to a want of diligence, zeal or ability in the legation of the United States at Madrid. The department is persuaded that no person, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... colonies to resistance. He did not regard the measure as impolitic at all times, but as premature and impracticable at that time. He urged the want of money, munitions of war, of a well-organized and disciplined army; the seeming apathy of several colonies, manifested by their tardiness in declaring their wishes on the subject; the puissance of Great Britain by sea and land, and the yet unknown course of foreign governments during the contest which would follow. Richard Henry Lee, on the other hand, had supported his resolution with all his fervid eloquence, in Congress and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... calls of the owls echoed over fields and moor, and the moon cast its pale light over the landscape, they patiently waited the arrival of the others. The longer they waited and the more anxious Joe became to meet his twin brother again, the more Slippery denounced Kansas Shorty's tardiness, and when midnight arrived and they heard in the distance to the north of them the rumbling of a train, Slippery had so completely won the confidence of Joe, that the latter consented to accompany the yegg to Chicago without waiting for the arrival of the others, ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... State Legislatures against the Alien and Sedition acts was dashed by the dissentient replies from all the New England States and by the lack of replies from the Southern States. They accounted for it by the tardiness with which State officials change, not always representing public opinion. The ease with which they carried all the States except seven in the ensuing election of 1800 enabled them to give the resolutions a large share of the credit ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... doth not sound like a messenger from some great king," said a man-at-arms who was standing by, and the porter's heart misgave him at the thought that perhaps by his tardiness he had got ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... generally performed his office in perfect silence. But the third day passed more heavily away; he listened to every sound from without his prison, and as none reached him, which announced approaching succor, he could not repress an audible expression of anger and disappointment, at his nephew's tardiness. A thousand plans of escape were formed, and instantly rejected, as visionary and impracticable. He too well knew the severe and cautious temper of D'Aulney, to suppose he would leave any avenue unguarded; and, of course, an attempt of ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... wrath. Their eyes were relit with the glittering beams, and the hissing and the rattling re-commenced. Seemingly determined to take instant vengeance upon the intruder, they were now seen making such haste as their natural tardiness admitted of, towards the Muscogulgee. From every part of the valley heads could be seen displaying forked tongues, and all pressing towards the alarmed warrior. But he stood invulnerable to them, though he knew it not, within the charmed circle made by his protecting spirit. Their powers of fascination ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Ketchmaid suffered in silence, with his eye on the clock, and almost danced with impatience at the tardiness of his departing guests. He accompanied the last man to the door, and then, crimson with rage, returned to the bar to talk ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... reasons for this: the quizzical temper of the community at large, the constant revelation of graft, the distorted school discipline which makes tardiness a more serious offense than lying or theft; the neglect to organize athletics and play for ethical ends; the criminal's code with regard to examinations—a code very prevalent in secondary schools, both public and private—that cheating is in order if one is not caught; ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... fifteen minutes after the hour. "Punishment exercise yesterday, and fine to-day—how horrible!" she broke out again, entering the empty dressing-room and surveying the array of hats on the various pegs, all of which seemed to rebuke her tardiness. "Miss Smith will purse up her lips, and utter some cutting sarcasm of course, but I don't care," and Winnie, kicking off her boots, pitched them—well, I don't think she herself knew where. The jacket being next unfastened, ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... himself. It imposed itself on Rainham, for the savage strength which it displayed, and for an element in its hideousness which suggested beauty. He was still absorbed in the study of this face when Lightmark entered and took his place opposite him with a brief apology for his tardiness. He was dressed well, with a white orchid in his button-hole, and looked prosperous and rosy. Some light badinage on this score from his various acquaintances in the restaurant he parried with a good-humoured nonchalance; then he betook himself to ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... place. Well, it's all come out right, after all. I hope your little dog will be none the worse for the experience. I'll pay his doctor's bills if he gets sick." After which speech, the miller drove off, and the rescuers darted across the street to their home, where the tardiness of their appearance was entirely forgiven after they ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... lightly confirmed suspicion on both sides. At this time all objects were so magnified and distorted by the mist of prejudice, that no inexperienced eye could judge of their real proportions. Neither party could believe the simple truth, that my tardiness to act arose from the habitual inertia of my mind ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... shoe department in one of the large stores, where she was not "speeded up," and her daily working time of nine hours was less severe than that of the knitting mill. In summer she had a Saturday half-holiday. There was a system of fines for lateness; but on the rare occasions of her own tardiness it had not been enforced. The company was also generous in grafting five-o'clock passes, which permitted a girl to leave at five in the afternoon, with no deduction from her wage for the free hour. She had been with this establishment ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... deficiencies of these ancient codes had been gradually supplied by such an accumulation of statutes and ordinances, as rendered the legislation of Castile in the highest degree complex, and often contradictory. The embarrassment resulting from this, occasioned, as may be imagined, much tardiness, as well as uncertainty, in the decisions of the courts, who, despairing of reconciling the discrepancies in their own law, governed themselves almost exclusively by the Roman, so much less accommodated, as it was, than their own, to the ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... in the nature of things that they should get ready as quickly as a fleet that has been kept ready always; but it is essential that the handicap to the operations of the active fleet, due to the tardiness of its additions, should be kept as small as possible. In other words, whatever additions are to be made to the active fleet should be made as quickly ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... the vacant chair, "the President's message is out. I have been going over it with Hood—which accounts for my tardiness," he added, nodding pleasantly to the Beaubien. "Quoting from our chief executive's long list of innocent platitudes, I may say that 'private monopoly is criminally unjust, wholly indefensible, and not to be tolerated in a Republic founded upon ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... vagaries; [Footnote: It was then well said of him by Claridge, "It is Lord Henry Heleigh's vanity to show that he is a man of pleasure as well as of business; and thus, in settlement, the expedition he displays toward a fellow-gambler is equitably balanced by his tardiness toward a too-credulous shoemaker."] and kindly time had armed him with the benumbing, impenetrable indifference of the confessed failure. He was abstractedly courteous to servants, and he would not, you felt, have ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... have been terrible!" her mind at last made her exclaim to cover her tardiness of response ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... compare the progress of the Indian Code with the progress of Codes under circumstances far more favourable, we shall find little reason to accuse the Law Commission of tardiness. Buonaparte had at his command the services of experienced jurists to any extent to which he chose to call for them; yet his legislation proceeded at a far slower rate than ours. The French Criminal Code was begun, under the Consulate, in March 1801; and yet the Code of Criminal Procedure was not ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... addressed them in a short but dignified and well considered speech. He was not, he said, acquainted with the faces of all whom he saw. But he had a list of their names, and knew how high they stood in the estimation of their country. He gently chid their tardiness, but expressed a confident hope that it was not yet too late to save the kingdom. "Therefore," he said, "gentlemen, friends, and fellow Protestants, we bid you and all your followers most heartily welcome to our ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to sing loudly also because as he declares to the irate serenader, this is necessary for him, if he would remain awake while at work so late, and that the work is urgent none knows better than he who had so harshly rebuked him for tardiness. At last he promises to desist, on condition however that he be permitted to indicate the errors which, after his own feeling, he may find in the song, by striking with the hammer upon the last. The Marker sings, Sachs repeatedly and vigorously strikes the last, and ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... and showroom; and on the morning following Elkan's holiday this solitary duty was cheered by the presence of Harry Flaxberg. Harry had sought the advice of counsel the previous day and had been warned against tardiness as an excuse for his discharge; so he was lounging on the sidewalk long before Markulies's ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... published some time subsequently in the "Bee," Goldsmith adverts, in his own humorous way, to his impatience at the tardiness with which his desultory and unacknowledged essays crept into notice. "I was once induced," says he, "to show my indignation against the public by discontinuing my efforts to please; and was bravely resolved, like Raleigh, to vex ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... must be leaving, with regret, their own country and their beloved customs, to die, perhaps, in foreign lands, they involuntarily excused a tardiness their feelings comprehended. Then, with the generosity natural to soldiers, they disguised their indulgence under an apparent desire to examine into the military position of the land. But Hulot, whom we shall henceforth call ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... were made to attack them; but the march was delayed, once by the tardiness of the Indian allies, and again by the illness of Louvigny. At length, on the first of May, 1716, he left Montreal with two hundred and twenty-five Frenchmen, while two hundred more waited to join him at Detroit and Michilimackinac, where the Indian allies were also to meet him. To save expense ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... settled that the marriage should take place, there seemed no reason for deferring it; no reason, except that Father Antoine's carnations were for some cause or other, not yet in full bloom, and both he and Marie were much discontented at their tardiness. However, the weather grew suddenly hot, with sharp showers in the afternoons, and both the carnations and the Ayrshire roses flowered out by scores every morning, until even Marie was satisfied there would be enough. There was no tint of Ayrshire rose which could not be found in Father ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... have time allowed him and the thing made plain to him; his perplexity will even strengthen and purify his will. The weak man is he who, certain of what is required of him, fails to meet it: so never once fails Hamlet. Note, in all that follows, that a load seems taken off him: after a gracious tardiness to believe up to the point of action, he is at length satisfied. Hesitation belongs to the noble nature, to Hamlet; precipitation to the poor nature, to Laertes, the son of Polonius. Compare Brutus in Julius Caesar—a Hamlet in favourable circumstances, with Hamlet—a ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... Could I anticipate the tardiness or disinclination of the authorities who engaged in this war, where there were so many vices of the interior in administration, and so much ignorance in the chiefs of the civil and commissariat departments? ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Netherlands, demolished by Joseph II., having been rebuilt. The coalition foolishly trusted that the French would be annihilated by their inward convulsions, while they were in reality seizing the opportunity granted by the tardiness of their foes to levy raw recruits and exercise them in arms. The principal error, however, lay in the system of conquest pursued by both Austria and England. Conde, Valenciennes, and all towns within the French territory taken by Coburg, were compelled ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... at such low pay with the understanding that she was to learn the trade and work up. After that she had been employed in a bicycle store for three years, for which she received five shillings per week, walking two miles to her work, and two back, and being fined for tardiness. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... to the world that henceforth their names were to be one and the same? Poor lady. He had within him a certain Christian conscience-stricken feeling of remorse on this head. It might be that he had wronged her by his tardiness. He had, however, at the present moment imbibed too much of Mr. Thorne's champagne to have any inward misgivings. He was right in repeating the boast of Lady Macbeth: he was not drunk, but he was bold enough for ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... result of reasoning than of experiment; they must trust to the experience of others; they cannot always have recourse to what ought to be; they must adapt themselves to what is. They cannot rectify the material mistakes in their conduct,[101] Timidity, a certain tardiness of decision, and reluctance to act in public situations, are not considered as defects in a woman's character: her pausing prudence does not, to a man of discernment, denote imbecility; but appears to him the graceful, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... collection. All are beautiful and all have the exaltation which marked the soldier's spirit in the earlier years of the war. Not only did his poems foreshadow his own death, but they showed the willingness, almost eagerness, with which he offered himself. Although America was not yet in the war, a tardiness which had been a great grief to Alan Seeger, there is a poetic coincidence in the fact that he met his death on July 4, 1916, while the Legion was carrying out an attack on the little village of Belloy-en-Santerre. ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... April 15, he and I were engaged to go with Sir Joshua Reynolds to dine with Mr. Cambridge, at his beautiful villa on the banks of the Thames, near Twickenham. Dr. Johnson's tardiness was such, that Sir Joshua, who had an appointment at Richmond, early in the day, was obliged to go by himself on horseback, leaving his coach to Johnson and me. Johnson was in such good spirits, that every thing seemed to please him as ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... the dim passage to greet me, fully dressed, to reproach me with my tardiness. He is a mite of a fellow, but he is as wide awake and shiny as though he were a part of the morning and had been wrought delicately out of the dawn's first ray. Indeed, I choose to fancy that the sun, being ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... enter the field of American colonization as early as England, but these reasons do not impress one as being good. Foreign wars and internal religious strife are commonly given and accepted as the true cause of French tardiness in following up the pioneer work of Jacques Cartier and others. Yet not all the energy of nearly twenty million people was being absorbed in these troubles. There were men and money to spare, had the importance of the work overseas ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... was an unaccountable tardiness among the besiegers of the window, and the assailants of the door also began thinning down, and everyone noticed with surprise that the deafening din had abated, and a momentary suspension of hostilities had ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... has been erected in its place, and it is tolerably supplied with meat and vegetables; but these articles are both dearer and inferior in quality to those offered in Kingston and Toronto. This, perhaps, is owing to the tardiness shown by the farmers in bringing in their produce, which they are obliged to offer first for sale in the market, or be subjected to a trifling fine. There is very little competition, and the butchers and town grocery-keepers have it their own way. A market ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... another baits the horses, which have often to be harnessed, then the straps are not in order, and must be first fastened and repaired; and innumerable other things of this kind, which are done with the greatest tardiness. When, afterwards, in the towns I expressed my disapprobation of these wretched post establishments, I received as answer that these countries had been too short a time under Russian dominion, that the imperial city was too far distant, and that I, as a single ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... had come, in spite of all her resolutions she was there, anxious and ardent, listening to the least noise, her heart beating if a branch of the garden moved in the night—tortured by the least tardiness of the beloved one. ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... querulousness of Collingwood, was tried by the slow progress of his battered and crippled squadron. "The prizes get on very slowly," he writes; "but I am endowed with unparalleled patience, having scarcely uttered a murmur at their tardiness, so perfectly satisfied am I with the prospect before me." Some time later he notes: "We have been three weeks effecting what might be accomplished in two days. This extraordinary delay makes me more fractious than can be imagined, and I begin to lose the character for patience which I had given ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... life which made more of an impression on Sylvia's imagination than her custom of disregarding engagements and appointments, of coming and going, appearing and disappearing quite as she pleased. To the daughter of a scrupulously exact family, which regarded tardiness as a fault, and breaking an appointment as a crime, this high-handed flexibility in dealing with time and bonds and promises had an exciting quality ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... explaining his tardiness to his secretary; a superfluity of words in which he would not ordinarily have indulged. "I had some things to ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... under despotisms, they have never seen, nor can comprehend, the effect of liberty upon national resources. Thus, when they see a nation unwilling to go to war—or, what is the next thing to reluctance, waging it tardily—they imagine that this tardiness has its origin in national weakness; and it is not until the palpable necessity of self-defence calls out the whole energy of the people, that the foreigner ever sees the genuine strength of England. The capture of two small armies in America, neither of them more numerous than the advanced ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... kind of witness than thine in my favour. Or I might give thee the blade of this blessed crucifix; yet dagger wounds are like lips and have a voice, and blood cries from the ground, says Holy Writ. Pardon my tardiness, my poor brother, but this demands deep thought, and holy offices must not be hurried unseemly." He sat now with his back to me, his hand still on my throat, so deep in thought that he heard not, as did my sharpened ears, a door shut softly, and foot-falls ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... this has nothing to do with it. Most people are paid to get to their work at a certain hour. They have a daily appointment with their business at a specified time. It is wise and honorable to keep it. Tardiness is a habit, and, like most others, considerably harder to break than to form, but punctuality also is a habit, not quite so easy to establish as tardiness because it is based on strength while the other is based on weakness. Most of us hate to get up in the morning, but it is good discipline for ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... laid for half an hour, and the old lady was beginning to be worried by such unheard-of tardiness, when Sigismond entered with a most distressed face, and without a word, which was ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... aware that the problem of Home Rule and of devolution generally is an integral part of the organization of democracy. And, as a rule, he not merely acquiesces in the demand of women for a purely political right, but only quarrels with the Liberal party for its tardiness in meeting the demand. The old Liberal idea of peace and retrenchment again is recognized by the Socialistic, and indeed by the whole body of social reformers, as equally essential for the successful prosecution of their aims. Popular budgets ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... forsook him. He issued his orders in a voice of thunder and with an air of what, for want of a better expression, we may term ferocious heartiness. He generally executed these orders himself, hurling the men violently out of his way as if he were indignant at their tardiness, although they sprang to obey as actively as usual; indeed, more so, for they were overawed and somewhat alarmed by this unwonted conduct on the ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... as if in agitated apology for the tardiness of its arrival, the train came steaming into the station, the drag of its brakes adding yet another item of noise to the prevailing babel. Intending passengers clutched bags and baskets; fathers of families gave a last eye to the luggage; ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... served under Halleck in the advance on Corinth, and in the autumn commanded in the campaign in Kentucky against Bragg. After a period of manoeuvring in which Buell scarcely held his own, this virtually ended in the indecisive battle of Perryville. The alleged tardiness of his pursuit, and his objection to a plan of campaign ordered by the Washington authorities, brought about Buell's removal from command. With all his gifts as an organizer and disciplinarian, he was haughty in his dealings with the civil authorities, and, in high command, he showed, on the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... tardiness in the progress of physical science for some time after the era of the revival of learning is to be accounted for by referring to the erroneous methods of reasoning and observation then prevalent in the world. A false logic was adopted in the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... exclaimed; "make haste, off with your slough—Here I stand tight and true—as loyal a lad as ever stuck rapier through a roundhead.—Come, sir, to your tools!" he continued; "we may have half-a-dozen thrusts before they come yet, and shame them for their tardiness.—Pshaw!" he exclaimed, in a most disappointed tone, when the Doctor, unfolding his cloak, showed his clerical dress; "Tush! it's but ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... what laggard steps, with what oppressive tardiness, came the dawn, in long streaks of lurid light above the edge of the ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... chambers, and two long galleries." Osborne the bookseller purchased them for L13,000: a sum little more than two thirds of the price of the binding, as paid by Lord Oxford. The bookseller was accused of injustice and parsimony; but the low prices which he afterwards affixed to the articles, and the tardiness of their sale, are sufficient refutations of this charge. Osborne opened his shop for the inspection of the books on Tuesday the 14th of February, 1744; for fear "of the curiosity of the spectators, before the sale, producing disorder in the disposition of the books." ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... home he had found his dinner growing cold, and Florou worrying over her master's unusual tardiness; it was full twenty minutes after noon! Although the professor was hungry and ate with relish, his mind was ill at ease. He yearned to talk to some one, but there was no one to talk to. He would have ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... their sales in foreign markets and prevents free access to the products of the world; the desire to retain trade in time-worn ruts, regardless of the inexorable laws of new needs and changed conditions of demand and supply, and our own halting tardiness in inviting a freer exchange of commodities, and by this means imperiling our footing in the external markets naturally open to us, have created a situation somewhat injurious to American export ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... both jaded and tired, they promptly spurred on to the front, and threw out scouts to the right and left. Major Denison was restrained from pushing ahead too rapidly, as he was obliged to regulate his march by the pace of the infantry, and his men chafed with the tardiness, as they were all eager to get into a brush ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... division of Ewell's corps, which reached the field in time to share in the first day's success. Now, it nowhere appears in Lee's report of Gettysburg that he ordered Longstreet to him or blamed him for tardiness; but his report admits errors, and quietly takes the responsibility for them on his own broad shoulders. A recent article in the public press, signed by General Longstreet, ascribes the failure at Gettysburg to Lee's mistakes, which he (Longstreet) in vain pointed ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... told her this. He was in an ugly mood, sarcastic about Mamise's tardiness, and bitter with the knowledge that all the work of building another Clara had to be carried through with its endless detail and the chance of the same futility. He was as sick about it as a Carlyle who must rewrite a ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... soon in the lead of the pursuers, and appeared, by his later zeal, to be making amends for his earlier tardiness. As he ran ahead ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... the foot of the debtors' wing my clothes were set out, and some kind hand had spread a piece of bright carpet for my feet. I dressed very leisurely. With equal tardiness I went through the ceremony of receiving my effects, carefully checking every article, and counting the money coin by coin. The Governor tendered me half a sovereign, the highest sum a prisoner can earn. "Thank you," I said, "but I can't take their money." We had ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... years to pass before rewarding Gama. He then bestowed upon him the title of Admiral of the Indies, and authorized him to use the prefix of Dom before his name, a privilege then rarely granted. Also, doubtless to make Vasco da Gama forget the tardiness with which his services had been rewarded, the king gave him 1000 crowns, a considerable sum for that period, and also conceded to him certain privileges in connexion with the commerce of the Indies, which were likely speedily ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... behind a common mask of astonishment as blank as had been his own. They were waiting for his answer; he knew they were waiting for that as he crossed to the door. And when he paused there, to turn in sudden savagery, he realized that his tardiness had robbed him of his chance. It was too late to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... between Spain and Portugal relative to an exchange of territory, and troops were ordered to effect the exchange. Measures of this rank were unexpected by the Jesuits. They had reckoned upon the proverbial tardiness of the Peninsular councils; but they were determined not to relinquish their prize without a struggle. They accordingly armed the natives, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... careful not to come early. No one could be more punctual than General Korsackoff, and his example was no doubt carefully watched and followed. It is a rule throughout official circles in Russia, if I am correctly informed, that tardiness implies disrespect. Americans might take a few lessons of the Russians on ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... passed and no carriage appeared, neither did a line come from the expected lady explaining her tardiness. Hope deferred made Miss Gordon's nerves unsteady and her heart hard towards the cause of her daily disappointment. By some process of unreason which often develops in the aggrieved feminine mind, she conceived of Elizabeth as that cause, and the unfortunate child found herself, all uncomprehending ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... whom he is writing had been absent at the time; and the leading motive of Browne's letter is the deep impression he has received during those visits, of a sort of [153] physical beauty in the coming of death, with which he still surprises and moves his reader. There had been, in this case, a tardiness and reluctancy in the circumstances of dissolution, which had permitted him, in the character of a physician, as it were to assist at the spiritualising of the bodily frame by natural process; a wonderful new type of a kind of mortified grace being evolved ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... By this time, the plague having subsided in the capital, and all danger of infection passed away, his majesty was anxious to reach London, yet loth to leave his mistress, whom he visited every morning, and to whom he exhibited the uttermost tenderness. And his tardiness to return becoming displeasing to the citizens, and they being aware of its cause, it was whispered in taverns and cried in the streets, "The king cannot go away till my Lady Castlemaine be ready to come along with him," which ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... have generally been overlooked; and it seems desirable to put them forward at once; especially as a very considerable body of occult philosophical teaching is now before the world, and as those who appreciate its value best, will sometimes be inclined to protest all the more emphatically against the tardiness with which it has been served out, and the curious precautions with which its further development is ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... know, but faithfully to discharge them. Judge Martin was conscientious in all that he did as a man, and remarkably scrupulous as a judge. He was unwilling to hasten his judgments, and sometimes was accused of tardiness in rendering them. This resulted from the great care exercised in examining the merits of the case, and to make himself sure of the ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... tardiness in nature Which often leaves the history unspoke That it intends to do?—My lord of Burgundy, What say you to the lady? Love's not love When it is mingled with regards that stands Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her? She ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... your opinions of confinement, honest friend, you had better manifest the same, by putting us at liberty with as little delay as possible," said Middleton, who, like his companion, began to find the tardiness of his often-tried companion quite as extraordinary ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in the begetting of men that breeding from the worst stocks may be said to be the rule. As long as in our ideas on these questions superstition remains the guide there is nothing to hope for and much to fear. The new ideal is only beginning, and beginning with a tardiness that is a reproach to human foresight. But herein lies the glad hope of the future. I place my trust in the enlightened conscience of the economically emancipated mothers, and in the awakened fathers, to work out some scheme of sexual salvation as will ensure ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... memory of the faithful, written the lives of the saints, certainly with a pious intent, but in a most unhandsome style. Wherefore, in reading the lives and acts of the saints composed in a rude manner or barbarous dialect, disgust is often excited, and not seldom tardiness of belief. And hence it is that the life of the most glorious priest Patrick, the patron and apostle of Ireland, so illustrious in signs and miracles, being frequently written by illiterate persons, through the confusion and obscurity of the ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... upon them, and they are afraid to remind themselves of their decay, or to discover to their own hearts that the time of trifling is past. A perpetual conflict with natural desires seems to be the lot of our present state. In youth we require something of the tardiness and frigidity of age; and in age we must labour to recal the fire and impetuosity of youth; in youth we must learn to expect, and in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... he read in the dark grayness of approaching day. "Hast go enough in thee left to do it, old fellow? Damn Lee for his tardiness and folly, which forces man and beast to journey in such cold." Pulling a flask from his pocket, he uncorked it. "There's scarce a drop left, but thou shouldst have half, if it would serve thee," he ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... reverses came thick and fast. One miserable day, when from early morning everything had gone wrong, an importunate creditor, of wealth and great influence in the community, chafed at Mr. Aubrey's tardiness in repaying some trifling sum, proceeded to taunt and insult him most unwisely. Stung to madness, the wretched man resented the insults; a struggle ensued, and at its close Mr. Aubrey stood over the corpse of the creditor. There ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... to the first of Mrs. James Bellingham's receptions with the expectation of pleasure which the earlier receptions of the season awaken even in the oldest and wisest. But they tried to dissemble their eagerness in a fashionable tardiness. "We get later and later," said Mrs. Brinkley to John Munt, as she sat watching the slow gathering of the crowd. By half-past eleven it had not yet hidden Mrs. Bellingham, where she stood near the middle of the room, from ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to be a minute behind the time. The dinner can not be served till all the guests have arrived. If it is spoiled through your tardiness, you are responsible not only to your inviter, but to his outraged guests. Better be too late for the steamer or the railway train ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... proportion of children suffering more or less seriously from eye trouble has led many persons to suggest physical deterioration as the cause. Eye specialists, however, assure us that eye troubles are probably as old as man. Our tardiness in learning the facts regarding these troubles is due in part to the lack, until recently, of instruments for examining the eye and for manufacturing glasses to correct eye defects; in part, also, to the tendency of the medical profession, which I shall repeatedly mention, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... for he was always the first on hand to fix some plan of mechanism to make the teacher miserable. She looked reprovingly at him this morning, when he came in during the arithmetic class, his hair all wind-blown, cheeks rosy from a hard fight with the sharp blasts. But he made up for his tardiness by his extreme goodness all day; just think, Titee didn't even eat in school. A something unparalleled in the entire ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... the contrary circumstance, of a muscular irritability high and unusually prolonged. It follows that there is a connection through causation between the degree of muscular irritability after death, and the tardiness and prolongation of ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... came late, keeping the court waiting, the queen, who was always vexed by tardiness, presented her with her own watch, saying, "I am afraid your's ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... care of herself. This half-crown, a fund that will overshadow the earth before it comes to be wanted under the provisions of my will, is to be improved at any interest whatever—no matter what; for the vast period of the accumulations will easily make good any tardiness of advance, long before the time comes for its commencing payment; a point which will be soon understood from the following explanation, by any gentleman that ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... them—a boy and girl—gained the trader's gate ahead of their excited companions, and, leaning their backs against the white palings, mocked the rest for their tardiness in the race. With one arm around the girl's lissom waist, the boy, Maturei, short, thickset, muscular, and the bully of the village, beat off with his left hand those who sought to displace them from the gate; and the girl, thin, creole-faced, with soft, red-lipped mouth, ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... conservative reaction which made head during the first years of the republic. From 1872 onwards for some five or six years his paper, the XIXe Siecle, of which he was the heart and soul, became a power in the land. But the republicans never quite forgave the tardiness of his conversion, and no place rewarded his later zeal. On the 23rd January 1884 he was elected a member of the French Academy, but died on the 16th of January 1885, before taking his seat. His journalism—-of which specimens in his ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... confessions. It was the hour of vespers when these two aged and noble men were led out to be burned; they were tied each to the stake. The flames kindled dully and heavily; the wood, hastily piled up, was green or wet; or in cruel mercy the tardiness was designed that the victims might have time, while the fire was still curling round their extremities, to recant their bold recantation. But there was no sign, no word of weakness. Du Molay implored that the image of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... home. Yet to delay is painful; for, as is ALWAYS the case, I believe, under her circumstances, she seems herself not half conscious of the necessity for such delay. She wonders, I believe, why I don't talk more about the journey: it grieves me to think she may even be hurt by my seeming tardiness. She is very much emaciated,—far more than when you were with us; her arms are no thicker than a little child's. The least exertion brings a shortness of breath. She goes out a little every day, but we creep rather than walk. . . . Papa continues pretty well;—I hope I shall be enabled ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... I sat beside him, noting that his enthusiasm was very like relief. For if any one was present, he well knew that his masterful Amanda would say nothing of his tardiness. And so it was, for as we entered the kitchen she entirely overlooked her husband in her amazement ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... had been denied. Later in the day, his wounded vanity was somewhat soothed by learning the calamity which had befallen Count Tristan, at Madeleine's house; though his lordship could hardly deem even such an event sufficient excuse for her tardiness in replying to a letter of so much importance. In reality, Madeleine had entirely forgotten her suitor and his letter. She glanced hastily over his second epistle, and, without further delay, wrote a few frigid lines conveying ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... commenced crossing the Moselle with his vanguard. The entire body of troops, however, did not reach the river; for, three corps, which had been encamped to the eastward of the fortress, delayed their departure until the afternoon—a tardiness that enabled Steinmetz to attack their rear and detain them on the spot, until the flanking movement of Prince Frederick Charles' army beyond the Moselle towards Pont-a-Mousson had been completed. A bloody and indecisive action was the result, in which, if the Germans did not ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... quick and measured tread, but pass carelessly, easily along, as though it was a luxury and not a task to walk. Children are seen in little companies, plucking the flowers and forcing the buds from their stems, as though to punish them for their tardiness. ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... will not deny also that I was savagely stung by mortification; for a man is so made that he does not relish a refusal any the more for being aware that he has not too anxiously sought acceptance; but, on the contrary, his self-reproach for that tardiness of his is made more bitter by the rebuff. He feels that he has deserved it, and is the more ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... allowed to pass in this community without profuse lamentations over the tardiness of our spring as compared with that of England and the poets. Yet it is very common to exaggerate this difference. Even so good an observer as Wilson Flagg is betrayed into saying that the epigaea and hepatica "seldom make their appearance until after the middle of April" in Massachusetts, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... was increasing in America. Most of the things managed by divine instinct are characterised by speed—rapid currents, swift lightnings, swift coming and going of lives. In the old-fashioned days a man got a notion that there was sanctity in tardiness. It was a great mistake. In America we had arrived at that state of mind when we wanted everything fast—first and fast. Fast horses, fast boats, fast runners are all good things ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... was striking seven when he quitted the cellar and London was awake in earnest. Alban usually spent twopence in the luxury of a "wash and brush up" before he went down to the river; but he hastened on this morning conscious of his tardiness and troubled at the possible consequences. The bright spring day did little to reassure him. Weather does not mean very much to those who labor in heated atmospheres, who have no profit of the sunshine ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... always contrived to make it a leisure time; and there was so much merriment in talking over the walk, and discussing the plans for the Pleasance, that Henrietta resolved never again to miss such a pleasant reunion by her own tardiness. ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pitiful in her thoughts of Julia, who would in her turn have pitied her for her delusion could she have known how sure she was that but for the tardiness of that letter Guy would have chosen his first love in preference to ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... task; but, ashamed of having so long left our Northern sisters to toil and endure alone in a cause which is not one of section but of humanity, we come forward at last to assume our share of the hardship, trusting that what we have lost in our tardiness may be made ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... divine condescension and forbearance, when the wicked, instead of being withered at a touch, are allowed time for reflection.— The ordinary dispensations of Providence are characterized by a merciful tardiness: the daring transgressor is addressed by reiterated appeals, and perhaps placed under a course of moral discipline: he is not smit by the thunder, or blasted by the lightning; but a series of smaller precursory punishments precedes a great catastrophe: his way is hedged ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... the implied reproach of her guest's tardiness, but crossing the room to a big chair, whither Tzaritza had already preceded her to rub noses with a magnificent white Persian cat, she stooped to stroke Sultana, who graciously condescended to purr and nestle her beautiful head against Peggy's hand. Sultana had ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... No. 64 (Montale); and Zooel. Myth. II. p. 382 (Leghorn), with which compare Indian Fairy Tales, p. 292. In Fiabe Mant. No. 24, we have father's gifts and sympathetic ring; but the danger to monster does not depend on the tardiness of his bride. In Zool. Myth. II. p. 381 (Piedmont), we have father's gift; but danger to monster results from wife's revealing his name to her sisters. Schneller, No. 25, contains the usual introduction (father's gifts), but the monster, a snake, accompanies his bride on her ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... envelope, containing a tiny sheet of very thick note-paper, whereon it was written that Lady Whitelaw regretted her tardiness in replying to him (caused by her absence from home), and hoped he would be able to call upon her, at ten o'clock next morning, at the house of her sisters, the Misses Lumb, where she was stopping for a day—she ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... think of to explain the tardiness of his return. The eyes of the widowed mother have been of late more watchful than wont. She has noticed her son's abstracted air, and heard sighs that seemed to come from his inner heart. Who can mistake the signs of love, either in man or woman? Mrs Clancy does not. She sees ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Curly at length become that he decided to throw all caution to the wind. He was very anxious over Dan's tardiness in returning, and feared lest his scheme had failed. He knew full well that if Jim Weston should suddenly appear and find him in such an embarrassing situation it would go hard with him. It would ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... went their ways; and as our own tardiness had belated her, I offered to help her to carry out the dishes. It was the work of only a moment to dry them, so I did that. She was so small that she had to stand on a box in order to be comfortable while she washed the cups ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... schools with six consolidated schools. Some of the children are brought as far as five miles in wagons, or on the interurban electric cars. The wagon calls at stated hours, and the children must be ready. Tardiness is therefore reduced, until one county reports ten hundred and ninety-one cases of tardiness in its district schools (for 1910-11) and ninety-two cases in consolidated schools, although in this county there are more children ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... game of tag her lover was playing, with death the penalty for tardiness. The slow, enticing movements were repeated again and again, Phil advancing very close, and stepping back in the nick of time. Always he barely avoided the clutching white arms that were extended, and little by little he ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... that although receipt did not imply acceptance the tardiness of this letter did argue a probability that the manuscript had successfully passed some sort of preliminary reading—or readings—and now awaited only the verdict of ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... her waist was smaller and her back straighter and the fall of her shoulders finer; her long eyes were more oddly charming and the extreme detachment of her elbows from her sides conduced still more to the exhibition of her beautiful arms. So she floated, with a serenity not disturbed by a general tardiness, through the interminable succession of her engagements. Her photographs were not to be purchased in the Burlington Arcade—she had kept out of that; but she looked more than ever as they would have represented her if they had been obtainable ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... shocked at her own tardiness, and went all the quicker now to make arrangements for breakfast. The bouillon was again had recourse to, the servants were refreshed with salmon, bacon, and curds thawed ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... going out alone with grandmother to-day, and having known all the morning at what time she was to be ready, there was no excuse for her tardiness. ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... the magistrate, and excused himself for his tardiness. He had been busy with some book-keeping, which he did every morning; and his wife had had to send ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... been correct. It was habit, disturbed by the tardiness of accustomed tribute, that stirred at moments, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... expressing his regret at his long alienation from a Prince to whom he had been once indebted for so many favours, and who certainly never harboured resentment against man. Brummell evidently repented his tardiness on this occasion; for he made up his mind to make a more direct experiment when the King should visit the town-hall on his return. But opportunities once thrown away are seldom regained. The king on his return did not visit the town-hall, but hurried on board, and the last chance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... love had to do what God Himself has called 'His strange work.' Divine Justice travels slowly, but arrives at last. Her foot is 'leaden' both in regard to its tardiness and its weight. There is no ground in the long postponement of retribution for the fond dream that it will never come, though men lull themselves to sleep with that lie. 'Because sentence against an evil work is not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... months before. There was a heaviness about the eyes and there were strange, persistent lines gathering under the soft, white tissues of her skin. But when she at last stepped into the presence of her guests, with ample apologies for her tardiness, she was the picture of life and nerve. So much for the excellent resources ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Doctor in his most awful voice, "if it were my custom to rebuke my assistants before the school (which it is not), I should feel forced to remind you that this tardiness in rising is a bad beginning of the day's work, and sets a bad example ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... but still Dan Kenyon stood at his post, oblivious of the hungry saws. Ten seconds passed; then Zeb Curry, immeasurably scandalized at Daniel's tardiness, tooted the whistle sharply twice; whereupon Dan woke up, threw over the lever, and walked his log up ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... old housekeeper opened the windows. All that was here,—peace, and happiness, and a reasonable life,—and yet it never struck me to come and live in it. Looking back I am astonished, and can in no way account for the tardiness of my discovery that here, in this far-away corner, was my kingdom of heaven. Indeed, so little did it enter my head to even use the place in summer, that I submitted to weeks of seaside life with all its horrors every year; until at last, in the early spring of last year, having come down ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... Mr Monckton, who, had he been equally unconscious of sinister views, would in following his own inclination, have been as early in his attendance as Mr Morrice; but who, to obviate all suspicious remarks, conformed to the fashionable tardiness of the times. ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... them both off this time, Mammy. Dabney can take the trunks where they belong and lock them up," I said, as I went toward the dining room, while she followed to minister upon my tardiness. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... he said, "you have, by your tardiness, missed hearing that Brother Daniel Becker has written to us from the land of the Caffres, and has desired us to choose a wife for him. The lots have just now been cast, and the Lord has directed it ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... his first demand was for "Mastika," a peculiar Greek drink distilled from mastic gum, and his second demand invariably was "Du beurre!" with the "r's" as silent as the stars; and if it failed to come at once the waiter was made to feel the enormity of his tardiness. ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... certain actress who has "come to the front of her profession" holds, for a time, the record of delay. "Come to the front," do they say? Surely the front of her profession must have moved in retreat, to gain upon her tardiness. It must have become the back of her profession before ever it ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell |
