"Mechanically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mechanically. He had gone through these weeks only by never daring to have a self. The only man of his family who could be effective; the only priest in the two infected parishes; he had steadfastly braced himself for the work. He ventured only to act ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he uncoiled it again; she mechanically took it between her delicate fingers and held it steady while he measured and ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... cadence of inefficient actors, lawyers and preachers. Their trouble is a mental one—they are not concentratedly thinking thoughts that cause words to issue with sincerity and conviction, but are merely enunciating word-sounds mechanically. Painful experience alike to audience and to speaker! A parrot is equally eloquent. Again let Shakespeare instruct us, this tune in the insincere prayer of the King, Hamlet's uncle. He ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... inserted the fuse; then filled up the rest of the hole with dirt and small fragments of stone; tamped it down firmly, touched his candle to the fuse, and ran. By and by the I dull report came, and he was about to walk back mechanically and see what was accomplished; but he halted; presently turned on his heel ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... on the floor, and walked with his hands behind him to the window, out of which, still faintly whistling, he gazed with eyes that saw nothing. Once his lips opened to emit mechanically the Englishman's expletive of sudden enlightenment. At length he turned to the shelves again, and swiftly but carefully examined every ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... the offices, with a little thinking, a little turn of the pen, and a little tracing in ink, men were magically warding off impending disaster, or adding thousands to the thousands accumulated already—men, too, were writing without thinking, mechanically copying or posting, scribbling letters of form, with heads clear or heads aching, with hearts burning or cold; full of ambition and hope, or vaguely remembering country hill-sides and summer rambles—a day's fishing—a night's frolic—Sunday-school—singing-school, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... Mechanically he took off his coat, and was about to fold and lay it on the rug beside the bed, when something hard in one of the pockets knocked against his knee. Searching, he found and drew forth a small bottle which, for many a month past, had lain in the drawer of a table where ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to his Madonnas their unique expression and charm. He has worked out in them a distinct and peculiar type, definite enough in his own mind, for he has painted it over and over again, sometimes one might think almost mechanically, as a pastime during that dark period when his thoughts were so heavy upon him. Hardly any collection of note is without one of these circular pictures, into which the attendant angels depress their heads so naively. Perhaps you have sometimes wondered why those ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... much poaching now at Crompton?" inquired Yorke, mechanically. It would have been plain to any less obtuse observer than his companion that he no longer gave him ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... I went out mechanically, and I anticipate my story so far as to say that, two days after, another proof came in the proper form. I went to the printer to offer to pay for setting it up afresh, and was told that Miss Wollaston had been there and had paid herself for the rectification of the mistake, ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... went on sounding mechanically, not minding the movements of the ship, his sing-song chant varying almost at every throw; and, "By the deep nine" being succeeded by, "And a quarter ten," until the full length of the lead-line, twenty fathoms, was let out ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... small, and some of them in extremely minute quantity. When deprived of moisture and its minor constituents, 100 volumes of air are found to contain 21 of oxygen and 79 of nitrogen. Although these gases are not chemically combined in the air, but only mechanically mixed, their proportion is exceedingly uniform, for analyses completely corresponding with these numbers have been made by Humboldt, Gay-Lussac, and Dumas at Paris, by Saussure at Geneva, and by Lewy at Copenhagen; and similar results have also been obtained from ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... this morning ... I did not want to tell him what I knew.... It was too horrible.... All the same, I had to act quickly; your letters announced your secret arrival to-day.... I thought at first of running away, of taking the train.... I had mechanically picked up that dagger, to defend myself.... But when Jacques and I went down to the beach, I was resigned.... Yes, I had accepted death: 'I will die,' I thought, 'and put an end to all this nightmare!'... ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... on her knees washing the slabs of the passage that led through to the back door, the master, as she always called him now that Cosmo was his pupil, happened to come from his room, and saw and addressed her. She rose in haste, mechanically drying her hands ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... whilst I judiciously gauged the height of the root, and meanwhile balanced the unsteady bark under my feet. When the root was within six inches of the wire, Pup's chin and forepaws were on the gunwale; in three seconds more, I was clinging with one hand to the root, the other still mechanically holding the tightening wire; Pup was making for the log; and the splitters' bark had gone to Davy Jones's locker. In another half-minute, the wire parted, and Pup and I were deck passengers, ong root for ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Crewne mechanically put his hands in his pocket and drew forth the money Matalette had given him to buy a horse with. The sheriff ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... lunched together in the restaurant car. The windows steamed, but here and there through a wiped patch of pane a white world was revealed. The snow was falling. As they passed through Westbury, McCurdie looked mechanically for the famous white horse carved into the chalk of the down; but it was not visible beneath the ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... greatest crimes are always times of the greatest ignorance. It is in these times, or usually so, that the greatest noise is made about religion. Men then follow mechanically, and without examination, the tenets which their priests impose on them, without ever diving to the bottom of their doctrines. In proportion as mankind become enlightened, great crimes become more rare, the manners of men are more polished, the sciences are cultivated, and the ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... doctor's orders mechanically. His mind was focussed on the time for the train to leave and in the interval he did not care what they did with him. So he let himself be put into a bare little white room, heavy with the smell of disinfectants, while a nurse in a blue uniform and a young ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... moreover, that his Greek and Latin were "mechanically" taught; Hebrew scarce even mechanically; much else which they called History, Cosmography, Philosophy, and so forth, no better than not at all. So that, except inasmuch as Nature was still busy; and he himself "went about, as was of old his wont, among the Craftsmen's workshops, there ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... berth for myself in the darkest corner. It was not far from the door, and presently two other ladies came down, with a gentleman and the captain, and held an anxious parley close to me. I listened absently and mechanically, as indifferent to the subject as if it could be of no consequence ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... was mechanically taking one book after another from the shelves. His hands slipped curiously over the smooth covers and the noiseless subsidence of opening pages. Suddenly he came on a thin volume ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... a large restaurant so as to hear voices around me. There were only a few vacant places, and I found a seat in a corner near a table at which three people were dining. I gave my order, and while my eyes mechanically followed the white-gloved hand pouring soup into my plate from a silver cup, I listened ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... cider-smells, reminding her of Wessex, occasionally came from narrow streets in the background. Ethelberta passed up the Rue Grand-Pont into the little dusky Rue Saint-Romain, behind the cathedral, being driven mechanically along by the fever and fret of her thoughts. She was about to enter the building by the transept door, when she saw Lord ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... instrument, machine, and tool have figurative use, instrument being used largely in a good, tool always in a bad sense; machine inclines to the unfavorable sense, as implying that human agents are made mechanically subservient to some controlling will; as, an instrument of Providence; the tool of a tyrant; a ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... interest was awakened in his mind by the fact that Lord Walderhurst drew towards him the feminine writing-tablet and opened and shut it mechanically. ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "Come in," said Owen mechanically, drawing his visitor inside the house. "It's awfully decent of you, Herrick. You have ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... smiled for the first time. Fanny Brandeis would have given everything she had, everything she hoped to be, to be able to take back that monosyllable. She was gripped with horror at what she had done. She had spoken almost mechanically. And yet that monosyllable must have been the fruit of all these months of inward struggle and thought. "Now I begin to understand you," Fenger went on. "You've decided to lop off all the excrescences, eh? Well, I can't say that I blame you. A woman in business is handicapped enough ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... followed the colorless monotony of her life with a stunned and bruised deadness about her heart. She had shed no tears and the feeling was always with her that soon she must awaken to a poignant agony and that then her mind would collapse. Mechanically she read to her father and supervised the duties of the attendant who had been brought on from Boston, but often when he spoke to her he had to repeat his question, and then she would come back to the present ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... empty, and mechanically tightened his leather belt another inch. It came over him all at once that he was frightfully hungry. For the last two days he and his partner had been travelling on short rations, and to-day they had been on the go since before sun-up. For a moment the wild idea came to him ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... dredging nets were coarse and weighty, and the capstan of the clumsiest and most primitive description, so that the coral-seeking serfs under contract were worked like bullocks until they were often wont to fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion as they hauled away mechanically. We can imagine then with what raptures of joy these ill-treated mortals must have hailed the advent of October, the month that terminated their long spell of suffering and semi-starvation, and with what eagerness they must have returned homewards, the more industrious to perform odd jobs during ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... however, was its argument that, since the invariable law of life was one of progressive evolution, therefore the acquired characteristics which formed the material of evolution, and were heritable, could be mechanically increased in number by education; hence the body of inheritance (which unfortunately varied as between man and man because of past discrepancies in environment, opportunities, and education) could be equalized by a system of teaching that aimed ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... toughest seal-skin, and as thick as a man's wrist near the handle, whence it tapered off to a fine point. The labour of using such a formidable weapon is so great that Esquimaux usually, when practicable, travel in couples, one sledge behind the other. The dogs of the last sledge follow mechanically and require no whip, and the riders change about so as to relieve each other. When travelling, the whip trails behind, and can be brought with a tremendous crack that makes the hair fly from the wretch that is struck; and Esquimaux are ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Mechanically; that is to say, in those features that reflect the finished artistic achievement of the Print, Picture and Binding art; as seen in the bold clear type of its text, its striking and beautiful illustrations, its illuminating title heads of division and chapter; indicating ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... insignificant mementos which had their meaning, doubtless, to her,—such a collection as is often priceless to one human heart, and passed by as worthless in the auctioneer's inventory. She took the papers out mechanically, and laid them on the table. Among them was an oblong packet, sealed with what appeared to be the office seal ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... retraced my steps mechanically to my house, but a gholam, bearing the royal edict, had arrived there before me, and my own slave repulsed me from ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... out his hand mechanically and took one. He put it into his mouth, and without lighting it, commenced to ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... the iron points deep into the poor brutes' necks and heads, and used every threat of their vocabulary; the only response was a kind of marking time on the part of the elephants, which simply moved their legs mechanically up and down, and swung their trunks to and fro; but none would pull or exert the slightest power, neither did they move ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... advantageously. Therefore Black is more likely to play 2. P-K3. Not 2. ... Kt-KB3; for after 3. PxP, KtxP; 4. P-K4 would open White's game and drive the Knight away at once, gaining a move. Supposing, however, Black plays 2. ... B-B4; should White now think mechanically, "I will take his centre pawn and consequently have the better game," his deduction would be wrong. For after exchanging his Bishop for the Knight, which otherwise would drive his Queen away, Black brings the latter into a ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... theological sphere. As soon as the process becomes 'natural' it ceases to demand the supernatural artificer. 'Making,' therefore, is contradistinguished from 'growing.' If we see how the eye has come into existence, we have no longer any reason to assume that it was put together mechanically. In other words, 'teleology' of this variety is dispelled by theories of evolution. The hypothesis of interference becomes needless when we see how things came to be by working out perfectly natural processes. As science, therefore, expands, theology recedes. This was to become more evident ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... from the poppy leaves, and carried it to the hut. Measuring with great care a small quantity, he lifted the girl's head and placed it to her lips. She drank it mechanically. Then he watched beside her, until her breathing and her pulse changed in character. She slept. He turned aside then, and buried his face in his hands and prayed fervently for her life—prayed as we pray for the daily bread of the heart. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... answering, Harriet turned away confused, and stood thoughtfully by the fire; and though the letter was still in her hand, it was now mechanically twisted about without regard. Emma waited the result with impatience, but not without strong hopes. At last, with ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... castle, she beheld its walls surrounded on all sides by the deep waters of the lake, on whose wide surface a single boat, where Little Douglas was fishing, was rocking like a speck. For some moments Mary's eyes mechanically rested on this child, whom she had already seen upon her arrival, when suddenly a horn sounded from the Kinross side. At the same moment Little Douglas threw away his line, and began to row towards the shore ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Mechanically enclosed impurities are also frequently present, and it is to these that the colour is often due. A remarkable case of enclosed impurities is presented by the so-called Fontainbleau limestone, which consists of crystals ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... black-and-tan, afflicted with fits, that had shared the shelter of a friendly doorway with me one cold night and had clung to me ever since with a loyal affection that was the one bright spot in my hard life. As my hand stole mechanically down to caress it, it crept upon my knees and licked my face, as if it meant to tell me that there was one who understood; that I was not alone. And the love of the faithful little beast thawed the ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... the coming revelation seemed to light on the Pope, and he sat down again without a word. Mechanically he prepared to receive the penitent into the Church, questioning her, instructing her, calling on her to repeat the profession of faith, and finally ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... had gone through the ceremony almost mechanically— recklessly, we might be justified in saying; for not having raised her eyes off the floor from its commencement to its close, the man whom she accepted for better or for worse might have been Jacques or Redfeather for all that ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... it, sir, if you think it's worth while? We was in a sort of hurry and we had to put it down just as we come to it; we didn't have time to pick our ammunition; and it ain't written the best in the world, nohow." He waited again, and the Colonel opened the paper and glanced down at it mechanically. It contained first a roster, headed by the list of six guns, named by name: "Matthew", "Mark", "Luke", and "John", "The Eagle", and "The Cat"; then of the ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... look of defiance. Her dress had been rich; it was now torn and damp, and clung in dank folds to her limbs. The child she carried appeared to be four months old. She held it convulsively at her breast, and when it gave forth a feeble cry she rocked it mechanically. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were far from Palissy and his enamelled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the dark a great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist, Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism should be really a great fact? What if, through communication ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... down mechanically, and put his hand to his forehead. I watched him curiously. It was the strangest trick that ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the stroke fell, marking him from the nape all down the spine, so that he now bore upon his back in red the sign the ass carries in black, a piercing shriek assailed Angus's ears, and his arm, which had mechanically raised itself for a ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... wanders. That is partly conscious, and voluntary, but in a large measure simply yielding to inclination and temptation. Then there is the coin that trundles away under some piece of furniture, and is lost—that is a picture of the manner in which a man, without volition, almost mechanically sometimes, slides into sins and disappears as it were, and gets covered over with the dust of evil. And then there is the worst of all, the lad that had full knowledge of what he was doing. 'I am going into a far-off ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... mechanically towards the thick row of trees that formed an almost impenetrable hedge before him, but scarcely had he made a passage for himself when he stopped motionless with surprise. The sunlight shone on the stones thick as those on a beach, and discovered innumerable ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... end, and henceforth letters were chosen as his life-long occupation. Bread, indeed, has to be earned by all manner of makeshifts,—now by serving as a scribe in some dreary government hall, now by reading off mechanically to university students what officially passes as lectures; but the life of his soul, whatever his body might busy itself with, was ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... half-dozen reins, looked neither to right nor left, but swore mechanically for the benefit of the tired horses, and without compunction in the presence of roadside spectators, male or female. Wet, sour, unfriendly minions were they, but they sent up no lamentations; their lives may have been hard and ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... inquired mechanically, divining some subtler explanation of this visit, and wondering what ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... Mechanically, he proceeded to dress for dinner. Since he was to sit at the family table, he must fit his dress and manners to the hour. He did not resist the sardonic smile as he put on his fresh patent leathers and his new dinner ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... back making a feeble effort to finish the last of Breede's letters. He glanced mechanically at his notes. Above that routine work he had so many things to think about. He'd fixed Tully for good. Tully wouldn't try that "by the way" and "not impossible" stuff with him any more. And that little old man—perfumery not used since the Chicago fire, or had he ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... thickened and sped down with an audible rush, a sting in each beautiful white bee. The boys nodded, roused themselves, fell forward, their arms mechanically stiffening about the horses' necks. Once they flung out their hands and feet with a smothered shriek. A tongue of flame seemed to leap down their throats and hiss through their veins, while the world roared and heaved about them. ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... caught up every now and then in a wild dance by the frolicsome wind, she was suddenly aware of something among them which she could not identify, whirling in the aerial vortex about her feet. Scarcely caring what it was, she yet, all but mechanically, looked at it a little closer, lost it from sight, caught it again, as a fresh blast sent it once more gyrating about her feet, and now regarded it more steadfastly. Even then it looked like nothing but another withered leaf, brown ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... Virginian evidently did not understand, any more than I did. One hand played with his hat, mechanically turning ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... possess very little significance. Then at last there was a sharp tap at the window. A tall, quietly dressed man, with reddish skin and clear gray eyes, was helped up into the car. He saluted the doctor mechanically. His eyes were already travelling ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... halted upon the stairs and felt mechanically for her gold chatelaine. She recalled dropping it upon the center-table as she went forward with hands outstretched to Austin; so she turned back, then hesitated. But he was leaving to-morrow; surely he would not misinterpret the meaning of her reappearance. Summoning her self-control, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... head, and looked up with a shrinking in her eyes, as though she feared to see something hateful—a shrinking which turned first to wonder, then to dread, then to a lively joy, and then again to awe. She rose mechanically, with a great gasp; her lips parted, as though to speak, but no words came. The dog, too, saw him, and growled, then ran up and sniffed, and leaped upon him with a yelp of joy. He waved it down, and there was ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... closed door for a full minute, and, as he did so, an ugly look crept over his face, which it was well for Heathcote he did not see. Then he turned mechanically to his books, and buried himself in them for the rest of ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... meet in foreign parts. Wouldn't that be a joke! Give my love to Enid when you write. I always did think she was a fine girl, though I disagreed with her on Prohibition." Claude crossed the fields mechanically, without looking where he went. His power of vision was turned inward upon scenes and events ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... M. le Marquis?" repeated the old man mechanically. "I have the right to know," he added ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... myself sufficiently to read the letter; but I obeyed mechanically. This letter contained a few words of serious advice, breathing nothing but words of paternal love; though I read between the lines that it had cost him a struggle after her confession to regain this kind of calm affection for her. He had left with Cupid's arrow in his heart. The letter concluded ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... ends of tin and tarpaulin, and the play was on. There was the orchestra against the back-cloth, rendering selections from popular Pekin revues on the drum, cymbal and one-stringed fiddle. There were the actors apparelled in the gorgeous costumes of old Cathay strutting mechanically through their parts, the female impersonators squeaking in shrill falsetto and putting in a lot of subtle fan-work. And there was the ubiquitous property-man drifting in and out among the performers, setting his fantastic house in order. We were actually within a mile ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... marriage to Kitty so that he could provide for her! Mechanically he rummaged his clothes press for the suit he was to take to Hawksley. Well, why not? He could settle five thousand a year on her. His departure for the Balkans—he might be gone a year or more—could be legally construed as desertion. And with pretty clothes and freedom she would soon ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... and the neighing of the well-fed little stud (for horse-flesh was the weak side of our Esculapius), were tenantless, ruinous, and silent. The doctor had died in the interval at Widdin, in the service of Hussein Pasha. I mechanically withdrew, abstracted from external nature by the "memory of joys that were past, pleasant ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... arrival, subconsciously desirous of looking her best in his presence, she stopped almost mechanically before her mirror to adjust her hair, letting him wait for her ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... mechanically, like a machine set to go, and going without consciousness or effort—without a question or a thought, without a glance to either ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... him presently; a grimy, perspiring unit in the crew, tramping back and forth mechanically, staggering under the heaviest loads, and staring stonily at the back of his file leader in the endless round; a picture of misery and despair, Charlotte thought, and she was turning away with the dangerous rebellion against the conventions ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... "Mechanically, yes. I went through the motions," he said. "That's a beautiful rod. It was the most useful thing I had along. Going to the club? I'll ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... Chetwynde seemed to lose himself among those painful recollections which he had raised, while the General, falling into a profound abstraction, sat with his head on one hand, while the other drummed mechanically on the table. As much as half an hour passed away in this manner. The General was ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... and no sound was heard but the regular movement of plates placed and carried away, varied sadly by the monotonous tones of the household officers, and the tinkling sound made by the Emperor's striking his knife mechanically on the edge of his glass. Once only his Majesty broke the silence by a deep sigh, followed by these words addressed to one of the officers: "What time is it?" An aimless question of the Emperor's, it seemed, for ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Lady Holme's look when she was singing. Robin Pierce saw it and pressed his lips together. At this moment the crowd shifted and left a gap through which Lady Holme immediately glided towards Ashley Greaves. He saw her and came forward to meet her with eagerness, holding out his hand, and smiling mechanically with even ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... constantly require some intelligent insight into mechanistic facts, the density of population and the adequate means of communication, and the extent to which the whole population is caught in the web of mechanically standardised processes that condition their daily life at every turn. As regards their technological situation, and their exposure to the discipline of industrial life, no other population of nearly the same volume ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... minister and loyal man, who has left some slight record of her words. "She said she never shut her eyes to trials, but liked to look them in the face; she would never shrink from duty, but all was at present done mechanically; her highest ideas of purity and love were obtained from the Prince, and God could not be displeased with her love.... There was nothing morbid in her grief.... She said that the Prince always believed he was to die soon, and that he often told her that he had never ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... as is beheld by infants in their slumbers, when they dream of paradise!" said Glenn, paying no attention to Joe, his eyes immovably riveted on the innumerable sprigs of alabaster which pointed out in every direction in profuse clusters, while his pale lips seemed to move mechanically, and his brow expressed a mournful serenity, as if entertaining a regret that he should ever be separated from the pearly labyrinths before him, amid which he would ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... stepdaughter as she had sung the old rhyme, she mechanically followed the words until the word "dimples" arrested her attention. Then she read the paragraph with beating heart. She read it twice before she fully comprehended—understood that Elsie Marley had completed ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... emphasis upon the head and shoulders of the priest's brother, who, though ordinarily considered 'as good a man' as there was in the parish, could scarcely persuade himself that he was not the victim of a terrible dream. Although he mechanically grappled and strove with his fearful antagonist, he felt the fierce breath of a demon, as his breast pressed against that of the dead, and the fierce eyes of a fiend, or an avenging ghost, glared into his, ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... had risen to her feet: rigid and erect, trying to hide her excitement beneath more becoming SANG-FROID, she repeated mechanically,— ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the fingers with little rings loosely set in the edge. The horns were scrivelloes, elephant-tusks of small size. At times a horrid braying denoted the royal titles, and after every blast the liege lord responded mechanically, 'Kwamina Blay! atinasu marrah' ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... bureaucratic governments, and which they usually die of, is routine. They perish by the immutability of their maxims, and, still more, by the universal law that whatever becomes a routine loses its vital principle, and, having no longer a mind acting within it, goes on revolving mechanically, though the work it is intended to do remains undone. A bureaucracy always tends to become a pedantocracy. When the bureaucracy is the real government, the spirit of the corps (as with the Jesuits) bears down the individuality of its more distinguished ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... upon discrimination of external conditions, whereas the female depends to a greater extent than does the male upon the internal, organic changes which are wrought by acts. At any rate the female seems to follow a labyrinth path more mechanically, more accurately, more easily, and with less evidence of sense discrimination ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... there is no pathos, no humanity in the more special sense, but a kind of hardness and cruelty rather, in those oft-repeated, long, matter-of-fact processions, on the [265] marbles of Nineveh, of slave-like soldiers on their way to battle mechanically, or of captives on their way to slavery or death, for the satisfaction of the Great King. These Greek marbles, on the contrary, with that figure yearning forward so graciously to the fallen leader, are deeply impressed with a ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... was, then, the answer to this perplexing riddle—my clothes! Mechanically I took off my hat and examined it as I had not troubled to do hitherto and saw it for a shapeless monstrosity faded to the colour of dust and with more than one hole in crown and brim. Truly I (like the woman) had seen better on many a scarecrow. I now stooped to survey as much of ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... a rock, gazed into the darkness where the apparition had been; even Harry felt a thrill of half-superstitious wonder, and listened half mechanically to a rough sailor's voice ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the last of the officers to dismount. He, too, did not remember how long they had been in the saddle. He could not say at that moment, whether it had been one night or two. He ate and drank mechanically, but hungrily—the Union army nearly always had plenty of stores—and then he felt better ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... I pulled her to the sofa. A flash of lightning showed even in the darkened room, the girl cowered and hid her face with her hands. I took her round the waist. "Shut your eyes, and lean your head against me." Mechanically she did, she was utterly unnerved. I felt down with my right hand the form of her thighs and haunches through her clothes. My prick began to stand, pulling it out, and taking her near hand I put it round my prick just as ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... not mellow a heavy soil. The effect of the potash is to overcome the granular structure and increase compactness. Coal ashes, because they are coarser in particles and devoid of potash, do promote mellowness, and are valuable mechanically on a heavy soil although they do not contain appreciable amounts of plant food. You are overfeeding your tomato plants, probably. The chances are that you had poor seed. There is no best tomato, because you ought to grow early and late kinds: there is also some ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... lived falls into the rank of a thing that can be handled. Space and number lay hold of it. And soon all that remains of what was movement and life is combinations formed and annulled, and forces mechanically composed in a whole of juxtaposed atoms, and to represent this whole a collection of petrified concepts, manipulated in dialectic ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... side of the window-pane, and the over-fed, discontented, lonely old bachelor on the splendid side of the window-pane; and I didn't get much happier thinking about it, I can assure you. I drank glass after glass of the wine—not that I enjoyed its flavor any more, but mechanically, as it were, and with a sort of hope thereby to drown unpleasant reminders. I tried to attribute my annoyance in the matter to holidays, and so denounced them more vehemently than ever. I rose once in a while and went to the window, but ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... another dance being called for, and then, his fingers tapping about upon the keys as mechanically as fowls pecking at barleycorns, Christopher gave himself up with a curious and far from unalloyed pleasure to the occupation of watching Ethelberta, now again crossing the field of his vision like a returned ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... order to feel the benefits of the invigorating waters. Not so with Anderson; he was an indefatigable student. He was always willing to be taught by any person who was able to impart knowledge. Every new word that saluted his ear was forced into his service; never mechanically, but always in its proper place. If he learned a word to-day, to-morrow he would use it in its grammatical relation to a sentence. He had no time for vacation; no mental cessation, but it was one ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... sinking heart, and turned away. Once more his fingers mechanically felt for the ring box but he experienced no thrill this time, when he found ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... us that anybody ever heard this for the first time; but all these fellows did then, and poor Nolan himself went on, still unconsciously or mechanically— ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... to note that design and pictorial representation serve each a different purpose in printing. Yet they are similar mechanically in that each requires a printing surface (type, borders, ornaments, and engravings) which may be prepared by the same mechanical procedures. The picture exists for its own interest or as an illustration for the text. As such it is merely an element ...
— Applied Design for Printers - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #43 • Harry Lawrence Gage
... of the stairs, and I got my coat down from the rack and struggled into it. I found that I had mechanically picked up my bag as ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... prefer to have him here rather than in the basement," Beauchene repeated mechanically as he stood before the bed. "He still breathes. There! see, it is quite apparent. Who knows? Perhaps Boutan may be able to pull him ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... his own temper be stirred, his own passions get loose, and the slave-owner will go far beyond the overseer in cruelty. He will convince the slave that his wrath is far more terrible and boundless, and vastly more to be dreaded, than that of the underling overseer. What may have been mechanically and heartlessly done by the overseer, is now done with a will. The man who now wields the lash is irresponsible. He may, if he pleases, cripple or kill, without fear of consequences; except in so far as it may concern profit or loss. To a man of violent temper—as my old master ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... "telegram" Tarling felt mechanically in his pockets for the wire which Mrs. Rider had given him from her daughter. Now he took it out and read it again. It had been handed in at the General Post Office ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... drew him aside to a place opposite to where the conspirators had just disappeared. The notary mechanically followed through a labyrinth of dark corridors and secret staircases, quite at a loss how to account for the sudden change that had come over his master—crossing one of the ante-chambers in the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... usual at Stillman's after the mother had left them. For a while the father was kinder, but as time went on the old habit was resumed. Elizabeth went mechanically about her work, and her father did not notice her evidently failing health. Her quietness was a relief to him; for Margaret was growing more defiant toward him, and quarrelled constantly with Tom, who, now that his mother's influence was withdrawn, became more and more meddlesome ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... a great deal of merriment. The princess was still sad and silent. Now and then a scrap fell before her; these she blew no further, but mechanically collected and gazed at them in a listless and mournful manner. Suddenly she started and colored violently. On one of these strips of paper she had read two words which made her heart tremble with anger and pain. These ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... The demand for moderate priced, sanitary closets, lavatories, and baths has led to the rapid improvement seen in plumbing fixtures. In the development of these fixtures, as soon as a bad feature was recognized the fixture was at once discarded, until now the market offers fixtures as mechanically fine as can be produced. Plumbing fixtures were at first manufactured so that it was necessary to support them on a wooden frame, and this frame was enclosed in wood. The enclosure made by this framework soon became foul and filthy and a breeding place for all kinds of disease ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... extraordinary man," he says, "I have never known an individual, least of all an individual of genius, healthy or happy without a profession: i.e., some regular employment which does not depend on the will of the moment, and which can be carried on so far mechanically, that an average quantum only of health, spirits, and intellectual exertion are requisite to its faithful discharge. Three hours of leisure, unalloyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward to with delight as a change and recreation, will suffice to realise in literature a larger ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... words to Mrs. Hazleton, and then turned to his daughter. Had he been half an hour later, Emily would have cast her arms round his neck and told him all; but as it was, she remained self-involved, even in his presence—answered indeed mechanically—spoke words of affection with an absent air, and let the mind still run on upon the path which it ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... turned round, searching for her hat and shawl. Mechanically she filled a basin of water on the toilet table and while washing her hands ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... construction, but he longed most to see the curious light giving mechanism, for this was closer to his own line of entomology. He had always believed that the light giving organs of fireflys and deep-sea fishes could be reproduced mechanically. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... as he bade her good night. Eileen returned his good night in her most charming manner, though rather mechanically; something had come over her; she did not know it, but for the first time in her life she seemed ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... his melancholy musings. It grew chill, and a footman entered, put a match to the laid fuel, and lighted the gas. Then John Campbell made an effort to shake off the influence which oppressed him. He laid down the ivory paper knife, which he had been turning mechanically in his fingers, rose, and went to the window. How dark it was! The dripping outlook made him shiver, and he turned back to the slowly burning fire. But solitude and inaction became unbearable. "Regretting never mended wrong; if I cannot get the ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... as it left the courtyard. The patrol bent its steps towards the right, by the Rue St. Honore, and mechanically La Valliere turned to the left. Her resolution was taken—her determination fixed; she wished to betake herself to the convent of the Carmelites at Chaillot, the superior of which enjoyed a reputation for severity which made the worldly-minded people of the court tremble. ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lips grimly, Orme drew the wet rope in and mechanically coiled it. There was nothing to say. He had failed. So good an opportunity to recover ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... presents, to the convent of Santa Teresa, the most celebrated of all the ten or fifteen nunneries now in operation about the city of Mexico. In a cold, damp, comfortless cell, kneeling upon the pavement, we may see a delicate woman mechanically repeating her daily-imposed penance of Latin prayers, before the image of a favorite saint and a basin of holy water. This self-regulating, automaton praying machine, as she counts off the number of allotted prayers by the ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... sat upright, shifting her body until her feet touched the floor over the side of the bed. She knew what she must do—now, now, before it was too late. She must go out into this cool damp, out, away, to feel the wet swish of the grass around her feet and the fresh moisture on her forehead. Mechanically she struggled into her clothes, groping in the dark of the closet for a hat. She must go from this house where the thing hovered that pressed upon her bosom, or else made itself into stray, swaying ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... prayer ended and the minister announced the hymn, she seemed to have recovered her composure, and finding the page, offered her pretty gilt hymn-book to her guardian. He accepted it mechanically, and during the reading of the Scriptures that soon followed he slowly turned over the leaves until he reached the title-page. On the fly-leaf that fluttered over was written: "Regina Orme. With the love and prayers of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... his mind contracted and stinted, so to say, by misery. His condition is almost that of his ox or his ass, while his ideas are those of his condition. He has been a long time stolid; "he lacks even instinct,"[5303] mechanically and fixedly regarding the ground on which he drags along his hereditary plow. In 1751, d'Argenson wrote in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... The bear, however, being disappointed line after line, and page after page, and only stimulated and irritated by the scent and the slight taste which he could get by thrusting the tip of his tongue through his muzzle, began to growl most awfully, as he still went on mechanically, line after line, and turned the leaves with increased rapidity and vehemence. This continued for some time, until the pupil was evidently getting into a passion, and the tutor was growing rather nervous, when the sultan shewed a disposition to speak, which ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various |
