"Insecure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... given to them for an inheritance, and they are the rod of divine vengeance on the heathen, as were the Jews of old. Living in the midst of a native population much larger than themselves, and at fountains removed many miles from each other, they feel somewhat in the same insecure position as do the Americans in the Southern States. The first question put by them to strangers is respecting peace; and when they receive reports from disaffected or envious natives against any tribe, the case assumes all ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... place, where, though he feared no other enemies, the damps and frosts of the chill sea-air in that exposed situation might be death to him in his weak state; or whether he had better climb the next hill, and pierce the depth of some shady wood, in which he might find a warm and sheltered though insecure repose, subject to the approach of any wild beast that roamed that way. Best did this last course appear to him, though with some danger, as that which was more honourable and savoured more of strife and self-exertion, than to perish without ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Tyuonyi there was occasional intercourse, and a fairly beaten trail led from one place to the other; but this intercourse was so much interrupted by hostilities, and the Navajos rendered the trail so insecure beside, that she had never paid much attention to it. Still, there was no doubt in her mind that if she reached the habitations of the Tehuas, above where the pueblo of Santa Clara now stands, a hospitable reception would be extended to her. But ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Greatorex, which was the most intolerable of all her fears. It was as if Nature itself were aware that, if Ally were not dispossessed of that terror before Greatorex's child was born her own purpose would be insecure; as if the unborn child, the flesh and blood of the Greatorexes that had entered into her, protested against her ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... No teacher of morals had ever reached the point of inculcating upon men the belief that it was the highest joy to spend the energies of life in contributing to the happiness of others. Though he saw in the system of Christ, as popularised and interpreted, a whole host of insecure assumptions, unverified assertions, and even degrading traditions, yet he could not doubt of the Divine force of the central message. If he was not in a position to affirm with certitude the truth of ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hen's: I felt sure that when he drank he must tilt his head back as hens do in order that the liquid may run their throats. But his method of keeping himself upright, together with certain spasmodic contractions of his fingers and the nervous "uh-ah, uh-ah" which punctuated his insecure phrases like uncertain commas, combined to offer the suggestion of a rooster; a rather moth-eaten rooster, which took itself tremendously seriously and was showing off to an imaginary group of admiring hens situated somewhere in the background ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... in spite of certain solemn promises of evacuation; and the expedition of Marchand, which ended in the Fashoda incident, indirectly questioned the validity of the British occupation of Egypt by making that occupation strategically insecure. In spite, however, of the deliberate manner in which France raised this question and of the highly irritated condition of French public opinion, she could not, when the choice had to be made, afford the consequences of a Franco-English ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... cultivated, owing to the perpetual wars and feuds amongst the chieftains and tribes in these parts, and the bad and unsettled governments which now exist in Tigre, and, in fact, in all Abyssinia. Travelling in these parts is difficult and insecure, owing to the plundering dispositions of the people, and the rapacity of the chiefs, who live beyond the control of any commanding or great sovereign power. At Gatera Mr Krapf was robbed of every thing that he had by the ferocious Woollo-Galla ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... find some old people deeply shaken; they feel insecure. One confirmed drunkard has come to me, and is, I believe, now a saved man. Some little children are evidently saved. All that I have yet seen are related to converts of my own. One, eleven years old, is a singular instance of divine grace. When I asked if she desired to be made holy, ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... been determined lost its force and authority.[184] But the Queen and her counsellors did not wish to go so far. They remarked that to declare a Parliament invalid for some errors of form was a step of such consequence as to make the whole government of the nation insecure. But even without this it was not the Queen's purpose merely to revert to the forms which had been adopted under her brother. She did not share all the opinions and doctrines which had then obtained the upper hand: ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... been dreadfully nervous all night and almost afraid to stop to rest anywhere, but now her fatigue had quite overcome her. Her position against the tree was uncomfortable and insecure, so, drawing her head very gently down until it rested on my shoulder, and shading her eyes with her mantilla, I let her sleep on. Her face looked strangely worn and pallid in that keen noonday ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... opposite, diversified by a future Lind practicing her scales unweariedly; water-pipes bursting in the frost, walls streaming in the thaw, the lower offices reeking and green with damp, and the upper rooms too insecure for unrestricted movement—all these, and more miseries of the same kind, she willingly encounters rather than shift into a locality relatively unfashionable to her sphere, but where she could have substantiality and comfort ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... Kenneth; but the latter could not pull for laughing. And besides, he had the whole of the young gillie's weight to bear, while his foothold was exceedingly insecure. ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... for the start, when the 'cellist, who was restless, discovered that the stand which had been placed for him was insecure; rising from his scat, he went to fetch another from the back of the platform. In the delay that ensued, Maurice looked round at the audience. He saw innumerable heads and faces, all turned expectantly towards him, like ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... their song numbers, might with equal plausibility represent a mountain in Arizona, the front veranda of a house or a banquet table in the gilded dining-hall of some licentious multi-millionaire. They got up on the insecure thing and tried to dance; that ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... evident to all that the position of Cromwell at court had become very insecure. While England was threatened with an European coalition he had suggested an alliance with the Protestant princes of Germany, and as Henry's third wife Jane Seymour had died (1537), after having given birth to a son (later on Edward VI.), he determined ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... peasant-woman; the other was for the passenger. There was a small arm-piece, at the outside of each seat, and generally there was a cushion. This was once a favorite means of travel between Bayonne and Biarritz. It was expeditious, enlivening,—and highly insecure; that was one of its charms. Throughout the ride there was a ludicrous titillation of insecurity; but it was greatest at the start and at the finish. For, the seats being evenly balanced, to mount was in itself high art. Driver and passenger needed ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... gentlemen say they have no orders to cross Biram river. They have their quarters in Horseneck, and some troops are north of that place. Thus, notwithstanding my endeavours, the country will be unprotected, and I am insecure. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the days of Slavery, did much to make the infernal system insecure, and to keep alive the spirit of freedom in liberty-loving hearts the world over, wherever such deeds of noble daring were made known. But of his heroism, but little can be reported here, from the fact, that such accounts as ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... woman. She could not separate him from his genius; and his genius had long ago overleapt the social gulf. And now, without poor Flossie, without the safeguard of his engagement, she felt herself insecure and shelterless. More than ever since he ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Albans in '55, was declared Lord Protector of the realm during Henry's imbecility; that the next year the King recovered and the Protector's office was abolished; that in '57 both parties stood at bay; in '58 an insecure peace was patched up between them; in '59 they appealed to arms, the Yorkists gained a victory at Bloreheath, but being defeated at Ludiford, Duke Richard, with one of his sons, fled for ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... kind of restlessness seems to have come over the Prince at this time. It was only by being constantly on the move that he could escape from anxious and painful thoughts. Possibly he may have felt a little insecure in the midst of the Clan MacLeod (though he had met nowhere with more devotion than that of the three cousins); he certainly seems to have bestowed far more affection and confidence on Malcolm than ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... on the steep hillside, his rifle was in his left hand, downhill, and his footing, caught as he was with one foot half raised, was insecure. At no time these last four hours had his opportunity been so close—or ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... remaining seven to five villages, till at length they emigrated in a body to the Ricara nation, where they formed themselves into two villages, and joined those of their countrymen who had gone before them. In their new residence they were still insecure, and at length the three villages ascended the Missouri to their present position. The two who had emigrated together still settled in the two villages on the northwest side of the Missouri, while the single village took a position ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... by the demoralizing influences of civil war and by the rancorous passions which the contest has engendered. But that these people are maintaining local governments for themselves which habitually defeat the object of all government and render their own lives and property insecure is in itself utterly improbable, and the averment of the bill to that effect is not supported by any evidence which has come to my knowledge. All the information I have on the subject convinces me that the masses of the Southern ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... Paowang's tribe had been planned. The chief of the party into whose hands he had fallen was, he found, called Oamo; he appeared to be a fierce, sanguinary savage, and he felt that his own life, while he remained in the chief's power, was very insecure. So, finding that he could much more easily reach us than get back southward, and that his captors were less likely to look out for him on our side, he resolved to escape; and that very ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... selected as a body-guard for the young Angadhohua, who was prince of all the isle, but on an insecure tenure, for the French, in New Caledonia, were showing a manifest inclination to annex ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the sovereign in the elevation of those able servants of the crown. The consequence was, success in all the enterprises of Catharine, the rapid advance of the nation in European influence, the establishment of an insecure throne on the strongest footing of public security, the popularity of a despotism, the comparative civilization of a people half Asiatic, and who but half a century before had been barbarians, and the personal attachment of the nation to Catharine in a degree scarcely less than adoration. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... plateau cannot be dispensed with. It is practically certain that the plateau is not caused entirely by necessity for rest or unconscious learning. It frequently is due, we must regretfully admit, to poor early preparation. If at the beginning of a period of learning an insecure foundation is laid, it cannot be expected to support the burden of more ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... of the aristocracy in this respect displeases certain clear-sighted personages at the palace. If I were a great lord, instead of being, as I am, a mere country gentleman who seems to be placed where he is to transact your business for you, the monarchy would not be as insecure as I now think it is. What becomes of a throne which does not bestow dignity on those who administer its government? We are far indeed from the days when a king could make men great at will,—such men as Louvois, Colbert, Richelieu, Jeannin, Villeroy, Sully,—Sully, ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... Ireland. Given that, he would be confident of possessing the foundation for the structure of an Irish Army—an army which would be regarded as Ireland's own. Without it, the whole fabric of his efforts must be insecure. He desired to build, as in England they built, upon the voluntary effort of a people in whom entire confidence was placed. In the War Office undoubtedly men's minds were set upon finding a regular supply of Irish troops ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... and chuckling negro, Tom and Ned went to the rather insecure stable where the mule Boomerang was kept. That is, the stable was insecure from the standpoint of a jail. But the sight of the giant Koku marching up and down in front of the place, armed with a ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... her glossy yellow braids. Her situation was fast becoming tragic; but Louise gathered herself up anew and turned to the right, only to plunge in deeper than before; to the left, to meet with the same fate. Desperately she tried one spot after another. Now painfully scrambling to an insecure footing on top of the crust, now violently descending into the depths again, until the snow about her was marked thick with deep, round holes, and her feet were drenched and well-nigh frozen with the icy water which trickled up and down inside her shoes, as she lifted now her toes ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... myself. I seem to be a consciousness, vague and insecure, placed between two worlds. One of these worlds seems clearly "not me," the other is more closely identified with me and yet is still imperfectly me. The first I call the exterior world, and it presents itself to me as existing in Time and Space. ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... I am omnipotent. All else had been subdued to me; alone The soul of man, like unextinguished fire, 5 Yet burns towards heaven with fierce reproach, and doubt, And lamentation, and reluctant prayer, Hurling up insurrection, which might make Our antique empire insecure, though built On eldest faith, and hell's coeval, fear; 10 And though my curses through the pendulous air, Like snow on herbless peaks, fall flake by flake, And cling to it; though under my wrath's night It climbs the crags of life, step after step, Which wound it, as ice wounds unsandalled feet, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... immediately, well acquainted with the whole state of the Canaanites; for at first, before they were at all discovered, they took a full view of the city of Jericho without disturbance, and saw which parts of the walls were strong, and which parts were otherwise, and indeed insecure, and which of the gates were so weak as might afford an entrance to their army. Now those that met them took no notice of them when they saw them, and supposed they were only strangers, who used to be very curious in observing everything in ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... acknowledged here that Canadians have no answers for such questions and short shift for the questioner. They are too busy making history to talk about it. It is only the woman insecure of her social position who prates about it. It is only the nation uncertain of herself that bolsters a fact with an argument. Canada is too busy with facts for any flamboyant arguments. It is an even wager that if you ask the average well-informed ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... the east of Bursley; and Bursley, which has been the home of the potter for ten centuries, is the most ancient of the Five Towns in Staffordshire. The boys, dressed for the most part in shirt, trousers, and boots, all equally ragged and insecure, were playing at prison-bars. ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Commission appear to be highly punishable, if not a just ground for forfeiture of their Charter, more especially being conjoyned with this of a great many of that Colony, their keeping a continued Correspondence with the Pirates, which renders the fair Traders very uneasy, and insecure. All which I humbly submit to their Lordships Consideration, and pray for redress, suitable encouragement, and support to ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... of their little territories is almost exclusively confined, for no other branch can grow up among so turbulent a set, whose quarrels with their chiefs, or among each other, are constantly involving them in civil wars, which render life and property exceedingly insecure. Besides, as I have stated, their propensity to keep bands of thieves, robbers, and murderers in their baronial castles, as poachers keep their dogs, has scared away the wealthy and respectable capitalist and peaceful and ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Has Love learnt the spell That will charm them hither, Near our hearth to dwell? Insecure are all her treasures, Restless is her anxious gaze:- Where are they, then, ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... had gone out from his dark abode; and, carried in his chariot by black horses, he cautiously surveyed the foundations of the Sicilian land. After it was sufficiently ascertained that no place was insecure, and fear was laid aside, Erycina,[44] sitting down upon her mountain, saw him wandering; and, embracing her winged son, she said, Cupid, my son, my arms, my hands, and my might, take up those darts by which thou conquerest all, and direct the swift arrows against the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... over-hanging the water. Above the doorway was placed a sign whereon might be read the words, "Beaver Beach, Mike's Place." The shore end of the pier was so ruinous that passage was offered by a single row of planks, which presented an appearance so temporary, as well as insecure, that one might have guessed their office to be something in the nature of a drawbridge. From these a narrow path ran through a marsh, left by the receding river, to a country road of desolate appearance. Here there was a rough enclosure, or corral, with some tumble-down sheds which ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... several projects which were devised in order to give them a hold over this State. In Kelantan, internal troubles have aided Siamese intrigues, the present Raja and his late brother both having so insecure a seat upon their thrones that they readily made concessions to the Siamese in order to purchase their support. Thus, at the present time, the flag of the White Elephant floats at the mouth of the Kelantan river on State occasions, though the administration of ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... no new business, no foreign trade, sufficient to take up old obligations and renew those which are unpayable. Lessened incomes mean lessened consumption and lessened demand for goods. Hence the credit system is based on an uncertain and insecure foundation, dependent wholly upon contingencies far in the future which may, or may not, take the non-liquid assets out of cold storage and give them their ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... sent you the whole of Reka Dom this mail. But a most unexpected fall of snow has made the travelling so insecure that it is considered a risk to wait till Monday, and I must send off what I can to-day. It is so nearly done that I am not now afraid to send off the first part (which will be more than you will want for May), and you may rely on ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... balances due, and pay the Government demand punctually in future. This arrangement enabled him to reduce his fiscal, military, and police establishments a good deal for the time, and his tenure of office was too insecure to admit of his bestowing ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... Wales was still an insecure portion of the English dominion. In 1287, Rees ap Meredith, whose services to Edward had been largely rewarded with grants of land and a noble English wife, commenced levying war against the king's sheriff. His excuse ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... had found that his hold on the Greek cities of Asia Minor was insecure so long as they could look for armed help to their kindred beyond the Archipelago, and he had sent his satraps to raid the Greek mainland. That first invasion ended disastrously at Marathon. His son, Xerxes, took up the quarrel and devoted years to the preparation ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... been despatched for that purpose, rushed to meet them; but by dint of superior fighting and the greater weight of the horses, they fell in a moment like flax before a storm. The road to the castle was open, but escape thither was insecure and too far away, because the Zmudzian horses were fleeter than those of the Germans. The blue knight ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... it annoyed him to feel that he could not let himself go like the others. But it was so long since he had mixed with his own countrymen, that he felt insecure of his footing and almost like a foreigner among them. Besides, in a few hours now they should sight the skerries on the Norwegian coast; and the thought awoke in him a strange excitement—it was a moment ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... piratical posts, and accordingly we read of pirates as early as we read of commerce by sea. (Thucydides, i. 5.) The disturbances in the Roman State had encouraged these freebooters in their depredations. Caesar, when a young man, fell into their hands (Life of Caesar, c. 1); and also P. Clodius. The insecure state of Italy is shown by the fact of the pirates even landing on the Italian coast, and seizing the Roman magistrates, Sextilius and Bellienus. Cicero in his oration in favour of the Lex Manilia (c. 12, c. 17, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... life," he echoed and stood up. Father and daughter regarded each other warily, each more than a little insecure with the other. He made a movement toward her, and then recalled the circumstances of their last conversation in that study. She saw his purpose and his doubt hesitated also, and then went to him, took his coat lapels, and kissed ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... the dissertation does not produce a very clear impression, inasmuch as there is too great a readiness to plunge, in medias res, checked by too great a tendency to harking back, and re-stating some conclusion in modified terms and with insecure corollaries. Two points which Mr. Tupper chiefly insists upon are: (1) that the subject in a work of art affects the beholder in the same sort of way as the same subject, occurring as a fact or aspect of Nature, affects him; and thus whatever in Nature excites the mental and moral emotion of man ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... they succeeded in getting up. Wilkins at once presented in the direction of the lions and again fired. Whether any of them fell is a matter of dispute, but certain it is that Wilkins fell, for the recoil of the gun knocked him back, his footing being insecure, and he went down on the top of a tent which had been pitched on the other side of the wagon, and broke the pole of it. After this several more shots were fired, apparently without success. While they were reloading a lion leaped on a goat, which was tethered to the grass-hut, and carried ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... and then moved chattels and personals into the vacancy, and given it a more homelike appearance than it had worn for half a century. If the truth were known, Helen's chief fancy for the room, shaky and insecure as both floor and ceiling seemed, was that dim panel-portrait blistering there above the fire or peeling off with mouldy flakes in past days,—for she had still many a longing for the old family-pictures that once her shiftless father, ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Mazarin his true interests, and be glad to amuse us by stipulating with the Court for our security without putting us in possession of it, and by ending the civil war in the confirmation of our slavery. "The Parliament," I said, "inclines to an insecure and scandalous peace. We can make the people rise to-morrow if we please; but ought we to attempt it? And if we divest the Parliament of its authority, into what an abyss of disorders shall we not precipitate Paris? But, on the other hand, if we do not raise the people, will the Parliament ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... legs was slow work, and such friends as Hueffer, Clifford and Galsworthy had to do a lot of arduous log-rolling. Even after the splash made by "Youth" his publishing arrangements seem to have remained somewhat insecure. His first eleven books show six different imprints; it was not until his twelfth that he settled down to a publisher. His American editions tell an even stranger story. The first six of them were brought out by six different publishers; the first eight by no less than seven. But today he has a regular ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... sluggishly, and every now and then the water swashed across her cabin with extra impetus, making footing insecure. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... danger of rebellion going too far. The barriers confronting it are too solid, and the Idol of the Herd is too carefully enshrined. A perpetual rebellion of every one against everything would give us an insecure, though exciting, existence, and we are protected by man's disposition to obedience and his solid love of custom. Against the first vedettes of rebellion the army of routine will always muster, and it gathers to itself the indifferent, the startled cowards, the thinkers whose thought ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In the very conquest for this baser type a man blights his sensibilities, minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if we are of this type, simply seeking the Golden Fleece for what it will net us in dollars and cents, we ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... San Gabriel, overlooking the lowland vines and fruit groves, Mother Nature is most ruggedly, thornily savage. Not even in the Sierra have I ever made the acquaintance of mountains more rigidly inaccessible. The slopes are exceptionally steep and insecure to the foot of the explorer, however great his strength or skill may be, but thorny chaparral constitutes their chief defense. With the exception of little park and garden spots not visible in comprehensive views, the entire surface is covered with it, from the ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... very gravely, "there is one way of escape. I have often thought of it, and once I thought I had taken the first step towards it; but it is beset with many great obstacles, and to be a priest makes one timid and insecure." ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... for counting the money came round, it was found that the walls were so insecure that there was danger of their giving way and crushing some of the clerks under the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 30, June 3, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Mexicans from passing the border and committing depredations on our remote settlers. A state of anarchy and violence prevails throughout that distant frontier. The laws are a dead letter and life and property wholly insecure. For this reason the settlement of Arizona is arrested, whilst it is of great importance that a chain of inhabitants should extend all along its southern border sufficient for their own protection and that of the United States mail ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... no Victorian writer before him to whom he even suggests a comparison, technically considered, except perhaps De Quincey; who also employed the long rich rolling sentence that, like a rocket, bursts into stars at the end. But De Quincey's sentences, as I have said, have always a dreamy and insecure sense about them, like the turret on toppling turret of some mad sultan's pagoda. Ruskin's sentence branches into brackets and relative clauses as a straight strong tree branches into boughs and bifurcations, rather ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... be by that time a general habit of saving throughout the community, a habit more firmly established perhaps in the propertied than in the wages-earning class. People will be growing accustomed to a dear and insecure world. They will adopt a habit of caution; become desirous ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... securities that Hallam deemed insecure, and by this time Hallam had begun to wonder what was the matter with Tandy. He knew, or thought he knew, that the man must have greatly more money invested somewhere than these things represented. He had ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... the sixteenth century. They were notorious in the eighteenth century for their lawlessness, and gave the imperial Mughal officers much trouble in the neighbourhood of Agra, rendering the communications between that city and Etawah insecure. In the Mutiny they broke out again, and are generally a turbulent, ill-conducted sept, always ready for petty acts of violence and cattle-stealing. They are, however, recognised as Rajputs of good position and intermarry ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... basis that man has been forced into a groove in which he cannot freely develop what is wonderful, and fascinating, and delightful in him—in which, in fact, he misses the true pleasure and joy of living. He is also, under existing conditions, very insecure. An enormously wealthy merchant may be— often is—at every moment of his life at the mercy of things that are not under his control. If the wind blows an extra point or so, or the weather suddenly changes, or some trivial thing happens, his ship may go down, his speculations may go wrong, ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... Calemri, amid which, divided into two distinct groups by a wide, open space, were numerous herds of cattle just being watered. How melancholy came afterwards the recollection of that busy scene, when on his return, three and a half years later, he found it an insecure wilderness, infested by robbers, the whole of the ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... bishoprics—the one West Saxon, the other Mercian. The first, founded by Birinus, when Wessex extended far north of the Thames, was divided seventy years later into two sees—Winchester and Sherburne. For some years the city was without bishops, owing to its insecure position during the strife between Wessex and Mercia, but later it appears as the seat of the great Mercian bishopric, retaining its jurisdiction until after the Norman conquest, when the see was transferred to Lincoln. Therefore Dorchester ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... affairs now exists in some of the States of the Union rendering life and property insecure and the carrying of the mails and the collection of the revenue dangerous. The proof that such a condition of affairs exists in some localities is now before the Senate. That the power to correct these evils is beyond the control of the State authorities I do not doubt; that the power of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... among other means of opposing their progress they perceived that the central gangway (corsia) had been torn up, or they slipped upon planking which had been smeared with butter, oil, or even, it is said, with honey, to render the footing insecure. So efficient were the nettings and other precautions with which Don John of Austria defended the bulwarks of his ships that he was able to inform Philip II that not a Turk had set foot upon a single deck ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... murder,' said the agent. 'Simpkins, you are constable, take this man in charge, while I make out his committal. Stay!' he added, 'the cage is very insecure, and this is no trifling case. You had better take him up to the castle, my lord will examine him in the morning, and there is a strong room there; meantime, Mrs. Ally will perhaps see to his wound, it looks ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... hurled by radionic tubes against the back wall of snowy marble from Mars' arctic quarries. Besides, that glass, proof though it was against anything but an atomic explosion, still made every true art lover feel disquietingly insecure. ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... high-minded as he was, he was not willing to kick away the ladder. To prevent that principality from being extinguished in the crown, he severed it by act of Parliament. He had a motive, such as it was: he thought his title to the crown unsound, and his possession insecure. He therefore managed a retreat in his duchy, which Lord Coke calls (I do not know why) "par multis regnis." He flattered himself that it was practicable to make a projecting point half way down, to break his fall from the precipice of royalty; as if it were possible for ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... over that, for when I was about to speak I made an uncertain sort of noise, which turned off suspicion. That the head labourer had some doubt about me, I verily believe. I thought at first I would try to get to London, but the roads thereto, I learnt, were so bad and travelling so insecure, even for the poorest, that I considered it best to remain in this neighbourhood, as I wanted to see Mademoiselle P—- once more, and settle with her uncle for the money of mine in his hands. I thought if I ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... those insecure times, for some faithful domestic to sleep at night within the tent of every great baron, that, if danger arose, he might not be unsupported or unprotected. Guarine accordingly drew his sword, and, taking it in ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... by the Philistines. To complete the subjection of the Israelites, their conquerors made captive all the smiths of the land, and carried them away. The Philistines felt that their hold of the country was insecure so long as the inhabitants possessed the means of forging weapons. Hence "there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel; for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears. But the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... insecure retreat," Frina answered. "There is no escape from this room. I have arranged another place for you. Come, and ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... revered mother's pardon for disturbing her so ridiculously," he said, seizing her hand and pressing it to his lips. "It was not my fault, and only occasioned by the insecure fastening upon the door. It was by a right fortunate accident that your grace commanded your valet to station himself close to the door of the cabinet, for he thereby saved me ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... weave the thread of my miseries anew? Ye know them more fully than I myself. I, pursued to the death by my stepfather, scorned by my mother, spat upon by friends, have passed my years in pitiable wise, and my days in adversity; and my insecure life has teemed with fear and perils. In fine, I passed every season of my age wretchedly and in extreme calamity. Often in your secret murmurings together you have sighed over my lack of wits; there was none ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... swam. He no longer heard the shouts of encouragement from the cowpunchers. He was clinging desperately to his insecure seat, with legs pressed tightly against the pony's sides. As yet he had not seen ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... headed. Reaching them they entrenched themselves in what they could not but feel was an immensely insecure position. ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... to appreciate the danger, and shuffled forward as quickly as they could. All got over in safety except the last three. The treacherous sand, rendered still more insecure by the heavy tread of so many ponderous animals, now gave way entirely, and the three hapless elephants were left floundering in the tenacious hold of the dreaded fussun. Two of the three were not far from the firm bank, and managed to extricate themselves ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... make it as brief as possible. It had become so powerful in 1871 that President Grant in that year, in his message to Congress, declared that "a condition of things existed in some of the States of the Union rendering life and property insecure, and the carrying of the mails and the collecting of the revenue dangerous." A Joint Select Committee of Congress was accordingly appointed, early in 1872, to "inquire into the condition of affairs in the late insurrectionary States, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... not only his words, but his manner, his expression, his singular, yet sombre, beauty, bore convincing testimony. He had matured with an almost unnatural rapidity, leaving her far behind. In his presence she felt diffident, mentally insecure, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... of jealousy and suspicion, though he was naturally unambitious and devoid of energy. The attempt failed at the time, and Seneca was able triumphantly to refute the charge of any treasonable design. But the fact of such a charge being made showed how insecure was the position of any man of eminence under the deepening tyranny of Nero, and it precipitated the conspiracy which two years ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... Hill. There was a rival building, Mr. Bateman's Monastery, at Old Windsor, which is said to have had more uniformity of design than Strawberry Hill. Horace used indeed to call the house of which he became so proud a paper house; the walls were at first so slight, and the roof so insecure in heavy rains. Nevertheless, his days were passed as peacefully there as the premature infirmities which came upon ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... with his gaze on the black hole in the pistol-barrel, soon made a discouraging discovery; the position in which he had been arrested was insecure and uncomfortable, and the unusual strain that it brought upon his muscles became painful and exhausting. To shift his position even in the smallest way would be to invite the bullet. As the moments flew the strain upon ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... faith? Could all depend on a last sensation? And as to her life. Failure, failure through headstrong blindness and self-will, resulting in the agony of the innocent. Was this ground of hope? She tried to think of progress and purification beyond the grave; but this was the most speculative, insecure fabric of all. There was no habit of trust to it—no inward conviction, no outward testimony. And even when the extreme danger subsided, and Francis Temple was known to be better, Rachel found that ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of it—a Survey which, meseemed, it would have been well had Others made with similar Attentiveness—I found that the Arch thereof looked shaky and insecure; moreover, that a Great and Irregular-shaped Cleft or Crack ran, after the fashion of a Lightning-flash in a Painted Sea-scape, athwart the structure thereof from Keystone to Coping. As I was regarding this ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... President. He fell into disfavour, however, with the Court on account of his opposition to a claim for two million francs by a distant relative of the Empress Eugenie. Finding that his position was insecure, he tendered his resignation to the Emperor, who accepted it. About this time he met Clorinde Balbi, an Italian adventuress, who endeavoured to induce him to marry her. Carried away for the time being, Rougon ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... seemed that the woman must fall from her perch, so insecure it seemed. He controlled himself, thinking rapidly. Then ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... as they were congratulating themselves on their escape, came a dull, reverberating explosion—and as they clung to their insecure footholds, a volcano of snow and ice rose ahead. Thousands of tons of debris ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... and set out straightway on his homeward journey. A tramp of thirty or forty miles over the hills is ordinarily no great matter for a young and active shepherd. But now snow was falling; already it lay to some depth, making the footing toilsome and insecure. Moreover, a curious yellow mist had spread over the hills, shrouding the hollows from sight; darkness must be on him hours before he could hope to reach home, and the night promised to be wild. But what would daunt ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... the race would have been annihilated. "As soon as we demand to pass beyond mere awareness to a genuine knowledge, we discover our deplorable poverty, and must confess that what is termed certain seems on clearer investigation to rest upon a totally insecure foundation."[75] "It is not natural science itself which leads to naturalism, for, indeed, no natural science could arise if reality exhausted itself in the measurements of naturalism; but it is rather the weakness of the conviction of the spiritual life; it is ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... vow himself to a life of hard service in a convent would be the way to win his brother's life; but he had ceased to be able to feel that such bargains were the right course, or that a convent necessarily afforded sure way of service, and he never felt more insecure of the way and means to prayer than in ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wide, stern gray rocks all round us, a foaming torrent only faintly visible in the prevailing gloom a thousand feet below. Our mules, obtained at the last village in the fertile region, move at the speed of snails, for the path is slippery and insecure, and one false step would mean death for both ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... it occurred to anyone that actors might also be remunerated in a similar way. In olden days the actor's profession was not favourably regarded by the general public; his social position was particularly insecure; he was looked upon as of close kin to the rogue and the vagabond, and with degrading possibilities in connection with the stocks and whipping-post never wholly remote from his professional career. An Elizabethan player, presuming to submit ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... from committing such violations of the rights of the neutral party as may, first or last, leave no other option. From the best information I have been able to obtain it would seem as if our trade to the Mediterranean without a protecting force will always be insecure and our citizens exposed to the calamities from which numbers of them have but just ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... predilections of an individual poet or historian, combine to render the early history of the Arabs, so far as precision in dates, the definite order and mutual relations of events, characters, and localities are concerned, perplexing and insecure, or tantalizing by the wealth of detail, impressive indeed, but eluding the test of historical criticism. Their tactics and the composition of their armies make the precise share of this or that general in determining the result of a battle or a campaign difficult to estimate. Yet by (he concord ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... sore straits. It distresses me to hear how much you are suffering, and at the same time not to be near enough to speak a word of good cheer, or to do anything for your comfort. It grieves me to find how insecure my health is, for I had promised to myself to be your loving nurse, should any turn in your disease make it desirable. Miss Lyman boards here, but rooms at the Sykes', and her friend Miss Warner is also here, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... through the staring and threatening mob. No hand was raised against us at that moment, but danger lay about us on every side, and it was no pleasure to recognise the fact that the sword of Damokles always hung by a hair over our head. Feeling very uneasy at our insecure condition, I was sent, on the part of the rest, to the authorities of the canton, especially to Abbe Girard,[137] and the mayor, Eduard Pfyffer, to beg that they would provide for our safety with all the means in their power. On my way I was recognised ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... of pluralism. Its world is always vulnerable, for some part may go astray; and having no 'eternal' edition of it to draw comfort from, its partisans must always feel to some degree insecure. If, as pluralists, we grant ourselves moral holidays, they can only be provisional breathing-spells, intended to refresh us for the morrow's fight. This forms one permanent inferiority of pluralism from the pragmatic ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... answer was an incredulous laugh, and an instant later the man's shoulder struck the panels with a crash that cracked one of them and partly tore the bolt from its insecure fastenings. ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... journeyed o'er a field All covered up with snow in heaps, By melancholy fogs concealed. Amid the snowdrifts which surround A stream, by winter's ice unbound, Impetuously clove its way With boiling torrent dark and gray; Two poles together glued by ice, A fragile bridge and insecure, Spanned the unbridled torrent o'er; Beside the thundering abyss Tattiana in despair unfeigned ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... four-pound loaf; wine, 25s. a bottle. By the time they returned, we had struck our tents, intending to cross a muddy-banked creek that lay in our road that evening, as we were told that the waters might be too swollen to do it next day. The water reached above their waists, and as my usual post was very insecure, I was obliged to be carried over on their shoulders, which did not prevent my feet from being thoroughly soaked before reaching the other side, where we ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... fired instantly, and my footing was too precarious to let me even duck. My left arm tingled and went numb, but before he could draw a pistol I stepped to safer ground and launched my rock at him. It caught him lower than I intended, but that was the result of my insecure foothold. I meant it for his head. It took him between neck and shoulder. He dropped like an ox, and his musket went clattering down the steep. He lay still across the path, very near to the place where, as I looked, I could see again Black Boy's straining eyes and ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... very large possessions, part of which consisted in Crown debts due to the Vice-Admiral for sums he had advanced for the sea service. No moneys were at that time more insecure than those owing from the king. Penn was obliged to go more than once, and "thee" and "thou" King Charles and his Ministers, in order to recover the debt; and at last, instead of specie, the Government invested him with ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... frequent rains, or rather waterspouts, (and from the position of the place, between the two vast oceans of the Atlantic and Pacific, they have considerably more than their own share of moisture,) washing away the soil and sand from between the stones, render the footing for bass of all kinds extremely insecure. There are five monasteries of different orders, and a convent of nuns, within the walls, most of which, I believe, are but poorly endowed. All these have handsome churches attached to them; that of La Merced is very splendid. The cathedral ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... servant had done his lordship's bidding, and Mr. Caryll stood weaponless amid his enemies. He mastered himself at once. Here it was plain that he must walk with caution, for the ground, he perceived, was of a sudden grown most insecure and treacherous. Rotherby and Green in league! It gave him matter ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... nothing about wrong. I simply assert that it is uncertain. The very existence of such a periodical must in itself be most insecure." Sir Marmaduke, amidst the cares of his government at the Mandarins, had, perhaps, had no better opportunity of watching what was going on in the world of letters than had fallen to the lot of Miss ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... retraced our steps along the edges of chasms where the ice was disintegrated and insecure, and succeeded at length in finding a bridge which bore us across the crevasse. This error caused us the loss of an hour, and after walking for this time we could cast a stone from the point we had attained to the place whence we had been ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... this, hushed only for a moment by the passage of the Bland Act, had been going on ever since demonetization in 1873. The fall in prices, which the new output of gold had not yet begun to arrest; the money stringency since 1893; the insecure, bond-supplied gold reserve, and the repeal of the silver-purchase clause in the Sherman Act combined to produce a wish for increase in the nation's hard-money supply. Had the climax of fervor synchronized with an election day, a free-coinage President ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... be necessary, that those of an abject and moderate genius, because they never encounter danger, nor aspire after the summit of excellence, are for the most part without error and remain in security; but that great things become insecure through their magnitude?" Indeed it appears to me, that whenever this exuberance, this Bacchic fury, occurs in the diction of Plato, it is owing to the magnitude of the inspiring influence of deity with which he is then replete. For that he sometimes ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... homes in distant and widely separated provinces, would spread the fame of the courageous Galilean Prophet. Many in Jerusalem believed on Him at the time, mainly because they were attracted by the miracles He wrought; but He refused to "commit himself unto them," realizing the insecure foundation of their professions. Popular adulation was foreign to His purpose; He wanted no motley following, but would gather around Him such as received the testimony of His Messiahship from the Father. "He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... being given, as the wind baffled, and as often was it countermanded, to take advantage of its reviving. These were feverish moments, for the ship was now so near the reef as to render her situation very insecure in the event of the wind's rising, or of a sea's getting up, the sand of the bottom being too hard to make good holding-ground. Still, as there was a possibility, in the present state of the weather, of kedging the ship off a mile into the offing, if necessary, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... up unsteadily on his insecure perch, and there was the mysterious grey car, which now was become a veritable nightmare, mounting the hill ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... raised her high in my estimation. She replied, that Mr. Barclay's being detached from Lady Angelica Headingham by your superior merit was to her the strongest argument in his favour. She must, she said, have felt insecure in the possession of a heart, which had been transferred directly from Lady Angelica to herself, because she was conscious that her own disposition was so different from her ladyship's; but in succeeding to the affection which ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... be financially insecure, because this would defeat its eugenic purpose. Society, therefore, as a matter of self-preservation, must ensure to woman her mental and economic security. Civilization's margin is large enough to provide this. We spend large amounts on luxuries and evils which are contrary to the genesis of self-preservation, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... of the persons who become leaders of society, and would remain so. They alone are "good society." Their imitators may masquerade for a time, and tread on toes, and fling scorn and insult about them while in a false and insecure supremacy; but such pretenders to the throne are soon unseated. There is a dreadful Sedan and Strasburg awaiting them. They distrust their own flatterers; their "appanage" is not a ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... herself with a liberal sum. Then the atmosphere round her became less trying; yet her temper remained changeable, and had it not been that she was good-looking and witty, her position might have been insecure. As it was, she ruled in a neutral territory where she was the only woman. One night, after an inclement remark to Jacques, in the card-room, Blanche came back to the bar, and not noticing that, while she was gone, Soldier ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... much to the fun of swimming. The boards are generally made so that the plank will bend, being dressed down thin at one end and fastened. The thinness of the plank, or an insecure fastening, causes many a plank to snap in two or come loose from its ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... knowledge whatever of the many thoughts regarding her father which had begun to occupy her mother's mind. To her, strange and unnatural as it may seem, he was simply an object of fear and abhorrence. She hated him as the cause of her mother's sufferings, of their false and insecure position, and of the self-loathing which possessed her when she thought of their relationship. The idea of any wifely duty owing to him could never have struck her, for what visions of married life she had, belonged to a world totally unlike that of her parents' experience, ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... the moonlight, trailing their long shadows up the straight avenue of chestnuts. The marquise, a royalist of course, had been mayor of the commune which includes Ploumar, the scattered hamlets of the coast, and the stony islands that fringe the yellow flatness of the sands. He had felt his position insecure, for there was a strong republican element in that part of the country; but now the conversion of Jean-Pierre made him safe. He was very pleased. "You have no idea how influential those people are," he explained to his wife. "Now, I am ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... Etherington, laughing, "for no other reason than that it is an uncertain calling—one that is liable to sudden reverses—what is termed gambling—and whatever renders property insecure is sure to obtain odium among those whose principal concern is its accumulation; those who consider the responsibility of others ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... gold. But the Clerk of the Court was really unsophisticated, or he would have seen that Carmen played the guitar badly because she was not interested in Jean Jacques' singing. He would have known that she had come to that stage in her married life when the tenure is pitifully insecure. He would have seen that the crisis was near. If he had had any real observation he would have noticed that Carmen's eyes at once kindled, and that the guitar became a different thing, when M. Colombin, the young schoolmaster, one of the guests, caught ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... independent investigation, until our knowledge of the child becomes sufficient for us to infer from general laws of procedure what the procedure in a particular case should be. We venture to infer what ought to be done in some cases, but generally we feel insecure till we have proved our inference correct by trying out different ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... be for them, Ronald? I have heard that bands of discharged soldiers and others make travelling insecure; but I had no idea that it was necessary to ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... l'amour! The most mysterious of all mysteries, the most inexplicable of all that can't be explained, the most precarious of all that's insecure. ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... with his back to the fire, and, cigarette in mouth, dictated to the self-effacing young woman. She took down his words with anxious humility, for she looked upon him as a god sphered on Olympian heights—and what socially insecure young woman of lower-middle-class England could do otherwise in the presence of a torturingly beautiful youth, immaculately raimented, who commanded in the great house with a smile more royal and debonair than that of the master thereof, Member ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... Religion and Philosophy mean to us things having roots in Reality, while Theology and Metaphysics seem like broken reeds, rooted in the quicksands of ignorance, and affording naught but the most insecure support for the mind or soul of Man. we do not insist upon our students accepting these definitions—we mention them merely to show our position. At any rate, you shall hear very little about Theology and Metaphysics ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... sober, even stately. But soon, either from the steep, insecure nature of the ground or from less obvious and material cause, her pace quickened until it became a run. She ran neatly, deftly, all of a piece as a boy runs, no trace of disarray or feminine floundering ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... necessary to commence war immediately; but his fleet was twice defeated by Pompey, and was at last completely destroyed by a storm (B.C. 38). This failure only proved the necessity of making still more extensive preparations to carry on the war with success. The power of Octavian was insecure as long as Pompey was master of the sea, and could deprive Rome of her supplies of corn. Nearly two years were spent in building a new fleet, and exercising the newly-raised crews and rowers. The command of the fleet and the superintendence of all the necessary preparations for the ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... am not angry, Tuan," answered Babalatchi, descending from the insecure heights of his indignation into the insincere depths of safe humility. "I am not angry. What am I to be angry? I am only an Orang Laut, and I have fled before your people many times. Servant of this one—protected ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... other confirmations, to the old newspapers; these were the things that no one wrote about because every one understood and every one had taken up an attitude. There were in England and America, and indeed throughout the world, two great informal divisions of human beings—the Secure and the Insecure. There was not and never had been in either country a nobility—it was and remains a common error that the British peers were noble—neither in law nor custom were there noble families, and we altogether lacked the edification ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... CAVE.—On "the old Lewis Martin place," 11/2 miles west of Rowlett's Station, a section of roof, 20 or 25 feet across, has dropped into a deep cavity. The sides are still insecure. The descent to a spring under what appears to be the original roof is somewhat more than 40 feet. The ceiling is not more than 6 ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... at least in the capital, the basso popolo was royalist, as was the scarcely less ignorant nobility. The bulk of the clergy and the army was also loyal. All this support made the Bourbon regime look not insecure to those on the spot, who failed to understand the ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... irregular pages—it may be a volume of controversial divinity or outworn philosophy—it seems impossible to imagine that it can ever have been woven out of the live brain of man, or that any one can ever have been found to follow those old, vehement, insecure arguments, starting from unproved data, and leading to erroneous and fanciful conclusions. The whole thing seems so faded, so dreary, so remote from reality, that one cannot even dimly imagine the frame of mind which originated it, and still less ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... turned his attention to the Eastern Shore. He realized that so long as Berkeley had there a base of operations, from which he could launch sudden attacks, his position was insecure. So he sent Captain George Farloe, "one of Cromwell's men," with forty soldiers across the bay to surprise and capture Berkeley. But it was not easy to cross so large a body of water in small boats, and Farloe was taken and hanged. Equally futile was a manifesto to the people ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... personal attraction, with mutual respect and self-respect as its dedicated corner-stone. This does not mean that one cannot see any faults in the friend, or know that one's own are seen, without losing affection. There is always something flimsy and insecure about a friendship that simply idealizes. Any relation should be all the stronger for a frank acknowledgment of its imperfections. If a girl cares enough she will be willing to admit her own faults and wish to make herself more ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... the walls with respect to apparent solidity and stability, it was found that nearly all are in fair or good condition. The only portion that would seem in special danger is the central section of the southern exterior wall. This section seems insecure, and might at any time be overthrown by a heavy wind following a rain storm. This section was not, unfortunately, braced or tied to the stronger interior wall when the protective works were carried ...
— The Repair Of Casa Grande Ruin, Arizona, in 1891 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... Duels, indeed, I have my own ideas. Few things, in this so surprising world, strike me with more surprise. Two little visual Spectra of men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the midst of the UNFATHOMABLE, and to dissolve therein, at any rate, very soon,—make pause at the distance of twelve paces asunder; whirl round; and, simultaneously by the cunningest mechanism, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... place: but at present I suppose they will. I wish it also, because M. de Hector, his only competitor, has on some occasions shown little value for the connection with us. Lambert, the Comptroller General, is thought to be very insecure. I should be sorry also to lose him. I have worked several days with him, the Marquis de la Fayette, and Monsieur du Pont (father of the young gentleman gone to America with the Count de Moustier), to reduce into one Arret whatever concerned ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... coat and feel dressed. This life is to last until Friday, Saturday or Sunday next. It is a strange affair to be an emigrant, as I hope you shall see in a future work. I wonder if this will be legible; my present station on the wagon roof, though airy, compared to the cars, is both dirty and insecure. I can see the track straight before and straight ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... of the rights they gave, or of the means of oppression they took away: while the time-honoured dwellings of the Cavendishes and Russells were menaced and assailed, nothing but the most senseless tyranny could render the cottage insecure; but the abolition of the seignorial rights in France, free communication between her provinces, equal taxation, impartial justice—these were blessings which it required no economist to illustrate, and no philosopher to explain. Every labourer in France, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... not all of them, in the public room of the jail, discussing the qualities of the keepers liquors. Accordingly he held his way through the silent streets of the village, directly to the small and insecure building that contained all the unfortunate debt ors and some of the criminals of the county, and where justice was administered to such unwary applicants as were so silly as to throw away two dollars in order to obtain one from their neighbors. The arrival of ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper |
