"Rapid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... savage appeared nearer the land and George could see his lithe, sinewy form and the grace and rapidity with which he urged his gossamer bark along. It was like a hawk—half a dozen rapid strokes of his wings and then a smooth glide ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... instructions, young man—they are surely simple enough not to overtax your powers—, and I confidently promise that you shall soon be a first-class rhetorician like myself; after which I need not tell you what great and what rapid advancement Rhetoric will put in your way. You have but to look at me. My father was an obscure person barely above a slave; he had in fact been one south of Xois and Thmuis; my mother a common sempstress. I was myself not without pretensions to beauty in my youth, which earned ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... thought it far off, not then knowing the Hudson's midsummer habits, nor the rapid violence of the July storms it hatches and drives roaring among the eastern hills and across the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... of good breeding. My coming was the choicest news that Dever had had to give out for many a day, and the circulation was amazing in its rapid transit. I had a host of friends here where I had grown to manhood, and the first impulse was to take Cliff Street by storm. It was Cam Gentry who counselled ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... went off fairly smoothly. Mrs. Maitland sat down before anybody else. "Come, good people, come!" she said, and began her rapid "Bless, O Lord," while the rest of the company were still drawing up their chairs. "Amen, soup, Mrs. Richie?" she said, heartily. The ladling out of the soup was an outlet for her energy; and as Harris's ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... mornings by five o'clock. The operation occupies from 20 minutes to half an hour in summer, and considerably longer in winter. A steady uniform motion is necessary to produce sweet butter; neither too quick nor too slow. Rapid motion causes the cream to heave and swell, from too much air being forced into it: the result is a tedious churning, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague anxiety. What did these sealed mysterious letters bring him? What did they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the writing, selecting them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent; further on, strangers. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... co-operation with all the helps of God. But during life, the process of development was slow—so very slow, that we were at times tempted to think it had ceased altogether. But in the Beatific Vision the process is rapid as a flash. The soul is suddenly transformed into that degree of likeness to God which she has deserved by a holy life. She is made like to God, because she sees Him as he is. It is this glorious vision ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... fell into a long rapid stride. In spite of the cold he threw open his coat, and carried his outer covering on his arm. Peter had no intention of going into an up-town drawing-room with any suggestion of "sixt" ward tobacco. So he walked till he reached Madison Square, when, after a ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... with his regiment a pontoon bridge, Stephen Brice heard a shout raised on the farther shore. Sitting together on a log under a torch, two men in slouch hats were silhouetted. That one talking with rapid gestures was General Sherman. The impassive profile of the other, the close-cropped beard and the firmly held cigar that seemed to go with it,—Stephen recognized as that of the strange Captain Grant ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his own name. It came in to him out of the darkness, followed by a peal of laughter. Rapid steps sounded coming across the courtyard, and the sweat ran from Meeus's face and his stomach crawled as, with a bound across the veranda, a huge man framed himself in the doorway and stood motionless as ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... a sight for sore eyes," Helen Cameron shot over her shoulder, but without losing sight of the road ahead. She was a careful, if rapid, driver. "And for any other eyes! One couldn't very well miss ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... carefully so as to keep the skins unbroken. Broken spots in the skin cause rapid decay. Do not permit good fruit to remain in contact with specked or rotted fruit. Stored fruit should be looked over frequently and all specked or rotted fruit removed. Sweet potatoes are an exception. Picking over, aggravates the trouble. See that these vegetables are ...
— Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918) • C. Houston Goudiss and Alberta M. Goudiss
... seems to Edith; and Lady Helena sits up and rubs her eyes, and says it is Catheron Royals. The girl leans forward and strains her eyes, but can make out nothing in the darkness save that long line of wall and waving trees. This is to be Trixy's home, she thinks—happy Trixy! Half an hour more of rapid driving, and they are at Powyss Place, and their journey is ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... to her pretty little house in the faubourg, it was still early; so she took a pen and wrote a few rapid lines, enclosed them in a perfumed envelope, and rang the bell. "Take this letter to Monseigneur the Cardinal de ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... being rushed. Another volley rang out; there was a cheer, in which the two helpless privates joined; and directly after the fugitives were saved from being battered among the rocks by ready hands, whose efforts were covered by the rapid firing from the ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... the bench and began a rapid ascent of the stairway. Half-way up she turned and looked down at the three conspirators. "I sha'n't like it," she cried, ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... was stimulating, and she was making rapid progress in the management of the little car which her father had offered to lend her for use in visiting the one hundred or more rural schools soon to come under her supervision. She rather fancied the picture of herself, clothed in more or less ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... his visit and had left the apartment. She would then drive up into Harlem and sit happily with her sister-in-law and the baby, whom she adored with a fervour that surprised not only herself but the mother, whose ideas concerning Anne were undergoing a rapid and enduring reformation. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... halls is by no means to be despised. It was from a position like this that Counselor Disbecker rose within a few years to a legal standing that enabled him to get $70,000 out of Jake Sharpe for lawyer's fees. Transpositions are rapid in New York, and Billy McGlory, who was on the Island a few months ago for selling liquor without license, may be an excise ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... that extends south. This brings us to the nineteenth day of July, 1849. On the night of this day water froze to the thickness of one-fourth of an inch in our buckets. The following day we commenced descending the western slope, which was very rapid and rough. The twenty-first brought us to Green River which was swollen and appeared to be a great barrier. Here, for the first time, we brought our pontoons into use and swam the mules, so that after two days of hard work we were ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... extended order we came to our position, 200 yards distant from the front trenches. At the sound of the officer's whistle, we sank to the ground, facing our front, fixed our sights, and loaded. A second whistle was blown; we fired "three rounds rapid" at the foe. The aiming was very accurate; little spurts of earth danced up and around the targets, and every iron disc fell. The "searching ground," the locality struck by bullets, scarcely measured a dozen ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... turned himself, he carried them with him. Crowds of Members flocked into the House from libraries and smoking-rooms when it was known that this ne'er-do-well was on his legs. The Strangers' Gallery was filled to overflowing. The reporters turned their rapid pages, working their fingers wearily till the sweat drops stood upon their brows. And as the Premier was attacked with some special impetus of redoubled irony, men declared that he would be driven to enrol the speaker among his colleagues, in spite of dishonoured bills and evil reports. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... bell-shaped pink and white flower on the vigorous vine clambering over stone walls and winding about the shrubbery of wayside thickets in a suffocating embrace is akin to the morning-glory of the garden trellis (C. major). An exceedingly rapid climber, the twining stem often describes a complete circle in two hours, turning against the sun, or just contrary to the hands of a watch. Late in the season, when an abundance of seed has been set, the flower can well afford to keep open longer hours, also in rainy ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... conceived the bold design of letting himself fall from a height of 1,200 feet, and he accomplished the exploit before the Parisians. When he had reached the height he had fixed beforehand, he cut the rope which connected the parachute with the balloon. At first the fall was terribly rapid; but as soon as the parachute spread out the rapidity was considerably diminished. The machine made, however, enormous oscillations. The air, gathering end compressed under it, would sometimes escape by one side sometimes by the other, thus ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... narrow temperate zones from a wide equatorial band of tropical to subtropical climates Terrain: highest elevation is Mt. Everest at 8,848 meters and lowest depression is the Dead Sea at 392 meters below sea level; greatest ocean depth is the Marianas Trench at 10,924 meters Natural resources: the rapid using up of nonrenewable mineral resources, the depletion of forest areas and wetlands, the extinction of animal and plant species, and the deterioration in air and water quality (especially in Eastern Europe and the former USSR) pose serious long-term problems that governments and ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... did; but since I came here I've been going in for it rather more, though I never dreamt of such rapid promotion." ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... watchman's cry Speaks a conflagration nigh!— See! yon glare upon the sky Confirms the fearful tale. The deep-mouthed bells with rapid tone, Combine to make the tidings known; Affrighted silence now has flown, And sounds of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... passed on. Longer and longer grew the intervals of silence between the scattered noises from the streets; less and less frequent were the sounds of distant carriage-wheels, and the echoing rapid footsteps of late pleasure-seekers hurrying home. At last, the heavy tramp of the policeman going his rounds, alone disturbed the silence of the early morning hours. Still, the voice from the bed muttered incessantly; but now, in drowsy, languid tones: still, Mr. Bernard did not return: ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... the prospect from the front door, were the views from this charming spot. Rising to a considerable elevation above the river to which it descended with a rapid slope, it commanded not only the former view to the south, though more extended, but also one to the northwest. Beneath, at a depression of eighty feet, lay the lake-like river with its green islets dotting the surface, while, at a short distance, the Fall of the Yaupaae precipitated ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... questions followed each other in rapid succession. A robbery at Brenlands! The thing seemed impossible; and yet here was the empty case to prove it. The watch had disappeared, and no one had the slightest notion what could ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... imposed on the user as in the tax on his memory. It was found to be practically a necessity to make this switching function automatic, principally because of the liability of the user to forget to move the switch to the proper position after using the telephone, resulting not only in the rapid waste of the battery elements but also in the inoperative condition of the signal-receiving bell. The solution of this problem, a vexing one at first, was found in the so-called automatic hook switch ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... upon the American Commander-in-Chief, in view of this rapid development of hostilities beyond the reach of his army, was intense. Clinton had been authorized to burn all cities that refused submission. In a letter to Congress, Washington wrote: "There has been one single freeze, and some pretty good ice," but a council of war opposed an assault. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... They could not cross this stream by the bridge without going by the mill again, which they were both afraid to do. The king proposed that they should go a little way below, and ford the stream. Richard was afraid to attempt this, as he could not swim; and as the night was dark, and the current rapid, there would be imminent danger of their getting beyond their depth. Charles said that he could swim, and that he would, accordingly, go first and try the water. They groped their way down, therefore, to the bank, and ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... man who has sought anxiously for another, all through the late evening, in a great city, knows how hopeless the attempt seems after the first hour. The rapid motion through many dusky streets, the looking in, from time to time, upon some merry company assembled in a warm room under a brilliant light, the anxious search among the guests for the familiar figure, the disappointment, as each fancied resemblance shows, on near approach, ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... were all, of course, of a most advantageous character, and had we accepted them I feel sure that, joining either ship with the reputations which we had honestly won for ourselves, our advancement in the service would have been certain and rapid. But something in the admiral's manner caused me to hesitate, so, with hearty thanks to each for his kind offer, I begged the favour of a few hours for consideration; and Courtenay, taking his cue from me, did ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... would be the least profitable course to pursue. A hundred-thousand-acre ranch is not sold in a hurry unless offered at a tremendous sacrifice. Even then it is of slow sale. For the following reasons: Within a few years, what with the rapid growth of population in this state and the attrition of alien farmers on our agricultural lands, this wonderful valley land of the Rancho Palomar will cease to be assessed as grazing land. It is agricultural ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... not know why I do. But what would you have? She loved me then, and she had the voice and the disposition of an angel. I have never been very happy. I think sometimes, monsieur, that we others, who care much for art, are not permitted that. But certainly those few, rapid days, when she was a child, were good; and yet they were the days of my defeat. I found myself out then. I was never to be a great artist, a maestro: a second-rate man, a good music-teacher for young ladies, a capable performer in an orchestra, what ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... of the Countess della Torres. The wounded comrade of our friends had been struck by a ball, which had not been readied by the probe, and was supposed to have entered the lung. The poor young fellow draws his rapid breath with much pain, but is full of pluck, and meets the encouraging assurances of his friends with a smile and words of fortitude. Some time afterwards we learn that he is convalescent, though in a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... 1860 nearly 40,000,000, and our wealth have been more than doubled, if slavery had been extinguished in 1790, is one of the revelations made by the census; whilst in science, in education, and national power, the advance would have been still more rapid, and the moral force of our example and success would have controlled for the benefit of mankind the institutions of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was the teacher of elocution, now stepped forward, and out of a pile separated from the larger one of manuscripts took up and read the six poems; then followed, in rapid succession, essays and stories, until at ten minutes before nine, the school having evidently heard all they wished with the spread in prospect, ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... transparent. Their short feet, which they use very little, are so tiny one can scarcely see them. They alight only at night, resting in the air during the day. They have a swift continual humming flight. The movement of their wings is so rapid that when pausing in the air, the bird seems quite motionless. One sees him stop before a blossom, then dart like a flash to another, visiting all, plunging his tongue into their hearts, flattening them ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... her knees, and knots her garments bind; Loose was her hair, and wanton'd in the wind; Her hand sustain'd a bow; her quiver hung behind. She seem'd a virgin of the Spartan blood: With such array Harpalyce bestrode Her Thracian courser and outstripp'd the rapid flood. "Ho, strangers! have you lately seen," she said, "One of my sisters, like myself array'd, Who cross'd the lawn, or in the forest stray'd? A painted quiver at her back she bore; Varied with spots, a lynx's hide she wore; And ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... was next undertaken by the men alone. They first equipped themselves with bows, arrows, and stout clubs; then they formed a circle, indulged in the most rapid and fantastic movements, and brandished their clubs as if dealing death to a hundred foes. Suddenly they broke their ranks, strung their bows, placed their arrows ready, and represented all the evolutions of shooting after ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... as deities, excited the imagination of our ancestors less than might have been expected, and even now attract comparatively little attention, from the fact that they are always with us. Comets, on the other hand, both as rare and occasional visitors, from their large size and rapid changes, were regarded in ancient times ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... small, flat-bottomed boat did the landlady's daughter row Flemming "over the Rhine-stream, rapid and roaring wide." She was a beautiful girl of sixteen; with black hair, and dark, lovely eyes, and a face that had a story to tell. How different faces are in this particular! Some of them speak not. They are books ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... After the rapid succession of fascinating pictures which are etched for us in the opening chapters of the Gospel there follows a space of about twelve years of which we are told nothing. The fables which fill the pages of the ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... the bill right bravely and added sixpence for the waiter, though it cost him as great a pang as the wrenching of a double tooth. A rapid calculation told him that he must dine at the Aerated Bread Shop for several days to come. Whilst he was thus computing Polly drew out her gold watch. It caught his eye, he stood transfixed, and his stare rose from the watch to ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... from the room and out of the house, bareheaded; John snatched his hat and stick in the hall and overtook her as she fled through the iron grille. They ran together a short distance. Then Phyllis slackened the pace to a rapid walk. She was breathless, her hands pressed to her heart; a maid distraught. Pitiful, inarticulate little cries escaped her from time to time. John walked beside her, silently. They passed through ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... great west, told primarily for boys but which will be read by all who love mystery, rapid action, and adventures in the ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... with him when he came to the fort, and eight more joined us there, making forty in all. Each man had two saddle horses, and there was one pack horse to every four men. Everything being ready, we left Bent's Fort on what would be considered in these days of rapid transit a long and tiresome journey on horse back, over trackless mountains and plains, through valleys, across rivers, in danger of attacks from wild animals ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... for models, and with Church music perpetually starting in their memories cadences, iambic or trochaic, dactylic or anapaestic, to which to set their own verse, it is not surprising that English poets should have accompanied the rapid changes of their language itself with parallel rapidity of metrical innovation. Quantity they observed loosely—quantity in modern languages is always loose: but it does not follow that they ignored ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... long time to fill, and patience seemed a harder virtue than ever. Perhaps the last fact had something to do with the rapid decline of Monsieur the Viscount's health. He became paler and weaker, and more fretful. His prayers were accompanied by greater mental struggles, and watered with more tears. He was, however, most positive ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... orator, and as a writer rapid and brilliant, but not profound. Even thus, however, he catered to an age at once artificial and superficial. Very observant of what he saw, he rushed to his closet and jotted down his views in electrical words, which made themselves immediately ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... a similar custom in Australia, Eyre (Central Australia, i, p. 213), says: "This extraordinary and inexplicable custom must have a great tendency to prevent the rapid increase of the population."—Stanley. [Stanley does not translate this ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... rapid the change was! What a flood of happiness poured into my soul, and glowed in my whole being! Landlord, more port! Would honest Jack have drunk a binful I would have treated him; and, to say truth, Jack's sympathy was large in this case, and it had been generous all day. I decline to score the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this theory, caloric is composed of particles perfectly separate from each other, every one of which moves with a rapid velocity in a certain direction. These directions vary as much as imagination can conceive, the result of which is, that there are rays or lines of these particles moving with immense velocity in every possible direction. Caloric is thus universally ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... gone up about a mile, when further progress was stopped by a ridge of rocks stretching across from side to side marking the limits of the tidal influence. Over this the rush of fresh water formed a strong rapid backed by a deep, sluggish, winding stream, draining a large basin-like valley bounded behind by the central ridge of the island, the principal hills of which attain an elevation of from 992 to 1,421 feet, and one, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... steel cricket are analogous instruments. Both produce a sound by reason of the rapid deformation and recovery of an elastic substance—in one case a convex membrane; in the other a slip of steel. The "cricket" was bent out of shape by the thumb. How is the convexity of the cymbals altered? Let us return to the "church" and break down the yellow curtain which closes the ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... never witnessed a sadder sight than that of a new milch cow, torn away from home and friends and kindred dear, descending a steep, mountain road at a rapid rate and striving in her poor, weak manner to keep out of the way of a small Jackson Democratic wagon loaded with a big hogshead full of tobacco. It seems to me so totally foreign to the nature of the cow to enter into the tobacco traffic, a ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... this rapid review of the chief interpreters of the American spirit in literature, is a twofold one. We are primarily concerned with a procession of men, each of whom is interesting as an individual and as a writer. ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... have had a more rapid development than wire-making. During the last thirty years the world has been girdled by telegraphic wires and cables, requiring an immense and continuous supply of the article. In New York alone two hundred pianos a week have ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... friend. His Millennium was earthly, human; his philosophy sunny, untroubled by Dantesque depths or shadows; his campaign unmartial, constitutional, a frank focussing of the new forces emergent from the slow dissolution of Feudalism and the rapid growth of a modern world. Towards such a man the House of Commons had an uneasy hostility. He did not play the game. Whig and Tory, yellow and blue, the immemorial shuffling of Cabinet cards, the tricks and honours—he ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... coming in, there could be no doubt. Out there in the full light, he could not possibly have detected that rapid appearance of my head darted forward and withdrawn at once; but I had a view of his arm putting aside the swinging flask, of his leg raised to step over the high sill. I saw him, and I ran noiselessly away from ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... rapid, in the coppermine river, Dr. Richardson's party abandoned the boats, with the remainder of their cargoes of provision, iron-work, beads, &c. to the first party of Esquimaux which should chance to pass that way; and on the 10th ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 278, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... strong and brave in their young manhood, venture on this stream of rapid currents, have watched them with sad eyes, and called to them in pleading and terrified tones, as they were carried on and on by the rushing waters. At last, it was too late even for mother's love to save, and they were drawn ...
— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm
... down, we descended into the Piazza del Popolo, and thence into the Via Ripetta, and emerged through a gate to the shore of the Tiber, along which there is a pleasant walk beneath a grove of trees. We traversed it once and back again, looking at the rapid river, which still kept its mud-puddly aspect even in the clear twilight, and beneath the brightening moon. The great bell of St. Peter's tolled with a deep boom, a grand and solemn sound; the moon ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a message from these Spanish troops who had made a rapid and successful advance into the heart of the town, informing him that they were not far from the market-place, and that they wished to have his permission to push forward, as they already heard the noise of the combats which the ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... to attitude and declamation. The actors raised on high boots above their natural height, their faces hidden in masks and their tones mechanically magnified, must have relied for their effects not upon facial play, or rapid and subtle variations of voice and gesture, but upon a certain statuesque beauty of pose, and a chanting intonation of that majestic iambic verse whose measure would have been obscured by a rapid and conversational delivery. The representation would thus become moving sculpture to the eye, ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... begun his studies some two weeks previous and was making rapid progress, studying evenings, and going to the school a half hour ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... and threw the offending paper into the fire, and watched it slowly burn. When it had been consumed, the carbon residue of one sheet still retained its form, and she could read the words on the charred portion. A sentence, which had escaped her eye in her rapid reading, stood out in ghostly black ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... men had reached the other bungalow, the far-off modulated rumble growled incessantly, while pale lightning in waves of cold fire flooded and ran off the island in rapid succession. Ricardo, unexpectedly, dashed ahead up the steps and put his ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the Captain, quietly arranging the teacher's untidy hair with his hand. Then the Captain listened to his breathing, which was rapid and uneven, and looked at his sunken gray face. He sighed and looked upon him, knitting his eyebrows. The lamp was a bad one . . . The light was fitful, and dark shadows flickered on the dosshouse walls. The Captain watched them, ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... was about to remonstrate and insist on being allowed to carry the pitcher to the house before going to the field; but on second thoughts he resigned his slight burden, and, saying "farewell", turned on his heel and descended the path with rapid step and a somewhat ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... in rapid succession. The Connie snapper-boats scattered as the proximity fuses produced flowers of fire among them. Two near misses, but they threw the enemy off course. Rip watched tensely as the boats fought to ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... cost much pains and many dainty morsels to drill Sir Charles, with all the aid of his excellent fundamental education; and the great fear had been that he might fail them at the last. But the scenes were rapid, in consideration of canine infirmity. If the cupboard was empty, Mother Hubbard's basket behind was not; he got his morsels duly; and the audience was "requested to refrain from applause until the ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... ranges. Technically speaking, the amplitudes of the oscillations are increased. The current does this, however, without altering the periods of the old vibrations, or the times in which they were executed. But besides intensifying the old vibrations the current generates new and more rapid ones, and when a certain definite rapidity has been attained, the wire begins to glow. The colour first exhibited is red, which corresponds to the lowest rate of vibration of which the eye is able to take cognisance. By augmenting the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... ungodliness of certain characters. The rambling voluptuary who is carried along by every impulse, and all whose powers of mental discipline are so enfeebled that he has become the slave of every propensity, lives in the perpetual harvest of criminal gratification. A daughter whose sole delight is in her rapid transitions from one scene of expensive brilliancy to another, who dissipates every care and fills every hour among the frivolities and fascinations of her volatile society,—she leads a life than which nothing can be imagined more opposite to a life of preparation for the coming judgment ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... steamship across the sea. But this speed is like the movements of the sloth, or the crawling march of the snail, when compared to the swiftness with which light travels; light flies nineteen million times faster than the fleetest race-horse, and electricity is more rapid still. Death is an electric shock which we receive in our hearts, and on the wings of electricity the liberated soul flies away swiftly, the light from the sun travels to our earth ninety-five millions of miles in eight minutes ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... and moderate return, if he would know the blessedness of a cheerful heart and the sweetness of a walk over the round earth. This is a lesson the American has yet to learn,—capability of amusement on a low key. He expects rapid and extraordinary returns. He would make the very elemental laws pay usury. He has nothing to invest in a walk; it is too slow, too cheap. We crave the astonishing, the exciting, the far away, and do not know the highways of the gods when we see them,—always a sign of the decay of the faith ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... onto the pavement the well-shaped little foot of some young beauty, at another the heavy boot of a cavalry officer, and then the silk stockings and shoes of a member of the diplomatic world. Fur and cloaks passed in rapid succession before the gigantic porter at the entrance. Hermann stopped. "Whose house is this?" he asked of the watchman at ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... perspective, their shadowy hopes and fears,—all that they dare not, or that, daring and desiring, they could not expose to the open eyes of day. But thought can with difficulty visit the intricate and winding chambers which it inhabits. It is like a river whose rapid and perpetual stream flows outwards;—like one in dread who speeds through the recesses of some haunted pile, and dares not look behind. The caverns of the mind are obscure, and shadowy; or pervaded with a lustre, beautifully bright indeed, but shining not beyond their ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the exercise "of a first-rate, four-mile race-horse, sometimes displaying his whole power and speed for a few leaps, and then taking up again." "At last," according to Randolph, the orator "got up to full speed; and took a rapid view of what England had done, when she had been successful in arms; and what would have been our fate, had we been unsuccessful. The color began to come and go in the face of the chief justice; while Iredell sat with his mouth and eyes stretched open, in perfect wonder. Finally, Henry arrived ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... young hunters were used to rowing together, so they made rapid progress when once they had caught the stroke. Simon Lundy sat in the stern of the ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... difficulty of dealing with this majority so acute. In 1831 the creation of forty peerages would have been sufficient to meet the Tory opposition to the Reform Bill; to-day it is said that about four hundred are required to give the Liberals a working majority in the Lords. The rapid making of peers began under George III., but from 1830 to the present day Prime Minister after Prime Minister has added to the membership of the House of Lords with generous hand. Satire, savage and contemptuous, ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... to his son his accumulations and his fever for gain. He had but one child. The second Reuben built upon the foundations this afforded him, a fortune as much larger than the first as the rapid growth and increasing capabilities of the country gave him enlarging opportunities to acquire. It was no longer necessary to deal with savages: his powers were called upon to cope with those of white men who came to a new country to struggle for ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... suffocated by the smoke. Our hands were burned, either in endeavoring to protect our faces from the insupportable heat, or in brushing off the sparks which every moment fell upon our garments. In this inexpressible distress, and when a rapid advance seemed to be our only means of safety, our guide stopped in uncertainty and agitation. Here probably would have terminated our adventurous career, had not some pillagers of the first corps recognized the emperor amid the whirling flames: they ran ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... stranger had taken one or two rapid glances at her, and the surprise on his face grew. "Where are the rest of the party?" ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... believe that this was beyond all endurance, because I could not venture to say to him MUCH TOO QUICK! besides, it is far easier to play a thing quickly than slowly; some notes may then be dropped without being observed. But is this genuine music? In rapid playing the right and left hands may be changed, and no one either see or hear it; but is this good? and in what does the art of reading prima vista consist? In this—to play the piece in the time in which it ought to be played, and to express ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... awfully little to offer you, old man," he managed to blurt out when at length the last scone had disappeared, and the rapid, one-sided meal was at an end. Field still made no reply, for he was almost asleep in his seat. He merely looked ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... farther and farther apart. It was necessary for the merchant to find a substitute for his direct personality, which no longer served to draw customers to his door. He had to have a bond between the commercial center and the home center. Rapid transit eliminated distance but advertising was necessary to inform people where he was located and what he had to sell. It was a natural outgrowth of changed conditions—the beginning of a new era in trade which no longer relied ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... in use here; but, of course, not generally, as the smaller patches of corn only admit of the old system; and the corn is so ripe that it is often threshed on the field immediately after the cutting; the harvesting process is rapid; we often see only one or two labourers, whether men or women, on a single patch. But there is no waiting, as a rule, for fine weather to cart away the corn, and masters and men work with a will. We must, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... deemed by this lady a rapid, a boisterous lover—and she may like me the less for it: but all the ladies I have met with, till now, loved to raise a tempest, and to enjoy it: nor did they ever raise it, but I enjoyed it too!—Lord send ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... will, most likely," said Nurse, who was very skilful in concluding a subject which she did not want to discuss, and who was apt to do so by a rapid twist in the line of argument, which Ida would find somewhat bewildering. "But, dear Miss Ida," she continued, "do leave off clutching at that chair-arm, when I'm lifting you up; and your eyes 'll drop out of your head, if you go on staring ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of wars and battles is necessarily tedious, yet it cannot be omitted without slurring over some highly important and interesting facts. It is impossible not to be struck with the extraordinarily rapid way in which a body of fierce heathen invaders overran two great Christian and comparatively civilised states. We cannot but contrast the inertness of Northumbria and the lukewarmness of Mercia ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... days on which office files rest in peace, and the gun, the rifle and the rod are made to justify their existence. Most Indians, unfortunately, hold a different opinion of December. These love not the cool wind that sweeps across the plains. To them the rapid fall of temperature at sunset ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... at new and full moons. Then the workmen laid down their tools, and rushed off from their labour to play mad pranks up and down the country. Perpetual motion was required to alleviate the agony of fury that seized upon the Cagots at such times. In this desire for rapid movement, the attack resembled the Neapolitan tarantella; while in the mad deeds they performed during such attacks, they were not unlike the northern Berserker. In Bearn especially, those suffering from this madness were dreaded by the pure race; ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell
... well distributed throughout the growing season and is rarely insufficient or excessive. The summer rainfall comes largely in the form of local showers, scarcely ever attended by hail. Loudoun streams for the most part are pure and rapid, and there appears to be no local cause ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... I asked when we were lighting our pipes. "A strenuous day? Two in rapid 'concussion' with ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... For his own steamer passed the Minnie just above Neufahrwasser, where the river is broad and many vessels lie in mid-stream. The Minnie was deeply laden and lay anchored bow and stern, with the rapid tide rustling round her chains. She was ready for sea. Cartoner could see that. But she flew no bluepeter nor heralded her departure, as some captains, and especially foreigners, love to do. It adds to their sense of ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... were so dense with fish that his vessels could hardly move in them. He received a gratuity of L10 and a pension, and made a great sensation in Bristol by walking about the city dressed in fine silk garments. He took other voyages also with his son Sebastian, who followed with him the rapid widening stream of discovery and became Pilot Major of Spain, and President of the Congress appointed in 1524 to settle the conflicting pretensions of various discoverers; but so far as our narrative is concerned, having sailed across ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... brief period of maximum territorial expansion following the defeat and destruction of Carthage, the frontiers of the Roman Empire were pushed out ruthlessly, North, East, West and South. In the hurly-burly of rapid expansion individual rights were ignored, local communities and entire regions were overrun, depopulated and resettled with the tough disregard of individual and local interests that must characterize any quick, general movement—economic, sociological or military. If the expansion, expulsion ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... Under Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain was a great and thriving nation, almost beyond precedent. Her colonial possessions rivaled those of the entire world; but her glory has vanished, and her decadence has been so rapid as to be phenomenal, until she is now so humbled there are very few to ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... court. He had a large, stern mouth, and was squarely built, with a stubborn Jewish face. Nevertheless he was known to be a man of dexterous, supple nature, one who had a foot in every political camp, and invariably contrived to be on good terms with the powers that were. This explained his rapid rise in life, and the constant favour he enjoyed. In the very first words he spoke he alluded to the new ministry gazetted that morning, referring pointedly to the strong-handed man who had undertaken the task of reassuring peaceable citizens and making evil-doers tremble. Then ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... on making mutual arrangements to have, if we live in crowds, some kind of spiritual rapid transit system for getting our minds through to one another. We demand a system for having the streets of our souls decently lighted, some provision for moral sewers, for air or atmosphere—and all the common conveniences for having ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... four points in I Q. Father a laborer, dull, subject to fits of rage, and beats the boy. Mother not far from border-line. F. H. has always had the best of school advantages and has been promoted to the seventh grade. Is really about equal to fifth-grade work. Fairly rapid and accurate in number combinations, but cannot solve arithmetical problems which require any reasoning. Reads with reasonable fluency, but with little understanding. Appears exceedingly good-natured, but was once suspended from school for hurling bricks at a fellow pupil. Played a "joke" on another ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... Monastery at Viterbo, for the Love of a Scots Nobleman. Intermix'd with many other Entertaining little Histories and Adventures which presented themselves to her in the Course of her Travels." No moralizing, no romantic idealism disturbs the rapid current of events. It is a pure "cloak and sword" novel, definitely located in Italy, with all the machinery of secret assignations, escapes from convents, adventures on the road and at inns, sudden assaults, duels, seductions, and ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... with a thorough-bred air of knowing her business which impressed Matilda very much. Tapes unrolled themselves deftly, and pins went infallibly into place and never out of place; and Madame measured and fitted and talked all at once, with the smooth rapid working of a first-rate steam engine. New York mantua-making was very different from the same thing at Shadywalk! And here Matilda saw the wealth of her new wardrobe unrolled. There was a blue merino and a red cashmere and a brown rep, for daily wear; ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... startled by the outbreak of a fanatical insurrection, which gives sufficient proof of the strangely hysterical state into which the nation had been driven by a series of bewilderingly rapid transformations, political and religious. It was the natural result of the sudden suppression of the strange freaks of religious fancy which were symptomatic of the age, and alike in its origin and ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... awake thinking about it. He fell into dozes, and dreamt that Mr. Grant had turned him off the place, and had made Red Mick manager, and that Miss Grant was going to marry Red Mick; then he woke with a start, and heard through the darkness the rapid hoof-beats of a horse ridden at speed up the road from Kiley's, and the barking of dogs that announced the ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... the lad, running up quietly from behind, and bringing his stick down heavily on the poor brute's back; "hey up, Teddy!" and away trotted the donkey at a rapid pace up ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... be excused, using the old childish formula: "May I get down?" Sometimes he would come speeding out of his room, to read aloud a passage he had written to my mother, or to play a few chords on the piano. He would not as a rule join in games or walks—he went out for a short, rapid walk by himself, a little measured round, and flew back to his work. He generally, I should think, worked about eight hours a day at this time. In the evening he would play a game of cards after dinner, and would sit talking in the smoking-room, ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson |
