"Tangent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one first-class scare when the train drew up in the squalid station, where the branch line to Haifa meets the main Hedjaz railway and the two together touch a mean town at a tangent; for a French officer in uniform boarded the train and stalked down the corridors staring hard at everyone. He asked me for a passport, which was sheer bluff, so I asked him in turn for his own authority. He smiled and produced a rubber stamp, saying that ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... a tangent, leaving Jeffreys, cool in body and mind, to await his return. To an ordinarily excitable person, the position was a critical one. The water was numbing; the ice at the edge of the hole was rotten, and broke away ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... getting Miriam, lead-dog to Frona's team, to take the trail left by him and the baron. The dog went on bravely, scrambling over, floundering through, and sometimes swimming; but when she had gained the farthest point reached by them, she sat down helplessly. Later on, she cut back to the shore at a tangent, landing on the deserted island above; and an hour afterwards trotted into camp minus the grub-pack. Then the two dogs, hovering just out of range, compromised matters by devouring each other's burdens; after which the attempt was given over and ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... some in complicated watches of 12 teeth, and in old English watches, of 30, which is a clumsy arrangement, and if the pallets embrace only three teeth in the latter, the pallet center cannot be pitched on a tangent. ...
— An Analysis of the Lever Escapement • H. R. Playtner
... least it meant that there would be no loose rubble on the surface. It would have been tossed off long ago by the centrifugal force, flying off on a tangent to become more of the tiny rubble of the belt. Perhaps "flying" wasn't exactly the right word, though, when applied to a velocity of less than one centimeter per second. ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... have to get ground up in the hopper like everybody else or shut the door of the industrial squirrel-cage on yourself in order not to starve. Perhaps that'll give some cleverer person the courage to start out on his own tangent." ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... muzzle-pivoting part of the arrangement, of which, were it worth while to go into its details, we should need some further diagrams to make it quite clear. Nor is it worth while to go into the description of various minor points of refinement about the gun mounting, such as the very exposed long tangent scale seen in the figure, by which the elevation or depression is read off, nor the still more exposed and rather ricketty arrangement by which the rear sight is arranged to rise and fall with the gun, and allowance ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... sex,—began dancing jigs. Tim next played slower, but his speed increased again as he saw the dancers warming to their work, till his bow moved so rapidly over the strings of his fiddle, and his arm and his head gave such eccentric jerks, that I half expected at any moment to see the one fly off at a tangent and the other come bounding into the middle of the room. Larry and I kept on one side, trying to look greatly interested with the performance, while we managed to have a few words now and then with some of the men, who were either seated on the benches ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... bending low to avoid the bullets he sped at a tangent in the opposite direction, for the timber of Wheeling Hill. The Indians afoot could not catch him, no bullet caught him; he would make it—he would make it; there he goes, up the hill. He ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... iam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati praeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent. non poteris factis florentibus esse, tuisque praesidium. misero misere' aiunt 'omnia ademit una dies infesta tibi tot praemia vitae.' illud in his rebus non addunt 'nec tibi earum iam desiderium rerum super insidet una.' quod bene si videant animo dictisque sequantur, dissoluant ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... continued Harcourt, "brush up your mathematics. At what angle, and with what degree of force, should we have swooped down there on a tangent, when the ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... figured P' N', and it be carried in similar directions, coinciding with the dotted horizontal curve so far, as to cut the magnetic curves on the same side with it, the current will be from P' to N'. If the wire be considered a tangent to the curved surface of the cylindrical magnet, and it be carried round that surface into any other position, or if the magnet itself be revolved on its axis, so as to bring any part opposite to the tangential wire,—still, ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... a distance, that the result shall strictly correspond with the fact; but, from the parallax, as derived from observation (and if this cannot be depended on certainly, no magnitudes in astronomy can), we find, that the moon does not fall from the tangent of her orbit, as much as the theory requires. As this is of vital importance to the integrity of the theory we are advocating, we have made the computation on Newton's own data, except such as were necessarily inaccurate at the time he wrote; and we have done ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... admire them; or, at least, I should admire them immensely," remonstrated Vixen, "if I could see them in their native country. But I don't know that I have ever thoroughly appreciated them in a hothouse, hanging from the roof, and tumbling on to one's nose, or shooting off their long sprays at a tangent into awkward corners. I'm afraid I like the bluebells and foxgloves in our enclosures ever so much better. I have seen the banks in New Park one sheet of vivid blue with hyacinths, one blaze of crimson with foxgloves; and then there are the long green swamps, where ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... on Piedra Creek. Beyond this creek lay Long Prairie, the favourite haunt of the plover. As they were nearing the creek they heard the galloping of a horse to their right, and saw a man with black hair and a swarthy face riding toward the woods at a tangent, as if he ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... are made equal for the lines C and F. In the neighbourhood of 550 mm the tangent to the curve is parallel to the axis of wave-lengths; and the focal length varies least over a fairly large range of colour, therefore in this neighbourhood the colour union is at its best. Moreover, this region of the spectrum is that which appears ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... on the rest so that the level is above the wood and the cutting edge is tangent to the circle or surface of the cylinder. The handle should be held ...
— A Course In Wood Turning • Archie S. Milton and Otto K. Wohlers
... troublesome," says Lady Rylton. "Just when you expect her to sympathize with you, she starts off at a tangent on some other absurd idea. She is full of fads. After all, it would be rash to depend on her. But you, Marian—you ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... viewed with some pain the Douglas departure over popular sovereignty; indeed he once declared that had he not been called away from the Senate for quite a time in 1856, Mr. Douglas would never have gone off on this tangent. When asked if Douglas were really a great man, Senator Toombs, in 1860, answered with characteristic heartiness and exaggeration, "There has been but one greater, and ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... do, so he joined in; he was fond of variety, and he sang some lines in a high falsetto which sounded like the whistling of the gaff (with perhaps a touch of razor-grinding added); then just when you expected him to soar off at a tangent to Patti's topmost A, he let his voice fall to his boots, and emitted a most bloodcurdling bass growl, which carried horrid suggestions of midnight fiends and ghouls and the silent tomb. Still, his mates thought he was a musical prodigy; ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... mysticism, the imagination harassed and goaded beyond the normal round, suddenly flipping from the circumference, spinning off at a tangent, out into the void, where all things seemed possible, hurtling through the dark there, groping for the supernatural, clamouring for the miracle. And it was also the human, natural protest against the inevitable, the irrevocable; the spasm of revolt under the sting of death, the rebellion of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... a bit; be in a stew &c. n.; be out of all patience, fidget, fuss, not have a wink of sleep; toss on one's pillow. lose one's temper &c. 900; break out, burst out, fly out; go off, fly off, fly off at a tangent, fly off the handle, lose one's cool [coll.]; explode, flare up, flame up, fire up, burst into a flame, take fire, fire, burn; boil, boil over; foam, fume, rage, rave, rant, tear;; go wild, run wild, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to recall my sexual history," said Sir Richmond, going off at a tangent. "My sentimental education. I wonder if it differs very widely from ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... hasn't been playing with Don Morley's money," said Decker, resuming the subject from which Mrs. Ivy had flown off at a tangent. "Donald has always left everything to him, and doesn't know anything more about his investments than I do. All he is concerned with is spending his income, and that keeps ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... have done with the present arguments of MR. G. SHADBOLT. He says that the two pictures should have exactly the same range of vision. This I deny: for, were it so, there would be no stereoscopic effect. Let the object be a column: it is evident that a tangent to the left side of the column from the right eye, could not extend so far to the left as a tangent to the left side of the column from the left eye, and vice versa. And it is only by this difference in the two pictures (or, in other words, the range of vision) that our conceptions of solidity ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... general effect to the last example is the work upon another important series of vases. Instead of the simple meandered or zigzag arrangement of parts, two of the dividing lines of the zone run tangent to the neck of the vase on opposite sides, forming arched panels and leaving upright panels between. In the example presented in Fig. 168 the arched areas are filled in with lattice-like arrangements of lines. In others we have dots, ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... next speech she seemed to strike off at a tangent. She spoke with a lightness that appeared to conceal a hint of pain. "They say the mounted police are the guides, philosophers and friends of the people up North. They say you have to do everything, from feeding babies to reading the ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... race, man's relation to it is an exterior one. By his constitution he is above all an individual, and that is the natural line of his development. The love of woman is the centripetal attraction which in due time brings him back from the individual tangent to blend him again with mankind. In returning to woman he returns to humanity. All that there is in man's sentiment for woman which is higher than passion and larger than personal tenderness—all, that is to say, which makes his love for her the grand passion which in noble hearts it is—is the ...
— A Positive Romance - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... constructed by the Italian Cristofori, who devised a mechanism for striking the strings with hammers. In the older instruments—the clarichords and harpsichords—the strings were either snapped by means of crow's quills, or pushed with a tangent. The new hammer action not only brought a better tone out of the string, but enabled the pianist to play any note loud or soft at pleasure; hence the name piano-forte. But the pianoforte itself required ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... sought for all along the South Downs, is no more, and he has left no one able to carry on his work. He had an apprentice, but the apprentice has taken to another craft, and cannot make crooks. The Pyecombe crook has a curve or semicircle, and then opens straight; the straight part starts at a tangent from the semicircle. How difficult it is to describe so simple a matter as a shepherd's crook! In some way or other this Pyecombe form is found more effective for capturing sheep, but it is not so easy to make. The crook ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... long tail with great propriety behind him; here a little bustling creature ducks and dives, coquetting first on this side, then on that; until finally turning two or three somersets, it almost reaches the earth; but soon rises at a tangent, and sails far up into the bright blue firmament. Look! the air is full of them! It is a charming amusement, this kite-flying of the boys. We greatly affect it, even now, although we are 'out of our 'teens!' There ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... she could turn off so suddenly at a complete tangent, spoke to her once or twice but got no other answer than a long, contented sigh. He stood for a little while trying to make out her outline in the dim corner of the room. Then he tiptoed out to the hall, possessed himself of a warm motor-rug, returned with it and laid it gently ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... good diplomacy, heartily agreed that a store was a disturbing feature on a ranch, and instantly went off on a tangent on the splendid business possibilities of the Mission. The matchmaker in return agreed as heartily with him, and grew reminiscent. "In the spring of '51," said he, "I made the match between Tiburcio and Dona Inez, father and mother of Juana. Tiburcio was a vaquero ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... held, upon his arm and began to walk forward gently with her. Something in the grave tenderness with which this was done reminded Fleda irresistibly of the times when she had been a child under his care; and somehow her thoughts went off on a tangent back to the further days of her mother and father and grandfather, the other friends from whom she had had the same gentle protection, which now there was no one in the world to give her. And their images did never seem more winning fair than just then,—when their place was left most especially ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... nos concedemus illis ex regnis nostris res, quibus destituuntur. Rogamus itaque vos Reges et Principes, et omnes quibus aliqua est potestas in terra, vt viris istis nostris, transitum permittatis per regiones vestras. Non enim tangent quicquam ex rebus vestris inuitis vobis. Cogitate quod homines et ipsi sunt. Et si qua re caruerint, oramus pro vestra beneficentia, eam vos illis tribuatis, accipientes vicissim ab eis quod poterunt rependere vobis. Ita ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... my brothers and I emerged at last, we could just distinguish Flora waiting on the horizon of a braeland, her figure well thrown out against the sky, her pony curveting round and round, which was Flora's pet pony's way of keeping still. Away at a tangent from the proper line of march, Archie on his steed was being rapidly whirled. As soon as we came within sight of our sister, we observed her making signs in Archie's direction and concluded to follow. Having duly signalled ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... "knock out," so to speak, all the regular movement of the society which is so fortunate, or so unfortunate, as to have given him birth; and by his initiative the aspirations, beliefs, struggles of the community or state get a push in a new direction—a tangent to the former movement or a reversal of it. If this be true, and it be farther true that no genius who is likely to appear can be discounted by any human device before his abrupt appearance upon the stage ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... a tangent to describe the men in his platoon. "The best man in our lot is an ex-grocer's assistant, but in order to save us from vain generalisations it happens that the worst man—a moon-faced creature, almost incapable of lacing up his boots without help and ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... scaling swiftly upward, mile after mile; but the long tangent at which he had started to clear the summit of Katahdin did not prove sufficient, and by and by they found themselves within a very few yards of the rocky side of ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... arrange themselves a short distance apart. As quickly as one of them starts a rabbit, a second Indian runs as fast as he can along a line parallel with the course taken by the animal. Presently the rabbit sees the second Indian, and dashes off at a tangent. By this time the third hunter has come up and gives the quarry another turn. After the third or fourth zigzag, the rabbit is surrounded, and the hunters quickly close in upon him ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... the fact scarcely concerned her, and Lanfear drew a breath of relief in his surprise. He asked, at another tangent: "What made you ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... life. [Footnote: Cf. Mill, Utilitarianism, chap. 2: "When people who are tolerably fortunate in their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make it valuable to them, the cause generally is, caring for nobody but themselves."] It is saner, less likely to be veered off on some tangent of ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... world, for his own family had been of conservative stock, and Beatrix and Bobby had been the first of the Danes to break down the barriers of their own exclusive set. To be sure, he realized that in a city like New York it was quite possible for circles of equal choiceness to exist tangent to each other, yet in mutual ignorance of one another; but his years abroad in slower-moving countries had not prepared him for the countless agile performers clambering up and down over the social trapeze. In his father's day, society had stood on an ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... I knew that I should be reproached with indolence and even cowardice. I knew that I should be supposed to be one of those consistently impracticable people who insist on going off at a tangent when the straight course lies before them. That I should be relegated to the class of persons who have failed in life through some deep-seated defect of will. The worst of a serious decision of the kind is that, whichever step ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... perceptibly nearing the moon, and evidently succumbed to her influence to a certain degree; though its own velocity also drew it in an oblique direction. From these conflicting influences resulted a line which might become a tangent. But it was certain that the projectile would not fall directly on the moon; for its lower part, by reason of its weight, ought to ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... and the Pont Neuf. Not content with this, they seized on some luckless men who were descending the steps, and clasping them with their powerful right arms, spun them around like so many tops and sent them whizzing off at a tangent. Loud bursts of laughter greeted this performance, and the stout river maidens returned to their dance with ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... down, and a rushing river glimmered before us. We struck off at a tangent and followed its course to the north, stumbling in muddy rifts, slipping on seaweed, beginning to be blinded by a fine salt spray, and deafened by the thunder of the ocean surf. The river broadened, whitened, roughened. gathered itself for the shock, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... acceleration - and the concept of such acceleration itself - is the result of splitting circular movement into two rectilinear movements, one in the direction of the tangent, the other in the direction of the radius, and of regarding it - by a mode of reasoning typical of spectator-thinking - as composed of the two. This procedure, however, useful as it may be for the purpose of ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... ready. For a moment they stand and squirm like angle-worms on a hook, and froth at the mouth, and look, as they stand there, like a pile driver that has been run into by an engine. They teeter up and down a little, and then fly off on a tangent, and they flop around in unexpected places among the other dancers, jump like a box car, bump against other couples, and at every bump they are driven closer together, until they are so near that it does seem as though they will have to be pried apart ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... and under right angle 60 mm. The lower part is constructed similar to our Comparator A1201. The top slide carries a divided circle for measuring position angles. The circle is arranged similar to a position micrometer. It is fitted with quick gear motion and tangent screw and the two verniers read to 1-100 degree. The microscope has variable magnifying power and is provided with reversing eye piece. This machine has been furnished for and is in use at Yerkes, Lick and Kirkwood ...
— Astronomical Instruments and Accessories • Wm. Gaertner & Co.
... visiting Americans in an automobile came down the road flanking the fort. There had been a rain and the road was slippery with red mud. As the driver took the turn at the corner his wheels began skidding and he lost control. The car skewed off at a tangent, hurdled the moat, and tore a hole in the mud wall; and, as the occupants spilled sprawlingly through the gap, a front tire exploded with a loud report. The garrison took just one look out the front ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... length. 1000 sovs with 3000 in specie. Also ran: J de Bremond's (French horse Bantam Lyons was anxiously inquiring after not in yet but expected any minute) Maximum II. Different ways of bringing off a coup. Lovemaking damages. Though that halfbaked Lyons ran off at a tangent in his impetuosity to get left. Of course gambling eminently lent itself to that sort of thing though as the event turned out the poor fool hadn't much reason to congratulate himself on his pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... intervene, and I with ever increasing rapidity was borne helplessly down the declivity towards the gates of Hyde Park Corner, when, by the benevolence of Providence, the anterior wheel ran under a railing, and I flew off like a tangent into the comparative security ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... compliments to Miss Williams. If once this tangent flight of mine were over, and I were returned to my wonted leisurely motion in my old circle, I may probably endeavour to return her ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... to run off at a tangent and forsake our ostensible subject, pretty Poll, altogether, I must just pause for one moment more to answer an objection which I know has been trembling on the tip of your tongue any time the last five minutes. You've been ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... almost spent, and any resolute hand could have impelled them away from the carriage-pole with which the roans threatened to impale their wretched sides. The front wheel, however, made him heroic, going off at a tangent into a cloth merchant's shop, and precipitating a crash while he still clung to the reins. The door flew open on the under side, and Hilda fell through, grasping at the dust of the road; while the driver, ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... deemed me such. My father was greatly pleased when I wrote him that I was now more than ever convinced of the wisdom of choosing the law as my profession, and was satisfied that I had come to my senses at last. He had still been prepared to see me "go off at a tangent," as he expressed it. On the other hand, the powerful effect of the appeal made by Weathersfield and Mr. Watling must not be underestimated. Here in one object lesson was emphasized a host of suggestions each of which had made its impression. And when I returned to Cambridge Alonzo Cheyne ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... these Natal hills have no lineal descent. They are illegitimate children of no line, abandoned broadcast over the country, with no family likeness and no home. They stand alone, or shoulder to shoulder, or at right angles, or at a tangent, or join hands across a valley. They never appear the same; some run to a sharp point, some stretch out, forming a table-land, others are gigantic ant-hills, others perfect and accurately modelled ramparts. In a ride of half a mile, every hill completely ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... story. When I read the lives of good men and women who have died and gone to heaven, I find they all liked to sit and think about God and about Christ. Now I don't. I often try, but my mind flies off in a tangent. The truth is ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... went very deep—deeper, possibly, than any of us ever guessed. For, there is no doubt about it, poor Oliver did woo Clare; if he wasn't in love with her he was very near it, before he went off at a tangent after Jane, who was something new, and therefore attractive to him, besides being thrown so much together in Paris when Jane was working for her father. The dear child has put up a brave fight ever ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... are what I call a GOOP! A Co-tangent harmonious Loop You appear to be facing due South But O what have ...
— The Purple Cow! • Gelett Burgess
... you would speak to her," Patty sighed. "Azalea is really a trial. I don't know what to do with her. Sometimes she is so sweet and docile that I think I'm teaching her to be a civilised person, and then she flies off at a tangent and she's as unruly and intractable as she was ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... viewed from above, looking vertically down upon it. Camper took as the basis of his theory of the gradations of different genera of mammalia, the angle formed by a line drawn from the aperture of the ear to the base of the nose, and a tangent to the forehead and jaw. Considering the increasing size of this angle to be the distinctive mark of intellectual superiority, he viewed a negro as an intermediate animal between an European and an ape. But Mr Owen has shown that the observations of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... like Jesus better than God," said Mark, going off at a tangent. He felt that there were too many points of resemblance between his own father and God to make it prudent to persevere with the discussion. On the subject of his father he always found his mother strangely uncomprehending, and the only times she was really angry ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... went off at a tangent to a certain issue troubling his legal conscience. He had not wavered in the usual assumption of omniscience, but he was by no means sure that he had given right advice. Well! Without that power to decide and hold to decision ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the limit for that caliber of rifle; but the antelope turned a somersault and lay still, while its mates turned off at a tangent and tore away across ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... off suddenly at a tangent. The tentacles of this crime octopus, of which Danglar seemed to be the head, reached far and into most curious places to fasten and hold and feed on the progeny of human foibles! She could not help wondering where the lair was from which emanated the efficiency and system ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... of the arm above the shoulders signifies vivid imagination, or impracticability. It may be read as an indication of lightness of character or of a tendency to go off on a tangent. Conversely, gestures outward from the lower part of the body denote power, or an ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... who arranged the matter peaceably, mollifying Miss Gallifer. Without explaining who Letty was she insisted on her right to remain. If Miss Gallifer was mystified, it was no more than Miss Towell was, or anyone else who touched the situation at a tangent. To that Barbara was indifferent, while Letty ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the Moon. It had by this time turned over considerably under the influence of attraction, but its own original motion still followed a decidedly oblique direction. The consequence of these two forces might possibly be a tangent, line approaching the edge of the Moon's disc. One thing was certain: the Projectile had not yet commenced to fall directly towards her surface; its base, in which its centre of gravity lay, was still turned away considerably from ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... Law of Motion and the Parallelogram of Forces, instead of the earth going off at a tangent in the direction of A E, it will take a mean path in the direction of A B, its path being curved instead ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... staggered: ere he could recover at this thunderbolt of Gallicism, Denys went triumphant off at a tangent, and stigmatized all monks as hypocrites. "Do but look at them, how they creep about and cannot ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... opportunity is afforded you, Virginia, for mental discipline. I can see that Miss Kingsley has taken a fancy to you. She is not a person who goes off at a tangent. She must have discerned capabilities for culture in you, or she would never have invited you to one of her entertainments. To you, who are accustomed to society fine speeches that mean nothing, it will probably occur ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... like an arrow to the safe centre of the opposing racket, if it fall obliquely, or even with too great or too little force, drives it perilously wide of its mark. It can recover the safe track only by a sudden and often violent lunge of the opposing racket. The straight course is life, the tangent disease, the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... and her father's small legacy gave her a measure of independence. But how could one set about getting married in the face of open opposition? And—how keep the truth from Roy? Or tone it down, so that he would not go off at a tangent straightaway? ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... of Tharon as El Rey thundered down toward him. Then Buford, riding midway of the sweeping line, fired and the boy dropped his gun, swayed and clung to his saddle horn as his horse bolted and tore off at a tangent to the right, away from ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... versos equites iterumque reversos subgraduatorum pellentes agmina ferro, inque pavimentis equitantes undique turmas? proh pudor! o mores, o tempora! forsitan olim exercens operam curvo Moderator aratro inveniet mixtis capitum fragmenta galeris relliquias pugnae, et mentem mortalia tangent. me sacer Aegidius Musarum fana colentem aegide defendit, perque ignea tela, per hostes ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... in a whirl down dar at de foot uf de hill, an' no lebel country—nothin' but a leanin'-ober river-bank forty foot high. "Burlman Rennuls, whar you gwine?" Don't know whar. But ober we pitches a-whirlin' [throwing out one of the revolving fists at a tangent]—down we draps into water full forty foot deep, kerslash; de rocks a-pitchin' in arter us thick as hail. [Audience: "Laws-a-marcy!" "Goodness gracious!" "Hoo-weep!" (with a whistle). After an impressive pause the speaker, with an impressive gesture, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... the Pauillac spiralled far aloft, above the edge of the Abyss, then swept into its eastward tangent, and in swift, droning flight rushed toward the longed-for place of dreams, of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... For the sake of economy of space, our cut omits the Point and Swannanoa tunnels (the latter is the summit tunnel), but covers all of the location which is of interest to engineers, the remainder at the Swannanoa end being almost "on tangent" ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... this distance consists of 3.57 miles of tangent and three curves, two of which are 0 deg. 30' each, one of the latter being at the western end of the Division, and the other adjoining Snake Hill; the third is a regular curve of 1 deg. 54' on the east-bound track, and a compound curve with a maximum of 2 deg. on the west-bound ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • E. B. Temple
... is an exact statement of the coincidences of phrase and thought in Shakspere and Montaigne. Not that such coincidences are the main or the only results to be looked for; rather we may reasonably expect to find Shakspere's thought often diverging at a tangent from that of the writer he is reading, or even directly gainsaying it. But there can be no solid argument as to such indirect influence until we have fully established the direct influence, and this can only be done by exhibiting a considerable number of coincidences. ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... Her eyes were glistening with as yet unshed tears. "I've never seen you go off on a wild tangent like this before! On the word of an old fraud like Forsythe, a man who lies about half the time, you talk the Administration into sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into the biggest space lift ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... I was coming, I'd 'a' done it. But, Lord! no one ever knows! And there! I have just remembered as I never took leave of that good soul, Miss Sibby! And whatever will she think of me, a-going off at a tangent in this onthankful manner?" meandered the woman, talking partly to her attendants and ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... air had the effect of sending the old fellow off at a tangent. His bent was evidently discursive, and all thoughts of his late religious controversy seemed to pass ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Tara in that direction, an unwary rabbit allowed the dogs to get between himself and the earths. Too late the rabbit started up from the leaf he had been nibbling, and headed for his burrow. Tara bounded forward and cut off his retreat. Wheeling then at a tangent, the rabbit flew toward the far end of the orchard, where there was a gap in the fence. Tara was after him like the wind, her puppies excitedly galloping in her wake, yapping with delight. Half-way across the orchard Tara overtook the bunny, and her great jaws closed ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... when they would join him; then his mind reverted to Mrs. Martha Bardell; and from that lady it wandered, by a natural process, to the dingy counting-house of Dodson & Fogg. From Dodson & Fogg's it flew off at a tangent, to the very centre of the history of the queer client; and then it came back to the Great White Horse at Ipswich, with sufficient clearness to convince Mr. Pickwick that he was falling asleep. So he roused himself, and began ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Bartley, "it throws the whole burden on the fellow in his senses. It doesn't require any great degree of self-sacrifice to fly off at a tangent, but it's rather a maddening spectacle to the party that ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... wonder, Arved. You fly off on a wild tangent stimulated by the mere sound of a word. Who said anything about dynamite-anarchy? There's another sort that men of brains—madmen if you will—believe and indirectly teach. Emerson was one, though he ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... where learned bucolic professors used to teach us the mysteries of the Spencerian System for a modest stipend. The humiliation of never knowing "how to hold your pen" did much to send many budding geniuses off on a tangent after grasshopper chirography, but those who endured unto the end acquired the "wrist movement." They all wrote alike. That is to say, they all wrote like the professor, who wrote just like all Spencerian professors. So write the girls in Melvil ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... Corellis, and the Mrs. Humphry Wards are born, not made. It may seem odd, even to a publisher, that they write as they do write—by sheer glad instinct. But it is so. The second thing is that when a novelist has made "his name and his market" by doing one kind of thing he can't successfully go off at a tangent and do another kind of thing. To make the largest possible amount of money out of an artist the only way is to leave him alone. When will publishers grasp this? To make the largest possible amount of money out ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... is something in the American temperament that prevents our doing anything in moderation. If we take up an idea, it is immediately run to exaggeration and then abandoned, that the nation may fly at a tangent after some new fad. Does this come from our climate, or (as I am inclined to think) from the curiously unclassified state of society in our country, where so few established standards exist and so few are sure of their own or their neighbors’ ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... between the surface of the mercury in the cistern and the top of the column which is the true height of the barometer. The surface of the mercury column is convex, and in noting the height of the barometer, it is not the chord of the curve, but its tangent which is taken. This is done by setting the straight lower edge of the vernier, an appendage with which the barometer is furnished, as a tangent to the curve. The vernier is made to slide up and down the scale, and by it the height of the barometer ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... sudden changes of temperature, gusts of wind, or injuries, as possible. In a ship of war it should be below the lowest battery or gun-deck. Light should have access to the back of the tube, to admit of setting the index so as to have its lower edge a tangent to the surface of the mercury—the eye being on the same level, which is known by the back and front edges of the index being in one line with the mercury surface. White paper or card will reflect light for setting the vernier correctly. The ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... distance. As they wished to start by daylight—i. e., from the side of the earth turned towards the sun—they could not steer immediately for Jupiter, but were obliged to go a few hundred miles in the direction of the sun, then change their course to something like a tangent to the earth, and get their final right direction in swinging near the moon, since they must be comparatively near some material object to bring apergy ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... about Sleep. I am determined to think (this is the way I went on) about Sleep. I must hold the word Sleep, tight and fast, or I shall be off at a tangent in half a second. I feel myself unaccountably straying, already, into Clare Market. Sleep. It would be curious, as illustrating the equality of sleep, to inquire how many of its phenomena are common to all classes, to all degrees of wealth and poverty, to every grade of education ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... ball of fur in the crotch of a slim forest elm. Presently it uncurled, cautiously; a fluffy ringed tail unfolded; the rounded furry back humped up, and the animal, moving slowly into the tangent foliage of an enormous oak, vanished amid ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... does fly off at a tangent, ten to one Miss Clare'll be down the next day and set all straight again," was the general verdict ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... men and horses. The 38th behaved splendidly, but all their officers were killed or wounded, a number of gunners, and many horses. Two guns were for a time in the hands of the Boers, who, I believe, removed the tangent sights. It appears that the M.I. escort of the Battery, owing, I suppose, to some misunderstanding, retreated. The situation was saved by Captain Budworth, of our Battery, who collected and brought up some mounted ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... action in entering the field for the Republican nomination in 1912, and then in founding the Progressive Party, was the perfectly natural culmination of his career. Some one said that he went off at a tangent in 1912. Some one else has said better that this tangent was a straight line leading back to 1882, when he sat in the New York Assembly. Remember that the love of Justice was from boyhood his leading principle. Remember that, after he succeeded in having a law passed ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... second time for the man's safety, and by great exertions tried to release him from his perilous condition; but our efforts were not a little crippled by the legs of the Norwegian, which he flung violently about at every possible tangent; and one arm, moving with the rapid oscillating motion of a steam-engine, brought the fist in sharp contact with the other Norwegian's chest, and threw him, head over heels, into the identical pool whence he had ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... right of Christ's institution and express promise, I go along with them; but I soon discover that by the church they meant the clergy, the hierarchy exclusively, and then I fly off from them in a tangent. ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... for us to allow the premises without admitting the consequences. Nothing can be more convincing and satisfactory than all the conclusions concerning the properties of circles and triangles; and yet, when these are once received, how can we deny, that the angle of contact between a circle and its tangent is infinitely less than any rectilineal angle, that as you may increase the diameter of the circle in infinitum, this angle of contact becomes still less, even in infinitum, and that the angle of contact between ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... which followed, it is worthy of close study. In shape it much resembled a small square piano without frame or legs. The strings were of brass, struck by a wedge made of the same metal which was called a tangent. It was capable of soft tones only, but they were very sweet and melancholy. The elder Bach loved this instrument. He did not take kindly to the piano which was about to supplant his beloved clavichord. One regrets that he could not have lived to have seen ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... exquisitely sharp crescent of Venus in the pale sky, and about half the apparent size of the moon. The object-glass of the instrument was divided into squares, and she passed rapidly across the field of the telescope, sailing, as it were, in ether; by the slightest motion of a tangent-screw of great length, we were able to bring her back as often as we liked, to the centre of the field. This mechanical process might, however, have been rendered unnecessary, had the machinery attached to the instrument been wound ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... a break of music, and all about them women darting into line, sudden banners floating out, and the white horse prancing in the archway, for all the world as if spun at a tangent off the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... of impatience, and her thoughts went off at a tangent, while in appearance she was still listening attentively to ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... by drawing a line forming a tangent to the circle GHJ at F and another at E, and producing these, they will meet at point K. Consequently, as the side shaft rotates in the direction indicated, the lever L will begin to open the valve V when the cam is in the ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... the locomotive was puffing restlessly when he returned from his farewell to Eliza. A moment later and the single flat car carrying his party and its dangerous freight was being whirled along the shores of Omar Lake. On it rushed, shrieking through the night, out from the gloomy hills and upon the tangent that led across the delta. Ten minutes after it had rolled forth upon the trestle at the "lower crossing" the giant powder had been transferred to poling-boats and the long pull against ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... what he supposed to be natural science. Somebody had accosted him in the street, mistaking him for a no less personage than Doctor Dubble L. Dee, the lecturer upon quack physics. This set him off at a tangent; and just at the epoch of this story, my granduncle, Rumgudgeon, was accessible and pacific only upon the points which happened to chime in with the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of testing to approximate accuracy up to 200 ohms, and to measure roughly up to 2,000 ohms. Mr R. Anderson's apparatus is also very handy, consisting of a case containing three Leclanche cells, and a galvanometer with a "tangent" scale and certain standard resistances. Some useful articles on the protection of buildings from lightning will be found in Arms and Explosives, July, August, and September 1892, and by Mr Anderson, Brit. ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... was no money for the tangent balance of the Air-Motor, which was the final part, on which he had spent months of hard work and a hundred more than half ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... finally he sat on a log for a rest of five minutes. Then the wind brought him a single Indian shout, not more than a quarter of a mile away, and he knew its meaning. The warriors on the right flank, coming up on a tangent of the curve, had seen his footsteps. They had not run more than half the distance he had and so must be comparatively fresh. His danger had increased greatly, but his command over himself was so complete that, instead of ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... shall speak no further; indeed, I do not understand how I happened to be led into this line of discourse, for it is quite at a tangent with the subject I had in ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... and Peckaby struck his wheel with such impetus that it went off at a tangent, and he had to follow it ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... you and the judge? Well, Merlin did start off at a tangent yesterday from Tanglewood. I suppose he is pining after his child, and has taken a sudden freak to rush over and see her. And as you are the staff of his age, of course, he would not think of undertaking so long a journey without the ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... electricity than water at the same temperature." Certain phenomena connected with the administration of electric baths having forced upon me some doubts in this respect, I made very careful experiments, both with and without the aid of the galvanometer (Bradley's Tangent), to satisfy these. Without wearying the reader with details, I will state that the result of my experiments leaves no room for doubt that water at the temperatures stated—and still more so at 98 1/2 deg.—is superior to the human body as a conductor of electricity. ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... from the earth at a tangent, and as the moon is near her third quarter we are going somewhere towards her. ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... defend myself. I agree that man is pre-eminently a creative animal, predestined to strive consciously for an object and to engage in engineering—that is, incessantly and eternally to make new roads, WHEREVER THEY MAY LEAD. But the reason why he wants sometimes to go off at a tangent may just be that he is PREDESTINED to make the road, and perhaps, too, that however stupid the "direct" practical man may be, the thought sometimes will occur to him that the road almost always does lead SOMEWHERE, and that the ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... has more variety and is therefore more picturesque than the tangent its equivalent. The simplest definition of picturesqueness is variety in unity. The lines of the long road in perspective offer easy conduct for the eye, but it finds a greater interest in threading its ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... David! This is indeed Satan rebuking sin. Why there are three designs here—one I've just knocked over—beastly, wasn't it?—that you left with me when you went off at a tangent to South Africa.... Really, we ought to have ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... egali, kunegali. Talmud Talmudo. Talon ungego. Tame malsovagxigi, kvietigi. [Error in book: kiretigi] Tame malsovagxa. Tamely kviete. Tamper intrigi, enmiksigxi pri. Tan tani. Tan tanilo. Tan (the skin) brunigi. Tangent tangento. Tangible palpebla. Tangle (entangle) enmiksigi. Tank akvujo. Tankard pokalo, kaliko. Tanner tanisto. Tannin tanino. Tantamount to egalvalora al. Tap bateti, frapeti. Tap krano. Tape ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... pilots of them frequently have to fight, and so can not give their whole attention to the machines, some form of automatic stabilizer is needed to prevent them turning turtle, or going off at a wrong tangent. ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... our visit; not Countess Rudolf's kindness, as you may perhaps suppose)—"and a pretty old suit it is by this time! for I was young, a mere child, in fact, when it began, ha, ha!—By the way," she continued, flying off at a tangent, "they advised us to put an end to the suit by arranging a match between me and Karpathy. I was young then, as I have said—a mere child, ha, ha!—but I would not entertain the idea, ha, ha! I made a mistake, no doubt; for how rich should ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... cylinder located beneath one end of a large pivoted working beam and a vertical plunger-type pump beneath the other end. Heavy, flat chains were secured to a sector at each end of the working beam and to the engine and pump piston rods in such a way that the rods were always tangent to a circle whose center was at the beam pivot. The weight of the reciprocating pump parts pulled the pump end of the beam down; the atmosphere, acting on the open top of the piston in the steam cylinder, caused the engine ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... through the leg of a table and shivered to atoms against the log wall, contributing its full share to the discouraging mess on the floor. But, as it whirled past, a great wedge of the boiling water leaped out over the rim, flew off at a tangent, and caught the floundering calf full in the side, in a long flare down from the tip of the left shoulder. The scalding fluid seemed to cling in the short, fine hair almost like an oil. With a loud bleat of pain the calf shot to his feet and went ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... foreman noticed the boyish figure and delayed the meeting, reining in to critically examine cattle which he had branded some three months before. With diligent intent, the greeting was kept pending, the wayfarer riding away on a tangent and veering back on his general course, until Dell's suspicion was aroused. The return of Priest was so unexpected that the boy's eyes filled with tears, and the two rode along until the grove was ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... incorrigible papist; what need is there of flying off at such a tangent?" said Mr. Stillinghast, with a grim smile; "I did not mean that, but what will become of you when ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... when they would join him; then his mind reverted to Mrs. Martha Bardell; and from that lady it wandered, by a natural process, to the dingy counting-house of Dodson and Fogg. From Dodson and Fogg's it flew off at tangent, to the very centre of the history of the queer client; and then it came back to the Great White Horse at Ipswich, with sufficient clearness to convince Mr. Pickwick that he was falling asleep: so he aroused himself, and began to undress, when he recollected ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... he began and stopped abruptly. He went off at a tangent to ask for information about these Babble Machines. For the most part, the crowd present had been shabbily or even raggedly dressed, and Graham learnt that so far as the more prosperous classes were concerned, in all the more comfortable ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... sprang from pure emotionality. The tone was produced by a blow against the string, delivered by a bit of brass set in the farther end of the key. The action was that of a direct lever, and the bit of brass, which was called the tangent, also acted as a bridge and measured off the segment of string whose vibration produced the desired tone. It was therefore necessary to keep the key pressed down so long as it was desired that the tone should sound, a fact which must be kept in mind if one would understand the shortcomings as ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... /n./ Abbreviation for 'argument' (to a function), used so often as to have become a new word (like 'piano' from 'pianoforte'). "The sine function takes 1 arg, but the arc-tangent function can take either 1 or 2 args." ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... happening to recognise here a one and there a one, I correct him of my own private and personal knowledge, when he frankly admits that I am right; and after casually explaining how he does occasionally mistake the Countess of DUNNOYER for Lady ELIZABETH MARTIN, he goes off at a tangent, and picks out several other distinguished-looking personages, numbering them as "first to right," "second to left," and so forth, as if in a collection of wax-works, giving to each one of them a name and a history. His acquaintance with the private life of the aristocracy ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... straight across the table what he thought about the final breaking of the Hindenburg line. But he asked it with that same fierce look from under his bushy eyebrows with which he used to ask Tom to define the path of a tangent, and Tom was rattled at once. He answered something about being afraid that he was not well posted, owing to there being so little chance over there to read ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... lodestone, the magnet of my heart was here," he answered half-playfully, half-tenderly. "When that is gone, I shall be likely to fly off in a tangent again." ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... and covered only with a smooth sward of gramma-grass. It was, in fact, a glade, nearly circular in shape, and about a hundred yards in diameter. On one side of this glade the river impinged, its bank being almost a tangent line to it. Here there was a gap in the timber, so that out of the glade could be obtained a view of the bottom on the other side of the stream. Diametrically opposite to this gap another opening, of an avenue-like form, led out into the adjacent ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist. Start now on that farthest western way, which does not pause at the Mississippi or the Pacific, nor conduct toward a wornout China or Japan, but leads on direct, a tangent to this sphere, summer and winter, day and night, sun down, moon down, and at last ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... in one hand he waved a dingy piece of parchment with a seal dangling from it, which I assumed was some obsolete firman. The result was truly amazing, and the scene had some real humour in it. With profound salaams, the Turks unhanded me, helped me to mount, and, as I rode off at a tangent with Andreas at my horse's head, called after me what sounded like friendly farewells. When we were back among the Russians—I don't remember seeing much of the Servians later on that day—Andreas explained that he had passed himself for the Turkish dragoman of a British correspondent whom ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... Some settlement is to be expected in almost any soil, and because of horizontal thrusts there is also a tendency for arch abutments to rotate. It is this tendency which opens up cracks in spandrels of arches, and makes the assumption of a fixed tangent at the springing line, commonly made by the elastic ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... scatter-brains women are born with!" marvelled Mr. Meredith. "No wonder the adage runs that 'a woman's mind and a winter's wind oft change'! In the name of evil, Jan, what started ye off on that tangent?" ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... early dawning of the pink-and-silver morning Margaret went back to her work, Gardley riding by her side, and Bud riding at a discreet distance behind, now and then going off at a tangent after a stray cottontail. It was wonderful what good sense Bud seemed ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... intellectually a greater. Her volubility was all egotism. She could scarcely say ten words, except about herself. So, when Bassett questioned her about Sir Charles and Lady Bassett, she said "Yes," or "No," or "I don't know," and was off at a tangent to her ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... an unreasoning fear of that Jap, not because he has said anything or done anything. It's just instinctive. I may be wholly wrong in having come to you and in taking up your time, but there are two things I wanted to tell you. I could have told Donald, but if I did and his mind went off at a tangent thinking of these things he wouldn't be nearly so likely to be in condition to give his best thought to his studies. If I really made him see what I think I have seen, and fear what I know I fear, he might fail where I would give almost anything ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... round the waist, I ventured, in my careless way, to talk of friendship in rather ambiguous terms; and after her return to - , I wrote her in the same terms. Miss, construing my remarks further than even I intended, flew off in a tangent of female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in an April morning; and wrote me an answer which measured out very completely what an immense way I had to travel before I could reach the climate of her favours. But I am an old hawk at ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... began to pound the Gap call. And as though it were before him in reality, that stretch of track, fifteen miles of it, from Blind River to the Gap, unfolded itself like a grisly panorama before his mind. There wasn't a half mile of tangent at a single stretch in the whole of it. It swung like the writhings of a snake, through cuts and tunnels, hugging the canyon walls, twisting this way and that. Anywhere else there might be a chance, one in a thousand even, that they would see each other's headlights ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... Unstable. The Application of Power. The Supporting Surfaces. Area not the Essential Thing. The Law of Gravity. Gravity. Indestructibility of Gravitation. Distance Reduces Gravitational Pull. How Motion Antagonizes Gravity. A Tangent. Tangential Motion Represents Centrifugal Pull. Equalizing the Two Motions. Lift and Drift. Normal Pressure. Head Resistance. Measuring Lift and Drift. Pressure at Different Angles. Difference Between Lift and Drift in Motion. Tables of Lift and Drift. Why Tables of ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... his flock last Sunday of the tortures of the damned, and having said all he could about devils and pitchforks and caldrons, he came to a sudden pause—a blank look came into his face, and, looking round the church and seeing the sunlight streaming through the door, his thoughts went off at a tangent. "Now, boys," he said, "if this fine weather continues, I hope you'll be all out in the bog next Tuesday ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... Do you suppose that any of the monkey set are interested in me or I in them?" he said, disgusted. "Do I ever go near them or meet them at all except by accident in the routine of the machinery which sometimes sews us in tangent patches on this ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... very pleasant ride, and clattered up its one long street to the principal hotel; but Mr. Fosbrooke whipped into the yard to the left so rapidly, that our hero, who was not much used to the back seat of a dog-cart, flew off by some means at a tangent to the right, and was consequently degraded in ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... dear sir, do not let us fly off at a tangent to morality or philosophy; these have nothing to do with the present purpose. You have before you all the papers relative to this transaction. Now, will you do me the favour, the service, to look them over, and try whether you can make ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... course, but he quickly concealed these emotions and proceeded to plunge into an animated conversation with his guests. Indeed, it assumed the character of a monologue in which he frequently adverted to the weather, to be off on a tangent the next moment on a discussion of finance, politics, sociology, on which subjects, however, he was far from showing the positiveness and fixed opinion that he did while descanting upon the weather. In all the subjects he touched upon, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... continued imperturbably, "invented in 1940, two years ago, solves the wireless transmission problem, but the success of your plan depends upon your own invention—upon your straight-line drills that you say will not wander off at a tangent when they get down a few miles. And more than that, it depends ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... warm-natured, full of strong, straightforward, devotional vigour; combines homeliness of soul with intensity of imagination; links a great dash of honest turbulence with an infinitude of deep earnestness; tells a man that if he is happy he may shout, that if under a shower of grace he may fly off at a tangent and sing; makes a sinner wince awfully when under the pang of repentance, and orders him to jump right out of his skin for joy the moment he finds peace; gives him a fierce cathartic during conversion, and a rapturous cataplasm in his "reconciliation." Primitive Methodism ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... big dividing board," he went on, "they are distributed and connected each in its place to the delicate tangent galvanometers and sensitive indicators you see in this room. These instantly announce the most minute change in the working of the current, and each office has a distinct separate metallic circuit. Why, even a hole as small ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... plenary proof, would involve a larger expenditure of space and letter-press than befits the economy of a discreet hebdomadal journal. We can but allude, and hint, and suggest, and illustrate our position in an 'off-at-a-tangent' sort of way. Look, for instance, at his ingenious quaintness in the matter of onomatology. What a name, he would say, is Lamb for a soldier, Joy for an undertaker, Rich for a pauper, or Noble for a tailor; Big for a lean or little person, and Small for one who is broad in the rear and abdominous ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... replied Philip quickly, his blood beginning to thrill with the anticipation of battle. "I'll give you half. I'm on duty from Fort Churchill, off on a tangent of my own." He did not take his eyes from the slit in the wall as he told Anderson in a hundred words what had happened since his meeting with Bram Johnson. "And with forty cartridges we'll give 'em a ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... small element of a curve is very near being a straight line. And the smaller it is, the nearer. In the limit, it may be termed a part of the curve or a part of the straight line, as you please, for in each of its points a curve coincides with its tangent. So likewise "vitality" is tangent, at any and every point, to physical and chemical forces; but such points are, as a fact, only views taken by a mind which imagines stops at various moments of the movement that generates the curve. In reality, life is no ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... was about to make up a new story. He must have had time for many inventions in the ten days of his absence. But she welcomed any tangent of nonsense that set the right key for the coincidence of their meeting. She had refused to ride to the pass with him and here they were alone together on the pass. Three or four steps, so light that they seemed to be irresistibly winning permission from her, and he had sat down ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... basket maker's grief sent the insane man off on another tangent. "Don't you worry about me. Helen and John and their mother worry a lot about me. They think ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright |
