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More "Dilatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they are full of hope. Whereas it is your nature, though strong, to act feebly; when your plans are most prudent, to distrust them; and when calamities come upon you, to think that you will never be delivered from them. They are impetuous, and you are dilatory; they are always abroad, and you are always at home. For they hope to gain something by leaving their homes; but you are afraid that any new enterprise may imperil what you have already. When conquerors, they pursue their victory to the utmost; when defeated, they fall back the least. Their bodies ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... the band had seated themselves that he was able without difficulty to catch every word spoken by them; and although his knowledge of the Spanish and Portuguese languages was exceedingly limited, yet by listening patiently to everything that was said during the somewhat dilatory progress of the meal, and afterwards while the leaders smoked and chatted prior to turning-in for the night, he was able to gather that the remaining distance of the journey was to be divided into three marches, the last of which was to bring ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... foolish men shot at each other in Virginia, there has been a steady and complete change of public opinion, and the performance of this year was received with almost universal contempt, and with indignant censure of a dilatory police. ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... this fluctuating, time-serving principle was visible even in the great question of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. He was, at one time, half inclined to surrender it into Mr. Pitt's dilatory hands, and seemed to think the gloss of novelty was gone from it, and the gaudy colouring of popularity sunk into the sable ground from which it rose! It was, however, persisted in and carried to a triumphant conclusion. Mr. Wilberforce ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... newspapers not only printed long accounts of Jaggers's triumphal progress from New York to Chicago and back again, but used the success of his undertaking as a text for many editorials against the dilatory methods of our foreign-mail service. Jaggers left London on March 11, 1899, and was back again on the 29th, having travelled nearly eighty-four hundred miles in eighteen days. On his return he was received literally by a crowd of thousands, and his feat was given official ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... of his strength. But once he gets the notion that his "boss" is afraid of, or for, him or his feelings or his health, he loses interest in working for that man. So a little effort to lighten or expedite his work, a little leniency in excusing the dilatory finishing of a job, a little easing-up under stress of weather, are taken as so many indications of a desire to conciliate. And conciliation means weakness every time. Your lumber-jack likes to be met front to front, one strong man to another. As ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... to move the table around which they had been so happy; even that little trace of last night could not be kept. Evan's cup, Evan's plate, the bit of bread he had left on it, Diana's fingers were dilatory and unwilling in dealing with them. But then she roused herself and dallied no longer. Table and cups and eatables were safely removed; the kitchen brushed up, and the table set for breakfast: the fire made in the outer ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... of the fire-arm loaded at the breech which was so effective in the Franco-Prussian conflict and, if I am not mistaken, in the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866, also. This made of the individual soldier a host in himself. The old muzzle-loader, with its ramrod and dilatory "motions," ought to have been obsolete long before Grant left the West to lead the Army of the Potomac from the Wilderness to Appomattox. The Michigan cavalry brigade, armed as it was with repeating carbines, was never whipped when it had a chance to use them. In arming the infantry the government ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... name for my mother] letter, which lies before me, and which must, the Mim says so, go in this morning's mail. But my limited time does not diminish my affection for you, Annie, nor prevent my thinking of you and wishing for you. I long to see you through the dilatory nights. At dawn when I rise, and all day, my thoughts revert to you in expressions that you cannot hear or I repeat. I hope you will always appear to me as you are now painted on my heart, and ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... quieted down in San Francisco, he returned and took up his work again. Artemus Ward, whom he had met in Virginia City, wrote him for something to use in his (Ward's) new book. Clemens sent the frog story, but he had been dilatory in preparing it, and when it reached New York, Carleton, the publisher, had Ward's book about ready for the press. It did not seem worth while to Carleton to include the frog story, and handed it over to Henry Clapp, editor of the Saturday ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to take Balzac's play to follow this; and M. Armand Pereme, a distinguished antiquary whom Balzac had met at Frapesle, was most active in conducting the negotiations. However, in the end the Renaissance refused the drama. Balzac was terribly dilatory, and irritated every one by not keeping his engagements, and he was also high-handed about the arrangements he considered necessary to the success of his tragedy. His unfortunate monetary embarrassments, too, made it necessary for him to ask for 16,000 ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... country with the idea that he was a good bridge-builder, but a little too dilatory in the matter of carnage, was succeeded by ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... may be one cause of the most fatal evils. The great practical defect of institutions like ours, is the circumstance that "what is everybody's business, is nobody's business;" a neglect that gives to the activity of the rogue a very dangerous ascendency over the more dilatory correctives ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... elapsed, even Mr Apjohn himself had lost something of his confidence. If any further step was to be taken, why did not the young lady's father himself come and take it? Why had he been so dilatory in a matter which was of so much greater importance to himself than to any one else? But now the two attorneys were together, and it was necessary that they should decide upon doing ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... dilatory, gradual, lingering, slack, delaying, drowsy, inactive, moderate, sluggish, deliberate, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... private property. His lack of initiative in this matter aroused a certain amount of impatience among the sentimentally-minded women-folk of his home circle; his mother, his sisters, an aunt-in-residence, and two or three intimate matronly friends regarded his dilatory approach to the married state with a disapproval that was far from being inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were watched with the straining eagerness which a group of unexercised terriers concentrates on the slightest movements of a human being who may be reasonably ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... Romans, ancient Romans— Cato, Scipio Africanus, Ye whose fame's eclips'd by no man's, Publius AEmilianus, Sylla, Marius, Pompey, Caesar, Fabius, dilatory teaser, Coriolanus, and ye Gracchi Who gave so many a foe a black eye, Antony, Lepidus, and Crassus; And you, ye votaries of Parnassus, Virgil, and Horace, and Tibullus, Terence and Juvenal, Catullus, Martial, and all ye wits beside, On Pegasus ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... organized until the month of August, 1840, and under the terms of the convention they were to terminate their duties within eighteen months from that time. Four of the eighteen months were consumed in preliminary discussions on frivolous and dilatory points raised by the Mexican commissioners, and it was not until the month of December, 1840, that they commenced the examination of the claims of our citizens upon Mexico. Fourteen months only remained to examine and decide ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... of old the bourne between Spanish America and the French Louisiana. Mexico, proud, had recognized neither the independence of Texas nor its annexation by the United States, yet would probably have agreed to both as preferable to war, had the alternative been allowed. To be sure, she was dilatory in settling admitted claims for certain depredations upon our commerce, threatened to take the annexation as a casus belli, withdrew her envoy and declined to accept Slidell as ours, and precipitated the first actual bloodshed. Yet war might have been averted, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... necessary because the Boers were known to be intensely suspicious. Every weak power trying to resist a stronger one must needs take refuge in evasive and dilatory tactics. Such had been, such were sure to be, the tactics of the Boers. But the Boers were also very distrustful of the English Government, believing it to aim at nothing less than the annexation of their ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... have been received from the mouths of the American cannon. To Upper Canada Mr. Foster sent no notice whatever of the war, and Major-General Brock was left to learn it officially through the circuitous and dilatory channel of the governor-general. Happily, individual diligence made up for this unpardonable neglect; and the war was known by private expresses at Montreal, in Lower, and at Fort George, in Upper Canada, on the 24th of June, or in six days ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... placed beside a milliner's doll. It was not long before Kory-Kory and myself were left alone in the house, the rest of its inmates having departed for the Taboo Groves. My valet was all impatience to follow them; and was as fidgety about my dilatory movements as a diner out waiting hat in hand at the bottom of the stairs for some lagging companion. At last, yielding to his importunities, I set out for the Ti. As we passed the houses peeping out from the groves through ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... than himself, who lived in Kensington Square; and nearly every afternoon he drank tea with her by the light of shaded candles, and talked of George Meredith and Walter Pater. It was notorious that any fool could pass the examinations of the Bar Council, and he pursued his studies in a dilatory fashion. When he was ploughed for his final he looked upon it as a personal affront. At the same time the lady in Kensington Square told him that her husband was coming home from India on leave, and was a man, ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... interior. Mandarin Lin, who had entered into negotiations with the British, was degraded and was succeeded by Viceroy Keshen of Peiho. Keshen received Lord Palmerston's formal demands upon China and forwarded them to Pekin. By dilatory tactics he succeeded in ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... back, Gentlemen, to our original problem, and consider if our dilatory way have led us to some glimpse ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... has brought ashore a duplicate of my despatches, Bluewater, and if this dilatory gentleman does not return by the time we have dined, I will send off a second courier. The intelligence is too important to be trifled with; and after having brought the fleet north, to be in readiness to serve the state in this emergency, it would ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... determine our attitude to a great number of fundamental questions. If no better governing body is possible than the stupid, dilatory and forensic assemblies that rule in France, Britain and America to-day, then the civilised human community has reached its climax. That more comprehensive collective handling of the common interests to which science and intelligent Socialism ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... looked at the villas mournfully. He had had full warning of Mr. Flack's intentions, and might have bought the plot before building commenced: but he was apathetic and dilatory. He had known Summer Street for so many years that he could not imagine it being spoilt. Not till Mrs. Flack had laid the foundation stone, and the apparition of red and cream brick began to rise did he take alarm. He called on Mr. Flack, the local builder,—a most ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... Charles in his own person ran great peril during this battle; and when it was over, he had still to effect his retreat upon Asti in the teeth of a formidable army. The good luck of the French and the dilatory cowardice of their opponents saved them now again for ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... remember Mr. Chamberlain once saying to me, "It's all nonsense to talk about Hartington being dull and stupid. He is a very clever man." What made this admission all the more memorable was that Mr. Chamberlain was at the moment in a condition of something like exasperation with his colleague's dilatory ways, and his constitutional unwillingness to tackle a question till it was almost too ripe; you simply could not hurry him. One of the difficult things about the Duke was that he never realised the full greatness of his position in politics, how much people depended on his lead, and how anxious ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... what they had learned in practical and technical mechanical knowledge during their stay in England. The three Arab workmen were placed in their suitable departments in the Pasha's work shops. But such was the natural energy of Affiffi, that when he was set to work beside the slow, dilatory, and stupid native workmen, he became greatly irritated. The contrast between the active energetic movements which he had seen at the Bridgewater Foundry and the ineffective, blundering, and untechnical work of his fellows was such that he could not stand it any longer. So one fine day he disappeared ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... seemed to be dilatory before, and the generally received opinion in the camp had been that the defending party, to save risk, was to be starved ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... indeed, more often presupposes than begets good spirits in such temperaments as his. He declares, it is true, that he "sports much with my Uncle Toby" in the volume which he is now "fabricating for the laughing part of the world;" but if so he must have sported only after a very desultory and dilatory fashion. On the whole one cannot escape a very strong impression that Sterne was heartily bored by his sojourn in Toulouse, and that he eagerly longed for the day of his return to "the dalliance and the wit, the flattery and the strife," which he had left behind him in the two great capitals ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... you a botanist, or geologist?—you may pick up leaves and chip rocks wherever you please, the live-long day. Are you a valetudinarian?—you may physic yourself by Nature's own simple prescription, walking in fresh air. Are you dilatory and irresolute?—you may dawdle to your heart's content; you may change all your plans a dozen times in a dozen hours; you may tell "Boots" at the inn to call you at six o'clock, may fall asleep again (ecstatic sensation!) five minutes ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... Northern Liberties Market, one of the three principal markets of the city. Being a public reservation, it had no right to remain there except during the pleasure of the authorities. Due notice was given to the marketmen to remove the structures. The owners were dilatory in doing so, and probably could not see why they should be removed when the ground was not wanted for any other purpose, and before they had time to find a new location. It was understood that, if an attempt was made to remove the buildings, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... of wrens and robins. A curious feature is the number of cases where letter-boxes have been chosen, thus preventing the delivery of letters, and in consequence explaining why so many letters have not been answered. Even the biggest dilatory correspondent is not ashamed to take advantage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... Charlie Chaplin type. It was a Himalayan black bear, with fine side whiskers, and it really seemed to me absolutely certain that the other animals in the group appreciated and enjoyed the fun that comedian made. He pretended to be awkward, and frequently fell off his tub. He was purposely dilatory, and was often the last one to finish. The other animals seemed to be fascinated by his mishaps, and they sat on their tubs and watched him with what looked like genuine amusement. I remember another circle of seated animals who calmly and patiently sat and watched while the trainer labored with ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... accept Don John's fiery proposals, though Antonio Perez entreated him to be cautious. At this date, 1576, Perez was really the friend of Escovedo. But Escovedo would not be advised; he wrote an impatient memorial to the King, denouncing his stitchless policy (descosido), his dilatory, shambling, idealess proceedings. So, at least, Sir William Stirling-Maxwell asserts in his Don John of Austria: 'the word used by Escovedo was descosido, "unstitched."' But Mr. Froude says that Philip used the expression, later, in reference to another letter of Escovedo's which he also ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... work. The Penns stood upon their prerogatives, and the Lords of the Committee for Plantations were unfriendly or dilatory. It was nearly three years before they gave their decision, and this was adverse to the Pennsylvania Assembly. The Privy Council, however, to whom the persistent agent appealed, composed of the great dignitaries of the realm, decided that the proprietary estates of the Penns should contribute ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... May 4 to Count Mouravieff, leaving to him the choice as to the hour for communicating the information to the Tzar. M. de Mohrenheim is in the habit of doing this sort of thing; when he chooses, his instincts are dilatory. He behaved in exactly the same way, and with the same object, on the day when M. ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... of an antiquated school perceived that, in dealing with men who meant what they said and said what they meant, all these little dilatory devices were superfluous, perhaps the wholesome result might have sooner been reached. In a contest of diplomacy against time it generally happens that time is the winner, and on this occasion, time and the republic were fighting on ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... O I have been dilatory and dumb; I should have made my way straight to you long ago; I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... Lowington every moment of time since the two vessels of the squadron parted company the day before had been burdened with the most intense solicitude for the fate of the consort and her crew. The fact that she had been dilatory in taking in sail, when no one could know at what instant the squall would break upon her, had indicated a degree of recklessness which increased his anxiety. Mr. Fluxion had been sent to the fore cross-trees with a powerful glass early ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... delayed to comply with our proposals, and our armament was made necessary by unsatisfactory answers and dilatory debates. The delay certainly increased our expenses, and, it is not unlikely, that the increase of our expenses put an ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... the empty boat. Less master of himself than theretofore, Lohengrin, realising the last parting so near, gives unmistakable outward sign of his inward anguish. "The Grail already is sending for the dilatory servant!..." Going to the water's edge he addresses to the snowy bird words which no one can quite comprehend. "My beloved swan, how gladly would I have spared you this last sorrowful voyage. In a year, your ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... is just one hundred years behind the United States. Why? Granted her foreign trade is one-fourth as great as that of the United States. How is it that a people with such a genius for success in foreign trade have been so dilatory in their work of nation-building? Slow progress can no longer be ascribed to misgovernment. Her system of justice is one of the most perfect in the world. Her parliamentary representation could hardly be more complete. No people has stricter bit and rein on executive ministers. Through ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... Kildrummie Castle been conscious that the at first dilatory and then uncertain measures of their foes originated in the fact that the Earls of Hereford and Lancaster were not themselves yet on the field, and that they had with them a vast addition to their forces, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... had hurried aboard, nor, had he known, would he have cared. For his own part he remained where he was, awaiting the visit which the captain of the Vengeur would make, to report his arrival. After more than two hours of waiting, it began to strike him that the said captain was somewhat dilatory, and he began to meditate a reprimand for such ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... beyond the dreams of avarice for that bear from a San Francisco man, meaning said Kelly, whereupon I congratulated him, disparaged the bear and turned to go. The Mexican followed me down the trail and began complaining that the alleged purchaser of the bear was dilatory in closing the deal with cash. He, Mateo, was aggrieved by this unbusinesslike behavior, and it would be no more than proper for him to resent it and teach the man a lesson in commercial manners by selling the bear to somebody else, even to ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... two years had demonstrated the dilatory and unsatisfactory consequences of our indirect transaction of business through the foreign office in London, in which the views and wishes of the government of the Dominion of Canada were practically predominant, but were only to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... plaits and gathers were laid, and the skirt basted to its band for the trying. Bel was dilatory one minute, and in a ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... devout withal. Indeed, in many ways he was akin to those Galilee fishermen who were called to be fishers of men. How he read the Book and pored over it, even at times, I suspect, nodding over it, and laying it down only to take up his rod, over which, unless the trout were very dilatory and the journey very ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... the time, but are prevented by the plea of an agreement to the contrary, or something similar, ought to postpone their action till the time specified has elapsed; and it is on this account that such exceptions are called dilatory. If a plaintiff brought his action before the time had expired, and was met by the exception, this would debar him from all success in those proceedings, and formerly he was unable to sue again, owing to his having rashly brought ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... consuming desire to get it over, and if it be not a pleasure, it is difficult to understand his desire to have it at all. Mere size, it seems to me, cannot be a fault. The fault must lie in some disproportion. If some of Scott's stories are dull and dilatory, it is not because they are giants but because they are hunchbacks or cripples. Scott was very far indeed from being a perfect writer, but I do not think that it can be shown that the large and elaborate plan on which his stories are built was by any means an imperfection. ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... to Caesar, delay is injurious to anyone who is fully prepared for action. I remember also to have read somewhere that such waste of time in diplomacy and palavering is the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds, who regard the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as an evidence of the most ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... more evidence that Bismarck's inflammatory telegram had been sent officially to the Prussian diplomatists at all the foreign courts; and they heard that Paris was literally foaming with exasperation at their dilatory indecision, while the temper of the Chamber convinced them that the proposal for a congress would be rejected with fiery scorn. Berlin and Paris vied with each other in turbulent patriotism and warlike fury, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... public announcement of her engagement and approaching marriage to M. La Touche might arouse him to the knowledge of how much he loved her. "How blessings brighten as they take their flight!" and jealousy is infallible to bring dilatory lovers to the point. No question of the right or wrong of the matter troubled the ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... will be employd somewhere. France must be our Pole Star & our Connection must be formd with hers. Holland whose Policy is always to be at Peace may be open to Negociation & the sooner we tempt her the better. Spain must joyn with France. But she is dilatory. I wish she would recollect how much she was injured by it the last War, when she sufferd the common Enemy to beat France & her self in Detail. The Spirit of Chatham is indeed extinguishd in Britain. His decisive Mind might have dictated the Seizure of their Float ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... in 1802 to suppress a statement of his grievances which could only have rendered ministers implacable.[284] But he found out what would hardly have been a discovery to most people, that officials can be dilatory and evasive; and certain discoveries about the treatment of convicts in New South Wales convinced him that they could even defy the laws and the Constitution when they were beyond inspection. He published (1803) a Plea for the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... port. The right to do it was another matter; but even on that head Wylie could furnish a plausible excuse for the act. Retribution, if it came at all, would not be severe, and would be three or four years coming. And who fears it much, when it, is so dilatory, and so weak, and ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... destruction, and only rescued the remnant that he might pose as their saviour and be saluted 'father' and 'patron.' There, indeed, was our Minucius at fault, as what honest, poor man is not, when confronted by the wiles of those bred to craft and trickery! See, too, how the consuls have followed the same dilatory measures, and can you doubt that it is all by agreement with these traitor nobles? Know well, now, that this war will have no ending until a man of the people ends it—a real plebeian; a new man. See you not that both consuls, ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce, or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... to-morrow, I shall advertise in the papers, that the committee having received applications for ten times the amount of stock, have been compelled, unwillingly, to close the lists. That will be a slap in the face to the dilatory gentlemen, and send up the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... own rules that it can act but slowly. Thus the hot desire of to-day may be moderated by the cool reflection of to-morrow. To this end are arranged the three readings of bills and the various other dilatory devices of most parliaments and congresses. But when great constitutional changes are to be attempted, such measures as these are insufficient. Great changes should be introduced one by one, separately debated ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... Leipzig for that purpose and later to Heidelberg. He was not the least interested in his legal studies, but loved to play the piano, and write letters, and dream of literature, to idolise Jean Paul Richter and to indulge a most commendable passion for good cigars. He was not dilatory at love, and went through a varied apprenticeship before his heart seemed ready for the fierce test it was put to in ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... Without sensible effort, and as if by mere volition, he seemed to glide over the glossy surface, now forwards, now backwards, now sideways, now swiftly, now slowly, whirling like an eagle in rapid or dilatory curves, describing all the lines that Euclid ever drew or imagined, and cutting such initials of the names of the spectators as were desired. The performance, though hailed with very general expressions of admiration, did not ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... as well as by day, but then it was not what is termed a paying practice. In fact, nearly the whole of his business was either amongst the poorer classes, who couldn't pay, the dishonest, who wouldn't, or the thoughtless and dilatory, who, if they did so, took a very long time about it. In spite, therefore, of all his labour and assiduity, the actual amount he received from his practice fell short of his yearly expenditure, which obliged him to dip into his small independent ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... closed by the rebels! Mischief and shame! Natural fruits of the dilatory war policy—Scott's fault. Months ago the navy wished to prevent it, to shell out the rebels, to keep our troops in the principal positions. Scott opposed; and still he has almost paramount influence. McClellan complains against Scott, and Lincoln and Seward flatter ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... general, they might have assaulted the French army, now not exceeding 60,000, with every likelihood of success; for the position first taken up by King Joseph, after his retreat into the north, was very defective; but the Spaniards chose their basis of operations so absurdly, and were so dilatory afterwards, that Napoleon had time both to rectify Joseph's blunders and to reinforce his legions effectually, before they were able to ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... had joined Lord Shotover upon the hearth-rug, here intervened. He had a tendency to air local grievances, especially in the presence of his existing noble guest, whom he regarded, not wholly without reason, as somewhat lukewarm and dilatory in ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... h[-e], [-o]sh-ke-na-ko-n[-e]-a. The bear goes round angry. [The Bear Manid[-o] is angry because the braves are dilatory in going to war. The sooner they decide upon this course, the better it will be for the Mid[-e] as to his fee, and the chances of success are greater while the braves are infused with enthusiasm, than if they should become sluggish ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... his revolver still in his hand, stalked through the film of people who now swirled about him, eager to see the dead. There was no call for the law to make its appearance, and the representatives of the law were wisely dilatory in ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... was travelling in Italy at this time, and did not often write to her—a fact that distressed her very much, I know; but she used to shake off her sorrow in a bright hopeful way that was peculiar to her, always making excuses for the dilatory correspondent. She loved him intensely, and keenly felt this separation from him; but the doctors had recommended him rest and change of air and scene, she told me, and she was glad to think he ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... fellow who was the crack sprinter of his town—somewhere in the South—was unfortunate enough to have a very dilatory laundress. One evening, when he was out for a practice run in his rather airy and abbreviated track costume, he chanced to dash past the house of that dusky lady, who at the time was a couple of weeks ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... I've no whiskey, and—" but there was a stiff turning just at this part of the river, and the skipper and pilot and everyone on board gave it all their attention, or we'd have been ashore. Soon after we met the dilatory down-river cargo boat, and waited where the channel was wide and she passed, its master shouting to us that the channel somewhere further up was "only four feet six, and very difficult." She had stranded somewhere for twenty-four hours or so. There were apparently only two ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... them, too, to go to bed, and it was not without repeated orders from mamma, supported at last by a forcible observation from papa, that they bade the company good-night, and retired. They were all very nice-looking children, and not ill-disposed, though somewhat refractory and dilatory about the vexed question of going ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... Theodosia had always meant something that other people did,—the Stefanas and their mothers and brothers and fathers. What she herself did, a gentle, dilatory playing at work, hardly merited the name. A bit of dusting, tea-and-toasting, making her own bed, cooking for sheer love of cooking, what did they count in Miss ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... wind up these tedious affairs. They were not nearly so difficult and complicated as they seemed to him—they were now largely routine matters, in fact; and I hope I carried things along at a tempo which satisfied him. This is not to deny that Raymond seemed to have days when he found even me dilatory and exasperating; but old Brand would ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... superior longevity. As he was still in the prime of life, it should perhaps be explained that his longevity was purely comparative, as contrasted with that of a number of gentlemen, eminent in the same line, who had been a trifle dilatory at critical ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... unhampered, the free, the personal individual medium. No water, no oil, no palette, no squeezing of tubes or wiping of tints; no scraping, scumbling, or other dilatory and exasperating necessities. Just a piece of coal, the size of a cigarette, held flat between the thumb and the forefinger, a sheet of paper, and then "let go." Yes, one thing more—care must be taken to have this forefinger fastened to a sure, knowing, ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... our journey is put off. He will ask no questions, and only think I am very dilatory and changeable. No one else is likely to think of us at all for a day or two ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... consideration of their own and the public danger. A silent consternation prevailed in the assembly, till a senator, of the name and family of Trajan, awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He represented to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had been long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by nature, and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy, at the head of the military force of the empire; and that their only remaining alternative was either to meet him bravely in the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... of making full use of their long-desired Army, Navy and commercial fleet. There could be considered, as factors tending to the preservation of peace, only the pacific sentiment of the majority of the people working in alliance with the dilatory policy of the President, who still nourished a hope that some favorable turn or other in events, or perhaps the advent of peace, would give him a chance to avoid breaking ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... The 'dreary drip of dilatory declamation' to which Lord Salisbury, in one of his happiest phrases, once drew attention, shows no sign of exhaustion, or even of diminution; and the Conservative chief has followed up his admirable epigram by picturing the time when, all rational discussion and all beneficial legislation being ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... Hon. Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, put through certain parliamentary innovations necessary to enact the party's will. He declined to entertain dilatory motions. More important, he ordered the clerk to register as "present and not voting," those whom he saw endeavoring by stubborn silence to break a quorum. A majority being the constitutional quorum, theretofore, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... announced Mr Belfield. He hardly entered the room, and his countenance spoke haste and eagerness. "I have this moment, madam," he said, "been informed a complaint has been lodged against me here, and I could not rest till I had the honour of assuring you, that though I have been rather dilatory, I have not neglected my appointment, nor has the condescension of your ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Cai. "To-morrow, I'll take it off to John Peter and ask him to put a brass plate on the lid, with an inscription. He's clever at such things, an' terrible dilatory. . . . An' to-night Mrs Bowldler can have it in the kitchen. She dotes on it—'I dreamt ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... me that it was their absolute design to take possession of the Ohio, and, by G——, they would do it; for that although they were sensible the English could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Oh! I have been dilatory and dumb; I should have made my way straight to you long ago; I should have blabbed nothing but you, I should have ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... corpulence usually permitted the jovial man to move, he ascended to the deck, calling: "Great, greater, the greatest of news I bring, as the heaviest but by no means the most dilatory of messengers of good fortune from the city of cities. Prick up your ears, my friend, and summon all your strength, for there are instances of the fatal effect of especially lavish gifts from the blind and yet often ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and thus to intensify the activity of his mental energies. To compass the abolition of slavery had been the passion of his life. He had hailed the Civil War as the great opportunity. He had never been quite satisfied with Lincoln, whose policy seemed to him too dilatory. He demanded quick, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... of getting to school any time in the morning, though usually late, are generally behind time all the way through life. They make the men and women who are late at meeting, late to meet their business engagements, late everywhere—a tardy, dilatory, inefficient class of persons, wherever they are found. It is good to be obliged to plan and do by car-time. The man who is obliged to keep his watch by railroad time, and then make all things bend to the same, is more likely to form the habit of being punctual, than he who has not a fixed ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... small force, which had not even the advantage of fighting behind well-constructed and perfect defences. No doubt, from the beginning to the end of the war—notably in the case of Burgoyne—the British were seriously hampered by the dilatory and unsafe counsels of Lord George Germaine, who was allowed by the favour of the king to direct military operations, and who, we remember, had disgraced himself on ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... weapons with which he has dared to wrong us. [-45-] And I beg you now to remember particularly a sentence which this man himself once uttered, that it is impossible for you to be saved, unless you conquer. Hence those who bid you send envoys are doing nothing else than planning how you may be dilatory and the body of your allies become as a consequence more feeble and dispirited; while he, on the other hand, will be doing whatever he pleases, will destroy Decimus, storm Mutina, and capture all of Gaul: the result will be that we can no longer find means to deal with him, but ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... on to relate that the girl, finding her shepherd dilatory, turned her attention to another swain, and at last ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... that eventful day; the hands seemed to sweep round the dial on the Old State House as though they had been swords in pursuit of some dilatory debtor. It now lacked only fifteen minutes of two, and Monroe, sick at heart, turned his steps towards Milk Street, to announce the utter failure of his plan. Mr. Lindsay received the intelligence with more firmness than might ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... unaccustomed despondency, uttered a prayer for our speedy arrival among the Alps, accompanied with an expression of vain regret that we were not already there. "In that case," I observed, "we can quicken our march; why adhere to a plan whose dilatory ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... effort to believe that procrastination was raised to the level of a theory by men whose experience of political affairs was regarded as a guarantee of the soundness of their judgment. Yet it is an incontrovertible fact that dilatory tactics were seriously suggested as a policy at the Conference. It was maintained that, far from running risks by postponing a settlement, the Entente nations were, on the contrary, certain to find the ground better prepared the longer the day of reckoning was put off. Germany, they ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... against fearful odds. A start of twenty-four hours, upon so brief a journey, was almost fatal. Fortunately, the rowers of the first trireme had no spirit for their work. They were as slow and dilatory as the others were eager and persistent. And thus time moved slowly on, and the fate of Mitylene hung desperately in the balance. An hour more or less in this vital journey would make or mar a frightful episode in ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and incident, have failed to recognize, nay to cower before the fact, that all along the highways and byways of the earthly pilgrimage they have been hounded by a dismal cortege of retarded messages,—lost opportunities,—miscarried warnings,—procrastinated prayers,—dilatory deeds,—and laggard faces,—that howl for ever in their shuddering ears—"Too late." Had Dr. Hargrove received this letter only twenty-four hours earlier, the result of the interview on the previous night would probably have been very different; but unfortunately, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... hovered long 'twixt this world and the next, and weeks passed ere, in the house of a friend at Kingston, Jamaica, he came once more to his full senses. Even then his progress was but dilatory. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... well how unpleasant all this is to read, this outbreak at two localities that have never done me any personal harm except a little mud-splashing. But this is a thing that has to be said now, because we are approaching a crisis when dilatory ways, muddle, and waste may utterly ruin us. This is the way things have been done in England, this is our habit of procedure, and if they are done in this way after the war this Empire is ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... moved it three hundred feet to the north-east. Joe tracked it with his peek-stone to its hiding-place. It was not so far under the surface this time—only about twenty feet—and the faithful again worked with a will. The dilatory movements of the silver caused anxiety to Mr. Isaac Hale, with whom the diggers had been "boarding round." Hale was a stiff old Methodist whose business judgment told him that he was taking too much stock in this "big bonanza." For all his anxiety, the silver again flitted away, and alighted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... for I can assure you, says he, Three Expresses have arrived lately at Versailles, to solicit the French Court for Cannon and Ammunition, without which it wou'd be impossible for King James's Forces to become Masters in Ireland, but that the French were so dilatory in this Affair upon some Politick Views, that it was great Odds that Nation wou'd be quickly recover'd by King William's Forces. This was a misterious Insinuation to one of my small Experience, for my shallow Brain told me, Expedition was the Business of War; whereas ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... continued indefatigable, notwithstanding the truly Scottish complaints, sciatica and rheumatic pains. "I omit," he writes, "nothing that lies in my power that can contribute towards the public service. God knows what dilatory and imposing evasions one has to struggle with amid a multitude of refractory people in these parts." At length the sum of three hundred pounds was sent to him by Secretary Murray in order to maintain the recruits whom he had raised on his ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... surlily, gazing meanwhile at the face of the conjurer. It was a face in which the eyes were set so close together as to suggest a squint, although they were not crossed. He had an uncertain and dilatory tread, the trait of one who hesitates, and decides in doubt, and forthwith repents; being in his prophetic character an appraiser of the probable, and the sport of the possible. He wore many beads in strings around his neck, and big earrings ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... by fire or flood, or from earthquake or pestilence, she has been among the foremost in the field of givers and has remained there when others have departed. It is a shame to speak of her as parsimonious or as failing in any benevolent duty. Those who charge her with being dilatory should remember that haste is not always speed. It took more than a quarter of a century to erect Bunker Hill Monument; the ladies of Boston completed it. It took nearly half a century to erect a monument to George Washington in the City founded by him, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... love to ladies past forty, it may be supposed that they are not so dilatory in their proceedings as younger swains and younger maidens. Time is then behind them, not before them; and urges them on to quick decisions. It may be presumed, moreover, that this pair ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... but they, hastening, flew. But he stood in the midst of the circus, and much perspiration exuded from the steeds, from their necks and chest to the ground. But he himself leaped to the ground from his all-shining chariot, and rested his scourge against the yoke; nor was gallant Sthenelus dilatory, but he eagerly seized the prize, and gave the woman to his magnanimous companions to escort, and the handled tripod to bear away; whilst he himself ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... to a close. In the summer of 1767 he went to New York where we find him engaged, in company with the Rev. Dr. Ogilvie, in collecting the second annual subscription from the members of the society. The military gentlemen proved very dilatory in paying their subscriptions. Whether Capt. Glazier became disheartened at the outlook, or whether he received peremptory orders to rejoin the Royal American Regiment is uncertain. But about the end of August, 1767, James Porteous, representing ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... past the Balearic Islands to Cartagena, where Admiral Salcedo was in command of a Spanish squadron. But the Spaniards were not ready for sea, and Villeneuve was anxious to be west of the Straits of Gibraltar as soon as possible, and could not wait for his dilatory allies. On 8 April he passed through the Straits. Then he steered for Cadiz, drove off Sir John Orde's blockading squadron of six sail, and entered the ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... I have had some experience dealing with corporations. And I record my deliberate conviction here that of all corporations church corporations are financially the worst; the most loose and dilatory and unconsciously dishonest. I record it as my deliberate conviction, having had some opportunities for knowing, that in the Calvinistic church, of the others I don't pretend to know anything, on the average not one half the ministry ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... the necessity imposed upon me of either journeying to England or entering into a long correspondence with those philosophers of that country whose knowledge and discoveries were of indispensable use to me in my present undertaking. The latter method of obtaining the desired intelligence was dilatory and unsatisfactory; besides, I had an insurmountable aversion to the idea of engaging myself in my loathsome task in my father's house while in habits of familiar intercourse with those I loved. I knew that a thousand fearful accidents might occur, the slightest ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... of war was to be carried on in earnest. But they were doomed to disappointment, and the popular feeling was at length completely reversed. The pendulum vibrated to the other extreme, and it is not easy to realize the wide-spread popular discontent which finally revealed itself respecting the dilatory movements of our forces. The people became inexpressibly weary of the reiterated bulletins that "all is quiet on the Potomac"; and the fact that General McClellan was in full sympathy with the Border State policy of the President aggravated their unfriendly mood. A majority ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... along as if he was in no hurry whatsoever, so that Hugh too had to walk very slowly. The man stopped and looked in at the windows of many of the stores, and close behind him every time stood Hugh; he was at a loss to account for this behavior on the part of the man he was following, as his dilatory tactics were in sharp contrast to the way in which Lena ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... 'twill be the same story To-morrow, and the next more dilatory; The indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost, lamenting ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... our resources growing towards maturity; or growing the other way? Dubious: the ablest Patriots are divided; Brissot and his Brissotins, or Girondins, in the Legislative, cry aloud for the former defiant plan; Robespierre, in the Jacobins, pleads as loud for the latter dilatory one: with responses, even with mutual reprimands; distracting the Mother of Patriotism. Consider also what agitated Breakfasts there may be at Madame d'Udon's in the Place Vendome! The alarm of all men is great. Help, ye Patriots; and O at least agree; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... first dinner in the half-furnished dining-room, with the white porcelain stove in the corner, seemed to them the most delicious they had ever tasted. Josephine, their servant, was certainly an excellent cook; and so obliging; they could find no fault with her. But the upholsterer was dilatory, and days elapsed before he brought the chairs that were to match the sofa; nearly every piece of drapery was hung separately, and they had given up hope of the etageres and girondoles. For a long while a grand piano was their principal piece of furniture. Though she never touched it, Miss Brand ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... "Lufton is so dilatory," Mr. Sowerby said. "Why did he not arrange this at once, when he promised it? And then he is so afraid of that old woman at Framley Court. Well, my dear fellow, say what you will; she is an old woman, and she'll never be younger. But do write to Lufton, and tell him ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... staff, to whose mercies I was consigned. Colonel Cheesebrough was civil enough; but, in his turn, professed himself unable to deal with my case, and referred it to the General. Caesar was not less dilatory than Felix. I never saw the potentate before whose nod Baltimore trembles (he was unwell, I believe, or unusually sulky), but I underwent a lengthened interrogatory at the mouth of a very young and girlish-looking ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... of this character, which is the trifling or dilatory character. Such persons are always creating difficulties, and unable or unwilling to remove them. They cannot brush aside a cobweb, and are stopped by an insect's wing. Their character is imbecility, rather than effeminacy. The want of energy and resolution in the persons last ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... I am sensible that this is a very scrap of a letter; but unless the Kings of England and France will take more care to supply our correspondence, and not be so dilatory, is it my fault that I am so concise? Sure, if they knew how much postage they lost, by not supplying us with materials for letters, they would not mind flinging away eight or ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... and thought for a while, for now it was clear that one way or the other he must make up his mind. All those strings of red tape, which he had meant to tie with such dilatory cunning hung loose in his grasp; to a Cabinet really set on resignation he could not apply them. Just as his hands had seemed full of power they became empty again. He knew that at the present moment no other ministry was possible, and that a ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... day of their ascent to Meldon that had kept it stored away in the unconscious fold of association from which it now emerged; for in itself it had no mark of the portentous. At the moment there could have been nothing more natural than that Ned should dash himself from the roof in the pursuit of dilatory tradesmen. It was the period when they were always on the watch for one or the other of the specialists employed about the place; always lying in wait for them, and dashing out at them with questions, reproaches, or reminders. ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... are a few palm-trees lending a little grace to the disconsolate village, and the Turkish captain of the military post, a grizzled veteran of Plevna, invites us into the guard-room to drink coffee with him, while we wait for a dilatory telegraph operator to send a message. Then we push out upon the green sea to a brown island: the village ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... speed, however, was made to appear quite slow in the first half of the nineteenth century when locomotives were invented capable of covering sixty miles an hour. Nowadays the old cumbrous locomotive, rumbling and puffing along and making only sixty miles in sixty minutes, is a very dilatory machine in comparison with our light and beautiful rocket cars, which frequently dart through the air at the rate of sixty miles in one minute. The advantages to a country like ours, over 3,000 miles wide, of swift transit ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... and made our developments slow and dilatory, for there were no roads, and these had to be improvised by each division for its own supply train from the depot in Big Shanty to the camps. Meantime each army was deploying carefully before the enemy, intrenching every camp, ready as against a sally. The enemy's cavalry was also ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... him to stand still at and do nothing."[159] It was "against his duty towards God and the world to tolerate them." The imperialist cardinals, impatient before, clamoured that the evil had been caused by the dilatory timidity with which the case had been handled from the first.[160] The consistory sate day after day with closed doors;[161] and even such members of it had before inclined to the English side, joined in the common indignation. "Some extreme process" was instantly looked for, and the English ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... victorious troops of Whish, Courtlandt, and Edwardes were ordered to follow and form a junction with the grand army. These troops did not join as soon as Lord Gough expected, and the Bombay division, under the Hon. Major-general Dundas, was so dilatory as to evoke from the good-natured general-in-chief a most stinging rebuke. The major-general was urged by despatches to advance with all possible celerity, but he expressed himself as not perceiving the necessity of such speed. "Tell him," said the gallant commander, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... being got ready for sea and feverish activity prevailed in Gallic and British arsenals. The insistence of the Parisian Ministers in seeking to have other questions discussed side by side with the demand for the evacuation of Fashoda and their dilatory tactics but increased the feeling of irritation in the United Kingdom. Statesmen seemed to be undecided and diplomacy, as usual, revolving in a circle. Happily, this country was never better prepared for war, and that in the end, ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... at a distance on contrary sides, it is impossible to approach one but by receding from the other; by long deliberation and dilatory projects, they may be both lost, but can never be both gained. It is, therefore, necessary to compare them, and, when we have determined the preference, to withdraw our eyes and our thoughts at once from that which reason directs us to reject. This is more necessary, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... merely called to inquire outside whether my dilatory friend had been so false to himself as to be practical and sensible. But, of course, he has done nothing. I gave him your papers with my own hand, and he was hot upon the intention, but of course he has done nothing. Apart from the general human disinclination to do anything ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens
... observed impatiently, 'we can talk about her in the next room; what I want to know is, how soon I may come to Heathfield.' For I knew how dilatory men can be about other people's business, and I fully expected that Uncle Max would put me ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... nothing done. Owing to the slowness of the allies, Napoleon had succeeded, aside from some unfortunate engagements during the retreat, in safely returning with the remnant of his army to France; and this dilatory system of the allies seemed to be constantly adopted. The armies advanced slowly, or not at all. For weeks the headquarters had been at Frankfort-on- the-Main. There were the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, the crown prince of ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... law in the school that no man could by any means enjoy the privileges and immunities of the First Fifteen till the black velvet cap with the gold tassel, made by dilatory Exeter outfitters, had been actually set on his head. Ages ago, a large-built and unruly Second Fifteen had attempted to change this law, but the prefects of that age were still larger, and the lively experiment ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... passion at the admonition, heaped abuse upon me, swore that it was I who thwarted him, I who opposed the fulfilment of Don John's desires and fostered the dilatory policy ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... General San Martin was placed in command. This man had rendered good service to Chili when, in conjunction with O'Higgins, he had led the movement of independence; but his success had turned his head. He was vain and arrogant, and at the same time dilatory and vacillating. He, like the dictators, was jealous of the success and popularity of Lord Cochrane, and was bent upon thwarting him to the utmost. His army, four thousand two hundred strong, was embarked at Valparaiso in the ships of the squadron. Lord Cochrane proposed to him to land at ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... decided, after a rather subdued discussion, that Mr. Saunders should proceed to the bank and rout out the dilatory representative of the British Government. Saunders looked down the sullen line of faces, and blanched to his toes. He hemmed and hawed and said something about his mother, which was wholly lost upon the barren ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... his suit in the United States Circuit Court October 3, 1883, twenty-eight days before his enemy commenced hers in the State Superior Court. By dilatory pleas her counsel succeeded in delaying her answer to Sharon's suit until after the decision in her favor in the state court. She did not enter an appearance in the federal court until the very last day allowed by the rule. A month later she filed a demurrer. ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... York as Commander of the English fleet. The plan was not one that reflected much credit on any of those engaged in it; and it was not crowned by the atoning quality of even partial success. The Dutch showed fight, the citizens of Bergen resented the attack by the English fleet, contradictory or dilatory orders produced doubt and confusion, and the damage and loss were distributed equally amongst the attackers and the attacked. De Ruyter drew off with his convoy, and Sandwich returned from a bootless errand. France managed to detach Denmark from England, and to bring about a treaty with the Dutch ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... said Cameron, impatiently, to several dilatory members of the band. "Night will be on ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... also has been laid upon Lincoln on the ground that he was dilatory in reaching the determination to relieve the fort. That the decision should have been reached and the expedition dispatched more promptly is entirely evident; but whether or not Lincoln was in fault is quite another question. Three facts are to be considered: 1. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... have been in the saddle for weeks. My horses are worn out," (he chose to forget a fresh horse in the stable.) "Up late last night and worried all day about affairs over which I have no control, and fellows who will fail us at need. Sir Rowland must wait till dinner time to-morrow for news of these dilatory Spaniards. If he has to deal much more with them, it will be a useful lesson ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... madam," he said quietly, and retired to a desk in the back part of the bank, where he opened a huge book, turned over some leaves rapidly, and ran his finger down a page. His dilatory action seemed to increase the young woman's panic. Her pallor increased, and she swayed slightly, as if in danger of falling, but brought her right hand to the assistance of the left, and so steadied herself against the ledge ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... men complain that the Department is dilatory, not merely deliberate, and that it is often impossible to get an answer to a letter at all. There is a story told of a man who wrote offering his services as chaplain, wrote again after a decent interval, continued to write for many months, and finally received, ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... the commencement of his progress towards the church, our enthusiast found himself placed among the hindermost of the members of the advancing throng, he soon contrived so thoroughly to outstrip his dilatory and discursive neighbours as to gain, with little delay, the steps of the sacred building. Here, in common with many others, he was compelled to stop, while those nearest the basilica squeezed their way through ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... at last began to give way. His heart was sinking. His messenger had been even more dilatory than he was prepared to expect. Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the ship, however, the pilot, who was of the dilatory school, succeeded about 3 P.M. in getting us round that awkward but very necessary buoy, which makes so many foul winds of fair ones, when the ship's bead was laid to the eastward, with square yards. In half an hour the vessel had "slapped" past ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... your last letter shortly before leaving home for this place. Owing to this cause and to having been more unwell than usual I have been very dilatory in writing to you. When I last heard, about six or eight weeks ago, from Mr. Murray, one hundred copies of your book had been sold, and I daresay five hundred may now be sold. (680/1. "Facts and Arguments for Darwin," 1869: see Volume I., Letter 227.) This will quite repay me, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... fact that Mr. De Forrest's neck-tie was awry, suggested that they retire and prepare for supper, whereat they retreated in literal disorder. But without the door their old frenzy seized them, and they nearly ran over the dilatory Bel upon the stairs. With sallies of nonsense, smothered laughter, a breezy rustle of garments, and the rush of swift motion, they seemed to die away in the upper halls like a summer gust. To Mrs. Marchmont their departure had ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... and gallant Fatherland to such rabble and implanting feelings of hatred and shame in all our subjects? What are we scared at and of whom are we afraid? I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities. The whole army bewails it and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Peter. Not much sympathy for the Italian cause was shown by these gentlemen or the few French and German travellers who, with three or four Neapolitans, formed the quarterdeck society; and our Corsican captain took no pains to hide his contempt at the dilatory proceedings of the Italian fleet at Ancona. We know that the Prussian minister, M. d'Usedom, has been recently making strenuous remonstrances at Ferrara against the slowness with which the Italian naval and military ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sometimes frustrate, business by a dilatory, tedious, circuitous, and (what in colloquial language is called) fussy way of conducting the simplest transactions. They have been compared to a dog which cannot lie down till he has made ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... toward the north, he beheld a beautiful young woman of slender and majestic form, standing on the plains. She appeared in the same place for several days, but what most attracted his admiration, was her bright and flowing locks of yellow hair. Ever dilatory, however, he contented himself with gazing. At length he saw, or fancied he saw, her head enveloped in a pure white mass like snow. This excited his jealousy toward his brother Kabibonokka, and he threw out ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... forefathers were men of a temper not to be finally overcome. And so here. The war for our Union, with all the constitutional questions which it settled, and all the military lessons which it gathered in, has throughout its dilatory length but one meaning in the eye of history. And nowhere was that meaning better symbolized and embodied than in the constitution of this ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... to order supper to be got ready for you, and I see that my people have not been dilatory," he observed as we entered the room. "Perhaps we shall have other guests, and I only hope they may be such as we desire to see. Sometimes the Spaniards come this way, and I am compelled, though much against the grain, to be civil to them. ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... electors. The court upheld their right. The Secretary of State became convinced that the petition was fraudulent and did not appear in the further litigation. The suffrage forces were prepared with their evidence and wished to proceed at once with the case but all the dilatory tactics possible were used and it was not until the full legal time was about to expire that the opponents were brought to the point on May 17, 1918. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... ought to have refused every business communication from the French negotiator, who was not on the same footing with him, and to have referred him to the department in Berlin. The department would then have had to obtain his Majesty's decision by a representation at Ems, or, if dilatory treatment were considered useful, by a report in writing. But his Majesty, however careful in his usual respect for departmental relations, was too fond not indeed of deciding important questions personally, but, at all events, of discussing them, to make a proper ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... increase the value of the slaves, and to make brisk the foreign and domestic slave trade; it nourishes and justifies the most cruel prejudices against color; it sneers at those who advocate the bestowal of equal rights upon our colored countrymen; it contends for an indefinite, dilatory, far-off emancipation; it expressly declares that it is more humane to keep the slaves in chains, than to give them freedom in this country! In short, it is the most compendious and best adapted scheme to uphold the slave system ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... head down and pitch himself into the fray, and then something had to give way, and the boys knew it wouldn't be Easy. To-day, something of that old conquering mood had come over him. He was possessed with a rage against his former dilatory self, and a fierce desire to win, to do the clean, square thing, no matter what the consequences. He had done it that New Year's morning, when John McIntyre's life lay in his hand. The call of duty had been imperative then. He had ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... question at Vaniman. The young man turned to Wagg, seeking support in that crisis, believing that the affair could be held on the basis of two against two in the interests of further dilatory tactics. Wagg had been showing indignant protest against the demands of the interlopers. But his corrugated face was smoothed suddenly. He had evidently decided to cash in on the new basis. "That's what I want to know—and what I have ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... through superior longevity. As he was still in the prime of life, it should perhaps be explained that his longevity was purely comparative, as contrasted with that of a number of gentlemen, eminent in the same line, who had been a trifle dilatory at critical ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... known, would he have cared. For his own part he remained where he was, awaiting the visit which the captain of the Vengeur would make, to report his arrival. After more than two hours of waiting, it began to strike him that the said captain was somewhat dilatory, and he began to meditate a reprimand for such a neglect ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... the other hand, as for the most part quite impracticable, are all movements of a dilatory nature for the formation of fronts of attack, as well as long movements of manoeuvres and considerable changes of front when ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... over his nephew, he is often satirical and sarcastic in spite of himself. His criticisms of other judges, his references to the manner in which justice is administered in Austria, illustrate his temerity and independence. His scorn of the King of Saxony, on account of being dilatory in paying the subscription for the Grand Mass, was pronounced. He alludes to him as "the poor Dresdener" in his letters, and he even went so far as to talk about suing him when the payment was still longer withheld.[F] All this from a man who at times did not have a decent coat to wear, or a second ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... the modern reader's consuming desire to get it over, and if it be not a pleasure, it is difficult to understand his desire to have it at all. Mere size, it seems to me, cannot be a fault. The fault must lie in some disproportion. If some of Scott's stories are dull and dilatory, it is not because they are giants but because they are hunchbacks or cripples. Scott was very far indeed from being a perfect writer, but I do not think that it can be shown that the large and elaborate plan on which his stories are built was by any means an imperfection. ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... the different parties were here, there and everywhere, looking after the interests of their respective candidates, talking, persuading, urging or buying the dilatory or vacillating vote. And the women found, early in the day, that in order to compete with the opposition, they must ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... a series of recommendations designed to expedite business. One of the proposed changes provided that the chair should entertain no dilatory motions. Such motions, whose purpose was merely to obstruct action, had long been common. The Republicans were said to have alternated motions to adjourn and to fix a day for adjournment no less than one hundred and twenty-eight times in an attempt to defeat the Kansas-Nebraska ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... thus dancing attendance upon a somewhat dilatory general, his plans were maturing; so that when occasion arose he was, as always, ready for immediate action—had no unforeseen decision to make. "The evening of the day (about January 20th) that I reported to ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... Church of the Osservanza at San Miniato, containing two lifesize figures in oils—S. John the Baptist and S. Anthony of Padua. But as for the panel that was to stand between them, Giovanni Antonio, being dilatory by nature and leisurely over his work, lingered over it so long that he who had given the commission died: wherefore that panel, which was to contain a Christ lying dead in the lap of His ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... notes several hours before letters travelling by the same boat reached the same destinations. The newspapers not only printed long accounts of Jaggers's triumphal progress from New York to Chicago and back again, but used the success of his undertaking as a text for many editorials against the dilatory methods of our foreign-mail service. Jaggers left London on March 11, 1899, and was back again on the 29th, having travelled nearly eighty-four hundred miles in eighteen days. On his return he was received literally by a crowd ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... he appealed to was his acquaintance of long standing, Judge Ruebsam. From him he heard a voluble flow of words dealing with regrets, expressions of disgust, one lament after the other, a jeremiade on hard times, maledictions hurled at dilatory creditors, infinite consolation—and empty advice. He assured Jordan that yesterday he had almost the requisite sum in cash, and that he might have it again some time next month, but to-day—ah, to-day his taxes were due, and so on, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... sister and myself are quite annoyed to seem so dilatory in fixing our time for visiting you; however, we hope (D. V.) to be with you on Saturday, the sixth of July. I hope your little olive branches are both quite well, and also your sister; we shall be glad to renew and make fresh acquaintance amongst ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... overrated through error, and which, therefore, it would have been both ungracious and unjust to have insisted on; or a settlement by a mixed commission, to which the French negotiators were very averse, and which experience in other cases had shewn to be dilatory and often wholly inadequate to the end. A comparatively small sum is stipulated on our part to go to the extinction of all claims by French citizens on our Government, and a reduction of duties on our cotton and their wines has been agreed on as a consideration for the renunciation of an important ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... hour more Magdalen had changed her dress; had joined the guests; and had soared into an atmosphere of congratulation high above the reach of any controlling influence that Miss Garth could exercise. Frank, dilatory in all his proceedings, was the last of the dramatic company who left the precincts of the stage. He made no attempt to join Magdalen in the supper-room—but he was ready in the hall with her cloak when the carriages were called and the party ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... ladies, and the fact that Mr. De Forrest's neck-tie was awry, suggested that they retire and prepare for supper, whereat they retreated in literal disorder. But without the door their old frenzy seized them, and they nearly ran over the dilatory Bel upon the stairs. With sallies of nonsense, smothered laughter, a breezy rustle of garments, and the rush of swift motion, they seemed to die away in the upper halls like a summer gust. To Mrs. Marchmont their departure had seemed like ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... shot at each other in Virginia, there has been a steady and complete change of public opinion, and the performance of this year was received with almost universal contempt, and with indignant censure of a dilatory police. ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... heartfelt, showing no deceptive exterior, but the true native fibre of the man, full of the charity which is kind and thinketh no evil. It was not always so toward those above him. Under the timid and dilatory action of Hotham and Hyde Parker, under the somewhat commonplace although exact and energetic movements of Lord Keith, he was restive, and freely showed what he felt. On the other hand, around Hood and Jervis, who ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... abandoned by the enemy, induced several of their allied cities to join him, plundered a vast extent of country, and advanced within three hundred stades—less than forty English miles—of Rome itself. After the battle many of the Lucanians and Samnites came up; these allies he reproached for their dilatory movements, but was evidently well pleased at having conquered the great Roman army with no other forces but his own ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... never allowed the sun to catch me asleep in my canoe or boat. I had kept the domestic, as well as the more grave and important events. I was importuned to give them to the public. I had written to Douglass about it, but he was dilatory in answering me, and when at last he did, and approved my suggestion for a joint work in which our observations should be digested, it was too late, so far as my narrative went, to withdraw it from my publishers. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... sheriff is dilatory in arriving to make the second or third arrest, and it would seem that the prisoner might have a chance to escape. But in such a case the warden himself would take a hand in the game. In an instance of which I heard a good deal, the man's sentence expired, we will say, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... drawing to a close. In the summer of 1767 he went to New York where we find him engaged, in company with the Rev. Dr. Ogilvie, in collecting the second annual subscription from the members of the society. The military gentlemen proved very dilatory in paying their subscriptions. Whether Capt. Glazier became disheartened at the outlook, or whether he received peremptory orders to rejoin the Royal American Regiment is uncertain. But about the end of August, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... began to give way. His heart was sinking. His messenger had been even more dilatory than he was prepared to expect. Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to tell ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... safe investment ez will pay ye better than forty-rod whiskey at two bits a glass, jist you hang onter that ar rifle. It may make your fortin yet, or save ye from a drunkard's grave." With this ungracious pleasantry he hurried his dilatory passengers back into the coach, cracked his whip, and was again upon the road. The lights of the "Summit House" presently dropped here and there into the wasting shadows of the trees. Another stretch through the close-set ranks of pines, ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... valuable to the young. Pupils who form the habit of getting to school any time in the morning, though usually late, are generally behind time all the way through life. They make the men and women who are late at meeting, late to meet their business engagements, late everywhere—a tardy, dilatory, inefficient class of persons, wherever they are found. It is good to be obliged to plan and do by car-time. The man who is obliged to keep his watch by railroad time, and then make all things bend to the same, is more likely to form the habit of being punctual, than he who ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... without difficulty by the dictators, and General San Martin was placed in command. This man had rendered good service to Chili when, in conjunction with O'Higgins, he had led the movement of independence; but his success had turned his head. He was vain and arrogant, and at the same time dilatory and vacillating. He, like the dictators, was jealous of the success and popularity of Lord Cochrane, and was bent upon thwarting him to the utmost. His army, four thousand two hundred strong, was embarked at Valparaiso in the ships of the squadron. Lord Cochrane ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... lads," said Cameron, impatiently, to several dilatory members of the band. "Night will be on ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... Henry of Virginia, he proposed another general convention, to be held as soon as possible, to consider amendments. Thus matters drifted until January, 1788, when Egbert Benson, now a member of the Legislature, offered a resolution for holding a state convention to consider the federal document. Dilatory motions blocked its way, and its friends began to despair of better things; but Benson persisted, until, at last, after great bitterness, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... who had imitated his movements, alone followed Groot Willem from the house. The boer, after promising so much, appeared so dilatory in his preparations that no dependence could be placed on his aid and the three hunters galloped off without waiting for any of the farm, or any of his servants, of whom they had seen several. His excuse for not making more haste to provide help was, that no one could ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... high steeple which stood upon four pillars in the middle of the church. One of the pillars was faulty, and the churchwardens were dilatory, as is usual in such cases. - Chivers, Esq. of that parish, foreseeing the fall of it, if not prevented, and the great charge they must be at by it, brought down Mr. Inigo Jones to survey it. This was about 1639 or 1640: he gave him 30 li. out of his own purse for his paines. Mr. Jones would have ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... solitude, was reticent in society, serious and discreet in his personal life and conduct toward others, he was free and unconstrained in his letters, in which he often reveals himself, without hesitation, just as he felt. We see him worried, troubled, confused, doubting and dilatory, but also cheerful, alert, bold, daring, and unrestrained to the degree of cynicism; altogether, however, as a man of tempered character and confident in himself; who, although the outer conditions offered to his imagination so much to choose from, usually chose the best way, except ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the rebels! Mischief and shame! Natural fruits of the dilatory war policy—Scott's fault. Months ago the navy wished to prevent it, to shell out the rebels, to keep our troops in the principal positions. Scott opposed; and still he has almost paramount influence. McClellan complains against Scott, and Lincoln and Seward flatter ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... of The Army, wherever its songs are heard, has ever been more than a kindly invitation. It has been an urging to which millions of undecided souls will for ever owe their deliverance from the dilatory and hindering influences around them, into an earnest start towards a ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... men in one and "his years were anything from sixteen to eighty," says Lloyd Osbourne in his "Memoirs." But when a letter came from San Francisco saying Fanny Osbourne was sick, all of that dilatory, procrastinating, gently trifling quality went out of his soul and he was possessed by one idea—he must ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... and a small canteen were to accompany us; but the muleteer for these was even more dilatory in his preparations than is usual with his professional brethren—and that is saying much; no doubt he entertained a dread of visiting the Dead Sea at points out of the beaten track for travellers; considerable time was also occupied in getting a stone out of the mule's shoe; then just as that ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... save no money; they could bequeath nothing. They lived, received, and expended in common. The monastery too was a proprietor that never died and never wasted. The farmer had a deathless landlord then; not a harsh guardian, or a grinding mortgagee, or a dilatory master in chancery, all was certain; the manor had not to dread a change of lords, or the oaks to tremble at the axe of the squandering heir. How proud we are still in England of an old family, though, God knows, 'tis rare to see one now. Yet the people like ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... tempting at a distance on contrary sides, it is impossible to approach one but by receding from the other; by long deliberation and dilatory projects, they may be both lost, but can never be both gained. It is, therefore, necessary to compare them, and, when we have determined the preference, to withdraw our eyes and our thoughts at once from that which reason directs us to reject. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... they had learned in practical and technical mechanical knowledge during their stay in England. The three Arab workmen were placed in their suitable departments in the Pasha's work shops. But such was the natural energy of Affiffi, that when he was set to work beside the slow, dilatory, and stupid native workmen, he became greatly irritated. The contrast between the active energetic movements which he had seen at the Bridgewater Foundry and the ineffective, blundering, and untechnical work of his fellows was ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... thee!" he cried. "Dilatory dog that thou art! Hadst thou delayed another minute, I would have called down ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... wanted any particular peak as one's own private property. His lack of initiative in this matter aroused a certain amount of impatience among the sentimentally-minded women-folk of his home circle; his mother, his sisters, an aunt-in-residence, and two or three intimate matronly friends regarded his dilatory approach to the married state with a disapproval that was far from being inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were watched with the straining eagerness which a group of unexercised terriers concentrates on the slightest movements ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... to subject cases of libel to the award of juries, not of judges. Pitt warmly approved the measure, maintaining that, far from protecting libellers, it would have the contrary effect. The Bill passed the Commons on 31st May; but owing to dilatory and factious procedure in the Lords, it was held over until the year 1792. Thanks to the noble plea for liberty urged by the venerable Earl Camden, it passed on 21st May.[45] It is matter of congratulation that Great Britain gained this new safeguard for freedom ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... was certain that Violet was awaiting my answer to her letter in some anxiety, and I myself was on fire to see her, so that this dilatory method of progress made me feel altogether miserable. We went jogging on in a sad, mournful fashion, and I made up my mind that at the first inhabited place we came to I would discharge my driver, and find either a horse or a new conveyance; ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... that the German crown was often purchased by ill-advised concessions; but a greater source of weakness was the inability of the Emperors to make the most of the prerogatives which they retained, and which the nation desired that they should exercise. Imperial justice was dilatory and inefficient because the imperial law court followed the Emperor; because the professional was liable to be overruled by the feudal element among the judges; because the rules of procedure were uncertain and the decisions based not upon a scientific jurisprudence but on provincial custom. ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... from the level of the plain, and seemingly lost in that expanse of open country, climbed to the sky the twin steeples of Martinville. Presently we saw three: springing into position confronting them by a daring volt, a third, a dilatory steeple, that of Vieuxvicq, was come to join them. The minutes passed, we were moving rapidly, and yet the three steeples were always a long way ahead of us, like three birds perched upon the plain, motionless and conspicuous in the sunlight. Then ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... his small force, which had not even the advantage of fighting behind well-constructed and perfect defences. No doubt, from the beginning to the end of the war—notably in the case of Burgoyne—the British were seriously hampered by the dilatory and unsafe counsels of Lord George Germaine, who was allowed by the favour of the king to direct military operations, and who, we remember, had disgraced himself on the famous ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... other men complain that the Department is dilatory, not merely deliberate, and that it is often impossible to get an answer to a letter at all. There is a story told of a man who wrote offering his services as chaplain, wrote again after a decent interval, continued to write for many months, and finally received, by way of reply, a nice ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... lag that eventful day; the hands seemed to sweep round the dial on the Old State House as though they had been swords in pursuit of some dilatory debtor. It now lacked only fifteen minutes of two, and Monroe, sick at heart, turned his steps towards Milk Street, to announce the utter failure of his plan. Mr. Lindsay received the intelligence with more firmness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... Pottinger discovered, when the second trustee did take it into his head to look into things, it was no child's play. He had an uncomfortable manner, this tutor, of demanding explanations and particulars with all the air of the proprietor himself, and was not to be put off by any dilatory tactics on the part of the official with whom the explanation lay. As in the present case the business transacted was chiefly in connection with leases and conveyances, the unfortunate lawyer had a rough week of it, and felt at the end very much ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... Hawthorne soon found the dimensions of the house too narrow for the enlarged views which he had brought with him from abroad, and he designed a tower to be constructed at one corner of it, similar to, if not so lofty as that of the Villa Manteuto. This occupied him and the dilatory Concord carpenter for nearly half a year; and meanwhile chaos and confusion reigned supreme. There was no one whose ears could be more severely offended by the music of the carpenter's box and the mason's trowel than ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... rebellion, there are often critical moments, when a welltimed offer of pardon to the insurgents or rebels may restore the tranquillity of the commonwealth; and which, if suffered to pass unimproved, it may never be possible afterwards to recall. The dilatory process of convening the legislature, or one of its branches, for the purpose of obtaining its sanction to the measure, would frequently be the occasion of letting slip the golden opportunity. The loss of a week, a day, an hour, may sometimes be fatal. If it should be observed, that ...
— The Federalist Papers
... intensify the activity of his mental energies. To compass the abolition of slavery had been the passion of his life. He had hailed the Civil War as the great opportunity. He had never been quite satisfied with Lincoln, whose policy seemed to him too dilatory. He demanded quick, sharp, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... till they are able to pay for it by their labour. The time that the Negroes work in the West Indies, is from day-break till noon; then again from two o'clock till dark (during which time, they are attended by overseers, who severely scourge those who appear to them dilatory); and before they are suffered to go to their quarters, they have still something to do, as collecting herbage for the horses, gathering fuel for the boilers, &c. so that it is often past twelve before they can get home, when they have scarce time ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... the fourth morning found the Frenchmen six miles ahead, and one less in number, for the great Dutch ship had separated from the squadron and was out of sight. The Defiance and Windsor, ever the most dilatory of our vessels, were at this time four miles astern. About ten o'clock, the wind then blowing east nor'-east, but very variable, the enemy tacked, and the admiral fetched within range of two of them, giving them his broadside and receiving from them many shrewd knocks. Then, tacking also, he pursued ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... encountered off the banks of Newfoundland, and more chilling and disagreeable to the human frame. It did not disperse the whole day. What with the difficulty that attended our landing, and the long delay consequent upon the very dilatory movements of the Custom-House officers, the night had fairly closed in—it did not add much to the darkness—before I was en route to an hotel. A Scotch fellow-passenger, who had maintained a sullen reserve throughout the voyage, which ought to have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... whose passions are apt to be as shortlived as they are violent. Story-telling and long-winded discussions give him keen enjoyment, for he is garrulous, metaphysical, and argumentative. In money matters careless and extravagant, dilatory and venal in affairs; fond, especially in the peasant class, of singing, dancing, and carousing; but his irresponsible gaiety and heedlessness of consequences balanced by a fatalistic courage and endurance in the face of suffering and danger. Capable, besides, of high flights of idealism, ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... ready for sea and feverish activity prevailed in Gallic and British arsenals. The insistence of the Parisian Ministers in seeking to have other questions discussed side by side with the demand for the evacuation of Fashoda and their dilatory tactics but increased the feeling of irritation in the United Kingdom. Statesmen seemed to be undecided and diplomacy, as usual, revolving in a circle. Happily, this country was never better prepared for war, and that in the end, as has so often been the ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... been a great deal of bitter discussion between Longstreet, Fitz Lee, Early, Wilcox, and others as to whether Lee did or did not order an attack to take place at 9 A.M., and as to whether Longstreet was dilatory, and to blame for not making it. When a battle is lost there is always an inquest, and a natural desire on the part of each general to lay the blame on somebody else's shoulders. Longstreet waited until noon for Law's brigade to come up, and afterward there was a good deal of marching and countermarching ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... horseback, rode over separately. Mr Elliot was a man of good common sense, though his opinions were not quite so weighty as his person, which declined to rise in one scale when fifteen stone was in the other. He was a just man also, though perhaps he was less dilatory in attending to the wishes of a member of one of the great county families than he might be in the case of a mere nobody. If a rich man and a poor one had a dispute, he considered that the presumption was in favour of the former, but he did not allow this prejudice to influence him one iota ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... some prominent Democratic leaders from Missouri. John B. Henderson in the Senate and John W. Noell in the House labored earnestly to secure the compensation for their State, but the bill was finally defeated in the House. By factious resistance, by dilatory motions and hostile points of order, the Democratic members from Missouri were able to force the bill from its position of parliamentary advantage, and to prevent its consideration within the period in which a majority ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Rodd. He's a dilatory old impostor. I don't believe he means for me to go at all. By the way, did you have the men up and give them ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... who has not made the experiment, or who is not accustomed to require rigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge and distinctness of imagery ... To this dilatory notation must be imputed the false relations of travellers, where there is no imaginable motive to deceive. They trusted to memory what cannot be trusted safely but to the eye, and told by guess what a few hours before they had known with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... subject, Oliver John Dinham de Courcy Vyell, now travelling on the business of this my Realm, and to further that business with all zeal and expedition as required by him"—a command which might be all the more strictly construed for being loosely worded. To be sure the Court might by dilatory process linger out the hearing of the Weights and Measures cases—one of which was being scandalously interrupted at this moment—or it might adjourn for dinner and reassemble in the afternoon, by which time the sands of Ruth Josselin's five hours' ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and it really seemed to me absolutely certain that the other animals in the group appreciated and enjoyed the fun that comedian made. He pretended to be awkward, and frequently fell off his tub. He was purposely dilatory, and was often the last one to finish. The other animals seemed to be fascinated by his mishaps, and they sat on their tubs and watched him with what looked like genuine amusement. I remember another circle of seated animals who calmly and patiently ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... old the bourne between Spanish America and the French Louisiana. Mexico, proud, had recognized neither the independence of Texas nor its annexation by the United States, yet would probably have agreed to both as preferable to war, had the alternative been allowed. To be sure, she was dilatory in settling admitted claims for certain depredations upon our commerce, threatened to take the annexation as a casus belli, withdrew her envoy and declined to accept Slidell as ours, and precipitated the first actual bloodshed. Yet war might have been averted, and our Government, not Mexico's, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the public danger. A silent consternation prevailed in the assembly, till a senator, of the name and family of Trajan, awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He represented to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had been long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by nature, and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy, at the head of the military force of the empire; and that their only remaining alternative was either to meet him bravely in the field, or tamely to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... this modern Camillus goes about to recover Italy from Hannibal, who has been sought out for our dictator in our distress, on account of his unparalleled talents, Rome would be the possession of the Gauls; and I fear lest, if we are thus dilatory, our ancestors will so often have preserved it only for the Carthaginians and Hannibal; but that man and true Roman, on the very day on which intelligence was brought him to Veii, that he was appointed dictator, on the authority of the fathers and the nomination of the people, came down into the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... to be made, and he made them accordingly. He made them on his own negroes. He saw they did not move like the soldiers he had been accustomed to command. Their motions were much slower, and they performed their tasks in a more dilatory manner; the amount of labor they could perform in a given time, with ease and comfort to themselves, could not be told by his knowledge of what white men could do. He therefore noted the gait or movements ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... stood at ninety degrees, which perhaps accounted for his having no anxiety to go ashore; but, in spite of the heat, Dennis and I were wild to see what was going on, and when Alister called to us to help to lower the jolly-boat, and we found we were to accompany him, we were not dilatory with the necessary preparations, and were soon rapidly approaching ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... As dilatory as this editor has been in reviewing this important case, he is equally timid in his criticism upon it. Currying to judicial and political power, he terms Judge Hunt's willful and knowing infraction of law "a mistake," but in regard to Miss Anthony, he says, "she intended deliberately ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... scientific way. We have machines for photographing relative quickness of thought and muscular action. We are able to record the varying speeds of impulse transmission in the nerves of different individuals. If you were picking out a bad man, would you select one who, on the machine, showed a dilatory nerve response? Hardly. The relative fitness for a man to be "bad," to become extraordinarily quick and skillful with weapons, could, without doubt, be predetermined largely by these scientific measurements. Of course, having no thought-machines in the early ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... sure you will have thought me very dilatory in returning the books you so kindly lent me. The fact is, having some other books to send, I retained yours to enclose them ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Helm to a very pleasant sense of security. Beverley was not so easy to satisfy; but his suggestions regarding military discipline and a vigorous prosecution of repairs to the blockhouse and stockade were treated with dilatory geniality by his superior officer. The soft wonder of a perfect Indian summer glorified land, river and sky. Why not dream and bask? Why not ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... 1802 to suppress a statement of his grievances which could only have rendered ministers implacable.[284] But he found out what would hardly have been a discovery to most people, that officials can be dilatory and evasive; and certain discoveries about the treatment of convicts in New South Wales convinced him that they could even defy the laws and the Constitution when they were beyond inspection. He published (1803) a Plea for the Constitution, showing the enormities ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... oppressions, as may, like these flies, further distress them; and so, besides their natural desire of gain, may have this additional incitement to it, that they expect to be suddenly deprived of that pleasure which they take in it." And, as a further attestation to what I say of the dilatory nature of Tiberius, I appeal to this his practice itself; for although he was emperor twenty-two years, he sent in all but two procurators to govern the nation of the Jews, Gratus, and his successor in the government, Pilate. Nor was he in one ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the Capuchins, which we lived opposite, I was dilatory, though in my mediaeval days it had been one of the first places to which I hurried. In those days everybody said you must be sure and go to the Capuchins', because Guide's "St. Michael and the Enemy" was there, and still more because the wonderful bone mosaics ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... way back from Frascati, and his Parisian scepticism with respect to those legendary drugs, which to his mind had no place save in the fifth acts of melodramas. Yet those abominable stories were true, those tales of poisoned knives and flowers, of prelates and even dilatory popes being suppressed by a drop or a grain of something administered to them in their morning chocolate. That passionate tragical Santobono was really a poisoner, Pierre could no longer doubt it, for a lurid light now illumined the whole of the previous day: there were the words of ambition ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... from a Protestant minister would have led his congregation to imagine that their good pastor had lost his wits; but I have no doubt that it was eminently successful in abstracting the fourteen dollars from the pocket of the dilatory Peter N—-, and in preventing Alderman John from hunting hares on a holiday for the time ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... intensity—"Remember, it's not child's play! Whoever takes what I can give, holds the mastery of the world! I offer it to the United States—but I would have preferred to offer it to Great Britain, being as I am, an Englishman. But the dilatory British men of science have snubbed me once—and I do not intend them to have the chance of doing it again. Briefly—I offer the United States the power to end wars, and all thought or possibility of war for ever. No Treaty of ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... not electors. The court upheld their right. The Secretary of State became convinced that the petition was fraudulent and did not appear in the further litigation. The suffrage forces were prepared with their evidence and wished to proceed at once with the case but all the dilatory tactics possible were used and it was not until the full legal time was about to expire that the opponents were brought to the point on May 17, 1918. Mrs. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Medina consisted of three parts, a walled town, a large suburb, with ruinous defences, and a fort. Minarets shot up above the numerous flat roofs, and above all flashed the pride of the city, the green dome that covered the tomb of Mohammed. Burton became the guest of the dilatory and dirty Shaykh Hamid. The children of the household, he says, ran about in a half nude state, but he never once set eyes upon the face of woman, "unless the African slave girls be allowed the title. Even these ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the remnant that he might pose as their saviour and be saluted 'father' and 'patron.' There, indeed, was our Minucius at fault, as what honest, poor man is not, when confronted by the wiles of those bred to craft and trickery! See, too, how the consuls have followed the same dilatory measures, and can you doubt that it is all by agreement with these traitor nobles? Know well, now, that this war will have no ending until a man of the people ends it—a real plebeian; a new man. See you not that both consuls, by tarrying with the army, have set up an interregnum, ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... time-serving principle was visible even in the great question of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. He was, at one time, half inclined to surrender it into Mr. Pitt's dilatory hands, and seemed to think the gloss of novelty was gone from it, and the gaudy colouring of popularity sunk into the sable ground from which it rose! It was, however, persisted in and carried to a triumphant conclusion. Mr. Wilberforce said too little on this occasion of ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... riding in many small bands, but were kept on the move constantly by the vigorous measures of General Miles, and he assumes that the Apache question would have been settled had his predecessor, General Crook, been less dilatory. The writer expressed his conclusion that in military skill, strategy and ability the Indians far excelled their opponents, and details that fifty or sixty Apaches the year before had killed more than 75 white settlers, all the while ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... himself so obstinately opposed, and so hindered by these dilatory tactics, he sent a message to Franklin, through Banks's senior aide-de-camp, who had been riding with the advance, asking that a brigade of infantry might be sent forward to his assistance. Lee's view was that the infantry, ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... interested in his legal studies, but loved to play the piano, and write letters, and dream of literature, to idolise Jean Paul Richter and to indulge a most commendable passion for good cigars. He was not dilatory at love, and went through a varied apprenticeship before his heart seemed ready for the fierce test it was put to in ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... crackling against the window-panes—in order to varnish a certain fly-rod. Now rods ought to be put in order in September, when the fishing closes, or else in April, when it opens. To varnish a rod in December proves that one possesses either a dilatory or a childishly anticipatory mind. But before uncorking the varnish bottle, it occurred to me to examine a dog-eared, water-stained fly-book, to guard against the ravages of possible moths. This interlude proved fatal to the varnishing. ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... will not do so unless a determination of such point as shall arise make it necessary to the determination of a controversy, and hence a case must be presented in which there can be no rational doubt. All this would subject the aggrieved parties to much dilatory, expensive and needless litigation, which your memorialist prays your honorable body to dispense with by appropriate legislation, as there can be no purpose in special arguments "ad inconvenienti," enlarging or contracting the import of the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... always to announce its time of departure an hour, or sometimes two, before it goes, as the monde is supposed to be never in time; but, even in France, time must be kept when tide is in question; and we, therefore, were very much afraid that our dilatory waiter would cause us to lose our passage. It would seem that the French can do nothing without being frightened into action; and that they enjoy putting themselves into frights and fevers; for our porter, when he did appear, had to hurry, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... how unpleasant all this is to read, this outbreak at two localities that have never done me any personal harm except a little mud-splashing. But this is a thing that has to be said now, because we are approaching a crisis when dilatory ways, muddle, and waste may utterly ruin us. This is the way things have been done in England, this is our habit of procedure, and if they are done in this way after the war this Empire is going ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... Holiness was carried in an open chair from St. Peter's to St. Mary's, attended by the Sacred College, in cavalcade; and, after Mass, distributed several dowries for the marriage of poor and distressed virgins. The proceedings of that Court are very dilatory concerning the recognition of King Charles, notwithstanding the pressing instances of the Marquis de Prie, who has declared, that if this affair be not wholly concluded by the 15th instant, he will retire from that Court, and order the Imperial troops to return ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... school that no man could by any means enjoy the privileges and immunities of the First Fifteen till the black velvet cap with the gold tassel, made by dilatory Exeter outfitters, had been actually set on his head. Ages ago, a large-built and unruly Second Fifteen had attempted to change this law, but the prefects of that age were still larger, and the lively experiment had never ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... but one of two policies which Japan could pursue, either to shut up the country or to admit the foreigners' demand. There was no middle course left. The American envoy would no longer listen to the dilatory policy with which the Japanese had just bought a few months' ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga
... I wrote no letters at all, and Mr. Chilton was never a punctual correspondent. The best of friends are apt to be dilatory in such respects, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... Polonius was necessary now to the death of the king. Hamlet's resolve is instant, and the act simultaneous with the resolve. The weak man is sure to be found wanting when immediate action is necessary; Hamlet never is. Doubtless those who blame him as dilatory, here blame him as precipitate, for they judge according ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... it would seem as if Persano, the Italian commander in chief, could easily have executed his savage-sounding orders to "sweep the enemy from the Adriatic, and to attack and blockade them wherever found." He was dilatory, however, in assembling his fleet, negligent in practice and gun drill, and passive in his whole policy to a degree absolutely ruinous to morale. War was declared June 20, and had long been foreseen; yet it was June 25 before he moved the bulk of his fleet from Taranto ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... came in, from the nizam to Anandraz, ordering him instantly to quit the English camp, and join him. The rajah was so terrified that, that night, he started with his troops without giving any information of his intentions to Colonel Forde; and dilatory as were his motions in general, he, on this occasion, marched ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... entirely disappeared, and that no alternative was left to him but to abandon the ground. So, pretending to wonder why his allies did not send forward the succors which they had promised in their letters, and saying that, since they were so dilatory and remiss, he must go himself and bring them, but promising that he would immediately return, he set sail from Tarentum, and, crossing the sea, went home to his own kingdom. He arrived safely in Epirus after an absence of ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... domestic slave trade; it nourishes and justifies the most cruel prejudices against color; it sneers at those who advocate the bestowal of equal rights upon our colored countrymen; it contends for an indefinite, dilatory, far-off emancipation; it expressly declares that it is more humane to keep the slaves in chains, than to give them freedom in this country! In short, it is the most compendious and best adapted scheme to uphold the slave system that human ingenuity can invent. Moreover, it is utterly ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... indeed," echoed Mrs. Ianson, deeply thankful to anything or anybody that stood in the breach between herself, her husband, and the dilatory cook. ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Elsa. The swan is seen approaching, drawing the empty boat. Less master of himself than theretofore, Lohengrin, realising the last parting so near, gives unmistakable outward sign of his inward anguish. "The Grail already is sending for the dilatory servant!..." Going to the water's edge he addresses to the snowy bird words which no one can quite comprehend. "My beloved swan, how gladly would I have spared you this last sorrowful voyage. In a year, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... imposed upon me of either journeying to England or entering into a long correspondence with those philosophers of that country whose knowledge and discoveries were of indispensable use to me in my present undertaking. The latter method of obtaining the desired intelligence was dilatory and unsatisfactory; besides, I had an insurmountable aversion to the idea of engaging myself in my loathsome task in my father's house while in habits of familiar intercourse with those I loved. I knew that a thousand fearful accidents might occur, the slightest of which would ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... the note and went out of the room. Never had he seemed to her so dilatory and slow. She stared at the door as though her sight could pierce the panels. She imagined him climbing the stairs with feet which loitered more at each fresh step. Some one would surely stop him and ask for whom the letter was intended. She went to the door which led into the ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... proceedings began to grow slow, was directed entirely at the dilatory Three Pointers. They hooted the Three Pointers. They urged them to go home and tuck themselves up in bed. The spectators were mostly Irishmen, and it offended them to see what should have been a spirited fight ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... for him. Then, too, the public announcement of her engagement and approaching marriage to M. La Touche might arouse him to the knowledge of how much he loved her. "How blessings brighten as they take their flight!" and jealousy is infallible to bring dilatory lovers to the point. No question of the right or wrong of the matter troubled the second Miss Danton's ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... fresh horse in the stable.) "Up late last night and worried all day about affairs over which I have no control, and fellows who will fail us at need. Sir Rowland must wait till dinner time to-morrow for news of these dilatory Spaniards. If he has to deal much more with them, it will be a useful lesson ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... subsequently be industrious to correct. Many inconviences encompass a man in years; either because he seeks [eagerly] for gain, and abstains from what he has gotten, and is afraid to make use of it; or because he transacts every thing in a timorous and dispassionate manner, dilatory, slow in hope, remiss, and greedy of futurity. Peevish, querulous, a panegyrist of former times when he was a boy, a chastiser and censurer of his juniors. Our advancing years bring many advantages along with them. Many our ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... importunity. Pray in thy bed at midnight, and God will not say, I will hear thee to-morrow upon thy knees, at thy bedside; pray upon thy knees there then, and God will not say, I will hear thee on Sunday at church; God is no dilatory God, no froward God; prayer is never unseasonable, God is never asleep, nor absent. But, O my God, can I do this, and fear thee; come to thee and speak to thee, in all places, at all hours, and fear thee? Dare I ask this question? ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... in the same manner. He never passed over an interesting subject till he had confronted a variety of authors. In historical researches he never would advance, till he had fixed, once for all, the places, time, and opinions—a mode of study which appears very dilatory, but in the end will make a great saving of time, and labour of mind: those who have not pursued this method are all their lives at a loss to settle their opinions and their belief, from the want of having once brought ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... ounce of his strength. But once he gets the notion that his "boss" is afraid of, or for, him or his feelings or his health, he loses interest in working for that man. So a little effort to lighten or expedite his work, a little leniency in excusing the dilatory finishing of a job, a little easing-up under stress of weather, are taken as so many indications of a desire to conciliate. And conciliation means weakness every time. Your lumber-jack likes to be met front to front, one strong man to another. As you value your authority, the love of your men, and ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... would have certainly been theirs. Moreover, they would have inflicted not simply a defeat but a severe disaster on their enemy, who would have been caught in flank by the troops at the Stone Bridge; for these troops, however dilatory, must have known what to do with a broken and flying Confederate flank right under their very eyes. Premonitory symptoms of such a flight were not wanting. Confederate wounded, stragglers, and skulkers were making for the rear; and the rallied brigades were again in disorder, with Bee ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... and, strange as it may seem, in many clubs, has absolutely no excuse for its existence, except that it was the first to be introduced and has the reputation of being universally used in foreign countries. It requires scoring above and below the line, which is a most cumbersome and dilatory proposition. Keeping tally by this method involves, at the end of a rubber, long mathematical problems, which, as the scorer is then in a hurry, frequently result in serious, and at times ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... enquiring look, he seemed to demand if it possessed the needed conveniences. The leader of the emigrants cast his eyes, understandingly, about him, and examined the place with the keenness of one competent to judge of so nice a question, though in that dilatory and heavy manner, which rarely permitted him ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to be done. The arts of peace were exhausted. A deliberate breach with legality could alone fulfil the national decree. The country had grown tired of dilatory tactics and prolonged inaction. Conciliation, tried by the Commons, by the clergy, and by the Government, had been vain. The point was reached where it was necessary to choose between compulsion and surrender, and the ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... because of the deadly nature of the country for horses. So we had to hire an ox-waggon, which they provisioned for us, and, much to our disgust (as we were pressed for time), were obliged to fall back on that dilatory method ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... freely. They told me that it was their absolute design to take possession of the Ohio, and by G— they would do it; for that although they were sensible the English could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any undertaking. They pretend to have an undoubted right to the river from a discovery made by one La Salle sixty years ago, and the rise of this expedition is to prevent our settling on the river or the waters of it, as they heard of some families ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... of Canada no time was lost in placing the new constitution before parliament. A dilatory course would have been unwise. The omens were favourable. Such opposition as had developed was confined to Lower Canada. The Houses met in January 1865, and the governor-general used this ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... that we all got into," Betty went back to the house to get her bags and meet Katherine, who was going on the same train. Some of the girls had already gone, and none of them were in but Rachel, who was perched in a front window watching anxiously for a dilatory expressman, and Katherine, who was frantically stowing the things that would not go in her trunk into an already ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... speed to her anchorage, and the engines thump in a subdued and profound manner very far away, or as when at night the solemn tread of some huge policeman is heard, remote and soft and dilated—I mean dilatory, or as when—But you see what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... letter shortly before leaving home for this place. Owing to this cause and to having been more unwell than usual I have been very dilatory in writing to you. When I last heard, about six or eight weeks ago, from Mr. Murray, one hundred copies of your book had been sold, and I daresay five hundred may now be sold. (680/1. "Facts and Arguments for Darwin," 1869: see ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... his eyes, will tell you that there is "no mas" of your favorite granizada, and will persuade you to take, I know not what nauseous substitute in its place; for all ices are not good at the Dominica, and some are (excuse the word) nasty. People sit and sip, prolonging their pleasures with dilatory spoon and indefatigable tongue. Group follows group; but the Spaniards are what I should call heavy sitters, and tarry long over their ice or chocolate. The waiter invariably brings to every table a chafing-dish with a burning coal, which will light a cigar long ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... the Treasury has commenced, and brooms and scrubbing-brushes are at a premium—a little anticipative, it is true, of the approaching turn-out; but the dilatory idleness and muddle-headed confusion of those who will soon be termed its late occupiers, rendered this a work of absolute time and labour. That the change in office had long been expected, is evident from the number of hoards discovered, which the unfortunate employes had saved up against ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
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