"Slowest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it must be considered, that, if the excellency of a Painter consisted only in this kind of imitation, Painting must lose its rank, and be no longer considered as a liberal art, and sister to Poetry: this imitation being merely mechanical, in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best; for the Painter of genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in which the understanding has no part; and what pretence has the Art to claim kindred with Poetry but by its power over the imagination? To this power ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... decided to change to night marching, and the following evening we proceeded in the following order, which was the way of our going for the present. The three slowest ponies started first, namely, Jehu with Atkinson, Chinaman with Wright, James Pigg with Keohane. This party was known as ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... are behind most even of our heaviest and slowest contemporaries in the notice of this volume, is a fact for which we cannot satisfactorily account to ourselves, and can therefore hardly hope to be able to make a valid excuse to our readers. The truth is, that whenever we turned to it we became, like ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... mouthpiece for Tolstoi's poor simple little gospel. Tolstoi according to Captain Marshall, I should be inclined to define him; but I must give Mr. Tree his full credit in the matter. When he crucifies himself, so to speak, symbolically, across the door of the jury-room, remarking in his slowest manner: "The bird flutters no longer; I must atone, I must atone!" one is, in every sense, alone with the actor. Mr. Tree has many arts, but he has not the art of sincerity. His conception of acting is, literally, to act, on every occasion. Even in the prison scene, in which Miss Ashwell ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... of the wise" are never altogether follies. Johnson at midnight outside the Temple roaring with Gargantuan laughter that echoed from Temple Bar to what we now call Ludgate Circus is a picture his wisest admirers would be slowest to forget. The laugh and the frisk and the peaches are so many hall-marks to assure us that the philosopher is still a man and has not forgotten that he was once a boy: that he has always had five ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... rather to a point a mile seaward of it as nearly as the master could bring her, for the night was extremely dark and the land scarcely visible. Not a light was shown, not a voice raised on board, and the only sound heard was the gentle splash of the paddles as they revolved at their slowest rate of speed. The falls had been greased, the rowlocks muffled, and the crew took their places ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... story of Bellerophon so effectively as to make it impossible for the elder poet either to escape or to sustain comparison with the author of "The Earthly Paradise"; but the most appreciative admirers of Morris will not be the slowest or the least ready to do justice to the admirable qualities displayed in Heywood's dramatic treatment of these legends. The naturally sweet and spontaneous delicacy of the later poet must not be looked for in the homely and audacious realism of Heywood; in whose ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... plank wet and slippery. The water ran out of the leak near the brim of the wooden channel and fell in a long shivering thread of silver. THERE WAS NO SOUND OF ITS FALL. It just fell—into a void. Benham wished he had not noted that. He groaned, but faced the plank; he knew this would be the slowest affair ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... ever read old Daddy Gilpin? Slowest of men, even of English men; yet delicious in his slowness, as is the light of a sleepy eye in woman. I always supposed "Dr. Syntax" was written to make fun of him. I have a whole set of his works, and am very proud of it, with its gray ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... traversing the denser medium of the prism. The shortest and quickest vibrations (producing the sensation we call "violet") are thrown farthest away from their original path—in other words, suffer the widest "deviation;" the longest and slowest (the red) travel much nearer to it. Thus the sheaf of rays which would otherwise combine into a patch of white light are separated through the divergence of their tracks after refraction by a prism, so as to form a tinted riband. This visible spectrum is prolonged invisibly at both ends by a ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... fifteen or sixteen knots, but the battleships were not good for more than thirteen, while some of the older cruisers could not be relied upon for more than ten or eleven; and as the speed of a fleet is necessarily that of its slowest ship, this meant that the whole squadron could not steam at more than ten knots or thereabout. The speed of the slowest Japanese ships he knew to be not less than thirteen knots; so, in the event of a naval engagement, the enemy's fleet would be able to outmanoeuvre ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... day as Mother Carey's slowest steed was swishing over the grass, Blue-curls cried out: "Mother Carey, Mother Carey, won't you hear me and ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... drawing-room; a huge chair; a man with eyes, a mane of grizzled hair, a brown mustache covering a mouth as delicate as a woman's, a strong, square hand shaking mine, and the slowest, calmest, levelest voice ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... in different forms: in its perfectly pure state it is in heaven; but in order to gratify this longing it descends, gradually losing the rapidity of its motion till it settles in the earth. The earth, however, is not immovable, but only the slowest of all moving bodies; while the soul of man, though dwelling in the lowest of all regions, namely, in the earth, he considered a migrated portion of fire in its pure state; which, in spite of its descent, had lost none of its original purity. The summum bonum he ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... From thee thy flesh, than if thou hadst been dead Before thou left the pappo and the dindi, Ere pass a thousand years? which is a shorter Space to the eterne, than twinkling of an eye Unto the circle that in heaven wheels slowest. With him, who takes so little of the road In front of me, all Tuscany resounded; And now he scarce is lisped of in Siena, Where he was lord, what time was overthrown The Florentine delirium, that superb Was at that day as now 'tis prostitute. Your reputation is the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... he must have taken some time to understand it," interposed Mrs. Tattle, "for he's the slowest creature breathing, and the deafest in company. Go on, Christopher. So the sweep did make ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... know. The boat we intended to take met with an accident, while the one we did take proved the slowest tub that ever sailed. How is it here? Are ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... to honor me with an interview," he said, in his slowest, softest, most irresistible manner. "I can ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... who bore a child begotten from outside the tribe. But the child was so charming that he was brought up in the tent of one of our people. When Ghitza was ten years old, he worked alongside the men; and there was none better to try a horse before a customer than Ghitza. The oldest and slowest gathered all the strength it had and galloped and ran when it felt the bare boy on its back. Old mares frisked about like yearlings when he approached to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... done, She will not refuse to dwell With the offspring of the Sun; Foundling of the desert far, Where palms plume, siroccos blaze, He roves unhurt the burning ways In climates of the summer star. He has avenues to God Hid from men of Northern brain, Far beholding, without cloud, What these with slowest steps attain. If once the generous chief arrive To lead him willing to be led, For freedom he will strike and strive, And drain his heart till he ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... few miles when it became evident that the Salisbury was the slowest ship in the fleet, for, although she had every stitch of canvas set, she lagged behind the rest, and the other vessels were obliged to lower some of their sails, in order to allow her to keep up ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... suggestion of Professor Perry's, and imagine the descent to the line made down a very slowly rotating staircase at the centre of a big rotating wheel-shaped platform, against a portion of whose rim the slowest platform runs in a curve, one could very easily add a speed of six or eight miles an hour more, and to that the man in a hurry would be able to add his own four miles an hour by walking in the direction of motion. If the reader is a traveller, and if he will imagine that black and sulphurous ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... the slowest way, is it not?" she replied, as she led him towards the grove of trees they had so ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... slowest mounts, and as the march had become a plodding procession, in which the horses were allowed to choose their own paces, one by one the other members of the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... He was the slowest boy on earth, and had been sacked at three places in two weeks, so his parents had apprenticed him to a naturalist. But even he found him slow. It took him two hours to give the canaries their seed, three to stick a pin through a ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... right kind of a blow, can destroy a battleship. The submarine has no other effective, weapon than the torpedo, which is delivered from a small tube. There is this advantage in favor of the battleship, however: the submarine is a slow craft. It is slower than the slowest battleship when it proceeds under water. When it gets to the surface its speed is doubled, but then it is an easy target for the guns of the threatened battleship and also for the swift torpedo boats and torpedo destroyers which are always thrown ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... of its superior aggregative force, become hotter than the others, and radiate more intensely. Other things equal, the largest mass, notwithstanding the higher temperature it reaches, will, in consequence of its relatively small surface, be the slowest in losing its evolved heat. And hence, if there is one mass which was not only formed after the rest, but exceeds them enormously in size, it follows that this one will reach an intensity of incandescence far beyond that reached by the rest; and will continue in a state of intense incandescence ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... family-party better than I do,' said the colonel, looking at her as he spoke. 'Of all things on earth, it is the slowest.' ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... though they have separately the speed of eagles and the endurance of lions, will fail if they are not trained to run together under the yoke. For bethink thee, sheik, in every four there is one the slowest and one the swiftest; and while the race is always to the slowest, the trouble is always with the swiftest. It was so to-day; the driver could not reduce the best to harmonious action with the poorest. My trial may have no better result; but if so, I will ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the powers in the moral world, but one that, in its immediate result, is not always of the most worldly advantage to the possessor. It is one of the slowest, because one of the most durable, of agencies. It may take a thousand years for a thought to come into power; and the thinker who originated it might have died in ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... house had been built for the seigneur, whose family occupied it at times, but showed a preference for the more attractive life at Quebec. Durantaye was not one of the most prosperous seigneuries, neither was it among those making the slowest progress. As Catalogne phrased the situation in 1712, its lands were 'yielding moderate harvests of grain and vegetables.' Fruit-trees had been brought to maturity in various parts of the seigneury and were bearing well. Much of the land was well wooded with oak and pine, a good deal of which ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... years the wages of working people have been stagnant or declining. For the 12 years of trickle down economics we built a false prosperity on a hollow base as our national debt quadrupled. From 1989 to 1992 we experienced the slowest growth in a half century. For too many families, even when both parents were working, the American dream has ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... no idea what ants can do in the tropics. The Kafirs of South Africa used to stake down their prisoners (among them a poor friend of mine) upon an ant-hill and they were eaten atom after atom in a few hours. The death must be the slowest form of torture; but probably the nervous system soon becomes insensible. The same has happened to more than one hapless invalid, helplessly bedridden, in Western Africa. I have described an invasion of ants in my "Zanzibar," vol. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... easily get reconciled to big money and big prices, and fond and vain of both—it is a descent to little coins and cheap prices that is hardest to bear and slowest to take hold upon one's toleration. After a month's acquaintance with the twenty-five cent minimum, the average human being is ready to blush every time he thinks of his despicable five-cent days. How sunburnt with blushes I used to get in gaudy Nevada, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... attack may be illustrated in this way. Suppose a number of not very swift hares and a number of slow-running dogs were placed on an island where there was plenty of food for the hares but none for the dogs, except the hares they could catch; the slowest of the hares would be first killed, and the swifter preserved. Then the slowest-running dogs would suffer, and having less food than the fleeter ones, would have least chance of living, and the swiftest dogs would be preserved; thus ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... upon the road, writing in 1783, thus describes the post-boy service. The picture is not a very creditable one to the Post Office. "The post at present," says he, "instead of being the swiftest, is almost the slowest conveyance in the country; and though, from the great improvement in our roads, other carriers have proportionably mended their speed, the post is as slow as ever. It is likewise very unsafe. The mails are generally intrusted to ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... no exciting scenes on the way over, except when some wild and woolly Canadian tried to jump overboard because of seasickness. We were a long time crossing, because the fastest transport had to cut her speed down to that of the slowest, and the voyage was anything but a pleasant one. When we finally steamed into Plymouth, the gray-backs outnumbered the soldiers by many thousands. The ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... the heart of the greatest empire in the world, is that this new-comer must be made room for at the table, received with courtesy, and consulted. Another individual has married into the family, and must gradually find her place there. Of all nations in the world, England is the slowest to make new friends and acquaintances, and easily the most awkward in doing so. She is a good friend when you know her, but with the ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... the potter, or marble under the chisel of the sculptor. Great changes occur in the history of nations, but they are brought about slowly, like the changes in the frame of nature, upon which the puny arm of man hardly makes an impression. And, speaking generally, the slowest growths, both in nature and in politics, ...
— Statesman • Plato
... Mrs. Le Breton, is a very vague and indefinite expression,' said the doctor, tapping his white shirtcuff with his nail in his slowest and most deliberate manner. 'It may mean a great deal, or it may mean very little. I don't want in any way to alarm you, or to alarm your husband; but there's certainly a marked incipient tendency towards ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... and strove by his unaided dexterity to enable Wong Ts'in to complete the tenscore embellished plates by the appointed time. Yet already he knew that in this commendable ambition his head grew larger than his hands, for he was the slowest-working among all Wong Ts'in's craftsmen, and even then his copy could frequently be detected from the original. Not to overwhelm his memory with unmerited contempt it is fitting now to reveal somewhat more of the unfolding ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... water seemed to be gaining, and after a short rest I took my turn at the pumps with the crew. However, we rode out the storm, and then, two or three days later, we lay becalmed for three weeks. She was, at the best, the slowest craft I have ever seen, and everything seemed to be dead against her. We were many miles out of our course, the stock of provisions—such as it was—and of water ran short, and although the captain seemed very little dissatisfied, I ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... done?" True for her that there followed gentle feelings, and gentler yet in her attendance on her patron's obsequies, in the discovery that all of which he died possessed he'd left to her, but it is the duller surfaces that are slowest to give refraction, the least used springs that are least pliant. She was come a long road from her first signs of hardening. She was past, now, the stage where, when grieving for the little old man, she would have felt contrition that her first thought at his ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... a sample of the hand I get When I am playing more than solitaire, Showing how I become the slowest yet When it's a case of razors in the air, And competition knocks me off creation Like a gin-fountain smashed by ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin
... the probabilities. Above all things she was told to avoid for him any sort of shock. Physically, mentally, spiritually he was on a very large scale and probably for that reason of a slow rate of development. The most highly differentiated organisms are the slowest to mature, and without question Gilbert did mature very late. He was now passing through the stage described by Keats: "The imagination of a boy is healthy and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... so full of joy Which welcomes now this warrior-boy, As fathers, sisters, friends all run Bounding to meet him—all but one Who, slowest on his neck to fall, Is yet the happiest of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... and of which we are ignorant?' Men say that the sun, moon, and stars are planets or wanderers; but this is the reverse of the fact. Each of them moves in one orbit only, which is circular, and not in many; nor is the swiftest of them the slowest, as appears to human eyes. What an insult should we offer to Olympian runners if we were to put the first last and the last first! And if that is a ridiculous error in speaking of men, how much more in speaking of the Gods? They cannot be pleased at our telling falsehoods about them. 'They ...
— Laws • Plato
... that which wills that all its court be like itself. I was in the world a virgin sister,[1] and if thy mind well regards, my being more beautiful will not conceal me from thee; but thou wilt recognize that I am Piccarda,[2] who, placed here with these other blessed Ones, am blessed in the slowest sphere. Our affections, which are inflamed only in the pleasure of the Holy Spirit, rejoice in being formed according to His order;[3] and this allotment, which appears so low, is forsooth given to us, because our vows were ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... aunt was piqued into emulating Orpheus, and, six weeks after her confinement, she put this rock into motion,—they eloped. Poor gentleman! it must have been a severe trial of patience to a man never known before to transgress the very slowest of all possible walks, to have had two events of the most rapid nature happen to him in the same week: scarcely had he recovered the shock of being run away with by my aunt, before, terminating forever his vagrancies, he was run through by my uncle. The ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Not only is the wood useless as timber, but it is equally valueless as fuel, for the pith rots before it can be dried. The leaves are poisonous, and in spite of its being mere pith, it is one of the slowest-growing trees known, so that, take it all round, the solitary indigenous tree of Buenos Ayres is about the most useless arboreal product that could be imagined. The ombu is a handsome tree to the eye, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... slowest of story-tellers? But you encourage me to it by your sympathetic interest in details. However, I shall move along a little faster now. Next morning I was off to Lochtully, which, as you know, is in the north of Perthshire. It stands three ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... and there was but little wind, and that from the south and against them. But Lucilla did not complain at their slow progress. The slowest vessel in the world was preferable just now to a ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... the vats, and a cup of white silver in her hand, and she giving out drink to every one. "It seems to me that is the girl came asking the Fianna to race against her at Slieve Crot," said Finn. "It is not," said Aedh of the White Breast, "for that is the slowest woman there is among us." "Who was it so?" said Finn. "It was Be-mannair, daughter of Ainceol, woman-messenger of the Tuatha de Danaan. And it is she that changes herself into all shapes; and she will take ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... load in first, in the center of the furnace, and heat until pots show a low red, about 1,325 to 1,350 deg.F. Then fill the furnace by putting the cold pots on the outside or, the section nearest the source of heat. This will give the work in the slowest portion of the furnace a chance to come to heat at the same time as the pots that are ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... men's nations, Thou knowest if the deaf world heard! Heard not now to her lowest Depths, where the strong blood slowest Beats at her bosom, thou knowest, In her toils, in her dim tribulations, Rejoiced ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the elements shall boldly All your dust to dust constrain; Unresistedly and coldly, I will smite you with my rain! From the slowest of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... the pace of a caravan is that of its slowest beast, and very arduous such journeys often are, for there is no shade, and the dust raised by the caravan envelops the slowly moving travellers, while the fierce sun is reflected from the rocks, which often become too hot to touch. ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... out to know if I would eat. I asked if she could give lodging also and she referred me to her husband inside. I stopped to peer in through the doorway and he answered there was not room enough as it was, which was evident to the slowest-witted, for the family of six or eight of all ages, more or less dressed, lying and squatted about the earth floor dipping their fingers into bowls of steaming food, left not a square foot unoccupied. He advised me to go "beg license" of the "senora" ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... Ned. 'Why, she's the slowest old poke in the county. It would take her till sundown to get there, and there wouldn't ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... wisdom of his open speech (Mark 8:32); they criticize him (Matt. 13:10). If they do not understand his parable, they ask what he means (Matt. 15:15) and keep on asking till he makes it plain. He is in no hurry. He is the Master and their Teacher, and he is at the service of the slowest of them. ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... plain. What would they have given for a bush even to afford them any shelter from the noonday sun, for the crowns of their heads appeared as if covered with live coal, and their minds began to wander. The poor horses moved at the slowest pace, and only when driven on by Omrah, who appeared to suffer much less than his masters. Every now and then he handed to them the pipe, but at last even that had no longer any relief. Speech had been for some hours totally lost. Gradually ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... Macbeth is the most rapid, Hamlet the slowest, in movement. Lear combines length with rapidity,—like the hurricane and the whirlpool, absorbing while it advances. It begins as a stormy day in summer, with brightness; but that brightness is ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... replied the polite Italian; "that is to say, so far as she goes. Yes! I agree with her. John Bull does abhor the crimes of John Chinaman. He is the quickest old gentleman at finding out faults that are his neighbours', and the slowest old gentleman at finding out the faults that are his own, who exists on the face of creation. Is he so very much better in this way than the people whom he condemns in their way? English Society, Miss Halcombe, is as ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... to side by means of a trailer wheel in the rear. Making one belt—one set of caterpillar wheels, you know—go faster than the other will make the tank travel to one side or the other, the turn being in the direction of the slowest moving belt. In this way we can steer when the trailer ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... house in a green meadow opening to the sea. Its salient points were its size and age. The slowest-growing shrubs in its pleasance were tough, seamed, branched and bowed with time. There were few trees in the neighbourhood except at forsaken Ferndean; but there were slow swelling hills crowned with heather closing in the valley over which Otter presided with the dignified paternal character ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... steamer Saikio Maru had orders not to engage, but nevertheless pushed in on the left of the line. Aside from their two battleships, the Chinese had nothing to compare with these eight new and well-armed cruisers, the slowest of which could make ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... There one has something of the comfort of the carriage and something of the freedom of the pedestrian. Added to this, there is an exhilaration in the motion itself which neither of the others presents. The most rapid pace can alternate with the slowest; the highway no longer forms bounds to the journey; distance is no obstacle where enjoyment is concerned; and few places are inaccessible which it is desirable to see. The generous animal which carries his rider is himself an additional ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... want of practice at the exercise. Godfrey in person viewed their progress anxiously, from a neighbouring height, and perceived with regret the difficulty which they found in making their way, which was still more increased by the necessity for their keeping in a body, and waiting for the slowest and worst manned vessels, which considerably detained those that were more expeditious. They made some progress, however; nor had the commander-in-chief the least doubt, that before sunset they would safely reach the opposite side ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... your lord, and the king, your Chow-che-witt, are pagans," I said. "An English, that is a Christian, woman would rather be put to the torture, chained and dungeoned for life, or suffer a death the slowest and most painful you Siamese know, than be the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... Bessie will think this the most beautiful page she ever saw. I am sorry, but not surprised, to hear that your passes failed you on the Canadian Pacific. You should have applied for them sooner. I have always [d] found railway officials the slowest people in the world, and they are particularly slow when it comes to the matter of passes. Of course you are having a charming time with your home folk; well, you deserve it, and I hope you will make ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Nevers, the slowest of men, began by sending to make choice of the most favourable roads, and marched with a slow pace towards Bully, with his hands and his nose in his muff, and his whole person well packed up in his coach."—Memoirs of Sully, vol. i. p. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... has been to the last two generations of Englishmen the national teacher of poetry. He has tried many new measures; he has ventured on many new rhythms; and he has succeeded in them all. He is at home equally in the slowest, most tranquil, and most meditative of rhythms, and in the rapidest and most impulsive. Let us look at the following lines as an example of the first. The poem is written on a woman who is ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... she had remembered something. She returned homeward, now urging Crusader to a flying gallop, now curbing him to his slowest ambling walk. That which had so abruptly presented itself to her mind was the fact that Corthell's match box—his name engraved across its front—still lay in plain sight upon the table in her sitting-room—the peculiar and particular place ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... heated with the work and the climbing, he felt the cold dew chilling his very bones; how afraid he was he would begin to shiver and shake like a leaf before the time came for the advance. "It was the slowest half-hour in my life," he declared. Gradually the silent stockade came out on the sky above him. Men scattered all down the slope were crouching amongst the dark stones and dripping bushes. Dain Waris was lying flattened by his ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... walk slowly. Keep the pace of the slowest of the party. "Slow and easy goes far in a day." Practice deep breathing. Inhale for five steps, hold your breath for five counts, and let ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... greater is the local action and the less the transferable force. The investing crust is also inconvenient, by preventing the displacement and renewal of the charge upon the surface of the zinc. Such zinc as, dissolving in the cleanest manner in a dilute acid, dissolves also the slowest, is the best; zinc which contains much copper should especially be avoided. I have generally found rolled Liege or Mosselman's zinc the purest; and to the circumstance of having used such zinc in its construction attribute in part the advantage of ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... do fabling poets tell That thy fleet wings outstrip the wind? Why feign thy course of joy the knell, And call thy slowest pace unkind? ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Pompeii, evince how much it has been used. How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate, whether we had better know them,—had better let their peddling-carts be driven, even at the slowest trot or walk, over that bridge of glorious span by which we trust to pass at last from the farthest brink of time to the nearest shore of eternity! Have we no culture, no refinement,—but skill only to live coarsely and serve the Devil?—to acquire a little worldly wealth, or fame, or liberty, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... strange and subtle to be humanly explainable, is no more difficult a problem to solve than that of the lightning rapidity with which a knowledge of the transpiring of any new local event darts through the slowest, and, as far as outward signs go, the least communicative English village slumbering drowsily ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... this. "Only better. When I've thought about your coming, I've sometimes been a little afraid of it. You have lived where things move so fast, and everything is slow here; the people slowest of all. Our lives are like the years, all made up of weather and crops and cows. How you hated cows!" She shook her ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... to do it ever remained a mystery to Brian, since his marches had been none of the slowest, but she had ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... slowest of all the big nations to adopt new ideas, my father says; but they are waking up. They have been so clever in the past, and the foremost to discover so many things that it is a pity others should take from them the fruits of their learning. It is to ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... ag'inst me, ef I tell that story; expect you'll like it all the better fer that." Flint coiled up his long limbs, put his hands in his pockets, chewed meditatively for a moment, and then began, with his slowest drawl:— ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... directly off the nose of his airplane, and although he followed it for more than a minute, it pulled away from him. Once you line up an airplane on a balloon and go straight toward it you will catch it in a matter of seconds, even in the slowest airplane. There have been dogfights with UFO's where the UFO's turned out to be balloons, but the pilots always reported that the UFO "made a pass" at them. In other words, they rapidly caught up with the balloon ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... under an armed guard, the informer sitting triumphant above him crowned with laurel—the frantic rabble exulting in his humiliation, and with difficulty restrained from laying violent hands upon him. Charles X. on the contrary, travels, with his family, in open day, by the slowest and easiest journeys, under the respectful escort of the commissaries of the new government; and the people, every where, so far from any vulgar display of insolent triumph, touch their hats in silent respect for the sorrows of the party, with ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... Johnny," she called; "I've been expecting you for an hour. What kept you? Gee! but these smoked guys are the slowest you ever saw. They ain't on, at all. Come along in, and I'll make this coffee-coloured old sport with the gold epaulettes open one for you right ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the secret of Grace's forthcoming trip giggled and looked meaningly at each other, and the recitation went on. But the slowest quarter hours will pass at last, and on this day they merged into hours and finally brought ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... started on again, but it hadn't gone very far before it stopped once more. 'Say, Conductor, why in blazes have we stopped again?' asked the traveler. 'Seems to me this is the slowest train ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... passage to the airs of Heaven"; which I may remark does not make for speed in the boat mounting such canvas. Partly to this sail, partly to the amount of trading affairs we attended to, do I owe the credit of having made a record trip down the Rembwe, the slowest white man time ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... it," she said. "I am so accustomed to being looked upon as something not to be understood, admired, or imitated that I can hardly believe that I am clever. Uncle Robert is really a character; nowadays men and women are very much alike; but he stands out in bold relief, quite by himself, the slowest, the most stolid of men, yet with a great heart full ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... streets crowded to the limit where our car could not halt for an instant without stopping the entire procession. We would often get into a pocket behind a slow-moving truck or street car and be compelled to crawl along for several blocks at the slowest speed. ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... time to decide which of his feet he should put forward in taking the next step, or may be each separate foot has a notion of its own as to the direction Daddy should choose; at any rate, he proves to be the slowest traveler imaginable. But he is so popular among his neighbors and you will like him too—he has so many ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... extreme edge of the universe. Ulysses was nine days in sailing from Ismarus the city of the Ciconians, to the country of the Lotus-eaters—a period of time which to-day would breed anxiety in the hearts of the underwriters should it be occupied by the slowest tramp steamer in traversing the Mediterranean and Black Seas from Gibraltar ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... year, As in hot regions, brings the sun too near, 'Tis but to make your fragrant spices blow, Which in our cooler climates will not grow. 40 They only think you animate your theme With too much fire, who are themselves all phlegm. Prizes would be for lags of slowest pace, Were cripples made the judges of the race. Despise those drones, who praise, while they accuse The too much vigour of your youthful Muse. That humble style which they your virtue make, Is in your power; you need but stoop and take. Your beauteous images must be allow'd By all, but some ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... heavily laden merchantman, was the slowest sailer, it was decided that she should take the lead, the other two following. La Salle, with his brother, Father Membre, and some others, transferred their quarters from the Joli to the Aimable. This movement was also probably influenced by La Salle's desire to escape from the uncongenial ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... movement measures real distance. The mean brilliancy of his classified stars seemed, on the contrary, quite independent of their mobility. Indeed, its changes tended in an opposite direction. The mean magnitude of the slowest group was 6.0, of the swiftest 6.5, of the intermediate pair 6.7 and 6.1. And these are not isolated facts. Comparisons of the same kind, and leading to identical conclusions, were made by Prof. Eastman at Washington in 1889 (Phil. Society Bulletin, vol. xii, p. 143; Proceedings Amer. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... vigorous life. He no more desired, as in his former attempt at Alexandria, to precipitate at all hazards the success of his designs. He was now prepared to watch, wait, plot, and contrive for years on years; he was resigned to be contented with the poorest and slowest advancement—to be encouraged by the smallest prospect of ultimate triumph. Acting under this determination, he started his project by devoting all that remained of his enfeebled energies to cautiously ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... starter proved to be a loquacious individual, and I caught him, fortunately, in the slowest part of the afternoon. Removing a pipe and pushing a battered cap to the back of a bald head, he pulled out the sheets of the previous day. Before me were recorded all the calls for taxicab service, with the names of drivers, addresses of calls, and destinations. Although ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... and the meat sweet and oily, the kernel is so small that one must crack dozens of them to get a satisfying sample of their flavor. This, of course, prevents their having any commercial value as a nut. There is also the fact that the beechnut is the slowest growing of all the common nut trees, requiring from twenty to thirty years to come into bearing as a seedling. Of course this could be shortened, just as it is in propagating hickories and pecans, by making grafts on root systems which ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... you see him smiling down, And smiling down, as riding down With slowest pace, with stately grace, He caught ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... resolution. But she did not speak it, and I went my way, leaving the family soon to travel much farther and in an opposite direction. After the parting was over, and I well on my way, I was strongly tempted to return; and my walk back to Poultney (twelve miles) was one of the slowest and ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... enlargement of the human mind, and its advancement in science. We are not in a world ungoverned by the laws and the power of a Superior Agent. Our efforts are in His hand, and directed by it; and He will give them their effect in his own time. Where the disease is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the Northern States it was merely superficial, and easily corrected. In the Southern it is incorporated with the whole system, and requires time, patience and perseverance in the curative process. That it may finally be effected, and its ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... Through common experiences, repeated interchange of thought and observation, mutual enjoyment of beauty and fun, particularly in expressing common ideals and working together for common causes, there grows to maturity this wonderful relationship "the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the stealthy-paced water, and the subterranean fire. Aristotle said, "As time never fails, and the universe is eternal, neither the Tanais nor the Nile can have flowed forever." We are independent of the change we detect. The longer the lever the less perceptible its motion. It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero then will know how to wait, as well as to make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely; we shall sooner overtake the dawn by remaining here than by hurrying over the hills of the west. Be assured that every ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... one Brigade. Naturally, British soldiers carry out orders; if other troops do not, then the British troops have to do all the work. The situation produced is that the highest paid soldier does no work and the lowest paid all the work. It soon percolates to the slowest Sussex brain that discipline does not pay. Nothing but the wonderful sense of order in the make-up of the average Englishman has prevented us from becoming an Anglo-Canadian rabble, dangerous to Bolshevik and Russian alike. I am told that Brigadier Pickford had done his best to maintain ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... 'pagan' first assumes this secondary meaning. 'Heathen' has run a course curiously similar. When the Christian faith first found its way into Germany, it was the wild dwellers on the heaths who were the slowest to accept it, the last probably whom it reached. One hardly expects an etymology in Piers Plowman; but this ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... a very fine poem, but overloaded with epithet.* The heroic measure with alternate rhyme is very properly adapted to the solemnity of the subject, as it is the slowest movement that our language admits of. The latter part of the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... a minute, in early infancy, 120 or upwards, in the healthy adult between 65 and 75, the most common number being 72. In the same individual, the pulse is quicker when standing than when lying down, is quickened by excitement, is faster in the morning, and is slowest at midnight. In old age the pulse is faster than in middle life; in children it ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... "You are the slowest old wretch I ever saw!" cried the voice. "Don't you know that when visitors of importance come to a house they expect to be let in? I vow a convent gate would be ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... once observed, "couldn't you think of anything more interestingly insane to do than this? It's the slowest, most painstaking ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... marching to fill the gap between us, we were to go back to it. Bannister objected that a man was missing, Reardon through excess of zeal having vanished in the distance along the railroad. "Send out a man after him," said the sergeant. All the squad offered to go; Corder was a little the slowest, being leg-weary, but who do you think was first? David! So he was despatched, and went very eagerly, while we turned ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... the progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five years, and at this rate in less than a thousand years there would literally not be standing room for the progeny." It has been computed that if the offspring of the elephant, which is believed to be the slowest breeding animal known, were to survive, there would be about 20,000,000 elephants on the earth in 750 years. The roe of a single cod contains eight or nine millions of eggs, and if each egg were to hatch, and the fish ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... while it is the slowest and most expensive means of making bottles, is by far the most picturesque. Imagine a long, low, dark building—dark as far as daylight is concerned, but weirdly lit by orange and scarlet flashes from the great furnaces that crouch in its shelter. At the front of each of ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... however, that, for every person who thus gains more than usual, there is necessarily some other person who gains less. The loser, if things took place as Hume supposes, would be the seller of the commodities which are slowest to rise; who, by the supposition, parts with his goods at the old prices, to purchasers who have already benefited by the new. This seller has obtained for his commodity only the accustomed quantity of money, while there are already some things of which that money will no longer purchase as much ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... many a scornful word before he dooms it to the silence of death. It is so with the creatures of this world, as my brother must know. The strongest man—he who feels most confident of his power to repel aggression, and to command respect and obedience, is slowest to provocation, and, when excited to anger, the easiest to be soothed and calmed. The prairie-dog oftener shows his teeth than the wolf; the imbecile adder than the death-dealing rattlesnake. And my pale-faced brother has told us the wondrous tale, that, in his own land beyond the Great ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... either imported from abroad, or else a fantastic sally (in rather questionable taste) totally unrelated to the existing body of thought. I urge them to remember that this body of thought is the slowest of growths and the rarest of blossomings, and that if there is such a thing on the philosophic plane as a matter of course, it is that no individual can make more than a minute contribution to it. ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... of elephants according to their paces and dispositions, and each day they preserved the same positions, so that every mahout knew his place, and the elephants were accustomed to the animals upon the right and left. In the centre were the slowest, and upon either flank were the fastest elephants, while two exceedingly speedy animals, with intelligent mahouts, invariably acted as scouts, generally a quarter of a mile ahead ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... never ketch up with his work, now he's got them hangin' to his heels.... He doos beat all for slowness! Slocum's a good name for him, that's certain. An' 's if that wa'n't enough, his mother was a Stillwell, 'n' her mother was a Doolittle!... The Doolittles was the slowest fam'ly in Lincoln County. (Thank you, I'm well helped, Samanthy.) Old Cyrus Doolittle was slower 'n a toad funeral. He was a carpenter by trade, 'n' he was twenty-five years buildin' his house; 'n' it warn't no great, either.... The stagin' was up ten or fifteen years, 'n' he shingled ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... moment after the last munch and loud swallow with which old Grandfather Vine, who was unfortunately the slowest as well as the largest eater, announced repletion, all the chairs were pushed back on the drugget and a row of properly impassive faces confronted Mr. Huxtable the lawyer as he took his stand by the window. Only Joanna remained ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... and Nic rode on homeward, the slowest, saddest ride he had had since he entered the colony, for as soon as he was out of sight of the house he drew rein and ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... victim of injustice. He commanded the leader of the troop to release his victim, and, receiving an insolent reply, dashed him to the earth with a stroke of his lance; then by a few vigorous blows dispersed the band, leaving deadly marks on those who were slowest to ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... evidently in earnest, and the consideration of the captain decided Honora on accepting it, but not without much murmuring from Lucilla. Caroline and Horatia were detestable grown-up young ladies, her aunt was horrid, Castle Blanch was the slowest place in the world; she should be shut up in some abominable school-room to do fancy-work, and never to get a bit of fun. Even the being reminded of Wrapworth and its associations only made her more cross. She was of a nature to fly from thought or feeling—she was keen ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... promptitude and punctuality quite marvellous in Berrichon domestics. Nevertheless, at the least semblance of delay he raised his voice, knitted his eyebrows (which still showed very black under his white hair), and muttered a few expressions of impatience which lent wings even to the slowest. At first I was somewhat shocked at this habit; it appeared to savour rather too strongly of the Mauprats. But the kindly and almost paternal manner in which he spoke to them a moment later, and their zeal, which seemed so distinct from fear, soon reconciled me to him. Towards us, moreover, he showed ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... man must never rest content as long as another man possesses that which he has not. Christ did not believe in equality of payment when He told the parable of the ten talents and the unprofitable servant. Socialism would reduce all labour to the pace of the slowest. Above all, Christ was not a Socialist when He bade the young man who had great possessions sell all that he had and give it to the poor. What School of Socialism has ever issued such a command? On the contrary, ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... bank there are various other people, but why they come or go, with the slowest of idle steps, or remain seated on their haunches embracing their knees, or keep on gazing at nothing in particular, ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... the publication of this circular was a grave military offense, and if the purpose was to abate an evil, by making an appeal that would be heeded by me, the mode taken was one of the slowest and worst that could have ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... parsing, the definitions which belong to this exercise, and then dismissing them for the principles of syntax, Dr. Bullions encumbers his method of syntactical parsing with such a series of etymological questions and answers as cannot but make it one of the slowest, longest, and most tiresome ever invented. He thinks that the pupil, after parsing any word syntactically, "should be requested to assign a reason for every thing contained in his statement!"—Principles of E. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... attendants, and habited in his full Pontifical robes of white and gold; fans of peacocks' feathers were waved on each side of his throne, and boys flung clouds of incense from their censers. As the procession advanced at the slowest possible foot-pace, the Pope from time to time stretched forth his arms which were crossed upon his bosom, and solemnly blessed the people as they prostrated themselves on each side. I could have fancied it the triumphant approach of an Eastern despot, but for the mild and venerable air of the amiable ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... might add. There would be only two three-hour stops in the Hub beyond Maccadon—one each off Evalee and Garth. Then a straight dive to Manon unless, of course, gravitic storm shifts forced the ship to surface temporarily. Average time for the Dawn City on the run was eleven days; the slowest trip so far ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... have a multiplicity of stages, all of the slowest, all of the most incredible nature, whereas the Wasp cannot found a race except on the express condition of complete success from the first attempt. We will not insist further upon the insurmountable objection; we will admit that, amid so many unfavourable chances, a few favoured ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... new methods of transportation made their appearance at almost the same time—the steamboat, the canal boat, and the rail car. Of all three, the last was the slowest in attaining popularity. As early as 1812 John Stevens, of Hoboken, aroused much interest and more amused hostility by advocating the building of a railroad, instead of a canal, across New York State from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, and for several years ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... only the laugh's ruther ag'inst me, ef I tell that story; expect yeu'll like it all the better fer that." Flint coiled up his long limbs, put his hands in his pockets, chewed meditatively for a moment, and then began with his slowest drawl— ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... the brawny negress whose income from washing the community's clothes ran at about five hundred a month. The twin 'Sun-Dogs' discovered mustaches on their upper lips, and were recognized as brother Fraction-Kings of El Dorado. In one of the most prominent sets, and the slowest in uncovering, was Cal Galbraith with the 'Spirit of the Pole.' Opposite him was Jack Harrington and the 'Russian Princess.' The rest had discovered themselves, yet the 'Greek Dancer' was still missing. All eyes were upon the ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... anatomy to natural history." The slower motions of the owl prove to the natural historian that it consumes less oxygen than the eagle. By the same physiological principle he can tell that the herring is the most active among fish, and the flounder the slowest, by merely seeing the gills of each: those of the herring being very large, prove that it consumes much oxygen and is very active; while the flounder, with its small gills, consumes but little, and ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... subjecting her neighbors, the Latins, first, then the little peoples of the south, the Volscians, the AEquians, the Hernicans, later the Etruscans and the Samnites, and finally the Greek cities. This was the hardest and slowest of their conquests: beginning with the time of the kings, it did not terminate until 266, after four centuries ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos |
