"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indifference, but living creatures joined together cannot feel indifference for each other. Even two dogs in a leash are compelled to think of one another. A man and wife must love or hate, like or dislike, in degree as the bond connecting them is drawn tight or allowed to hang slack. By mutual desire their chains of wedlock have been fastened as loosely as respect for security will permit, with the happy consequence that her aversion to him does not obtrude itself ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... avaricious, though a prudent man. A working man himself, he was in thorough sympathy with his workmen, and in the slack season, instead of discharging his men and thus entailing want upon them, he built vessels on speculation, merely that he might keep the men busy and their families from suffering. Providentially these speculations were always successful, thus illustrating ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... time was to be lost; so, dismounting from the very fleet horse he was riding, he placed in his saddle his wife and eldest child. To the first named he gave directions "to follow on the trail that led to Taos, and let the bridle reins be a little slack, so that the horse would know what was expected of him, when he would travel at the top of his speed. He said that he intended to ride towards the Indians and engage them at first in a parley, and then if necessary offer them a single-handed ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... much trade at present. Still, a few coasters have come in, and I hope that every day things will get better. Besides, all the vessels that have been lying in the Pool since June will want painting up and getting into trim again before they sail out of the river, so things may not be so slack after all. You will find everything in order in the store. I have had little to do but to polish up brass work and keep the metal from rusting. When do the apprentices ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... In the slack-baked condition in which we find him, he merely repeats the ordinary spectacle of green youth in the process of seeing life and buying experience at the usual high figure. Compared with the real squatter (who, ordinarily, is college-trained, and ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... poor wife. But if I continued to make the best of a bad bargain, I had no longer any illusions as to the possibility of success in Paris. Face to face with unheard-of misery, I shuddered at the smiling aspect which Paris presented in the bright sunshine of May. It was the beginning of the slack season for any sort of artistic enterprise in Paris, and from every door at which I knocked with feigned hope I was turned away with the wretchedly monotonous phrase, Monsieur ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... as I have said, have worked loyally and well, there have, I regret to say, been instances where absence, irregular timekeeping, and slack work have led to a marked diminution in the output of our factories. In some cases the temptations of drink account for this failure to work up to the high standard expected. It has been brought to my notice on more than one occasion that the restrictions ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... this debate tendeth also to this end, that the power, as well of ecclesiastical censure as of the civil sword, being in force, the licentiousness of carnal men, who desire that there be too slack ecclesiastical discipline, or none at all, may be bridled, and so men may sin less, and may live more agreeably to the gospel. Another thing here intended is, that errors on both sides being overthrown (as well the error ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... name....' There came a jagged spurt of flame; The window seemed a furnace door That gave upon a bed of ore; The thunder rumbled out the muttered Words that his failing tongue had uttered— Another flash, a rending crack— The old man crumpled like a sack; I felt his stringy arms go slack. How could he sit so dead, so still! While wind ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... tide passed, and then the ship began to swing idly as the slack came. Then with the turn of tide came little flaws of wind, and we hoisted the sail, and Kenulf hove the anchor short. Yet we heard no more sounds from ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... instant did the full, crushing horror of the affair come home to the American, for events had crowded one another so closely that his mind was confused; but when, in the halting yellow glare, he saw those two slack forms and the crooked, unnatural postures in which death had left them, his consciousness cleared and he strained at his bonds ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... saddle me the bonny black, Gae saddle sune, and mak' him ready, For I will down the Gatehope-slack, An' a' ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sixteen to eighteen threads, between two hem-stitched edges. Fasten your thread in, 3 m/m. above the seam-edge, and wind it three times round every two clusters, passing the needle, the third time, under the two first rounds, to fasten the thread. The thread, thus drawn through, must be left rather slack. A second row of stitches, similar to the first, and at the same distance from the bottom edge, completes this pattern. To give it greater strength, you may if you like, work back over the first thread, with a second, taking care to pass it under the knot, which ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... commitments which must be liquidated at any cost. It is precisely in time of depression that the men of business ought to press their selling and organise their sales organisation to the utmost limit. If finance, commerce, and industry could only be persuaded to take this course in the slack times, then every action in this direction would cure the evil by lessening the duration of the bad times. Not till the surplus stocks have been unloaded will the winter pass and the summer come again in the enterprise of the world. Selling is the ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... slack week we took the opportunity to see a certain amount of Antwerp, and to call on many officials and the many friends who did so much to make our work there a success and our stay a pleasure. To one lady we can never be sufficiently ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... boom comes, it will be using, though presumably to greater advantage, labor and materials which, but for it, would have been employed for other purposes. Meanwhile the causes making for unemployment will be unaffected. Miscalculations will still be made, the building trades will still become slack in the winter, the casual methods of engaging dock laborers will still continue, trade cycles will still recur, while beneath them, and concealed by them, some industries will expand and others will decay. Thus, like the armies ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... the cell by the motion of the car on the road. A poorly sealed battery allows electrolyte to be thrown out through the cracks left between the sealing compound and the jars or posts. The leaks may be caused by the battery cables not having sufficient slack, and pulling on ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... that of the rod against which he matches himself. The tiny hook is caught painlessly in the gristle of his jaw. The line is long and light. He has the whole lake to play in, and he uses almost all of it, running, leaping, sounding the deep water, turning suddenly to get a slack line. The Gypsy, tremendously excited, manages the boat with perfect skill, rowing this way and that way, advancing or backing water to meet the tactics of the fish, and doing the most important ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... Mynheers or Mounseers," cried Ben. "They're drowning, and want our help; so, whether enemies or friends, we'll try to haul as many of the poor fellows ashore as we can get hold of, and give them dry jackets, and a warm welcome afterwards. Slack away, mates!" And he plunged ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... man putting them into the bow of the boat, — "they can't do nothin'! I'll engage they won't hurt ye. Do you good, if you eat 'em right. Good bye! — it's pretty nigh slack water, I guess — you'll go home easy. Come again! — and you shall have some more fowls to take ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... said so much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable part in electioneering. Squires hid their gamekeepers in ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... the crowd began to thin. Business would be slack, now, until five, when it would again pick up until closing time at six. The fat vocalist put down his megaphone, wiped his forehead, and regarded Terry with a warm blue eye. He had just finished singing "I've Wandered Far ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... elated, sending his buzzer signal up to those so far above. The icy air through his hose changed to air of normal temperature. He signaled for slack in the lowering cable, then prepared for ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... "Belay the slack of your jaws, youngsters," growled out old Higson, who had just turned in after his watch, and being perfectly indifferent to all the rolling and pitching, and the wild uproar of the elements, wanted ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... leaves now exhibited slight spontaneous movements; and when the terminal filaments came into contact with a stick, they slowly bent round and firmly seized it. But owing to the subsequent growth of the leaf, this filament became after a time quite slack, though still remaining firmly coiled round the stick. Hence it would appear that the chief use of the coiling, at least whilst the plant is young, is to support the pitcher with its ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... employer arranged the words in his mind. Her pencil was delicately poised above the ruled page. While she waited she hit the front of her pompadour a few improving slaps with her unengaged hand and pulled out the slack of her waist front. ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... are sober under-estimates of what God has already given to us. For if He has given the material, He will apply what He has supplied. And if He has thus in the past bestowed the possibilities of comfort and hope upon the world, He will not slack His hand, if we desire the possibility to be in our ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... whatever, being often four times the size of the crocus corms. Moreover, they are pear-shaped and covered with flaky wrappers of a chestnut brown colour; if examined, these coverings will be found, near the neck of the bulb, to be very numerous and slack fitting, extending above the ground, where they have the form of decayed or blackened foliage; a singular fact in connection with the roots is, they are not emitted from the base of the bulb, but from the side of the thickened or ovate part, and are short ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... meek of heart; work day by day; Tread, ever tread, the knightly way; Make lawful war; long travel dare; Tourney and joust for lady fair; To everlasting honor cling, That none the barbs of blame may fling; Be never slack in work or fight; Be ever least in self's own sight;— This is the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... That is right; now the sail is over. Slack out—slack out all it will go; the wind is nearly dead aft. Ease off the jib-sheet, Jack. That is it. ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... April 30th.—A slack day in a way, although I have been on my feet since early morning. A great number of shells have landed near our camp at W. Beach at various times to-day, coming from Krithia or Achi Baba. It is strange how many shells may land in the midst of closely packed ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... machine is termed a pentaspast. But if we have to furnish machines for heavier loads, we must use timbers of greater length and thickness, providing them with correspondingly large bolts at the top, and windlasses turning at the bottom. When these are ready, let forestays be attached and left lying slack in front; let the backstays be carried over the shoulders of the machine to some distance, and, if there is nothing to which they can be fastened, sloping piles should be driven, the ground rammed down all round to fix them firmly, and the ropes ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... had a pleasant face of the English blue-eyed type. Just then it was suffused with almost boyish merriment, and indeed an irresponsible gaiety was a salient characteristic of the man. One would have called him handsome, though his mouth was a trifle slack, and there was a certain assurance in his manner that just fell short of swagger. He was the kind of man one likes at first sight, but for all that not the kind his hard-bitten neighbours would have chosen to stand by them through the strain of drought ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... applied, for he drew the rope in slowly, till the slack was all gathered in, tightened it more and more, and the loop glided off the projection ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... which would suit their purpose, but it stood like a peninsula in the very midst of a crevasse, and connected with the main body of ice by a neck which looked as sharp as a knife on its upper edge, so that none but tight-rope or slack-wire dancers could have proceeded along it; and even such performers would have found the edge too ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... "—if that's the name you put upon it when your trousers is so slack you've got to hold on to them or ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... smote him. It was a slack time; so he sent four Hotteatots, with shovels, to help these friendly maniacs. These worked away gayly, and the white men set up a sorting table, and sorted the stuff, and hammered the nodules, and at last ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... very severe storm off a lee-shore, when it was so cold they had to break the icicles off the ropes to tack the ship, all drank but myself and these two boys. The men would work very well for a few minutes, and then slack off and take another drink, until they were all keeled up, and we three boys had all we could do to keep the ship from going ashore. If we had drank with the rest, all would have been lost, for the men were too drunk to save themselves. ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... invectives at her mother. The old mother retorted; the girl joined in. All three were scowling, flashing, showing teeth, driving the wordy javelin upon one another, indiscriminately, or two to one, without a pause; all to a sound like the slack silver ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... FOR ROOFS OF HOUSES.—Slack Stone Lime in a large tub or barrel with boiling water, covering the tub or barrel to keep in the steam. When thus slacked pass six quarts through a fine sieve. It will then be in a state of fine flour. To this add one quart Rock Salt and one gallon of Water. Boil the mixture and skim it clean. ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... serious river-obstacles to an outlet south of New Orleans. Another proposal is to connect the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, and to run a canal from the latter to the Ocmulgee or Savannah River, and thence by the use of slack water to reach the harbors of Savannah and Charleston. This scheme has been clearly proved to be feasible, although the distance seems objectionable. The third (or central) water-line proposed is that so long agitated ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... reason. "Well, sir," replied the lieutenant, "I will tell you my secret. As soon as the officer I relieve is gone below and out of sight, while the watch is mustering, I walk forward, look round at things generally, and say casually to the captain of the forecastle: 'Just slack off a little of this jib-sheet.' Then about ten minutes before eight bells, after the last log of the watch has been hove, while the men are rousing to go below, I go forward again and say, 'Come here, half a dozen of us, and ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... placed there on purpose to make them conspicuous; and this was a great puzzle to naturalists, because the long coarse gray or greenish hair was evidently like tree-moss and therefore protective. But an old writer, Baron von Slack, in his Voyage to Surinam (1810), had already explained the matter. He says: "The colour and even the shape of the hair are much like withered moss, and serve to hide the animal in the trees, but particularly when ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... A slack rope tightens. Smoke beats downward. Sun is red in the morning. There is a pale yellow or ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... destroying the evidences of his guilt. Then he put back the ink and the dictionary, the blotting pad and sealing wax, and replaced them with a loaf of bread, a table knife, a bottle of brandy, and a drinking glass. After that he made up the fire with a shovel of slack, that it might burn until morning; removed the lamp from the table to the window recess that it might cast its light into the darkness outside; and unchained the outer door that a wanderer of the night, if any such there were, might enter ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... one that Adam gave when he first recognized Eve, Pan folded me into his arms, laid his red head on my breast, and held up his lips to mine with a "love-thirst" that it took me more than a long minute to slack ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... up his friend comfortably with the slack of the rope so that he could move neither hands ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... slack season in London, Mr. Murray made his promised visit to Edinburgh. He was warmly received by Constable and Hunter, and enjoyed their hospitality for some days. After business matters had been disposed of, he was taken ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... As a matter of fact, so far from having any wish to conceal my name from you, I went round to your house before I called here and left my card on you. You'll find it there when you get back. I always like to be strict in the observance of the rules of civilised society. I particularly dislike the slack ways into which people in places like this are inclined to drift. I must say for the Major, he's not as bad as the rest in that respect. ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... many fewer people at Graglia than at Oropa, and they were richer. I did not see any poor about, but I may have been there during a slack time. An impression was left upon me, though I cannot say whether it was well or ill founded, as though there were a tacit understanding between the establishments at Oropa and Graglia that the one was to adapt itself to the poorer, and the other to the ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... in the various barges, shallops and canoes tied to the mossy piles, left their employments and scrambled up upon the platform, and a trio of youthful darkies, fishing for crabs with a string and a piece of salt pork, allowed their lines to fall slack and their intended victims to walk coolly off with the meat, so intense was their interest in the oncoming sail. A knot of negro women had left the great house kitchen and stood, hands on hips, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... his watch. It was half-past five. It was the slack time of the day in such a region, as he well knew, yet he was curious to see. In all his score of years of wandering and studying social conditions over the world, he had carried with him the memory of his old town as a sweet and wholesome place. ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... plenty of slack to the rope in case the tide should rise high, he got out and then he and Percival ascended the first slope, ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... only done four days this last fortni't!' she wailed. Chippy's father was a dock-side labourer, and work had been very slack ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... firm, not a sound breaking the intense stillness closing us in like a wall. A heavy wooden post, with a pulley attachment, stood behind where we rested, probably fitted there for hauling up heavy bales of cotton. Creeping back, I wound the slack of the rope about its base, drawing it as tight as possible, and then placed the end in the hands of the observant and wondering priest, who continued to creep after me like ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... his own; and on the following morning, after going on board the hooker with me and examining her inside and out, he gave orders for the whole of the work to be proceeded with forthwith. As there were no other ships in port refitting at the moment, it was a slack time at the dockyard, and almost the whole of its resources were available to expedite the work, in consequence of which the schooner was ready for sea a fortnight from the day on which ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... for 'the long hoist' and (b) those required for 'the short pull' or 'sweating-up.' Americans called these operations the 'long' and the 'short drag.' The former was used when beginning to hoist sails, when the gear would naturally be slack and moderately easy to manipulate. It had two short choruses, with a double pull in each. In the following example, the pulls ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... "Thursday is a slack day with him," she said rather gravely. "I assure you he works harder than most clergymen, and is very conscientious and painstaking. He is not at all strong, but ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... raging torrent of the highland tributaries spent itself without doing extraordinary damage in that immediate region. Bridges which might have been lost in a smaller flood like that of 1902 were actually standing in slack water by the time the mountain torrents appeared in force. These streams caused much destruction higher up in the mountains, but in the Central Basin their energy became potential—a gathering of forces to be loosed upon the lower valley. A discussion of the effects of this will ...
— The Passaic Flood of 1903 • Marshall Ora Leighton
... about, sir; but I must say that it has been more slack than it was. We have all done our best, but we have missed you terribly; and the men don't seem to take quite as much pains with their drill as they used to do, when you were in command. However, that will be all right now that you have come ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... Captain Rogers, as they passed out to sea. "Our rigging is slack. Our decks are lumbered up. Our stores are badly stowed. Our crew is so very mixed that I must stop in Ireland to get more able sea-dogs. Was ever captain in a ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... said Patrick, "and shed your tears to the God of grace. Finn and the Fianna are slack enough now, and they will get no help for ever." "It is a great pity that would be," said Oisin, "Finn to be in pain for ever; and who was it gained the victory over him, when his own hand had made an end of so many ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... was wondering where Rowena could be. I recollected how she had always seemed to be mortified by her slack-twisted family, and I could see her as she meeched off across the prairie hack along the Old Ridge Road, as if she belonged to another outfit; and yet, I knew how much of a Fewkes she was, as she joined in the conversation when they planned their great estates in the mythical state ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... canyon echoes yelling in the hope of arousing Gallagher, and Graham slammed his engine into the forward motion without pausing to close the throttle. There was a grinding of fire from the wheels, a running jangle of slack-taking down the long line of empties, and the freight train shot ahead, snatching its rear end out of harm's way just as Gallagher, dreaming that his boiler had burst and that all the fiends of the pit were screeching the news of it, came to ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... "Kind of slack, aren't you?" inquired Peter, his deep-set blue eyes twinkling with humor. "I've eaten two hours back. This lying a-bed is mighty bad ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... in his fourth year, and his memories of Cornwall remained vivid to his dying day. "I recall Halsetown," he said, "as a village nestling between sloping hills, bare and desolate, disfigured by great heaps of slack from the mines, and with the Knill monument standing prominent as a landmark to the east. It was a wild and weird place, fascinating in its own peculiar beauty, and taking a more definite shape in my youthful imagination ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... "Work's purty slack," crawfished Davidson. "But I tells you I don't know. We has to find out," and he ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... Lee Fu, at the tiller, beckoned us to stand beside him; I pulled Wilbur up by the slack of his coat, and pinned ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... places in France," serving under John, Duke of Bedford, in the "Hundred Years' War," and after fighting in eleven battles within the space of two years he won knighthood at the duke's hands at St. Luce. In the churchyard was buried William Newton, the Minstrel of the Peak, and Samuel Slack, who in the last quarter of the eighteenth century was the most popular bass singer in England. When quite young Slack competed with others for a position in a college choir at Cambridge, and sang Purcell's famous air, "They that go down to the sea in ships." When he had finished, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... young girl, like the one who was just here, is willing, in her extreme poverty, to labour, instead of sinking into vice and idleness, shows her to possess both virtue and integrity of character, and these we should be willing to encourage, even at some sacrifice. Work is slack now, as you are aware, and there is but little doubt that she had been to many places seeking employment before she came to you. It may be—and this is a very probable suggestion—that she did not come to you for work until ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... ought to have accompanied the creation of life peers. Proxies ought to have been abolished. Some time or other the slack attendance of the House of Lords will destroy the House of Lords. There are occasions in which appearances are realities, and this is one of them. The House of Lords on most days looks so unlike what it ought to be, that most people will not believe it is what it ought to be. The attendance ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... Civil Service which you so adorn Would lose its prestige, visibly grown slack, And all its lofty pledges be forsworn Were you to deviate from your boots of black; Were you to shed that coat of sombre dye, That ebon brain-box (imitation beaver) Whose torrid aspect strikes the passer-by ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... to come a slack in the storm. The ship rode more easily, and Bob began to take heart. A little later Mr. Carr came down into the cabin. He breathed a sigh of ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... a nice racket," said Aunt M'riar. "So I lay there ain't much wrong with them." She picked up a piece of work to go on with, and explored a box for a button to meet its views. Evidently a garment of Dolly's. Probably this was a slack season for the higher needlework, and the getting up of fine linen ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... bonny bird," continued the hostess, addressing a little girl of twelve years old, who had by this time appeared, "tak the gentleman's horse to the stable, and slack his girths, and tak aff the bridle, and shake down a lock o' hay before him, till the dragoons come back.—Come this way, sir," she continued; "ye'll find my house clean, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... shoulder. I could tell ye How smooth his breast was and how white his belly; And whose immortal fingers did imprint That heavenly path with many a curious dint That runs along his back, but my rude pen Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men, Much less of powerful gods. Let it suffice That my slack Muse sings of Leander's eyes, Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his That leaped into the water for a kiss Of his own shadow and, despising many, Died ere he could enjoy the love of any. Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen Enamoured of his beauty had he been. ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... that he was a little sorry about his own lack of ambition and want of application. He did not pretend now that it was of no moment. He told her he would like to achieve, only somehow he always found his attention wander to other things, and his desire grow slack after a week of ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... shoved the boat off to a little distance from the frigate. The yard and stay-tackles fell, at the next instant were overhauled down and hooked by the man in the boat. The boatswain's mate, in the gangway, piped "haul-taut," and the slack of the tackle was pulled in; then followed a long, steady blow of the call, piping "sway-away," and the boat, with all in her, rose from the water, and ascended as high as the hammock-cloths in the waist, when the stay-tackles took the strain, the yard-tackles ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Why, it isn't a circumstance compared with the floral goddess's crack-jaw. I've been trying to read the account of a Flower Show to my wife. Now, at patter-songs I've a slick tongue and slack jaw. I can do "John Wellington Wells" pretty patly; but to read through a horticultural article Would give an alligator instantaneous tetanus; and of meaning the words seem to have no particle. I should like to be introduced, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... hour at the bottom of a flight of steps, watching the continuous stream of descending passengers, mostly women, and generally young. Some among the less young were swollen, heavy, and awkward; most were slack, drooping, limp, bony, or bent; a few were lithe and lissom; one or two had the emotional vivacity and muscular tone of abounding vitality. Not one plainly indicated that, stripped of her clothing, she would have transformed those Underground ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... "Well," he said, "that is positively the worst! Good-by, Mr. Salmon. Louis, pull out that-er, er—that branch!" and he began slowly to reel in the line. But old Louis, in the stern of the canoe, had taken hold of the slack and was pulling it in hand over hand. In a second he shouted "Arretez! Arretez! M'sieu, il n'est ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... it holds firmly, is a great flattener, and is especially adapted to the securing of square boxes. It is celebrated because it is pretty and rather difficult to learn. Also it possesses the advantage for single-handed packing that it can be thrown slack throughout and then tightened, and that the last pull tightens the whole hitch. However, for ordinary purposes, with a quiet horse and a comparatively soft pack, the common Square Hitch holds well enough and is quickly made. For a load ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... injustice was resented by the country people, who were partial to their old master, and irritated against his successor. In the Baron's own words, 'The matter did not coincide with the feelings of the commons of Bradwardine, Mr. Waverley; and the tenants were slack and repugnant in payment of their mails and duties; and when my kinsman came to the village wi' the new factor, Mr. James Howie, to lift the rents, some wanchancy person—I suspect John Heatherblutter, the auld gamekeeper, that was out wi' me in the year fifteen—fired ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the housebreaking business is slack And cracksmen are finding it slow— For all the seasiders are back And a great many more didn't go— Here's excellent news from the front And joy in Bill Sikes's brigade; Things are looking up since The German CROWN PRINCE Has been giving a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... insecurely the town was established, how feeble were its roots; it was not here as it was up in the country, where a man could enjoy himself in the knowledge that the earth was working for him. Here people made themselves as small and ate as little as possible, in order to win through the slack season. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Yet, brother, take my advice, and file your tongue to a little more courtesy than your habits of predominating over infidel captives and Eastern bondsmen have accustomed you. Cedric the Saxon, if offended,—and he is noway slack in taking offence,—is a man who, without respect to your knighthood, my high office, or the sanctity of either, would clear his house of us, and send us to lodge with the larks, though the hour were midnight. And be careful how you look ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... a very nice hand," he answered, bending forward to Maggie's bridle so that he could look up in Eleanor's face. "Only you let her rein be too slack, as of old. You like ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... conviction that Deveny's order meant death to Red Linton, Barbara lay slack in Deveny's arms for a long time. A premonitory silence had settled over the valley; she heard the dull thud of hoofs behind her, regular and swift, the creaking of the saddle leather as the ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... "Partner of the Father's light, light of light and day of day, we break the dusk of night with psalms; help us now, Thy suppliants. Remove the darkness of our minds; scatter the demon hosts away; expel the sin of drowsiness, lest we be slack in serving Thee."] ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... higher chiefs than Afiola in the settlement—five or six of them, at least, not to speak of the king—but none of them seemed able to do a thing to stop him. They were all a slack lot at any time, and thought excommunicating him enough, and taking away his communion ticket. I guess he had been out of the church for a matter of six years, and, as I said before, he was the scandal of the place and a terror. ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... not at all heroic. It certainly narrows and damps the spirits of generous men. In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and under-goes a fatty degeneration of his moral being. It is not only when Lydgate misallies himself with Rosamond Vincy, but when Ladislaw marries above him with Dorothea, that this may be exemplified. The air of the fireside withers out all the fine wildings of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... make his appearance was the bear, who took a long and steady draught; then came the deer, the opossum, and such others of the family as are noted for their comfortable case. The moose and bison were slack in their cups, and the partridge, always lean in flesh, looked on till the supply was nearly gone. There was not a drop left by the time the hare and the martin appeared on the shore of the lake, and they are, in consequence, the slenderest of ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... a man should accept the first pains and mortifications of this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him, as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his own labor and self-denial? Health, bread, climate, social position, have their importance, and he will give them ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... what I gained each time with a double turn until the next slap gave me more. Then the sheet gave with greater ease, and Wolf Larsen was beside me, heaving in alone while I was busied taking up the slack. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... And the stars in their bright order burned. From stars and seas was motion caught When flesh, blood, bone and skin were wrought Into swift lovely liveliness. Oh, but beauty less and less Than beauty grows. The cheeks fall in, Colour dies from the smooth skin, And muscles slack and bones are brittle; Veins and arteries little by little Delay the tides of the blood: That is a ditch that was a flood. Then all but dry bones disappears, White bones that lie a hundred years Cheated ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... the lariat of the pony hitched to the raised muscles of his back, and was dragged in this way several times round the ring; but the force not being sufficient to tear loose from the flesh, the pony was backed up, and a slack being thus taken on the lariat, the pony was urged swiftly forward, and the sudden jerk tore the ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... my business is slack—falling off, as you say. Catering is not what it used to be. You see, 30 or 40 years ago, people's homes were grand and big; big dining rooms, built for parties and banquets. But for the big affairs with 500 or 600 ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... the construction of canals was the rage in Ohio. A canal was projected to connect with the great Ohio Canal at Carroll (eight miles above Lancaster), down the valley of the Hock Hocking to Athens (forty-four miles), and thence to the Ohio River by slack water. ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... take his holiday now, in the slack of the London year, and the heat was great! He need not be all day with his father, and the thought of Lufa would be entrancing in the wide solitudes of the moor! Molly he scarce thought of, and his aunt was to be forgotten. ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... he. "My only fear of you was, that you would dash into debate at once, like a tumbler jumping from a precipice; and that, like him, all that you would have gained by it would be broken limbs for life. If the fellow had kept to his slack-rope and his stage, he would have been safe enough, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... together.... I've got to do my bit. And if only I could hold myself at it, I could beat those fellows. But that's where the devil of it comes in. Never have I been so desirous to work well in my life. And never have I been so slack and weak-willed and ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... slack time till harvest. I thought, mebbe, we could jest haul that lumber from Beacon Crossing. And cut the logs. Parker give me the 'permit.' Seems to me we might ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... make-up of the train. The train was composed of coach bodies, mostly from Thorpe and Sprague's stage coaches, placed upon trucks. The trucks were coupled together with chains, leaving from two to three feet slack, and when the locomotive started it took up the slack by jerks, with sufficient force to jerk the passengers who sat on seats across the tops of the coaches, out from under their hats, and in stopping, came together with such force as to send ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... upward in their mother's arms, whose black Wide glittering eyes looked elsewhere; lovers pressed Each before either, neither glancing back; And peasant maidens smoothly 'tired and tressed Forgot to finger on their throats the slack Great pearl-strings; while old blind men would not rest, But pattered with their staves and slid their shoes Along the stones, and smiled as if they saw. O heaven, I think that day had noble use Among God's days! So near stood Right and Law, Both mutually forborne! Law would ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... in the tent. The bear had tangled himself in the canvas and was blindly tossing it about, rolling himself up in the slack, and audibly complaining of the fire and smoke. The rifles, shot-guns and all but one revolver had been left in the tent, and presently they began to pop. Doughnut Bill, safe in a sycamore, hitched around to the lee side of the trunk and said: "Mr. Brown, I seriously advise that you emulate ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... true direction, but their shafts do not lodge in the mark; their impetus carries them right through the soul, and they pass on their way, leaving only a gaping wound behind them. Others make the contrary mistake: their bows are too slack, and their shafts never reach their destination; as often as not their force is spent at half distance, and they drop to earth. Or if they reach the mark, they do but graze its surface; there can be no deep wound, where the archer lacks strength. But a good ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... pick up a small piece of board from the flooring of the boat and try to paddle back into the slack water. And she saw, too, that it was too late. The Race had got hold of the cockleshell, and a piece of board would never make it let go. Oars might, but there were ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... ain't got nothin' comin', an' he can't afford ter eat, An' he's in a fix fer lodgin', an' he wanders up an' down, An' you'd fancy he'd been boozin', he's so locoed 'bout the feet; When he's feelin' sneakin' sorry, an' his belt is hangin' slack, An' his face is peaked an' grey-like, an' his heart gits down an' whines, Then he's apt ter git a-thinkin' an' a-wishin' he was back In the little ol' log cabin in ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... he does," answered Todd. "I threw a steer with him yesterday and he held it while I made a tie. A steer can't get any slack rope on ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... see the lady dance on the slack-wire in the street at night. They throw a bright light on her and she float through the air something beautiful, like a bird! They have a dancing bear, like in the old country, and two three merry-go-around, and people in balloons, and what you call ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... when a friend marries,—and I grant he's rather young,—but I should say it's the best thing for him. A decent woman—and you have proved not one thing against her—a decent woman will keep him up to the mark and stop him getting slack. She'll make him responsible and manly, for much as I like Rickie, I always find him a little effeminate. And, really,"—his voice grew sharper, for he was irritated by Ansell's conceit, "and, really, you talk as if you were mixed up in the affair. They pay a civil visit to your rooms, and you ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... dropped. The stifling heat, the whirling dust clouds broken by whiffs of air, dry as from a kiln and impregnated with the pungent scent of the tarweed, made the men drowsy. Jim Bailey nodded, the reins drawing slack between his fingers. Leonard slipped the rifle from his knees to the floor and relaxed against the back of the seat. Through half-shut lids he watched the whitened crests of the Sierra ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... put up a fight for it, eh, Luke? You're rather apt to slack when I'm not by." Was there a hint of wistfulness in the words? It almost ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... major was not noted by Joel and his set, in the excitement of receiving so many guests, and in the movement of the wedding. But, as soon as the fact was ascertained, the overseer and miller made the pretence of a 'slack-time' in their work, and obtained permission to go to the Mohawk, on private concerns of their own. Such journeys were sufficiently common to obviate suspicion; and, the leave had, the two conspirators started off, in company, the morning of the second day, or forty-eight hours after ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... grow discouraged now, were we to weaken and slack off, the whole structure we have built, these past eight years, would come apart and fall away. Never then, no matter by what stringent means, could our free world regain the ground, the time, the sheer ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... brake on the line tightened, the boat began to tear through the water, still requiring the paying out of the rope. For an instant it slackened and the winch reeled in a little line. There was a sudden jerk and then the line fell slack. Working like demons, the men made the winch handles fairly fly as the line came in, and within another minute the whale spouted, blowing strongly and sounding again. He sulked at the bottom for over twenty minutes, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... wreathing slow, To watch the firelight flash or glow. As each soft cloud floats up on high, Some worry takes its wings to fly; And Fancy dances with the flame, Who lay so labor-crammed and lame; While the spent Will, the slack Desire, Re-kindle at the dying fire, And burn to meet the morrow's sun With all its day's work to ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... repute Stands thy fair temple 'mid the various tribes Who ply the AEgean. Though their business claims Dispatch immediate; though the inviting gales Ill brook the lingering mariners' delay: Soon as they reach thy soundings, down at once Drop the slack sails, and all the naval gear. The ship is moor'd: nor do the crew presume To quit thy sacred limits, 'till they have pass'd A painful penance; with the galling whip ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... paper, opened it, and began searching the columns. He had not far to look. It was a slack season for the newspapers, and his little trouble, which might have received a paragraph in a busy week, was set forth fully ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... and gathered in the slack. His heart was pounding like mad with the anxiety, while he waited for results. If no signal came after a certain lapse of time he meant to pull in anyway; determined that Mr. Gordon must not ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... beard out at his tail; and then tie the hook and his tail about, very neatly, with a white thread, which will make it the apter to turn quick in the water; that done, pull back that part of your line which was slack when you did put your hook into the minnow the second time; I say, pull that part of your line back, so that it shall fasten the head, so that the body of the minnow shall be almost straight on your hook: this done, try how it will turn, by drawing it across the water or against a ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... disadvantage, and conducted herself behind the counter very much as if she were back in her old store in Polotzk. It was far more cozy than Polotzk—at least, so it seemed to me; for behind the store was the kitchen, where, in the intervals of slack trade, she did her cooking and washing. Arlington Street customers were used to waiting while the storekeeper salted the soup or rescued a loaf from ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... He knew that he would work violently for a month or two at a time, giving the vigorous hired man a decent test in holding his physical own, and he knew that after that he would become what the people called "slack," and a little listless; and it was in his slack times that the squirrel and grouse most suffered. Between him and the wife of his bosom had grown nothing, so grave as to be described as an armed neutrality; but more and more he hesitated in entering the house ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... of corrupt nature, have embraced the abominable and erroneous opinions lately sprung in Germany, and by them have been some seduced in simplicity and ignorance. Against these, if judgment have been exercised according to the laws of the realm, we be without blame. If we have been too remiss or slack, we shall gladly do our duty from henceforth."[41] Such were the first Protestants in the eyes of their superiors. On one side was wealth, rank, dignity, the weight of authority, the majority of numbers, the ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... Goody Slack Jaw," says Captain Night. "I shall be thirstier anon from listening to your prate. Will you hurry now, Gadfly, or is the sun to sink before we get ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... cam swiftly rushing from the west; And these presadges of a future storme, Unwillinge for to trust her tendernes Unto such feares, might make him fayle his hower; And yet with purpose what hee slack't last night Howe to make goodd ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... him fussy than careless," said Chowne, "because life cures a chap of being fussy, if he's got a brain and a sensible outlook; but the careless and slack sort go from bad to worse, and I ain't here to keep my constables in order: they be here to strengthen my hands and keep the rest of the people ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... hand, was rather a disappointment. Not that he was any way slack, and failed to sell his goods—'twas he, indeed, sold most—but he did not get enough for them. "You don't put in enough patter with ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... or night, waking or sleeping; and since they were riding cross-country anyway, miles from a trail, and since they were headed for water, and Rabbit knew as well as Starr just where it was to be found, Starr held the reins slack in his thumb and finger and let ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... Weldon, anyhow?" another of the group queried, as dispassionately as if the subject of discussion had been absent in Rhodesia. "His face is a yard long, and his lips hang down in the slack of ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... with the men. Their busy time is during the marriage season from November to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not infrequently a member of the village establishment. During the rains, the tailor's slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage, holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujarat, in the absence of Brahmans, a Darzi officiates at Bhawad marriages, and in some Brahman ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... very reason be attracted to him. Nobody ever wants to do anything except what they are not allowed to do. Otherwise there is no explaining the friendship that arose between them. Jack Monk was not an attractive individual. He had a slack mouth and a shifty eye, and his complexion was the sort which friends would have described as olive, enemies (with more truth) as dirty green. These defects would have mattered little, of course, in themselves. There's many a bilious countenance, so to speak, ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse |
