"Backwardness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out of the dance his eyes lighted on Tess Durbeyfield, whose own large orbs wore, to tell the truth, the faintest aspect of reproach that he had not chosen her. He, too, was sorry then that, owing to her backwardness, he had not observed her; and with that in his mind he ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... beauty. But let hm walk a few paces, and you noted that his feet dragged and his knees knocked together, and that he had a paunch; and let him get interested in a conversation, and you heard that he first spluttered, and then roared. Physical wakness and mental backwardness had made him the despair of Augustus: he was the fool of the family, kept in the background, and noticed by none. Tiberius, in search of a successor, had never thought of him; had rather let things go to mad Caligula. He had never gone into society; never associated with men of his own ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... be found than a majority of the Kentucky legislature." There was a disposition to lecture the whites about their sins in regard to slavery and to point out to them how far in their general ignorance and backwardness they fell short of ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... strong glare of all the torches, the erect form of Deerslayer, standing with commiseration, and as she thought, with shame depicted on his countenance, near the dying female. He betrayed neither fear nor backwardness himself; but it was apparent by the glances cast at him by the warriors, that fierce passions were struggling in their bosoms. All this seemed to be unheeded by the captive, but it remained impressed on the memory of Judith throughout the night. No canoe was met hovering near the point. ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... tourism, areas of recent foreign investment interest. Prospects for foreign trade or investment in other sectors will remain poor, however, because of the small size of the economy, its technological backwardness, its remoteness, its landlocked geographic location, its civil strife, and its susceptibility to natural disaster. The international community's role of funding more than 60% of Nepal's development budget and more than 28% of total budgetary ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... of Mr. Hastings, depose (though not on oath) concerning a conversation between him and the said Hastings (but mentioning neither the time nor place where the same was held); in which conversation, after reciting the allegations of the said Hastings relative to several particulars of the delay and backwardness of the Rajah in paying the aforesaid extra demand, and his resolution to exact from the Rajah "a considerable sum of money to the relief of the Company's exigencies," he proceeds in the following words: "That, if he [the Rajah] consented, you [the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... whenever he can. Notwithstanding all this, his music gains ground, for it walks with him from end to end of the street. He is your only performer that requires not many entreaties for a song; for he will chant, without asking, to a street cur, or a parish post. His only backwardness is to a stave after dinner, seeing that he never dines; for he sings for bread, and though corn has ears, sings very commonly in vain. As for his country, he is an Englishman, that by his birthright may sing whether he can or not. To conclude, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... afraid, have already conceived some contempt for my heroe, on account of his behaviour to Sophia. The former of these will blame his prudence in neglecting an opportunity to possess himself of Mr Western's fortune; and the latter will no less despise him for his backwardness to so fine a girl, who seemed ready to fly into his arms, if he would open ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... this backwardness and neglect on our part, the Congress recently authorized the creation of a special commission to study the various systems of rural credit which have been put into operation in Europe, and this commission is already prepared to report. Its report ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... rather seek the good of our country by stating what we believe to be true. We must confess that indolence does actually and positively exist there; only that, instead of holding it to be the cause of the backwardness and the trouble, we regard it as the effect of the trouble and the backwardness, by fostering the development of ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... again, and quite entreated that no such step might be taken, as I had no authority for presentation but to the duchess. However, Lady Crewe was only provoked at my backwardness, and charged Mr. Grattan not to heed me. "Tell the duke," she cried, "that Madame d'Arblay is our Madame de Stael! tell him we are as proud of our Madame d'Arblay as he can be of his Madame ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... continually modified my judgment. A polite Englishman comes to-day to the Marquesans and is amazed to find the men tattooed; polite Italians came not long ago to England and found our fathers stained with woad; and when I paid the return visit as a little boy, I was highly diverted with the backwardness of Italy: so insecure, so much a matter of the day and hour, is the pre-eminence of race. It was so that I hit upon a means of communication which I recommend to travellers. When I desired any detail of savage custom, or of superstitious belief, I cast back in the story of ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discover and redetermine the consecrated places; but by the zeal of Camillus, and the incessant labor of the priests, it was at last accomplished. But when it came also to rebuilding the city, which was wholly demolished, despondency seized the multitude, and a backwardness to engage in a work for which they had no materials; at a time, too, when they rather needed relief and repose from their past labors, than any new demands upon their exhausted strength and impaired ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... independent of the feeble German kings. [37] This weakness of the central power condemned Germany to a minor part in the affairs of Europe, as late as the nineteenth century. Yet Germany found some compensation for political backwardness in the splendid city life which it developed during the later Middle Ages. The German cities, together with those of Italy and other European lands, now call for ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... delicate, supple, and expressive. These less evolved spiritually possessed coarser, heavier, less mobile bodily structures. A high degree of psychic maturity contracted the extremities, and the Stature remained small; backwardness of the soul and entanglement in sensuality were outwardly expressed by gigantic size. While man was growing to maturity his body was being formed in accordance with what was developing in his soul, in a way which would appear incredible and fabulous to contemporary ideas. ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... down along with us, when we made them presents of such things as were about us. Having then made signs to them that we wanted to view the premises, my friend Attago immediately got up, and going with us, without showing the least backwardness, gave us full liberty to examine every part ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... delays had intervened, partly on account of Mr. Morris's absence on a trip to Holland, as was understood, and that it was not improbable these delays and some other circumstances may have impressed Mr. Morris with an idea of backwardness on the part of the British ministry. That his lordship, however, had directed him to say that an inference of this sort would not, in his opinion, be well founded, as he had reason to believe that the cabinet of Great ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... royal-mast-head down. The vessel was then rolling a little, and I had taken no food for three days, so that I felt tempted to tell him that I had rather wait till after breakfast; but I knew that I must "take the bull by the horns,'' and that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or backwardness, I should be ruined at once. So I took my bucket of grease and climbed up to the royal-mast-head. Here the rocking of the vessel, which increases the higher you go from the foot of the mast, which is the fulcrum of the lever, and the smell of the grease, which offended ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... children a-dancing, and as Ellen did not know how, he kept her by him, and kept her very much amused too, in his own way; then he would have her join in the dancing, and bade Ellen Chauncey give her lessons. There was a little backwardness at first, and then Ellen was jumping away with the rest, and thinking it perfectly delightful, as Miss Sophia's piano rattled out merry jigs and tunes, and little feet flew over the floor as light as the hearts they belonged to. At eight o'clock the young ones were dismissed, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... notwithstanding the opposition of those who were looked upon as higher and wiser. The meeting was appointed, and but few came. I felt much backwardness, and as though I could not pray, but a pressure upon me to arise and express myself by way of exhortation. After hesitating for some time whether I would take up the cross or no, I arose, and after expressing a few words, the Spirit came upon me with life, and a victory was ...
— Memoir of Old Elizabeth, A Coloured Woman • Anonymous
... work by pumping and carrying hundreds of gallons of water to pour upon potato plants, tomatoes, beans, and other things which a friend of mine, an expert in such matters, assured me were curiosities of malformation and backwardness. My Irishman told me that it was all for want of manure, and by his advice I bought six dollars' worth of manure from a neighboring stable, and had it spread over the ground. The bills for my garden were meanwhile mounting up. I had begun ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... that because of better environments the whites represent as a whole a higher state of civilization. But I hold that this is true not because of race identity but rather because of individual embarrassment. Give a white child and a colored child the same environment and their progress or backwardness, I hold, would be essentially the same under the same stimulants and encouragements. Wherever colored and white children have been put to comparative tests too little attention has been paid to difference of environment, and too ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... The backwardness of the Russian press, attributed to so many different causes, is really due to one very simple one—the want of readers. Among a population of whom only nine per cent. can read, and who neither know ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... the lower Danube, Hungary not excepted, suffers from a want of laborers. Agriculture, mining and manufactures are in a primitive state unworthy of the Middle Ages. The exhibition from Roumania at Vienna in 1873, although arrayed tastefully, was a lamentable confession of poverty and backwardness. Even Hungary, anxious to display her autonomy to the best advantage, could show little more than the beginnings of a change. The actual condition of the lower Danube is a reproach to European civilization. Everything seems to be lacking—good ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... my qualifications," he said, thinking he had found the reason of her backwardness, "I don't fancy I'll have any trouble to satisfy you. I don't want to toot my own horn, Florence, but really, you know, I am rated a first-class man. I'll prove that by my certificates and all that, or give me two weeks' trial, ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... brother was to be recommended to the Queen for one of the Commissioners to be appointed by Her Majesty for the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland.... This choise, however honourable to me, was very far from giving me the least pleasure or satisfaction, for I had observed a great backwardness in the Parliament of Scotland for an Union with England of any kind whatsoever, and therefore doubted not but, after a great deal of expense in attending a Treaty in England, I should be oblidged to return with the uneasy reflexion ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... talents are not of the highest order: but I can assure you of the excellence of her intentions, and even of the amiability of her disposition. Monsieur will then, I am sure, have the goodness to be considerate with her at first, and not expose her backwardness, her inevitable deficiencies, before the young ladies, who, in a sense, are her pupils. Will Monsieur Creemsvort favour me by attending to this hint?" I nodded. She ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... length relieving me, assured me that I was the ghost of her son who had some time before been killed by a spear-wound in his breast. The younger female was my sister; but she, whether from motives of delicacy or from any imagined backwardness on my part, did not think proper to ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... Sir William, however, misapprehended her gentle signalling, and from excellent, though mistaken motives of delicacy, delayed to intrude himself upon her for a long time. Meanwhile Sir John, now created a baronet, was unremitting, and she began to grow somewhat piqued at the backwardness of him she secretly desired to ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... reasons which determined the length of our Lord's life upon earth, but this was one of them,—that He could not go away until He had left these men strong enough to stand by themselves, and to lay the foundations of the Church. Therefore He yielded to the plea of their very faithlessness and backwardness, and with this wonderful word of condescension and appeal bade them say for how many more days He must abide in the plain, and turn His back on the glories that had gleamed for a moment on the mountain ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... imposed a partial blockade for several months. This blockade, combined with the effects of the UN sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro, cost the economy approximately $1 billion in 1992 according to official figures. Macedonia's geographical isolation, technological backwardness, and potential political instability place it far down the list of countries of interest to Western investors. Resolution of the dispute with Greece and an internal commitment to economic reform ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... buy a new house and refurnish, &c.—so that artificial means for stopping inventions will be adopted; and partly by the fact that though all inventions breed in geometrical ratio, yet some multiply more rapidly than others, and the backwardness of one art will impede the forwardness of another. At any rate, so far as I can see, the present is about the only comfortable time for a man to live in, that either ever has been or ever will be. The past was too slow, and the future will be much ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... themselves at once in opposition to the better classes and voted the Democratic ticket almost to a man, Jefferson proposed that the period of residence required by the naturalization laws to qualify a voter should be shortened. He had no objection to coercion before 1787. Speaking of the backwardness of some of the colonies in paying their quota of the Confederate expenses, he recommends sending a frigate to make them more punctual. 'The States must see the rod, perhaps some of them must be made to feel it.' His somersets of opinion and conduct are endless. Once he talked of opening ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... instance," said L'Isle eagerly. "We lost that battle chiefly through the backwardness of our Dutch allies; and Marshal Saxe, who was no Frenchman, but a German, beat us chiefly by aid of the valor of the Irish regiments in ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... prize the privilege of prayer; But O, what backwardness to pray: Though on the Lord I cast my care, I feel its burden every day. I seek his will in all I do, Yet find ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... in all the hearts and pulses of Scotland, and no where in a more vehement degree than in Gudetown. But, for some reason or an other which I could never dive into the bottom of, there was a slackness or backwardness on the part of government in sending instructions to the magistrates to step forward; in so much that the people grew terrified that they would be conquered, without having even an opportunity to defend, as their fathers did of old, the hallowed things of their native land; ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... mines, by which a fair and practicable breach was opened, through which the besiegers might have entered without much difficulty, yet was there no assault made. Having noticed this carefully, Captain Weddell went to the Persian general to learn his purposes; when, to excuse the backwardness of his people, he pretended that the breach was too difficult to be assaulted with any hope of success. Yet we knew the contrary, as an English youth, who was servant to the master of the Jonas, bolder ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... pay and reasonable terms are offered to you, your loyalty will be strongly suspected. The king's business must be done; so many brave troops, come so far for your defense, must not stand idle through your backwardness to do what may be reasonably expected from you; waggons and horses must be had; violent measures will probably be used, and you will be left to seek for a recompense where you can find it, and your case, perhaps, be little pitied ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... not-to-be-proud-of performance, had not the boy's mother that week visited her home and there, in the presence of other people, talked considerably about her boy's progress in school, his rapid advance as compared with that of our little dreamer, her relative stupidity and backwardness. And so this boy's mother had continued for some time in the same strain. This caused our little girl to feel much embarrassed—in fact, ashamed and mortified. She had felt that way for several days past, it had made her cry, had made her feel miserable and unhappy; so much so that she ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... literary form which was needed to set the beanstalk of English literature growing even unto the heavens. Despite the immense advantage which the English adoption of German innovations in religion gave the country of Luther, that country's backwardness made imitation impossible. Luther himself had not elaborated anything like a German style; he had simply cleared the vernacular of some of its grossest stumbling-blocks and started a good plain fashion of sentence. That was not what England wanted or was likely to ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... long conjectured, that the non-arrival of supplies must be owing either to accident or delays in the voyage, and not to any backwardness on the part of government in sending them out. We now found that our disappointment was to be ascribed to both misfortune and delay. The Lady Juliana, we have seen, sailed in July last, and in the month of September following his majesty's ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... not the slightest backwardness about explaining. In fact she always took the greatest pains to be explicit with old Mr. Sommerville about the pit from which she had been digged. "Why, this visit to Aunt Victoria is like stepping into another ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the next morning, the count began to bewail the misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist each other in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... endeavors show that the surest happiness is to be found in one's native village. He begins with an ironical description of the village of S—— in the Encartaciones, in which he depicts the simplicity of the inhabitants and their backwardness, in regard to the spirit of the age. In this village lived, among others, Teresa, a poor widow, and her only child, Pedro. One day, while passing the palace of a wealthy "Indian," he called her and said he was obliged to return ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... content, and concluded, he would have come after him faster than he did; and Mephibosheth appealed to David, who was in those days as an angel of God, to know all things that are done in the earth, if he did not believe that the reason of his backwardness lay in his lameness, and not in his mind. Why, poor coming sinner, thou canst not come to Christ with that outward swiftness of a courier as many others do; but doth the reason of thy backwardness lie in thy mind and will, or in the sluggishness ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to leave town as soon as possible, and proceed up to them.... After taking the Doctors directions in regard to my people ... I set out for my quarters about 12 oclock, time enough to go over them and found every thing in the utmost confusion, disorder and backwardness.... Got Blankets and every other requisite from Winchester, and settl'd things on the best footing I cou'd, ... Val Crawford agreeing if any of those at the upper quarter got it, to have them remov'd into my room and the Nurse ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... or rather, whether the Country, enraged at their preposterous Management, did not originate the Plan and press the Committee to have it digested, printed and recommended throughout the Colony? 4. I would enquire whether a Backwardness in the Province, actually suffering, to come into the only peaceful Measure that remains for our Extrication from Slavery, would not naturally excuse every other Province from taking one Step for the common Salvation? 5. Whether ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... be noted in this connection is that this shape of the head seems to bear no direct relation to intellectual power or intelligence. Posterior development of the cranium does not imply a corresponding backwardness in culture.... Europe offers the best refutation of the statement that the proportions of the head mean anything intellectual.... In our study of the proportions of the head, therefore, we are measuring merely race, and not intelligence in any sense.... Equally ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... respect and gratitude. At length, when further resistance was useless, I took off my slippers, and seated myself with a corner of my hip just resting upon the edge of the sofa, keeping my hands covered with the sleeves of my garment, and affecting a coyness and a backwardness, at which, now that I recollect myself, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... captives and to obtain a treaty by presents and the payment of a fixed tribute. Such a treaty was made in the summer of 1796. In March of the succeeding year, the Dey showed so much ill-temper at the backwardness of our payments, that Joel Barlow, the American Commissioner, thought it necessary to soothe his Highness by the promise of a frigate to be built and equipped in the United States. Thus, with Christian meekness, we furnished the Mussulman with a rod ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... certainly neither of these qualifications, and he it was whom Pitt designed to act the leading part in the coming year, "a greater part," he modestly wrote after receiving his appointment, "than I wished or desired. The backwardness of some of the older officers has in some measure forced the Government to come down so low. I shall do my best and leave the rest to fortune, as perforce we must when there are not the most ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... has been an evil which is the more felt in proportion as specialisation of science and familiarity with previous achievements become more important. It would be very easy to give particular instances of our backwardness. How different would have been the course of English church history, said somebody, if Newman had only known German! He would have breathed a larger air, and might have desisted—I suppose that was the meaning—from the attempt to put life into certain dead bones. And with equal truth, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... But, notwithstanding his backwardness in the mere verbal scholarship, on which so large and precious a portion of life is wasted,[42] in all that general and miscellaneous knowledge which is alone useful in the world, he was making rapid and even wonderful progress. With a mind ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... capitalists, while a commercial capitalism, as already indicated, was raising its head in all the larger centres. In consequence of this state of things, the rapid development of the towns and of commerce, national and international, and the economic backwardness of the country-side, a landless proletariat was being formed, which meant on the one hand an enormous increase in mendicancy of all kinds, and on the other the creation of a permanent class of only ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... have foreseen the difficulties, which have come upon us; could I have known, that such a backwardness would have been discovered among the old soldiers to the service, all the generals on earth should not have convinced me of the propriety of delaying an attack upon Boston ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... his collection. Tasman discovered New Zealand on the 13th September, 1642, but did not land on it, an unfortunate event having given him a total distrust of the natives. Some of them, after a good deal of backwardness and seeming fear, ventured to go on board the Heenskirk, which was the consort of his own vessel, named the Zee-Haan. Tasman, not liking their appearance, and being apprehensive of their hostile intentions, sent seven of his men to put the people of that vessel on their guard. The savages ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... very wrinkled old woman, arrayed in the outlandish calico costume of the mountains, was summoned as a witness in court to tell what she knew about a fight in her house. She took the witness-stand with evidences of backwardness and proverbial Bourbon verdancy. The Judge asked her in a kindly voice what took place. She insisted it did not amount to much, but the Judge by his persistency finally got her to tell the ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... no account to send you of my answering Lord Townshend—of hard-fought contests—spirited resolves—ballads, mobs, cockades, and Lord North burnt in effigy. We have had a bloodless campaign, but not from backwardness in our troops, but for the most creditable reason that can be—want of resolution in the enemy to encounter us. When I got down here early this morning, expecting to find a room prepared, a chair set for the president, and nothing wanting but that the orators should begin, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... all nations have secured are eagerly distributed to the remotest corners. The agents of the governmental Bureau of Agriculture, the agricultural county demonstrators, the rapidly spreading agricultural schools, take care that the farmer's "commonsense" with its backwardness and narrowness be replaced by an insight which results from scientific experiment and exact calculation. Agricultural science, based on physics and chemistry, on botany and zooelogy, has made wonderful strides during the last few decades. It must be confessed ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... part in the discussion raised by Molesworth's inconvenient resolution, and that he was continually urged and pressed by his followers to attack the Government, they persisting in the notion that the Ministers might be driven out, and always complaining that the moderation of the Duke and the backwardness of Peel alone kept them in their places. The discontent and clamour were so loud and continued that it became absolutely necessary for Peel, if he meant to keep the party together, to gratify their impatience for action, and he accordingly concocted this amendment in such terms ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... consciously or unconsciously harbour such feelings. And this is not because woman is purer or more virtuous than man: why, virtue and purity are not very different from vice if they are not free from evil feeling. I attribute this simply to the backwardness of woman. The mournful feeling of compassion and the pang of conscience experienced by a modern man at the sight of suffering is, to my mind, far greater proof of culture and moral elevation than hatred and aversion. Woman is as tearful and as coarse in her ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... uttered his thoughts they were suitable to his state and services. On February 8, 1668, we find him writing to Evelyn, his mind bitterly occupied with the late Dutch war, and some thoughts of the different story of the repulse of the Great Armada: "Sir, you will not wonder at the backwardness of my thanks for the present you made me, so many days since, of the Prospect of the Medway, while the Hollander rode master in it, when I have told you that the sight of it hath led me to such reflections on my particular interest, by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... however, is slowly realizing, through the development of organized capitalism in industry and government, and the increase of hired laborers, that it is not nature alone that civilization must contend against, not merely ignorance or poverty or the backwardness of material development, but, more important than all these, the systematic opposition of the employing and governing classes to every program of improvement, except that which promises still further to increase ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... aberration." You see the most hostile of Chopin's critics does not deny his talent; indeed, Rellstab sometimes, especially subsequently, speaks quite patronisingly about him. I shall take this opportunity to contradict the current notion that Chopin had just cause to complain of backwardness in the recognition of his genius, and even of malicious attacks on his rising reputation. The truth of this is already partly disproved by the foregoing, and it will be fully ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the king needs a counterpart in such a wife, he being impulsively generous; he blames his daughter for her backwardness in not coming to town with Ulysses, whereat the latter frames one of his smallest fibs in excuse of the maiden. Still further, the king in a surprising burst of admiration, wishes that Ulysses, or "such an one as thou art," might stay and be called his son-in-law. Altogether too ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... from Leghorn describe the genius of discord still prevailing in the unfortunate city of Constantinople, the people clamouring against their rulers, and the janissaries ripe for insurrection, in consequence of the backwardness of the Porte to commence hostilities with Russia."—English Chronicle, or Universal Evening Post, February 6th ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... boyhood he was far from a hardy youth. He always gave the impression of having overgrown his strength, so that delicate health, and not indisposition to study, has been assigned as the excuse for his backwardness in "book larnin'" when it was decided to send him away from the congenial distractions of Amherst to the care of the Rev. James Tufts ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... made a poor figure in their return; they were publicly reproved for their backwardness. Hewson was wounded in body and more in mind, for the bad success of his ill-laid design. He could not hold up his head before Edmund; who, unconscious of their malice, administered every kind of comfort to them. He ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... concern itself with the settlement of vitally important questions the consideration of which need not have been postponed because the constitutional question still remained in dispute. Therefore, though I seem to throw upon the Nationalist party the chief blame for our present political backwardness, and, so far as politics affect other spheres of national activity, for our industrial depression, candour compels me to admit that Irish Unionism has failed to recognise its obligation—an obligation recognised by the Unionist party in Great Britain—to supplement ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... insignificant. The total number of mines at work in 1903 was only nine; their output consisted of phosphates, with a small amount of zinc and tin. Brandy, leather and cork goods, and coarse woollen stuffs are manufactured in many of the towns, but the backwardness of education, the lack of good roads, and the general poverty retard the development of commerce. The more northerly of the two Madrid-Lisbon railways enters the province on the east; passes south of Plasencia, where it is joined by the railway from Salamanca, on the north; and reaches the Portuguese ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... is said, the fortifications are to be entirely ruined, and the port rendered incapable of receiving large vessels. The officer charged with the despatches, announcing this event, accuses our allies of having shown a backwardness and reluctance to assist in this siege, which has excited much indignation here. The Princess of Asturias said publicly at dinner, that the Spaniards had taken Fort St Philip's in sight of four thousand ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... were those of his countenance, his favour, his good word, and his esteem; all which I have likewise had, in a greater measure, from his excellent duchess, the patroness of my poor unworthy poetry. If I had not greater, the fault was never in their want of goodness to me, but in my own backwardness to ask, which has always, and, I believe, will ever, keep me from rising in the world. Let this be enough, with reasonable men, to clear me from the imputation of an ungrateful man, with which my enemies have most unjustly taxed me. If I am a mercenary scribbler, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... learnt the art of book-binding and book-illumination, before he had been brought over into this country by William the Conqueror.[251] (A character, by the bye, who, however completely hollow were his claims to the crown of England, can never be reproached with a backwardness in promoting learned men to the several great ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... workers, from the point of view of production, than they are at present by the capitalists. The Bolsheviks oppose self-government in industry every where, because it has failed in Russia, and their national self-esteem prevents them from admitting that this is due to the backwardness of Russia. This is one of the respects in which they are misled by the assumption that Russia must be in all ways a model to the rest of the world. I would go so far as to say that the winning of self-government ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... town, moreover, is in a Parliamentary district, in which every candidate at the recent general election—and there were seven of them—supported effective voting. Far down in the south I went to a little village containing seven churches, which accounted (said the local doctor) for the extreme backwardness of its inhabitants. "They have so many church affairs to attend to that there is no time to think of anything else." At the close of this lecturing tour The Register undertook the public count through its columns, ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... includes not only the better care of all incompetent for self-control, self-support, and self-direction, it also is coming to include a far more searching investigation of the causes of degeneracy and backwardness, and many children are thereby lifted from the hopeless classes to the group of those requiring only special care and teaching to be able ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... on, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left. There was no hesitation or faltering in his step, and the two youths pressed after him, ashamed of their moment's backwardness. The sun had managed to pierce through the haze, and was shining now with some of its wonted brilliancy. As Raymond turned the corner and saw before him the whole of the little hamlet, he almost wished the ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... because we must flirt; can't be comfortable alone together, because everybody prepares our tete-a-tete for us. She is in apprehension of an amourousness which I despair of displaying; I am ashamed of a backwardness which is her only comfort. And the audience grows impatient; had the gods given them humour they would laugh consumedly. Surely even they must smile soon, and so soon as they smile I must take the leap; for, my dear friend, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be chirping on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what peril soever. His backwardness in the university hath set him thus forward; for had he not truanted there, he had not been so hasty a divine. His small standing, and time, hath made him a proficient only in boldness, out of which, and his table-book, he is furnished for a preacher. His collections of study are the notes ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... is really something in that remark. But at the risk of offence I must remind you that you there take it for granted that the woman behind her time at a given age has not reached the end of her tether. Her backwardness may be not because she is slow to develop, but because she soon exhausted her capacity ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... deception—perhaps that unfortunate victim of the November fogs may resent the suggestion of conspiracy, and complain of fraudulent tricks with negatives—and so the public is deceived. Also, undated photographs are used—fraudulently. This is a very irksome matter, for our friends are candid about our backwardness, and ask indignantly why we fail to mention that Miss —— is ugly enough to stop a clock, or that it is a long day's walk round the jeune premier at ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... converted into gold and silver, they could easily find a use for it, by sending it abroad; but they could find none while it remained in the shape of paper. There would immediately, therefore, be a run upon the banks to the whole extent of this superfluous paper, and if they showed any difficulty or backwardness in payment, to a much greater extent; the alarm which this would occasion necessarily ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... the Quaker, with a very happy turn of wit, "I do not like to be examined; but lest thou shouldest take up any mistakes by reason of my backwardness to speak, I will answer thee for once, that what her woman's name is I know not, ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... chance of a serious engagement. Great must have been his distrust of his forces, one would say. When is a navy to fight, if this was not a time? He carried on a distant cannonade, with results so far against the English as to make his backwardness yet more extraordinary. Can a policy or a tradition which justifies such a line ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... affection for Imogen as she had for Posthumus; and she deserves it better. Of all Shakespeare's women she is perhaps the most tender and the most artless. Her incredulity in the opening scene with Iachimo, as to her husband's infidelity, is much the same as Desdemona's backwardness to believe Othello's jealousy. Her answer to the most distressing part of the picture is only, 'My lord, I fear, has forgot Britain.' Her readiness to pardon Iachimo's false imputations and his designs against herself, is a good lesson ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... son felt keenly and spoke strongly. There was so much of sympathy and fellow-feeling between them, that there was no backwardness on Norman's part in telling his whole trouble, with more confidence than schoolboys often show towards their fathers, and Dr. May entered into the mortification as if he were still at school. They did not go into the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... "My backwardness is an affliction," wrote Harris..... "The ordeal of appearing on the stage would be a terrible one, but my experience is that when a diffident man does become familiar with his surroundings he has more impudence than ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the captain, as she took his bat. 'You won't sty in long, I lay,' he said, as he sent the old bowler fielding and took the ball himself. He was a young gentleman who did not suffer from excessive backwardness. ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... the college, that our mathematical master was exceedingly fond of him, and that the other professors in the different sciences had equal reason to be satisfied with him? What I have above stated, together with the report of M. de Keralio, bear evidence of his backwardness in almost every branch of education except mathematics. Neither was it, as Sir Walter affirms, his precocious progress in mathematics that occasioned him to be removed to Paris. He had attained the proper age, and the report of him was favourable, therefore he was ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Add to this that, notwithstanding his sympathy with Satan, he almost invariably sided with his master, in regard of any angry reflection or seditious movement, and even when unjustly punished himself, the occasional result of a certain backwardness in self-defence, never showed any resentment—a most improbable statement, I admit, but nevertheless true—and I think the rest of his character may be left to the gradual ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Company in their Indian settlements, and to reform abuses, returned for answer, That, "however low and inadequate their finances might be to admit of extraordinary expences, yet they deemed it expedient not to shew any backwardness in adopting similar measures to those pursued by other Europeans trading to China; and that they had, accordingly, nominated Mr. Titsingh as chief, and himself (Mr. Van Braam) as second Embassador to ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... special building erected near the Mansion House for use as a hospital. Once he went to Winchester in the Shenandoah region especially to look after slaves ill with smallpox "and found everything in the utmost confusion, disorder, and backwardness. Got Blankets and every other requisite from Winchester, and settied things on the best footing I could." As he had had smallpox when at Barbadoes, he had ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... 'backwardness' of persons to appear in defence of Miss Monk's book. We promise to appear as often on the subject as you are willing to publish our communications. In one of the paragraphs you publish, our book is spoken of as one of the evils arising from a 'free ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... zest and a hint of danger. And as for the rider, he appeared to have forgotten Jane in the wonder of this lovely child playing about him. At first he was much the shyer of the two. Gradually her confidence overcame his backwardness, and he had the temerity to stroke her golden curls with a great hand. Fay rewarded his boldness with a smile, and when he had gone to the extreme of closing that great hand over her little brown one, she said, ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... necklace and the bag. Then Anne looked at her in unaffected horror. She sat bolt upright, her slender figure tense with expectation, her hands clasped rigidly. Madame Beattie enjoyed this picture of a sympathetic attention, a nature played upon by her dramatic mastery. Anne had no backwardness in believing now, the deed was so exactly Lydia's. She could see the fierce impulse of its doing, the reckless haste, no pause for considering whether it were well to do. She could appreciate Lydia's silence ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... the Prize Verses, a backwardness to determine their degrees of merit is not peculiar to me. You may, if you please, still have what I can say; but I shall engage with little spirit in an affair, which I shall hardly end to my own satisfaction, and certainly not to the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Cenodoxus may, in some measure, account for an observation we must have frequent occasion to make; that the conversation of men of very moderate capacities is often preferred to that of men of superior talents; in which the world act more wisely than at first they may seem; for, besides that backwardness in mankind to give their admiration, what can be duller or more void of pleasure than discourses on subjects above our comprehension? It is like listening to an unknown language; and, if such company is ever desired by us, it is a sacrifice to ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... communicate with respect to the disposition of the Roman forces and the condition of their magazines. This individual, ennobled by the royal authority, and given a place at the royal table, gained great influence over his new master, whom he stimulated by alternately reproaching him with his backwardness in the past, and putting before him the prospect of easy triumphs over Rome in the future. He pointed out that the emperor, with the bulk of his troops and treasures, was detained in the regions adjoining the Danube, and that the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... backwardness.] Besides, in Spain itself matters are no better. The means of communication there are so very deficient that, as an instance, merchandise is sent from Santander to Barcelona, round the whole Iberian peninsula, in preference to the direct route, which is partly ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... three years after the period to which I have alluded that an accident of which I need not remind you, my beloved Helen, introduced me to the acquaintance of your family. You may remember the backwardness with which I first received their approaches; the very name of Percy had become ominously painful to me, and yet it inspired me with a strange and undefinable interest. A spell appeared to attract me towards you, and in spite of my first resolution to the contrary, ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... night. The next day we were employed in preparations for sea. On the following night I stood my first watch. During the first few days we had bad weather, and I began to feel the discomforts of a sailor's life. But I knew that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or of backwardness, I should be ruined at once. So I performed my duties to the best of my ability, and after a time I felt somewhat of a man. I cannot describe the change which half a pound of cold salt beef and a biscuit or two produced in me after having taken ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of the final markets for his produce. His reading is limited to the local papers, and these, following the example of the modern press, carefully eliminate serious thought as likely to deprive them of readers. But Patrick, for all his economic backwardness, has a soul. The culture of the Gaelic poets and story-tellers, while not often actually remembered, still lingers like a fragrance about his mind. He lives and moves and has his being in the loveliest nature, the skies over him ever cloudy ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... landing on the rock, owing to the breach of sea which had for days past been around it, the artificers showed some backwardness at getting into the boats this morning; but after a little explanation this was got over. It was always observable that for some time after anything like danger had occurred at the rock, the workmen became much more cautious, and on some occasions ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... soft drawing pencil and would wipe off readily. That, however is the inception and beginning of what afterward becomes, among our race, hair. To look at it you could hardly believe it, but it is. Barring accidents or backwardness, it continues to grow from that time on through our childhood, but its behavior is always a profound disappointment. If the child is a girl and, therefore, entitled to curly hair, her hair is sure to come in stiff and straight. If ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... over large areas populated by fellow ethnic groups. These areas contain most of the industry. If a much smaller core Muslim state survives, it will share many Third World problems of poverty, technological backwardness, and dependence on historically soft foreign markets for its primary products. In these circumstances, other Muslim countries might offer assistance. GDP: $14 billion; real growth rate —37% (1991) Inflation rate (consumer prices): 80% per month (1991) Unemployment rate: 28% (February 1992 est.) ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... am the Lord's!' but when the Lord wants to make practical use of His own, Oh, what backwardness to obey! What slowness of speech on the part of the tongue that was professedly given to the Lord! What weariness of body will sometimes be found when that body is demanded by the Master for some special service! A dumb devil seems to take possession ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... Netherland is threatened. The English, to cloak their plans, now object that there is no proof, no legal commission or patent, from their High Mightinesses, to substantiate and justify our rights and claims to the property of this province, and insinuate that through the backwardness of their High Mightinesses to grant such a patent, you apparently intended to place the people here on slippery ice, giving them lands to which your honors had no ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... grateful sense of the sentiments you was therein pleased to express for me: and I am sorry that the many delays I met at the cape, and other places between that and the harbour of St. John, from the want of craft, and the backwardness of the Indians in coming out, prevented my operations keeping pace with your excellency's expectations. I, however, hope you will do me the justice to believe, that no time was lost, which could possibly be saved, situated as I was. It ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... anger! I will follow her,— No, I will not! Heigho! I love my cousin! O would that she loved me! Why did she taunt me With backwardness in love? What could she mean? Sees she I love her, and so laughs at me, Because I lack the front to woo her? Nay, I'll woo her then! Her lips shall be in danger, When next she trusts them near me! Looked ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... this had led to a sharp controversy with Mr. Pusey, as he was then, who thought that Mr. Rose[41] had both exaggerated the fact itself and had not adequately given the historical account of it. He had the prudence, but not the backwardness, of a man of large knowledge, and considerable experience of the world. More alive to difficulties and dangers than his younger associates, he showed his courage and his unselfish earnestness in his frank sympathy with them, daring and outspoken as they were, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... there is reason to conclude, that the pride of that court, will be less hurt by treating with the American states for terms of peace, than with those, whom she denominates, "rebellious subjects," for terms of accommodation. It is our delaying it that encourages her to hope for conquest, and our backwardness tends only to prolong the war. As we have, without any good effect therefrom, withheld our trade to obtain a redress of our grievances, let us now try the alternative, by independantly redressing them ourselves, and then offering to open the trade. The ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... fascinated him. Oddly enough the imputation of cheekiness rankled in his mind in a most unusual fashion—not that Wikkey entertained the faintest objection to "cheek" in the abstract, and there were occasions on which any backwardness in its use would betray a certain meanness of spirit: for instance to the natural enemy of the race—the Bobby—it was only right to exhibit as much of the article as was compatible with safety. Indeed, the inventor of a fresh sarcasm, biting in its nature yet artfully ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM
... Venice; nor a steam-tug in all the channels of the lagoons, through which the largest craft are towed to and from the ports by row-boats. In the model of the sea-going vessels there has apparently been little change from the first. Yet in spite of all this backwardness in invention, the city is full of beautiful workmanship in every branch of artificing, and the Venetians are still the best ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... side there is no backwardness now; on hers no coyness, no mock modesty. They come together not as at their last interview, timid sweethearts, but lovers emboldened by betrothal. For she knows, that he proposed to her; as he, that her acceptance was sent, and miscarried. It has reached ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... territory. Goergei, who was opposed to him, had from the first declared that Pesth must be abandoned and a war of defence carried on in Central Hungary. Kossuth, however, had scorned this counsel, and announced that he would defend Pesth to the last. The backwardness of the Hungarian preparations and the disorder of the new levies justified the young general, who from this time assumed the attitude of contempt and hostility towards the Committee of Defence. Kossuth had in fact been strangely served ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... followed up its repudiation of the government by openly and unreservedly placing itself at the head of the uprising. In any other country than Russia that would have been done, in all probability, but the Russian bourgeoisie was weak. This was due, like so much else in Russia, to the backwardness of the industrial system. There was not a strong middle class and, therefore, the bourgeoisie left the fighting to the working class. Rodzianko's new appeal to the Czar was pathetic. When hundreds of dead and dying lay in the streets and in churches, hospitals, and other public buildings, ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... Jews in the field of education are absolutely incomprehensible: it is as if our country, sorely lacking as it is not only in representatives of superior qualified labour, but actually in literate people, were striving to increase its ignorance and intellectual backwardness. Of course, formal justification can be found for every act, and every evil-doer endeavours to convince himself of the justice of his evil deeds. So it is in this case, too: the intentional shutting-off of the Jewish masses from education is motivated by the desire to ...
— The Shield • Various
... at Manchester that at "the time when we built the first Dreadnoughts Dreadnoughts were in the air." So our backwardness in naval aviation is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... the putting forward the Master of Lovat was a mere feint to save himself at the expense of his son, if affairs went wrong. In Lord Lovat's letters to President Forbes the poor young man was made to bear the brunt of the whole blame; although Lord Lovat had frequently complained of his son's backwardness to certain members of his clan. On the trial it appeared that the whole aim of Lord Lovat was, as Sir John Strange expressed it, "an endeavour to avoid being fixed himself and to throw it all upon his son,—that son whom he had, in a ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... important. A nation handicapped by its geography may have to start later in the field, and yet her performance may be relatively better than that of her more favored neighbors. It is astonishing to read German diatribes about Russian backwardness when one remembers that as recently as fifty years ago Austria and Prussia were living under a regime which can hardly be considered more enlightened than the present rule in Russia. The Italians in Lombardy and Venice have still a vivid recollection of Austrian jails; ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... ruin. When he found something that he did understand, such as luncheon baskets, he burst into carols of praise over the superior sense in our civilisation and good management to Continental methods. An example of the first attitude may be found in one of his letters, in which he describes the backwardness and idleness of Catholics who would not build a Birmingham in Italy. He seems quite unconscious of the obvious truth, that the backwardness of Catholics was simply the refusal of Bob Cratchit to enter the house of Gradgrind. An example of the second attitude can be found in the ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... their dread of the effects of our arms was the principal cause of their backwardness in attacking us; and, indeed, the confidence we appeared to place in this advantage, by opposing only five marines to their whole force, must have raised in them a very high idea of our superiority. It was our business to keep up this opinion as much as possible; and in justice ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... itself to a slower tempo. The gogetter followed the brontosaurus to extinction, and we Americans with the foresight to carry on our businesses from new bases profited by the unAmerican backwardness of our competitors. At this time I daresay I was among the hundred most important figures of the world. In the marketing and packaging of our original products I had been forced to acquire papermills and ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... their duty obliged them to assist the crusade with their prayers alone; and it was with some difficulty they were constrained to desist from an opposition, which in them who had been the chief promoters of those pious enterprises, appeared with the worst grace imaginable [o]. This backwardness of the clergy is perhaps a symptom, that the enthusiastic ardour which had at first seized the people for crusades, was now by time and ill success considerably abated; and that the frenzy was chiefly supported by the military ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... scorned by me as the arch-type of all small ultra-feminine backwardness, did the bravest thing a paper can do, risked its whole position by flying in the face of the public and printing the clearest, fullest, most enlightening accounts of the present status of these "social diseases," their terrible effects, ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... a greater danger to those who hold that beauty is a menace to salvation; on her cheek hung the rosy banner of youth; in her eyes shone the bright arrows of conquest. And the duke, discarding his backwardness, as a soldier his cloak before battle, watched the hue that mantled her face, proffered his open breast to the shining lances of her gaze, and capitulated unconditionally before the smile of victory on her ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... should never take place. Between one and the other however, he was got into a scrape, and now he supposed he must marry, will he, nill he. The two squires would infallibly ruin him upon the least appearance of backwardness on his part, as they were accustomed to do every inferior that resisted their will. Emily was rejoiced to find her admirer in so favourable a disposition; and earnestly pressed him to give effect to this humane ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... these fine ladies, and the company that attended them; but travelling the same road, lodging at the same inns, and being obliged to eat at the same table, the acquaintance seemed unavoidable, as any backwardness on my part would have got me the character of a very unsociable being: it was formed then, and even sooner than I desired, for all this bustle was by no means convenient to a person in ill health, particularly ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... himself, but surely such cannot serve as rules by which to regulate my conduct while I remain ignorant of them, nor can I imagine it to be my duty, or the expectation of Congress, that I should blindly fall into the sentiments of any man, especially when I think this backwardness to give proper support to our cause at the Courts of Europe, may be accounted for on other principles. That it does actually exist, I can now no longer doubt. However, Congress will make up their own judgment upon this point from the letters of the Minister himself, and from other facts, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... persecutions, his mother cheered him on. At that juncture, subsequently, when he was in a state of hesitancy as to entering the holy ministry, and his father had encouraged the idea of delay, his mother said, "The sooner you are a deacon the better"—and broke the spell of what might have been a fatal backwardness. On that evening, at Aldersgate Street, 24th May, 1738, so memorable in the spiritual history of Methodism, when John Wesley stood up in his newly-found fulness of the assurance of grace, and encountered much sharp rebuke on the spot, he had been well fortified ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... thinning leaves of which allowed the sunlight to play merrily upon our path. "He says in his heart that if this thing be of God, the Maid will come again when the time draws near; but that if it is phantasy, or if she be deluded of the Devil, perchance his backwardness will put a check upon her ardour, and we shall hear no more of it. The Abbe Perigord, his Confessor, has bidden him beware lest it be a snare of the Evil One"—and as he spoke these words Bertrand crossed himself, and I did the like, for the forest ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... encouraged him in times of trial and difficulty, and he could not endure the solitude in a strange land after Lucy's death. A great longing for his native land awoke in him, he wished to return to Spain, to that land he had so often ridiculed, and which now in spite of its backwardness seemed to him so attractive. He thought of his brothers, fixed like plants to the stones of the Cathedral, never interesting themselves with what took place in the world, never seeking for news of him, as though they had ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was only kept waiting for the chemists, she certainly did have her fears. Chemical agriculture is expensive; and though the results may possibly be remunerative, still, while we are thus kept waiting by the backwardness of the chemists, there must be much risk in making any serious ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... his belted jacket, he was wondering, in the midst of his other troubles, why he allowed the matter of a chance-met girl to play so big a part in his thoughts. The exasperating climax of his adventure with the girl, his failure to ask her name frankly, his folly of bashful backwardness in putting questions when she was at arm's length from him, his mournful certainty that he would never see her again—all conspired curiously to make her an obsession rather than ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... failed to lower the sanguine spirits of the Prime Minister to the level of prudence. All the letters of Pitt at that time exude confidence from every line. He hopes that Dumouriez will succeed in overthrowing the regicides at Paris. The backwardness of the Prussians in supporting Coburg does not deter him from ordering to Flanders all the available British and mercenary troops, in order to besiege Dunkirk, and otherwise help the Imperialists. As if this is not enough, on or just before 1st April he treats with Malouet, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... can do me no good; you know nothing on earth about me; you may actually do me harm; I am in better hands than yours. I know my own sincerity of purpose; and I am determined upon taking my time." Since I have been a Catholic, people have sometimes accused me of backwardness in making converts; and Protestants have argued from it that I have no great eagerness to do so. It would be against my nature to act otherwise than I do; but besides, it would be to forget the lessons which I gained in the experience of my ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... back to the public school, Dave, and yet she cannot read or write. Do you think we can afford to send her to boarding-school—to a convent, for instance, where she'd be well looked after, and allowances made for her backwardness?" ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... or six young women before being finally accepted. Rashness appeared to be the watchword. The matrimonial stampede swept caution and consequences into a general heap, and delivered a community of the backwardness that threatened to become ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... new levies arrived slowly in the American camp, and many of those who were sent were mere boys utterly unfit for active service. The several States discovered much backwardness in complying with the requisitions of Congress, so that there was reason to apprehend that the number of troops necessary for besieging New York could not be procured. This made Washington turn his thoughts more seriously to the southward ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... "The backwardness of the Irish and their poverty are, in my opinion, due to their inferiority as a race of men. Wherever there is a factory, you will find all the foremen Protestants—that is, Saxons. And Irishmen expect it. They will not work ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... with the carriage, and on that still, sweet April evening we drove him to Stormfield much as we had driven him two years before. Now and then he mentioned the apparent backwardness of the season, for only a few of the trees were beginning to show their green. As we drove into the lane that led to the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument: I might carry on the metaphor and speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound; but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these are not the men, and that I am referring to the Pythagoreans, of whom I was just now proposing to enquire about harmony. For they too are in error, like the astronomers; they investigate ...
— The Republic • Plato
... figure-head was of solid gold. As, however, we had no such treasure, and the meeting was unavoidable, and might be hostile, I put myself into a complete posture of defense, with a determination neither to show backwardness nor suspicion. The day arrived, and the pirates swept up the river; eighteen prahus, one following the other, decorated with flags and streamers, and firing both cannon and musketry; the sight was interesting ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... plates, into which each one crumbled a bit of bread, and they began to eat. Then the old woman doled out to each his portion of boiled meat and vegetables, and, as they ate, the cobbler discoursed briefly upon the future of Spain and the reasons for national backwardness,—a topic that appeals to most Spaniards, who consider ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... free Choice of the People, was plain, by the Backwardness shewn by those elected to undertake so weighty a Charge, which had no other Recompence than the Applause of the Publick, for the faithful Execution of their Trust. Another Reason which induced me to believe the Choice such, was, that the English, (of which Nation I own'd my self) were ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... organization of the daily life which were the heritage he had brought with him from Russia. He was at that time, he told me, president of a large Jewish congregation, whose pillars of support were men like himself. He complained bitterly of their backwardness and illiberality. They would not introduce an organ and refused to change the prayer book or to secure an "advanced" rabbi. For himself, he did not care whether they had a synagogue—I mean temple—at all. He retained no longer any of the superstitions or narrowness of his colleagues, and ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... immediately seized, committed to custody, brought to trial, condemned and executed. No legal crime was proved against these brothers: it was only alleged, that at the battle of Flouder they had not done their duty in supporting the king; and as this backwardness could not, from the course of their past life, be ascribed to cowardice, it was commonly imputed to a more criminal motive. The evidence, however, of guilt produced against them was far from being valid or convincing; and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... companions than I had fallen in with elsewhere, and the necessary contact with people of both sexes gradually wore off some of the rougher corners and brought a measure of self-confidence. I had two or three incipient love affairs which my backwardness kept from growing serious. Out of this change of environment came a sense of expansion, of escape from self, which was distinctly pleasant. I still masturbated regularly, but no longer experienced the former depression except when at home during vacation. Relatively to the past, life was now so ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis |
