"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dismissed, And now was travelling towards his native home. 425 This heard, I said, in pity, "Come with me." He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up An oaken staff by me yet unobserved— A staff which must have dropt from his slack hand And lay till now neglected in the grass. 430 Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared To travel without pain, and I beheld, With an astonishment but ill suppressed, His ghostly figure moving at my side; Nor could I, while we journeyed thus, forbear 435 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... stunning him. Hunsa, with the death-grip still on the roomal, planted a knee between the victim's shoulder-blades, and jerked the head upward—still the spine did not snap; and slowly tightening the pressure of the cloth he smothered the man beneath his knee till he felt the muscles go slack and the ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... moment. Few indeed! When I can make Of ten small words a rope to hang the world! "I had you and I have you now no more." There, there it dangles,—where's the little truth That can for long keep footing under that When its slack syllables tighten to a thought? Here, let me write it down! I wish to see Just how a thing like that will look ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... now, but the cold had frozen them and the going was getting constantly better. The snow was thin and in places the sleds slewed sidewise and the dogs ran on slack traces across long stretches of bare glare ice. It was while negotiating such a place as this that Rock paid the price of his earlier carelessness. Doret's dry moose-skin soles had a sure grip, hence he never hesitated, but the lieutenant's moccasins were like a pair of tin shoes now ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... demanded. "Struck it big?" he went on as the dingy gold scales were produced from the shelf at the back. Then he laughed amiably. "It needs to be big, wakin' me in my slack time." ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... day they withdrew the money from the bank, and, when business got a little slack, in the afternoon set out in search of a clothing store. Dick knew enough of the city to be able to find a place where a good bargain could be obtained. He was determined that Fosdick should have a good serviceable suit, even if it took all the money they had. The ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... the same bad tone, want of sufficient numbers of boys of equal standing in the school-work, and other disadvantages, which make the very name of a private school malodorous. The boys are rough and unmannerly, the discipline slack, the teaching staff inferior in ability and social position. The public schools of Australia may not be all that could be wished, but [Greek characters] that a boy of mine should ever go to a colonial private school, unless it were a preparatory school—a class of ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... sure that she would thrust her matrimonial happiness with Oliver unsparingly upon his attention; while he, on the other hand, being provided with no corresponding Olivette, would be left, a sort of emotional celibate, with his slack times and his afternoons and his general need for flattery and amusement dreadfully upon his own hands. He would be tormented by jealousy. In which case—and here he came to verities—his work would suffer. It wouldn't grip him while all these vague ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... I really don't want any tea. I've gone slack on purpose because that's how I want to be till nine o'clock. I've just eaten an enormous oyster stew with Rush. That's what we ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... hydrated lime I would suggest that you buy fresh burned lump lime and do the hydrating yourself, which only requires that you add eighteen pounds of water to each fifty-six pounds of quick lime; in other words, that you slack the lime by adding water in the proper proportion. Both quick lime and hydrated lime are known as caustic lime. Webster says that the word caustic means 'capable of destroying the texture of anything or eating away its substance by ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... man be not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." How will he know this? By the heart consolations and comforts it brings him. The Holy Spirit will bear witness with his spirit that he is a child of God. "God is not slack concerning his promises." When he says: "Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people," do you think he has no way of letting them know they are his people? Will not a father and mother own the child they love? How ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... hired from the National Lifeboat Society. The tides flowed very strongly alongshore, east on the flood tide and west on the ebb. Food, fishing lines, and a skipper for the day being provided, the old boat would go off with the tide in the morning, the boys had a picnic somewhere during the slack-water interim, and came ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... morning, as usual, on one of these swindling expeditions, and demanded of me the loan of some fine slack. Not knowing what she meant by fine slack, and weary of her importunities, I said I had none. She went away in a rage. Shortly after she came again for some pepper. I was at work, and my work-box was open ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... of the canal and military installations by the US has given rise to new construction projects. The MOSCOSO administration inherited an economy that is much more structurally sound and liberalized than the one inherited by its predecessor. Even though export demand is likely to remain slack in some key markets - especially the Andean countries - GDP growth in 2000 probably will be 3% to 4%. Key reform initiatives from the previous administration - including the privatization of public utilities - remain uncompleted. ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... namely, how the devil would have destroyed all Germany in its own blood. But now they may confidently deride it and make a mock of it, however, we shall nevertheless be a match both for themselves and the devil by prayer alone, if we only persevere diligently and not become slack. For whenever a godly Christian prays: Dear Father let Thy will be done, God speaks from on high and says: Yes, dear child, it shall be so, in spite of the devil ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... a slack day with him," she said rather gravely. "I assure you he works harder than most clergymen, and is very conscientious and painstaking. He is not at all strong, but he never ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... so to wander and so to question, for in a little while they are going to take me out and do this thing to me. If the neck of the victim be broken by the alleged shrewd arrangement of knot and noose, and by the alleged shrewd calculation of the weight of the victim and the length of slack, then why do they manacle the arms of the victim? Society, as a whole, is unable to answer this question. But I know why; so does any amateur who ever engaged in a lynching bee and saw the victim throw up his hands, clutch the rope, and ease ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the women, he was unabashed by externals. He demanded "tea" of his mother that very moment, "cos 'e 'adn't no time for dinner and 'is bloke 'ad sent 'im round to get a bit o' somethink now," at a slack hour. ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... culinary triumphs, always found their way to the prior's table, and an excellent understanding had always been maintained between the two houses. But the knight had observed of late that the prior had become more slack in those visits of friendly courtesy which once had been common enough between them; and when he had presented himself at the monastery, he had not been quite certain that his welcome was as cordial as heretofore. It was not until latterly that this had caused him any uneasiness—it had taken ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... see that all the parishioners duly resort to their Church upon all Sundays and Holy-days, and there continue the whole time of Divine Service; and none to walk or to stand idle or talking in the Church, or in the Churchyard, or in the Church-porch, during that time. And all such as shall be found slack or negligent in resorting to the Church (having no great or urgent cause of absence) they shall earnestly call upon them; and after due monition (if they amend not) they shall present them to the Ordinary ...
— Churchwardens' Manual - their duties, powers, rights, and privilages • George Henry
... of that drawer an' found two letters from Milly. One was a long letter written a few months after her disappearance. She had been bound an' gagged an' dragged away from her home by three men, an' she named them—Hurd, Metzger, Slack. They was strangers to her. She was taken to the little town where I found trace of her two years after. But she didn't send the letter from that town. There she was penned in. 'Peared that the proselytes, who had, of course, come on the ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... irrespective of attractiveness, long before the development of either of the principal parties concerned; but even then the rude, open-spoken husband would consider himself absolved from any attention to an ill-favoured wife, and the free tongues of her surroundings would not be slack to make her aware of her defects. The cloister was the refuge of the unmarried woman, if of gentle birth as a nun, if of a lower grade as a lay-sister; but the fifteenth century was an age neither of religion ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hundreds and thousands at each other in play, and call it a Comfit Battle or Battaglia di Confetti (that's real Italian). And he wanted to get up that sort of thing among the village people—but they were too beastly slack, so he ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... 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 ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... improvin' the human race. Now look here, Mis' Carrington, let an old woman talk. I'm old and I got wrinkles in my face but there ain't none in my heart, and the only way to keep 'em out of your heart is just to fill it to bustin' with love. Keep the skin tight; don't let it git slack. Why, you'll find you been goin' without love and it's like eatin' without an appetite. It's fillin' your life with somethin' that don't satisfy. Even if you feel you ain't got the best man in the world, make the best of the one you got, and, just 'cause he's yourn, you'll believe after a while ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... It was now nearly slack water, on a high flood, and the schooner lay just above the bend of the creek. Presently a large, portly-looking man, dressed like as Yorkshire farmer, came, to the bank, and in a stentorious voice ordered the captain to haul into the creek at once! The manner in which the order was given ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... which to put our Bass and Weak Fish, laid in a stock of cold provisions—among other things a Cold Shoulder—plenty of exhilarating beverages, and, with Buoyant Spirits, (every Man of us,) and plenty of ice on board, started on the slack of the Morning Tide. I regret to state that by the time we were ready to start our Skipper was half way "Over the Bay," being provided with a pocket pistol charged to the muzzle. He and his two subordinates were pretty well "Shot in the neck" by the time ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various
... without personal transportation in Texas. Catherine remained in Wisconsin because she was too new at being a Mekstrom to know how to conduct herself so that the fact of her super-powerful body did not cause a lot of slack jaws and high suspicion. ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Colonel found a man who'd just settled down in Tottingham and opened a shop there. Came from Biddeford, Maine, I believe, and thought he was pretty foxy. 'Well,' he says, 'there ain't any money in it for me at those figures, Colonel, but work's slack an' I'll take the contract.' You see, he thought he could charge a little more here an' there an' make something. But he didn't know the Colonel. Every time he'd talk about things costin' more than he'd thought the Colonel would flash that contract on him. When the ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... will get here on Thursday afternoon. It's lucky we came up to-day. My letters are from Johnnie and Cecy Slack. Johnnie says—" ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... dropped now. For these are coasts of quiet nights and boisterous days. The tide was almost slack. "The Last Hope" was scarcely moving, and in the shadowy light looked like a phantom ship sailing out of a dreamy ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... everybody else's. A couple of mechanics were tinkering on one of them. I decided, for the oomptieth time, to do something about cleaning it up. Say in another two or three hundred hours, when the ships would all be in port and work would be slack, and I could hire a couple ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... Civil Service which you so adorn Would lose its prestige, visibly grown slack, And all its lofty pledges be forsworn Were you to deviate from your boots of black; Were you to shed that coat of sombre dye, That ebon brain-box (imitation beaver) Whose torrid aspect strikes the passer-by With ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... his sails, but the surf was running very strong, and presently a heavy sea broke clean over her. Then came confusion and dismay: the flapping of the wet, half-lowered sails, and the whipping of the slack ropes, making all effort useless. There was no chance of her- holding. Foot by foot she was being driven towards the rocks. Sailors stood motionless on the shore. The lifeboat would be of little use: besides, it could not arrive ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... That men should be slack, When their bosoms lack An object of passion, To look such a lass on, Her patience distressing, The bestial ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... merchant made 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 lay ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... along the coast,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh in—not properly born, till flood. He's a going out with the tide. It's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood, and go ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... can'di date trap an'vil gland cal'i co plat ban'ish slack grat'i tude sham bran'dy ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... warmly did it; two-months' babies leapt Right upward in their mother's arms, whose black Wide glittering eyes looked elsewhere; lovers pressed Each before either, neither glancing back; And peasant maidens smoothly 'tired and tressed Forgot to finger on their throats the slack Great pearl-strings; while old blind men would not rest, But pattered with their staves and slid their shoes Along the stones, and smiled as if they saw. O heaven, I think that day had noble use Among God's days! So near stood Right and Law, Both mutually forborne! Law would not ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... New Republic, "has created just such a demand for the Negroes. Colored men who formerly loafed on street corners are now regularly employed. Negro girls who found it once difficult to obtain good jobs at domestic service have leaped into popularity. The market for labor has taken up all the slack. There is a demand for all, for skilled workers, unskilled, semi-employables, Negroes. The employment agencies cannot meet the demand. Construction camps which formerly relied on Italian or Polish laborers now seek to secure an alternative supply of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... elder, had worked as green hand for a dressmaker, for one shilling and sixpence per week—37.5 cents per week, or a fraction over 5 cents per day. However, when the slack season came she was discharged, though she had been taken on at such low pay with the understanding that she was to learn the trade and work up. After that she had been employed in a bicycle store ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Sometimes, when work was slack, I would walk far afield with Diana for my companion, or we would jog to market with the Tinker in the four-wheeled cart, hearkening to his shrewd animadversions upon men and life in general; and Diana's ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... 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 ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... alone remained upon the wharf. As he saw the rush coming he had ordered his men to abandon their load; then he ran to the after-mooring, and, taking slack from a deck hand, cast it off. Back up the dock he went to the forward hawser, where, at a signal, he did the same, moving, toward the last, without excessive hurry, as if in a spirit of bravado. The ship was clear, and he had not cut a hawser. He had done his ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... the man, and disappeared in the muddy water. He rose to the surface under the ship's quarter, and the mate, quick as lightning, dumped the whole coil of the slack of the main sheet on to the top of him. In a moment he was at the level of the rail, the mate and the steward hauling steadily on the rope, to which he clung with the tenacity and somewhat the attitude of a monkey. At the same instant a splash ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... the worn drab oilcoth in the hall, and he smelt the smell of stale cooking which floated through the green lattice door at the back. All the sweetness of life, all the beauty, all the decency even, seemed strangled in that smell as if in some malarial air. And in the midst of it, the unkempt, slack figure of Belinda, with her bitter eyes and her sagging skirt, passed perpetually under the flickering gas-jet up and down the dimly lighted staircase. This was how one marriage had ended—one marriage among many which had ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... dog filled the engineer with a fear that he had not anticipated. Not for an instant did the brute give slack to his tongue as they raced through the night, and Howland knew now that the storm and the darkness were of little avail in his race for life. There was but one chance, and he determined to take it. Gradually he slackened his pace, drawing and cocking his revolver; ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... shaken and very much in earnest; but he was never the man to give for any lengthy while too slack a rein to emotion; and so he now sat down upon the bench and lighted a cigarette and smiled. Yet he fully recognized himself to be the most enviable of men and an inhabitant of the most glorious world imaginable—a world wherein he very assuredly meant to marry ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... ten knots good now, and with every jerk the painter of the seine-boat chafed and groaned in the taffrail chock. The skipper from the boat called for more line. "Slack away a bit, ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... himself, said Chung-kung, and slack in his claims on the people, might do; but to be slack himself and slack with others must surely be ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... story as Yada himself was—the main point to them was that they had recovered their property. Naturally they felt remarkably grateful to Melky Rubinstein for his astuteness in circumventing Yada at what might have been the last moment. And one day, at that portion of it when business was slack and everybody was feeling comfortable after dinner, Melky called on Mrs. Goldmark and became confidentially closeted with her in a little parlour behind her establishment which she kept sacred to herself. Mrs. ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... Mendocino has a rock-bound coast, with no harbors, but she has fine forests. Here the lumber steamer secures its cargo by means of suspended wire chutes as trolleys. The outer end of the trolley wire is anchored in the ocean, the wire crosses the deck of the moored steamer, the slack being taken up to the ship's gaff, thus making a tight wire up and down which the trolley car with ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... be indulgent if I write less regularly now: and by indulgent I mean that you will go on writing to me, as I do enjoy your letters so much. I expect I shall have slack times when there will be plenty of leisure to write: but at others we are likely to be busy, and you never can be sure of having the necessary facilities. And personally I find my epistolary faculties collapse at about 100 deg. in the shade. I wrote quite happily this morning till ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... widely open, the 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
... now the Moors, Arabians, Ethiops black, Of the left wing that held the utmost marge, Spread forth their troops, and purposed at the back And side their heedless foes to assail and charge: Slingers and archers were not slow nor slack To shoot and cast, when with his battle large Rinaldo came, whose fury, haste and ire, Seemed earthquake, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... Kendal, his son; a hard, blond giant; high cheeks, raw ruddied; high bleak nose jutting out with a steep fall to the long upper lip; savage mouth under a straight blond fringe, a shark's keen tooth pointing at the dropped jaw. Arched forehead drooping to the spread ears, blond eyebrows drooping over slack lids. ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... great man's life, but no suspicions need exist. It was all told to me in strict confidence by Gooley Can in his tent at Luxor, over a cup of afternoon tea. He explained that he had dug out these facts in the museums in the slack season when tourists were scarce, and that I could rely ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... as it were reached a climax, when, instead of the line breaking or Mark going over the side, the strong cord, which had been hissing here and there through the water, suddenly grew slack, and the tension was taken off Mark's muscles and mind to give place ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... day. There is "absenteeism," which has always been affected by a reduction of hours, and which amounts to 6.6 per cent. of the working time of the mines, and there is the margin of stoppages through slack trade and other circumstances, which at present aggregates 7 per cent. of the working time of the mines. Taking these last two alone, they aggregate 13 per cent., or considerably more, as a margin, than the ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... was found, at the very outset, in getting men to ship for service on the regular cruisers. Privateers were being fitted out in every port; and on them the life was easy, discipline slack, danger to life small, and the prospects for financial reward far greater than on the United States men-of-war. Accordingly, the seafaring men as a rule preferred to ship on the privateers. At no time in the history ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... of him was in fine modelling, and he had a pleasant face of the English blue-eyed type. Just then it was suffused with almost boyish merriment, and indeed an irresponsible gaiety was a salient characteristic of the man. One would have called him handsome, though his mouth was a trifle slack, and there was a certain assurance in his manner that just fell short of swagger. He was the kind of man one likes at first sight, but for all that not the kind his hard-bitten neighbours would have ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... which the raging torrent of the highland tributaries spent itself without doing extraordinary damage in that immediate region. Bridges which might have been lost in a smaller flood like that of 1902 were actually standing in slack water by the time the mountain torrents appeared in force. These streams caused much destruction higher up in the mountains, but in the Central Basin their energy became potential—a gathering of forces to be loosed upon the lower valley. A discussion ...
— The Passaic Flood of 1903 • Marshall Ora Leighton
... the church and held thanksgiving services. A stillness brooded over the town. Life hardly moved; the strands hung slack. Thanksgiving soon changed to revival. Services lasted a week. The ministers preached terrible sermons, burning with terrible words. "Repent before it is too late. Twice God has warned this town." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... herds. The horse wranglers were detailed by Priest, and fitting an axle to the spool of wire, by the aid of ropes attached to the pommels of two saddles, it was rolled up to the scene of its use at an easy canter. The stretching of the wire was less than an hour's work, the slack being taken up by the wranglers, ever upholding Texas methods, from the pommels of saddles, while Priest clinched the strands with staples at the proper tension. The gates were merely a pliable extension of the fence, the flexible character requiring ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... speaking. While giving my attention to this particular study, I was greatly impressed by the extreme importance of maintaining an erect spine, holding the chin down, inward and backward, and keeping the shoulders back and the chest expanded. I found, however, like many others who become "slack" in bodily posture, that a considerable effort was required to maintain a proper position at all times. I therefore began a series of special exercises intended really to force myself to assume a properly erect position. While experimenting ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... her a drawin' of tea and a couple of nut-cakes: mebby she'll relish 'em, for I shouldn't wonder ef she hadn't had a mouthful this blessed day. She's dreadful slack at the best of times, but no one can much wonder, seein' she's got nine children, and is jest up from a rheumatic fever. I'm sure I never grudge a meal of vittles or a hand's turn to such as she is, though she does beat all for dependin' on her neighbors. I'm a thousand times obleeged. You needn't ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... another older skilled worker, an able and clever Russian girl of twenty-one, an operative and trimmer, earned $12 a week. She had been idle twelve weeks on account of slack work. For four weeks she had night work for three nights a week, and payment for this extra time had brought her income up to $480 for the year. Of this sum she paid $312 ($6 a week) for board and lodging alone in a large, pleasant room with ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... we be all traitors unto God, and are all under the condemnation of His holy law. Shall the traitor arraign the Judge? And unto the repenting traitor, God's hand falleth not in punishment, but only in loving discipline and fatherly training. You slack not, I count, to give Honor her physic, though she cry that it is bitter and loathsome; nor will God set aside His physic for your Ladyship's crying. Yet, dear my Lady, this is not because He loveth to see you weep, but only because He ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... and through quagmire he plashed, His pace never daring to slack; Till the hostel he neared, for greatly he feared Old Grindrod would leap on ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... advancing toward us at a brisk canter and the drum turned fast, taking up the slack of the tether; but, as though not satisfied with this rate of progress, several soldiers were running back and jumping up to haul in the rope. The sergeant who took care of the telephone was hard put to it to coil down the twin wires. He skittered about ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... stretched string that gives out musical notes; the slack one is dumb. And if we desire that we may be able to be sure, as our Master was, when He said, 'I know that Thou hearest me always,' we must pray as He did, of whom it is recorded that 'He prayed the more earnestly,' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... he drove down both feet on the pedals. The indignant car stalled. Through the blackness ahead, the white ray from the lamps had picked up a weird object. And the two brethren stared at it, slack-jawed. ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... the slave dig the mine, but for me let the diamond sparkle. Let the lamb, the dove, and the life-loving eel writhe and die; it shall not disturb me, while I enjoy the viands. The five senses are my deities; to them I pay worship and adoration, and never yet have I been slack in the ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... dozing. Having in mind the keenness of desert-bred stock, he watched the horse. The minutes drifted by. The horse seemed more distinct. Waring thought he could discern the picket rope. He endeavored to trace it from horse to picket. Foot by foot his eyes followed its slack outline across the ground. The head of the metal picket glimmered faintly. Waring closed his eyes, nodded, and caught himself. This time he traced the rope from picket to horse. It seemed a childish thing to do, yet it kept him awake. Did he imagine ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... fear of you was, that you would dash into debate at once, like a tumbler jumping from a precipice; and that, like him, all that you would have gained by it would be broken limbs for life. If the fellow had kept to his slack-rope and his stage, he would have been safe enough, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... strange a smell, as if we had been in the midst of a delicate garden, abounding with all kinds of odoriferous herbs and flowers, so we were assured that the land could not be far distant; and keeping good watch, and bearing but slack sail, the fourth of the same month we arrived upon the coast, which we supposed to be a continent, and firm land; and we sailed along the same a hundred and twenty miles, before we could find any entrance or river issuing ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... switches, a jamming of the whistle lever to set the canyon echoes yelling in the hope of arousing Gallagher, and Graham slammed his engine into the forward motion without pausing to close the throttle. There was a grinding of fire from the wheels, a running jangle of slack-taking down the long line of empties, and the freight train shot ahead, snatching its rear end out of harm's way just as Gallagher, dreaming that his boiler had burst and that all the fiends of the pit were screeching the news of it, came to life ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... to sea when she was captured, and in the slack water she had not drifted at all. He went ahead slowly, and soon had the bell to stop her; but he expected this, for the channel was narrow, and it required considerable manoeuvring to get the steamer about. Then ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... which sees in all directions and is indifferent to distance. Go into one quiet, soft-carpeted room, and certain small glittering machines flash in the bright light. "Click, click—click, click!"—long strips of tape are softly unwound and fall in slack twisted piles. One of those machines is printing off a long letter from Berlin, another is registering news from Vienna, and by a third news from Paris comes as easily and rapidly as from Shoreditch; subdued ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... most desirable trades are seldom open to her, for they require workers of experience, or, at least, those who have had recognized instruction. Even if a green girl enters a skilled trade, she cannot rise easily in it, and is apt to be dropped out at the first slack season. The sort of positions open to her have usually little future, as they are isolated occupations that do not lead to more advanced work. Illustrations of these employments are wrapping braid, sorting silk, running errands, tying fringe, taking out and putting ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... reasons for not thinking too harshly of the Devil. Most of it was an abridgement of some verses Jurgen had composed, in the shop when business was slack. ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... little grassy knoll close to the water was Chris flat on his back, his mouth open, fast asleep. A half dozen fine bass lay on the grass beside him, the end of his fishing line was tied to one ebony leg, and a coil of slack line ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... amended. We were on the sand of the sea nigh the Ship- stead and the Rollers of the Raven, and we were gathering the wrack and playing together; and we saw a round-ship nigh to shore lying with her sheet slack, and her sail beating the mast; but we deemed it to be none other than some bark of the Fish-biters, and thought no harm thereof, but went on running and playing amidst the little waves that fell on the sand, ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... Luke, and there was no proof that he had received hers. Lucy began gradually to despond; for work became slack, and at times she only got enough to employ her half the day. Not to lose ground, however, she hired herself to the neighbouring farmers' wives to sew during her spare time, leaving Dame Damerel to the occasional care of Susan Larkin. While she was sitting at work during ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... hisn interfere with his work, ner to make it an excuse fer claimin' he's different. That's colts' talk, an' don't you fergit it, Tweezy. An', Marcus, you remember that hem' a philosopher, an' anxious to save trouble,—fer you ate,—don't excuse you from jumpin' with all your feet on a slack-jawed, crazy clay-bank like Boney here. It's leavin' 'em alone that gives 'em their chance to ruin colts an' kill folks. An', Tuck, waal, you're a mare anyways—but when a horse comes along an' covers up all his talk o' ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... the rabble of men and women who had been threatened, the dwellers in those twelve houses next the inn, who came dragging our brick-faced knave of a host, with that hard-polished countenance of his slack and clammy—slate-gray in color too, all the red tan ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... of the boulder. The mason who fixed it, standing waist-high in water as the tide ebbed, called for a rope and hitched it round the ankle of the dead man. The dead man's brother jumped down beside him and grasped the slack of it. ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Mr. Slack, of the town of Kenton, was egregiously given to egotism. He was a man of ordinary education, but somewhat elevated above his neighbours in worldly circumstances. He carried himself with an air of imposing importance, as though he was lord of the entire ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... in the same place, her hands crossed on her knees, her head slightly bent, in an attitude of brooding retrospection. As she looked back at her past life, it seemed to her to have consisted of one ceaseless effort to pack into each hour enough to fill out its slack folds; but now each moment was like a miser's bag stretched ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... she is, the lustre of whose eye Can blot away the sad remembrance Of all these things: Oh my Evadne, spare That tender body, let it not take cold, The vapours of the night will not fall here. To bed my Love; Hymen will punish us For being slack performers of his rites. Cam'st thou ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... fast with plenty of slack to the rope in case the tide should rise high, he got out and then he and Percival ascended the first slope, helping ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... him. He did not make the mistake of making the end fast to his own body as he might have done in some circumstances. Instead he threw the rope over the rock, taking one quick turn about it. He had no more than taken that turn when the slack on the rope was suddenly taken up and the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... especially that of the morning, meekness, compunction, careful self-examination every evening, fasting, humility, alms, &c. In Pa. 43, p. 146, he thus apostrophizes the rich: "Hear this, you all who are slack in giving alms: hear this, you who, by hoarding up your treasures, lose them yourselves: hear me you, who, by perverting the end of your riches, are no better by them than those who are rich only in a ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... thing—to me—appears to be fairly plain. It starts out with the association of Baxter and the dishonest bank-manager. The bank-manager, left in charge of this old-fashioned bank at Blyth, where any supervision of his doings was no doubt pretty slack, and where he was, of course, fully trusted, examines the nature of the various matters committed to his care, and finds out the contents of those Forestburne chests. He then enters into a conspiracy with Baxter for purloining them and some other valuables—those jewels you mentioned, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... before the train arrived. Putting spurs to his horse, he flew down the track, the gravel flying in all directions, his sure- footed animal keeping the ties, nor did he pull rein or slack his speed until the large tank of the water station rose above him. Jumping from his horse, he walked to the keeper's shanty. The man was awake and trimming his lantern, nor did he exhibit any surprise at the ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... drowsiness is at his most potent, we find, about 10:30 P. M. At this period the human carcass seems to consider that it has finished its cycle, which began with so much courage nearly sixteen hours before. It begins to slack and the mind halts on a dead centre every now and then, refusing to complete the revolution. Now there are those who hold that this is certainly the seemly and appointed time to go to bed and they do so as a matter of routine. These are, commonly, the happier creatures, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... men an' boys, an' they carted him araound town in an old dory till the bottom fell aout, and Ireson he told 'em they'd be sorry for it some day. Well, the facts come aout later, same's they usually do, too late to be any ways useful to an honest man; an' Whittier he come along an' picked up the slack eend of a lyin' tale, an' tarred and feathered Ben Ireson all over onct more after he was dead. 'Twas the only tune Whittier ever slipped up, an' 'tweren't fair. I whaled Dan good when he brought that piece back from school. You don't know no better, o' ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... Nor was Franklin slack. Hovering with his great division in the plain below and knowing that he was beaten, he nevertheless turned one hundred and sixteen cannon that he carried with him upon Jackson's front and swept all the ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... down his slate, and going to the shaft dropped the bucket down as far as the slack rope reached; then, placing one hand on the bole of the windlass and holding the other against it underneath, he let it slip round between his palms until the bucket reached bottom. A sound of shovelling was ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... supper. Daylight's first thought was that city living had not agreed with her. And then he noted the slight tan and healthy glow that seemed added to her face, and he decided that the country was the place for her. Declining an invitation to supper, he rode on for Glen Ellen sitting slack-kneed in the saddle and softly humming forgotten songs. He dropped down the rough, winding road through covered pasture, with here and there thickets of manzanita and vistas of open glades. He listened ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... In the slack time between the seasons, Isak smooths down some new tree-trunks he has thrown; to be used for something or other, no doubt. Also he digs out a number of useful stones and gets them down to the ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... question was fairly launched into politics, by the admission, for the first time, of two women, Lucy Stone and Mary A. Livermore, as regularly accredited delegates. Both were invited to speak, and the following resolution drawn up by Henry B. Blackwell, was presented by Charles W. Slack: ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various |
