"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... silk purse of a sow's ear! I've done my duty by poor Robert's son, and if he will be such a fool as to run after blood and wounds, I have no more to say! Though 'tis pity of the old name! Ha! what's this? 'Wedded against my will—no troth plight.' Forsooth, I thought my young master was mighty slack. He hath some other matter in his mind, hath he? Run into some coil mayhap with a beggar wench! Well, we need not be beholden to him. Ha, Dennet, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the money from the bank, and, when business got a little slack, in the afternoon set out in search of a clothing store. Dick knew enough of the city to be able to find a place where a good bargain could be obtained. He was determined that Fosdick should have a good serviceable suit, even if it ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... as they were working up the stream, the vessel lost headway, and the fierce current immediately swept her, stern foremost, into the bank and broke the rudder. After much labour the Bruja was finally again placed in the stream, where they waited for slack water, expecting then to ship the rudder. "But in the Rio Colorado," he declares with italics, "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SLACK WATER. Before the ebb has finished running the flood commences, boiling up full eighteen ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... long chance to a rather feeble morning appetite before he tried it. The table had been spread with substantial eatables nearly two hours before he presented himself—a tall, stout man of sixty, with a face in which the knit brow and rather hard glance seemed contradicted by the slack and feeble mouth. His person showed marks of habitual neglect, his dress was slovenly; and yet there was something in the presence of the old Squire distinguishable from that of the ordinary farmers in the parish, who were ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... If I like, I can dae my darg wi' ony man,' he replied rather ironically. 'Pit oot the kale, Leezbeth, or we'll be burnt to daith. Are ye slack yersel' that ye can come ower here at wan o'clock ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... young woman with gold ear-rings? and is not she standing before you now? and did not she do everything in the world to make you comfortable? Did not she give you milk and eggs, and when you complained that you and meat had been but slack friends of late, did not she open her own closet, and give you as fine a piece of hunting beef as was ever set before a ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... for existence. The old mill hummed away through the day, and often late into the evening if time pressed, upon the grists which added a thin, intermittent stream of tribute to the family income. Whenever work was "slack," Friend Barton was sawing or chopping in the woodshed adjoining the kitchen; every moment he could seize or make he was there, stooping ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... for strenuous work. There are days in every girl's life when she is not capable of her best work, and when a wise and sympathetic teacher will see that it is better for her to do comparatively little. And yet these slack times are just those in which there is the greatest danger of a girl indulging in daydreams, and when her thoughts need to be more than usually under control. These times may be utilised for lighter subjects ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... upon the slack end of the rope until he felt that the stone was lodged with fair security at the shaft's top, then he swung out over the black depths beneath. The moment his full weight came upon the rope he felt it slip ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... past: That on his landing he had been dismissed, And now was travelling towards his native home. 425 This heard, I said, in pity, "Come with me." He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up An oaken staff by me yet unobserved— A staff which must have dropt from his slack hand And lay till now neglected in the grass. 430 Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared To travel without pain, and I beheld, With an astonishment but ill suppressed, His ghostly figure moving at my side; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the sailor in charge of the line; he began to haul in the slack like a madman; Coke's fist fell heavily on the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... rather thin young man with a high forehead, a straight nose, and a smallish chin. The face was good-looking, but somehow not quite attractive. About the eyes was an expression faintly unpleasant, which the neat glasses did not hide. On the somewhat slack lip was a slight twist, not agreeable, which the well-kept mustache could not conceal. Still it was an interesting face, clever, assured, half-insolent. To Varney, it was exceptionally interesting; for removing ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... It was a slack hour when Private Wakeman, in his grotesquely tattered clothes, limped through the door. Only a few men were in the hut, writing or playing draughts. A boy at the piano was laboriously beating out a discordant version of "Tennessee." Mrs. Jocelyn sat on a packing-case, a block of paper ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... not forgotten that years before she had sat in the cellar of the poor dairy-woman's mother, and there bewitched the cocks and hens, as many old people still living could testify; and the bailiff's wife is by no means slack either in helping her to the same death as the poor dairy-mother. While the whole town and adjacent country rang with these proceedings, Sidonia's disquietude became evident. Every day she sent Anna Apenborg up to the court-house, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... are we slack in our companionship in these courses. Our imagination is slower and clumsier than the French—rarer also, by far, in the average English mind. The only man of power equal to Dore's whom we have had lately among us, was William Blake, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... he cried. "If it was a mistake it's one that can be straightened out in two shakes of slack jib sheet. You stay here and rest easy. I'll be ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... stops to rest it throws down as much of the load as it can. When it gets moving, regularly under way, it has to pick it up again. But the longer it stops the more it throws down; and the slower it moves the less it picks up again. Inside the tub it is always slack water, so whatever falls there stays there. That's why the tub has filled up so quick. Nearly a foot and a half in three weeks! Why, Ted, a raise of a foot and a half along the outer slope of this cove, and we could dike in the ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... tugging at the heart of God. The heart-strings of God are tight, as tight as tight can be. For there's a tender heart that's easily tugged at one end, and an insistent tugging at the other. The tugging never ceases. The strings never slack. They give no signs of easing ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... not going anywhere in particular," Captain Wilson replied. "The chief says he thinks that things have got rather slack, since I have been away. There are several bands of bush rangers, who have been doing a deal of mischief up country; so to begin with, he wishes me to make a tour of inspection, and to report generally. ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... don't know whether 'tis thrue or not, but 'tis said that th' ancesthors iv th' prisint king, bein' hard up, was used to pick a jool out iv th' hat iv a Saturdah night an' go down to Mose at th' corner an' get something on it. An' whin times was slack an' th' ponies backward, they cudden't get th' jools out, so they cut a piece fr'm th' window an' pasted it in. It looked f'r awhile as though th' king wud have to be cawrnated be a glazier. They cudden't find th' tickets ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... it for half an hour. He had been noticing river details, and he could not fail to recognize that little boat. His hands trembled as he steered the launch to take advantage of slack current and dead water, and his throat choked with an emotion which he controlled with difficulty. He looked fearfully at the gaunt River Prophet whose own cheeks were staining with warm blood, and whose eyes gazed so keenly at the young woman who was coming, leaning ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... and core of the trade." Dr. Surtaine leaned forward, to tap with an earnest finger on his son's knee, a picture of expository enthusiasm. "Here's the theory. You see, along about March or April people begin to get slack-nerved and out-of-sortsy. They don't know what ails 'em, but they think there's something. Well, one look at that ad. sets 'em wondering if it isn't their kidneys. After wonder comes worry. He's the best little worrier in the trade, Old Lame-Boy ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... just another of those objections by which the anti-humanists show their own comparatively slack hold on the realities of the situation. If they would only follow the pragmatic method and ask: 'What is truth KNOWN-AS? What does its existence stand for in the way of concrete goods?'—they would see that the name ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... Finding business slack in London, it unfortunately occurred to me to try what I could do in the country. I had heard of Maplesworth as a place largely frequented by visitors on account of the scenery, as well as by invalids in need of taking the waters; and I opened a gallery there ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... 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
... to Mr. Kenyon's—who had a little to forgive in my slack justice to his good dinner, but was for the rest his own kind self—and I went, also, to Moxon's—who said something about my number's going off ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... his slack gait and carriage, strolled towards a railing and, resting both elbows on it, watched Doe at his cricket. The whole picture is very clear on my mind. A sunny afternoon seemed to have forgotten the time and only ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... of fellows I have now," he went on as he led the way toward the men's quarters. "Not a trouble maker in the bunch, except a half breed that I'm not particularly stuck on, and that I'm going to get rid of as soon as work gets slack. But take them all together I haven't got ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... direct opposition to his expressed wishes. This I must tell you, to show how imperative it is for us to recover it; also to account for the large reward she is willing to pay. When he last looked at it he noticed that the fastening was a trifle slack, and, though he handed the trinket back, he told her distinctly that she was not to wear it till it had been either to Tiffany's or Starr's. But she considered it safe enough, and put it on to please ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... reward the near side horse; the thong—the thong after three twists, which appears in his hand to have been placed by the maker never to be altered or improved ...... and if the off-side horse becomes slack, to see the turn of his arm to reduce a twist, or to reverse, if necessary, is exquisite: after being placed under the rib, or upon the shoulder point, up comes the arm, and with it the thong returns ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... while the small skew bevel wheels are loose on their respective spindles. The upper face of each small skew bevel wheel forms one part of a clutch; the other part of the clutch is slidably mounted on the spindle. When the two parts of the clutch are separated, as they are when the yarn breaks or runs slack, when it is exhausted, or when the cop reaches a predetermined length, the spindle stops; but when the two parts of the clutch are in contact, the small skew bevel wheel drives the clutch, the latter rotates the spindle, ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... slack hands, and confirm ye the tottering knees." The words are addressed to all the members of the people of God; they are to strengthen and confirm one another by pointing to the future revelation of the glory of ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... The resty knaves are over-run with ease, As plenty ever is the nurse of faction; If in good days, like these, the headstrong herd Grow madly wanton and repine, it is Because the reins of power are held too slack, And reverend authority of late Has worn a face ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... had no shape an' they had no style; Their manners were bad an' their morals slack; They were noisy, but wonderful versatile, Andy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... upward, and Connie paid out the line. When it reached the bottom, the boy noted that there was only about ten feet of slack remaining, and he heaved a sigh of relief. He could feel the man tugging at the rope, and after a moment of silence the voice sounded ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... 