"Erratic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be asked now, even if for the first time, why has Jay Gould been plucked out as a special object of opprobrium? What curious, erratic, unstable judgment is this that selects this one man as the scapegoat of commercial society, while deferentially allowing his business contemporaries the fullest measure of integrity ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... betrayed into one of his erratic positions, as when he moved to strike out the section against dueling, and also to expunge from the bill of rights all restrictions upon bearing arms. He said: "Let the people bear arms for their own protection, whether in their boots or ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... here had most of the elements of romance. Son of a poor parson born in a cross-roads Ontario hamlet, brilliant but erratic student at Dalhousie University, down-at-the-heels insurance agent in Halifax, youthful merger of two small banks at a time when he was unable to pay for his own clothes—we have here symptoms of a career which might have turned into a character ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... she was a brilliant but erratic personage, living sumptuously, even though her revenues from Sweden came in slowly, partly because the Swedes disliked her change of religion. She was surrounded by men of letters, with whom she amused herself, and she took to herself a ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... his father's side is a reminder in his name of a disagreeable truth.[116] A little later the man is actually required to go about barefooted, and without clothing sufficient for conventional respectability, and to continue this for three years.[117] When we remember that he was not an erratic extremist, but a sober-minded, fine-grained gentleman of refinement and of a good family, it helps us to understand a little how hard-hearted and stubborn were a people that could be appealed to only in ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... fielder, was the next batter. He went after the second ball and found it, knocking it straight at Mower. Mower was an erratic player, and, on this occasion, he stopped the ball, but he chased it around his feet long enough to permit Gulsiver to get first safely, and Smithers and Edwards moved ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... sides revived for the evening activity, a meal, and preparations for the night. The Turks, since their heavy but futile attacks of two nights previous, had not returned into that placidity which betokened cessation of evil intentions. There was an erratic nervousness of fire; instructions were that an attack would eventuate during the night, and that no one ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... Howard, who both loved and respected his niece, to defer his remarks to another time: and Katherine, springing from her chair with childish eagerness, flew to the side of her cousin, who was directing a servant that had announced the arrival of one of those erratic venders of small articles, who supply, in remote districts of the country, the places of more regular traders, to show the lad into the dining-parlor. The repast was so far ended as to render this interruption ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... happened that when the unfortunate Black first became clearly conscious of anything again, he heard the gurgle of sliding water close beside his head, and, opening his eyes, caught sight of a smoky lamp that reeled to and fro, in very erratic fashion. Moisture dripped from the beams above him, and there was a sickly smell which seemed familiar. Black, who had been to sea before, decided that he caught the aroma of bilge water. Rows of wooden shelves tenanted by recumbent figures, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... yielded to an erratic but harmless impulse in driving off recklessly with the priest; her nature, so long restrained by residence in a dull, circumscribed village instead of a lively town, needed some such prank to reanimate and amuse it. She seized the reins dramatically, insisted ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... it was well known among the admirers of the new baseball team, that by his "hopping" Toby managed to cover short as few fellows could. Seldom did the most erratic hit get past those nimble hands of his, that could stab a vicious stinging ball coming straight from the bat of a slugger, and apparently tagged for ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... Joe recovered the erratic branch in a moment, and dragged it up the escape, Bob, who was now in a breatheable atmosphere, helping to pass up the hose. The foreman, who seemed to have acquired the power of being in several places at one and the same moment of time, and whose watchful eye was ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... he was for a time a friend of the erratic and gifted Rousseau, and was afterwards not unknown to Condorcet, the secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, so liberal in his views and so bitter an enemy of the Church; and though constantly in contact with ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... burned, themselves expelled from the white churches, and finally driven from the city in 1858.[1] Other white men and women were teaching colored children during these years. The most prominent of these were Thomas Tabbs, an erratic philanthropist, Mr. Nutall, an Englishman; Mr. Talbot, a successful tutor stationed near the present site of the Franklin School; and Mrs. George Ford, a Virginian, conducting a school on New Jersey Avenue between K and L Streets.[2] ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... rehearse hunting and war and act and dance out their legends, bring individuals and tribes together.[25] Work is menial, cheerless, grinding, regular, and requires more precision and accuracy and, because attended with less ease and pleasure and economy of movement, is more liable to produce erratic habits. Antagonistic as the forms often are, it may be that, as Carr says, we may sometimes so suffuse work with the play spirit, and vice versa, that the present distinction between work and play will vanish, the transition will be less tragic and the activities ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... every muscle to reach the beach; but my frisky friends were in no mood to leave me, but continued their fun with increased energy as reinforcements came up from all directions. The faster I rowed the more they multiplied, ploughing the sea in erratic courses. They were from five to seven feet in length, and must have weighed from two hundred to four hundred pounds each. Though their attentions were kindly meant, their brusqueness on such an unsteady ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... faces stiff competition in international markets with the end of the global quota system. However, other sectors, notably the automotive and electronics industries, are rising in importance within Turkey's export mix. In recent years the economic situation has been marked by erratic economic growth and serious imbalances. Real GNP growth has exceeded 6% in many years, but this strong expansion has been interrupted by sharp declines in output in 1994, 1999, and 2001. Inflation, in recent years in the high double-digit range, fell to 9.3% by 2004 - a 30-year low. Despite these ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... listening and looking up at the sky above the clearing. His hair was white, his figure a little bent, and there was an anxious look upon his face, a permanent expression rather than one caused by any tardy arrival this evening. The man he waited for was too erratic in his goings and comings to make a few hours', or even a day's, ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... were busily engaged in bringing proofs of the new science before the commission. These were M. de Foissac, M. Dupotet, M. Chapelain, and M. de Geslin. It would be but an unprofitable, and by no means a pleasant task to follow the commissioners in their erratic career, as they were led hither and thither by the four lights of magnetism above mentioned; the four "Wills-o'-the-Wisp" which dazzled the benighted and bewildered doctors on that wide and shadowy region ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... for every breach of discipline. The study was a cool dark room, with one window looking north, and that window barred. Here he locked up the erratic youth for hours at a time, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... untried teacher, if she was handsome and unabashed. If they went on like this the scholars would lose all respect for him. So, being quite able to sing a clear tenor, he nevertheless puckered his lips impertinently, drew his brows in an ominous frown, and began to whistle a somewhat erratic accompaniment to the song. He watched the teacher closely, expecting to see the color flame in her cheeks, the anger flash in her eyes; he had tried this trick on other teachers and it always worked. He gave the ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... hear a word he was saying, after those first jerky sentences. He stood looking past Bill at a drunken Irishman who was making erratic progress up the street; and he was no more conscious of the Irishman than he was of Bill's scorching condemnation of the town ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... that Benjamin's manipulation of the tiller was extraordinary and erratic, and it was not until the boat was well past the wharves that he ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... royal family at this time. It was his last visit to England. His company, always earnestly coveted, especially by the Prince, was apt to be bestowed in an erratic fashion characteristic of the man. Some one of the royal children would unexpectedly announce, "Papa, do you know the Baron is in his room," which was the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... influence, and therefore mediumistic. In many cases these persons tend to take on the psychic conditions of others, both those in earth life and those on the spirit plane of existence, without realizing the nature of the influence operating on them. Such persons are frequently more or less erratic, and are considered as "flighty" by their friends. They need instruction on the subject of psychic laws and self-control, so that they may intelligently guard themselves against undesirable influences, and at the same time cultivate the ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... on a man is not in good taste, and will indicate him to the observer as a person of unbalanced mind and unpleasantly erratic character—a man, in brief, who seeks to impress others with the fact that he is eccentric, something which a really eccentric person ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... wildest statistics about the habits of tigers in winter. This was quite natural, however, as he was a thorough Irishman and had never seen a tiger in his life. Mr. Currie Ghyrkins vainly attempted to stem the torrent of his eloquence, but at last pinned him on some erratic statement about tigers moulting later in the year and their skins not being worth taking. Kildare would have asserted with equal equanimity that all tigers shed their teeth and their tails in December; ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... cause, to keep his heart from fluttering with fear as they stepped along beneath the gloom of the trees, which even when not in leaf cast dense shadows around them. It was in truth a weird spot: owls hooted dismally about them, bats flitted here and there in their erratic flight, and sometimes almost brushed the faces of the boys with their clammy wings. The strange noises always to be heard in a wood at night assailed their ears, and mingled with the quick beating of their own hearts; ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... in't, To state what he calls Ireland's Case; Meaning thereby the case of his shop,- Of curate, vicar, rector, bishop, And all those other grades seraphic, That make men's souls their special traffic, Tho' caring not a pin which way The erratic souls go, so they pay.— Just as some roguish country nurse, Who takes a foundling babe to suckle, First pops the payment in her purse, Then leaves poor dear to—suck its knuckle: Even so these reverend rigmaroles Pocket the money—starve the souls. Murtagh, however, in his glory, Will ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... night. Her low spirits were succeeded by gay ones; the Princess had never looked more truly regal, nor had the Prince ever more passionately wooed her. Girls who did not belong to the society always flocked into the theater to see the rehearsals. Maggie's mood scarcely puzzled them. She was so erratic that no one expected anything from her but the unexpected: if she looked like a drooping flower one moment, her head was erect the next, her eyes sparkling, her voice gay. The flower no longer drooped, but blossomed with ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... earth, some people accept the mere fact of his soaring for sublimity, and mistake his dim vision of earth for proximity to heaven." And in like manner, when a thinker frees himself from all the trammels of fact, and propounds a "bold hypothesis," people mistake the vagabond erratic flights of guessing for a higher range of philosophic power. In truth, the imagination is most tasked when it has to paint pictures which shall withstand the silent criticism of general experience, and to frame hypotheses which shall withstand the confrontation with facts. I cannot here enter into ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... to Doggie these tears were healing dews of Heaven's distillation. By degrees he learned the many arts of war as taught to the private soldier in England. He could refrain from shutting his eyes when he pressed the trigger of his rifle, but to the end of his career his shooting was erratic. He could perform with the weapon the other tricks of precision. Unencumbered he could march with the best. The torture of the heavy pack nearly killed him; but in time, as his muscles developed, he was able to slog along under the burden. He even learned ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... curiously enough, the formula of a man whose judgment I profoundly distrusted, whose work as a journalist I disliked, and who as a man was to me exceedingly unsympathetic. It was that of Mr. Stead, the erratic Editor first of the Pall Mall and then of the Review of Reviews. The journalist, he declared, was "the watch-dog of society." Stead, though a man of honest intent and very great ability, was also a man of many failings, many ineptitudes, many prejudices, and many injustices—witness ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... with a genius so unstable, so erratic? Nothing, apparently, but to let him qualify for orders, and for this he is too young. Thereupon ensues a sort of 'Martin's summer' in his changing life,—a disengaged, delightful time when 'Master Noll' wanders irresponsibly from house to house, fishing and flute-playing, or, of winter evenings, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... the thing working itself out in one case known to me. A young man had a gift of mental healing; I know, because I saw it work; but it did not always work, and that was annoying. He was penniless and had a taste for power, and to eke out his erratic endowment he got himself books of Eastern lore, and day by day as I watched him I could see him becoming more and more impressive, mysterious and forbidding. Today he is a full-fledged wonder-worker, with the language of a dozen mystic ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... the possession, perhaps, of so many virtues, gifts, testimonials, and certificates she had no chin, no eyebrows, and no eyelashes. Her eyes were weak and watery; her spectacles strong and thick; her nose indeterminate, wavering, erratic; her ears large, her teeth irregular and protrusive, her mouth unfortunate and not ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... a young man quite erratic Who lived all alone in an attic, He wrote magazine verse That made editors curse, But his friends ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... evil to the constitutions which knew only the equable English temperature, and could not face either the intense sun, or the sudden changes of the most erratic climate the earth knows. In the search for running-water, the colonists scattered, moving from point to point, "the Governor, the Deputy-Governor and all the assistants except Mr. Nowell going across the river to Boston at the invitation of Mr. Blaxton, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... school arm in arm, sat next to each other at tea, and wrote each other private little notes. St. Elgiva's smiled again, but the girls by this time were accustomed to Marjorie's very impulsive and rather erratic ways, and did not ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... suddenly he began walking right up, in the water. When the others came up to the same place, to their surprise, they found themselves doing the same thing. They couldn't possibly stay on the ground. 'I don't want to go up,' said erratic Cricket, kicking, and shamefaced Will called to the sparkling gnome, to know what was the matter. 'Nothing at all,' he called back, cheerfully, 'only gravity doesn't happen to act just there. Sometimes it doesn't and then you're just as likely to go ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... nearby hills, and in the bright moonlight Phil did not use his flashlight at all, except to investigate other round black blotches that made a line parallel to the prints. As he went on he found his quarry's steps coming more closely together: becoming erratic. Soon they showed as painful drags in the sand, a laborious hauling of one foot after the other.... Phil put away his ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... so far surpassed his contemporaries that he decided the character of his country's literature for a century; but his influence was finally lost in the growing Italian and German taste. The principal names of this period are those of Lucidor, a wild, erratic genius; Mrs. Brenner, the first female writer of Sweden, whose numerous poems are distinguished for their neat and easy style; and Spegel (d. 1711), whose Psalms, full of the simplest beauty, give him a lasting place in the literature of the country. The literary ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... difference between random and fugitive desires and those more fundamental desires that express truly the nature of a man. Desires organized and harmonized gain great strength, and are enabled to overcome and expel from the mind erratic impulses, the obedience to which may easily be followed by regret. Action taken without a clear foresight of consequences, with an imperfect conception of the relation of means to ends, is blind and irrational action. Reason, as bringing enlightenment, as making possible deliberation, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... a destructive criticism which seeks to refute the opponent's doctrine without seeking to establish or formulate any new doctrine. Hetvabhasas are those which appear as hetus but are really not so. Nyaya sutras enumerate five fallacies (hetvabhasas) of the middle (hetu): savyabhicara (erratic), viruddha (contradictory), prakara@nasama (tautology), saddhyasama (unproved reason) and kalatita (inopportune). Savyabhicara is that where the same reason may prove opposite conclusions ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... sign-painter's apprentice; idle, lawless, and practically letterless until he had drifted into the night classes of the Albert League, where Ghillini sometimes lectured. From the moment he came under the eye and influence of that erratic Italian, then a political exile, his life had swerved sharply from its old channel. This man had been at once incentive and guide, friend and master, to his pupil. He had taken the raw clay out of the London streets and molded it anew. Seemingly he had divined at once where the boy's ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... methods had themselves fallen in disrepute, that the necessity of accommodating the remedy to the disease began to be recognized here and there, and of framing an argument that would appeal to the perverse and erratic mind of the day, rather than to an abstract and perfectly normal mind, which, if it existed, would "need no repentance." That a given medicine is the best, avails nothing if it be not also one which the patient is willing to take. If a man ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... events. The opportunity however was not taken. Indeed it is scarcely surprising that the signs of the times should have been misread. Maurice had helped Charles against the Schmalkaldic League before; yet everything depended on his discarding the apparently erratic politics of his past career, and displaying in full measure the organising and military genius of which he had given promise, though it still remained to be conclusively proved. He did in fact prove it a few months later, when he all ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... modifier for overstating an understatement. As in: 'highly nonoptimal', the worst possible way to do something; 'highly nontrivial', either impossible or requiring a major research project; 'highly nonlinear', completely erratic and unpredictable; 'highly nontechnical', drivel written for {luser}s, oversimplified to the point of being misleading or incorrect (compare {drool-proof paper}). In other computing cultures, postfixing of {in ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... flew wildly all about the shed; Bab rattled the cups into her dish-pan with dangerous haste, and Betty raised a cloud of dust "sweeping-up;" while mother seemed to be everywhere at once. Even Sanch, feeling that his fate was at stake, endeavored to help in his own somewhat erratic way,—now frisking about Ben at the risk of getting his tail chopped off, then trotting away to poke his inquisitive nose into every closet and room whither he followed Mrs. Moss in her "flying round" evolutions; next dragging off the mat so Betty ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... been very poor in his old age; but he was so more by choice than through necessity, as at the period here alluded to, his children were all comfortably situated, and were most anxious to keep their father at home, but no entreaty could induce him to alter his erratic way of life. He travelled from one churchyard to another, mounted on his old white pony, till the last day of his existence, and died, as you have described, at Bankhill, near Lockerby, on the 14th February, 1801, in the 86th year of his age. As soon as his ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sting of it By frankly forfeiting the Prince and town. "Bidden," says she, "but as one low of rank, And go I will not so unworthily, To sit with common dames!"—A flippant friend Writes then that a new planet sways to-night The sense of her erratic lord; whereon The fair ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... leave him a league behind and seem lost to him, but only to return and show its form again; for it has never lost sight nor recollection of the traveller toiling slowly over the surface. Rima kept us company in some such wild erratic way as that. A word, a sign from Nuflo was enough for her to know the direction to take—the distant forest or still more distant mountain near which we should have to pass. She would hasten on and be lost to our sight, and ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... was returning to position, but with a series of erratic swoops that seemed to close ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... for quite a long way, but it would be untrue to say I enjoyed myself. We began to gain on Christ Church at once, and were very soon within half-a-length of them, but I had no breath to use for shouting, and not having a rattle I could make no row at all; moreover I am an erratic runner, so whenever I looked at the boats I kicked or ran into somebody, and I could not retort when they said things to me. I pounded along as far as the Long Bridges, which was really quite a long way, and when I stopped I was sure that ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... Lambert—a pugnacious seafaring diplomatist, known for his love of the yard-arm law. The Commodore would hold a parley with the Rajah; the Rajah, whose dignity was first to be consulted, was too slow in preparing his palace. The Commodore, erratic of temper, was at times accustomed to growl for his own amusement; he now growled for the amusement of his countrymen. The result was natural. In the littleness of his vanity did the Rajah imagine himself ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... crossed the village street. For such projectiles as laden toboggans, passing across the trunk line of the village traffic at an average rate of a mile a minute, were hardly less dangerous than cannon-balls, and of much more erratic flight. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... a most erratic craft. She might have done well enough upon a park lagoon if safely anchored, but upon the bosom of a mighty ocean she left much to ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... leaving these erratic bodies, let us turn to the more familiar and important members of the Solar System. It was the remarkable harmony among their movements which first made Laplace conceive that the Sun, planets, and ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... you would go, I should have been afraid for you. But you seemed always so unconcerned. It maddened me to think I cared so much for a man who cared nothing about wrongs and injustices, who could sit contentedly at home while other men sacrificed themselves. My dear, I'm afraid I'm an erratic person, a woman whose heart and head are nearly always ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... orographic conformation of the country. The three ramifications mentioned, of which the Duthumi forms the first link, are separated by immense longitudinal plains. These elevated summits consist of rounded cones, between which the soil is bestrewn with erratic blocks of stone and gravelly bowlders. The most abrupt declivity of these mountains confronts the Zanzibar coast, but the western slopes are merely inclined planes. The depressions in the soil are covered with a black, rich loam, on which ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... voice, and seemed on the verge of tears. The labor of his entire life, the great victories won with don Ramon, that political power which had been so carefully built up and sustained over decades, was about to crumble to ruins; all because of a light-headed, erratic boy who had handed to the first skirt who came along everything that belonged to him and everything that belonged to his friends ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... rocking chair in the hall, an erratic creaking responded, and Woolfolk started forward, and stopped as he heard and then identified the noise. This, he told himself, would not do; the hysteria was creeping over him again. He shook his shoulders, wiped his palm and took a fresh grip on ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the invitation to tea given by my hostess, who stood speechless with amazement at the erratic taste that would forego tea for the sake of a bird song, and we started at once up the road, where I had seen the bird perched in a partially dead hemlock-tree, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... natives and the colonists would be most effectually promoted by the government reserving suitable portions of land within the territorial limits of the respective tribes, with the view of weaning them from their erratic habits, forming thereon depots for supplying them with provisions and clothing, under the charge of individuals of exemplary moral character, taking at the same time an interest in their welfare, and who would endeavour to instruct them in agricultural and other useful ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... if, on your nightly rambles, you find one of the large night moths winging its silent flight over the moonlit glade, resting for an instant on a mullein-stalk, then dancing away in his erratic flight, like some ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... if he could devote fifty years to the study of this work, he might come to be without great faults; but neither native nor foreign scholars can really make anything out of it. Some regard it as a Book of Fate. One erratic genius of the West has gone so far as to say that it is only a vocabulary of the language of ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... depended upon his private exertions. I respected this style of mule; and had I possessed a juicy cabbage, would have pressed it upon him, with thanks for his excellent example. The historical mule was a melo-dramatic quadruped, prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps, and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat and apparently dying a la Forrest: a gasp—a squirm—a flop, and so on, till the street was ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... perhaps without giving much thought to his work, when the axe, newly sharpened before he came out, caught in a crooked branch, which diverted almost the whole force of the blow on his own foot. Well was it that Mr. Holt, in his erratic education, had chosen to pry into the mysteries of surgery for one session, and knew something of the art of putting together severed flesh and bone; although many a dreadful axe wound is cured in the backwoods by settlers who never heard of a diploma, but nevertheless heal with herbs and ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... acted like this before in all his life," thought Bob, as he found considerable difficulty in keeping his saddle, such were the sudden whirls the black made in his erratic course. ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... an inherited instinct, regards the comet as a great terror and a great foe; and the heart of humanity sits uneasily when one blazes in the sky. Even to the scholar and the scientist they are a puzzle and a fear; they are erratic, unusual, anarchical, monstrous—something let loose, like a tiger of the heavens, athwart an orderly, peaceful, and harmonious world. They may be impalpable and harmless attenuations of gas, or they way be loaded with death ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... the Republic of Cyprus under government control has a market economy dominated by the service sector, which accounts for 78% of GDP. Tourism, financial services, and real estate are the most important sectors. Erratic growth rates over the past decade reflect the economy's reliance on tourism, which often fluctuates with political instability in the region and economic conditions in Western Europe. Nevertheless, the economy in the area under government control grew by an average of 3.6% per year ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... himself that among his voluminous exegetical writings was a treatise on S. Mark's Gospel.(438) To Origen's works, Eusebius, (his apologist and admirer,) is known to have habitually resorted; and, like many others, to have derived not a few of his notions from that fervid and acute, but most erratic intellect. Origen's writings in short, seem to have been the source of much, if not most of the mistaken Criticism of Antiquity. (The reader is reminded of what has been offered above at p. 96-7). And this would not be the first ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... recognizes that he is approaching a crisis in life, there is an awe that calms and controls. Lottie, with her intense vitality, could arouse even a sluggish nature. But to earnest Hemstead, with his vivid fancy, and large faith, this beautiful but erratic creature reading the neglected Bible, to find for him a sweeter and sunnier gospel than he had preached, seemed a special providence that presaged more than he had dared to conjecture; and he listened as one ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... travel so far or so long as had been his wont in days gone by. A wife and family, in the village of Salem, exercised an attractive influence, fastening him, as it were, to a fixed point, and converting his former erratic orbit into a circle which, with centripetal force, was always drawing nearer ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... not yet lost the habits of his erratic life; the traditions of his fathers and his passion for the chase are still alive within him. The wild enjoyments which formerly animated him in the woods painfully excite his troubled imagination; and his ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... posterior half, the comparatively clear portion invariably pointing in advance. When it meets an obstacle, it partially flattens itself against it, then turns aside and spins off in a new direction. This erratic motion is continued for usually seven or eight minutes. The longest duration I have yet observed was a little over nine and one-half minutes. Hassall records a case where it continued for nineteen minutes. The time, however, varies greatly, as in some cases the motion ceases almost as soon ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... you need not think I am much amiss, for I go out every pleasant day, to ride, and some days can take quite a walk. The trouble is that when the pain returns, as it does several times a day, it knocks my strength out of me. I hope when all parts of my frame have been visited by this erratic sprite, it may find it worth while to beat a retreat. Only to think, we are going to move to No. 70 East Twenty-seventh street, and you have all been and gone away! The rent is enormous, $1,000 having been just added to an already high price. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... is, he got soused on about three, and, while snooted, would deride Victor Herbert, thus proving that he was Brilliant, though Erratic. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... at bat the visitors did not do as much. Perhaps Frazer managed to tighten up, and pitch better ball. He was very erratic, and could never be depended on to do consecutive good work. In every other inning the heavies could not seem to gauge his work at all, and he mowed them down. Then they would come at him again like furies, and knock his offerings ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... chef d'orchestre and a very good appellation this is. Take, for instance, his B flat minor Prelude. In the latter part of this wonderful composition the regular rhythmic repetition in octaves in the bass makes a rhythmic foundation which the most erratic and ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... organization of the individual." He was inclined to accept lunar influence, and believed that the physiological cycle is made up of definite fractions and multiples of a period of seven days, especially a unit of three and a half days. Albrecht, a somewhat erratic zooelogist, put forth the view a few years ago that there are menstrual periods in men, giving the following reasons: (1) males are rudimentary females, (2) in all males of mammals, a rudimentary masculine uterus (Mueller's ducts) still persists, (3) ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... caterpillars have to climb down from one crossing to the next, from the needle to the twig, from the twig to the branch, from the branch to the bough and from the bough, by a no less angular path, to go back home. It is useless to rely upon sight as a guide on this long and erratic journey. The Processionary, it is true, has five ocular specks on either side of his head, but they are so infinitesimal, so difficult to make out through the magnifying-glass, that we cannot attribute ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... came from the same direction, from the woods across the river, somewhere just above their camp. It was Indian firing. Its character was unmistakable. It was erratic, and many of the shots failed hopelessly to reach ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... are rendered the more remarkable by reason of the circumstance that the work now under consideration is interspersed with numerous charming drawings, the effect of which is wholly marred by these erratic performances. Meadows was an admirable water-colour artist, and a scarce edition of this work contains some engravings of Shakespearian heroines after his designs. The Germans fancy they understand Shakespeare better than ourselves (an amiable and complimentary weakness), and the work was favourably ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... The memorial and erratic clock of Our Square was just striking seven of the following morning, meaning approximately eight-forty, when my astonished eyes again beheld Martin Dyke seated on my bench, beautifully though inappropriately clad in full evening dress with a pink rose in his coat lapel, and gazing ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... work sawing industriously at one tune which did good service throughout the entertainment; there was a little furious and erratic reel-dancing, and much loud laughter, and good-natured, even if somewhat personal, jest. The room was one of two which formed the house; the walls were of log; the lights the cheery yellow flare of great pine-knots flung one after the ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... He is erratic and often queer. He believes, with Emerson, that "with consistency a great soul has nothing to do." And he is, of course, "a great ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... who you would rather have to nurse you," she said, trying to keep the erratic color from crimsoning her cheeks. You see, she had never had a patient of her very own before, and there were certain embarrassing complications in having this particular ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... of the day in solitude. Restlessness was in the air, first the pleasurable restlessness caused by the receipt of Mrs Willoughby's invitation, then the disagreeable restlessness caused by Cecil's erratic behaviour. As she hurried through the streets towards Sophie Blake's lodgings, Claire pondered over the mystery of this sudden development on Cecil's part. Where was she going? Whom was she going to see? Why declare with one breath that she was without a friend, ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... information, framed in faultless French, that the clerk who did the English for the establishment had just gone to dinner and would be back in an hour—would Monsieur buy something? We wondered why those parties happened to take their dinners at such erratic and extraordinary hours, for we never called at a time when an exemplary Christian would be in the least likely to be abroad on such an errand. The truth was, it was a base fraud—a snare to trap the unwary—chaff to catch fledglings with. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... terzets of the Divine Comedy, in which at one time I took the greatest delight, in order to become acquainted with the broken speech, and yet more broken songs, of certain houseless wanderers whom I had met at a horse fair. Such an erratic course was certainly by no means in consonance with the sober and unvarying routine of college study. And my father, who was a man of excellent common sense, displayed it, in not pressing me to adopt a profession which required qualities ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... some at the paper, some made a leap to clear all, and thereby wrecked the entire apparatus. Some would begin very well, but rush back when half-way over, so as to destroy the print already made, and in most cases the calmest, steadiest, tamest of beasts became utterly wild, erratic, and unmanageable ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... occasion to use both his hands in letting down a pair of bars, fetched the rope a turn around one of his legs. That instant something frightened the steers, and that unfortunate farmer was tripped up and snaked off feet first on a wild, erratic excursion, a mile or so, over rough ground, as long as the rope lasted, and left in a very lamentable condition, indeed. His neighbors ran to him and gathered him up and laid him together, and waited around for him to come to; which, when he did, one of them inquired of him how he came ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... of September. The only consequence was fatal delay; not knowing what to do with their prisoner, the Government shipped him to Caprera. Personally he was perfectly free; no conditions were imposed; but nine men-of-war were despatched to the island to sweep the seas of erratic heroes. In spite of which, Garibaldi escaped in a canoe on the ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... happened that both boys were firing together, the position of the Yankee plane allowing this unusual demonstration. And as to which of them was responsible for the bullet that sent the Boche downward in erratic circles, like a wounded duck, he trying desperately to gain an even keel before it was too late, was always fated to be a little bone of ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... is a strange complicated story that seems to have some difficulty in unravelling itself: the story of a man who pretends to be dead in order that he may, under a changed name, investigate the character and eligibility of the young woman whom an erratic father has destined to be his bride. A golden-hearted old dust contractor, who hides a will that will give him all that erratic father's property, and disinherit the man aforesaid, and who, to crown his virtues, pretends ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... South Carolina, erratic, brilliant, and impulsive, had never fully harmonized with the politicians of Virginia in their political doctrines, but had been inclined to ridicule the rigid and non-progressive principles of her statesmen, who, always cautious, were now slow to receive into fellowship and to commit themselves ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... nebulous but suggestive remark that the newspaper occupies the borderland between literature and common sense. Literature it certainly is not, and in the popular apprehension it seems often too erratic and variable to be credited with the balance-wheel of sense; but it must have something of the charm of the one, and the steadiness and sagacity of the other, or it will fail to please. The model editor, I believe, has yet to appear. Notwithstanding the traditional reputation of certain ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... conscious design of attracting him she must be acquitted, for she acted under the force of a strong attraction exercised by him. Her mind was not entirely engrossed in the pleasures, and what she imagined to be the duties, of her station. She had a considerable, if untrained and erratic, instinct toward religion, and exhibited that leaning toward the mysterious and visionary which is the common mark of an acute mind that has not been presented with any methodical course of training worthy of its abilities. Such a temperament ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... pointed out, grown weary of warfare which brought them nothing but loss of men and treasure; but behind these states, on the distant horizon to the east and north-west, were rising up new nations whose growth and erratic movements assumed an importance that became daily more and more alarming. On the east, the Medes, till lately undistinguishable from the other tribes occupying the western corner of the Iranian table-land, had recently broken ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Ivan. Nathalie carried back with her into the gray Petersburg Institute such a host of flagrant dreams as kept a dozen chums about her through the long twilights of as many afternoons. For the damsel was an erratic priestess of Eros; and, at this dream-age, she and her comrades gave to the technique of forthcoming flirtation a patient analysis that promised adequate devastation among the courtier ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... heralding the bear-skins tall. Glorious in golden clothing comes The great drum-major with his drums And sun-smit brass of trumpets; then The scarlet wall of marching men, Midmost of which great Mavors sets The colours girt with bayonets. Yes, there were you—and there was I, Unshaved, and with erratic tie, And for that once I yearn'd to shun My social system's central sun. How could a sloven slave express The frank, the manly tenderness That wraps you round from common thought, And does not ask that you should know The love that consecrates you so. No; furtive, awkward, restless, cold, I basely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... must be taken of the skilled work of making and repairing machinery. The engineers' shop and other workshops are becoming every year a more and more important factor in the equipment of a factory or mill. But though "breakdowns" are essentially erratic and must always afford scope for ingenuity in their repair, even in the engineers' shop there is the same tendency for machinery to undertake all work of repair which can be brought under routine. So the skilled work in making ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... found the idea amusing, therefore our payment. One of our editors will work your manuscript into less-erratic typescript for eventual publication. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... roused my father's admiration was Mr. D. Mackintosh's work on erratic blocks. Apart from its intrinsic merit the work keenly excited his sympathy from the conditions under which it was executed, Mr. Mackintosh being compelled to give nearly his whole time to tuition. The following passage is from a letter to Mr. Mackintosh of October 9, 1879, and refers to his ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... crenulate casing about the lower half. The cirri are sharply pointed, much broader at the base, and the two sets are so placed that, looked at from above, they have the appearance of a twisted cord. (Fig. 31 b.) Movement erratic; sometimes the animal swims steadily forward with mouth in front; again it shoots across the field of the microscope, either backward or forward or sideways, through the action of its powerful cirri. It is often quiet, usually mouth downward, and is held in ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... the strain erratic Dimly glance from pole to pole; Raptures sweet, and dreams ecstatic ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Puritanic strictness might be lingering in the sombre depths of a New England heart, among severe and sunless remembrances of the Sabbaths of childhood, and pangs of remorse for ill-gotten lessons in the catechism, and for erratic fantasies or hardly suppressed laughter in the middle of long sermons. Occasionally, I tried to take the long-hoarded sting out of these compunctious smarts by attending divine service in the open air. On a ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Suddenly, several hundred skaters, each bearing a lighted lamp at his waist-belt, emerged from the crowd, and shot under the bridge on to the Serpentine, and commenced quadrilles, polkas, and divers figures; in a few minutes their erratic motions were illuminated by red, blue, crimson, and green fires, lighted on the banks, and by rockets and other lights. This fantastic and beautiful exhibition was repeated on ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... my dear erratic master has managed for years and years to cultivate the farm of La Haye and to bring up my godson in the fear of the Lord and the practice of land surveying is a proof that the late Mr. Matthew Arnold was hopelessly wrong in his categorical ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... on the ground of an urgent and bitter necessity for exertion on her part, to ward off actual destitution and suffering,—he exclaimed, somewhat impatiently,—"Why, Zelma, it is an impossibility, almost an absurdity, you urge! You could never make an actress. You are too hopelessly natural, erratic, and impulsive. You would follow no teaching implicitly, but, when you saw fit, would trample on conventionalities and venerable stage-traditions. You would set up the standard of revolt against the ancient canons of Art, and flout it in the faces of the critics, and—fail,—ay, fail, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... of Niagara contain no more erratic currents than the strata of air which is now immediately above us, a fact hard to realize ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... difference consists in degree. Increase what is commonly called talent in the direction of its manifestation and it would develop into genius. Genius is commonly thought of as something abnormal, in the sense that it is essentially eccentric. A genius is generally spoken of as an eccentric, erratic, unbalanced, person. The eccentricity is then taken as constituting the substance of the quality of genius. This is undoubtedly a mistake. Because some geniuses have been erratic, the popular imagination has formed its picture ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... the finest ideals have insisted that these should be shared by the multitude. In a newspaper of sixty years ago there is this contemporary character sketch: "Ralph Waldo Emerson is the most erratic and capricious man in America. He is emphatically a democrat of the world, and believes that what Plato thought, another man may think. What Shakespeare sang, another man may know as well. As for emperors, kings, queens, princes, or presidents, he looks upon them as ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... Allan, was a most erratic genius, as my first report indicated. His propeller, his smoke-consumer, and his automatic brake were valuable commercial properties, but had all slipped from his control. Toward the end of his life he engaged in the perfection of an invention of which ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... "bang!" of bullets. The sand round Suvla Bay hid thousands of bullets and ammunition pouches, some flung away by wounded men, some belonging to the dead. As the bush-fires licked from the lower slopes of the Sari Bair towards Chocolate Hill this lost ammunition exploded, and it sounded like erratic rifle-fire. The fires glowed and spluttered all night, and went on smoking in the morning. I had to go up to Chocolate Hill about some sand-bags for our hospital dug-outs next day, and on the way up I noticed a human pelvis and a chunk ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... a madman. But why? With his skin still cold and clammy, he found himself whispering words which sounded explanatory, but which did not explain: "Suppose a mistake occurred. Yes, suppose a mistake occurred." Then trying to think quietly and sensibly, instead of in this fluttered, erratic way, he forced himself to interpret the real significance of the whisper. Well, suppose he struck too hard, and too often. But again there came the blankness—an abrupt check to thought—the depths refusing to give ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... man whirled and eight empty hands shot skyward. Their startled eyes beheld a man's squat body weaving uncertainly on the limbs of an insect, while in each hand shone a blue-black Colt that waved and circled in maddening, erratic orbits. ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... thin kid. Harry's warning had been phrased conventionally enough, but the hints his words conveyed had expanded in her mind—fear not only of Clara's laughter, that such a jewel had come from a junk shop, but of her wonder, her questions, her ability of getting out the story of the whole erratic proceeding, even to the strange pantomime between Harry and the blue-eyed Chinaman. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... not a bit could he cover the bird with that little knob of a sight, and when the smoke cleared away he saw it careering like a kite with too light a tail in the distance. Gould also missed twice, and then shot one the moment it was off the ground, before the erratic course commenced. ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... hardship to our erratic friend, who knew he could spend the time merrily and profitably among his numerous kinsfolk in the groves. To tell the truth, he was not sorry to get away from the court pageantry, as all such ceremonial and pomp of circumstance was ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... Dame was the largest ecclesiastical edifice in America, and notable for its simple grandeur. With its ancient walls girdling the heights first seen by Jacques Cartier, with its numerous churches and convents, illustrating the power and wealth of the Romish religion, with its rugged, erratic streets creeping through hewn rock, with its picturesque crowd of red-coated soldiers of England mingling with priests and sisters in sombre attire, or with the habitants in etoffe du pays,—the old city of Quebec, whose history went back to ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... rather hysterical attempts, Bland set the propeller whirring, and ran out to one side, his hands up as though he feared for his life if he lowered them. The motor's hum increased to the steady roar which Johnny's ear recognized as the sound Bland got from it when he started. And with an erratic wabbling the plane moved forward jerkily, steadied a bit as Johnny set his teeth and all his stubbornness to the work, and gradually—very gradually—lifted and went whirring away through ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... published separate volumes on the 'Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs;' on the 'Volcanic Islands visited during the Voyage of the Beagle;' and on the 'Geology of South America.' The sixth volume of the 'Geological Transactions' contains two papers of mine on the Erratic Boulders and Volcanic Phenomena of South America. Messrs. Waterhouse, Walker, Newman, and White, have published several able papers on the Insects which were collected, and I trust that many others will hereafter follow. The plants from the southern parts of America ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... various experiences without being laughed at or put down as a lunatic. At the same time I am bound to confess that Mrs Peters, although extremely interesting, was also rather agitating, and certainly much too erratic to make an entirely satisfactory Chatelaine. She was given to reading "Aurora Leigh," instead of ordering dinner, and had to be sent for occasionally to sit at the head of the table, with a volume of Browning ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... work of a chemical accident), those who attained to them could not always explain, not account for the phenomena they created, so that the mightiness of their own deceptions deceived themselves; and they often believed they were the masters of the Nature to which they were, in reality, but erratic and wild disciples. Of such was the student in that grim cavern. He was, in some measure, the dupe, partly of his own bewildered wisdom, partly of the fervour of an imagination exceedingly high-wrought and enthusiastic. ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... "Punch" school there are other lesser luminaries. Mr. W. S. Gilbert's drawings to his own inimitable "Bab Ballads" have a perverse drollery which is quite in keeping with that erratic text. Mr. F. Barnard, whose exceptional talents have not been sufficiently recognised, is a master of certain phases of strongly marked character, and, like Mr. Charles Green, has contributed some excellent sketches to the "Household Edition" of Dickens. Mr. Sullivan ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... one of the most eagerly sought game birds of the east. Their flight is very rapid and erratic, and accompanied by a peculiar whistling sound made by the rapid motion of the wings; it requires a skillful marksman to bring them down. They frequent boggy places especially "runs" lined with alders, where they bore in the soft ground for worms and grubs. Their eggs are laid upon the ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... the nobler animal of the two, stood still ever and anon when the drunken creature swayed back and forth in his saddle, imperiling his equilibrium. Even to his besotted mind, as he grew more intoxicated, the danger to the child in his erratic grasp became apparent. ...
— Who Crosses Storm Mountain? - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... expectation, with Roderick, took a form which seemed singular even among his characteristic singularities. If redemption—Roderick seemed to reason—was to arrive with his mother and his affianced bride, these last moments of error should be doubly erratic. He did nothing; but inaction, with him, took on an unwonted air of gentle gayety. He laughed and whistled and went often to Mrs. Light's; though Rowland knew not in what fashion present circumstances had modified his relations with Christina. The month ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... reckoned, no doubt, that it would be best to have a strong man in the rear until the field was actually reached, for the benefit of would-be deserters, and unconsidered trifles of country people-and maybe for another reason not totally disconnected with his erratic friend Cassius. ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... comparison with the latitude, I suspected that these islands had been partly stocked by ice-borne seeds during the Glacial epoch. At my request Sir C. Lyell wrote to M. Hartung to inquire whether he had observed erratic boulders on these islands, and he answered that he had found large fragments of granite and other rocks, which do not occur in the archipelago. Hence we may safely infer that icebergs formerly landed their rocky burdens on the shores of these mid-ocean islands, and it is at least ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... in study, writing, housework, and caring for old ladies three. Dante Gabriel, talented, lovable, erratic, had gotten into bad ways, as a man will who turns night into day and tries to get the start of God Almighty, thinking he has found a substitute for exercise and oxygen. Finally he was taken to Birchington, on the Isle of Thanet (where Octave found her name). He was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... of crystal, Rousing the Soul of Joy That slumbered in the patient sea, From every point of heaven the hurrying cars Conveyed the constellations to their thrones— The throbbing planets, and the burning suns, Erratic comets, and the various grades And magnitudes of palpitating stars. From the far arctic and antarctic zones, Through all the vast, surrounding infinite, A wilderness of intermingling orbs, The gleaming ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... mind, but evidently not to Rory's, for the look on his face told only of a dogged resolution to continue sinning against the light. He knew that his own contumacy in this respect would land his soul in perdition, and he deliberately let it go at that. Brave old Rory! Never does erratic man appear to such advantage as when his own intuitive moral sense rigorously overbears a conscientiousness warped by some fallacy which he still ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... about the room, resting for a few instants upon Boniface, then sliding toward his wife. Boniface himself seemed to be entirely unconscious of any pause, or of any person, or of any thing, except some mysterious erratic measure that he was ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... eel. Even his confederates did not trust him greatly. But it was Soapy Stone and young Cullison that interested Flandrau most. The former played like a master. He chatted carelessly, but he overlooked no points. Sam had the qualities that go to make a brilliant erratic player, but he lacked the steadiness and the finesse ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... on a fresco. The imagery is so lucid that we are able to follow with effortless pleasure the intricate windings of a plot which at Beckford's whim twists and turns through scenes of wonderful variety. Amid his wild, erratic excursions he never loses sight of the end in view; the story, with all its vagaries, is perfectly coherent. This we should expect from one who "loved to bark a tough understanding."[72] It is the intellectual strength and exuberant vitality behind Beckford's ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... fancied they heard an exclamation, but they could not be certain. There was no perceptible commotion about the skylight, but the flickering, erratic movement which had puzzled them ceased on the instant. Whether the shot had accomplished anything or not could only be conjectured, but Mickey was of the opinion that the exchange was equally without result ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... Gran'ma she's read all books—ever' kind They is, 'at tells all 'bout the land an' sea An' Nations of the Earth!—An' she is the Historicul-est woman ever wuz!" (Forgive the verse's chuckling as it does In its erratic current.—Oftentimes The little willowy waterbrook of rhymes Must falter in its music, listening to The children laughing as they ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... with the movements of so erratic an individual," she said. "Since Robert Audley has taken it into his head to conduct himself like some ghost-haunted hero in a German story, I have given up attempting to ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... of the highway he'd followed without lights. Twice Jill warned him of beams across the highway. Once, driven by his increasing anxiety, his brakes almost failed to stop him in time. When the car did stop, he was aware of faint tinglings on his skin. There were erratic flashings in his eyes, too, and a discordant composite of sounds which by association with past suffering made him nauseated. Perhaps this extra leakage from the terror beam was through ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... this stage that Thomas Mugridge's erratic soul brought him into the scene. He had been listening at the galley door, but he now came out, ostensibly to fling some scraps over the side, but obviously to see the killing he was certain would take place. He smirked greasily up into the face of Wolf Larsen, who ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... Suddenly Bakahenzie changed the erratic course of his wild dance. He whirled and screamed in front of the King and fell headlong, as if in a fit, with eyes injected and foam upon the black tufts of beard. Bakahenzie clutched his belly ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... railed off, with a hinged lift in the mahogany on either side, both of which were now down and barred. We were not quite sure whether the captain were really the Honourable John's relative, or whether our comrade's proposal to join the captain was only one of those erratic notions which visited his aristocratic brain, and were often carried through with a confidence so complete as to be rarely unsuccessful. He was unmercifully snubbed sometimes, and he richly deserved it; but the curious thing about ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... your father, a genius in his way, and a little mad, perhaps. Leave him to me, Monsieur, and it will be quite all right. Last night, it was so sudden, that I was frightened for a moment. I should have remembered he is erratic and apt to change his mind. I should have guessed why he changed it. It is you, Monsieur. You have had a bad effect upon him. You have made him turn suddenly grotesque. What did you do to ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... like one of these erratic creations, or would she resemble the heroines of Russian political history whose marvellous courage and endurance excite the wonder of all who can even dimly realise what it must be to live from moment to moment in imminent peril of life and limb, and in ceaseless anxiety as to the fate of relatives ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the still smoking stump into Mrs. Legend's grate, through a lane of literati, as he afterwards boasted, as coolly as he could have thrown it overboard, under other circumstances. Luckily for his reputation for sentiment, he mistook "ecstatic," a word he had never heard before, for "erratic;" and recollecting sundry roving maniacs that he had seen, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... begin to develop the necessary symbiosis and their growth takes off. On a bed of two-year-old seedlings, many individual trees are head and shoulders above the others. This is not due to superior genetics or erratic soil fertility. These are the individuals with ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... expanse. The danger was passed, and they hastened on to the foot of the knoll, where a lakelet, fringed by aspens and poplars, afforded them good camping ground. With astonishing speed the arrangements for the night were made; every man exerted himself. The horses were unharnessed, the erratic ones hobbled, the tents pitched, and the travellers assembled round the blazing fires which were quickly lighted to dry their ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... erratic swinging from side to side, Ferd needed the whole road, and seeing this, the other lad stood by, ready to guard himself if the cumbersome machine ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... others knew Ike Webb was thinking of what Vogel had told him. Vogel was a gifted but admittedly erratic genius from the metropolis who had come upon us as angels sometimes do—unawares—two weeks before, with cinders in his ears and the grime of a dusty right-of-way upon his collar. He had worked for the sheet two weeks and then, on a Saturday night, had borrowed ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... necessary to elope.... No sense in looking for trouble! The old gentleman had been odder than ever the last day or so. He had ceased even to pretend that his guest's presence was anything but an annoyance. He had refused utterly to enter into any connected conversation and had been restless and erratic to a degree. "Too muchy moon-devil," according to Li Ho. That very afternoon he had met them coming down from their talk upon the rocks and the ironic courtesy of his greeting had been little less than baleful. At supper he had remarked sentimentally ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... devastating hurricanes, notably those of 1742 and 1825, which destroyed a vast deal of property, and during the passage of which many lives were lost. The terrible tornadoes of the tropics are very erratic in their course, and are so apt to be deviated from their accustomed paths that it is unsafe to assume that danger has passed for Porto Rico until late in the autumn. Captains of all vessels during the summer mouths should therefore exercise extraordinary vigilance to avoid ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall |
