"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... distorted joints of the cripple do not help him to fight. The firm is not rich because its business is done by tragedians and walking-gentlemen, but in spite of them. If the doctor fails to give his medicine, if the fighting grows too rough for the cripple, if business grows slack, or if some good business man with competent assistants starts a strong opposition—what happens? What must inevitably happen? Why, the sick man dies, the cripple gets the worst of it, and the theatrical firm of merchants goes straight ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... the erratic yacht, instead of falling back as she naturally should have done, suddenly moved forward under the impulse of a swell, butting the tug, almost gently, about ten feet from the bow. Then the tug backed clear, and, breasting the waves, began to take up the slack cables. A hundred yards she went and then stopped headway with a jerk as the men slipped the cables ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... could hold in the hollow of their hands: And, notwithstanding our own great extremity, they were given it, to teach them some humanity, instead of their accustomed barbarity both to us and other nations. Some put leaden bullets into their months, to slack their thirst by chewing them. In every corner of the ship, the miserable cries of the sick and wounded were sounding lamentably in our ears, pitifully crying out and lamenting for want of drink, being ready to die, yea many dying for lack thereof. Insomuch, that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... was swashing down stream, and a schooner, having but little of wind and less of tide to help it along, was rocking listlessly in the long swell. In the shadow of the slack sails a man sprawled upon the schooner's deck, while against the old-fashioned tiller another ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... Slack, and Miss Trotter, and Mr. Skimpole (a lineal descendant of the urbane Harold), and Mr. Looseley, and Mr. Rattler, and Striker, and Bluffer, and Smiley; all these took a hand at the mill that was rolling out the character of "Dodd" Weaver, and there are marks of ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... bad place to land if there weren't two of us," he went on. "It is our being together in this yacht that is likely to cause suspicion. You could easily pretend that you'd come over from Gibraltar, and the port authorities there are pretty slack." ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... now, sir?" continued the lieutenant; "shall we trip the anchor? There seems not a breath of air; and as the tide runs slack, I doubt whether the sea do not ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... touched them with a wand which brought them all under a light where the modern eye cares most to see them, and here he gave a lesson to the culture of Germany,— so wide, so impartial, that it is apt to become slack and powerless, and to lose itself in its materials for want of a strong central idea round which to group all its other ideas. So the mystic and romantic school of Germany lost itself in the Middle Ages, was overpowered ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... the shabbiness of the chintz and faded carpets. The garden, she said, was shamefully neglected, and she could not conceive how people could bear to let a decent place like this go to ruin. 'But he's a slack creature, ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Prussian Ambassador there, [Seckendorf (Forster, iii. 7).] and to Keppel, Dutch Official gentleman who was once Ambassador at Berlin. Prussian Ambassador applies, and again applies, in the highest quarters; but we fear they are slack. Dumoulin discovers that the man was certainly here; Keppel readily admits, He had Keith to dinner a few days ago: but where Keith now is, Keppel cannot ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... and warm, there is nothing better in life than to lounge before the inn door in the sunset, or lean over the parapet of the bridge, to watch the weeds and the quick fishes. It is then, if ever, that you taste joviality to the full significance of that audacious word. Your muscles are so agreeably slack, you feel so clean and so strong and so idle, that whether you move or sit still, whatever you do is done with pride and a kingly sort of pleasure. You fall in talk with any one, wise or foolish, drunk or sober. And it seems as ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... long, his tall, lithe body slack, grim, serious lines in his lean face. He had thought of his conversation with Judge Graney concerning ambition—his ambition, the picture upon which his mind had dwelt many times. A little frame printing office in the West was not one of its features. He sighed with resignation and began methodically ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Trappe; he was wonderfully reassured. He tried to recollect himself, and to pray, but he felt his thoughts more scattered and wandering than usual; he remained indifferent and unmoved. Surprised at this result, he tried to examine himself, and touched the void; he was slack that morning, in one of those sudden dispositions in which a man becomes a child again, incapable of attention, in which the wrong side of things ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... slack in Baltimore just at present, almost every male resident, not engaged in law or physic, has, or supposes himself to have, something to do. Instances of absolute idleness are very rare. So, by ten, A. M., all the men betake ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... the job. I give you my word on the book that I never raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound Tonga who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I could not ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pretty strong water, and had to follow it as best he could over The Rocks. Generally very sure-footed, on this occasion he tumbled on his back, keeping the rod all the time in his hands, but of course making a slack line. The fish was still on when he regained his feet and tightened up, but the relaxation had been fatal, and the grilse ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... right," protested Norah. "It was only Geoff's illness that made me a bit slack. And we've had a busy summer, haven't we? I think our little war-job hasn't ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... City happened to be rather slack at this time; and it struck Mr. Fenton all at once that he could scarcely have a better opportunity for wasting two or three days in a visit of duty to the Listers, and putting an end to his sister's reproachful letters. He ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... the fattest of the bucks slain in the forest, the chiefest specimens of his wife's culinary triumphs, always found their way to the prior's table, and an excellent understanding had always been maintained between the two houses. But the knight had observed of late that the prior had become more slack in those visits of friendly courtesy which once had been common enough between them; and when he had presented himself at the monastery, he had not been quite certain that his welcome was as cordial as heretofore. It was not until latterly that this had caused him any uneasiness—it had taken ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... minutes he was standing at the cliff edge, with a padded bight of the rope about his body, and the two joined ranging-rods in his hand, quite ready to be lowered down the face. Then two peons whom he had specially selected for the task, drew in the slack of the rope, passed a complete turn of it round an iron bar driven deep into a rock crevice, and waited for the command of a third who now laid himself prone on the ground, with his head projecting over the ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... see as he'd be much the better off for that. A foreman, if he's got a conscience and delights in his work, will do his business as well as if he was a partner. I wouldn't give a penny for a man as 'ud drive a nail in slack because he didn't get ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... a farmer, I thought it was no use to confine my attention to the one I was on, but contracted the habit, when work was at all slack, of going about to pick up what wrinkles I could from other proprietors, as well as to make observations on my ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... "you size her up at the depot, and, if she don't look promising, just slack the lines on Antelope Hill. The creams 'll do the rest. If they don't, ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... tried at once to get in his sails, but the surf was running very strong, and presently a heavy sea broke clean over her. Then came confusion and dismay: the flapping of the wet, half-lowered sails, and the whipping of the slack ropes, making all effort useless. There was no chance of her- holding. Foot by foot she was being driven towards the rocks. Sailors stood motionless on the shore. The lifeboat would be of little use: besides, it could not ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the verticals and leaving the diagonal unbraced; but an inspection of many existing examples of these bridges during the passing of the live load showed that there was something defective in them. The long unbraced ties vibrated considerably, and evidently got slack during a part of the time that the live load was passing over the bridge. In order to get some definite formulae for these girders free from any assumed conditions as to the course taken by the stresses, or their apportionment amongst the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... instant did the full, crushing horror of the affair come home to the American, for events had crowded one another so closely that his mind was confused; but when, in the halting yellow glare, he saw those two slack forms and the crooked, unnatural postures in which death had left them, his consciousness cleared and he strained at his bonds like ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... not a boy who was afraid of work, and now, putting on his everyday rig, he applied himself with a light heart to the duties of the ship, lying stoutly back upon the slack of the tackle, while the sailors hoisted the heavy articles of the cargo, or running aloft to loose the sails for drying after the drenching night dews, and assisting to furl ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... the answer. "It will run out the cable and down the cab. I've left them plenty of slack to move around when ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... Asher thought, elated, sending his buzzer signal up to those so far above. The icy air through his hose changed to air of normal temperature. He signaled for slack in the lowering cable, then prepared for the greatest test ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... arms are outstretched in the form of a cross: the hands open, the fingers separated. The right leg is straight. The left, whence flowed the hemorrhage that made him die, has been broken by a shell; it is twisted into a circle, dislocated, slack, invertebrate. A mournful irony has invested the last writhe of his agony with the appearance of ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... the more recent traditions of Houdon, or of Rude and Carpeaux. It is a thoroughly legitimate and unaffected expression of national thought and feeling at the present time, at once splendid and simple. The moment of triumph in any intellectual movement is, however, always a dangerous one. A slack-water period of intellectual slothfulness nearly always ensues. Ideas which have previously been struggling to get a hearing have become accepted ideas that have almost the force of axioms; no one ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... opportunity the words gave him, he turned towards the secretary. "You've got to get used to me, Greening," he said. "You haven't quite grasped me yet, I can see. I'm a man of moods, you know. Up to the present you've seen my slack side, my jarred side, but I have quite another when I care to show it. I'm a sort of Jekyll-and-Hyde affair." Again he laughed, and Greening echoed the sound diffidently. Chilcote ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... brought us out of the high mountains and into a narrow valley when the stream became more moderate in its speed and we floated along easily enough. In a little while after we struck this slack water, as we were rounding a point, I saw on a sand bar in the river, five or six elk, standing and looking at us with much curiosity. I signaled for those behind to go to shore, while I did the same, and two or three of us took our guns and went carefully down along the bank, ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... Cram to the attorney and his companion, "and I'll bring Tom to you in a minute. He's having a lush with some of his pals; though I thought we were going to have a mill, for Jack Perkins, who is to be hanged o' Monday, roused out his slack jaw at him for some quarrel about a gal, and Tom don't bear such like easily. Howsumdever, they made it up and clubbed a gallon. Stay, I'll get you a candle end;" and leaving them in the dark, not much, if the truth must be told, to the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... of sufficient numbers of boys of equal standing in the school-work, and other disadvantages, which make the very name of a private school malodorous. The boys are rough and unmannerly, the discipline slack, the teaching staff inferior in ability and social position. The public schools of Australia may not be all that could be wished, but [Greek characters] that a boy of mine should ever go to a colonial private school, unless ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... inches beyond or through his gill, put it again into his mouth, and the point and beard out at his tail; and then tie the hook and his tail about, very neatly, with a white thread, which will make it the apter to turn quick in the water; that done, pull back that part of your line which was slack when you did put your hook into the minnow the second time; I say, pull that part of your line back, so that it shall fasten the head, so that the body of the minnow shall be almost straight on your hook: this done, try how it will turn, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... ma'am, for what age d'ye take me?" Cai caught up the slack of the rope and hitched it taut over his shoulder. He was rejuvenated. He made a spring for the ladder, and went up it much as twenty years ago he would have swarmed up the ratlines. "Make yourself ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was a very poor slack-twisted sort of fellow. Betty, I've never kissed you since you stood beside me as my little wife, twelve years and a half old! May I kiss ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... especially in Germany, present in quantity. From the time of Fichte and Scharnhorst downward to the end of the century, the whole nation had learned, as a sort of gospel, that the German education produced a most superior engine of economic competition, whereas the slack education and frivolous amusements of English civil and military life alike, had gradually created a society apt to crumble. And it is only needful for any person who has the curiosity, to glance at the light literature of the Victorian age, which deals with the ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... you will look at the bottom of the title-page, is somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing can exceed the patronage which he suffers at the hands of the critic, and is compelled to submit to in sullen silence. When the book-trade is slack—that is, in the summer season—the pair get on together pretty amicably. 'This book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the seaside, and lounged over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... forest, to hunt the hart or hind, The roebuck, the wild boar, the fallow-deer, or hare: But how poor Ragan shall dine, he hath no care. Poor I must eat acorns or berries from the tree. But if I be found slack in the suit following, Or if I do fail in blowing or hallooing; Or if I lack my staff or my horn by my side: He will be quick enough to fume, chafe, and chide. Am I not well at ease such a master to serve, As must ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... order. On new wire, when I fix my compensator, I usually have an adjusting screw on the lead to lever. This I remove when the wire has been stretched to its full tension. I have everything removed from lever, so there can be no meddling or altering. When once the wire is stretched so that no slack remains between lever and trigger, no further ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... work was slack, I would walk far afield with Diana for my companion, or we would jog to market with the Tinker in the four-wheeled cart, hearkening to his shrewd animadversions upon men and life in general; and Diana's ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... were to reward the near side horse; the thong—the thong after three twists, which appears in his hand to have been placed by the maker never to be altered or improved ...... and if the off-side horse becomes slack, to see the turn of his arm to reduce a twist, or to reverse, if necessary, is exquisite: after being placed under the rib, or upon the shoulder point, up comes the arm, and with it the thong returns to the elegant position upon the crop! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... off but dey dont go too fas' so you walks behind. Sometimes 'long comes another Yank on a horse an he arsk, 'Boy ain you tired?' 'Yessir Boss.' 'Well den you git up here behind me and ride some.' Den he wrop de rope all 'round de saddle horn. Wrops and wrops, but leaves some slack. But he keeps you tied, so's you wont jump down and run away. An many's de time a prayin' negro got took off like dat, and want ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... and hears them. And to the general's tent,—'tis quickly known,— Direct your steps: You may despatch him: strait, Drowned in his sleep, and easy for his fate: Besides, the truce will make the guards more slack. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... ten knots good now, and with every jerk the painter of the seine-boat chafed and groaned in the taffrail chock. The skipper from the boat called for more line. "Slack away a bit, slack away. ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... the Ambassador and half the Embassy staff were on leave in England. As matters were very slack just then, the Charge d'Affaires and the Second Secretary had gone to Finland for four days' fishing, leaving me in charge of the Embassy, with an Attache to help me. My servant came to me early one morning as I was in bed, and told me that an official of the Higher Police was ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... Business happened to be slack that afternoon, and at the early hour of four o'clock Mr. Walkingshaw resumed his overcoat and muffler. As Mr. Thomieson, his confidential clerk, decorously tucked the scarf beneath the velvet collar, he offered a word or two of ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... clattered against the wall. Conches brayed somewhere, followed by an unaccountable, sputtering fusillade as of tiny muskets, and then by a formidable silence. While the banqueters listened in the smoky room, there came a sullen, heavy sound, like a single stroke on a large and very slack bass-drum. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... into a glass. When Cheschapah saw the water effervesce, he folded his newspaper with the salt into a tight lump, stuck the talisman into his clothes, and departed, leaving Mr. Kinney well content. He was doing his best to nourish the sinews of war, for business in the country was discouragingly slack. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the tree, Joyce. Now I will put this rope round you and round the tree, leaving a certain amount of slack in the loop. Now you get a grip of the tree with your knees. Then with your hands you shift the loop up as high as you can, and lean against it. Get a sort of purchase, and so shift your knees a bit higher. No doubt you will ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... brave enough man, but the ordeal of those last five minutes especially had brought his nerve to near its breaking strain. His lips twitched and quivered, his jaw hung slack, and at Macalister's invitation he tittered hysterically. There was a stir and a movement at the back of the spectators that by now thronged the trench, and an officer pushed his ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... was heavy rain throughout the night, and in the morning the river, which in this part of its course runs between limestone cliffs, was rushing so rapidly that we could only make progress by repeatedly crossing the river to seek the slack-water side of each reach. Failing to reach any village, we passed the night in rude shelters on the bank. On the following day the river was still in flood, but we reached Long Lawa, a Kayan village, and decided to ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... him as we do a hot horse. When he first frets and pulls, keep a stiff rein and hold him in if you can; but if he grows mad and furious, slack your hand, clap your heels to him, and let him go. Give him his belly full of it. Away goes the beast like a fury over hedge and ditch, till he runs himself off his mettle; perhaps bogs himself, and then he grows quiet of course.... Besides, ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... at the opening, but the attendance of all others was cruelly slack. To hear the attack, the people came in crowds; to hear the defence, they scarcely came in t'ete- 'a-t'etes! 'Tis barbarous there should be so much more pleasure given by the recital of guilt than by the vindication ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... head of the establishment sit and work in the shop along with the men. Their busy time is during the marriage season from November to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not infrequently a member of the village establishment. During the rains, the tailor's slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage, holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujarat, in the absence of Brahmans, a Darzi officiates ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... ballasting the whole, that it is rather ticklish business cruising in its vicinity. We lay off and on, coquetting with the little beauty, while one of our boats pulled up to it, and threw a lariat over a glittering peak that flamed in the sun like a torch. Then we drew in the slack and made fast, while a half dozen of our men mounted the slippery mass, armed with ropes and axes, and began to hack off big chunks, which were in due season transferred ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... slack hands, and confirm ye the tottering knees." The words are addressed to all the members of the people of God; they are to strengthen and confirm one another by pointing to the future revelation of the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... was some four hundred feet long, it used up precious moments to haul it and coil up the slack. As the last of the "thin line" came into their hands there came with it the first of a stouter hawser, the two lines being ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... an idiot's. He felt vacant, and wasted. So, he wandered at his work, painfully, and very slowly and clumsily, fumbling blindly with the brushes, and finding it difficult, when he sat down, to summon the energy to move again. His limbs, his jaw, were slack and nerveless. But he was very tired. He got to bed at last, and slept inert, relaxed, in a sleep that was rather stupor than slumber, a dead night of stupefaction shot through with ...
— The Prussian Officer • D. H. Lawrence
... the steed,—his slack hand fell;—upon the silent face He cast one long, deep, troubled look, then turned from that sad place: His hope was crushed, his after fate untold in martial strain:— His banner led the spears no more, amidst the hills of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... business is slack—falling off, as you say. Catering is not what it used to be. You see, 30 or 40 years ago, people's homes were grand and big; big dining rooms, built for parties and banquets. But for the big affairs with 500 or 600 guests, they went to the hotels. Even the hotels had to rent ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... ourselves against rocks. I tested each boulder carefully, since any weight placed against an unsteady rock might dislodge it on somebody below. One of the Darkovan brothers—Vardo, I thought—was behind me, separated by ten or twelve feet of slack rope, and twice when his feet slipped on gravel he stumbled and gave me an unpleasant jerk. What he muttered was perfectly true; on slopes like this, where a fall wasn't dangerous anyhow, it was better to work unroped; then a slip bothered no one ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... she saddled an ass, and said to her servant, Drive; slack not thy riding, except ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the camera to the ambush hide the camera with leafy branches, leaving a good opening for the cord to pass through to prevent it from becoming entangled. Then hie to your cover and, with the slightly slack cord in your hand, await the ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... resented by the country people, who were partial to their old master, and irritated against his successor. In the Baron's own words, 'The matter did not coincide with the feelings of the commons of Bradwardine, Mr. Waverley; and the tenants were slack and repugnant in payment of their mails and duties; and when my kinsman came to the village wi' the new factor, Mr. James Howie, to lift the rents, some wanchancy person—I suspect John Heatherblutter, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of employing the crew is, "setting up" rigging. Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack, (which is continually happening), the seizings and coverings must be taken off, tackles got up, and after the rigging is bowsed well taught, the seizings and coverings replaced; which is a very nice piece of work. There is also such a connection between different ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... "City Council—General Sherman and Colonel Slack," as highly indiscreet. Of course, no person who can jeopardize the safety of Memphis can remain here, much less exercise public authority; but I must take time, and be satisfied that ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... new coming of the enemy that had banished sleep and set every nerve pulsating before it seemed to lie weak and slack. It was one strange, twanging cry that he recognised at once as the call of the argus pheasant, far away in the jungle, and it meant so much—the fading away of the black darkness, and the glowing golden red of the rising sun to tell ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... in the line,—which involved also the occasional and judicious manipulation of the regulating cord, when a sudden puff of wind should tend to send the kite soaring upwards with six or eight horse-power into the sky. To Ivitchuk was assigned the easy task of gathering in the "slack" and holding on to Alf if a sudden jerk should threaten to pull him overboard. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... survived to desert the hard work against Napoleon for the easier, safer, and better paid work under the Stars and Stripes; while the mere want of any enemy to fight for the command of the sea after Trafalgar had tended to make the British get slack. ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... during the past years he had staggered in from a long march where, for hours, he had waged a bitter war with cold and hunger, his limbs clumsy with fatigue, his garments wet and stiff, his mind slack and sullen. At such extreme seasons he had felt a consuming thirst, a thirst which burned and scorched until his very bones cried out feverishly. Not a thirst for water, nor a thirst which eaten snow could ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... and a grain of insight will help a man over many a rut in portraiture, and a knowledge of patting clay and using a chisel has saved many a sculptor, but technical equipment alone never made an illustrator, because he deals too directly with life in action. Slack drawing and impatience of method will always be pardoned in an illustrator, if his ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... Miss Roscoe was quite unconscionable in her demands on their time and brains. She fixed the standard of the Form so high that only the very bright girls could possibly keep up to it. Many slacked off entirely, but Gwen could not, dared not slack. She knew Miss Roscoe was watching her work, and that very much depended upon her reports for the next year or two. Father had thrown out a few hints that had stirred her ambition and raised wild hopes for the future. She was ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... come. For the first few days, whenever there was any running aloft to be done, I noticed that Harry was indefatigable in coiling away the slack of the rigging about decks; ignoring the fact that his shipmates were springing into the shrouds. And when all hands of the watch would be engaged clewing up a t'-gallant-sail, that is, pulling the ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... finally by a lacustrine or marine basin which receives its waters. Wherever it lets fall solid material, its channel is raised in consequence, and the declivity of the whole bed between the head of the embankment and the slack of the stream is reduced. Hence the current, at first accelerated by confinement, is afterwards checked by the mechanical resistance of the matter deposited, and by the diminished inclination of its channel, and then begins again to let fall the earth ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... hock and descent of this part in a manner similar to cases of rupture or division of the Achilles' tendon. The two conditions should not be confused, however, as the parts may be definitely outlined by palpation and the slack condition of the tendon and displaced summit of the calcaneum, which characterize fracture of the fibular ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... soil retains Our royal hero's beauteous, dear remains; Who now sails off with winds nor wishes slack, To bring his sufferings' bright companion back. But e'er such transport can our sense employ, A bitter grief must poison half our joy; 1070 Nor can our coasts restored those blessings see Without a bribe to envious destiny! Cursed Sodom's doom for ever fix the tide Where by ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Finding business slack in London, it unfortunately occurred to me to try what I could do in the country. I had heard of Maplesworth as a place largely frequented by visitors on account of the scenery, as well as by invalids in need of taking ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... son gout! Let us now see what sort of sport may be had in the Coln. To begin with, it must be described as a "may-fly" stream. This means, of course, that there is a tremendous rise of fly early in June, with the inevitable slack time before and after the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... third man had the lariat of the pony hitched to the raised muscles of his back, and was dragged in this way several times round the ring; but the force not being sufficient to tear loose from the flesh, the pony was backed up, and a slack being thus taken on the lariat, the pony was urged swiftly forward, and the sudden jerk tore the ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... rest, Paul strode over to the tent where a quantity of the provisions were kept. Entering this, he quickly saw that it was exactly as he had suggested. Three of the tent pins, which the boys had pounded down with the camp axe, had been pulled up, and this slack allowed the intruder to crawl ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... no, Mr. Jonathan, he ain't the head—for thar's his brother Abner still livin'—but, head or tail, he's the only part that counts, when it comes to that. Until the boy grew up an' took hold of things, the Revercombs warn't nothin' mo' than slack fisted, out-at-heel po' white trash, as the niggers say, though the old man, Abel's grandfather, al'ays lays claim to bein' connected with the real Revercombs, higher up in the State—However that may be, befo' the war thar warn't ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... which he wrote, "Painted in three-quarters of an hour." He painted a life-size picture of a fallow-deer in three hours, and it required no retouching. One of his comrades said: "Sir Edwin has a fine hand, a correct eye, refined perceptions, and can do almost anything but dance on the slack wire. He is a fine billiard player, plays at chess, sings when with his intimate friends, ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... "Slack out a little bit," his father said. "That is right. I have got it over the cushion. Now hold it firmly until I am on my feet. That is right. ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... ROOFS OF HOUSES.—Slack Stone Lime in a large tub or barrel with boiling water, covering the tub or barrel to keep in the steam. When thus slacked pass six quarts through a fine sieve. It will then be in a state of fine flour. To this add one quart Rock Salt and one gallon of Water. Boil the mixture and skim it ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... wooded bank of a dry river, and thick rattan jungle bordered the opposite side; he thought he was safe, and he plunged down the crumbling bank. We were a little too quick for him, by taking a double turn round a tree with the slack end of the rope just as he descended the bank; the effect of this was to bring him to a sudden standstill, and the stretching of the hide rope threw him upon his knees. He recovered himself immediately, and used extraordinary efforts ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... they should colonize first. The indolent house-boats Loafing along the shore, sent up in silvery spirals Out of their kitchen pipes the smoke of their casual breakfasts. Once a wide tow of coal-barges, loaded clear down to the gunwales, Gave us the slack of the current, with proper formalities shouted By the hoarse-throated stern-wheeler that pushed the black barges before her, And as she passed us poured a foamy cascade from her paddles. Then, as a raft of logs, which the spread of the barges ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... glass-like smoothness. Narrow as was the passage, and anchored as she was in the shoalest place that gave room to swing, the Willi-Waw's chain rode up-and-down a clean hundred feet. Its course could be traced over the bottom of living coral. Like some monstrous snake, the rusty chain's slack wandered over the ocean floor, crossing and recrossing itself several times and fetching up finally at the idle anchor. Big rock-cod, dun and mottled, played warily in and out of the coral. Other fish, grotesque of form and colour, were brazenly indifferent, even when ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... "Kind of slack, aren't you?" inquired Peter, his deep-set blue eyes twinkling with humor. "I've eaten two hours back. This lying a-bed is mighty ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... slack here for several years, and although I've done my own little best, what is one against so many, if you understand what ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... Ben. "They're drowning, and want our help; so, whether enemies or friends, we'll try to haul as many of the poor fellows ashore as we can get hold of, and give them dry jackets, and a warm welcome afterwards. Slack away, mates!" And he plunged into the ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... such a fool as to run after blood and wounds, I have no more to say! Though 'tis pity of the old name! Ha! what's this? 'Wedded against my will—no troth plight.' Forsooth, I thought my young master was mighty slack. He hath some other matter in his mind, hath he? Run into some coil mayhap with a beggar wench! Well, we need not be beholden to him. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... strangely deserted look. December is a slack month for actors and traveling men. Mrs. McChesney registered automatically, received her mail, exchanged greetings with the ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... Lord; that he give meat in time; give it, I say, and not sell it; meat, I say, and not poison. For the one doth intoxicate and slay the eater, the other feedeth and nourisheth him. Finally, let him not slack and defer the doing of his office, but let him do his duty when time is, and need requireth it. This is also to be looked for, that he be one whom God hath called and put in office, and not one that cometh uncalled, unsent ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... and promptitude which distinguishes the disciplined man-of-war's-man; but the operation of laying out the anchor astern necessarily occupied some little time. The boat had only just dropped the anchor overboard, and the men on board the schooner were gathering in the slack of the hawser preparatory to taking it to the capstan, when the felucca came foaming down upon us, and a hasty turn had to be taken with it, and the men at once sent back to their guns, as the manoeuvres of our antagonist seemed to threaten that she was about to turn the tables upon us by laying ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... belt is slack—draw it tight. Erni is in Mount Faigel: take this dagger And give it him! you know its caverns well. In one of them you will find ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... waxed thy faith so faint, Thy spirit so slack and slaw? Thy courage kept good till the flame waxed wud, Then thy might begun to thaw; Had ye kissed him with thy christened lip, Ye had wan him frae 'mang us a'. Now bless the fire, the elfin fire, That made thee faint and fa'; Now bless the fire, the elfin ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... for nearly two miles, they had not as yet discovered any explanation of the difficulty. The posts were in good order, the wire regularly expended. However, at that moment the engineer observed that the wire appeared to be slack, and on arriving at post Number 74, Herbert, who was ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... business suit, was not the man of the world of Graduation night, yet there was a new maturity in his eyes and the set of his jaw that Lydia liked without really observing it. Old Lizzie watched the two as they climbed the slope to the woods. Billy strode along with the slack, irregular gait of the farmer. Lydia sprang over the ground ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... praise the wheeling days Until the cord goes slack, Until the very heartstring frays, Until the stiffening back Can ply no more; keep then the door, And, thankful in the sun, Watch you the same unending ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... two English knights, were so strong that he dared not express his discontent. He himself had twice been engaged with pirates, but had gained no particular credit, and indeed had, in the opinion of his comrades, been somewhat slack in the fray. He was no favourite in the auberge, though he spared no pains to ingratiate himself with the senior knights, and had a short time before been very severely reprimanded by the bailiff for ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... advanced we all began to think of going home, making sure that peace would soon be concluded. And never did more welcome message come anywhere than that which brought us intelligence of the armistice, and the firing, which had grown more and more slack lately, ceased altogether. Of course the army did not desire peace because they had any distaste for fighting; so far from it, I believe the only more welcome intelligence would have been news of a campaign in the field, but they were most heartily weary of sieges, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... conviction to their hearts, and both of them sought the Lord for forgiveness of their sins, and both entered into the grace of conversion. The joy of this experience made their Bible study still more delightful. They had not been strangers to grace, but they had become slack and lukewarm, and when the light of God began to shine more brightly they felt that they should make sure work of it, and so they began at the bottom round of the ladder. They were glad afterwards that they had done this, because it ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... is short, but I slog along slack at the knees an' don't worry my muscles none, an' I can sure walk every ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... cutter when he re-ascended on the deck, he would have discovered Smallbones hanging on by the rudder chains; for had the fog not been so thick, Mr Vanslyperken would have perceived that at the time that he cut Smallbones adrift it was slack water, and the cutter was lying across the harbour. Smallbones was not, therefore, carried away by the tide, but being a very fair swimmer, had gained the rudder chains without difficulty; but at the time that Smallbones was climbing up again by the rope, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... drawn down more than a thousand fathoms of rope, the whale slackened its speed, and Parr, taking another coil round the loggerhead, held on until the boat was almost dragged under water. Then the line became loose, and the slack was hauled in rapidly. Meanwhile Grim's boat had reached the spot, and the men now lay on their oars at some distance ahead, ready to pull the instant the whale should show itself. Up it came, not twenty yards ahead. One short, energetic ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... campaign is one that requires pluck and endurance; no regular sleep, no regular meals; wet and cold, heat and wind and tempest, and no great gains at last. But the sturgeon fishers, who come later and are seen the whole summer through, have an indolent, lazy time of it. They fish around the 'slack-water,' catching the last of the ebb and the first of the flow, and hence drift but little either way. To a casual observer they appear as if anchored and asleep. But they wake up when they have a 'strike,' which may be every day, or not once a week. The ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... has not even the outward comeliness which the village of tradition should possess: it is slack and shabby. Nor is its decay chronicled in any mood of tender pathos. What strikes its chronicler most is the general demoralization of the town. Except for a few saints and poets, whom he acclaims with a lyric ardor, ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... "Never mind, Goody Slack Jaw," says Captain Night. "I shall be thirstier anon from listening to your prate. Will you hurry now, Gadfly, or is the sun to sink before ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... shadow behind them. Of course, in a short distance this would not be noticeable, but it made such a difference in the work we are describing, that the strength of the cable would have been greatly lessened had the strands been bound together in the sunshine, while some of the wires were slack, and some were tight. Even the wind interfered sadly; but by choosing dull, still days, when all the wires were subjected to the same temperature, they were at last successfully ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... were buying real estate for speculation; some running for office; some starting a bank; and others lending money at two per cent. a month, and leading in the prayer-meeting. So Samp kind of hitched up his ambition and took the slack out of his habits for a few months and went to the legislature. They say that he certainly did have a good time, though, when he got there. They remember that session yet up there, and call it the year of the great flood, for the nights they were filled with music, as the poet says, ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... and settle, other loves may loose and slack, But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back, Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret, Still, my hope is all before me: for I ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... somewhat hazardous passage from one ship to the other. The "Thisbe" had but slight way on her; the hawser was consequently somewhat slack, and the weight of the people on it brought it down into the water. The lieutenant and several of the men clung on, but the midshipman was by some means or other washed off. Unable to swim, he cried out loudly for help, but no one could ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston |