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 ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... some of them he observed were in the habit of spending a great part of their wages and time in dissipation. By way of example to his workmen he laid aside some 12/-to 15/-a week for a considerable period, and when trade was occasionally slack with him, and he had no other occupation for them, he sent his horse and cart to Aston Furnaces for loads of "slag," gathering in this way by degrees a sufficient quantity of this strange building material for the ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... knoll close to the water was Chris flat on his back, his mouth open, fast asleep. A half dozen fine bass lay on the grass beside him, the end of his fishing line was tied to one ebony leg, and a coil of slack line ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... "Slack out a little bit," his father said. "That is right. I have got it over the cushion. Now hold it firmly until I am on my feet. That is right. Now pay ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... an extra chain under the jutting base of the boulder. The mason who fixed it, standing waist-high in water as the tide ebbed, called for a rope and hitched it round the ankle of the dead man. The dead man's brother jumped down beside him and grasped the slack of it. ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on Thursday afternoon. It's lucky we came up to-day. My letters are from Johnnie and Cecy Slack. Johnnie says—" ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... deed in this world of ours! Unheard of the pretence is. It plainly threatens the Great Powers; Is fatal in all senses. A just deed in the world! Call out The rifles! ... be not slack about The ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... what I wanted to say, was, that as we are rather slack just now, if you would give me a half-holiday to-morrow, I think I would go up-town and make a call ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... generality of the enterprisers was first conceived; and being further advised of the slenderness of our strength, whereunto we be now reduced, as well in respect of the small number of able bodies, as also not a little in regard of the slack disposition of the greater part of those which remain, very many of the better minds and men being either consumed by death or weakened by sickness and hurts; and lastly, since that as yet there is not ...
— Drake's Great Armada • Walter Biggs
... say, and in spite of Margaret's note of perfect acquiescence I feel myself reasoning against an indefinable antagonism, "it is so easy to fall into a slack way with life. There may seem to be something priggish in a meticulous discipline, but otherwise it is so easy to slip into indolent habits—and to be distracted from one's purpose. The country, the world, wants men to serve its constructive needs, to work out and carry out plans. For a man who ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... burnt fell slack When lone at last stood she; Her nine-and-fifty years came back; She sank upon her knee Beside the durn, and like a dart A something arrowed through her heart ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... top speed until within range, when with that wonderful dexterity no other race has quite equalled, each pushed his bent right knee into the slack of the hair rope, seized bridle and horse's mane in the left hand, curled his left heel tightly into the horse's flank, and dropped down on the animal's right side, leaving only a hand and a foot in view from the left. Then, breaking the line of their charge, ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... as that, Ned. She has only to slack away her cables and drift with the tide that turned half an hour ago, we have got to tow out and set sail. However, the night is dark, the wind is off shore, and everything is in our favour. Do you see if there be anyone about ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... was his duty as a father to prevent his son enjoying himself. Ruskin's mother gratified the sensual side of her maternal passion, not by cuddling her son, but by whipping him when he fell downstairs or was slack in learning the Bible off by heart; and this grotesque safety-valve for voluptuousness, mischievous as it was in many ways, had at least the advantage that the child did not enjoy it and was not debauched by it, as he would have been by ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... every way, that Equality 68 is an excellent thing, since the Athenians while they were ruled by despots were not better in war that any of those who dwelt about them, whereas after they had got rid of despots they became far the first. This proves that when they were kept down they were wilfully slack, because they were working for a master, whereas when they had been set free each one was eager ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... crimson torrent pour'd, dim now, and soil'd, 840 Like the soil'd tissue of white violets Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank, By romping children, whom their nurses call From the hot fields at noon: his head droop'd low, His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay— 845 White, with eyes clos'd; only when heavy gasps, Deep, heavy gasps, quivering through all his frame, Convuls'd him back to life, he open'd them, And fix'd them feebly ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... him to fight. The firm is not rich because its business is done by tragedians and walking-gentlemen, but in spite of them. If the doctor fails to give his medicine, if the fighting grows too rough for the cripple, if business grows slack, or if some good business man with competent assistants starts a strong opposition—what happens? What must inevitably happen? Why, the sick man dies, the cripple gets the worst of it, and the theatrical firm of merchants goes ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... kindred vice or weakness. I think you have sense enough to discover the line; keep it always in your eye, and learn to walk upon it; rest upon Mr. Harte, and he will poise you, till you are able to go alone. By the way, there are fewer people who walk well upon that line, than upon the slack-rope; and, therefore, a good performer shines ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Hooja the Sly One managed to find enough slack chain to permit him to worm himself back quite close to Dian. We were all standing, and as he edged near the girl she turned her back upon him in such a truly earthly feminine manner that I could scarce repress a smile; but it was a short-lived smile for on the instant ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... particular spot than elsewhere? And that spot appeared to be about abreast of that part of the bank where the two men were standing. I stood a moment or two longer, seeking an explanation of the phenomenon, and then fell headlong over the man who was sitting upon the aftermost thwart gathering in the slack of the mainsail as the yard came down; for at that moment the gig grounded on the bank and shot a quarter of her length high and dry with the way that she had on her. As I picked myself up, rubbing my barked elbows ruefully, to the ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... him, Dick Smithson—mind, I'm a calling you that, Dick, but it's meant respectful—a thorough gent, every inch of him, and there's a good lot on him, too; but he is a bit slack-baked, you know. Why, if I liked, I could ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... purchasing labor, but keeps idle in his hands, is the same thing to the laborers, for the time being, as if it did not exist. All capital is, from the variations of trade, occasionally in this state. A manufacturer, finding a slack demand for his commodity, forbears to employ laborers in increasing a stock which he finds it difficult to dispose of; or if he goes on until all his capital is locked up in unsold goods, then at least he must of necessity pause until ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... my loyal faith grow slack Although you put the embargo back; No doubt once more you'll countermand it; And anyhow this party scores Since, you'll supply the arms and stores The bill for which so rudely bores ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... the ends of all the cords through another cord that could, upon being pulled, adjust their height by pulling or releasing, thus controlling the distance between the upper and the lower beams, and changing the amount of slack in the carpet that was stretched between them. I then removed the legs from the tabletop, leaving just it and the beams together, the carpet being attached to ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... gallons of water, the sulphate to be put in a piece of sacking or light cloth, and hung by a string from the top of a barrel containing 18 gallons of water, a few inches below the surface so as to dissolve. Then slack 4 lbs. of fresh lime in as small a quantity of water as possible, the water being added very slowly, until slaking is completed; then slowly make up to 4 gallons. When cool, thoroughly stir and strain slowly the milk of lime into the ...
— The Book of Pears and Plums • Edward Bartrum
... enough; and, as a secondary dispute was still going on that had grown out of the first, he seized the very first opening which offered itself for provoking the issue of a quarrel. The other party was not backward or slack in answering the appeal; and thus, in one morning, the prospect was overcast—peace was no longer possible; and a hostile meeting was arranged. Even at this meeting much still remained in the power of the seconds: there was an absolute certainty that all fatal consequences might ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... in a cove about five miles higher up the coast than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the Moskoe-strom, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... Tom Spooner it can only be said that he is still a bachelor, living with his cousin Ned, and that none of the neighbours expect to see a lady at Spoon Hall. In one winter, after the period of his misfortune, he became slack about his hunting, and there were rumours that he was carrying out that terrible threat of his as to the crusade which he would go to find a cure for his love. But his cousin took him in hand somewhat sharply, made him travel abroad during the ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the noise of striking blows: Pounds, thumps, and whacks; Wooden sounds: splinters—cracks. Paris is full of the galloping of horses and the knocking of hammers. "Hullo! Friend Martin, is business slack That you are in the street this morning? Don't turn your back And scuttle into your shop like a rabbit to its hole. I've just been taking a stroll. The stinking Cossacks are bivouacked all up and down the Champs Elysees. I can't get the smell of them out of my nostrils. Dirty fellows, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... or apathy. Put it to yourself what would your own state of mind be, if you was one of an enormous family every member of which except you was always greedy, and in a hurry. Put it to yourself that you was regularly replete with animal food at the slack hours of one in the day and again at nine p.m., and that the repleter you was, the more voracious all your fellow-creatures came in. Put it to yourself that it was your business, when your digestion was well on, to take a personal ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... right, ending the movement in a plunge that took up the slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fifty pounds. The load quivered, and from under the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... that 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 ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... to the day when it will be able to command a vessel of its own. Now it would be too much to say that the club expected to be able to buy the Hauppauge (the first thing it would have done, in that case, would have been to rename her). For it was in the slack and hollow of the week—shall we say, the bight of the week?—just midway between pay-days. But at any rate, thought the club, we can look her over, which will be an adventure in itself; and we can see just how people behave when they are buying ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... crew told us was from constant use of holystones. There was no foolish gilding and gingerbread work, to take the eye of landsmen and passengers, but everything was "ship-shape and Bristol fashion." There was no rust, no dirt, no rigging hanging slack, no fag ends of ropes and "Irish pendants" aloft, and the yards were squared "to a t" ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... rooms of the Board of Trade. The lift used by members of the Board of Trade would be sent down to bring up from the open Board what was known as a "bucketful" of the smaller speculators, when business was slack. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... The slack red lips of the man of God were gone dry with excitement, the loose body swayed with the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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
... be sneeringly told to "hit a fellow one's own size," merely because, provoked beyond endurance, one just grabbed him by the slack of his trousers and gently shook him out of them onto the floor, terrified ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... The heat of the oven is of great importance for cakes, especially large ones. If not pretty quick, the batter will not rise; and if too quick, put some white paper over the cake to prevent its being burnt. If not long enough lighted to have a body of heat, or it is become slack, the cake will be heavy. To know when it is soaked, take a broad-bladed knife that is very bright, and thrust it into the centre; draw it out instantly, and if the paste in any degree adheres, return ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... be too severe in your judgments, honoured friend," sighs Finks, mopping his big bald head with his handkerchief. "Put yourself in their place: business is slack now, there's unemployment all round, a bad harvest, ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... araound town in an old dory till the bottom fell aout, and Ireson he told 'em they'd be sorry for it some day. Well, the facts come aout later, same's they usually do, too late to be any ways useful to an honest man; an' Whittier he come along an' picked up the slack eend of a lyin' tale, an' tarred and feathered Ben Ireson all over onct more after he was dead. 'Twas the only tune Whittier ever slipped up, an' 'tweren't fair. I whaled Dan good when he brought that piece back from school. You don't know no better, o' course; but I've give you the ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... them," Jim shouted back. "Give me plenty of slack, and don't pull, till you see I have ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... thus will the people best the voice of their leaders obey, When neither too slack is the rein, nor violence holdeth the sway; For indulgence breedeth a child, the presumption that spurns control, When riches too great are poured ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... in the portico of the hospital, but John Storm did not come. At seven she was ringing at the bell of a little house in St. John's Wood that stood behind a high wall and had an iron grating in the garden door. The bell was answered by a good-natured, slack-looking servant, who was friendly, and even familiar in ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... all ages have testified from heaven how certain and possible it is, though many have found it in experience and left it on record to others, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly of it, and so slack pursuit of it, as if we did not believe it at all. Truly, my beloved, there is a great mistake in this, and it is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but truly, I conceive there ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of the dancers give themselves to the saxophone. Their feet keep a rendezvous with the umpah umps. Their thoughts dance on the slack wire of the clarinet. Their veins beat time to the whinny of the derby wreathed cornet. The fiddles and the drums are partners for their arms and their muscles. But their hearts embrace shyly the Mother Aphrodite. Their hearts ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... jerk that affects the aim, some genius has invented the new method. So we are taught first to grip the small of the stock with the full hand, the thumb along the side, and with the forefinger to take up the slack of the trigger till it engages the mechanism, and then to take a little more, till presently the gun will go off. At this point, while using the sling to secure a good aim, the shooter should squeeze, that is, he should slowly and steadily contract his whole ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... the fairy hill[FN31] Searchest, slack I find thee still; Lovely Dechtire's son shouldst thou By thy zeal have healed ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... that and coil up the slack of your jawing-tackle; there's no time to talk now; tail on there and try to make yourself useful. But look out, my lad if this fire gets the upper hand of us; curse me, if we don't leave ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... the beer-colored river, the rare houses of Boma sprawled amongst the low burnt-up hills, and every day the doctor with his bad liver came across in his boat under the blinding sunshine to within shouting distance, and put a few weary questions. The formalities were slack enough. Nilssen usually made the necessary replies (as he liked to keep himself in the doctor's good books), and then ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... you didn't! I felt sure of that when I was in Switzerland!" she cried irritably. "Now you must go not four but six miles a day! You've grown terribly slack, terribly, terribly! You're not simply getting old, you're getting decrepit.... You shocked me when I first saw you just now, in spite of your red tie, quelle idee rouge! Go on about Von Lembke if you've really something to tell me, and do finish some time, I entreat ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... said Chung-kung, and slack in his claims on the people, might do; but to be slack himself and slack with others ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... that the solitary horseman, walking his powerful grey with a slack rein, and lost in thought, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... his reason with firm hands he saw but one course to follow; but, when his mind went slack for a moment, the old desire to have her returned more strongly than ever, and he heard voices arguing, pleading, persuading—she was the equal of any woman in the world, they said, in mind, in purity, and in innocence. He hated himself for hesitating; ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... fools were fools, and crimes were crimes, And boys and men had work to do, And did not play till work was through. The times have changed; so have the boys! I know this, when I hear your noise, And note your slack work, day by day; Each lad must have his own small way, If it is but to loaf and loll, Or else, not to come in at all, Or not to care for what is done If so be it can yield no fun, Or else, to be as coarse and rough, As rash and rude, and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... neither slack nor shy, I readily tarried. We knelt down opposite each other, and said our prayers; and he told me he was now comfortable. 'The evil one,' said he, 'hath enough to mind yonder: he ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... in the ground—not carelessly, nor even in any hurry; but as a sportsman makes all snug, when for a time he leaves off casting. For instance, the end fly was fixed in the lowest ring of the butt, and the slack of the line reeled up so that the collar lay close to the rod itself. Moreover, in such a rocky place, a bed to receive the spike could not have been found without some searching. For a moment I was reassured. ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... down. Her slack hands fell lifeless by her side. Her eyes looked straight forward, but she saw nothing. All the noise and hum of the boat, the groaning of the machinery, mingled dreamily to her bewildered ear; and the poor, dumb-stricken heart had neither cry ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... is the time when 'neath the stairs the pages their heads raise! The term of "pure brightness" is the meetest time this thing to make! The vagrant silk it snaps, and slack, without tension it strays! The East wind don't begrudge because ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... proper Government to-morrow, if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you, instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to think, I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest. All you can think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as far as your imagination carries ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... is only his fossil-like way of treating the subject, but certainly the Major shows a very slack interest, Sally thinks, in the identity of this namesake of hers. He does, however, ask absently, what sort of way did he speak ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... to reply, then suddenly catching sight of a strapping-looking fellow in blue overalls, a trunk on one shoulder, a carpetbag in his hand, called out: "John, dear, come here! I want ye. Here, Mike! You and Bobby get that steamer baggage out on the sidewalk, and don't be slack about it, for it goes to Hoboken, and there may be a block in the river and the ferry-boats behind time. Wait, ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... been made for the Somerset and Devon districts, but the following varieties of cider apples are held in good repute in those parts:—Kingston Black, Jersey Chisel, Hangdowns, Fair Maid of Devon, Woodbine, Duck's Bill, Slack-my-Girdle, Bottle Stopper, Golden Ball, Sugar-loaf, Red Cluster, Royal Somerset and Cadbury (believed to be identical with the Royal Wilding of Herefordshire). As a rule the best cider apples are of small size. "Petites pommes, gros ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... knew, I named, rushing past them again, "Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid you erewhile? Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack! ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... Mr Sudberry uttered a roar of astonishment, mingled with alarm, for the line was slack, and he thought the fish had broken off. It was still on, however, as a wild dash down stream, followed by a spurt up and across, with another fling into the air, proved beyond a doubt. The fish was very wild—fortunately it was well hooked, ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... the doors were open. There were not many clients present, and the clerks were enjoying a slack time. Jack had recalled to his mind the exact date of his former visit; and thus the sole difficulty was overcome. The clerk found the name of Ellen Martineau entered under that date ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... 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 ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... anxious voices. The walls of the room were crumbling. Volumes of smoke were now pouring in underneath the door, and through the yawning fissures of the wall. Little tongues of flame were leaping out dangerously close to the spot where he must pass. He let fall the slack of the rope and leaned from the window to watch it anxiously. Then he commenced to descend, letting himself down hand over hand, always with one eye upon that length of rope that swung below. Suddenly, as he reached the second floor, a little cry from the crowd warned ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The slack fallen lines of the Duke's visage grew suddenly tense. His eyes brightened as the tossing mass in green and gold swept down towards them in a thunder of hoofs, and the long-drawn shout of 'Maasau,' with which the Guard have charged home on ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... to further study the array, for he whirled about as from the Atlantean army arose a deep, horrified shout. He stood paralyzed, his jaw slack. For there, waddling slowly forward, came the most fantastic huge creature imaginable. Unspeakably repellent and horrible, it stood on short legs thick as mature trees, to tower at least thirty-five feet ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... 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 ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of eczema on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell him if he smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of roses. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour: won't be many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past Nichols' the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged the job for ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... mend his ways; and this war was called the common weal, because it was undertaken under color of being for the common weal of the kingdom, the which was soon converted into private weal." The aged Duke of Burgundy, sensible and weary as he was, gave only a hesitating and slack adherence to the league; but his son Charles, Count of Charolais, entered into it passionately, and the father was no more in a condition to resist his son than he was inclined to follow him. The number of the declared malcontents increased rapidly; and the chiefs ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... so. Sheet home the topsail, lads; that's well! man the halliards and up with the yard. Hoist away the jib and staysail; fore-sheets over to starboard. One hand to the wheel and put it hard-a-port. Cut the cable, forward there. Round-in upon the starboard braces—ease off your mainsheet, slack it away and let the boom go well out. Now she has stern-way upon her. Capital. Now fill your topsail—smartly, lads!— and haul aft your lee head sheets. Steady your helm. Now she draws ahead. Hard up with the helm. There she pays off! Square the ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the said James Burbage in the aforesaid lease, was reputed among his neighbors to be worth one thousand pounds at the least, and that after he had joined with the said Burbage in the matter of the building of the said Theatre, he began to slack his own trade, and gave himself to the building thereof, and the chief care thereof he took upon him, and hired workmen of all sorts for that purpose, bought timber and all other things belonging thereunto, and paid all. So as, in this deponent's conscience, he bestowed thereupon for ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... I should hope he would," put in Clover, who was still in the wildest spirits. "What a dear old goose Cecy is! I never hankered in the least for Sylvester Slack, did you, Katy?" ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... captive of your bow and spear. I'm not kicking at that. I am not a coerced alien, nor a naturalised Texas mule-tender, nor an adventurer on the instalment plan. I don't tag after our consul when he comes around, expecting the American Eagle to lift me out o' this by the slack of my pants. No, sir! If a Britisher went into Indian Territory and shot up his surroundings with a Colt automatic (not that she's any sort of weapon, but I take her for an illustration), he'd be strung up quicker'n a snowflake ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... in the early winter time, when people were provided with warm substantial gowns, not likely soon to wear out, and when, accordingly, business was rather slack at Miss Simmonds', Mary met Alice Wilson, coming home from her half-day's work at some tradesman's house. Mary and Alice had always liked each other; indeed, Alice looked with particular interest on the motherless girl, the daughter of her whose forgiving kiss had comforted ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... him; but I have heard of the raft, and there is no question as to its safety. We reached the mouth of the creek without discovering a trace of it. Then we went down the river as far as the Elbow, where we waited in the slack-water to hail up-bound steamboats. The first had seen nothing of the raft; but the second, one of the 'Diamond Jo' boats, reported that they had seen such a raft—one with three shanties on it—at daybreak, ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... 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 she, ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... the awning before their tent, waiting for the meal which Mrs. Reed and her assistants were even then spreading on the trestle-built table. There had been a shower that afternoon, one of those gusty, blustery, desert demonstrations which had wrenched the tents and torn hundreds of them from their slack anchoring in ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... who had come over in the boat with me the day before, was on deck to receive his shipmates. The old fellow's face wrinkled with amusement at the sight of his worn-out countrymen until it looked like the slack of a bellows. There was an unholy twinkle in his ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... steadfast brain. Next to his wife and children, in Mr. Granger's regard, were the lands of Arden: the farms and homesteads, in valleys and on hill-tops; the cottages and school-houses, which he had built for the improvement of his species; the bran-new slack-baked gothic church in an outlying village, where the church had never ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... It was the slack hour at the Nineveh Hotel. The last groups about the tea-tables in the Palm Court had broken up, the Tzigane orchestra had stacked its instruments together on its little platform and gone home, and a gentle calm ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... whither shall I fly, To slack these flames wherein I fry? To the treasures, shall I go, Of the rain, frost, hail, and snow? Shall I search the underground, Where all damps and mists are found? Shall I seek (for speedy ease) All the floods and ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... once went to Rome, where they throw hundreds and thousands at each other in play, and call it a Comfit Battle or Battaglia di Confetti (that's real Italian). And he wanted to get up that sort of thing among the village people—but they were too beastly slack, so ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... "A very slack day, Gabriel! Being in the winter, so few people travel. Our best time is in the spring, when they say the English come in by Gibraltar. They go first to the fair in Seville, and afterwards they come to have a look at our Cathedral. Besides, in milder ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... that would be very hard on me. I've come here to my native place to settle down, and if I settle I've got to marry, and I have never seen a girl whom I would rather marry and settle with than Miss Mayberry. She may be a little slack about taking care of the baby, but I'll talk to her about that, and I know she will keep a closer eye on him. Now if you want to see everybody happy, don't prejudice Mrs. Cristie against that girl. ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... hundred men by an explosion in a British battery at York just as Sheaffe was marching off. Forty British had also been blown up in one of the forts a little while before. Sheaffe appears to have been a slack inspector of powder-magazines. But the Americans, who naturally suspected other things than slack inspection, thought a mine had been sprung on them after the fight was over. They consequently swore ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... fell down as if lifeless, with slack faces and lusterless eyes, as though some one had turned off the current that had fed those dead creatures with strength from some unknown source. Some of them leaned against the trench wall white as cheese, and held their heads over, and vomited from exhaustion. Marschner also felt ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... failing to quite understand, Pulled the 'haul up' on the life-line, found it was slack in his hand; Then, like a little brown stoic, lay down and died ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... when for two or three years harvests have been bad, and corn has long been dear, every industry is impoverished, and almost every one, by becoming poorer, makes every other poorer too. All trades are slack from diminished custom, and the consequence is a vast stagnant capital, much idle labour, and a ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... when work is slack and members are unemployed, will advocate shorter hours at the same rate of pay so as to make room for their ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... me welcome; yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... slack and slow; His savage force at length o'erspent, The drooping courser, faint and low, All feebly foaming went: A sickly infant had had power To guide him forward in that hour! 630 But, useless all ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... on paper. Here was Hilo and there was our objective, 128 degrees west longitude. With the northeast trade blowing we could travel a straight line between the two points, and even slack our sheets off a goodly bit. But one of the chief troubles with the trades is that one never knows just where he will pick them up and just in what direction they will be blowing. We picked up the northeast trade right outside of Hilo harbour, ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... explained to her that work was unusually slack in his own yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in order to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was on night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... During that 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 ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... to be acquainted with deuda, debt doloroso, painful endosar, to endorse ensenar, to teach, to show esperar, to expect, to hope, to wait estadisticas, statistics falta, want, absence of flojo, slack fundar, to found gratitud, gratitude *hacer mencion, to mention herida, wound, sting informar (de), to inform of, to acquaint with llevar chasco, to be disappointed, to be baffled *negar, to deny periodico, newspaper premio, reward, prize, premium robar, to rob, to steal ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... padded bight of the rope about his body, and the two joined ranging-rods in his hand, quite ready to be lowered down the face. Then two peons whom he had specially selected for the task, drew in the slack of the rope, passed a complete turn of it round an iron bar driven deep into a rock crevice, and waited for the command of a third who now laid himself prone on the ground, with his head projecting over the edge of the cliff, to watch and regulate the descent. ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... sort of motherly look:—broad in the beam, flush decks, and four chubby boats hanging at the breast. Her sails were furled loosely upon the yards, as if they had been worn long, and fitted easy; her shrouds swung negligently slack; and as for the "running rigging," it never worked hard as it does in some of your "dandy ships," jamming in the sheaves of blocks, like Chinese slippers, too small to be useful: on the contrary, the ropes ran glibly through, as if they had ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... slack off a little upon it, and belay it again. Usually done when the wind is by, or as long as she can lay her course without the aid of the bowline.—To check is to slacken or ease off a brace, which ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... dreary expanse of Dedlow Marsh told unpleasantly on the birds, and that the season of migration was looked forward to with a feeling of relief and satisfaction by the full grown, and of extravagant anticipation by the callow brood. But if Dedlow Marsh was cheerless at the slack of the low tide, you should have seen it when the tide was strong and full. When the damp air blew chilly over the cold glittering expanse, and came to the faces of those who looked seaward like another tide; when a steel-like glint marked the low hollows and the sinuous line ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... managers attended at the opening, but the attendance of all others was cruelly slack. To hear the attack, the people came in crowds; to hear the defence, they scarcely came in t'ete- 'a-t'etes! 'Tis barbarous there should be so much more pleasure given by the recital of guilt than by the vindication of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... the skiff a little closer and, drawing in my oars, turned and picked up the slack of my ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "Hallblithe, it is not of death that we have to tell, but of sundering, which may yet be amended. We were on the sand of the sea nigh the Ship- stead and the Rollers of the Raven, and we were gathering the wrack and playing together; and we saw a round-ship nigh to shore lying with her sheet slack, and her sail beating the mast; but we deemed it to be none other than some bark of the Fish-biters, and thought no harm thereof, but went on running and playing amidst the little waves that fell on the sand, and the ripples that curled around our feet. At ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... returned. "I am glad he does," Dick went on. "This is no time for slack soldiering. Greg, I'll feel consoled for working eighteen hours a day if it results in making the Ninety-ninth the best infantry ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... a Bear was trying to disengage himself from the rope, but the slip-knot about his wrist would not yield, for the Bear was all the time pulling in the slack with his paws. In the midst of his trouble the Hunter saw a Showman passing by, and managed to ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce |
