"Dally" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... respect. I have always reverenced a man of whom it could be truly said that he had once, and once only, (for more than once implies another unsoundness in the quality of the passion,) been desperately in love; in love, that is to say, in a terrific excess, so as to dally, under suitable circumstances, with the thoughts of cutting his own throat, or even (as the case might be) the throat of her whom he loved above all this world. It will be understood that I am not justifying such enormities; ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the nations of Europe been allowed to feel an indignation against this country beyond the reach of all subsequent information? Are these times, do you imagine, when we can trifle with a year of universal hatred, dally with the curses of Europe, and then regain a lost character at pleasure, by the parliamentary perspirations of the Foreign Secretary, or the solemn asseverations of the pecuniary Rose? Believe me, Abraham, it is not under such ministers as these that ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... "Yea," said Degore, "if I have heard his last word; nevertheless were I fain to come up and speak with him." "Come up then," said Sir Medard; "yet I must warn thee that it may be easier for thee to come in to Eastcheaping today than to go out therefrom. Moreover, bethink ye if ye dally how it would be were we to open our gates and fall upon you with all ours, and ye disarrayed ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... the carrot, decided to go elsewhere. He backed away and blatted. Little Jim took a quick dally round a veranda post. High-Tail plunged and fought ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... put before her. Would she dally with it, and succumb to it? And could anyone blame her if ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... when the work wuz done, an' the miners rounded up At Casey's, to indulge in keerds or linger with the cup, Or dally with the tabble dote in all its native glory, Perfessor Vere de Blaw discoursed his music repertory Upon the Steenway gran' piannyfort, the wich wuz sot In the hallway near the kitchen (a warm but quiet spot), An' when De Blaw's environments induced the proper pride,— Wich gen'rally wuz whiskey ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... was loyally indignant on hearing a fellow-countryman say, that, though rich in harmony, he was poor in melody. No; Beethoven's wealth is boundless; his riches embarrass him; he is the sultan of melody: while others dally with their beauties to satiety, he wanders from grace to grace, scarce pausing to enjoy. Is it possible to hear his symphonies without recognizing in them the germs of innumerable modern melodies, the precious metal which others beat out, wherewith ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... thousand men! Come," taking Maurice by the arm; "come, they may be seeking us. To the frontier. Every hour is precious. To a telegraph office! We shall see if I dally with peasant girls, if I forsake the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... was known that Miss Campion was excelling herself in honor of her nephew's bride, and the bride herself was alluringly rumored to be a personality. It is doubtful if anyone really believed the "part Indian" suggestion, but there were those who liked to dally with it. Its possibility was a taste of lemon ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... left the business to the ladies' hearts, And when he found them in a proper train He thought all else superfluous and vain: But in that training he was deeply taught, And rarely fail'd of gaining all he sought; He knew how far directly on to go, How to recede and dally to and fro; How to make all the passions his allies, And, when he saw them in contention rise, To watch the wrought-up heart, and conquer by surprise. Our heroine fear'd him not; it was her part To make sure conquest of such gentle heart - ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... her grandparents progressed slowly and deliberately through a menu of medically thought-out dishes. Both the old people were on a rigid diet, and mostly the conversation between them consisted of grumbles at having to dally with baby-food and reminiscences of the admirable dinners of the past. An aged butler and a footman in the sere and yellow only added to the general Rip van Winklism, and the presence of two very old dogs, one the grandfather's Airedale and the other Mrs. Ludlow's Irish terrier, with ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... was as though he dismissed it. "My compliments to her mother and remember that I have your word. Don't dilly-dally. Good God, sir, can't you realise that any day now you may be drafted? You've no time to lose. If I were your age, I'd enlist to-morrow. Don't stand on one foot, you ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... quaked at the sight, And turning backe, gan fast to fly away, 240 Untill with love revokt from vaine affright, She hardly yet perswaded was to stay, And then to him these womanish words gan say; Ah Satyrane, my dearling, and my joy, For love of me leave off this dreadfull play; 245 To dally thus with death is no fit toy, Go find some other play-fellowes, mine ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... sensation, even if it did not sell like a novel. It was, to be sure, a radical book—perhaps the most radical ever published in America; but on the other hand, it dealt with questions of literature and philosophy, where occasionally even respectable and conservative reviews permitted themselves to dally with ideas. Thyrsis was hoping that the publisher might see prestige and publicity in the adventure, and decide to take a chance; when this proved to be the case, he sank back with a vast sigh of relief. He had now money enough to last until ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... uttered by a man who, with utmost fervour, has claimed for himself, that 'I have learned too much of God, to dally with Him, and to make bold with Him in these things,' ought surely to be believed; and if there be any one who is still unconvinced that Cromwell, of his own 'choice,' enticed the Earl of Rochester and ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... backwards until a twist in the road hid them from view. That same twist transformed my path into a real country road—a brown, dusty, monotonous Michigan country road that went severely about its business, never once stopping to flirt with the blushing autumn woodland at its left, or to dally with the dimpling ravine at ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... "Just dally at the gate here and take a look past the next street corner—near where there's ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... These are idle speculations, and yet, when we reflect that Oliver Cromwell was on the point of embarking for America when he was prevented by the king's officers, we may, for the nonce, "let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise," and fancy by how narrow a chance Paradise Lost missed being written in Boston. But, as a rule, the members of the literary guild are not quick to emigrate. They like the feeling of an old and rich civilization about them, a state of society ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... look into the thoughts and habits of your life, some of you may be compelled to acknowledge that this case is not unfamiliar to you. So men sometimes dally with a temptation, and linger beside it, courting its company, instead of flinging it away from them, as the snare of the devil, because of some secret hope that by-and-by God will place them out of the way of it, or give them some new strength against ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... of sommers parching heat, When children play and dally in the street, Yong Thisbe seuerd from the common sort, As gentle nurture lothes each rusticke sport, Went to an arbour, arbours then were greene, Where all alone, for feare she should be seene, She gatherd violets and the Damaske ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... loiter; bide one's time, take one's time; gain time; hang fire; stand over, lie over. put off, defer, delay, lay over, suspend; table [parliamentary]; shift off, stave off; waive, retard, remand, postpone, adjourn; procrastinate; dally; prolong, protract; spin out, draw out, lengthen out, stretch out; prorogue; keep back; tide over; push to the last, drive to the last; let the matter stand over; reserve &c. (store) 636; temporize; consult one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... their king was sory for the former murder and captiuity of our nation, and would neuer yeeld to the like, hauing the Portugals and Spaniards in generall hatred euer since, and conceiueth much better of our countrey, and vs, then these our enemies report of. [Sidenote: Port Dally the chief place of trade.] For which I yeelded them hearty thanks, assuring them they should finde great difference betweene the loyalty of the one and disloyalty of the other; and so payed their dueties: and for that it was the chiefe place of trade, I shewed them how I was resolued ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... the third, Laertes: You do but dally; I pray you, pass with your best violence; I am afeard you ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... you for that little confidence; but I must not dally. What arms have you in the house, and have ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fashion doubtless; but it takes some little time to rouse the lion spirit in him. He is wont to laugh and jest somewhat too much, and dally with news, whilst he throws the dice with his courtiers, or passes a compliment to some fair lady. He takes life somewhat too lightly does my lord the King, until he be thoroughly roused. But the blood of kings runs in his veins; and let him but be awakened to the need for action, then ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... swung from the saddles and the roman-nosed outlaw pricked his ears and set against the rope with fore legs braced. The cowboy who had him in tow took an extra dally around the saddle horn as the Texan, hackamore in hand, felt his way inch by inch along the taut lead-rope. As the man's hand touched his nose the outlaw shuddered and braced back until only the whites of his eyes showed. Up came the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... I came out and shook him into attention, "there is naught within more dangerous than shadows, or perchance a rat. Nor have I any time longer to dally over such boyishness. I had supposed you a soldier and a brave man, not a nerveless girl to be frightened in the dark. Come, there is ample hiding-space behind the walls, and I purpose leaving you here to regain some measure of your lost courage while I try ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... a man accustomed to command. I have no time to play with conventions... I cannot dally and plead. But I love you. I cannot live without you! And I will shake the foundations of ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... glass: There might you see the gods, in sundry shapes, Committing heady riots, incests, rapes; For know, that underneath this radiant flour[10] Was Danaee's statue in a brazen tower: Jove slily stealing from his sister's bed, To dally with Idalian Ganymed, And for his love Europa bellowing loud, And tumbling with the Rainbow in a cloud; 150 Blood-quaffing Mars heaving the iron net Which limping Vulcan and his Cyclops set; Love kindling fire, to ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... can be, Assisted with the silence of the Night, (Which veils her Blushes too) can say— I dare not? Or if she do, she'll speak it faintly o'er, And even whilst she so denies will yield. Go, go prepare your self for this Encounter, And do not dally as you did to day, And fright your Pleasure with the Name ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... when you touch it, and after a while the husk bursts and out comes the butterfly. The account is good enough, so far as it goes, but nevertheless Aristotle shows no affection for the butterfly, does not linger and dally over it, tells no stories about it. This is all of a piece with the rest of Greek literature, and poetry in particular, where allusions to the butterfly are scanty and rare. I think the Greeks found something ominous or uncanny, something not to be lightly spoken of, in that all but disembodied ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... so; she carried herself proudly. Chaste in thought, frank in deed, she was a perfect specimen of the highly bred, purely English type of woman who, looking at facts squarely in the face, accepts them as facts and does not allow her imagination to dally in any atmosphere wherein they may be invested. To this type a vow is irrefragable. Loyalty is inherent in her like her blood. She never changes. What feminine inconsistencies she had at fifteen she retains at five-and-twenty, and preserves to add to the charms of her old age. She is the ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... Finsbury leather trade, had been cut to the quick; even Morris's strong sense of duty to himself was not strong enough to dally within those walls and under the shadow of that bankruptcy; and presently the manager and the clerks would draw a long breath, and compose themselves for another day of procrastination. Raw Haste, on the authority of ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... gather that Dumas is out of date. There is a new philosophy of doubts and delicacies, of dallyings and refinements, of half-hearted lookers-on, desiring and fearing some new order of the world. Dumas does not dally nor doubt: he takes his side, he rushes into the smoke, he strikes his foe; but there is never an unkind word on his lip, nor a grudging thought in ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... pennies and halfpennies were thrown from the windows at a West Hartlepool wedding party. One fell down the back of a schoolboy, burning him, and has been awarded 5 damages."—Eastern Dally Press. ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various
... lootenant, but it seems a useless thing our goin' up to the oak. I know the Cap' sayed we were to wait for them under it. Why cant we just as well stay heer? 'Taint like they'll be long now. They wont dally a minute, I know, after they've clutched the shiners, an' I guess they got 'em most as soon as we'd secured these pair o' petticoats. Besides they'll come quicker than we've done, seeing as they're more like to be pursooed. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... to know why. The last group that I talked with said that the vanguard of the German cavalry was only about fifteen miles out of town and would be in this morning. They were all tremendously excited and did not dally by the wayside to chat about the situation with me. I can't say that I blame them, particularly in view of what I have ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... party. It was the wise manner of the Maid to strike swift, blow upon blow, each stroke finding less resistance among the enemy, that had been used to a laggard war, for then it was the manner of captains to dally for weeks or months round a town, castle, or other keep, and the skill was to starve the enemy. But the manner of the Maid was ever to send cloud upon cloud of men to make escalade by ladders, their comrades aiding ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... dally there awhile before climbing, so I will go and bring back Ramure in extremis, who is waiting for me. But Joseph clings to me, and then I notice a movement of men about the spot where I left the dying man. I can guess what it means; it is ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... last. The British agent, though roused from his midnight sleep, received me in his home with the utmost kindness and hospitality. Oh! by Jove, how delightful it was to lie on fair sheets, and to dally with sleep, and to wake, and to sleep, and to wake once more, for ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... person, with a quarter of a bread-fruit, which is stated to have been scarcely eatable, for dinner; Bligh having determined to preserve sacredly, and at the peril of his life, the engagement they entered into, and to make their small stock of provisions last eight weeks, let the dally proportion be ever ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... two between the sticks, a distance that takes the frozen stream a year to compass, and look out upon it half contemptuously. Then they cross it—carefully, they have enough respect left for that—with their cunningly nailed shoes and a rope; an hour or two they dally with it, till at last, being hungry and cold, they walk to the inn for supper. At supper they tell stories of their prowess, pay money to the guides who have protected them, and fall asleep after tea with weariness. Meantime, the darkness ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... you. When by evil lust entic'd, Remember ye be men, not senseless beasts; Nor let the Jew, who dwelleth in your streets, Hold you in mock'ry. Be not, as the lamb, That, fickle wanton, leaves its mother's milk, To dally with itself ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... must come— The wind is off shore blowing; You only change your prison dull For one that's splendid, glowing! His Highness doats on milky cheeks, So do not make us dally"— We, eighty strong, who send along The ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... his folly now, his madness, in allowing himself to dally with a baseless hope, which, while never daring to own its own existence, had yet so mingled its enervating poison with every vein that he had now no strength left to endure the disappointment so certain and so near. At the very gate of his father's house he paused. A powerful impulse ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... late, but with tremendous fury. He gained no sleep that night. The star of his desire shone like a mocking mirage before his mind's eye. It was all impossible, hopeless, but to love and lose were better than to live in ignorance of life's strongest passion. To dally with the impossible were sheer madness, he knew that. But what was to be done but obey the yearnings of his heart, though ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... great father. Christina consented to be crowned, but she absolutely refused all thought of marriage. She had more suitors from all parts of Europe than even Elizabeth of England; but, unlike Elizabeth, she did not dally with them, give them false hopes, or use them for the ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... follows for some miles along the shore, a smooth, level road that winds about the bases of the hills that here slope down to toy and dally with the restless surf of the famous Inland Sea. Following the shore in a general sense, the road now and then leads inland for a mile or two, for the purpose of linking together the numerous towns and villages that ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... pretence about Cornelia. She never, never even in the first place, made any possible effort to attract me. Can't you see that Cornelia looks to me to-day exactly the way that she looked to me in the first place; very, amazingly, beautiful. But a traveler, you know, cannot dally indefinitely to feed his eyes on even the most wonderful view while all his precious lifelong companions,—his whims, his hobbies, his cravings, his yearnings,—are crouching starved ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Barbarossa sound strategical instinct went hand in hand with the desperate valor of the corsair. To dally in the Golden Horn while so rich a prey was at sea to be picked up by his Christian foes was altogether opposed to his instincts: never to throw away a chance in the game of life had ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... gun, even when you may imagine it to be far out of earshot, comfortably cleaned and put to roost on its rack, your gun will resent it. Why are most sportsmen so silent, so distraits at breakfast? Why do they dally with a scrap of fish, and linger over the consumption of a small kidney, and drink great draughts of tea to restore their equilibrium? If you ask them, they will tell you that it's because they're "just a bit chippy," owing to sitting up late, or smoking too much, or forgetting to drink ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... of an anticipated visit probably caused us to dally less than usual over our morning meal. At all events, when we rose from the table and went on deck the boat was still nearly a mile distant. And a very curious object she looked; for the weather being stark calm, and the ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... dregs of my queasiness, and I spent a profitable hour on the pier-head with a guide-book called Baddely's Scotland, and one of Bartholomew's maps. I was beginning to think that Amos might be able to tell me something, for a talk with the captain had suggested that the Tobermory would not dally long in the neighbourhood of Rum and Eigg. The big droving season was scarcely on yet, and sheep for the Oban market would be lifted on the return journey. In that case Skye was the first place to watch, and if I could get wind of any big cargo waiting there I would be able to make ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... mine, ten-finger-naily, These hands sho lotush-leafy, Are itching-anxious, girl, to dally With you; and in a jiffy I 'll drag Your Shweetness by the hair From the cart wherein you ride, As did Jatayu Bali's fair, The monkey ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... and did this morning dally with Nell... which I was afterward troubled for. To the office, and there all the morning. Peg Pen come to see me, and I was glad of it, and did resolve to have tried her this afternoon, but that there was company with elle at my home, whither I got her. Dined at home, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... reigning king. From the Olympian disenchantment of his tolerant urbanity, all eruptive seriousness foams back spray-tossed and scattered. And yet such a master of the art of "suspended judgment" was he, that he permits himself to dally very pleasantly with the most passionate illusions of the human race. He is too deep a sceptic even to remain at the point of taking seriously ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... sort of natural right to rebel. It was a part of the plan, moreover, that he should renounce and grow strong through renunciation. But this was to come later in the third act; in the beginning he was to dally with the morbid passion which was to be his tragic guilt. Now with this conception of the subject, the portrait of Carlos, just as we have it, fits in very well; but when the main interest of the play had become political, when the lawless ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Turkey gentlewomen, that are perpetual prisoners, still mewed up according to the custom of the place, have little else beside their household business, or to play with their children to drive away time, but to dally with their cats, which they have in delitiis, as many of our ladies and gentlewomen use monkeys and little dogs. The ordinary recreations which we have in winter, and in most solitary times busy our minds with, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... still they are prone to retire on occasion to some quiet corner where they can rest unobserved, and then their talk invariably drops into some simple, natural channel that is in accord with the tenor of their dally lives. Of course this is tinctured more or less with the unaccustomed sights and sounds about them, but not greatly so; for the most part they ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... reporting the circumstances, Hannah had dallied—thus far I had rejoiced that she dallied, with the main burden of the wo; but now there remained nothing to dally with any longer—and she rushed along in her narrative, hurrying to tell—I hurrying to hear. A second, a third examination had ensued, then a final committal—all this within a week. By that time all the world was agitated with the case; literally not ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... girls,—young ladies, for those who prefer that more dignified and less attractive expression,—all in the flush of youth, all in vigorous health; every muscle taught its duty; each rower alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let her oar dally with the water so as to lose an ounce of its propelling virtue; every eye kindling with the hope of victory. Each of the boats was cheered as it came in sight, but the cheers for the Atalanta were naturally the loudest, as the gallantry of one sex and the clear, high voices of the ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the thing which soon found its way into his paper and was then copied into hers. The public grew uneasy. It would swallow any story it was told about the Heir Apparent, for instance and a Russian Grand Duke—is it not the sublime prerogative of American women to dally with such small game as those gentlemen— but it kicked against the probability of such an actual fact as the hammock already described which seemed too ridiculous a whim to possess any real existence. However, the tongues of the fashionable callers, the professional cliques and the ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... seconded. But have a care. Dally with no traitors. Speak fairly of your master's friends.' He touched her above the left breast with a claw-like finger. 'The Italian writes: "Whoso mocketh my love ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... large cities—Newport and Saratoga never saw gayer seasons than those of 1862—splendor and luxury are still the life of thousands, and even yet there exists in the North a large political party who are so far from feeling that there is any desperation involved as to still dally and coquet with the political principles of the enemy, and talk largely of compromise. When it comes to the bitter end, those trivial, superficial, temporary men will, we believe, in most cases, be changed into good citizens, for necessity is a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... water. This, first of all, communicated any lasting warmth; so that ever afterward I used none but cold water. Now to live in a cold bath in our climate, and in my own state of preternatural sensibility to cold, was not an idea to dally with. I wish to mention, however, for the information of other sufferers in the same way, one change in the mode of applying the water which led to a considerable and a sudden improvement in the condition of my feelings. I had endeavored in vain to procure a child's battledore, as an ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... days since this letter began rehandling Chapter IV. of the Samoa racket. I do not go in for literature; address myself to sensible people rather than to sensitive. And, indeed, it is a kind of journalism, I have no right to dally; if it is to help, it must come soon. In two months from now it shall be done, and should be published in the course of March. I propose Cassell gets it. I am going to call it A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa, I believe. I recoil from serious names; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... upright again and himself back into the saddle, "who'd have believed the old beldame had so much suppleness in her joints? But it's no joking matter. Only to think of it! Everything looking so bright, and now Satan's luck once more back upon us—bad, if not worse, than ever! Well, we mustn't dilly-dally here. If there's still a chance left us, we'll have to look for it down below, by that big ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... had intended to go a piece on the road that afternoon anyhow, but she could not feel easy in her mind to go very far until the child was found. Virginia folks and Marylanders were the same as neighbors. If Mrs. Tracy would take a seat in the carriage, they would make it their business to dally along the road and meet the word the men out searching were to bring in. Mrs. Tracy clung to Grandma Padgett's arm as if she knew what a stay the Ohio neighbors had always found this vigorous old lady. The conveyance ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... talke together ther, in the open strete or abrode: is so straunge, and so vnwonte a thing, that in a whole yere it skante happeneth ones. For a man to sitte with his wyfe in open sighte, or to ride with any woman behinde him: amongest them ware a wondre. Maried couples neuer dally together in the sighte of other, nor chide or falle out. But the menne beare alwaies towarde the women a manly discrete sobrenes, and the women, towarde them a demure womanlie reuerence. Greate menne, that cannot alwaie haue their wiues ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears: Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, To strow the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. For so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurled, Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... sez, "Oh, do come along! we shan't git to that wheel to-day if you dally so, and begin to talk ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... before I leave you, even if it be out of season. With the recollection of last night still so fresh, even the serious things of life seem trifles, far more its small conventionalities. Mr. Lyndsay, your friend has made his choice, but you are dallying between belief and unbelief. Oh, do not dally long! We need no spirit from the dead to tell us life is short. Do we not feel it passing quicker and quicker every year? The one thing that is serious in all its shows and delusions is the question it puts to each one of us, and which we answer to our eternal ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... other side. The knight also bore, secured to his saddle, with one end resting on his stirrup, the long steel-headed lance, his own proper weapon, which, as he rode, projected backwards, and displayed its little pennoncelle, to dally with the faint breeze, or drop in the dead calm. To this cumbrous equipment must be added a surcoat of embroidered cloth, much frayed and worn, which was thus far useful that it excluded the burning rays ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... confident that he would gather up the tangled and dropped threads of her life, and weave them, somehow, into a new and perfect pattern. She had so much to tell him! And he was there, close to her! Waiting, waiting for her to come to him and she could afford to dally by the wayside; gather up the precious memories—so like toys of the child she once had been and, by and by, she would go to him like a little girl tired of her day's wandering, and he would ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... feeling—but a continual flutter and display of affected airs and graces, like a finished coquette, who hides the want of symmetry by extravagance of dress, and the want of passion by flippant forwardness and unmeaning sentimentality. All is flimsy, all is florid to excess. His imagination may dally with insect beauties, with Rosicrucian spells; may describe a butterfly's wing, a flower-pot, a fan: but it should not attempt to span the great outlines of nature, or keep pace with the sounding march ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... millions of diverse peoples of India who are linked together by only one bond—the government extended to them by the British Empire. Nor need we stay now to speculate on the nationalities which will arise from the wreckage of Turkey, Austria, or Russia, nor shall we dally with the Balkan jumble of nationalities. We simply note that these instincts or feelings which compel men of like speech, habits, and traditions to group themselves into independent national units are most active and powerful where racial or national boundaries are ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... this halo lives about The waiter's hands, that reach To each his perfect pint of stout, His proper chop to each. He looks not like the common breed. That with the napkin dally; I think he came like Ganymede, From ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... they're already here," cried a voice; "for it's them, I 'spect, as has attacked Hoy's Station, of which we've just got news, and are gitting ready to march at daylight and attack them in turn. Arm, boys, arm! Don't let us dally here, and be lagging when the time comes to ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... far guided the pen, to dally with a subject all the dearer because so generally disregarded, will now gladly yield it to the control of a fresher fancy, a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... And the Baron would dally with his victuals in the most unwonted fashion, and growl at the rapidity with which ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... also received intelligence that a large force was marching from Glasgow to intercept him at Columbia, should he succeed in evading the force at Lebanon. Harlan was not so far in his rear that he could afford to dally. "In this emergency," he said, "I determined to make a detour to the right of Lebanon, and by a night march to conceal my movements from the enemy, outstrip the column moving from Glasgow to Columbia, and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... words, she put on a serious look, and gave orders that he should be taken out and administered twenty blows with the bamboo. When the servants perceived that lady Feng was in an angry mood, they did not venture to dilly-dally, but dragged him out, and gave him the full number of blows; which done, they came in to report that the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... less to lack of resolution, than to defect of physical force and energy. The many bad colds of which he speaks were warnings of the end, which came in the form of consumption. This lurking malady it was that made him wait, and dally with his talent. He hit on the idea of translating some of Bossuet's orations for a Scotch theological publisher. Alas! the publisher did not anticipate a demand, among Scotch ministers, for the Eagle of Meaux. Murray, in his innocence, was startled by the caution of the publisher, ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... New York on the wire right away. It is as well Lyman and his pal should know Lola is sick and that they can't dally ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... her chariot through the sky she rode. Marvelled the Daughters of the Sun, who stood Near her, around that wondrous splendour-ring Traced for the race-course of the tireless sun By Zeus, the limit of all Nature's life And death, the dally round that maketh up The eternal circuit of the rolling years. And now amongst the Blessed bitter feud Had broken out; but by behest of Zeus The twin Fates suddenly stood beside these twain, One dark—her shadow fell on Memnon's heart; One bright—her ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... the Journal Asiatique, nor I suppose E. B. C. neither. G. de Tassy is very civil to me however. How much I might say about your Letter to me! you will hardly comprehend how it is I almost turn my Eyes from it in this Answer, and dally with other matter. You make me sad with old Memories; yet, I don't mean quite disagreeably sad, but enough to make me shrink recurring to them. I don't know whether to be comforted or not when you talk of India as a Land of ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... a widow must not dally, He must make hay while the sun doth shine; He must not stand with her, Shall I, Shall I? But boldly say, Widow, thou ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... inasmuch as the Commodore is not exactly one to dally in such matters; and when his locks ticked, as he drew the hammers to half-cock, Chase quietly dismounted from his perch, and Shot's head and fore-paws appeared above the barrier; but not till Archer's hand gave the expected signal did the stanch ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Theo did not dally with his dressing, you may be sure; he was far too hungry, and too eager to attack the ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... was intimidated by the audacity of my project, but I had sworn to carry it out. For several years I looked it squarely in the face at intervals, and then walked away to write novels of smaller scope, of which I produced five or six. But I could not dally forever, and in the autumn of 1907 I actually began to write it, in a village near Fontainebleau, where I rented half a house from a retired railway servant. I calculated that it would be 200,000 words long (which it exactly proved to be), ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... waned away, Of own accord offered his head to death. Even Epicurus went, his light of life Run out, the man in genius who o'er-topped The human race, extinguishing all others, As sun, in ether arisen, all the stars. Wilt thou, then, dally, thou complain to go?— For whom already life's as good as dead, Whilst yet thou livest and lookest?—who in sleep Wastest thy life—time's major part, and snorest Even when awake, and ceasest not to see The stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind beset By baseless terror, nor discoverest oft What's ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... before he obtained his patent. How these years preyed upon the noble enthusiasm of Gilbert we may understand from a letter commonly attributed to him, which was handed to the queen in November, 1577: "I will do it if you will allow me; only you must resolve and not delay or dally—the wings of man's life are plumed ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... category of causes, we should call attention to the fact acknowledged by all thorough students of this subject, namely, that, other things being equal, it is particularly the individual who has linguistic abilities, who is especially good at verbal composition, that seems to have most incentive to dally with the truth. But beyond this we would insist that a combination of verbal ability with proportionate mental defects in other fields gives a make-up which finds the paths of least resistance directly along ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... compromis were mistakes. The real pluck was the sporting spirit that stood to its guns, even if it cost a big and wearisome effort. She would not dally. She would answer to her own Best, and try to go on ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... q. d. a woman's delight; or from our word DALLY, q. d. a thing to play withal.] Penis-succedaneus, called in ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... Street to Piccadilly Circus was performed every evening. In Piccadilly she found the 'bus that took her to Hammersmith. It was a pleasurable little journey; she looked forward to it. It amused her to dally on the way, stopping to look in the shop windows. The bright lights lifted her spirits. After a time she had become acquainted with the prints that hung in the print-seller's windows in Garrick Street; they always stayed there long enough to grow ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... dusty, timid, foot-sore, and curiously old-fashioned. Now is the up grade eased by scholarships; young men labour with the football instead of the buck-saw, and wear high collars, and travel on a Pullman car, and dally with slang and cigarettes in the smoking-room. Altogether it is a new Republic, and only those unborn shall know if it ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... time thirty hours. Your posts can perform the distance in that time, and take care that they do not dally on the way." ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... added Peggy with a laugh, as she rolled down her sleeves. "And don't thee dally too long talking with thy friends, Peggy. Thee ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... the foundations be laid, let the superstructure be built up and cemented, let each stone be raised and reverted, In a spirit of national brotherhood! And may the earliest ray of the rising sun—till that sun shall set to rise no more—draw forth from it dally, as from the fabled statue of antiquity, a strain of national harmony, which shall strike a responsive chord in every heart ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... broke up the army. The cost of the war of which the result was this fine addition to our Indian Empire, was two millions sterling; almost from the first the province was self-supporting and uninterrupted peace has reigned within its borders. We did not dally in those primitive smooth-bore days. Sir Charles Napier took the field against the Scinde Ameers on the 16th of February 1843. Next day he fought the battle of Meanee, entered Hyderabad on the 2Oth, and on the 24th of March ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... guilty of this terrible sin? have you even once in this way yielded to the tempter's voice? Stop, consider, think of the awful results, repent, confess to God, reform. Another step in that direction and you may be lost, soul and body. You cannot dally with the tempter. You must escape now or never. ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg |
