"Laggard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the vessels come into action together, Suffren caused his fleet to haul to the wind, on the starboard tack, to rectify the order. This also being done poorly and slowly, he lost patience,—as Nelson afterwards said, "A day is soon lost in manoeuvring,"—and at 2.30, to spur on the laggard ships, the French admiral gave the signal to attack, (a), specifying pistol-range. Even this not sufficing to fetch the delinquents promptly into line with the flagship, the latter fired a gun to enforce obedience. Her own side being still turned towards the British, ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... cupboard! And tell Daria to put some fennel in the jar with the cucumbers! Fennel! Cover the cream up, gaping laggard, or the flies ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... esteem it a mere accident that of a group of depreciatory and contemptuous words ending in 'ard', at least one half should have dropped out of use; I refer to that group of which 'dotard', 'laggard', 'braggard', now spelt 'braggart', 'sluggard', 'buzzard', 'bastard', 'wizard', may be taken as surviving specimens; 'blinkard' (Homilies), 'dizzard' (Burton), 'dullard' (Udal), 'musard' (Chaucer), 'trichard' (Political ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... out not at all, seeing of all her friends only Blake, trying with all her pride, with all her strength, to adjust herself to the new order of things. It had been a weary winter—a winter that dragged along on laggard feet, loitering, waiting. ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... Bronston had realized before he ever applied for an interplanetary appointment. Mankind was exploding through this spiral arm of the galaxy. There was a racial enthusiasm about it all. Man's destiny lay out in the stars, only a laggard stayed home of his own accord. It was the ambition of every youth to join the snowballing avalanche of ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... their workmanship. Where so many regions have but recently been peopled, there is, it need hardly be said, much to be done, and it is most satisfactory to see how each city and town is bending itself to the task to prove that there is no laggard in the patriotic competition. I have gladly attended several of these shows, and it is a feature peculiar to this country that the industrial exhibition so generally accompanies the agricultural show. Whether this shall always be the case as in the ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... defence and all its hellishness of attack. Oh, child of France! shepherdess, peasant girl! trodden under foot by all around thee, how I honour thy flashing intellect, quick as God's lightning, and true as God's lightning to its mark, that ran before France and laggard Europe by many a century, confounding the malice of the ensnarer, and making dumb the oracles of falsehood! Is it not scandalous, is it not humiliating to civilization, that, even at this day, France exhibits the horrid spectacle of judges examining the prisoner against himself; seducing ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... England's foe, yet we, who boast the Vikings' blood in every vein, can we not honour them? So did our forefathers stand round Harold when Norman William trod with armed heel on English soil. So stood our fathers when Blucher's laggard step hung back from Waterloo. Are we not great enough to look with pride upon a gallant foe? Or has our nation fallen from its high estate, has chivalry departed from our blood, and left us nothing ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... clover beyond, was the next martyr to my passion for original observation. He might have pursued his even course across the arena unharmed, but he too persisted in trespassing, and suddenly was seen to transform from a slow creeping laggard into the liveliest acrobat, as he stood on his head and apparently dived precipitately into the hole which suddenly appeared beneath him. A certain busy fly made itself promiscuous in the neighborhood, ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... for you to be ambitious, my son. I would not have you otherwise. Without a strong desire to reach some height that in the distance lifts above the level of the present, a man becomes a laggard on the highway of life—a mere loafer by the wayside—slothful, indolent—slipping easily, as the years go, into the most despicable of places—the place of a human parasite that, contributing nothing to the wealth of the race, feeds upon the strength of the ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... French officers would probably endeavour to forward the information they were conveying by some other vessel. She was, as I have said, very fast, and she was now carrying every stitch of canvas she could set. The Liffy was no laggard, and we pressed after her. The chase was as exciting as it could well be. Scarcely any of the officers left the deck, except to take a hurried breakfast, and every glass on board was in requisition. Now, when the breeze freshened, we appeared to be gaining on her; now, when it ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... no laggard. The bell on the church near by was still singing from the last stroke when he knocked, flung open the door, and stood for a moment staring at her. Not that she had been shabby when he had wished to marry her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... before the laggard line, The colonel's horse we spied— Bay Billy, with his trappings on, His nostrils swelling wide, As though still on his gallant back His master ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... laggard," she laughed at him, and he felt the blood driven back upon his heart. What did she mean? Was it possible she suggested that he should be welcome, that his wife's feelings towards him had undergone a change? His last parting from her on the ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... ask Kathleen tonight," replied Spencer, with drunken dignity. "I'm no la-laggard. Speak to Whitney, too; though that isn't important—he won't refuse." He cogitated darkly for a moment. "If he does ... I'll ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... into a series of settlements up and down the river for farming and live-stock tending; they spurred the willing workers by assigning them three-acre private gardens; and they mercilessly coerced the laggard. They transformed the colony from a distraught camp into a group of severely disciplined farms, owned by the London Company, administered by its officials, and operated partly by its servants, partly by its tenants who paid rent in the ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... allowed the discipline of his family to devolve upon Rupert. Remembering this, the master could only say, "Very well," and good-naturedly dismiss the pupil to his seat and the subject from his mind. The last laggard had just slipped in, the master had glanced over the occupied benches with his hand upon his warning bell, when there was a quick step on the gravel, a flutter of skirts like the sound of alighting birds, and a young woman ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... saw, the Sidonian chief was filled with double joy and cried, 'Fly, Varro, fly and survive defeat; enough that Paulus lieth low! Go, consul, tell all the tale of Cannae to the fathers, to laggard Fabius, to the people. If so thou long'st to live, I will grant thee, Varro, to flee once more as thou fleest to-day. But let him, whose heart was bold and worthy to be my foe, and all aflame with mighty ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... no laggard. On they went, threading their way through the ranks of the Highland army, now getting mixed up with Balmawhapple's horsemen, who, careless of discipline, went spurring through the throng amid the curses of the Highlanders. ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... developed, and these cross post towns were beyond the reach of anything like early information of what was going on, not, let us say, in the world at large, but in their own country. The people in these towns had to patiently await the laggard arrival of news from the greater centres of activity; and when it did arrive it probably came to hand in a very imperfect form, or so late as to be useless for any purpose ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... intruder's haste in drawing his weapon, he appeared now to lack the will promptly to use it—his laggard spirit required a further scourge, so it seemed; something more to goad it into final fury. It was a phenomenon by no means uncommon, for it is not easy to shoot ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... himself as occasionally "glancing like a meteor from the bottom to the top of the form." His schoolfellow, Mr. Claud Russell, remembers that he once made a great leap in consequence of the stupidity of some laggard on what is called the dult's (dolt's) bench, who being asked, on boggling at cum, "what part of speech is with?" answered, "a substantive." The Rector, after a moment's pause, thought it worth while to ask his dux—"Is with ever a ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... boy who had written many hot, morbid, immature verses and a handful of perfect poetry, stands now by one swift translation in the golden cloudland of English letters. There will never, can never, be any laggard note in the praise of his work. And of a young poet dead one may say things that would be too fulsome for life. ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... contemporary and playmate of Ready-Money Jack in the days of their boyhood. Indeed, they carried on a kind of league of mutual good offices. Slingsby was rather puny, and withal somewhat of a coward, but very apt at his learning; Jack, on the contrary, was a bully-boy out of doors, but a sad laggard at his books. Slingsby helped Jack, therefore, to all his lessons: Jack fought all Slingsby's battles; and they were inseparable friends. This mutual kindness continued even after they left school, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of their characters. Jack ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... dramatists. The Association will have to risk the refusal; but I would not discourage the Association from the adventure. It must not abandon the tope of finding a magistrate who, anxious to prove himself no moral laggard, will do all that is asked of him. A very pretty selection of "spicy bits" can be picked from "Don Juan," and toward this compilation every member, male and female, might contribute. The reading of these selections ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... along the old trade route, but their progress was very slow, and more than once the two Emirs rode back together and shook their heads as they looked at the weary baggage-camels on which the prisoners were perched. The greatest laggard of all was one which was ridden by a wounded Soudanese soldier. It was limping badly with a strained tendon, and it was only by constant prodding that it could be kept with the others. The Emir Wad Ibraham raised his Remington, as the creature hobbled past, and sent a bullet ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... away and be absorbed in her superior lustre. The distant Mission hills are outlined against the sky, but through one gap the outlying fog which has stealthily invested us seems to have effected a breach, and only waits the co-operation of the laggard sea-breezes to sweep down and take the beleaguered city by assault. An ineffable calm sinks over the landscape. In the magical moonlight the shot-tower loses its angular outline and practical relations, and ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... slave-trade with all its allied interests; sacrificing, too, the immediate prosperity of its West Indian colonies, whose plantations were tilled exclusively with slave labor, and even paying heavy cash indemnity to Spain to secure her acquiescence. Unhappily, the United States was as laggard as England was active. Indeed, a curious manifestation of national pride made the American flag the slaver's badge of immunity, for the Government stubbornly—and properly—refused to grant to British cruisers the right to search vessels under ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... who was more genuinely a democrat or held more tenaciously to his faith in democracy than Woodrow Wilson, but no other man ever sat in the President's chair who was so contemptuous of all intellect that was inferior to his own or so impatient with its laggard processes. ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... they would lay no more lilies on biers— Let them say! For we are swift to enchant and tire Time's will! Our feet are wiser than all desire, Our song is better than faith or fame; To whom it is given no ill e'er came, Who has it not grows chill! Who has it not grows laggard and lame, Nor knows that the world is a Minstrel's lyre, Smitten and never still!... Last night on the currents ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... through the days when he needed so sorely your warm sympathy, and craved so hungrily your cheer, you may as well sleep on and take your rest, letting him alone unto the end. Nothing can be done now. Too laggard are the feet that come with comfort when the ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... with a fluffy red button, like a blue flower with a red bloom at its heart. I rarely saw an aging marin. There are no seasoned troops so boyish. They wear open dickies, which expose the neck, full, hard, well-rounded. The older troops, who go laggard to the spading, have beards that extend down the collar; but a boy has a smooth, clean neck, and these sailors have the throat of youth. We must once have had such a race in our cow-boys and Texas rangers—level-eyed, careless men who know no masters, ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... urges villainy to its destruction, Vetch beached the boat, and the party, bruised and bleeding, reached the upper portion of the shore in safety. Of all this number only Cox was lost. He was pulling stroke-oar, and, being something of a laggard, stood in the way of the Crow, who, seeing the importance of haste in preserving his own skin, plucked the man backwards by the collar, and passed over his sprawling body to the shore. Cox, grasping at anything to save himself, clutched an oar, and the next moment found himself ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... brilliant. As Mrs. Middleton was at this time but little known at court, Grammont found some difficulty in obtaining an introduction to her as promptly as he desired; but feeling anxious to make her acquaintance, and being no laggard in love, he without hesitation applied to her porter for admittance, and took one of her lovers into his confidence. This latter gallant rejoiced in the name of Jones, and subsequently became Earl of Ranelagh. In the ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... paid little attention to wind or weather, this was an ideal night, and we were laggard in seeking our blankets. Yarn followed yarn; for nearly every one of us, either from observation or from practical experience, had a slight acquaintance with the great mastering passion. But the ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... brake, and he stopped not for stone; He swam the Eske river where ford there was none. But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late; For a laggard in love and a dastard in war Was to wed the ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... tell: why should she not look thither, and even stand one moment peering under the veranda at a darkened window half-way down the row, as though impatient at the non-appearance of some familiar signal? How came the laggard late? How slept the knight while here his lady stood impatient? She twined the leaves and roses in a fragrant knot, ran lightly within and laid them on the snowy cloth beside the colonel's seat at table, came forth and plucked some more and fastened them, blushing, ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... a challenge of drums; loud music struck upon the air. Starting instantly to go to Julia, Noble's left leg first received the electric impulse and crossed his laggard right; but he was no pacer, and thus stumbled upon himself and plunged. Still convulsive, he came headlong before her, and was the only person near who remained unaware that his dispersal of an intervening group had the appearance of extreme unconventionality. ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... far distant he disregards the wishes of his parents and marries one of the daughters of the land. No ambition stirred him and no devotion to Jehovah or to the ideals of his race gave content and direction to his life. Thus he remained a laggard, and the half-nomadic, robber people that he represented became but a stagnant pool, compared with the onrushing ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... of Pale Winter died, Methought the Voice of Spring within me cried, "When Hymen's rose-decked altars glow within, Why nods the laggard ...
— The Rubaiyat of a Bachelor • Helen Rowland
... thought to decide Ernestine, that she was much abused, and though her usually laggard conscience insisted on being touched, she solaced it by putting the tip in her hat, and seeing how becoming it was, and by trying on the gloves, which were a perfect fit. Then putting them away, she stole off to the garret, to ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... laggard this morning, Monsieur de Lesperon." And, with a half laugh, she turned aside to break a rose ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... Shall gory dust deface. Hark! 'tis the death-cry of your race! look back! Ulysses comes, and Pylian Nestor grey; See! Salaminian Teucer on your track, And Sthenelus, in the fray Versed, or with whip and rein, should need require, No laggard. Merion too your eyes shall know From far. Tydides, fiercer than his sire, Pursues you, all aglow; Him, as the stag forgets to graze for fright, Seeing the wolf at distance in the glade, And flies, high panting, you ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... the laggard host ask the woebegone lady what should be done; she answers that nothing can now avail, but that for remembrance they should build in their land, open to public view, "in some notable old city," a chapel engraved with some memorial ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... dreadful revel, And liquor red be spilling. O, that each chief[142] whose warriors rife, Are burning for the slaughter, Would let their volley, like fire to holly, Blaze on the usurping traitor. Full many a soldier arming, Is laggard in his spirit, E'er his blood the flag is warming Of the King that should inherit. He may be loon or coward, That spur scarce touch would nearly— The colours shew, he 's in a glow, Like the stubble of the barley. Onward, gallants! onward speed ye, Flower and bulwark ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... cycles enough let the laggard persist, Let the weak be suppressed since he can not resist, And, proceeding by logic which none may dispute, Can't we safely infer there's an end ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... which frequently dragged on its dreary course through generations of conspiracy and murder, until, the principals having vanished, the collateral branches of the families were involved. No Corsican was so loathed as the laggard who shrank from avenging the family honour, even on a distant relative of the first offender. The murder of the Duc d'Enghien by Napoleon in 1804 sent a thrill of horror through the Continent. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... were frolicking under the cutwater. Plop! plop! they went; and sometimes one would turn sidewise and look up roguishly with his twinkling seal-like eyes. Plop! plop! Finally all save one sank gracefully out of sight. The laggard crisscrossed the cutwater a dozen times, just to show the watchers how extremely clever he was; and then, with a plop! that was louder than any previous one, he ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... a laggard, Henry!" she began: "I warrant thy Captain meets not his Dione with so slow a step!" Then, seeing who stood before her, she left her seat between the oak roots and curtsied low. "Sir Mortimer Ferne," she said, and rising to her full height, met his eyes with that deeper ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... on his way some of the hotel servants, who even thus early had commenced work, for your industrious Frenchman is no laggard in the morning. Going to the hall-porter's office he found that functionary snoring peacefully. The poor fellow was evidently tired out, and twenty telephone bells might have jangled in his ears ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... With a laugh of scorn, he demanded if the wind and the waterfalls and the birds learned music from beardless boys and draggle-coated dominies with armfuls of books. However, it may have been with his Pegasus, his mount for the hunt was no laggard. He rode a knob-jointed, muscular brute, that carried him like poetic inspiration wherever it pleased. Though Pierre's right hand was busied upholding the hunters' flag, and he had but one arm to bow-string the broncho's arching neck, the half-breed ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... returning after the others on the old track. It is true that Brahe's false statement of the condition of his party held out no encouragement that they might be able to overtake him; but there was a chance that a new party might even then be coming up, or that the laggard Wright would be on the advance at last, as proved to be the fact. A Melbourne paper, commenting on these points, had the following remarks, which were as just as they were doubly painful, being delivered ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... he continued to think, 'we should only grow apart, Helena and I. She would leave me. This time I should be the laggard. She is young and vigorous; ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... cue at once, and after a few more words, addressed to each in turn, and a short exchange of courtesies between him and myself, Monsieur Voisin lifted his hat, saying that since he was so much a laggard as to have lost some charming companions he would endeavour to recover his lost time by travelling to the Convent of La Rabida via the Intramural Railway; and so, smiling and bowing, he went back over the bridge to the station ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... ever say that I was a laggard when a good old-fashioned contest was going on, and the less indolence was observable on my own part when friends of mine were engaged in the fray. Sure I was always eager enough, even when it was a ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... it followed the custom of its French neighbours on the watershed, and was called by some such epithet as hangs to all the waters in that gap of Belfort, that plain of ponds and marshes: for they are called 'the Sluggish', 'the Muddy', or 'the Laggard'. Even the name of the Saone, far off, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... days came and the settlement had increased by one or two families, and laggard capital had been hurried up to relieve the still beleaguered and locked-up wealth of Burnt Ridge, the needs of the community and the claims of the widow of John Baker were so well told in political quarters that the post-office of Laurel Run was created expressly ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... habitation, a small prairie of circular form, that is now generally known in that region of the country by the name of Prairie Round. Three hours were necessary to reach it, and this so much the more, because Margery's shorter steps were to be considered. Margery, however, was no laggard on a path. Young, active, light of foot, and trained in exertions of this nature, her presence did not probably retard the ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... Gerard lustily. "I shall win to Rome yet. Holy St. Bavon, what a sunbeam of innocence hath shot across our bloodthirsty road! Forget thee, little Jeanneton? not likely, amidst all this slobbering, and gibbeting, and decanting. Come on, thou laggard! forward!" ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... something half human about our lucky planet, at least something progressive and unequal, like life itself. Shaler finds that organic development in the Northern Hemisphere is more advanced, by a whole geologic period, than in the Southern, with Europe at the head and Australia the greatest laggard. The animal life of Australia is much like that of Europe in the Jurassic period, while both Asia and Africa possess forms, such as elephants, and tigers, and lions, which abounded in Europe in Tertiary times. Hence the Northern Hemisphere is more like the head of ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... an invitation to enter the family of the marquis, as one of the gentlewomen of lady Margaret's suite. It was of course gratefully accepted, and as soon as Mr. Herbert thought himself sufficiently recovered to encounter the fatigues of travelling, he urged on the somewhat laggard preparations of Dorothy, that he might himself see her safely housed on his way to Llangattock, whither he was most ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... for brake, and he stopp'd not for stone, He swam the Eske River where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late; For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... Nor did those laggard hours pass less bitterly for M. de Camors. He tried to take no rest, but walked up and down his apartment until daylight in a sort of frenzy. The distress of this poor child wounded him to the heart. The ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... heartily, as he bowed to the Fool-Killer. "I have often heard your name mentioned, but 'tis said in the world that you are a laggard in your duty." ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... that I'm not a man, or a laggard in love; but I'd like to know what you'd do to a girl dumb with grief over the recent loss of her mother, who was her only relative worth counting, sick from God knows what exposure and privation, and now a dying relative on her hands. What ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... colors still flew but she could fire only one gun of her whole battery, and more than half the ship's company had been killed or wounded—eighty-three men out of one hundred and forty-two. It was impossible to steer or handle her and she drifted helpless. Then it was that Perry, seeing the laggard Niagara close at hand, ordered a boat away and was transferred to a ship which was still fit and ready to continue the action. As soon as he had left them, the survivors of the Lawrence hauled down their flag ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... stairs on the further side. But the window was heavily barred. Yet again, if I went forth by the door, and lurked on the postern stair, there was Robin Lindsay's dirk to reckon with, when he came, a laggard, to his love-tryst. ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... the Holloman Gate, which swung across the trail near the west end of the mountain. Tall poplars and spruce made an ample shade, but a glance toward the sun showed it at the zenith. She was prompt to the rendezvous; it was the lover who was laggard. She wondered a little at that, but with no lightening of her mood. She was sure that he would come all too speedily. She stood waiting in misery, leaning listlessly against the fence, her gaze downcast. The geranium blossoms ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... laggard lover; within the hour he rang the familiar bell. Then the nervous restlessness which had taken possession of Gladys seemed to be quietened down, and she stood quite still on the hearth-rug, and her face was calm, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... further strengthened; the compulsion to attend greatly extended; and the voice of the State has been uttered in a firmer tone than ever before in English educational history. Taxes have been increased; the scope of the school system extended; all elements of the system better integrated; laggard local educational authorities subjected to firmer control; the training of teachers looked after more carefully than ever before; and the foundations for unlimited improvement and progress in education laid down. Still, in doing ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... seemed to him, as alone afar he lay, With the Nile to watch for laggard friends, fierce foes to hold at bay; Though the tired red lines toiled onward up the Cataracts, and we Dreamed of the shout of the rescuing host his eyes ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... did not know that she would be here! Bobby would have met her at his best, and his best is more to my liking than the count's. He has a way about him that the women like. He's no laggard. But money ought not to count with Betty. She is worth at least a quarter of a million. Her mother left all her property to her, and her father acts only as trustee. Senator Blank's house rents for eight thousand the season. It's ready furnished, you know, ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... you see yonder, going with the beasts. Of whom two have got clear (one bitten by the mouse- coloured hound), and this one remains speechless. And who the others were, whether flesh and blood or wind and breath, I cannot tell you; but if this laggard is not Isoult, whom we call La Desirous, Matt-o'- the-Moor's daughter, I am no fit servant for ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... a strange and beautiful thing to see that king of horses—sweep back around the slowest of his mustangs, shake his head at the barking guns, and then circle forward again as though he would show the laggard what running should be. The cowpunchers could have shot him as he veered back; they could have salted him with lead as he flashed broadside, but the orders of their chief restrained them. Lew Hervey's lightest word had ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... all my power, I thought them over and over, flinging out the thoughts like radio waves into the night. Mysterious vibrations! In an instant, from here—everywhere in the universe. Who knows their character? Their speed? The speed of light a laggard perhaps beside the flash of a thought! Waves of my thoughts, speeding through the night, with only one receiving station in all the universe! Would ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... After Sim had seen him safely in the distance he went with laggard step toward the ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... for he knew full well that, although it pleased the tenderfoot to call it "grit," in truth it was fear of those lurking, howling wolves that was driving Step Hen to making these astonishing efforts. After all there is absolutely nothing like fear to make a laggard run like a Marathon sprinter. It has even effected cures in people supposed to be paralyzed, as Thad remembered reading not ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... full of misery, both temporal and spiritual, surrounds us, and which might be effectually relieved, were all Christians, many of whom are laggard in effort and niggard in bounty, to manifest a tithe of the self-denial which Mr. Ellerthorpe practiced. 'What maintains one vice, would support two children.' Robert Hall says:—It is the practice of self-denial in a thousand little instances which forms the truest test of character.' ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... during the latter half of May, or at the season of apple bloom, and the early part of September. It passes northward with an almost scornful rapidity. Audubon mentions having seen it in Maine at the end of October, but this specimen surely must have been an exceptional laggard. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... gossamer thing? Fate had done it, why not he? At least he could not lose sight of her. He tracked her to the house under the wall, saw the door scrupulously shut upon her, wandered up and down the street for half an hour, returned a laggard to his palace—and yet had her full in vision. She possessed him until mass-time following: the same things happened. Guarino was hit hard; he took certain steps and got information which tallied with his better instincts. It guided also his subsequent efforts, for obviously the more direct remedies ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... "Hunters," so famed, "of Kentucky" of yore, Where now are the rifles that kept from your door The wolf and the robber as well? Of a truth, you have never been laggard before To deal with a ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... the direct light of the moonbeams and left the abyss again in dense darkness long before the coming of the laggard dawn. Blake slept on, storing up strength for the renewal of the battle. Yet even he could not outsleep the reluctant lingering of night. He awoke while the tiny flame of the watchfire still flickered bright against the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... divine that during my absence his flesh had been growing more and more laggard to the enterprise, his spirit ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... meteorite he had mentioned without difficulty. It was a large body, about three times the mass of the Ertak, and some distance above us—a laggard in the group we ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... not shown himself again in his diocese many weeks before they were all three dead. In making this last statement, I am a little anticipating the course of events, but only a little. The Angel of Death moves at no laggard pace when once he begins his march with his sword ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... was a good hearing." And Richard, moreover, declared that if they did not capture him when the autumn came, and the trees were leafless and dry, he would burn "all the woods great and small," or find out that troublous rebel. The same day he sent out his three troops, the Earl of Rutland, his laggard cousin, arrived at Dublin with 100 barges. His unaccountable delay he submissively apologized for, and was readily pardoned. "Joy and delight" now reigned in Dublin. The crown jewels shone at daily ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... she fancied; it was not so. Barty was no laggard in love; but he dearly loved his uncle Archie, and was loyal to him ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... and tired came the hunters; Stopped in darkness in the court. 'Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters! To the hall! ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... harshly, "when will that laggard burst through this agelong silence? Here's dust enough for all to see. And all ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... she come? Will the ring-dove return to her nest? Will the needle swing back from the east or the west? At the stroke of the hour she will be at her gate; A friend may prove laggard,—love ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... woods and softly lighted fields or vast orchards whose straight rows disappear over the edge of some distant hill to reappear upon another. "In the midst of such manifold scenery where all is so marvelously beautiful, he would be a laggard indeed" who was not touched ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... the Young Doctor. Yet his feet were laggard, for he was not so sure that there would be another home for Jean Jacques with his grandchild as its star. He was thinking of Norah, to whom a waif of the prairie had made home what home should be ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... rather than amusement. Never do man and woman dance together, as in the waltz and polka of civilised people. The very word for dancing, "nolavoa," means literally "to work." The wise old man may reproach laggard, inexperienced younger ones, saying, "Why do you not go to work?" meaning that they should go to the dance and not stand idly about while the feast is going on. If the Tarahumares did not comply with the commands of Father Sun and dance, the latter would come down and burn ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... spleen; I run the gauntlet of Frosts, Slowes, and Prymmes: and my traitor fails me! Half-past six,—not a sign of him! and the dinner at Putney,—fried flounders? Dreams! Patience, five minutes more; if then he comes not, breach for life between him and me! Ah, voila! there he comes, the laggard! But how those fine folks are catching at him! Has he asked them also to dinner at Putney, and do ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hurtle Came to their work again. The Forty-fourth is with them, That first its laurels won With stout old Abercrombie Beneath an eastern sun. It rushes to the battle, And, though within the rear Its leader is a laggard, It shows no ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... be the hands that idly fold, And lips that woo the reed's accord, When laggard Time the hour has tolled For true with false and new with old To fight the battles of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... on the twelfth census, and approved January 16, 1902, avoided the disagreeable necessity of cutting down the representation of laggard States by increasing the House membership from 357 to 386, a gain of twenty-nine members. Twelve of these (reckoning Louisiana) came from west of the Mississippi, two from New England, three each from Illinois and New York, four from the southern ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... we have gossiped too long. I am a laggard this morning; but before starting work, I have a ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... and he stopp'd not for stone, He swam the Esk river where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late: For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the presence of the viziers, and cast herself upon him, saying, "O king, falleth my shame not upon thee and fearest thou not reproach? Indeed, this is not of the behoof of kings that their jealousy over their women should be thus [laggard]. Thou art heedless and all the folk of the realm prate of thee, men and women. So either slay him, that the talk may be cut off, or slay me, if thy soul will not consent to his slaughter." Thereupon the king's wrath waxed hot and he said to her, "I have no pleasure in his continuance [on life] ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... The laggard winter ebbed so slow With freezing rain and melting snow, It seemed as if the earth would stay Forever where the tide was low, In sodden green and ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... needed appropriations for anti-poverty programs, and the fallout from the Asian financial crisis. In 2000, major civil disturbances held down growth to 2.5%. Bolivia's GDP failed to grow in 2001 due to the global slowdown and laggard domestic activity. Growth picked up slightly in 2002, but the first quarter of 2003 saw extensive civil riots and looting and loss of confidence in the government. Bolivia will remain highly dependent on foreign aid unless and until it ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... but the expected arrival was now spoken or thought of at Roselands, and Elsie was not the only one to whom old Time seemed to move with an unusually laggard pace. ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... gilding of its rudeness, the pastimes she thought out for children; I saw her nursing the helplessness which leaned upon her, and turning aside the contempt of pioneer women who passionately admired strong men. I saw her eyes waiting on the distant laggard who stupidly pursued his own affairs until it was too late to protect her. I read the entries over and over. When day broke it seemed to me the morning after my own death, such knowing and experiencing had passed through me. I could not see her again until ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... "Laggard!" one exclaimed, "what excuse have you to make for coming so late? I noted not that De Jouvaux's wine had mounted into your head last night, and surely the duke cannot have had need of your valuable ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... of Radha, with eyes red in wrath, smiling the while, said unto him repeatedly these words, viz., "Beardless eunuch, ignorant fool and glutton." And Karna said, "Without skill in weapons, do not fight with me. Thou art but a child, a laggard in battle! There, son of Pandu, where occurs a profusion of eatables and drink, there, O wretch, shouldst thou be but never in battle. Subsisting on roots, flowers, and observant of vows and austerities, thou, O Bhima, shouldst pass thy days in the woods for thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... trained conscripts of Europe. Not urged to the front like slaves by the whips of innumerable penalties, their needs not considered to the provision of a button, or a ration of salt, shabby even to squalor in their appointments, they gathered in response to a call which it was easy for the laggard to disobey, and almost uncared for by the forethought ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... to play a low, dreamy air, which stole into his heart and riveted his laggard feet still more to the room ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... slender form, a breath may break its chains; And she, so much her heart the world disdains, Longer to tread life's wearying round repines. Hence still in her sweet frame we view decay All that to earth can joy and radiance lend, Or serve as mirror to this laggard age; And Death's dread purpose should not Pity stay, Too well I see where all those hopes must end, With which I ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... come, though not yet past. All front the horror and are none aghast; Brag of their full-blown rights and liberties, Nor once surmise When each man gets his due the Nation dies; Nay, still shout 'Progress!' as if seven plagues Should take the laggard who would stretch his legs. Forward! glad rush of Gergesenian swine; You've gain'd the hill-top, but there's yet the brine. Forward! to meet the welcome of the waves That mount to 'whelm the freedom which enslaves. Forward! bad corpses ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... mountain piles, And gluts the laggard forges; But gold-flakes gleam in dim defiles And ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... made no response—his brain, dulled by indulgence in his vice, had become a laggard in conveying sensations; but at last, as the pressure on his shoulder increased, his nervous system seemed suddenly to jar into consciousness. A long shudder shook him; he half lifted himself and then dropped back ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... down the centuries And saw how Athens stood a sunlit while A sovereign city free from greed and guile, The half-embodied dream of Pericles. Then saw I one of smooth words, swift to please, At laggard virtue mock with shrug and smile; With Cleon's creed rang court and peristyle, Then sank the sun ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... laggard, as the thing was to be done, I was first afoot for the honour of Britain;—the whole party, indeed, were exceedingly punctual;—and after a hearty breakfast, away we rode for cover, with a slight crisping of frost under hoof, and a warm-looking sky just opening ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... great copper kettle and richly seasoned with sugar and spice. Apple-butter-making was an all-day job in the boiling alone but the rich and tasty product is considered well worth the effort and any mountain woman who cannot display shelves laden with jars of apple-butter would be considered a laggard indeed. ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... victories in the land of promise. The women listen, nodding and swaying their bodies sympathetically. He works himself into a frenzy, in which the fiddlers vainly try to keep up with him. He turns and digs the laggard angrily in the side without losing the metre. The climax comes. The bride bursts into hysterical sobs, while the women wipe their eyes. A plate, heretofore concealed under his coat, is whisked out. He has conquered; the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... hunted here during the past season; the sight of these bones served only to mock their misery. After travelling about nine miles along the plain, they ascended a range of hills, and had scarcely gone two miles further, when, to their great joy, they discovered "an old run-down buffalo bull;" the laggard probably of some herd that had been hunted and harassed through the mountains. They now all stretched themselves out to encompass and make sure of this solitary animal, for their lives depended upon their success. After considerable trouble and infinite anxiety, they at length ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... cockades,—the colour of Night! Are we to have military onfall; and death also by starvation? For behold the Corbeil Cornboat, which used to come twice a-day, with its Plaster-of-Paris meal, now comes only once. And the Townhall is deaf; and the men are laggard and dastard!—At the Cafe de Foy, this Saturday evening, a new thing is seen, not the last of its kind: a woman engaged in public speaking. Her poor man, she says, was put to silence by his District; their Presidents and Officials ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... express train seemed a laggard, left far behind in the race of the journey by his swift desire, which kept pace with the telegram announcing his departure from Solaris and the probable time of his arrival in Washington. At length his heart was made glad by a distant ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... behind a mask, And held him to his manly course; One hour in love she bade him bask, And then she drove, with playful force, The laggard to his ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... hours of life (Unsatisfied, sad life), We wake in shadow and we rise in gloom. False as a wanton's artificial bloom Is that made light we labour in till dawn (The lonely, laggard dawn). ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... And the involuntary laggard—utterly bewitched by supple allurement of her motion, by the black flame of her gaze, by the savage melody of her chant—wonders more and more who she may be, while she waits for him with ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... remained covered with the relics of the family breakfast long after Mr. Vincy had gone with his second son to the warehouse, and when Miss Morgan was already far on in morning lessons with the younger girls in the schoolroom. It awaited the family laggard, who found any sort of inconvenience (to others) less disagreeable than getting up when he was called. This was the case one morning of the October in which we have lately seen Mr. Casaubon visiting the Grange; and though the room was a little overheated with the fire, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the least understanding, in spite of their bright wits, what the burdens, fortunes, adventures might mean. The two sisters' enthusiasm was just kept within bounds by two drags on its quicksilver quality. These laggard spirits, Dora and May, weighed upon their more enterprising companions. Neither could Annie and Rose quite shut their eyes to the increase of wrinkles on their father's face, and to their mother's red eyes when she ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... was the dust over the herd, and that the wagon was just behind, because the wind that day was blowing from the southwest, and also because the oxen did not walk as fast as the herd. In the distance he saw the "Drag" moving lazily along after the dust-cloud, with barefooted niggers driving the laggard cattle and singing dolefully as they walked. Emphatically Buddy was ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... have felt, not once or twice, but perhaps a hundred times this evening, a longing to throw my arms round you and kiss you; and, in faith, I had so done, but that I feared it might displease you." Rinaldo, hearing these words, and marking the flame which shot from the lady's eyes, and being no laggard, came forward with open arms, and confronted her and said:—"Madam, I am not unmindful that I must ever acknowledge that to you I owe my life, in regard of the peril whence you rescued me. If then there be any way in which I may pleasure you, churlish indeed were I not to devise it. ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Looking at him sum-totally, we feel his mass, and say we have looked upon majesty. But as a mountain is, in circumference and altitude, always beckoning us on, as if saying, "My summit is not far away, but near," and so spurring our laggard steps to espouse the ascent, and toiling on, on, still on, a little further—only a little further—till heart and flesh all but fail and faint, but for the might of will, we fall to rise again, and try once more, till we fall upon ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Long. Laggard! too many precious moments have been wasted in their execution: the moon has risen high, and casts a brightness round scarce feebler than the day: your ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... you find a Tartar," said West, laughing too. "When I finally caught you, laggard that I was, you looked as if ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... before the laggard line The colonel's horse we spied, Bay Billy with his trappings on, His nostrils swelling wide, As though still on his gallant back ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... he began to busy himself with the revised edition of his works which he had projected in Spain. It was disheartening to find his old publishers dubious about undertaking the republication, and for a time the work went hard. "I am growing a sad laggard in literature," he wrote to his nephew, "and need some one to bolster me up occasionally. I am too ready to do anything else rather than write." For more than a year his time was largely devoted to overseeing an enlargement of the cottage, and a renovation of the grounds, ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... work with them was done. Now I could go to her, and with a sprig of laurel to lay upon my brow, could silence stinging tongues while I worked quietly on at home. Home! never would I leave its blessed roof again. Oh, how my longing heart hurried my laggard feet. I did not write; no pen should cheat my tongue of the blessed story. I wished to feel her arms, see her smile, catch her heart-beat while I told her. God! I whispered His name softly in gratitude and love. I planned my surprise well, but I was doomed to disappointment. It was midnight when ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... "Rise, O laggard! See the sun, To climb in glory hath begun: The flowers have oped their pretty eyes, The happy lark doth songful rise, And merry birds in flowery brake, Full-throated, joyous clamours make; And I, indeed, that love it not, Do sit alone and keel ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... generations has taught domestic animals not only the fact of their safety when giving voice, but also that very often there is great virtue in a vigorous outcry. With an insistent staccato neigh, the hungry horse jars the dull brain of its laggard master, and prompts him to "feed and water the stock." But how different is the cry of a lost horse, which calls for rescue. It cannot be imitated in printed words; but every plainsman knows the shrill and prolonged trumpet-call ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... relation between the demand for head-work and for hand-work. For a long time to come this rush will be far smaller than we imagine; for the immediate future it will suffice if the rising forces are set free, and the laggard ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... believed to be a laggard in love answered confusedly that he and Miss Dutton had been singing that famous hymn, "We shall meet in the sweet By-and-by." The congregation were standing, but resumed their seats at the end of the hymn. Under cover of much scraping of feet and rustling ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... good secretary, admiral; but, the gods propitious, I can, if needs say must, take you treasure hunting. It will be a fine stroke. Is it possible that fortune begins to smile on me at last? Well, I have had the patience to wait. The hour has come, and fortune shall not find me laggard. It has been something to wait as I have, never to have spoken, never to have forgotten. France knows and Germany knows, but only me, not what I have. They have even tried to drive me ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... the rise of physiology might have been delayed for centuries; had Galen's works not survived, Vesalius would never have reconstructed Anatomy, and Surgery too might have stayed behind with her laggard sister, Medicine; the Hippocratic collection was the necessary and acknowledged basis for the work of the greatest of modern clinical observers, Thomas Sydenham, and the teaching of Hippocrates and of his school is the substantial basis of instruction in the wards of ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... and awe-stricken amid this manifestation of the insignificance of man, the sun blazed forth from behind a laggard cloud. The effect was theatrical. It was like throwing the limelight on the scene which marks the climax of some tense situation. Instinctively we lifted our arms and cheered ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... pleasant frame of mind, Don had gone home to find that the tea was ready, and that he was being treated as a laggard. ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... a trail Like to slowly-falling hail And the sadly-plaintive wail Of a misty file of souls, As they glided o'er the grass, Sighing low: "Alas! alas! How the laggard moments pass In ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... RECREANT LAGGARD: If you are not too busy playing Sir Lancelot to fair dames in distress, or splintering lances with the doughty husbands of these same ladies, I pray you deign to allow your servant to feast her eyes upon her lord's face. Hopefully and ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... Laggard day came, with a dusky sky, obscured by heavy clouds and the rain still pouring. It was several hours after sunrise before it ceased and the sky began to clear. Then the others awoke and ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... people about you are carrying on their business or their benevolence at a pace which drains the life out of you, resolutely take a slower pace; be called a laggard, make less money, accomplish less work than they, but be what you were meant to be and can be. You have your natural limit of power as much as an engine,—ten-horse power, or twenty, or a hundred. You are fit to do certain kinds of work, and you need a certain kind ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... laggard at the meeting. He rumbled into the yard on the box of one of his animal cages, pulled out a huge bag containing something that kicked and wriggled, and deposited his burden on the ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... to be introduced to the orthodox hell-ship manner of turning to the watch. Both mates would meet us coming up, and the first man on deck would get a clout for not being sooner, and the last man a boot for being a laggard. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... for hours, eager for the Deed. Not one among them in his heart believed in the wisdom of this assault, yet so grim was the power of Brown's mind over the wills of his followers, there was not a laggard among them. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... wretched thing, A sad survivor of his buried wife, A palsy-smitten, childish, old, old man, A semblance most forlorn of what he was, A merry cheerful man. A merrier man, A man more apt to frame matter for mirth, Mad jokes, and anticks for a Christmas eve; Making life social, and the laggard time To move on nimbly, never yet did cheer The little ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... fellow to come now and claim her, when perils were past, when there was naught left to do but lead her to the altar? Could he be worthy of such a pearl of womanhood, this laggard who, because a fever touched him, sat him down in an inn within a few hours' ride of her to rest him, as though the world held no such ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... Republican state, one that has taken a conspicuous part in the great drama of the past. In an evil hour, and under wild delusions, Ohio elected the recent Democratic legislature. With this warning behind us let us not be backward or laggard in the civic contest in November; but, with a ticket worthy of our choice, let us appeal to our fellow-citizens to place again our honored state at the head of ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... silence. One-half of Rory's purlin plate slipped from its splicing, the pin having been neglected in the furious haste, and swinging free, fell crashing through the timbers upon the scurrying, scrambling men below. On its way it swept off the middle bent Rory, who was madly entreating a laggard to drop to the earth, but who, flung by good fortune against a brace, clung there. On the plate went in its path of destruction, missing several men by hairs' breadths, but striking at last with smashing cruel force across ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... pinched I bide The final toll the gods may take. The laggard years have quenched my pride; They cannot kill the ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... into his saddle beside his pretty wife, who sat her horse like a boy, the white flag lifted high in the sunshine, watching the firing line until the last laggard was in position. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... We join up with the laggard inattention of custom. With himself each man brings his rifle, his pouches of cartridges, his water-bottle, and a pouch that contains a lump of bread. Volpatte is still eating, with protruding and palpitating cheek. Paradis, with purple nose and ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... is—when the teacher had to know nothing but her "subjects"; the nature of the child was to her as great a mystery as it is to the ordinary person who never learned anything about it. She was supposed to deal with the "average" child that does not exist, and to attempt the futile task of drawing the laggard up to this arbitrary average and of holding the genius down to it. The effort is being made to have the teacher recognize the individuality of each child; but the mother is still expected to confine her ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... resembles shame— I marvel that this land with heart so tame Can brook the northern insolence and guile. But most it angers me, to think how vile Art thou, how base, from whom the insult came, Unwieldly laggard, many an age behind Thy sister Powers, in brain and conscience both; In recognition of man's widening mind And flexile adaptation to its growth: Brute bulk, that bearest on thy back, half loth, One wretched man, ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... us were moveless and attentive Unto his notes; and lo! the grave old man, Exclaiming: "What is this, ye laggard spirits? ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... she, "And what then? You shall find me no laggard these days, Martin. Indeed I could run fast as you for all ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... observed Zenobia, as we left the room, "that Mr. Hollingsworth should be such a laggard. I should not have thought him at all the sort of person to be turned back by a puff of contrary wind, or a few snowflakes drifting into ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... elder time, Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime! Thy wonders, in that god-like age, Fill thy recording Sister's page;— 'Tis said and I believe the tale, Thy humblest reed could more prevail Had more of strength, diviner rage, Than all which charms this laggard age, E'en all at once together found Cecilia's mingled world of sound:— O bid our vain endeavours cease: Revive the just designs of Greece: Return in all thy simple state! Confirm ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... not return unto them void, but waited for some far future day when happier harvesters should come bringing their sheaves with them. How looks the promise now? A beneficent Providence has outstripped our laggard hopes. The work which we had so summarily given over to the wiser generations behind us is rapidly approaching completion beneath the strokes of a few sharp, short years of our own. Slavery, which was apologized for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... fitting foundation. I must say, however, that the habit of the dictionary of secreting itself in the darkest corner of the lowest shelf contributes to general illiteracy. I have known families wrangle for ten minutes on the meaning of a word rather than lift this laggard from its depths. Be that as it may, the novels and poetry should be on the fifth shelf from the bottom, just off the end of ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... called to his men to follow. All day they waded, and toward evening reached a small patch of dry ground, where they spent a miserable night. At sunrise Clark started on again, through icy water waist-deep, this time with the stern command to shoot the first laggard. Some of the men failed and sank beneath the waves, to be rescued by the stronger ones, and by the middle of the afternoon they had all got safe to land. By good fortune, they captured some Indian squaws with a canoe-load of food, and had their first meal in two days. Soon afterwards ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... usually so deep and radiant, were dulled now, as if by many tears; the rich scarlet of the lips' curves was bent downward mournfully. She stood just within the doorway for a brief space, watching intently the man who was so busy over his scrawled figures. At last, she ventured forward, walking in a laggard, rhythmic step, as do church dignitaries and choir-boys in a processional. By such slow stages, she came to a place opposite her husband. There, she remained, upright, mute, waiting. The magnetism of her presence penetrated to him by subtle ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... shall toss the glittering leaves in play, And dally with the flowers, and gayly lift The slender herbs, pressed low by weight of rain, And drive, in joyous triumph, through the sky, White clouds, the laggard remnants of ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... no laggard in waiting on two such important guests. The brother magistrates despatched their rump-steak; the foaming tankard was replenished; the fire renovated. At length, the table and the room being alike clear, Squire Mountmeadow drew a long puff, and ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... been stationed at Sheboygan, Waupun, and Green Bay. He was a man of sharp, decisive movements, sometimes angular in his opinions and measures, but full of energy and not afraid of hard work. He kept no horse, even when on the largest circuits, as he could not afford to wait for so laggard a conveyance. In this particular he became notorious, and marvelous stories are related of his pedestrian abilities. It is affirmed that, on one occasion, in going to the Conference, he walked from Waupun to Platteville, ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... moral? Who rides may read. When the night is thick and the tracks are blind. A friend at a pinch is a friend indeed; But a fool to wait for the laggard behind: Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne He travels the fastest ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling |
