"Automatically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... transformation, I discovered it was only by an effort of will that I could be the old Avis Everhard, with the old mannerisms and smiles, phrases and intonations of voice. It was by strong effort only that I was able to maintain my old identity; I could not allow myself to forget for an instant, so automatically imperative had become the new personality ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... of the opening movement, he was not rightly awake to what he was doing. His fingers, like well-drilled soldiers, went automatically through their work, neither blundering nor forgetting; but the mind which should have controlled them was unable to concentrate itself: he heard himself play as though he were listening to some one else. He was only roused by the burst ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... paper folded into pages, but not sewn, nor fastened anywhere except at the two ends, to which two wooden panels are attached, and, by one side of the book being kept higher than the other, the leaves unfold, so to speak, automatically. ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... I came across my first British prisoner quite by accident, and, as so often happens in life, difficult problems settle themselves automatically. In nothing that I write shall I give any indication of the whereabouts of the sixty prisoners with whom I conversed privately, but there can be no harm in my mentioning the whereabouts of my public visit, ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... and the Kiel Canal with its exits to the Baltic and North Seas, furnished excellently both as naval bases and impenetrable protection. Throughout the rest of the watery surface of the globe were eleven German warships, to which automatically fell the task of protecting the thousands of ships which, flying the German red, white, and black, were carrying freight and passengers from port ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... traveling salesman. To all of which I attended with automatic regularity, with listless doggedness. The union was a constant source of worry. In addition, there was a hitch in my relations with the "marriage broker." But even my worrying seemed to be done automatically ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... moments alone, and wondered what she had done to offend him. He stumbled along the dark road, not heeding much the direction he took, but automatically going the nearest way to the tent. Fatigue and the want of sleep were heavy upon him, and his feet were as lead. Although dazed, he was conscious of a dull ache where his heart was supposed to be, and he vaguely hoped he had not made a fool of himself. He entered the tent, and ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... Ruff admitted. "A private individual will pay more to escape from the clutches of the law than the law will to secure its victims. Scotland Yard expects them to come into its arms automatically—regards them as a perquisite ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... say it. After all my talks to you on our return to the truths and simplicity of Nature you are perhaps surprised. You needn't be. I'm going to put you into a gentle sleep. Nature will then do her physical work automatically. I do this because our daughters are the inheritors of the sins of their mothers for centuries. The over-refinement of nerves, the hothouse methods of living, and the maiming of their bodies with the inventions ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... can be disconnected without interference with the rest of the system. When the tower tank is completed, it alone, under any circumstances, would be able to supply the lifts if every pumping engine were stopped. But if any or all the engines were working, they would automatically assist the top tank, for nominally they will keep the top tank exactly full, and will then stop of themselves. The tower, as we have indicated, is not yet completed, and the pumping engines are consequently doing all the work of the lifts. The ascent and descent of the cages is effected ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... the acquaintance of Lieutenant Larson, who is also an expert aviator. He worked for me before he went in the army. He had his own ideas about equilibrium, and his plan, which he wanted me to adopt, consists of tubes of mercury that can automatically be tilted at different angles. I do not believe they will ever work, and I told him so. I refused to use them, and he and I parted, not the best of friends. He wanted his invention exploited, but I refused to try it, ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... scan shifted automatically, to pick up the eastern border of the Estates. Stretching across the landscape was a thin line of draft saurians, each with its driver straddling its neck. The train had halted and a heavily armored riding lizard advanced toward ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... it. The revolver in her hand was held steadily. It was a slim-barreled, black thing. The very color of it was menacing. And behind it were the girl's eyes, pools of flame. The three men were facing them now, shocked to speechlessness. Automatically they seemed to obey her command to throw up their hands. Then she leveled her grim little gun straight ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... dust; cracklings of brush, growing ever more distant; the tops of bushes waving to the steady passage of something remaining persistently concealed,—these are the chief ingredients often repeated which make up deer-stalking memory. When I think of seeing deer, these things automatically rise. ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... overtaken the bunny, and, with one glance of encouragement over her shoulder at Finn, began to follow this up at a loping trot. As she ran, her delicate, golden-colored flews skimmed the ground; her sensitive nostrils questioned almost every blade of grass, her brain automatically registering every particle of information so obtained, and guiding her feet accordingly. Her strong tail waved above and behind her in the curve of an Arab scimitar. She ceased to be the Lady Desdemona and became simply a bloodhound at work; an epitome of the ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... door across the street closed. Sidney did not hear it, but K. bent forward. There was a part of his brain always automatically on watch. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... The lilies grow, Christ says, of themselves; they toil not, neither do they spin. They grow, that is, automatically, spontaneously, without trying, without fretting, without thinking. Natural Law, Growth, ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... her life, that spring, was immensely simplified. The social demands on her, which had been so insistent all winter, stopped almost automatically. The only exception was the Junior League show in Easter week, for which she put in quite a lot of work. She was ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... of hard wood and a ten-kroner note. With great care he transferred the design onto the wood, and began to engrave it while he sat there chattering to the children. This task occupied unused faculties; it engrossed him as an artistic exercise, which lingered at the back of his mind and automatically continued to carry itself out, even when he was away from home. This work filled his mind with a peculiar beauty so long as he was engaged on it. A warm, blissful world was evoked by the sight of this ten-kroner note, which shone ever more plainly out of the darkness ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... from their despondent attitudes when they heard a familiar whistle in the distance, and began automatically to straighten their hats. ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... the adoring eyes of the three musicians who were "hairdressers in the daytime" focussed passionately upon Miss Van Tuyn, distracted her attention. She felt masculinity intent upon her and responded automatically. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... before the scythe of the prospering farmer. Now he beholds the ruggedest of capacious canyons where the rollicking rivers and rhythmic rills have cut great gorges deep into the rocky ribs of the tightly hugging hills. Another turn and he sees the hearty herds transforming themselves automatically into gold for their happy owners; another turn shows the lazy rivers arising from their age-long beds and mossy couches to climb the hot hillsides and to toil and sweat at the command of the lord of this world, as they irrigate his arid acres. Yet another turn and ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... thought of neglecting to provide him with what they considered to be due to his rank and position than they thought of neglecting to supply their own wants. In fact the god of the city became the centre of the social fabric of that city, and every inhabitant thereof inherited automatically certain duties, the neglect of which brought stated pains and penalties upon him. The remarkable peculiarity of the Egyptian religion is that the primitive idea of the god of the city is always cropping up in it, and that is the reason why we find semi-savage ideas of God side by side ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... here. Please be seated." The other refused, excusing himself: "My dear master, I only dropped in to pay my respects while passing by." Patissot, very much embarrassed, was bowing at every word of his friend's, as though moving automatically, and he murmured, stammering: "What a su—su—superb property!" The artist, flattered, smiled, and suggested ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... is fired by means of an automatically-cocked percussion apparatus. A safety device prevents any shots from being fired until after the ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... among the exhibitors at Pittsburgh, and to an already formidable list there are annually added more than enough names to fill the vacancies caused by the dropping of former members who have failed to retain their membership due to non-compliance with the rules which automatically eliminate inactives. ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1920 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... him. Stupefied, instinct still aided him automatically in his customary habit of fighting; he strove to beat back the mounting waves of lethargy; half-conscious, he still fought ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... confiding Sarah Bragley, she had little doubt. And the fact that whoever these men were, they were desperately anxious to recover the papers showing the widow's title to the tract of land in Florida, fostered Nan's belief that the property must be of considerable value and automatically strengthened her determination to hold on to the papers at ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... slightly, as any nerve specialist or psychological doctor would tell you—-it savors slightly of hysteria, that hundreds of thousands of American men and women of every grade of education and ignorance should automatically exclaim whenever the right button is pressed, "England is a land-grabber," and "What has ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... guidance, as in a maze, he made his way into the rough, unplastered shanty. Automatically he found a pencil and collected some scraps of coarse wrapping paper. Already the opening words of the tale he had to tell were in his mind, and sitting down by the greasy pine-board table, he began ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... upon the ground, looked like something that had dropped from a Christmas tree, and he automatically made use of fuzzy legs, somewhat longer than a caterpillar's, to patter after his mistress. He was neither enterprising nor inquisitive; he kept close to the rim of her skirt, which was as high as he could see, and he wished to be taken up and carried again. He ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... could not shield himself automatically against error behind a literal compliance with the general advices or instructions of the Admiralty, nor can it be supposed that the Admiralty, any more than the Cunard Steamship Co., expected ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... for every talent, an innate tendency is requisite, working automatically, and unconsciously carrying with itself the necessary predisposition; yet, for this very reason, it works on and on inconsequently, so that, although it contains its laws within itself, it may, nevertheless, ultimately run out, devoid of end or ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the argumentation, if sound, holds equally good. States of consciousness are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance, and our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which take place automatically in ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... before your lips. If you are of an impulsive disposition, you may fail again and again, but do not be discouraged, keep up the fight. You will win in the end. You will reach at last the place where self-control acts automatically, where you will think in time. If you fail and the clouds come, endure them patiently, resolving to do better the next time. Do not let yourself be crushed under the circumstance. Do not let yourself be so discouraged that you think that ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... no talk;" and when Sir Charles pulled out his cigarette-case, as he did almost automatically from time to time when in any situation of annoyance or perplexity, Baume raised his ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... under a prickly tree. The sun was nearly vertical, and the little round shadow in which he reclined was interlaced with streaks of hot light. As the sun moved, Peters rolled into the shade automatically. His eyes were shut, and he was in that hot borderland which is the nearest approach to sleep at noontide ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... the populace, like a colony of monks. The institution is to blame. It is their duty, among other things, to take down any charge which anybody may care to prefer against his neighbour. That done, the machinery of the law is automatically set in motion. Five minutes' talk among the village elders would have settled many affairs which now degenerate into legal squabbles of twice as many years; chronic family feuds are fostered; a man who, on reflection, would find ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... bit sudden," he remarked in whimsical commonplace, "however—" His hands went into his pockets automatically. His eyes followed a seam on the paper overhead back and forth, ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... functional setup or maybe the dead flatness of our voices in the damped room, but we do not have so much to talk about any more. We automatically take places at the table, all at one end, leaving seven vacant ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... rubber—these precautions being taken, of course, to ensure silence in the apartment within. An electric bell was set in the door; a moment or two elapsed before any response was made to the parlourmaid's ring. Then the door automatically opened, the parlourmaid smiled at Mr. Tertius and retired; Mr. Tertius walked in; the ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... pulling the chair out of the little ebonised cubicle so that they could both sit down. And Hilda remained silent. And Edwin's thoughts were diving darkly beneath Janet's chatter as in a deep sea beneath light waves. He heard and answered Janet with a minor part of his being that functioned automatically. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... thought for his suffering. Each was hard pressed to face the terror of it all himself; each was wondering at what moment his own limits would be reached. Buck alone showed no sign of the nervous tension. His deep brown eyes watched the group about him, automatically blinking with every flash of light, and with only the slightest possible start as the thunder ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... continued the niece relentlessly, "that if we moved away from here or were blotted out of existence our local claim to fame would pass on automatically to whoever happened to take the house and garden? People would say to one another, 'Have you seen the Smith- Jenkins' magnolia? It is a perfect mass of flowers,' or else 'Smith-Jenkins tells me there ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... under the Congressional appropriation, provided for placing insulated wires in a lead pipe underground. This was to be accomplished by the use of a specially devised plough of peculiar construction, to be drawn by a powerful team, by which means the pipe containing the electric conductors was to be automatically deposited in the earth. This apparatus was entirely successful in operation, and the pipe was thus buried to the complete satisfaction of all concerned, at a cost very much lower than the work could have been accomplished in any other manner. Two wires were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... a series of tuning forks of different pitches, arranged to vibrate automatically in the manner shown by Helmholtz—each fork interrupting, at every vibration, a voltaic current—and the thought occurred, Why should not the depression of a key like that of a piano direct the interrupted current from any one of ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... mother," rang automatically from the wincing, panic-stricken child, that felt cut off and lost in ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... of her teeth for a pickaxe, a rib for a knife, and the hem of her lower garment for a noose? So we strangle in her service, and with every victim the act becomes more and more a delight to the soul.' As he spoke, his muscular fingers and wrists automatically went through the motions of tying and drawing the fatal noose. 'Once a man has become a thug, he will remain a thug all the rest of his days. Even if he come to possess the wealth of the world, he will continue to ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... performance require the conscious exercise of will and intelligence, and are then carried out with difficulty and hesitation, gradually through long-continued practice come to be performed easily and automatically, without the conscious ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... sweeping everything on one side. With the same regular motion, the motion of mowers in a meadow, they pushed the mud in front of them in a semi-circle, and she met them in every street, like dancing puppets, walking automatically with their swaying motion. And it seemed to her as if something had been swept out of her; as if her over-excited dreams had been pushed into the gutter, or into the drain, and so she went home, out of breath, and very cold, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... such an environment as would steadily make for health and beauty and happiness. There are no "sinners," it says, but only the unhappy products of conditions which foster anti-social proclivities as automatically as dirt fosters disease; instead of punishing the products, let us attack the producing conditions, and by sweeping them away bring in ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... it," replied Blount, and his mild, deceiving eyes took on the faintest shadow of a threat. "Mrs. Huff has defaulted on her first month's interest and, according to the terms of her note, the collateral automatically ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... relief. He bent over the clear run, made a cup of his hand, and drank, then he fell to eating. Close beside him grew some wintergreen, and when he had finished his bread and frankfurters he began plucking the glossy, aromatic leaves and chewing them automatically. The savor reached his palate, and his memory awakened before it as before a pleasant tingling of a spur. As a boy how he had loved this little green low-growing plant! It had been one of the luxuries of his youth. Now, as he tasted it, ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... but listen, and watch the man on the bank who led the horse that was towing the barge; or address a rare remark to his solitary companion—an old sailor, dressed in a sou'-wester, blue jersey, and the invariable drab trowsers, tar-besprent, and long boots, of his calling, who steered automatically, facing the meadows in beautiful abstraction. He would have faced an Atlantic gale, however, with that ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... conditions. It was notable that the dry protective layer was formed more slowly on alkali soils, which would point to the inadvisability of using alkali lands for dry-farm purposes. All in all, however, it appears "that under very arid conditions a soil automatically protects itself from drying by the formation of a natural mulch on ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... a cult, teaching the art of enslaving others to your will. But she is a good girl, and her Zoorph qualities are not evil. For your own sake, remember always to hold yourself in check, or she will automatically become your mistress. A man does not like to be a slave even to ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... undoubtedly get them. The FBI didn't want one of its Psi Operatives killed; there weren't enough to go round as it was. But calling for help, when Donegan had specifically told him he wouldn't need it, would mean being sent back a grade automatically. A man of his rank and experience, Donegan had implied, could handle the job solo. If he couldn't—why, then, he didn't deserve the rank. It was ...
— Sight Gag • Laurence Mark Janifer
... belonging to any manual is thus locked down, the stops and couplers of the Pedal department will automatically move so as to provide at all times a bass that is suitable to the combination of stops and couplers in ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... the passing of a locomotive over points, it is liable to "fly off"—that is, stop momentarily—and then send the steam and water through the overflow. If this happens, both steam and water must be turned off, and the injector be restarted; unless it be of the self-starting variety, which automatically controls the admission of water to the "mixing-cone," and allows the injector to "pick up" ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... the counsel of honorable Semper Harlowe," stated Elfreda automatically. "Those in favor please respond in the usual manner by saying 'aye.' Contrary 'no.' I am delighted to find you of one mind," she added, with a beaming smile, as no dissenting voice arose. "You shall be amply ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... small holdings like the land of France, you will have discovered why the Englishman is more drunken than the Frenchman. The Englishman, among his million delightful virtues, really has this quality, which may strictly be called "hand to mouth," because under its influence a man's hand automatically seeks his own mouth, instead of seeking (as it sometimes should do) his oppressor's nose. And a man who says that the English inequality in land is due only to economic causes, or that the drunkenness of England ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... move. In another respect the warning came too late; his fingers had found the switch at last, and automatically had turned it. The glare was blinding, momentarily; but the flash and report for which Maitland waited did not come. When his eyes had adjusted themselves to the suddenly altered conditions, he saw, directly before him and ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... clear, not only in language and construction, but in mechanical structure as well. Attention-lines and command-lines must be short and set up so as to stand out clearly from the body of the advertisement. The eye takes in automatically from four to six words at a glance, setting the natural limit of length for strong features in an advertisement. Artistic arrangement helps an advertisement because carefully balanced matter is more attractive than inartistic combinations. A well-balanced advertisement, an advertisement in which ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... extreme end of the big bag were the various rudders and planes, designed to keep the craft on a level keel, automatically, and to enable it to make headway against a strong wind. The motive power consisted of three double-bladed wooden propellers, which could be operated together or independently. A powerful gasoline engine was the chief ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... that moment undergone an agitation so extraordinary that it might have muddled for him any earlier view; and he tried to convince himself that he might perhaps then have gone into the room and, inadvertently, automatically, on coming out, have drawn the door after him. The difficulty was that this exactly was what he never did; it was against his whole policy, as he might have said, the essence of which was to keep vistas clear. He had them from the first, as he was well aware, quite on the brain: the strange apparition, ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... equipping the girl to be a mother as well as human being, is so all-inclusive and is therefore so much more difficult of accomplishment, that the simpler training necessary for a boy's career will be automatically provided for at the same time. Therefore the boy is not likely to be at a disadvantage under such a coeducational system as is here implied. For it is to nothing short of coeducation that the organized women of the United States are looking forward, coeducation on lines ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... your gasoline, as you would turn water from a faucet into a kitchen sink. The gasoline fills the carbureter, which is the thing which feeds the engine automatically. Then you turn on your electricity by shifting a switch. That is to supply the spark. Then turn the fly-wheel two or three times so as to get the vapor into the cylinder and secure the first explosion. That is all there is to it. ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... weeks referred to in this Article may be extended by a maximum of one month and two weeks respectively by common accord of the European Parliament and the Council. The period of three months referred to in paragraph 2 shall be automatically extended by two months where paragraph 2(c) applies. 8. The scope of the procedure under this Article may be widened, in accordance with the procedure provided for in Article N(2) of the Treaty on European Union, on the basis ...
— The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 • European Union
... how long will the people allow such a monstrous wrong to be done? How long will they suffer a few men to siphon automatically the money of the many into ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... the child. Wide windows already admit the light freely, and gymnasia with spacious halls and a variety of complex and costly apparatus were established. Finally, the most complicated desks, sometimes veritable machines of wood and iron, with foot-rests, seats, and desks revolving automatically, in order to preclude alike the movements of the child and the distortions arising from immobility, are the economically disastrous contribution of a false principle of "school-hygiene." In the modern ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... own. He sits in his room some winter evening, the lamp swarming shadowy seductions, the grate glowing with siren invitation, the cigar box within easy reach for that moment when the pending sacrifice between his teeth shall be burned out; his feet upon the familiar corner of the mantel at that automatically calculated altitude which permits the weight of the upper part of the body to fall exactly upon the second joint from the lower end of the vertebral column as it rests in the comfortable depression created by continuous wear in the cushion of that particular chair to which every ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... sweetness of the automatically released oxygen fill the chamber about him and he drank it into his ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... abroad! Youngsters, only once in my life do I command a railroad train." Then he and the officers sat down among the sailors. At every station they made jokes, because they were real stations that followed one another automatically and without ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... one year, and thus automatically develops its own weak spots. These are repaired as fast as discovered (which is practically at once, by reason of constant supervision), and the trail thus hardens, as it were, into ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... poor," Maraton replied. "That is one of my theories. It would come from the very class whom I would willingly see enfeebled—the greedy, grasping, middle class. The poor must exist automatically. They could not exist on lower wages; therefore, they will not get lower wages. If there is no employment for them, they will help themselves to the means for life. If there is money in the country, they have a right to a part of it and they will take it. The unfit amongst ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nearly invisible gnats that breed in alkali bogs sighted the Major and promptly rose in swarms to settle upon his ears and in the edges of his hair. He fanned them away automatically and without audible comment. Perhaps they served as a counter-irritant; at any rate, the sting of the indignity put upon him by what he termed a "hobo lunch" was finally forgotten in ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... of flattery in passados at woman is a perception so universal as to be remarked upon by many people almost as automatically as they repeat a proverb, or say that they are Christians and the like, without thinking much of the enormous corollaries which spring from the proposition. Still less is it acted upon for the good of the complemental being alluded to. With the majority such ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... at his side. He found a holster and gun. He recognized neither. Again he watched objectively as his hand pulled the black object out and handled it. His body was evidently familiar with it, though it was strange to his eyes. His finger slipped automatically into the trigger sheaf. His legs were still working under two drives: the manythoughts' urging, and something else, buried in him. A ...
— Cully • Jack Egan
... smiling Hart, "you never did, bless your heart. But Jack here is another matter. He has a wife and two kids to look after. That lets him out automatically." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... it. It is purely the result of education, and is preceded by a consciousness of the purpose to be attained and a distinct mandate of the will. It is a 'voluntary act.' Thus the animal's reflex and voluntary performances shade into each other gradually, being connected by acts which may often occur automatically, but may also be modified ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... now obedient to his direction and automatically responded to the necessity for haste. As he went about collecting his clothes, tearing up letters, opening drawers, he ransacked his brain for a clew to the man's identity, tried to rehear the voice and catch a familiar echo, went back and forth over the words. And in the fevered restoration ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... Ricardo's theorem would be inadequate 'sociologically,' or as a formula which would enable us to predict the future distribution of wealth. It omits essential factors in the process, and therefore supposes forces to act automatically and invariably which will in fact be profoundly modified in societies differently organised and composed of individuals differing in character. The very fundamental assumptions as to the elasticity of population, and the accumulation of capital ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... fire, in which meats or poultry were held by a large iron spit, which pierced them and which could be revolved to present one side after the other to the blaze. Sometimes there was a little clockwork which turned the spit automatically, but usually it was turned round from time to time by the cook. As you know, they used to have in England little dogs called turnspits, trained to turn a wheel for this purpose. A little door in the rear of this tin kitchen gave access for basting the meat. In the large trough at the bottom the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... past his head. It struck the side of the flitter with a sharp clack, and fell. Kieran's nervous relays finally connected. He jumped for the open hatch. Automatically he pushed Paula ahead of him, trying to shield her, and she gave him an odd startled look. Webber was already inside. More stones rattled around and one grazed Kieran's thigh. It hurt. His cheek was bleeding freely. He rolled inside the flitter and turned to look back out ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... habits keeps us from making mistakes and mishaps. It is a well known fact that a chauffeur is not able to master his machine safely until he has trained his body in a habitual way. When an emergency comes he instantly knows what to do. Where safety depends on quickness the operator must work automatically. Habits mean less risk, less ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... food moves through the alimentary canal, it is mixed with the various digestive juices containing ferments, such as pepsin, which are the active agents of digestion. Although digestive processes go on automatically, they are, in a degree that is far from negligible, influenced by the mind. Thus, cheerfulness promotes digestion, and not infrequently mental depression may be the direct cause of indigestion. Indeed, ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... Annersley had taught Pete was undone in the lazy, listless life of the sheep-camp. There was a certain slow progressiveness about it, however, that saved it from absolute monotony. Each day the sheep grazed out, the distance being automatically adjusted by the coming of night, when they were bunched and slowly drifted back to the bedding-ground. A day or two—depending on the grazing—and they were bedded in a new place as the herder worked toward the low country followed by a recurrent ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... head on the atlas arrest all movements long before the danger-point is reached; (3) even if the muscles are caught off their guard, as they sometimes are, certain strong ligaments—fastenings of tough fibres—are so set as automatically to jam the joint before the edge of the foramen can come in contact ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... empty, as usual at Morning Sitting. But now or never, and at least there would be long report in Irish papers. So went at it by the hour. Finished at a quarter to five. At Morning Sitting, debate automatically suspended at ten minutes to seven; two hours and five minutes for everyone else to speak. SINCLAIR long waiting chance to thrust in his nose. Found it at last; but House wearied and worn out; glad when seven o'clock approached, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... that about him which made me instantly on the qui vive in his presence, every nerve alert, every sense strained and on the watch. I do not mean that he deliberately suggested danger, but rather that he brought forces in his wake which automatically warned the nervous centres of my system to be on their guard ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... satisfactorily adjusted to task systems; there are others (the inspection service in a factory, for instance) where a premium on increased output would defeat the first purpose of the service. Where results can be accurately measured, however, and the quality of the service can be automatically secured or is not sacrificed by concentration upon quantity, the task system—whether it take the form of piece rates, premiums, or bonus—has such superior psychological advantages that it will probably come more and ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... high, shut in a box-like seclusion by wooden doors; the minister, in his pulpit, was just giving out the number of the psalm, and the precentor, after tapping his tuning-fork and holding it to his ear, burst forth into wailing notes of surprising strength and volume. Margot rose automatically to her feet, to subside in confusion, as the seated congregation gazed at her in stolid rebuke. In this kirk it was the custom to sit while singing, and stand during prayers—a seemly and decorous habit which benighted Southerners ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of a pariah and I knew not whether to pity him or otherwise. In an ignorant community it is a dreadful thing to earn such a reputation as that which evidently attached to the Eurasian doctor; and this talk of the evil eye took me back automatically to the early days of this quaint spot, where, cut off from the larger things of life, the simple folk continued to hold the same beliefs which had stirred their forefathers. In those remote times when the white brethren from the neighboring ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... what the Germans call Maerchen, namely, that they are the immemorial inheritance at least of all European peoples, is true also of some ballads. Their present form, of course, is relatively recent: in centuries of oral recitation the language altered automatically, but the stock situations and ideas of many romantic ballads are of dateless age and world-wide diffusion. The main incidents and plots of the fairy tales of Celts and Germans and Slavonic and Indian peoples, their unknown antiquity ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... tired from the long walk, I said to her: "I am so sorry to be so stupid to-day, Miss Maynard. I cannot talk, but I can listen; or do you think possibly you could get a little writing for me? Miss Boyle told me you wrote automatically sometimes?" ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... of his surroundings almost automatically, filing them in his memory just in case he ever needed to ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... changed manners, "could avoid anachronisms by the aid of tradition, which gave them a very exact idea of the epic heroes." Such is the opinion of Wilamowitz Moellendorff. He appears to regard the tradition as keeping the later poets in the old way automatically, not consciously, but this, we also learn from Helbig, did not occur. The poets often wandered from the way. [Footnote: Helbig, Homerische Epos, pp. 2, 3.] Thus old Mycenaean lays, if any existed, would describe the old Mycenaean mode of burial. ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... and sanity overwhelm you at every turn. Ask your neighbour offhand at a dinner in Dublin: "What is so-and-so, by the way?" He will reply that so-and-so is a doctor, or a government official, or a stockbroker, as it may happen. Ask him the same question at a dinner in Belfast, and he will automatically tell you that so-and-so is ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... Eveley automatically. "I am still working. We will try every different adjustment, and in time we shall hit the right one. ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... It really did seem to Edward Henry that she grew younger. Assuredly she grew more girlish and her voice improved. And then the bottles began to pop, and it was as though the action of uncorking wine automatically uncorked hearts also. Mr. Seven Sachs, sitting square and upright, smiled gaily at Edward Henry across the gleaming table and raised a glass. Little Marrier, who at nearly all times had a most enthusiastic smile, did the same. In the result five glasses met over ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... culture of these parasites can be done only in certain temperatures rigorously maintained at the necessary degree, and these temperatures can be obtained only by stoves, like the one in my laboratory, fed by gas, the entrance of which is automatically regulated by the temperature of the water. How could I use this stove in a country where there is no gas? No, no! If I leave Paris, everything is at an end my position, as well as my work. I shall ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... new points. One afternoon a pilot from the front line told of a captured German Albatros, which he spun yarns about for an hour. A single-seater, armed with three machine-guns which, being controlled by the motor, or engine, shot automatically and at the same time through the propeller in front of the pilot, with the highest speed of any aeroplane then evolved on the fighting front, with a reputation of being able to climb to an altitude of fifteen thousand feet in less than fifteen minutes—-some said ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... move automatically: no man thinks because he intends to think; he thinks, as he hungers and thirsts, under a great primal necessity; his thoughts come out from the inner depths of his being as the flower is developed by forces rising through the roots of ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... top of the hooded guard's-van approaching, the sound of the trucks was diminishing, there was hope of relief from the intolerable noise. The heavy panting of the half-stunned mare sounded automatically, the man seemed to be relaxing confidently, his will bright and unstained. The guard's-van came up, and passed slowly, the guard staring out in his transition on the spectacle in the road. And, through the man in the closed wagon, Gudrun could ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... toward the table; but his head began to swim, and his eyes to darken; so he fell back again in his seat, feeling drowsy and beaten. Mechanically he began to move the hand that hung over the arm of his low chair, and it encountered a newspaper which had fallen on the floor. He lifted it automatically and without thought: it was the Times. Perhaps to try his eyes, and see if they served him again after his collapse, he ran them down ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... abrasion or other change, yet each particle of steel undergoes an electromagnetic transformation by which the sound is indelibly imprinted on it until it is wiped out by the erasing magnet. There are no cylinders to be shaved; all that is needed to use the wire again is to pass a magnet over it, automatically erasing any previous record that you do not wish to preserve. You can dictate into it, or, with this plug in, you can record a telephone conversation on it. Even rust or other deterioration of the steel wire by time will not affect this electromagnetic registry of sound. It can ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... has publicly expressed his approval of the application of the lash to those persons who are engaged in the so-called "White Slave Traffic." There is always a certain sociological interest in the public utterances of an Archbishop of Canterbury. He is a great State official who automatically registers the level of the public opinion of the respectable classes. The futility for deterrence or reform of the lash or other physical torture as applied to adults has long been a commonplace of historical criminology, and Collas, the standard historian of flagellation, pointing out that the ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... ordered to give up their luxuries. They gave up their doctors, but kept their week-end hotels, closing every career to me except the career of a waiter. [He puts his fingers on the teapot to test its temperature, and automatically takes out his watch with the other hand as if to count the teapot's pulse.] You are right: the tea is cold: it was made by the wife of a once fashionable architect. The cake is only half toasted: what can you ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... lieutenant, who now, by the death of Captain Harrison, had automatically become acting captain of the Psyche, had turned over the command of the launch to the master's mate, for the return passage, and was in the gig with me; and as we drew nearer to the river's mouth I noticed that he rose in the stern-sheets ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... threatened speedy and final divorce. In all weathers this bit of human wreckage—Jackie Deeds by name—might be seen wandering aimlessly about the vacant yard, or seated upon the bench beside the portico of the silent, bow-windowed inn, pulling at a, too often empty, clay-pipe and spitting automatically. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... assumption—unconscious, and therefore all the more damnable—that the young man in business constituted, ipso facto, a kind of norm by which other young men in other fields of endeavor were to be gauged: the farther they deviated from the standard he automatically set up, the more lamentable their deficiencies. A few condescending inquiries as to the academic life, that strange aberration from the normality of the practical and profitable course which made the ordinary life of the day, and the separation came. "Enough of him!" muttered ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... of paper the name of a hotel, and underneath: "Parlor, second floor, Tuesday, 1 P.M." Passing by where she stood, he put it into her gloved hand, which was hanging by her side. The fingers closed over it automatically. She had noted his action. On the day and hour suggested she was there, although he had given no name. That liaison, while delightful to him, was of no great duration. The lady ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... English education. Without attempting to defend it, I would only observe that this automatic development of solar caloric in scientific minds must be grounded on an automatic sensation of injustice done to the members of the School Board, as well as to many other automatically well-meaning and ingenious persons; and that this sense of the injuriousness and offensiveness of my definition cannot possibly have any other basis (if I may be permitted to continue my professional similitudes) than the fallen remnants and goodly stones, not one now left ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... all this time swimming in the middle of the vast red field of crustaceans, opening its large mouth automatically, and absorbing at ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... safer source of power than steam, but that was before it had been automatically regulated by the "Governor." The governor has always been the writer's favorite invention, probably because it was the first he fully understood. It is an application of the centrifugal principle adapted and mechanically improved. Two heavy revolving balls ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... Professor Dilthey with noteworthy acuteness and thoroughness—determines in some measure the contents of the artist's mind, for it determines his interests, and therefore the sensations and perceptions that he captures and automatically stores up. It guides him in his judgments of worth, in his instinctive likes and dislikes as regards conduct and character, and controls in large measure the play of his imagination as he shapes the action of his drama ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... of our general history. This tradition relates the woman to the man. He goes on with his business, and she adapts herself to him and to it. Even in citizenship, by some strange hocus-pocus, that fact of birth and geography was waved aside, and the woman automatically acquired ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... eating, as it sank to the ground stone dead. Number two pigeon, realizing danger, began to mount upwards almost straight. I fired the second barrel, and by good luck shot its head off. Then I snatched the other rifle, which Charles had been loading automatically, from his outstretched hand, for at that moment I saw two more pigeons coming. At the first I risked a difficult shot and hit it far back, knocking out its tail, but bringing it, still fluttering, to the ground. The other, ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... in book form, being spirited up, I suppose, by Mr. Henley, who was editing for them "The Magazine of Art," in which Stevenson wrote two or three articles. (I remember that a letter of my own to "The Editor," as Mr. Henley had proudly signed himself, came automatically into the hands of the General Editor, a clergyman, if I do not err, and that my observations on the Art of Savages, lighting on the wrong sort of ground, sprang up and nearly choked Mr. Henley.) Stevenson was already the victim of the Yankee pirate, whose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hereditary; governor general appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister for a five-year term; following legislative elections, the leader of the majority party or the leader of the majority coalition in the House of Commons is automatically designated prime minister by the ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States |
