"Breathing space" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... officers and men were falling fast on the British side. The last 200 yards to the foot of the hill were therefore traversed in a single rush. At the base of the kopjes a certain amount of dead ground allowed of a short breathing space, during which a consultation between the company officers left in command took place. They determined to scale the hill and ordered ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... of the Boer fire. Many fell here, but the stream of men passed on, and then at a double rushed to a sheltered spot close to the foot of the ascent, where they had been ordered to gather. Here they had a breathing space. Their real work was yet to begin, but already their casualties had been numerous. The Inniskillings alone had lost thirty-eight killed and wounded. Not a word had been spoken among the little group on the hill, for the last ten minutes; they stood with tightly-pressed lips, breath coming ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... for he will know that by that time some one must be watching. Now I want you to help me penetrate that disguise. Of course we can't arrest the whole shipload of passengers, but if you, with your scientific knowledge, could pick him out, then we could hold him and have breathing space to find out whether he is guilty alone or has been working with ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... at bottom, nothing more than a truce. Napoleon saw in it a means of subjecting the Continent to his commercial code, and of preparing for a Franco-Russian partition of Turkey. The Czar hailed it as a breathing space wherein he could reorganize his army, conquer Finland, and stride towards the Balkans. The Erfurt interview prolonged the truce; for Napoleon felt the supreme need of stamping out the Spanish Rising and of postponing the partition of Turkey which his ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... The short breathing space had allowed Darsie to recover her self- possession, to master the overpowering temptation to cry, and to swallow the lump in her throat sufficiently to be able to say in a weak ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... That was all. Not a step towards her, not a smile, not a greeting, and between them stood Joan, her hands clasped idly before her while she looked from face to face, trying to understand. All the pangs of heart which come to woman between girlhood and old age went burningly through Kate in that breathing space, and afterwards she was cold, and saw herself ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... bear in your mind outweighs the whole bookshelf which waits for reference. But I want you now to move your eye a little farther down the shelf to the line of olive-green volumes. That is my edition of Scott. But surely I must give you a little breathing space before ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... comfort, without ostentation, their picturesque surroundings. Their cottages were simple; but each had its charming outlook to sea and a sufficient number of more or less wooded acres to command privacy and breathing space. In the early days the land had sold for a song, but it had risen steadily with the times, as more and more people coveted a foothold. The last ten years had introduced many changes; the older houses had been pulled down and replaced by lordly structures ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... her mind, for an instant, whether to kiss this self-possessed child, as she had fully arranged in her mind beforehand to do, or to let such a ceremony go by. But in a breathing space she had her arms about her, and was ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... lane and reached the crest of that little hill where sudden sorrow had made mock of sudden joy. Coming toward them, as if apprised of their neighborhood, they saw a squadron of Russian cavalry numerically overwhelming. Both parties stopped for the breathing space preliminary ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... are the changes in the lung, it is very seldom that death comes by interference with the breathing space. In fact, while regarded as a lung disease, we are now coming to recognize that the actual cause of death in fatal cases is the overwhelming of the heart by the toxins or poisons poured into the circulation from the affected lung. The mode of treatment is, therefore, to support the strength of the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... months, the Prince promising to lead them next year upon a more glorious campaign, in which fresh spoil was to be won and more victories achieved, there was time for the consideration of objects of minor importance, and a breathing space wherein ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... now after your running, my little Thracian?" "As much as you like, O Emperor," he answered. So Severus leaped from his horse and ordered the freshest soldiers to wrestle with him. But he threw to the ground seven very powerful youths, even as before, taking no breathing space between the bouts. So he alone was given prizes of silver and a golden necklace by Caesar. Then he was bidden to serve in the body guard of the Emperor. After this he was an officer under Antoninus 87 Caracalla, ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... of that imperial domain which the steamboat and railroad were to convert to use in after-years. The continental empire of Napoleon and the island empire of Great Britain drifted into a struggle for life or death which hardly knew a breathing space until the last charge at Waterloo, and from the beginning it was conducted by both combatants with a reckless disregard of international public opinion and neutral rights which is hardly credible but for the official records. Every injury inflicted on neutral commerce by one ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... all with a fresh zest in the performance which gave her an immense advantage over the fatigued city-dwellers, who assaulted their fellow-citizens with only a preoccupied desire for an approach to a breathing space, and, that attained, subsided into lurching, strap-hanging quiescence. Judith secured with ease, on all the public vehicles they utilized that day, a place on the outside edge of a platform, where she had fresh air in abundance and could hang over the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... as it were, on the boundary-line between the dome and the garden beyond, raised her rounded arms in a snowy arch above her head, and so for one brief instant, looked like an exquisite angel ready to soar upward to her native realm. Her pause was a mere breathing space in duration, ... dropping her arms again with a swift decision that set all the little bells on them clashing stormily, she straightway hurled herself, so to speak, into the giddy paces of a dance that was more like an enigma than an exercise. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... shed an ounce of blood in defence of their student colours, could look forward to shedding all, to the last drop, for king and country. Happy were those few to whom the Korps was the beginning of an active life, and not the mere breathing space of liberty and good fellowship between the school bench and the desk. But whatever was to follow, whatever had gone before, none knew so well as they themselves, how sweet was the first taste of freedom, and how swiftly the bright time glided ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... and reached the utmost limits of endurance. Five million Russian Jews raised their hands to the Government and pleaded for mercy: 'Release us from this ghetto! We, too, are human beings! Give us breathing space! Give us light! We are faint and starving!' And the Cossack promptly answered 'Nazad ('Back!') Here you are and here you remain—not a ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... objects do not puzzle the will, or distract the attention, but are massed together under one uniform and harmonious feeling. The heart reposes in greater security on the immensity of Nature's works, "expatiates freely there," and finds elbow room and breathing space. We are always at home with Nature. There is neither hypocrisy, caprice, nor mental reservation in her favours. Our intercourse with her is not liable to accident or change, suspicion or disappointment: she ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... against adverse conditions; a battle against pests, frosts, soil, weather, and weariness. The conflict never ceased, nor was there hope of emerging from its sordidness into the high places where were breathing space and vision. One could never hope when night came to glance back over the day and see in retrospect a finished piece of work. There was no such thing as writing finis beneath any chapter of the ponderous ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... doubled round corners, thrice I crossed the road and came back upon my tracks, and then, as my feet grew hot and dry, the damp impressions began to fade. At last I had a breathing space and rubbed my feet clean with my hands, and so got away altogether. The last I saw of the chase was a little group of a dozen people perhaps, studying with infinite perplexity a slowly drying footprint ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... crept into Bower's eyes. Was it not wise to humor this old madman? Perhaps, by displaying a remorse that was not all acting, he might arrange a truce, secure a breathing space. He would be free to deal with Millicent Jaques. He might so contrive matters that Helen should be far removed from Stampa's dangerous presence before the threatened disclosure was made. Yes, a wary prudence in speech and action might accomplish much. Surely ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... State, and including only Democrats of progressive antecedents. He called Congress in April, 1913, to revise the tariff once more, and overturned a precedent of a century by delivering to it his message in person. With almost no breathing space for eighteen months, he kept Congress at its task of fulfilling his party's pledges as he ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... things, he could not but wonder that the alarm he dreaded had not already been given. But it was clear that all was as yet undiscovered; and the plot had worked out so exactly as planned that he hoped still for a breathing space to carry out ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... silence but the tinkling of goat-bells, or the piping of a little dark-eyed boy who practiced a rustic flute as he minded his flock. To poor Mr. Carson, wearied with the noise and clamor of Naples, it was a veritable Paradise, a haven of refuge, a breathing space in the dreary pilgrimage of his sad life. On the top of this sunlit, rock-crowned islet he gained a short period of peace and rest before he once ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... master. The confusion will doubtless be lessened as time goes on and we become more used to the system. Even the first disadvantage is more or less offset by the fact that the short three-minute periods, although they cannot be used like ordinary recesses, yet serve to give us breathing space between recitations and to lessen the strain of continuous application; so that, on the whole, the advantages seem to counterbalance ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... best speed he could make on such slippery footing, La Salle crossed the intervening space, and threw himself down into the boat, panting and breathless with exertion. After a moment's breathing space, he slowly raised his head so that his eyes could just see over the edge of the shooting-boat. To the east he heard the decoy-calls of Creamer and Davies, and, somewhere between himself and them, the low, questioning ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... hand and pay him over the five francs which he and Hermia had earned! There were no portraits to do, so Philidor sat at the entrance with Yvonne until the time for the next performance. It was tiresome work and the breathing space was welcome enough. To Philidor his companion seemed already weary. But when he suggested that perhaps they had better take to the road again she shook ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... heat: Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shady, and palms in clusters, Knots of Paradise. There the passions, cramp'd no longer, shall have scope and breathing space; I ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... pitched battle, but followed doggedly his enemy's footsteps, meanwhile drilling his soldiers to become a match for the Carthaginian veterans. This strategy was little to the taste of the Roman populace, who nicknamed Fabius Cunctator, "the Laggard." However, it gave Rome a brief breathing space, until her preparations to crush the invader should ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... "Amen!" There was the report of a revolver and a sudden, startling stillness. It lasted only a breathing space. Furious shoulders hurled themselves against the frail, weakly barred door. It cracked, bulged inward, with a bursting, tearing sound, yielded. The moonlight flooded into the little room, throwing up into bold relief the three ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... After a severe fight the Poles had to fall back over the Narev. Cholera now broke out in both camps. General Diebitsch and Grandduke Constantine on the Russian side succumbed to the disease. During this breathing space for the Poles, a revolution against the provisional government broke out in Warsaw. The streets ran with blood. Czartoryski fled in disguise. General Krukoviecki was made dictator. He shot a number of the mutineers and replaced Skrzynecki by Dembinski. Prussia and ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... insect ran the scale of notes, the bullets buried themselves in the trunk of our oak with a chug. Once in a while I heard Weldon's answering shot, but I remembered my promise to Tom not to waste powder unless I were sure. The agony was the breathing space we had while they crept nearer. Then we thought of Tom, and I dared not glance at Polly Ann for fear that the sight of her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for an instant, hoping still and living only by the beating of hope's wings. And with all that, though she did not love him, he was to her the dearest of all living beings. Holding his hand still, she looked upward, as though to be alone with herself for one breathing space. But as she stood there, she pressed his fingers little by little more tightly, not knowing what she ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... grotesquely bumpy and misshapen. One arm, wrapped from shoulder to finger-tip was outside the coverlet; now and then the hand, which was muffled large as a boxing-glove, moved a little. Cloths ran slantwise about chin, brow, and head, leaving only breathing space ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... and especially since Frederic the Great. Geographical pressure on all sides has made Prussia feel herself in a state of chronic strangulation; and a man who feels strangled will struggle ruthlessly for breath. To get breathing space, to secure frontiers which would ease an intolerable pressure, Frederic the Great could seize Silesia in time of peace in spite of his father's guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, and could suggest the partition of Poland. Frontier pressure thus led to ruthless conquest ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... and shown this or the other view of life, until only fools or knaves can hold to their opinions. We take a sight at a condition in life, and say we have studied it; our most elaborate view is no more than an impression. If we had breathing space, we should take the occasion to modify and adjust; but at this breakneck hurry, we are no sooner boys than we are adult, no sooner in love than married or jilted, no sooner one age than we begin to be another, and no sooner ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... assignment to follow the case to the end," suggested Craig. "I think you'll find it worth while. Anyhow, this will give you a chance for a breathing space, and, if I have this thing doped out right, you won't get another for some time. I'll meet you over in the laboratory in ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... of doors; she no longer hated the wind, but enjoyed it. She could run faster, and longer, and she could skip up to a hundred. The bulbs in the secret garden must have been much astonished. Such nice clear places were made round them that they had all the breathing space they wanted, and really, if Mistress Mary had known it, they began to cheer up under the dark earth and work tremendously. The sun could get at them and warm them, and when the rain came down it could reach them at once, so they began to feel ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hurt me when I slipped that time. Whew! that was close and there's a fellow gone! I know too well that heavy, sickening thud; It's bitter hard that we must keep right on And leave our wounded helpless in the mud. My foot hurts so that I can hardly see— I'll have to stop for just a breathing space. What's that? It's blood!—those fiends have got me now! It's double time and I can't stand the pace! I'll use my rifle as a crutch. But, no! I'll stand and fight; they have me sure as day! It's death for death—then I will ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... away; and, sitting in the back room,[FN630] I said to myself, "If I return home I shall never be able to get rid of this curse of a Barber, who will be with me night and day; and I cannot endure the sight of him even for a breathing space." So I sent out at once for witnesses and made a will, dividing the greater part of my property among my people, and appointed a guardian over them, to whom I committed the charge of great and small, directing him to sell my houses and domains. Then I set ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... was helping the gillie in the boat pull across to Raasay. When half way over we rested on our oars for a breathing space and I asked the news, the rug-headed kerne shot me with the dismal tidings that Malcolm Macleod and Creagh, rowing to Skyes for a conference with Captain Roy, had fallen into the hands of the troopers ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... writer describes it, the French dash forward in spasmodic movements, making immediately for cover. After a brief breathing space they bound into the open again, and again seek any available shelter. And so they proceed till the charge is sounded, when with gleaming bayonets and a cry of "pour la gloire" upon their lips they sweep ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... the warriors a brief breathing space, another song is now set up, and it is marvellous the accuracy and knowledge of melody with which the parts are sung, like a glee of catch, the time being kept by a conductor, who rushes from rank to rank beating time with a wand. Yet it is ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... the safe vantage ground of the camp, from the breathing space before the struggle, he looked out upon the wilderness, and in the wilderness he felt the old, inimical Presence as he had felt it for forty years. The scars of that long combat throbbed through his consciousness. ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... do. If you keep it where it is you simply lay a siege about it. Great suffering will come in that way to the negroes of course. It is a kind of strangulation, selfish and small. On the other hand, if you give it breathing space what will become of the country? I know Douglas' argument that it cannot exist in the North. But suppose you have it all over the South, that's pretty big. Besides, what's to hinder new work being found for the slaves? ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... horses and goes on ploughing; I walked on beside him. There was not much to be got out of him; next time the horses stopped for a breathing space I worried out of him a few more contradictions as to the family at Ovrebo. The Captain, it seemed was away on manoeuvres all through the summer, and Fruen was at home alone. Yes, they had always a heap of visitors, of course; but the Captain was away. That is to say, not because ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... the breathing places of the forest. Dead, withered bracken lay in patches of unsightly grey. There were bits of heather too. All round the trees stood looking on—oak, beech, holly, ash, pine, larch, with here and there small groups of juniper. On the lips of this breathing space of the woods she stopped to rest, disobeying her instinct for the first time. For the other instinct in her was to go on. She did not ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... There is attached to it a round piece of ironwood of almost 4 inches in length, and 1-1/2 in diameter; this again is secured in a broad strap of leather to cross the mouth. In the wood there is a small hole, and, when used, the wood is inserted in the mouth, the small hole being the only breathing space; and when the whole is secured with the various straps and buckles, a more complete bridle in resemblance could not well be witnessed. This is one of Mr. —— instruments for torturing the unhappy and fallen men, and on one occasion I was compelled to witness its application on a poor blind wretch, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... lover gave Janice a really restful breathing space, and it was the least eventful time the girl had known since the advent of the bondsman nearly a year before. Even he almost dropped out of the girl's life, for the farm-work was now at its highest point of ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... her breathing space. She felt as the lilies wavering just beyond his reach. She remembered his ingenuity. She thought of the blows of his cane. Lucky for her she was not rooted like the lilies! The only safety was ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... of our infantry. Suddenly, however, the cannons of the fort thundered into action, covering the bridge with a hail of grape-shot, which forced our little group to fall back. A body of Russian sappers used this breathing space to set fire to the bridge, but as their presence prevented the gunners from firing, we took the opportunity to attack them, killing or throwing into the river the greater part of them. Our Chasseurs had ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... and broken by the shells, littered the summit till it was a bloody, reeking shambles. Thirst tormented the soldiers, for though water was at hand the fight was too close and furious to give even a moment's breathing space. But nothing could weaken the stubborn vigour of the defence. The Dorset Regiment—the last of Talbot Coke's Brigade—was ordered to support the struggling troops. The gallant Lyttelton of his own accord sent the Scottish Rifles and the 3rd King's Royal Rifles ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... For one breathing space he faltered, no longer than that, while over him swept the agony of compunction that yet could not make him surrender ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... for a brief breathing space, and then Jaska spoke that speech out of the books of antiquity, which remains the classic ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... would be treated de haut en bas, and that China possessed the power to make good her lofty pretensions. China had learned nothing from her military mishaps at Canton, Amoy, and Chusan, and from the appearance of an English fleet in the Gulf of Pechihli. Keshen had gained a breathing space by procrastination in the north, and he resorted to the same tactics at Canton. Days expanded into weeks, and at last orders were issued for an advance up the Canton River, as it had become evident that the Chinese were not only bent on an obstructive policy, but were making energetic ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... facing Hilda Lightener. His father at once took charge of the conversation, giving the boy a breathing space to collect and appraise his impressions. Presently Mr. ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... if matters should come to a fight. The stranded vessel must certainly have been already seen by the Indians; at any moment they might appear. But the breastwork was completed without interruption, and still no sign of the Redskins had been seen. It was at least breathing space, though all knew what must assuredly follow, and to some the actual immediate combat would have been less unwelcome than ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... cried our leader as he prepared to gallop off, for Cosse's assaults were so rapid and daring that we had hardly a moment's breathing space. ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... Meynell's chief anxieties during these intermediate hours, when a strong man took a few days' breathing space between the effort that had been, and the effort that was to be. The young man would come over, day by day, with the same crushed, patient look, now bringing news to Meynell which they talked over where ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the tormented borders; the settlements advanced again, and the colonists found a short breathing space against the great conclusive struggle of the Seven ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... which was signed in the year after Frontenac's campaign against the Onondagas, came as a happy release to Canada (1697). For nine years the colony had been hard pressed, and a breathing space was needed. The Iroquois still remained a peril, but proportionately their losses since 1689 had been far heavier than those of the French and English. Left to carry on the war by themselves, they soon saw the ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... became entangled round the prows of the ships and struck against the blades of the oars: and the men of the army who were there, hearing these things became afraid, expecting that they would certainly perish, to such troubles had they come; for before they had had even breathing space after the shipwreck and the storm which had arisen off Mount Pelion, there had come upon them a hard sea-fight, and after the sea-fight a violent storm of rain and strong streams rushing to the sea ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... of thought is fix'd, who will not change, But in a world he loves not must subsist In ceaseless opposition, be the guard Of his own breast, fetter'd to what he guards, That the world win no mastery over him; Who has no friend, no fellow left, not one; Who has no minute's breathing space allow'd To nurse his dwindling faculty of joy:— Joy and the outward world must die to him As they are ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... his neckcloth to give him better breathing space, and bidding me see if the revelers had left a heel-tap of wine in any bottle nearer than the wine cellar, lifted the old man and propped him in the corner of the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... wilderness they had learned independence and self-reliance. They were the sons of hardy and energetic ancestors. Lazy and timourous people did not cross the ocean in those days. The American colonists hated the restraint and the lack of breathing space which had made their lives in the old country so very unhappy. They meant to be their own masters. This the ruling classes of England did not seem to understand. The government annoyed the colonists and the colonists, who hated to be bothered ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... polite society. All the stucco of civilization fell about him in slabs as he made his way with long strides out of the Hosacks' place, across the sandy road and on to the springy turf of the golf links. It didn't matter where he went so long as he got elbow room for his indignation, breathing space for his rage and a ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... the Bible reader, was a natural orator—a person with plenty of blood for her brain, ample breathing space in her chest, a rich-toned voice responsive to her feelings, and a mind not exactly intellectual, but felicitous in vocabulation and ingenious in the construction of sentences. Her emotions were mettlesome horses ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... that they had taken Bethlehem, were in need of rest; and this was especially the case with General Macdonald, who had come up by forced marches from the far-off Transvaal. A short breathing space was also a great benefit to us, for we had many preparations to make in view of probable events in the near future. I did not deceive myself as to the meaning of the present situation; now that all of us, except two small parties at ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... success usually made him a grosser and more hopelessly self-satisfied materialist than if he had failed. There was no hope for his mind or soul either way. If at the end of life his efforts had won him a little breathing space, it could be of no high use to him, for the spiritual and intellectual parts had become atrophied from disuse, and were no longer capable of responding ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... control of the Delaware. He made every arrangement possible to maintain the forts, and the first assaults upon them were repulsed with great slaughter, the British in the attack on Fort Mercer losing Count Donop, the leader, and four hundred men. Then came a breathing space, and then the attacks were renewed, supported by vessels, and both forts were abandoned after the works had been leveled to the ground by the enemy's fire. Meanwhile Hamilton, sent to the north, ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... moment I turned from Lowell on the steps of the palace, and it did not cease, for even one brief breathing space, until we were cast forth, and ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... In a little breathing space at the end of the meal, when two of the children had clambered down from their high chairs and been dismissed, Mrs. Grier began to ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... neck gripped me so tightly that I was well-nigh choked, and so overcome with terror that I fell insensible to the ground. When I recovered my enemy was still in his place, though he had released his hold enough to allow me breathing space, and seeing me revive he prodded me adroitly first with one foot and then with the other, until I was forced to get up and stagger about with him under the trees while he gathered and ate the choicest fruits. This went on all day, and even at ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... have been a matter of minutes. To Lenox it seemed a matter of years. Because, in that short breathing space, fear—overmastering fear—gripped him as it never yet had done. A year or two ago, for all his human love of life, he would have accepted a mountaineer's death with something of the same pride and stoicism as a soldier ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... sake, give me breathing space," she said, with a last wild peep at the Colonel. Yes, there was no mistaking him after the three new portraits he had sent her. He was in cheerful conversation with a stout, sallow gentleman of the Anglo-Indian stage-type. Both were in immaculate evening-dress and ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... nor listened. To them the little girl's bird-like twittering covered the murmur of their own thoughts, and if Delfina stopped for a moment's breathing space, they felt as strangely perturbed and apprehensive as if the silence might disclose or ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... play-bills, and there seems no just cause or impediment why a story-teller should not avail himself of the same device to waft the patient reader over an uneventful period, during which the hero or heroine has been granted a "breathing space" between the ebb and flow of ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... thoroughfares, while in its midst should be a palace unequalled in the world, surrounded by gardens, lakes, and parks. There was ample room on the seven hills, and across the Tiber, for all the population, with breathing space for everyone. What glory would there not be to him who thus transformed Rome, and made it a worthy capital of the world! First, however, the people must be attended to and kept in good humour, and accordingly orders were at once issued that the gardens of the emperor's palaces should ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... is that the wretches can be perfectly happy without us. That is why I think it is every woman's duty never to leave them alone for a single moment, except during this short breathing space after dinner; without which I believe we poor women would be absolutely ...
— A Woman of No Importance • Oscar Wilde
... on the well-wrought crest the weapons fell; And his left arm grew faint, that long had borne The burthen of his shield; yet nought avail'd The press of spears to drive him from his post; Lab'ring he drew his breath, his ev'ry limb With sweat was reeking; breathing space was none; Blow follow'd blow; and ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... was October before he asked her to explain them. The Tybars, as he learnt when next he met her, a week after her visit to the office, were only at Northrepps for a breathing space after their foreign tour. Through the summer they were going the usual social round, ending in Scotland. Back in October for the shooting, and wintering there through the ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... little breathing space. His assailants knew that with persistence they had bent his will before, and they trusted that they might do so again. It was Louvois, the minister, now who entered the room, with his majestic port, his lofty bearing, his huge wig, and his aristocratic face, which, however, showed ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... success of modern government is to flatten down all men into one uniform likeness, so that it is only by most frightful, and often destructive, effort that any originality can contrive to get loose in its own shape for a moment's breathing space; but in the Commonwealth of Florence a man, being born with any genius in him, drew in strength to do and dare greatly with the very ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... bulls a breathing space there, for we knew we had them all nicely rounded up in the killing-pens, and there was no hurry. But on toward noon, when things looked about right, we jumped twenty brokers into the pit, all selling at once and offering in any sized lots for ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... stormiest of seas. Again and again the wild north-west gales blew the British admiral off his cruising ground. But he fought his way back, sent his ships, singly or in couples, to Torbay or Plymouth for a moment's breathing space, but himself held on, with a grim courage and an unslumbering vigilance which have never been surpassed. On November 6, a tremendous westerly gale swept over the English cruising-ground. Hawke battled with it ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... the English cabinet to restore it at a time when the nation was threatened by a Catholic pretender, and disheartened at the results of the war on the continent. Weary of the struggle and anxious for a breathing space, England deserted Maria Theresa ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... that Charley Seguis had three days' start of him. He knew also that Charley was an exceptionally intelligent half-breed, and would travel well out of the district before allowing himself breathing space. McTavish intended surprising him by the swiftness of pursuit. So, lighted on his way by the brilliant stars and the silent, flaunting banners of the northern lights, he plodded doggedly on until midnight. Then he built a fire, thawed fish for the dogs, and ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... after this, I had a short breathing space, the brutes seeming to have taken fright; yet I was full of trembling, and I glanced hither and thither, not knowing when some one or more of them would come upon me. And ever I glanced towards the moon, and prayed the Almighty ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... affection," replied the Judge, "in friendship, and in the exercise of kindness, there is large and fresh breathing space; the air of eternity plays through it. In intellectual development—and the very highest may be arrived at in private life—the whole world opens itself to the eye of man, and infinite treasures are offered to his soul, more, far more, than he ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... another with rapidity that scarce leaves the reader breathing space.... The interest of their experience is sufficient to stay criticism and carry him through a story ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... is said; and also as a retort to the state of siege, they armed as many men as they could in the quarter where they were strongest, but did not attempt to drill or organise them, thinking, perhaps, that they could not at the best turn them into trained soldiers till they had some breathing space. The clever general, his soldiers, and the police did not meddle with all this in the least in the world; and things were quieter in London that week-end; though there were riots in many places of the provinces, which were quelled by the authorities without ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... not so long. It is my theory that work is highly beneficial, but that it should, if possible, and certainly for such partially broken-down instruments as the thing I call my body, be taken in batches, with a clear break and breathing space between. I always do vary my work, laying one thing aside to take up another, not merely because I believe it rests the brain, but because I have found it most beneficial to the result. Reading, Bacon says, makes a full man, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... will permit itself to be reformed from without. The position of the world in arms with reference to Germany is simply this. It is impossible to make peace with Germany as at present constituted, because that peace will be but a truce, a short breathing space before the German military autocrats again send the sons of Germany to death in the trenches for the advancement of the System and the personal glory and advantage of stuffy old generals and ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... as such and bath, particularly compulsory bath, is all the difference between the blue freedom of the sky and the allotted breathing space which is enclosed in a cage. There was something peculiarly humiliating and servile in being forced to soap and water three times a week under penalty of having your name read out before a tittering schoolroom—Absent from Bath! It vaguely recalled medieval ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... enabled him to again form the siege of Paris in 1590. All recognized Paris as the turning-point in the struggle, and the League called loudly for Philip's aid. To give it was to break the work which Parma was doing in the Netherlands, and to allow the United Provinces a breathing space in their sorest need. But even the Netherlands were of less moment than the loss of France; and Philip's orders forced Parma to march to the relief of Paris. The work was done with a skill which proved the Duke ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... into the big, dripping park with its primeval furnishings of earth and grass and trees and deep shadows. It was amid such surroundings alone that their own big, fundamental emotions found adequate breathing space. They plunged into the silent by-paths as a sun-baked man dives to the sandy bottom of a crystal lake. And into it all they blended as one—each feeling the glory of a perfected whole. Each saw with his own eyes and the eyes of ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... and nose were filled with the fluffy flakes, and he nearly choked before he could struggle to an upright position and clear a breathing space. ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... preserved from Destruction." In No. 2, the Patriot reiterates his "sincere Intention to calm and heal, not to blow up and inflame, any Party-Divisions"; but even the task of defending the British Constitution could not stifle Fielding's wit, and he escapes, for breathing space as it were, into a column devoted to the news items of the week, gathered from various papers, and adorned by comments of his own, printed in italics. And in this running commentary on the daily occurences of the time we get nearer, perhaps, to the table-talk of Henry Fielding ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... breathing space, now and again, at General Hunter's command, then following with all the speed they could muster where he and his aide-de-camp, Major King, led the Imperial Light Horse on the left, the Carbineers on their right made a final dash for the steepest climb ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... the year of grace 1417 there was a breathing space for discredited France, and presently the Vicomte de Montbrison was sent into England, as ambassador. He got in London a fruitless audience of King Henry, whose demands were such as rendered a renewal of the war inevitable; and afterward got, in the month of April, about the day of Palm Sunday, ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... to my mind, however, that the infernal uproar of the earth tremor was beginning to slacken somewhat, as though Zaemon knew he had done the work that he had promised, and was minded to give the wretched city a breathing space. So I took my fortitude in hand, and clambered up on to the flat of the stone. The lightning flashes had ceased and all was darkness again and stifling dust, but at any moment the sky might be lit once more, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... A mere breathing space, and the shadow vanished,—the aurora came out again in unbroken splendor—and the reindeer, feeling no restraint upon them, and terrified by something in the air, or the ceaseless glitter, of the lights in the sky, started off precipitately at full gallop. The long ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Party. I have to support you. James will do the same as I in a day or two. Just give him time. His mind doesn't work very quickly, not as quickly as a woman's. Come," she said. "When we have a breathing space you can tell me all about it. But in the meantime I'm ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... matter?" asked Patty. "You are fuller of whims than an egg is of meat, for the egg has a breathing space if the chick wants it. Not an hour ago you were laughing like a mocking bird. You had better have a pitcher of sweet balm for your nerves. You have dissipated too much, but thank Heaven there are no ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Flanagan's encouraging comment when in due time I retired to his side for a short breathing space. "I never thought you'd be so well up to him. ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... workingman's festival. It is not only a day of rest from manual labor, a breathing space in his struggle for existence, an interval during which his devotional aspirations may have full exercise; it is the forerunner of a new phase of life, in which toil is laid aside for the gentler occupations of home, if he is a man of family, and for rest and ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... deep chamber through which the terrier had passed. Then the terrier came out to quench his thirst, and was led away by the huntsman to the river, while the second dog was speedily despatched to earth, that the badger might be allowed no breathing space during which he could bury himself beyond the reach of further attack. The second dog, on coming to the junction of the passage and the gallery, chose the alternative line of scent in the gallery, and wandered far away into the chamber where Brock, whose family had descended ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... him. But there was always a deus ex machina for us when we were in trouble. Looming up above the crowd was the smiling and encouraging countenance of the ever active, always present, always helpful Mr. Smalley. He cleared a breathing space before us. For a short time it was really a formidable wedging together of people, and if a lady had fainted in the press, she might have run a serious risk before she could have been extricated. No more "marble halls" for us, if we had to undergo ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the half-done work, upon Wednesday afternoon and Sunday not an axe was lifted, not a cord hitched, not a nail driven. It was a wise rule and fruitful. The Sabbath rest leavened the labour of the week. As for the midweek breathing space, the men were not monks; however zealous their studies of the lilies of the field, the provision of meat and raiment must have some crumbs ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... rate chance had given him a breathing space. He could lurk unchallenged by the passers-by, and watch the course of things. His eye followed up the intricate dim immensity of the twilight buildings, and it came to him as a thing infinitely wonderful, that above there the sun was rising, and the world was lit and glowing with the old ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... was hideous. For a breathing space Sermaise kept his feet, his outspread arms making a tottering cross. It was curious to see him peer about irresolutely now that he had no face. Francois, staring at the black featureless horror before him, began to choke. Standing thus, with outstretched arms, the priest first ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... you behold there, gaudily attired and scented like a dandy, is by no means what it appears to be, but rather, is like a labourer toiling in sun and shower, who has to submit a clear account of his work and has no breathing space to ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... subiectes of Vtina perceiued euidently the necessitie wherein we were, and began to vse the like speech vnto vs, as the others did: as it is commonly seene that neede altereth mens affections. While these things were in doing, a certaine breathing space presented it selfe for Vtina gaue me to vnderstand that there was a king his subiect whose name was Astina, which he determined to take prisoner, and to chastise him for his disobedience: that for ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... calm, and to one of these the storm-tossed Bunyan was now approaching. He had passed through the Slough of Despond. He had gone astray after Mr. Legality, and the rocks had almost overwhelmed him. Evangelist now found him and put him right again, and he was to be allowed a breathing space at the Interpreter's house. As he was at his ordinary daily work his mind was restlessly busy. Verses of Scripture came into his head, sweet while present, but like Peter's sheet caught up again into heaven. We may have heard all our lives of Christ. Words and ideas with ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... time to waste; there was a breeze now from over the ridges, light, but enough to bear the fire down on them. Once, when they had breathing space, Mary ran to the creek for a billy of water. They beat out the fire all along the siding to where a rib of granite came down over the ridge to the fence, and then they thought the wheat was safe. They came together here, and Ross had time ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... thereupon a great Argosie, with an other mighty great ship, fired themselues in the like maner. Immediately hereupon, the residue of the ships ran themselues on ground, as farre from vs as they could, and therby purchased their owne safety, or rather breathing space for the time. Of them all two faire ships only were boorded and taken by our men with most part of their furniture in them, the one called S. Matthy, a ship by estimation of some xii. hundred tunne, and the other S. Andrew, being a shippe of not much lesser burthen. The Gallies, seeing this suddaine ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... interpretation has been affixed to it, a sort of philological commentary, which sets fetters upon the inner and free understanding of the imagination—it is tyrannical. Music is the language of the commentator, who talks the whole of the time and gives us no breathing space. Moreover his is a difficult language which also requires to be explained. He who step by step has mastered, first the libretto (language!), then converted it into action in his mind's eye, then sought out ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... still further. From the summit of the tower you looked straight down into the deep narrow streets, upon the houses (in one of which Prior Saint-Jean was born) climbing as high as they dared for breathing space within that narrow compass. But you saw also the green breadth of Normandy and Picardy, this way and that; felt on your face the free air of a still wider realm beyond what was seen. The reviving scent of it, the mere sight of the flowers brought thence, of ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... mother's until she had made up her mind, and that they should both accept an invitation for a week at the hunting-lodge of friends in the Adirondacks. There, except for their host and hostess, they would be alone and Edwardes might have a breathing space before ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... standstill, at length, for a second's breathing space;—and lo, Rajinder Singh emerging suddenly from the heart of pandemonium, breathless with haste, a ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver |
