"Behindhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was thus betraying his master, the master, not to be behindhand with him, betrayed his servant. His self-love, and some remnant of respect to the Church, made him shudder at the idea of seeing a contemptible agent invested with the same hat which he himself wore as a crown, and seated as high as himself, except as to the precarious ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to serve you with my utmost credit and influence. "I return you my best thanks for the wishes you express, and the attachment you so kindly profess. You honour me too much by repeating my name amidst the bosom of the Alps! be assured, that I shall not be behindhand in making the saloons of Paris and Versailles resound with yours. Had I leisure for the undertaking, I would go and teach it to the only mountain worthy of re-echoing it—at the foot of Parnassus. "I am, sir, yours, etc., etc." You perceive, my ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Andersen was talking about the exhibit of students' work she had seen at the Art Institute that afternoon. Several of her friends had sketches in the exhibit. Thea, who always felt that she was behindhand in courtesy to Mrs. Andersen, thought that here was an opportunity to show interest without committing herself to anything. "Where is that, the Institute?" she ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... as she said; they had to work hard, and they were always behindhand with their work. She learned from Cecilia that, apart from the canonical directions for Divine Service, there existed an unwritten code for pious observances—some saints were honoured by having their banner ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... any blocks ready that he might carry away with him. The novelist was usually at breakfast when he called, and would request that his visitor might be shown into the library. There he would presently join him and, if he were behindhand with his work, would request Mr. Swain to have a seat, a cigar, and a chat, while he produced a Punch drawing "while you wait." "Ah, Swain!" he said one day, looking up from his block, when he was more than usually confidential, "if it had not been for ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... one of his company to Mr. Hosier's, who was a good generous-hearted man, better than any Englishman we had met with in this country. He had formerly had much business with Mr. Moll, but their affairs in England running behindhand a little, they both came and settled down here; and, therefore, Mr. Moll and he had a great regard for each other. He showed us very particular attention, although we were strangers. Something was immediately set before Mr. Commegys and ourselves to eat, in which the ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... no means behindhand: Dante, Giotto, Brunelleschi, and Donatello were dead, but Ariosto, Raphael, Bramante, and Michael Angelo were now living. Rome, Florence, and Naples had inherited the masterpieces of antiquity; and the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... London theatres to surpass the best professional comic actors when he chose to put forth his powers. I did not know this then. I thought him a little formal, but particularly courteous in his manner, and not wishing to be behindhand in politeness, I replied, with as much of his style as I could assume, "Certainly, sir. But that is because my father was an Honourable. My father, sir, was the most ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... get through my work in the morning, but I find myself behindhand to-day. It is wonderful," he added, directing his conversation and his benevolent gaze towards White, "how busy an idle ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... minister preached from the text, "Be sure your sin will find you out;" and in the afternoon from "Pride goeth before a fall." He was grand. In the evening Sandy tendered his resignation of office, which was at once accepted. Wobs were behindhand for a week owing to the length of the prayers offered up for Bell; and Lang Tammas ruled ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... meantime, at the bottom of Paul's pocket, lay a bill of fifty dollars for publishing expenses. What was to be done? The bill must be paid. It would never do to let the March Hare run behindhand. To begin to run into debt was ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... stand over; reserve &c (store) 636; temporize; consult one's pillow, sleep on it. lose an opportunity &c 135; be kept waiting, dance attendance; kick one's heels, cool one's heels; faire antichambre [Fr.]; wait impatiently; await &c (expect) 507; sit up, sit up at night. Adj. late, tardy, slow, behindhand, serotine^, belated, postliminious^, posthumous, backward, unpunctual, untimely; delayed, postponed; dilatory &c (slow) 275; delayed &c v.; in abeyance. Adv. late; lateward^, backward; late in the day; at sunset, at the eleventh hour, at length, at last; ultimately; after time, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... obliged the collectors to wring out the hard-earned copper pieces one or two at a time. The tardy were vexed with fines and distraints. Furniture, doors, the very rafters and floors were sold for unpaid taxes. In the time of Louis XV., if a whole village fell too much behindhand, its four principal inhabitants might be seized and carried off to jail. This corporal joint-liability was ended by a law passed under the ministry of Turgot, and apparently not repealed on his fall.[Footnote: Horn, 238; Vauban; Bailly, ii. ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... portion, the modest fellow,' added James. 'Ay, and that's not all. There's the MacAlpin threats me with all his clan if I dinna give you to him; and Mackay is not behindhand, but will come down with pibroch and braidsword and five hundred caterans to pay his court to you, and make short work of all others. My certie, sisters seem but a cause for threats from reivers, though maybe they would not be so uncivil if once ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... connections,—with what prodigality we both squandered ourselves in courting almost every sort of enmity for his sake, I believe he felt, just as I should have felt such friendship on such an occasion. I partook, indeed, of this honor with several of the first and best and ablest in the kingdom, but I was behindhand with none of them; and I am sure, that, if, to the eternal disgrace of this nation, and to the total annihilation of every trace of honor and virtue in it, things had taken a different turn from what they did. I should have attended him to the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... roses and hid it in her bosom. Then the sparrows thought that the roses reigned here, and that the house had been built for their sake. That appeared to them to be really too much, but since all the people showed their love for the roses, they did not wish to be behindhand. "Peep!" they said sweeping the ground with their tails, and blinking with one eye at the roses, they had not looked at them long before they were convinced that they were their old neighbours. And so they really were. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... enjoyment from its surroundings. The hospitality of the plantations was open to the officers, and wherever Stuart and his brigadiers pitched their tents, dances and music were the order of the day. Nor were the men behindhand. Even the heavy snow afforded them entertainment. Whenever a thaw took place they set themselves to making snow-balls; and great battles, in which one division was arrayed against another, and which were carried through with ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... you are not going to be a fighting man, sir; and, behindhand as you are with your studies, I think you might try a little more to do your instructor credit, and not waste time with one of the servants in such a barbaric pursuit as this. Lady Royland is waiting breakfast. You ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... This is an expensive hotel, and the rent is high. We find it so difficult to make the place pay that we are behindhand with the rent. Sir Harry Brace, our landlord, has been very kind in waiting, but we can't expect him to stand out of his money much longer. I'm afraid in the end we'll have to give up The Derby Winner. But it is no good my worrying you about our troubles,' concluded Bell, in a more vivacious ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the Naval Airship section was once more reconstituted and was stationed at Farnborough. The first requirements were airships, and owing to the fact that airship construction was so behindhand in this country, in comparison with the Continent, it was determined that purchases should be made abroad until sufficient experience had been gained by British firms to enable them to compete with any chance of success ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... since that they expressed the sad truth. Well! to return to those days, you know that after the siege we were obliged to work on Sundays, because Mr. Goulden while serving as a gunner on the ramparts had neglected his work and we were behindhand. So that on that morning as on the others I lighted the fire in our little stove and prepared the breakfast; the windows were open and we could hear the noise ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... cowardice and wanton barbarity; then, with a yell of righteous fury our lads turned again to their guns, which thenceforward were loaded and fired independently, and as rapidly as possible. The slavers on their part were not behindhand in alacrity, and presently we received another broadside from the brig, closely followed by one from the brigantine, the guns being in both cases aimed as before, with similar murderous results, and with a repetition ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... on August 10th], offering to try to raise some companies of horse-riflemen out here, in the event of trouble with Mexico. Won't you telegraph me at once if war becomes inevitable? Out here things are so much behindhand that I might not hear of things for a week. I have not the least idea there will be any trouble, but as my chances of doing anything in the future worth doing seem to grow continually smaller, I intend to grasp at every opportunity ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... long consideration. The beat of the flail on barn floors was a regular winter sound at Uphill, as in all the country round, but to get all the corn threshed and winnowed by a curious revolving fan with four canvas sails, was a troublesome affair, making farmers behindhand in coming to the market. And as soon as he could afford the venture the Captain obtained a machine to be worked by horse-power, for steam had hardly been brought as yet into use even for sea traffic, and the first railway was ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of a Winter—we wonder—are we to have in the way of wind and weather? We trust it will be severe. As summer set in with his usual severity, Winter must not be behindhand with him; but after an occasional week's rain of a commendably boisterous character, must come out in full fig of frost. He has two suits which we greatly admire, combining the splendour of a court-dress with the strength of a work-day garb—we mean his garments of black and ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... I have begun too late. I am doing now what I ought to have done when I was a girl, and I have always the feeling of being behindhand." ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... to the stable, and saddled the pony and the donkey, and led them out to the play-ground, where Napoleon treated them in turn to a very fine dance on his hind-legs, and Old Pudding-head, not to be behindhand in politeness, gave all the little boys a somersault over his nose. They had a first-rate frolic, and did not think ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... are behindhand with their contributions, and, being deaf to remonstrance, I am obliged to apply to you, to use ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... aldermen, and the common-council then resolved that whoever refused to consent to a dutiful petition, tending to undeceive the king, and by which the effusion of one drop of blood of the subjects of Great Britain might be prevented, was an enemy to the constitution. The Irish parliament was not behindhand with the common-council in exhibiting sympathy for the cause of the Americans. Soon after it assembled, which was on the 10th of October, the members rejected a money-bill transmitted from England, upon the plea that it ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... only waiting for your further orders to put in the bulb, you know that I must be behindhand with you, as I have in my favour all the chances of good air, of the ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... that began it. I was just off, and some outlying scrap of my mind was behindhand, and that stone saw it and pounced on it. I remembered more after that. I know I was rather glad to start off to the new gold river, because of Ernestine Clemenceau. I don't think I should have cared to marry Ernestine. Anyhow, I didn't. She seems to me Harrisson's affair now. Don't laugh ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... of a coal-heaver, the courage of a lion, and the tongue of Dean Swift, he could knock down booksellers and silence bargees; he was melancholy almost to madness, 'radically wretched,' indolent, blinded, diseased. Poverty was long his portion; not that genteel poverty that is sometimes behindhand with its rent, but that hungry poverty that does not know where to look for its dinner. Against all these things had this 'old struggler' to contend; over all these things did this 'old struggler' prevail. Over even the fear ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... footing altogether weak and unsubstantial. They had shown their own timidity, and had confessed, by the nature of their fiscal transactions, that they knew themselves to be small. To their advertising agents they should never have been behindhand in their payments for one day; but they should have been bold in demanding credit from their bank, and should have given their orders to the wholesale houses without any of that hesitation or reserve which so clearly ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... would, and nothing could stop him. He did not do it because it would be harmful, but because he hoped it was not yet too late to achieve by it the good which it would have done if applied earlier. His comprehension was always a train or two behindhand. If a national toe required amputating, he could not see that it needed anything more than poulticing; when others saw that the mortification had reached the knee, he first perceived that the toe needed cutting off—so he cut it off; and he severed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... for men to be wrong in their feelings concerning public misconduct; as rare to be right in their speculation upon the cause of it. I have constantly observed that the generality of people are fifty years, at least, behindhand in their politics. There are but very few who are capable of comparing and digesting what passes before their eyes at different times and occasions, so as to form the whole into a distinct system. But in books everything is settled for them, without the exertion of any ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... answered that, having traveled almost incessantly during the last year, we could not help being a bit behindhand in the questions of modern science, and that we were not able to follow its ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... who have yet had an opportunity of acquainting themselves with Sun Tzu are not behindhand in their praise. In this connection, I may perhaps be excused for quoting from a letter from Lord Roberts, to whom the sheets of the present work were submitted previous to publication: "Many of Sun ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... makes one pound one. I may reckon my year's earnin' at just double that money, and that leaves me twenty-one shillin' for a whole year's food, an' fire, an' clothes, an' shoes; and I've got to keep up some sort of a place to live in. An' there's odds an' ends. Is it a wonder if I'm behindhand with my interest payments? ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... their stay. The circular prepared for the members gives every information as to routes, distances, fares, &c., so that they may make all their arrangements before leaving England. The telegraph companies, not to be behindhand, undertake to transmit messages during the meeting for members from Montreal to all parts of Canada and the United States ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... distress you when it could have done no good to anyone.—I have been thinking of paying you a visit this fall, but I now think it extremely doubtful whether I shall be able to. Not being able to even attend to my hands, much less work myself, I am getting behindhand, so that I shall have to stay here and attend to my business. Cannot some of you come and pay us a visit? Jennie has not answered Julia's letter yet. Did she receive it? I was coming to the city the day it ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... neglected his business; upon which, all business left him; and, finding nothing to do, he followed Keimer to Barbadoes, taking the printing-house with him. There this apprentice employ'd his former master as a journeyman; they quarrel'd often; Harry went continually behindhand, and at length was forc'd to sell his types and return to his country work in Pensilvania. The person that bought them employ'd Keimer to use them, but in a few years ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... and all the while Esther was growing more and more vexed, until, when Cousin Charlotte at last sprang up, exclaiming, "My dear children, do you know how long we have been talking? I must hurry away this minute, or I shall be behindhand all day!" the limit of poor ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the day I worked for myself, throughout the night for you, and nothing is behindhand. Each day adds to our internal strength, that gives us consideration abroad, and soon we shall hold our own as one of the four great European powers, mightier than in the days when the sun never set upon ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... done their best, Mr. Malcolm; but what with committees and deputations and Heaven knows what, my mistress has been driven almost out of her senses. The maids are in the dining-room now, for there's to be tea and light refreshment; and they've been behindhand too with the plants from Covent Garden, drat them," muttered the old man irritably. He was a faithful servant, and true to his mistress's interests; but he was growing old, and there were times when he longed to sit quietly under his own fig tree, in the Surrey village where he was born, where ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... started and the point of opposition—the entire distance I had to gain as measured along his path—was about 116 millions of miles; so that, trusting to the terrestrial impulse alone, I should be some 30 millions behindhand at the critical moment. The apergic force must make up for this loss of ground, while driving me in a direction, so to speak, at right angles with that of the orbit, or along its radius, straight outward from the Sun, forty odd millions of ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... of the Patent Office; and yet, notwithstanding that this enormous amount is lying idle, our pseudo-economists at the Capitol refuse to grant the Office sufficient of its own funds to carry on its business promptly. So much is the work behindhand in some of the departments that, as the Commissioner states in his report, some of the attorneys who require certified copies of papers have been obliged to employ their own clerks to do office copying, and then had to pay the full legal rate of ten cents per hundred words, the same as though ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... such work and the authorities at home who deal with their collections. I remember a conversation in the hut during the last bad winter. Men were arguing fiercely that professionally they lost a lot by being down South, that they fell behindhand in current work, got out of the running and so forth. There is a lot in that. And then the talk went on to the publication of results, and the way in which they would wish them done. A said he wasn't going to hand over his work to be mucked up by such and such a body at home; B said he wasn't ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Catholics, who usually outdo us in their work among the poor, seemed a little behindhand in this special department of settling the Arabs. They have schools largely attended in Tudor Place, Tottenham Court Road, White Lion Street, Seven Dials, &c., but, as far as I could ascertain, nothing local in the shape of a Refuge. To ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... see, my time is everything to me; and I am already a little behindhand, in occasionally nursing the poor woman Morel; and you may imagine that an hour in one way and an hour in another makes in time a day; a day brings thirty sous, and if we earn nothing one must still live all the same. But, pshaw! never ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... as antiquated and behindhand as any I have seen in France, which is saying a good deal. A French gentleman, native of these parts, told me that in his grandfather's time our Hotel du Grand Monarque enjoyed a fine reputation. ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... might be beautifully dressed all the time without giving much thought to it myself; and that is what I should like. But this constant planning about one's toilet, changing your buttons and your fringes and your bonnet-trimmings and your hats every other day, and then being behindhand! It ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... down on the seat of stone nevir hewin with mennes hand, and declared he had a nap,—just enough to make him a poet. To prove which he wrote a long poem on the finding of Taliesin in the nets, and sent it to the Aberystwith newspaper; while I, not to be behindhand, wrote another, in imitation of the triplets of Llydwarch Hen, which were so greatly admired as tributes to Welsh poetry that they were forthwith translated faithfully into lines of consonants, touched up with so ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... I would,' she said eagerly; 'but I don't know what would come of it. We're dreadfully behindhand this month, and if he were to go away, people would be down on us; they'd think he wanted to ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was not behindhand with some moral reflections on this fruitful theme, and both adduced a mass of evidence, of such weight as to render it doubtful—not whether the deceased was of the age suggested, but whether she had not almost reached the patriarchal term of ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... first giving at his residence in the Cockpit, a great supper, after which "he entertained his majesty with several sorts of musick;" Next Earl Pembroke gave a rare banquet; also the Duke of Buckingham, my Lord Lumley, and many others. Nor was my lord mayor, Sir Thomas Allen, behindhand in extending hospitality to the king, whom he invited to sup with him. This feast, having no connection with the civic entertainments, was held at good Sir Thomas's house. The royal brothers of York and Gloucester were likewise bidden, together with several of the nobility and ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... as most men are, with things going on right under their eyes, it is not easy to baffle them when once their curiosity is roused. And yet curiosity is always imputed exclusively to women! Though Eve was the first to taste the apple, Adam had no intention of being behindhand. I know a man who always manages to get down to breakfast five minutes before the rest of his family, for the purpose of examining ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... VIII's reign the average number graduating was 57, and in Edward's reign the average was 33.[2] Naturally, therefore, some laxity crept into the administration of the University and the colleges. Active enemies of our literary treasures were not behindhand, In 1535 Dr. Layton, visitor of monasteries, descended upon Oxford. "We have sett Dunce [Duns Scotus] in Bocardo, and have utterly banisshede hym Oxforde for ever, with all his blinde glosses, and is nowe ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... of fine fielding, the average batting of the period is decidedly behindhand. What sight on a ball field is prettier to the good judge of the fine points of the game, than to see a hard hit "bounder" well stopped and accurately thrown from back of third base over to first base in time to cut off a rapid runner? or to see ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... the other, "he is not at all behindhand, and I lose nearly as many cattle as I get. But it gives me much more pleasure to kill one of his buffaloes or llamas, than it does pain me when he kills one of mine. I consider how much it will vex him, and that ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... Weissschnitzerdoerfer—what an interminable name—is not behindhand this time. On the contrary, it is the train this time which is five minutes late in starting; and the German has begun to complain, to chafe and to swear, and threatens to sue the company for damages. Ten thousand roubles—not a penny less!—if it causes him to fail. Fail in ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... making a little calculation: Four hours there and four hours back, that makes eight hours; it is now two o'clock, he'll be here at ten. No doubt he thought I was angry and sent Kutyfalvi on before. It was very nice of him to show me such respect. Well, I'll not be behindhand in expressing my regret for my hastiness—asking his pardon; and from henceforth we will be good friends and kinsmen, and I shall be able to rest in the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... not to be behindhand, would take his turn: "Well, little one, and when are you going to the ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... that I should do the job in an easy way. It is the only way I know to rip, but Frances knows another way that breaks your back and almost puts your eyes out, that makes you tired and behindhand and sure of a scolding. She shows me how to rip her way. The two threads of the machine, one from above and one from below, which make the stitch, must be separated. The work must be turned first ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Higgins," he said; "Higgins of Edge Farm. He has been very unfortunate. He was ill himself last autumn, and his children had scarlet fever. I can't say that he is a very good manager, but he has had ill-luck, and of course he is behindhand in many ways. He is in trouble about his rent now. Newick tells him if he doesn't pay it, he must leave the place; and of course that would be a very serious matter. His wife is ill, and he came to me yesterday to beg me to see about it, and ask you for time. He thinks if you would give him ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... behindhand for their wages (court musicians) But fit she should live where he hath a mind Gladder to have just now received it (than a promise) Most homely widow, but young, and pretty rich, and good natured No Parliament ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... a bit o' holly i' yon pig's mouth, that's the way we do things i' Newcassel; but folks is so behindhand in Monkshaven. It's a fine thing to live in a large town, Sylvia; an' if yo're looking out for a husband, I'd advise yo' to tak' one as lives in a town. I feel as if I were buried alive comin' back here, such an ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... said Debray, "confess that your cook is behindhand, that the oysters have not arrived from Ostend or Marennes, and that, like Madame de Maintenon, you are going to replace the dish by a story. Say so at once; we are sufficiently well-bred to excuse you, and to listen to your history, fabulous ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... principles effect! Where a joke is evidently intended, I never knew people more ready to join in it than these are. If ridiculed for any particularity of manner, figure, or countenance, they are sure not to be long behindhand in returning it, and that very often with interest. If we were the aggressors in this way, some ironical observation respecting the Kabloonas was frequently the consequence; and no small portion of wit as well as irony was at times mixed ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... reviews bestowed their longer and more careful criticism upon the new readings of that text, to elucidate which has been the devout industry of some of England's ripest scholars and profoundest thinkers; while the actors, not to be behindhand in a study especially concerning their vocation, adopted with more enthusiasm than discrimination some of the new readings, and showed a laudable acquaintance with the improved version, by exchanging undoubtedly the better for the worse, upon the authority ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... Spain, she found it impossible to get together more than 110 reals. She gave as an excuse that she had her railways to finish. The truth is that science is not looked upon very favourably in that country; it is still a little behindhand. And then certain Spaniards, and not the most ignorant either, had no clear conception of the size of the projectile compared with that of the moon; they feared it might disturb the satellite from her orbit, and make her fall on to the surface of the terrestrial globe. In that case it was better ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... was not behindhand; a public meeting was held in the Bull Hotel, on Aug. 10th, 1859, for the purpose of organizing a Rifle Corps, for the district, at which the Deputy Lieutenant attended. Among those present were Major Smart, of ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... doing its part, the executive government was not behindhand in pursuing the system which had been so much commended. A refusal to abjure the declaration in the terms prescribed, was everywhere considered as sufficient cause for immediate execution. In one part of the country information having been received that a corpse ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... had settled about the fire for an hour's delicious discussion, but she interrupted it to say soothingly, "It was her cousin, Dad, who's going to be married, and she's been trying to get hold of just the right person—she says she's fearfully behindhand—" ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... chota hasri and the announcement of my bath; but, somehow, there never seems to be very much time. Either the early tea is late or bath is early, or a shikar expedition, with a grass slipper in pursuit of flies, takes up the precious moments, and so the business of the day gets all behindhand. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... could hardly contain himself for joy, and broke down utterly when he tried to thank Jupp for rescuing his little son; while Joe the gardener, not to be behindhand in this general expression of good-will and gratitude, squeezed his quondam rival's fist in his, ejaculating over and over again, with a broad grin on his bucolic face, "You be's a proper sort, you be, hey, Meaister?" ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... was not behindhand in forwarding his version of events to the Egyptian court, and assuring the king of his unswerving fidelity. "Verily the king my lord knows," he says, "that the queen of the city of Sidon is the handmaid of the king my lord, who has ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... half of a five-pound note and whatever silver I have in my pocket," pulling out a great handful as he spoke, and counting up thirty-two and sixpence. "Very good," replied the Yorkshireman when he had finished, "I'm your man;—and not to be behindhand in point of liberality, I've got threepence that I received in change at the cigar divan just now, which I will add to the common stock, so that we shall have six pounds twelve and ninepence between us." "Between us!" exclaimed Mr. ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... offered, but I'm in haste and I'd rather trust my own lame leg than her four lagging ones. Besides, if Aleck has been afield in this search he'll be behindhand in his work, and he's a hand to keep things up to the level line. Good-by, good-by. Oh! wait a bit, though. I'd clean forgot that I put a scrap of white Scotch linen and a yard or two of plaid bodice stuff in my pack for you. This business ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... over with him. This was on Wednesday. Yesterday morning I called on Lord Wharncliffe, and told him what Richmond had said. He was sitting before a heap of papers, and when I told him this he laughed and said that Richmond was behindhand, that matters had gone a great deal further than this, and then proceeded to give me the following account of what had passed. A short time ago Palmerston spoke to his son, John Wortley, and expressed a desire that some compromise could ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... Edisto people who are now being distributed onto the plantations have nothing. With the chance of giving up the control so soon, Government has not supplied all that is necessary and work bids fair to be as behindhand here as it was last year. Where the people have gone to work at all—at this end of the island—they have started with "good encourage," but at other places it has been impossible to get them to start any cotton, though they work corn. This is ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... father's lifetime, took open part with some of the vassals of France in a temporary struggle against the throne. Louis, who had been worsted in a combat where both he and Charles bore a part, was not behindhand in his hatred. But inasmuch as one was haughty, audacious, and intemperate, the other was cunning, cool, and treacherous. Charles was the proudest, most daring, and most unmanageable prince that ever made the sword the ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... his desk overlooking the scholars, or stalked about the school-room with a certain awful birch rod in his hand. Now came a rap over the shoulders of a boy whom Mr. Toil had caught at play; now he punished a whole class who were behindhand with their lessons; and, in short, unless a lad chose to attend quietly and constantly to his book, he had no chance of enjoying a quiet moment in the school-room of ...
— Little Daffydowndilly - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... how all things are gone to sixes and sevens, he begins to have second thoughts, and says to his folks, What have you all been doing? How are all things out of order! I am I cannot tell how much behindhand; one may see if a man be but a little laid aside, that you have neither wisdom nor prudence to order things. And now, instead of seeking to spend the rest of his time for God, he doubleth his diligence after this world. Alas, ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... couldn't in reason expect to carry with her when her time came to go, wherever it was she might go to, and a houseful of furniture, old-fashioned, but strong and good still. So of course Sarah and I were not behindhand in going up to see the old lady, and taking her a pot or so of jam in fruiting season, or a turnover, maybe, on a baking-day, if the oven had been steady and the baking turned out well. And you couldn't have told from ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... receptions; but on the whole the society is diplomatic, and depends almost entirely upon the diplomatists for its existence and for its diversions. The lead once given, the old Greek aristocrats have not been behindhand in following it; but their numbers are small, and the movement and interest in Pera, or on the Bosphorus, centre in the great embassies, as they do nowhere ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... her attention to external things. It was now the season for planting and sowing; many gardens and allotments of the villagers had already received their spring tillage; but the garden and the allotment of the Durbeyfields were behindhand. She found, to her dismay, that this was owing to their having eaten all the seed potatoes,—that last lapse of the improvident. At the earliest moment she obtained what others she could procure, and in a few days her father was well enough to see to the garden, under Tess's persuasive efforts: ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... and that she had managed to give the passengers some coffee, bread and butter and ham and eggs, though they had had to wait their turns for cups and plates. It appeared that the driver had quarreled with the Lowry people that morning because the breakfast was behindhand and he was kept waiting. So he told his passengers that there was another tavern, a few miles down the road, and that he would take them ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... that she makes a very paltry and small appearance in the eyes of her friend, and betrays herself to be very much behindhand in the ways of the world, putting up meekly, as she is, with a new baby and no second nurse or laundress; and forgetting the day when she thought her fortune was made and she was a lady forever, coming from general housework in Aberdeen ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... promised the miners, but not furnished, in others still, the employers advance the miners small sums to be worked out afterwards, thus binding the debtors to themselves. In the North, the custom is general of keeping the payment of wages one week behindhand, chaining the miners in this way to their work. And to complete the slavery of these enthralled workers, nearly all the Justices of the Peace in the coal districts are mine owners themselves, or relatives or friends of mine ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... at grammar, though he hain't his beat for work; But I sez ter myself, "Look out, my gal, yer a-foolin' with a Turk!" Jake bore it wonderful patient, an' said in a mournful way, He p'sumed he was behindhand with the doin's at Injun Bay. I remember once he was askin' for some o' my Injun buns, An' she said he should allus say, "them air," stid o' "them is" the ones. Wal, Mary Ann kep' at him stiddy mornin' an' evenin' long, Tell he dassent open ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... mystery to him than ever; and as a parting shot I warmly invited him to come and see us frequently while he remained in the capital, even offering him a bed in the house; while Paquita, not to be behindhand, for she had thoroughly entered into the fun of the thing, entrusted him with a prettily worded, affectionate message to Demetria, a person whom she already loved and hoped some ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... family." For a little time she experienced some difficulty in reconciling her accustomed habits with the straight tenets of her husband's household and connections, but in the end succeeded. It seems singular that one so extremely conscientious as Elizabeth Fry, should have been considered to fall behindhand in that self-denying plainness of act and speech which characterized others; but so it was. And so determined was she to serve God according to her light, that no mortification of the flesh was counted too severe provided it would further ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the hairdressing was almost done. Sonya was finishing dressing and so was the countess, but Natasha, who had bustled about helping them all, was behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sonya stood ready dressed in the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her dainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... self-centred craftsmen; they were inclined to drift into a backwater, away from the chief currents of the intellectual, or often indeed of the general artistic life of their day, and they seem on the whole to have been content to have it so. In England we were somewhat behindhand, no doubt, in our participation in the gradual but steady change. But men like Parry and Stanford brought their profession into close touch with the general culture of their contemporaries, and made the universities and music ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... We are still behindhand in one type of contemplation: to understand how the greatest productions of the intellect have a dreadful and evil background . the sceptical type of contemplation. Greek antiquity is now investigated as the ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... tunes, not quite so low and sweet as the voice of Cordelia. Those energetic civilians never seem at rest or at ease; they snatch their frequent drinks, upstanding and covered, as if they were just a minute behindhand for some appointment, and bolt their food, as if dinner were a ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... young fellow was in a hurry all the greater because it was so much behindhand. Great cities which from a distance appear like the smoking solfataras of sensuality really harbor fresh souls and ingenuous bodies. How many young men and young girls there are who respect love and keep their senses virgin up to the marriage ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... in love, because everybody does, and I hate to be behindhand with things; but I shall do it just as an experience, to make me paint better pictures. I read in a book the other day that you must fall in love before you can become a true artist; so I mean to do so. But it won't be as important to me as ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... of January, 1789; that they should vote for President on the first Wednesday in February, and that the new Congress should meet on the first Wednesday in March. The State of New York, where Anti-Federalists swarmed, did not follow the decree—with the result that that State, which had been behindhand in signing the Declaration of Independence, failed through the intrigues of the Anti-Federalists to choose electors, and so had no part in the choice of Washington as President of the United States. The other ten States performed their duty ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... a wig. The cheering was tremendous, but behind the royal carriage the cheers were always redoubled where the old Duke, the especial favourite hero, rode. When they got off their horses in the schoolyard, the Duke being by some mistake behindhand, was regularly hustled in the crowd, with no attendant ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge |
