"Lagging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... run over its news, while the young man watched the spectacular recession of the city, and was vaguely conscious of the people about him, and of the gay life of the water round the boat. The air freshened; the craft thinned in number; they met larger sail, lagging slowly inward in the afternoon light; the islands of the bay waxed and waned as the steamer ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... conspiracy. We walked curiously up the little street until we reached the last house in the village, and came out beyond the screen of its wall. At the same instant something sang past my ear like the twang of a Jew's harp, my foot caught in a coil of wire, and I fell headlong. My companion, lagging behind and not yet clear of the friendly wall, stopped dead and cried to me not to stand up. I crawled back among the rubbish to the cover of the house. We took counsel together. To retreat were perilous, but to advance might be fatal. We lowered our voices as, cowering ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... dully, the time drags heavily. But at last the lagging daylight asserts itself, the torches are extinguished, and a mellow radiance suffuses the great spaces. All features of the noble building are distinct now, but soft and dreamy, for the sun ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the family walking, and only two going in the carriage; and, as they greatly preferred walking in fine weather, I should be honoured by going with the seniors. 'And besides,' said they, 'you can't walk as fast as we do; you know you're always lagging behind.' I knew these were false excuses, but I made no objections, and never contradicted such assertions, well knowing the motives which dictated them. And in the afternoons, during those six memorable weeks, I never went to church at all. If I had a cold, or any slight indisposition, they took ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... endeavored to do it. We were all quite young, and not in the decline of life as were most of them who had perished by the way. No reader can fully realize how much we had to say and do to keep up courage, and it is to this more than anything else that we did which kept up the lagging energies and inspired the best exertion. I don't know but we painted some things a little brighter than they were, and tried to hide some of the most disheartening points of the prospects ahead, for we found the mind had most to do with it after all. We have no doubt that ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... miss the footsteps, Lightsome, loud, or slow; Telling by their echo How the humours go. Lagging when they're lazy. Running when they're wild. Leaping when they're gladsome, Walking when they're mild. Footsteps, voices, faces, Where are ye to-night? Father, keep my darlings Ever in ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... on his arm, was a strikingly handsome youth; the other, dressed in more quiet colors, was an elderly man with a frank and sincere manner. The younger strode on ahead, as nimbly as a stag, while the older maintained a somewhat slower gait, like that of a worn-out hunting-dog lagging behind the master to whom he is still ever faithful. After they had emerged into an open space at the foot of the hills, they both sat down on a large stone, which lay there beside several others in the shade of a mighty linden. The younger man gave some money and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... steadily. Our creek, which for eleven months in the year bleated sweetly at the foot of the garden, bellowed loudly as any bull of Bashan, and kept us prisoners in the house, where we had leisure to talk and reflect. We had been robbed and humbugged, injured in pride and pocket, but the lagging hours anointed our wounds. Philosophy touched ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... section of Long Island, a single traveler came up to the quaint low-roof'd village tavern, open'd its half-door, and enter'd the common room. Dust cover'd the clothes of the wayfarer, and his brow was moist with sweat. He trod in a lagging, weary way; though his form and features told of an age not more than nineteen or twenty years. Over one shoulder was slung a sailor's jacket, and in his hand he carried a little bundle. Sitting down on a rude ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the general progress of universal mind in justness of thought and sentiment—those new developed master ideas which mark the place of each successive age in the line of progression; and in regard to which, the masters in the received sciences are quite as often found lagging ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... icicles; Oft he looks back, while streaming far, 80 His cottage window seems a star,— Loses its feeble gleam,—and then Turns patient to the blast again, And, facing to the tempest's sweep, Drives through the gloom his lagging sheep. 85 If fails his heart, if his limbs fail, Benumbing death is in the gale; His paths, his landmarks, all unknown, Close to the hut, no more his own, Close to the aid he sought in vain, 90 The morn may find the stiffen'd swain: The widow sees, at dawning pale, ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... lands there is an exorable law ordayning muscles but It can be invaded by a little despeshun and sang frore, as one side of the streat is not unfrequentedly Outside the rools so that if you take him that side the politician cannot Run him in which is the wulgar for lagging him for not [waring Mussles I have] ockasionaly done bobys this Way myself so that I am convinzed of my voracity, the lesson we learn from this is that dogs should be treeted kindly and not Injected to unkind tretemant ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... whelps Unto the mountain, which forbids the sight Of Lucca to the Pisan. With lean brachs Inquisitive and keen, before him rang'd Lanfranchi with Sismondi and Gualandi. After short course the father and the sons Seem'd tir'd and lagging, and methought I saw The sharp tusks gore their sides. When I awoke Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard My sons (for they were with me) weep and ask For bread. Right cruel art thou, if no pang Thou feel at thinking what ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... which rested on the window-sill. Rachel did not like the kiss, or Dorothy's brilliant eyes and flushed cheeks, as the candle revealed them like a fair picture painted on the darkness. She hesitated, and Dorothy sped away up the lane with old John lagging at his halter. ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... Doctor's study was beyond, through the door by which the butler had passed. Stover's glance was riveted on it, trying to remember whether the American Constitution prohibited head masters from the brutal English practice of caning and birching; and,—listening to the lagging tick of the mantel clock, he solemnly vowed to lead that upright, impeccable life that would keep him from such another ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... whiles,' and the recurring ring of the sentences, seem to have struck upon their ears. So passing by all the great words, they fasten upon this minor thing, and whisper among themselves, perhaps lagging behind on the road, as to what He means by these 'little whiles.' The Revised Version is probably correct, or at least it has strong manuscript authority in its favour, in omitting the clause in our Lord's words, 'Because ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... my lagging beast to a final effort. In a brief minute we were on the outskirts of the crowd, where perforce we had to dismount. The Sheikh led the way as, afoot, ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... Slowly, with lagging steps, They follow the garden-path, Crushing a leaf of box for its acrid smell, Discussing what they ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... as I moved with lagging steps over the steep mountainside down to the quiet little brook. 'Enough,' I said again, as I drank in the resinous fragrance of the pinewood, strong and pungent in the freshness of falling evening. 'Enough,' I said once more, as I sat on the mossy mound above the little brook ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... apart, and occasionally in groups of three or four together. Supported by them, and pressing against the roof or "hanging," were other great timbers known as "wall plates," and behind these was a compactly laid sheathing of split timber spoken of as "lagging." ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... path she had come she followed the dancing point of his lantern, sometimes almost upon him, sometimes lagging far behind when he stopped and strained his ears for her. All recollection of the night before was gone from her mind, wiped out as utterly as though it had never existed. Nothing but a great gladness possessed her, a joy that amounted almost to mischievous glee whenever ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... chooses his sister Christina, and in his sketch mantles the plain features with a divine gentleness and heavenly splendor such as only the loving heart can conjure forth. In the last illness of Maria, Christina watches away the long, lagging hours of night, almost striving with her brothers for the right of serving; and at Birchington-on-the-Sea, Dante Gabriel waits for death, wearing out his friends by insane suspicions, and only the sister seems ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... that she was very beautiful, I remembered in the same gang as me at Wandsworth Gaol there had been a man named Selser. That is the name as far as I can remember. He was serving a lagging [a term of penal servitude] for throwing vitriol in the face of his girl. She had let him down and had married another man while he was serving a term of imprisonment. I believe she was very beautiful. When Selser got out he laid wait ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... affrighted animals scampered hastily homeward. The ziz however, was evidently determined not to be balked of its prey. It dug its talons deep into the flanks of an ox that had stampeded in the wrong direction and was lagging behind ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... lagging days were spent not only in novel-reading, as the Emperor in after years confessed to Mme. de Remusat, but in attempts at novel-writing, to relieve the tedium of idle hours. It is said that first and last Buonaparte read "Werther" five times through. Enough remains among his boyish scribblings to ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... work on the Pelican was that he secured for Joe and me an order for lagging—small poles used in the mines to hold up the ore and waste—and our potato-crop being gathered and marketed, my father gave us permission to go off and earn some extra money for ourselves by filling the order which Tom's kindly thoughtfulness had ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... Nairn. The Prince eagerly agreed, and, according to him, Clanranald's advanced men were in touch with Cumberland's outposts before Lord George convinced the Prince that retreat was necessary. The advance was lagging; the way had been missed in the dark; dawn was at hand. There are other versions: in any case the hungry men were so outworn that many are said to have slept through ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... the dead fluttering and wheeling and screaming above the old mausoleums, and rock-tombs of ancient times. Sometimes they would soar up in the air in the form of hawks with men's heads, or like ibises with a slow lagging flight, and sometimes sweep over the desert like gray shapeless shadows, or glide across the sand like snakes; or they would creep out of the tombs, howling like hungry dogs. I have often heard them barking like jackals or laughing like hyenas when they scent carrion, but to-night is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... pictures. The cowpunchers were not worrying about attack, for they had outposts on duty who could warn them of the advance of the enemy in plenty of time. The amusement of the camera was a fine thing with which to pass the lagging hours. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... the irrepressible "Right tooral lol looral" into a speech delivered at the opening of circuit. Nor was the song all that was wonderful in Jem Baggs. His "make-up" was superb. The comic genius of Robson asserted itself in an inimitable lagging gait, an unequalled snivel, a coat and pantaloons every patch on and every rent in which were artistic, and a hat inconceivably battered, crunched, and bulged out of normal, and into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... voice, the same calm, the same expression, he repeated the fatal words one after another, without lagging, without hastening, as if he were giving an accustomed command; but this time, happier than the first, at the word "Fire!" he fell pierced by eight bullets, without a sigh, without a movement, still holding the watch ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... ahead, both could see strong young men hurrying up from the laggard Blue-grass into the lagging hills and strong young men hurrying down from them, and could hear the heart of the hills beating as one with the heart of the Bluegrass, and both beating as one with the ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... from the room, and as he went Tom noticed, with something of a start, that his father appeared older that night than he had ever looked before. There was a trace of pain on the face of the aged inventor, and his step was lagging. ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... they should face him—the interesting apparition. It was a pilgrimage of which he on the other side was performing his half. Perfunctorily talking from group to group, conscious now and again of the lagging Clara or Harry, she could nevertheless keep a sly eye on the stranger's equal progress. The flash of jet, and the voluble, substantial shoulders of the lady so profusely introducing him, were an assurance of how that pilgrimage ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... of the rate at which the buffalo were going, we soon overtook them on our swift mustangs; and now began the most exciting part of our day's sport. The leading portion of the herd kept close together; but in the rear the animals were separated—some lagging behind, others scattering on either side. The Indians, with their bows drawn or their spears couched in their hands, dashed in among them, shooting right and left, or plunging their weapons into the shoulders of the brutes—so dexterously aiming the blows, ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... forward by two's and three's, but long before the young folks and a few others had begun to be tired, several were lagging behind. ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... time they left behind them the lifeless and snow-smothered cabin Philip lost account of time and direction. He believed that Bram was nearing the end of his trail. The wolves were dead tired. The wolf-man himself was lagging, and since midnight had ridden more frequently on the sledge. Still he drove on, and Philip searched with increasing eagerness the ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... reckon," said one, listlessly, as if continuing a previous lagging conversation, "that it must have happened. For it was after we were making for the bend we've just passed that the deputy, goin' to the stateroom below us, found the door locked and the window open. But both ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... wayfarers some thirty leagues to the eastward of the hollow in the hills. They had traveled swiftly, sleeping but a few hours of each night and in the daytime pausing for rest only when Landless, quietly watchful, saw the weariness growing in the eyes of the woman beside him, or noted her lagging footsteps. They had left the higher mountains behind them, but still moved through what seemed an uninhabited territory. No Indian village crowned the hills above the streams; they encountered no roving bands; no solitary hunter met them; nowhere ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... for the owners and drivers. In meeting these teams on the road, one at first imagines them to be a drove of beeves, but is soon undeceived by the crack of the lash—"long as the maintop-bowline"—striking against the side of a lagging bullock. ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... customers to find out under what conditions your production is the easiest and greatest. It is neither necessary nor wise to write letters when energies and interest are at a low ebb, when it is comparatively easy to stimulate the lagging enthusiasm and increase your power to write ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... taking the trouble to unload them. I had observed the same supineness during our halts all through this trying district, which seems to oppress their imaginations as well as prostrate their bodies. Several times I had been obliged myself to collect wood and make a fire to rally our lagging servants. Indeed, on more than one occasion I was compelled to exert my personal authority. On the third night, particularly, I wished all the people to rest one hour. The camel-drivers resisted this reasonable ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... who have been accused of superfluously lagging upon the stage, find an excuse for their presence in the skill of their make-up. For the age of the players is not to be counted, by the almanack, but appraised in accordance with their looks. On the stage to seem ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... wheat and then to driving in the wagons. From that he progressed to a seat on one of the immense combines, where he drove twenty-four horses. No driver there was any surer than Kurt of his aim with the little stones he threw to spur a lagging horse. Kurt had felt this when, as a boy, he had begged to be allowed to try his hand; he liked the shifty cloud of fragrant chaff, now and then blinding and choking him; and he liked the steady, rhythmic tramps of hooves and the roaring whir of the great complicated ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... could not help seeing these people, took any notice of them. "It seems to be all right," Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikhaylovna. She hurriedly ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it was necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had to go by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikhaylovna's air of assurance and haste, Pierre concluded that it was ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... few steers moving in the lead, while Jud shifted his horse up and down the long line. I followed on El Mahdi, lolling in the big saddle. Far away, I could hear Ump shout at some perverse steer climbing up against the high road bank, or the crack of Jud's driving whip drifted back to me. The lagging bullocks settled to the rear, and El Mahdi held them to the mark like a good sergeant ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... the blasted pine-tree, And his footstep is lagging and weary; Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light, Towards the shades of the forest ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... difficulty in avoiding Captain Miller. Since her debut she had reigned an acknowledged belle in society, and she was quickly importuned by men eager for a dance. But as she laughed and jested with her partners, she was conscious of lagging time and numbing brain. Could she keep up ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the drawing-room when they were missed; but he had laid them down, because how could those degraded hands of his carry flowers again to Grizel? There was great remorse in him, but there was a shrieking vanity also, and though the one told him to be gone, the other kept him lagging on. They had torn him a dozen times from each other's arms before he was ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... to Ronda he was roused from his dream of triumph by the sound of heavy ordnance bellowing through the mountain-defiles. His heart misgave him: he put spurs to his horse and galloped in advance of his lagging cavalgada. As he proceeded the noise of the ordnance increased, echoing from cliff to cliff. Spurring his horse up a craggy height which commanded an extensive view, he beheld, to his consternation, the country about Ronda white with the tents of a besieging army. The royal standard, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... of a world where all was in movement. What the current was which flowed around me I know not; if it was thought which becomes sensible among spirits, if it was action, I cannot tell. But the energy, the force, the living that was in them, that could no one misunderstand. I stood in the streets, lagging and feeble, scarcely able to wish, much less to think. They pushed against me, put me aside, took no note of me. In the unseen world described by a poet whom M. le Maire has probably heard of, the man who ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... want the one rapture of an inspiration. O then if in my lagging lines you miss The roll, the rise, the carol, the creation, My winter world, that scarcely yields that bliss Now, yields you, with some sighs, ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... than usually cloudy. He had been annoyed about his house, the improvements about which had been going on very slowly: one of his tradespeople worse than another, the builder waiting for the architect, the carpenter for the builder, the new furniture and decorations naturally lagging behind all. And to make these things more easy to bear he had met Mrs. Wilberforce, who had told him that she wondered to see so much money being spent at the Warren, as she heard his home was to be at Markland, and so natural, as it was so much better a house: and that she ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... the Faery Queen, you see a little withered old man by a wood-side opening a wicket, a giant, and a dwarf lagging far behind, a damsel in a boat upon an enchanted lake, wood-nymphs, and satyrs, and all of a sudden you are transported into a lofty palace, with tapers burning, amidst knights and ladies, with dance and revelry, and song, "and mask, and antique pageantry." What can be more solitary, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... seeking a new balance, the erratic misfirings of neurons as they attempted to adjust to higher nerve-impulse velocities, and the sheer fatigue engendered by cells which were acting too rapidly for a lagging excretory system, all had contributed to periods of greater or ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... look of distrust; but his words were cordial and submissive, and his voice was, as usual, low and meek. "What a wonderful man you are. And how changed! It is only a few months since I had to whip up your lagging spirits at a great crisis. And now you leave me far behind. Not the least anxious! How different I am, to be sure. It was this very morning my correspondent sent me the copies, and yet I am here, five miles from home. And when the post arrived I declare to you that such was my eagerness to ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... to obey, and his mother, leaving Mike inside to think over her remarks on cooking, stood waiting for his lagging feet. ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... lagging by; lagging, perhaps, because his feet were not shod with a pair of red moccasins; or, it may be, because he was not mounted on a Shetland pony. At last, one night in April, as they were all sitting ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... than there was any necessity for, and walked off the punt altogether. The pole was firmly fixed in the mud, and he was left clinging to it while the punt drifted away. It was an undignified position for him. A rude boy on the bank immediately yelled out to a lagging chum to "hurry up and see ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... tom-toms throbbed their rhythmic melancholy rune, hollow and dissonant. Then all at once the drums ceased; and through the night air drifted a minor chant; a wail, that rose, fell, died, and came again, lagging as ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... seal'd, and on it writ 'At Ardea to my lord with more than haste;' The post attends, and she delivers it, Charging the sour-fac'd groom to hie as fast As lagging fowls before the northern blast. Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems: ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Dora and Charlie, lagging behind, found themselves alone. They hardly dared to look at one another, lest their composure ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... describe that journey. At night we slept within any thick wood or cypress swamp we could find, and travelled on the greater part of the day. My captors exhibited a wonderful power of endurance. I walked, of course, with lagging steps, for I felt sure that could I not find means to escape, I should be put to death at the end of it. At last we fell in with the main body of the tribe. No sooner was I shown to them, than several of them declared that ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... the driver's encouraging, "Pop-pop! Dih-dih-dih! Ho-ho-ho! children of jungle swine; brothers to buffalo!" addressed to the horses lagging in the climb, fluttered away with his silly ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... tedium of the night. I observed likewise, as I made a drunken pause at the foot of the ladder in an apparently vain endeavor to steady myself, that these roisterers of the night-watch were a set of jolly dogs, and had been opening numerous bottles of red wine with which to pass lagging hours more pleasantly. They were already in that gay, thoughtless spirit of badinage which comes of fair allowance. Good humor had laid careless hand on duty, until, the stern restraint of discipline noticeably relaxing, good fellowship had become king. Their officer lay outstretched ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... influence his conduct. In other words, the punishments and the rewards to which Man is to look forward must be of the same genus, if not of the same species, as the lash of the whip that punishes the lagging race-horse, or the lump of sugar that rewards his exertions. And with the inevitable growth of egoism and individualism in the demoralising atmosphere with which legalism (and its lineal successors) must needs invest human life, Man's conception of the rewards and punishments that ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... and many days I rode, My horse's head set toward the sea; And as I rode a longing came to me That I might keep the sunset road, Riding my horse right on and on, O'ertake the day still lagging at the west, And so reach boyhood from the dawn, And be with all the ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... of the sleeping plantation, we took our way toward the river. Some bees had found late sweetness along the overgrown roadway. The air was still and sweet with the scent of sun-drying herbs. A lagging sail was on old Powhatan. About us on every hand lay the historic soil of Fleur de Hundred. We wondered where the manor-house had stood in those early colonial days when Sir George Yeardley, the governor, made his home here, with many indented servants and half the negroes in the colony ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... the narrow street That climbs the steep rock over the town, Love and the west wind in the stars; The wind and the sound of those lagging feet ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... the necessities of the hour. Every surge of the sea was an enemy to be watched and circumvented. We ate our scanty meals, treated our frost-bites, and hoped for the improved conditions that the morrow might bring. Night fell early, and in the lagging hours of darkness we were cheered by a change for the better in the weather. The wind dropped, the snow-squalls became less frequent, and the sea moderated. When the morning of the seventh day dawned there was not much wind. We shook the reef out of ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... San Juan required twice the time Howard had counted upon. And when at last he and his men urged his lagging cattle to the fringes of the village, he knew that the herd was in no condition for an immediate delivery. He rode ahead and saw Engle at the bank; from Engle he rented the best pasture to be had at hand and bought hay; then, impatient at the enforced delay, he pitched camp and strove in a week ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... steamy vapour rising from the rice fields and rejoiced. The plants were growing luxuriantly, the leaves of the willow trees were hanging yellow and wilted. Passers by on city or village streets sought the shade under the buildings, walking with languid lagging step, and, home once reached, removing every garment which etiquette—not decency—had hitherto compelled. Great was the dismay of the weaker members of the Gaman Kwai on receipt of a circular letter couched ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... obey the suasion of Mr. Rassendyll's arm, and they two began to walk down the Konigstrasse. Bauer's whistle had died away, not to return; but from time to time Rudolf hummed softly a cheerful tune, his fingers beating time on Bauer's captive arm. Presently they crossed the road. Bauer's lagging steps indicated that he took no pleasure in the change of side, but ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... to the heretics, to the minority, who would not bow to its dicta. After infinite zeal, endurance, and sacrifice, the human mind is at last free from the religious phantom; the minority has gone on in pursuit of new conquests, and the majority is lagging behind, handicapped by truth ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... and often habitual use of alkalies for acidity, of purgatives for constipation, nervines and opiates for sleeplessness, and after-dinner pills to goad into action the lagging stomach, has been a potent factor in the production of a large ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... pervaded the camp; the voyageurs sat smoking in groups, with their shoulders as high as their heads, croaking their foreboding, when suddenly towards evening a shout of joy gave notice that the lost men were found. They came slowly lagging into camp, with weary looks, and horses jaded and wayworn. They had, in fact, been for several days incessantly on the move. In their hunting excursion on the prairies they had pushed so far in pursuit of buffalo, as to find it impossible to retrace their steps over ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... less than $3,500 worth of his belongings, including the Christmas presents that he in honor could not have sold. His only encouragement came from Grant & Ripley, the lawyers. They inspired confidence in his lagging brain by urging him on to the end, promising brightness thereafter. Swearengen Jones was as mute as the mountains in which he lived. There was no word from him, there was no assurance that he would approve of what had been done to obliterate Edwin ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... so intense was his longing for Sunday night—his desire to be safe in London with Isabel Joy! Nay, he could not properly eat! And then the doubt entered his mind whether after all he would get to London on Sunday night. For the Lithuania was lagging. She might have been doing it on purpose to ruin him. Every day, in the auction-pool on the ship's run, it was the holder of the lower field that pocketed the money of his fellow-men. The Lithuania actually descended below ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... or two to key himself up to the right pitch. He stepped in beside one of the granite column bases of the First National Trust, to give an extra tug to his still lagging courage. He leaned for a moment against the huge steel grillwork that covered the wide bank window behind him, looking eastward along the side street to where he could see the oblong of light ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... signal light to prevent his squadron straggling, led the way in the darkness. Gorgopas instantly got his men on board again, and, taking the lantern for his guide, followed the Athenians, craftily lagging behind a little space, so as not to show himself or raise any suspicion of his presence. In place of the usual cry the boatswains timed the rowers by a clink of stones, and silently the oars slid, ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... to convulsive seizures the nervous system of these children is abnormal. As a rule they are excitable, and develop late the power to control their emotions. Lagging behind in physical development and in the capacity to interest themselves in the pursuits of normal children, their emotional state remains that of a much younger child. In the infant classes at schools they are recognised as dullards, learning slowly, speaking ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... always succeeds the full, and that an intelligence that was only intelligence, that had neither regret nor desire, whose movement was governed by the movement of its object, could not even conceive an absence or a void. The conception of a void arises here when consciousness, lagging behind itself, remains attached to the recollection of an old state when another state is already present. It is only a comparison between what is and what could or ought to be, between the full and the full. In a word, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... Chellaston he was hardly able to leave his own room; but all the time he talked constantly of leaving the place as soon as he was well enough to do so; and the only reason that he did not bring his will to bear upon his lagging health, and fix the day of departure, was that he could not compel himself to leave the place where Sissy was. He knew he must go, yet he could not. One more interview with her he must have, one more at least before he left Chellaston. He could not devise any way to bring this about ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... her good. She believed it was a part of her punishment, still, that she should be required to do what had all the summer been the acknowledged work of Will and her little sisters. So, though she was too weary and miserable to resist, or even to murmur, she went with a lagging step and a momentary rising of her ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... we heard the cheerful sound of the mower whetting his scythe; the air was filled with the freshness of the newly-cut grass, and with the fragrance of lilac and hawthorn blossom; and all this by half-past six a.m.! How we pitied the dullards that were lagging a-bed on that bright summer morning! One turn round the wilderness occupies ten minutes: we then drank two more tumblers of water, and took a second turn of ten minutes. Two tumblers more, and another turn; and then, in a glow of health ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... felt how far away they were from it when a ragged, dirty, vicious looking girl offered them a moss rose bud for "one penny, only one penny;" which Elizabeth, lagging behind, bought, and found it only a broken off bud stuck on to a bit ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... agreed the young man, somberly. In prospect, another twenty-four hours filled with lagging minutes! He had grown to know the hideous torture of such hours in the case of a man who before-time had found the days too ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... glimpse of two wolves, grizzled-gray and brown, which having been turned by his shot had started straight over the hill across the plain toward the mountains three miles away. As soon as I saw them I saw also that the rearmost of the couple had been hit somewhere in the body and was lagging behind, the blood running from its flanks, while the two greyhounds were racing after it; and at the same moment the track-hounds and the big dogs burst out of the thicket, yelling savagely as they struck the bloody trail. ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... goes on. It no longer has the bottom of the wave to hold it up. Where was solid water beneath it, is now air, and for the first time it feels the grip of gravity, and down it falls, at the same time being torn asunder from the lagging bottom of the wave and flung forward. And it is because of this that riding a surf-board is something more than a mere placid sliding down a hill. In truth, one is caught up and hurled shoreward ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree,— The footstep is lagging and weary; Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light, Toward the shade of the forest so dreary. Hark! was it the night wind that rustled the leaves? Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing? It looked like a rifle: "Ha! Mary, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... months had passed, lagging theory was left so far in the rear by the rapid course of events, that the Colonists felt it necessary to move up a new set of principles to the van, if they wished to present a fair front to the enemy. They had raised an army, and taken the field. Unless they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... walking together in the February twilight along the long, dark avenue of chestnuts that led to Rodding Abbey. Avery moved with lagging feet that she strove vainly ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... spaces, through the weird and checkered gloom of the deep forest, heedless even of his hunger, or perhaps driven the more by it as he thought of the wild clover bunches and tender timothy awaiting him, the solitary ox strove on. And all night, lagging far behind in his unabating caution, the panther ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... before Mayenne), where the men of the contingent might find a way of communicating with the Chouans who were no doubt hanging on his flanks. The dead silence which reigned among the recruits, surprised at the manoeuvring of the old republican, and their lagging march up the mountain excited to the very utmost the distrust and watchfulness of the chief—whose name was Hulot. All the striking points in the foregoing description had been to him matters of the keenest interest; he marched in silence, surrounded by five young officers, each of whom respected ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... horse haltered near the cabin relieved Columbine somewhat of a gathering might of emotion. The hunter would be inside and so she would not be compelled at once to confess her secret. This expectancy gave impetus to her lagging steps. Before she reached the open door she ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... transports us, and although I read and reread the Wessex poet with never-lagging attention—I find even the drawings in Wessex Poems so fascinating that I wish he had illustrated all his books—I am always conscious of the time and the place. I never get the unmistakable spinal chill. He has too thorough a command of his thoughts; they never possess ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... for the first time that very night ... to clinch my lagging resolution, the story was ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... rang for the butler, telling him to close the house and not to sit up, and walked with lagging steps into the long library, where the shaded lamps were burning. His eye fell upon the low shelves full of costly books, but he had no desire to open them. Even the carefully chosen pictures that hung above them seemed to have lost their ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... criminal! Far from a man, the preacher of justice, to pay those who have done him wrong as for a favor! This is not the way of retaining to my country; but if another can be found that shall not derogate from the fame and honor of Dante, that I will enter on with no lagging steps. For if by none such Florence may be entered, by me then never! Can I not everywhere behold the mirrors of the sun and stars? speculate on sweetest truths under any sky without first giving myself up inglorious, nay, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... open window I looked out upon a black void, utterly soundless. Not even the distant crack of a rifle now broke the solemn stillness, and the only spot of color visible was the dull red glow of a campfire on the opposite bank of the river. I had no way of computing time, and the lagging hours seemed centuries long, as ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... very slowly, his legs lagging heavily at every step. All day they searched in the river far below the falls, but not a trace could be found of the man in ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... this time all had walked; but, glancing at Gregory's lagging legs, Janet soon began to assume the little mother once again. In consultation with Kink, it was decided that on fairly level roads Moses was equal to the Slowcoach plus four passengers, and it was therefore agreed that there should never ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... let me at least enjoy those amusements which are suited to my taste a short time first. Why should I refuse the polite attentions of this gentleman? They smooth the rugged path of life, and wonderfully accelerate the lagging wheels of time. ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... like a sombre shadow in the silences of her forest. As he returned, there was not a light anywhere, except now and again at a masthead, for it was very late. The clock in Trinity steeple struck one as he reentered the town. He moved through the narrow dark and crooked streets with a lagging step, although he had walked briskly for the past hour. There seemed to be no sleep in him, and the idea of his quiet ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... officer. "But make up your minds to one thing, boys, if their caps are full of feathers and their uniforms more fit for a ball-room than for service, these same fine-plumaged birds can fight; and there must be no lagging if we are to prove ourselves their betters, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... put the society on its legs; they talked as if I were going to do everything to entertain them, and as if they themselves cared to do nothing; they seemed to be indolent, almost sluggish. First we read aloud in turns from Bjoernson's Arne, which was then new; a lagging conversation followed. Nutzhorn talked nonsense, Paludan-Mueller snuffled, Julius Lange alone occasionally let fall a humorous remark. The contrast between Nutzhorn's band, who took sociability calmly and quietly, and Kappers' circle, which met to work and discuss things to its utmost capacity, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... to tantalize my reader, but I flatter myself this history is not written with power enough to do that, and I may venture to leave him to guess whom Sir Charles Pomander surprised more than he did the actress, while I go back for the lagging sheep. ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... and started up the village street and across the hill to Burnham Breaker There was no lagging now, no indecision in his step, ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... full bloom. Not many yards away the swarthy Clodine had her kitchen beneath an acacia. Strange as it may seem, the hissing of her frying-pan as she dropped into it the shining fish did not mingle unpoetically with the murmur of lagging bees overhead and the soothing plaint of the river running over its shallows below. Nor, when the purple flush faded on the water's face, and little points of fire began to show between branches laden with the snow of flowers, did the fragrant steam that arose from ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... horse the spur, and allowing the creature to choose its course, he called on the lagging hounds, and dashed away as rapidly as he had come. The wood was light as ever, and here and there sunbeam lay, like a golden spear, along the ground yet the rich lustre of the sky, wherever it was visible the hum of numberless insects, the fresh flight of the awakened bird, ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... many important branches, but our enterprise has known no state boundaries, and many of our men and women have gone to other states. Hence, while as a people we have been leaders, as a state we have been lagging behind the more active ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness
... veered a bit. The three put a little more punch into their lagging strokes, noting, as they neared the steep bank, that a couple of men had appeared at its top and were staring at them. Gradually the long dugout worked in to the muddy shore, where the paddlers stabbed their blades into the clay ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... their advance, however, and without a pitched battle caused the enemy to retreat. Notwithstanding the fears of the French, the king of Prussia had but little interest in the war; the Austrian troops were lagging far behind, and both powers were far more absorbed in a second partition of Poland, which was approaching, than in the fate of the French king. The French now invaded Germany and took several important towns on the Rhine, including Mayence, which ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... called his niece, and proposed that we should take a stroll in his grounds, saying: "We will leave serious matters until the morning." Rivet and he began to talk politics, while I soon found myself lagging a little behind with the girl, who was really charming! charming! and with the greatest precaution I began to speak to her about her adventure, and try to make her my ally. She did not, however, appear the least confused, and listened to me like a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... a longer disappearance than usual. After a time Zaidee and Helen, with Kenneth lagging after, came disconsolately around to the front piazza. Zaidee's soft, silky, black hair lay in wet streaks, plastered down on her forehead, while Helen's golden locks were as ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... girl had somehow found out that Sir Moses Monaldini was to be at Broome Haughton, and that when he left there he was going abroad. She knew also that she had not been able to conceal that his indifference had of late given her some ghastly hours, and that her play for this lagging invitation had been a frantically bold one. That the most ingenious efforts and devices had ended in success only after such delay made it all the more necessary that no straw ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and sweet than is this bit of ocean. Were we a few degrees more southward, I would show you landscapes of rock and mountain—of bays, and hillsides sprinkled with verdure—of tumbling whales, and lazy fishermen, and distant cottages, and lagging sails—such as would make a figure even in pages that the bright eye of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... quite still, gazing with hard eyes at the slight figure hunched into drooping lines of utter weariness. Once her lips moved, but no sound came. Then she turned away, walking with lagging footsteps, and a minute later the door opened and closed quietly ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... T' invade the corn, and to their cells convey The plunder'd forage of their yellow prey. The sable troops, along the narrow tracks, Scarce bear the weighty burthen on their backs: Some set their shoulders to the pond'rous grain; Some guard the spoil; some lash the lagging train; All ply their sev'ral tasks, and ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... of your gripe is still on my throat," replied Houseman, significantly; "you know as well as I, that it is not always safe to have a friend lagging behind." ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I ventured to inquire as to the trouble which so vexed his serene temper. In reply he took up a copy of a prominent New York morning paper and pointed to a sub-editorial in which he was referred to by name as "a veteran lagging superfluous on ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... From the northern gate, the iron road stretches away to Zurich, to Basle, to Paris, to home. From the old southern barriers, before which a little river rushes, and around which stretch the crumbling battlements of the ancient town, the road bears the slow diligence or lagging vetturino by the shallow Rhine, through the awful gorges of the Via Mala, and presently over the Splugen to ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray |
