"Dilatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... 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 gaining ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... 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
... 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 ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... 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
... 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 upon these numerous and ...
— 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
... 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
... 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 find expression ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... 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
... 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 Press—a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... dilatory dog: we had said that we would leave at five a.m., and at six he was washing his teeth in the little stream which acted as the village sewer. As we were waiting our green-coated friend got away on his saddle horse, with his wife ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... 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
... company dilatory in returning her notice, since from the time of her entrance into the room, she had been the object ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... 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
... 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
... 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 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 the low sandy spit of land ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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 |
