"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... peccadilloes in a man who was so resolute not to be beaten in getting my despatch to the telegraph wire, that once, when three pontoons of the bridge across the Danube were sunk, he crossed the gap hand over hand by the hand-rope, sloshing down with the current as the slack of the rope gave to his weight! Andreas became quite an institution in the Russian camp. When Ignatieff, the Tsar's intimate, the great diplomatist who has now curiously fizzled out, would honour us by partaking ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... accessible, perform a useful service for the boys and establish a point of contact. It is highly desirable that shower-baths and conveniences for a complete change of clothing be provided. If Saturday afternoon is a slack time and the farmers are likely to come to the village, he should make arrangements to care for the boys then, reserving Saturday evening for the young men. Such an arrangement secures economy in heating the building and may overcome for some of ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... it steady and high. Strong was the fisher, brave, and swift of mind and of eye— Strongly he threw in the clutch; but Rahero resisted the strain, And jerked, and the spine of life snapped with a crack in twain, And the man came slack in his hands and tumbled a lump ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Eyeing Mr. V.V. as she drew near, she soon made out that he was taking it even harder than she had expected. She herself had accepted the loss of her position with the easy fatalism of the poor, though it was a serious enough matter, in the slack midwinter and following three weeks of idleness. However, after her sex, her present overweening instinct was to erase that sort-of-white look from ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... "'cause then you had too much slack on your pins, and now you've got too much pins ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the apartment of Madame de Pompadour's famous physician, one of Quesnai's economic disciples had cried out, 'The realm is in a sore way; it will never be cured without a great internal commotion; but woe to those who have to do with it; into such work the French go with no slack hand.' Rousseau, in a passage in the Confessions, not only divines a speedy convulsion, but with striking practical sagacity enumerates the political and social causes that were unavoidably drawing France to the edge of the abyss. Lord Chesterfield, so different a man from Rousseau, declared as ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... kind o' curious how sometimes we find a great, big, awkward man who loves sech things? Bill had the biggest feet in the township, but I'll bet my wallet that he never trod on a violet in all his life. Bill never took no slack from enny man that wuz sober, but the children made him play with 'em, and he'd set for hours a-watchin' the yaller-hammer buildin' her nest ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... is ebbing, will recede from the shore; from which it would follow that the motion is only propagated in the water, like sound in air, and not the mass of water protruded. A similar species of motion is observed on shaking at one end a long cord held moderately slack, which is expressed by the word undulation. I have sometimes remarked however that a body which sinks deep and takes hold of the water appears to move towards shore with the course of the surf, as is perceptible in a boat landing ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... During slack hours it was easy, too easy. In rush hours you had to keep your head. Six waiters might breeze by in a line not one second apart, each calling an order, "Half a cantaloupe!" "Two orders of buttered toast!" "Combination salad!" (that meant ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... a contempt for "the City," And drops little jeers about Jews, If he talks of "the People" with pity, Or rails at the Sweaters as "screws," These things prove a "popular leaning," And popular leanings are low; Soft heart, and slack purse, are their meaning— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... between him and Mr. Prime. Hints dropped in my presence by some of our less flighty looking customers revealed to me the fact that there were those who predicted for him a fall as rapid as had been his rise. But I could not help feeling a little of my former jealousy return, as I noted how slack and unprofitable our ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... Maimie's visit sped by on winged feet. To Ranald they were brimming with happiness, every one of them. It was the slack time of the year, between seeding and harvest, and there was nothing much to keep him at home. And so, with Harry, his devoted companion, Ranald roamed the woods, hitching up Lisette in Yankee's buckboard, put her through her paces, and would now and then get up such bursts of speed ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... our forces in the midst of fairs, and race-days, and "slack times," have demonstrated that real soldiers of Christ can snatch victory, just when all around seems to ensure ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... dey run'd," Uncle Remus went on, "twel dey come ter Brer Tarrypin house, en dey sorter slack up 'kaze dey done mighty nigh los' der win'. Brer Tarrypin, he up'n ax um wharbouts dey gwine, en dey 'low dey wuz a monst'us tarryfyin' racket back dar in de woods. Brer Tarrypin, he ax w'at she soun' lak. One say he dunno, ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... there again behind all that noble corn-pone and spareribs, and everything that you could ever want in this world. Old Uncle Silas he peeled off one of his bulliest old-time blessings, with as many layers to it as an onion, and whilst the angels was hauling in the slack of it I was trying to study up what to say about what kept us so long. When our plates was all loadened and we'd got a-going, she ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sustained the almost lifeless body, while the other, by means of whip-cord, exceedingly fine but very strong, tied her hands behind her back, and also fastened her feet together by the ankles, allowing slack enough to enable her walk slowly. The executioner and his other assistant performed the same operation on the widow, whose features underwent no alteration; only from time to time she coughed slightly. When the condemned were thus prevented from offering any resistance, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... It was that little hell-hound Tonga who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I could not undo ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... creep upon the slack stream's face When the wind skims irritably past. The current clucks smartly into each hollow place That years of flood have scrabbled in the pier's sodden base; ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... slackest of theatre conductors, the slackest of the slack old school. I may have mentioned that once I had the misfortune to play the piano part in a number of his trios; and though these are the only compositions of his known to me they suffice. A man who had the patience to plod through the task of writing such dreary stuff and ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... the Church in public; but as a reality, not as an imposture. Those whose consciences were tough and their faith weak, had little scruple in applying to a witch, and asking help from the powers below, when the saints above were slack to hear them. Churchmen, even, were bold enough to learn the mysteries of nature, Algebra, Judicial Astrology, and the occult powers of herbs, stones, and animals, from the Mussulman doctors of Cordova and Seville; and, like Pope Gerbert, mingle science and magic, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Halsetown. Hither Irving was brought in his fourth year, and his memories of Cornwall remained vivid to his dying day. "I recall Halsetown," he said, "as a village nestling between sloping hills, bare and desolate, disfigured by great heaps of slack from the mines, and with the Knill monument standing prominent as a landmark to the east. It was a wild and weird place, fascinating in its own peculiar beauty, and taking a more definite shape in my youthful imagination ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Severn at Gloucester, and the Irish Sea about the Mersey. Parties were not moved to their depths on either side, as men are by the question of existence, and the contending armies were generally small. Therefore, the struggle was slack and slow, and the Presbyterian sects became masters of the situation, and decided for the parliament. At first, through want of energy, great opportunities were lost. In Montrose Scotland produced a soldier of genius; but in England the Ironsides prevailed ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... eyes was glued on Fiddy, as if he couldn't hardly keep from eatin' of her up. An' she behaved consid'able well for a few months, as long 's the novelty lasted an' the silk dresses was new. Before Christmas, though, she began to peter out 'n' git slack-twisted. She allers hated housework as bad as a pig would a penwiper, an' Dixie hed to git his own breakfast afore he went to work, or go off on an empty stomach. Many 's the time he 's got her meals for her 'n' took 'em to her on a waiter. Them secesh fellers'll ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... at the School. It was an absolutely inconspicuous house. There were other houses that were slack or wild or both, but the worst of these did something. Shields' never did anything. It never seemed to want to do anything. This may have been due in some degree to Mr. Shields. As the housemaster is, so the house ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... walked off indignantly. Still he was not satisfied about that mystery, and in a moment he was back again, trying in new ways to penetrate it. I was tired before he was. He was baffled only temporarily; he soon learned to draw up the fabric, hold the slack under one foot while he pulled it still further, and thus soon reach ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... behind him in the captive's place, Scarcely could see the outline of his face. I smiled, and laid my cheek against his back: "Loose thou my hands," I said. "This pace let slack. Forget we now that thou and I are foes. I like thee well, and wish to clasp thee close; I like the courage of thine eye and brow; I like thee better than ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... cool. At ten o'clock the French again exploded some mines, and for two hours renewed their cannonade as hotly as ever. The Russians could be seen pouring troops across the bridge over the harbor from their camps on the north side, to resist the expected attack. From twelve to five the firing was slack. At that hour the French again began their ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... were good for miles more at top speed. She knew if they had level ground, that meant entering the village. She decided quickly. It must be the hill. If she could only make the turn. She tightened her grip on the reins and felt the horses slack just the least little bit. She pulled hard on the left rein, and then as they came to the turn—on the right one—so as to describe a wide half circle and save the sleigh from tipping. The sudden turn frightened ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... declaring the passion which was gnawing him with the fierce fury of a Bredin customer gnawing a tough steak against time during the rush hour. He had long worshipped her from afar, but nothing more intimate than a 'Good morning, Miss Jeanne', had escaped him, till one day during a slack spell he came upon her in the little passage leading to the kitchen, her face hidden in her apron, ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... not too scrupulous sort, answering for capital. But there are many who would lightly adventure the pestilential perils of a tropic stream, or fever-haunted water-way or canal, who would yet shrink from being caught—owing to want of care, and cautious calculation as to the exact hours of slack and safety—by the hideous, irresistible, all-engulfing, all-wrecking whirl of the terrifying Stroem! Once drawn within the down-draught of that hideous vortex, a whole army might be destroyed more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... is ended we can do nothing," said his father. "Meantime, Cicely child, we shall be here at hand, and be sure that I will not be slack to aid thee in what may be thy duty as a daughter. So rest thee in that, my wench, and pray that we may be led to know ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... savagely, as the upward heave of the sea made the frames try to open. "Come back to your bearings, you slack-jawed irons!" ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... little fussy—but I know 'em," said Collie, as Boyar, apparently terror-stricken at a manzanita that he had passed hundreds of times, reared, his fore feet pawing space and the traces dangerously slack. Louise bit her lower lip and quickly called Anne's attention to a spot of vivid color on the hillside. To Dr. Marshall's surprise, Collie struck Apache, who was behaving, smartly with the whip. Apache leaped forward, bringing ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... eye, And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand Shows to the faint of spirit the right path, And he is warned, and fears to step aside. Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully Dost thou show forth Heaven's justice, when thy shafts Drink up the ebbing spirit—then the hard Of heart and violent of hand restores The treasure to the ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... gentleman in point of fact, be absolutely prohibited from hearing a "classical" concert because he wore the Queen's uniform and did that most important and necessary work which the noble Briton is too slack-baked, too hypocritically genteel, too degenerate, to perform, each man ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... and he found in this responsibility both terror and delight. The thought of the seventy-five pounds that would soon await him at the lawyer's, and of his own obligation to be present every quarter-day in Sydney, filled him for a little with divided councils. Then he made up his mind, walked in a slack moment to the inn at Clifton, ordered a sheet of paper and a bottle of beer, and wrote, explaining that he held a good appointment which he would lose if he came to Sydney, and asking the lawyer to accept this letter as an evidence of his presence in the colony, and retain the money till ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me spurs and chaps onct or twict a week and go flyin' out and whoopin' around me stock, and scarin' 'em to death, pertendin' I'm mighty interested in ridin' range. If you got a lady's goat, you want to keep it. 'Course, later on, I can kind o' slack up. Then I'm goin' to learn her to read American, and she can read that piece in the paper about me. I reckon that'll kind of cinch up the idea that her husband sure is the real thing. But I got to have them cows till she ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... barge-folk. The boats in which this class of the population live have an awning of bamboo and matting fore and aft, which is removed by day and raised at night. At sundown the boat-people anchor their craft in rows to stakes, thus forming boat-terraces as it were. When business grows slack at one part of the river, the master of the boat moves up or down stream to some other part. From the shape of these boats, resembling somewhat the half of an egg cut lengthwise, they are called in the Chinese language ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... stony, sandy soil, very favourable to the growth of cedar-trees. Having arrived at such an island, the men went ashore to cut timber. They were generally good lumbermen, for many buccaneers would go to cut logwood in Campeachy when trade was slack. As soon as a cedar had been felled, the limbs were lopped away, and the outside rudely fashioned to the likeness of a boat. If they were making a periagua, they left the stern "flat"—that is, cut off sharply without modelling; if they were making a canoa, they pointed ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... out, this time anxiously to consult sea and sky. The squall had cleared away, but the sky remained overcast. The two schooners, under all sail and joined by a third, could be seen making back. A veer in the wind induced them to slack off sheets, and five minutes afterward a sudden veer from the opposite quarter caught all three schooners aback, and those on shore could see the boom-tackles being slacked away or cast off on the jump. The sound of the surf was loud, hollow, and ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... the shop along with the men. Their busy time is during the marriage season from November to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not infrequently a member of the village establishment. During the rains, the tailor's slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage, holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujarat, in the absence of Brahmans, a Darzi officiates at Bhawad marriages, and in some ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... Jonathan, he ain't the head—for thar's his brother Abner still livin'—but, head or tail, he's the only part that counts, when it comes to that. Until the boy grew up an' took hold of things, the Revercombs warn't nothin' mo' than slack fisted, out-at-heel po' white trash, as the niggers say, though the old man, Abel's grandfather, al'ays lays claim to bein' connected with the real Revercombs, higher up in the State—However that ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... rapid physiological and psychical changes to be always equally able and fit for strenuous work. There are days in every girl's life when she is not capable of her best work, and when a wise and sympathetic teacher will see that it is better for her to do comparatively little. And yet these slack times are just those in which there is the greatest danger of a girl indulging in daydreams, and when her thoughts need to be more than usually under control. These times may be utilised for lighter subjects and for such manual work as does not need ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... A few timid Kaffirs loitering around, also a few fowls and slack-looking mongrels. Gentleman in Khaki rides up, and in the door appear two or more round-faced women wearing headgear of the baby-bonnet mode, dirty-faced children ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... seal? Have I not been industrious to provoke? From his embraces obstinately broke? Pursu'd and panted for his mortal hate, Earn'd my destruction, labour'd out my fate? And dare I on extinguish'd love exclaim? Take, take full vengeance, rouse the slack'ning flame; Just is my lot—but oh! must it transcend The reach of time, despair a distant end? With dreadful growth shoot forward, and arise, Where thought can't follow, and bold fancy dies? "Never! where falls the soul ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... passed. Wilkins worked hard at first, and his ability, his shrewdness, confounded us, as it had confounded Silas Upham. Then, he began to slack, as boys put it. Small duties were ill done or not done at all. But we liked him, were, indeed, charmed by him. As Ajax remarked, Fascination does not trot in the same class ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... no comment, but when he paid off the men Saturday night he said with careful casualness, "Sorry, Sanders. The work will be slack next week. I'll have to ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... are these fresh forces all aglow within their first zeal, and unless they are worse captains than I suppose them, they will attempt some mischief ere long—nor is any time so slack as cock-crow.' ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the Equator, and had filled up with a little 'grease,' as the Yankees term it, round about the Galapagos Islands, but business grew too slack for even a whaleman's patience. Eleven months out from Whitby, and, if my memory fails me not, less than a score of full barrels in our hold! So the Captain made up his mind to try south, and working our way across the Equator, we struck in amongst ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... other shut, and the tongue lolls out. His arms are outstretched in the form of a cross: the hands open, the fingers separated. The right leg is straight. The left, whence flowed the hemorrhage that made him die, has been broken by a shell; it is twisted into a circle, dislocated, slack, invertebrate. A mournful irony has invested the last writhe of his agony with the appearance of a ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... buttress was passed, and the prospector uncoiled his rope, it was to Mrs. Feversham he gave the other end, placing Morganstein next, with Elizabeth at the center and Mrs. Weatherbee second. Once, twice, Banks felt her stumble, a sinking weight on the line, but in the instant he caught a twist in the slack and fixed his heels in the crust to turn, she had, in each case, recovered and come steadily on. It was only when the gliddery passage was made, the peril behind, that she sank ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... back sack lick beck stock take slake pike Luke smoke tack slack pick luck smock rake stake peak duke croak rack stack peck duck crock lake dike speak coke cloak lack Dick ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... The nights were clear, so that both ships sailed night and day; until one day, towards the time the day turns to shorten, Karle and his people took up the land near an island, let down the sail, cast anchor, and waited until the slack-tide set in, for there was a strong rost before them. Now Thorer came up, and lay at anchor there also. Thorer and his people then put out a boat, went into it, and rowed to Karle's ship. Thorer came on board, and the brothers saluted him. Thorer told Karle to give him the ornament. ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... here's a rope you hain't seed yet, I'll jist explain the use of it to you in case you want the loan of it. If this here frigate, manned with our free and enlightened citizens, gets aground, I'll give you a ride on the slack of that 'ere rope, right up to that yard by the neck, by Gum.' Well, it rub'd all the writin' out of his face, as quick as spittin' on a slate takes a sum out, you may depend. Now, they should rig up a crane over ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us and help us: for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are gathered together ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... those in the final stages of the disease, wandering vaguely about the street, their faces blank and their jaws slack as though they were living in a silent world of their own, cut off from contact with the rest. "One of them almost ran into me," Jack said. "I was right in front of him, and he didn't see me or ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... distinctly, and she became conscious of an astonishment which was mixed with vague misgivings as she gazed at it, for it had subtly changed since she had last seen it. The joyous sparkle that she remembered had gone out of the eyes. They were harder, bolder, than they used to be. The mouth was slack—it looked almost sensual—and the man's whole personality seemed to have grown coarser. As she thrust the disconcerting fancies ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... her almost painfully from her companions, and she felt a pang of dread lest that difference should ever grow less. While she affected to read one of the magazines which lay on a side table, she was really occupied making a number of vehement resolutions: Never to slack in her care of her personal appearance; never to give up brushing her hair at night; never to wear a flannel blouse; never to give up manicuring her hands; never, no, never to allow herself to grow short-sighted, and be obliged to submit ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... been freshly cross-cut," declared Thurston with an ominous glitter in his eyes. "I understand you are pretty slack just now. As a favor, would you hire your chopping gang to me for a few days? I'll tell you why I want ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... maiden, why waxed thy faith so faint, Thy spirit so slack and slaw? Thy courage kept good till the flame waxed wud, Then thy might begun to thaw; Had ye kissed him with thy christened lip, Ye had wan him frae 'mang us a'. Now bless the fire, the elfin fire, That made thee faint and fa'; Now bless the fire, the elfin fire, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... these things without ceasing to ply his paddle. His objective lay some six miles up-stream. But when he came at last to the upper limit of the tidal reach he found in this deep, slack water new-driven piling and freshly strung boom-sticks and acres of logs confined therein; also a squat motor tugboat and certain lesser craft moored to these timbers. A little back from the bank he could see the roofs ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and cry out, if admonished by them, what can a mere clerk know about it? But his relations with his prince remained undisturbed. He saw with joy how the latter was beginning to gather up the reins which his gentle-minded father had allowed to grow too slack, and he hoped that if God would grant a few years of peace, John Frederick would take in hand real and important reforms in his government, and not merely command them ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... the sense to alter it? Couldn't you set up a proper Government to-morrow, if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you, instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to think, I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest. All you can think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as far as your imagination carries you. And perhaps you get sevenpence ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... "They 're getting slack, I'm afraid," said the little deep-eyed man. "Our principle is to amuse everyone. Excuse me a minute; I see that Carpenter is doing nothing." He crossed over to the man who had been drinking coffee, but Shelton had barely time to glance at his opponent ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... near. I had a revolver in my pocket and might have shot him through and through, but that novel proceeding did not occur to me until it was too late. I would have taken a Sam Patch leap into the water, and have wrestled with my antagonist in his own element, but I knew the slack, thus sure to occur, would probably free him; so I peered down upon the beautiful creature and enjoyed my triumph as far as it went. He was caught very lightly through his upper jaw, and I expected every struggle and somersault would break the hold. Presently I saw ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... close under the quay wall, and make fast to the ring down there,' came down from above, followed by the slack of the sodden painter, which knocked my cap off as it fell. 'All fast? Any knot'll do,' I heard, as I grappled with this loathsome task, and then a big, dark object loomed overhead and was lowered into the dinghy. It was my portmanteau, and, placed athwart, exactly filled all ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... took a picnic lunch, and it was on one of these trips that I first saw the Smiling Hill-Top and knew it not for my later love. How often that happens! Jogging home, with the reins slack on the placid mare's back, Grandmother liked me to sing "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms" and "Araby's Daughter," showing that she was a good deal under the spell of the palm trees and the ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... that it was his duty as a father to prevent his son enjoying himself. Ruskin's mother gratified the sensual side of her maternal passion, not by cuddling her son, but by whipping him when he fell downstairs or was slack in learning the Bible off by heart; and this grotesque safety-valve for voluptuousness, mischievous as it was in many ways, had at least the advantage that the child did not enjoy it and was not debauched by it, as he would have been by transports ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... at Priesthaughswire, And warn the Currors o' the Lee; As ye come down the Hermitage Slack, Warn doughty Willie ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without being taken ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Imbros. Forcing myself to work though I feel unspeakably slack; wrangling with the War Office about doctors, nurses, orderlies and ships for our August battles. A few days ago I sent the following cable and they want to cut ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... type was admitted to be frequently found readier for service in the preparation of entertainments "for the benefit of"—more especially when such benefits took the form of dancing. But the Duchess' little Miss Lawless came and went on errands, wasting no time. She never forgot things or was slack in any way. Her antelope eyes expressed a kind of yearning eagerness to do all she could without ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... through sheer imitation. A young Polish woman found herself in dire straits after the death of her mother. Her only friends in America had moved to New York, she was in debt for her mother's funeral, and as it was the slack season of the miserable sweat-shop sewing she had been doing, she was unable to find work. One evening when she was quite desperate with hunger, she stopped several men upon the street, as she had seen other girls do, and in her broken English asked them for something to eat. Only after a young ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... noted, and we saw some of the animals, but did not disturb them. In places where the river broadened out and the current was slack every rock that stuck above the water held its muskrat house, and large numbers of the rats ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... are looking ever so well and I wish I could hurry your leg on a little faster. Nature has ordained that bones will take just about so long to mend. And now I am going away to play. Practice happens to be quite slack to-day and Frenchy should be waiting outside with my rod. I am going to see whether I cannot deceive an innocent salmon into swallowing a ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... Penryn, he turned up the road that ran down to the ferry there, and took his way home over the shoulder of the hill with a slack rein. It was not his usual way. He was wont ever to go round by Trefusis Point that he might take a glimpse at the walls of the house that harboured Rosamund and a glance at the window of her bower. But to-night he thought the shorter road over the hill would be the safer ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... tell," sez he. "Is ut like?" sez I. "But ye might give me my railway fare. I'm far from my home an' I've done you a service." Bhoys, 'tis a good thing to be a priest. The ould man niver throubled himself to dhraw from a bank. As I will prove to you subsequint, he philandered all round the slack av his clothes an' began dribblin' ten-rupee notes, old gold mohurs, and rupees into my hand till I could hould ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... reason that Napoleon on that night received his Marshals rather coolly at his modest quarters in the village of Reudnitz. Leaning against the stove, he ran over several names of those who were now slack in their duty; and when Augereau was announced, he remarked that he was not the Augereau of Castiglione. "Ah! give me back the old soldiers of Italy, and I will show you that I am," retorted the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... country where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed idea that he must only work because he was a carpenter, but at every carpenter's shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on account of work being so slack, and finding himself at the end of his resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman, stone sawer; he split wood, lopped the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... extremity. Besides, she was wearing it in direct opposition to his expressed wishes. This I must tell you, to show how imperative it is for us to recover it; also to account for the large reward she is willing to pay. When he last looked at it he noticed that the fastening was a trifle slack, and, though he handed the trinket back, he told her distinctly that she was not to wear it till it had been either to Tiffany's or Starr's. But she considered it safe enough, and put it on to please the boys, ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... bread, but that which contained "the little leaven," that having had no time to "leaven the whole lump," rendered it still heavier of digestion; butter half-worked, tea made of water that did not get time to boil, and slack-baked cakes. I supped on cucumbers, and complaining of fatigue, was conducted by my kind aunt to the sleeping apartment next her own, as it would seem like old times to have me so near. What was wanting ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... charge at Gettysburg. Yet, if I but tell the tale as it came to me, others may feel as I did the thrill of the rushing of the keel through dashing salt water, the swing of the great white sail above, the flapping of the fresh wind in the slack of it, the exhilaration of moving with power like the angels, with the great forces of nature for muscles, the joy of it all expanding, pulsing through you, till it seems as if the sky might crack if once you let your delight go free. And some may catch, too, that other ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... bow of your boat," I said. He did so. I drew in the slack until a fair towing length remained and made it fast. While he was busy I ventured to glance at Miss Colton. Her eyes were snapping with fun and she seemed to be enjoying the situation. But, catching my look, her expression changed. She turned ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... own, caressing them, kissing them. Would it be possible to forget them, to reconcile oneself to them? He must think—must get away from these crowded streets where faces seemed to grin at him. He remembered that Parliament had just risen, that work was slack in the office. He would ask that he might take his holiday now—the next day. And they ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... so much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... slaves. As for the vital industries, everything prospered. The members of the great labor castes were contented and worked on merrily. For the first time in their lives they knew industrial peace. No more were they worried by slack times, strike and lockout, and the union label. They lived in more comfortable homes and in delightful cities of their own—delightful compared with the slums and ghettos in which they had formerly dwelt. They had better food to eat, less hours of labor, more holidays, and a greater amount ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... busy time of all the year, affording no leisure for those dinners and whist parties which came in the early season, when the country families had just arrived from town, or in the late season, when prune picking grew slack. Night finds one weary in the country, even when his day has brought only supervision of labor. These town-bred folk, living from the soil and still but half welded to it, fell unconsciously into farmer habits in ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... placed at considerable distance from each other; eyes not large, but brisk and lively; neck slender and long, tapering toward the head, with a little loose skin below; shoulders and fore quarters light and thin; hind quarters large and broad; back straight, and joints slack and open; carcass deep in the rib; tail small and long, reaching to the heels; legs small and short, with firm joints; udder square, but a little oblong, stretching forward, thin skinned and capacious, but not low hung; teats or paps small, pointing outward, ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... as the subject of one of those old-fashioned forms of argument, formerly much employed to convince men of error in matters of religion, must have felt when the official who superintended the stretching-machine said, "Slack up!" ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... With a slack bridle his horse was left to refresh himself on the sward, while Carlos proceeded to the execution of a design that had been matured in his mind ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... he was in the air; then he landed feet-first on a table which collapsed under him, spilling him to the floor. He got up and saw that he was in a Hadji-class living room. An old woman sat in a rocking chair less than three feet away. Her jaw was slack with terror; she kept on ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... open a door suddenly, and we looked into an underground hall, where a dozen men were carousing—Duke Casimir's Hussars of Death, black-browed, evil-faced, slack-jowled villains every man of them, cruel and sensual. A blast of ribald oaths came sulphurously up, as if the mouth of hell had ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... all well defined as compared with the career of Emma, whom he characterizes as a "moral pervert.'' The mother is a well-meaning, hard-working, moderately intelligent woman of about 45. She is said to be somewhat slack in her household, but perfectly honest. The father is desperately alcoholic and peculiar at times. It is not known that his aberrations are ever shown apart from his drinking. Years ago he was in a hospital for the insane ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... believed?—the penitent's eye twinkled with momentary vanity. "I fastened a tea-cup to an iron rake, and filled the cup with powder; then I passed it in, and spilt the powder out of cup, and raked it in to the smithy slack, and so on, filling and raking in. But I did thee one good turn, lad; I put powder as far from bellows as I could. Eh, but I was a bad 'un to do the like to thee; and thou's a good 'un to come here. When I saw thee lie there, all scorched and shaking, I didn't like my work; and now I hate it. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... all these streams is the same—slack water of moderate depth alternating with rapids. They can never be navigated by anything larger than ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Rapid is two miles long and has, or had, a fall of 10 feet the Chte Blondeau a quarter of a mile with a fall of 4 feet and the Longue Sault six miles and a fall of 46 feet. Between the Carillon and Chte Blondeau there is or was a slack water reach of three and a half miles, and between the latter and the foot of the Longue Sault a similar reach of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... explained, "Mr. Blackett is too big a man, and too easy-going to attend to his business as he should. But I suppose he's rich enough and can afford to be a trifle slack." ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... spite of all my resistance, and all we could do was to follow. But I soon lost track of him and control of him: sometimes he was ahead, and I could feel him; sometimes he was alongside, and the line was slack and dragging on the water, most dangerous of positions; sometimes the canoe went fastest, and the salmon was behind me. My men handled the canoe admirably, and brought me through safe, fish and all; for when we emerged into the still pool below, and I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... board and lodging, and keep the rest for yourself. Let your payments be such as will do a little more than actually cover the expense of what you have. Give a thought to the general comfort of the home, and in time of need when perhaps your father's work is slack, be ready to increase your help, even though it may ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... tests as to hardness of sizing answer every ordinary purpose: Moisten with the tongue, and if the paper is slack-sized you can detect it often by the instant drawing or absorption of the moisture. Watch the spot moistened, and the longer it remains wet the better the paper is sized. Look through the spot dampened—the poorer the sizing the more transparent is the paper where it is wet. ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... falls slack, his face, dark and grim, Grows gentle with memories tender, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, And their mother—"may heaven ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... Robson, there followed after the memorable Condor-Stillman musicale a period of slack-water. It seemed as if a deadly stagnation was to poison her existence, so sharp and emphasized was her boredom. On the other hand, Mrs. Robson seemed to have contrived, from years of living among arid pleasures, the ability to conserve every happiness that she chanced upon to its ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... and Palmer assumed mock politeness, "I've heard enough of your slack; dry up or I'll ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... Tom Spooner it can only be said that he is still a bachelor, living with his cousin Ned, and that none of the neighbours expect to see a lady at Spoon Hall. In one winter, after the period of his misfortune, he became slack about his hunting, and there were rumours that he was carrying out that terrible threat of his as to the crusade which he would go to find a cure for his love. But his cousin took him in hand somewhat sharply, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... soil retains Our royal hero's beauteous, dear remains; Who now sails off with winds nor wishes slack, To bring his sufferings' bright companion back. But e'er such transport can our sense employ, A bitter grief must poison half our joy; 1070 Nor can our coasts restored those blessings see Without a bribe to envious destiny! Cursed Sodom's doom for ever fix the tide Where by inglorious ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... of trees on the edge of the field. Their shade invited like a beckoning hand. Little beads of perspiration stood on her forehead. A warm lassitude spread through her body, turning her muscles slack. Hadn't Gertrude said Aunt Jessica didn't let them work in too ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... alone To this weed are not prone; Would you know what 'tis makes them so slack—O? 'Twas because it inclined To be honest the mind, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... neglect the cockles, which were her native trade. In busy times she could afford to hire over one of the Saltash fish-women—the Johnses or the Glanvilles; you'll have heard of them, maybe?—to lend her a hand: but in anything like a slack season she'd be down at low water, with her petticoat trussed over her knees, raking cockles with her own hands. Yes, yes, a powerful, a remarkable woman! and a pity it was (I've heard my mother say) to ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... notice a system of water and sewage purification which appears to possess several substantial advantages. Chief among these are simplicity in construction and operation, economy in first cost and working and efficiency in action. This system is the invention of Messrs. Slack & Brownlow, of Canning Works, Upper Medlock Street, Manchester, and the apparatus adopted in carrying it out is here illustrated. It consists of an iron cylindrical tank having inside a series of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... the dancers give themselves to the saxophone. Their feet keep a rendezvous with the umpah umps. Their thoughts dance on the slack wire of the clarinet. Their veins beat time to the whinny of the derby wreathed cornet. The fiddles and the drums are partners for their arms and their muscles. But their hearts embrace shyly the Mother Aphrodite. Their hearts listen sadly and ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... now ran a full half-mile wide, splitting the town with its yeasty race. An annual occurrence, this was a matter of small moment to the severed halves. Each would pursue the even tenor of its way till the slack of the rains permitted communication by canoe and the rebuilding of the bridge. But it had special significance now in that Andrea ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the Lolling Table; where our Discourse is, what I fear you would not read out, therefore shall not insert. But I assure you, Sir, I heartily lament this Loss of Time, and am now resolved (if possible, with double Diligence) to retrieve it, being effectually awakened by the Arguments of Mr. Slack out of the Senseless Stupidity that has so long possessed me. And to demonstrate that Penitence accompanies my Confession, and Constancy my Resolutions, I have locked my Door for a Year, and desire you would let my Companions know I am not within. I ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele |
