"Dilatoriness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were employed in trades on the other side of the ferry, and therefore could risk offending Mr. Rosewarne; but their independence had not yet translated itself into steady payment of the fees, and Mr. Toy (for example) notoriously practised dilatoriness of payment as part of his ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 203]. It was not that Steele objected to expeditions against the wild tribes but he was disgusted with the lack of patriotism and military enthusiasm among the Texans and Arkansans. Colonel W.P. Lane's regiment of Texas Partizan Rangers was another that had to be chided for its dilatoriness [Ibid., pp. 168-169, 199, 234]. Deficient means of transportation was oftentimes the excuse given for failure to appear but Steele's complaint to Anderson, April 10 [Ibid., 185-186], was very much more to ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... of frequent complaints as to the dilatoriness of the postal service, the authorities in London announced that letters or packets would thenceforth be dispatched from the capital to the chief provincial towns "at any hour without loss of time," at certain specified rates. An express ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... not stop at these demonstrations of their zeal, empty as they often are; they called for arms, and were angry, at the dilatoriness with which they were given them. They complained no less eagerly, that they had not yet been reviewed by ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... was commander, along with Demosthenes, and later on Alcibiades, of the Athenian forces before Syracuse, in the ill-fated Sicilian Expedition, 415-413 B.C. He was much blamed for dilatoriness and indecision. ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... feeling of relief as it would be difficult to express in words. The fact is, what goads and tortures me is not any anxiety of my own to publish another book, to have my name before the public, to get cash, etc., but a haunting fear that my dilatoriness disappoints others. Now the "others" whose wish on the subject I really care for, reduces itself to my father and Cornhill, and since Cornhill ungrudgingly counsels me to take my own time, I think I can pacify such impatience as my dear father naturally feels. Indeed, your ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... the authorities were able to prevent the exercises of the Reformed religion within the city, it would be as successful a result as could be expected. To prevent the preaching outside the walls, by means of the bourgher force, was an utter impossibility. The dilatoriness of the Sovereign placed the Regent in a frightful dilemma, but it was sufficiently obvious that the struggle could not long be deferred. "There will soon be a hard nut to crack," wrote Count Louis. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... they rank above most uncivilized, and even above many civilized nations. They are temperate in food and drink, and the gross sensuality of the Chinese and Malays is unknown among them. They have the usual fault of all people in a half-savage state—apathy and dilatoriness, but, however annoying this may be to Europeans who come in contact with them, it cannot be considered a very grave offence, or be held to outweigh ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... kodaked. The boy went up and up, till he disappeared from view. The smoke from the herbs smouldering in the braziers seemed almost to blot out the courtyard from view. The juggler, professing himself angry with the boy for his dilatoriness, started in pursuit of him up this rope, hanging on nothing. He was kodaked, too. Finally the man descended the rope, and wiped a blood-stained knife, explaining that he had killed the boy for disobeying his orders. He then pulled the rope down ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... former opposition, now, as American minister in London, did his best to secure for Bishops-elect White and Provoost the coveted consecration from English bishops. The only hindrance now to this long-desired boon was in the supercilious dilatoriness of the English prelates and of the civil authorities to whom they were subordinate. They were evidently in a sulky temper over the overwhelming defeat of the British arms. If it had been in their power to blockade effectively the channels ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... May. But a great many years ago, one of the high officials of the quartermaster's department at Washington, who had never been for a moment on duty on the frontier in his life, found a good deal of fault with what he thought the dilatoriness of the officer in charge at Fort Leavenworth, who controlled the question of transportation for the several forts scattered all over the West, for not getting the freight caravans started earlier, which the functionary at the capital said must and should be done. He insisted that they must leave ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... diligence and success, had been unable to keep pace with the impatient ardour of his master. Philip II. had reproached him with his dilatoriness, and had said with ungrateful harshness, "You make an ill return for all my kindness to you." These words cut the veteran's heart, and proved fatal to Santa Cruz. Overwhelmed with fatigue and grief, he sickened and died. Philip II. had replaced him by Alonzo Perez ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... wedding, and all were as gay as a flock of snow-birds. They regretted your absence. I will ask your mother to send you reports. I am tolerable and wish I could get down to see you. I had hoped to go down this spring, but I fear the dilatoriness of the workmen in finishing the house, and the necessity of my attending to it, getting the ground inclosed and preparing the garden, will prevent me. I shall also have to superintend the moving. In fact, it never seems convenient for me to go away. Give much love to F—-, my daughter Tabb, and ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... of the present Government the heads of the great departments in Whitehall excused their apparent dilatoriness in effecting those administrative changes which the country expected from a Liberal Government, by the fact that after twenty years of Conservative rule the permanent officials were so steeped in the methods of Toryism their ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... think, put this point very fairly, I again repeat that my only motive for alluding to the matter was, as some explanation of my seeming dilatoriness, which certainly did in part arise from always conceiving that, whenever I should state what was my real wish the day after the bet was made, you would be the more disposed to allow a little time;—the same statement admitting, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... have been preserved, thanks to the diligence of the Madrid police who seized them in his father's house in their eagerness to follow the movements of this dangerous revolutionary. They are the typical letters of a schoolboy. The writer makes excuses for his dilatoriness as a correspondent, expresses solicitude for the health of his parents, and suggests the need of a speedy remittance. In fact la falta de metlico is the burden of his song. Living is excessively dear in London. So much so that a suit ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... small scarce-moving speck, which presently resolved itself into the figure of boy, who was creeping on at a snail's pace, and continually looking behind him—the heavy bundle he carried being some excuse for, if not the reason of, his dilatoriness. When the bouncing gig-party slowed at the bottom of the incline above mentioned, the pedestrian was only a few yards in front. Supporting the large bundle by putting one hand on his hip, he turned and looked straight at the farmer's wife as though he would read her through ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... probably did the surgeon; for Ada had opened her eyes, and was able to sit up before he entered the cabin with the implements of his calling under his arm, which he had brought, not that he expected there would be any use for them, but as a plausible excuse for his dilatoriness. ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... some fiery-heated duellist calling on urgent business at frosty daybreak, and long kept waiting at the door by the dilatoriness of his antagonist, shrinking at the idea of getting up to be cut to pieces in the cold—the Ranger, with a better breeze, impatiently tacked to and fro in the channel. At last, when the English vessel had fairly weathered the point, Paul, ranging ahead, courteously led her forth, as a beau might ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... President which I have not approved. Of those under him, and of some very near him, there have been many acts of which we have all disapproved, and he more than we. We have at times dissented from the measures, and lamented the dilatoriness of Congress. I recollect an instance the first winter of the war, when, from sloth of proceedings, an embargo was permitted to run through the winter, while the enemy could not cruise, nor consequently ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... German dilatoriness in this matter, events had by then gone so far that the very gravest questions had arisen for ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... though probably many will think them superfluous. Perhaps they will serve to give a true idea of the magnitude of the undertaking, and of the great responsibility which weighed upon me, and thus prove an anticipatory excuse for any accusation of shortcoming or dilatoriness that may be preferred against me. I will not, however, enter further into the business-details of the expedition—merely observing that, among other things to which I had to attend during my stay in Mourzuk, were, in the first place, to collect ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... give no pourboire in advance; but what with the inevitable dilatoriness of the people down in these parts, it was after seven o'clock before we left the Hercules-Bad, and we ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... which was also a Saturday, dawned brightly on Henrietta, but even her eagerness for her new employment could not so far overcome her habitual dilatoriness as not to annoy her cousin, Busy Bee, even to a degree of very unnecessary fidgeting when there was any work in hand. She sat on thorns all breakfast time, devoured what her grandpapa called a sparrow's allowance, swallowed ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thirsty chirruping of small birds in the hedgerows. Everywhere he saw rooks gaping on the low walls that divided the fields. The farmers were complaining; but they were always complaining—everyone was complaining. He had complained of the dilatoriness of the Board of Works, and now for the first time in his life he sympathized a little with the Board. If it had built the bridge he would not be enjoying this long drive; it would be built by-and-by; he couldn't feel as if he wished to be robbed of one half-hour of the long day ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... finish the rustic bench that day. When a neighboring camper, who stopped in to call toward the end of the afternoon, expressed surprise at his apparent dilatoriness, and asked for an explanation, the father simply said, "I did mean to finish it to- day, but I had to do ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... by Forbes not to speak too strongly about the dilatoriness of the Government in the matter of the grant, so he writes:] "I will 'roar you like any sucking dove' at the dinner, though I felt tempted otherwise." [On December 1 he tells how he ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Newby. They were published together in three volumes in December 1847, two months later than Jane Eyre, although the proof sheets had been passed by the authors before their sister's novel had been sent to the publishers. The dilatoriness of Mr Newby was followed up by considerable energy when he saw the possibility of the novels by Ellis and Acton Bell sailing on the wave of Currer Bell's popularity, and he would seem very quickly to have accepted ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... but a woman whose part is restricted to awaiting those prayers, and answering with a yes or no, necessarily learns patience. Maitre Quennebert would therefore have felt no anxiety as to the effect of his dilatoriness on the widow, were it not for the existence of a distant cousin of the late Monsieur Rapally, who was also paying court to her, and that with a warmth much greater than had hitherto been displayed by himself. This fact, in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE |
