"Precipitancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... charged with precipitancy in making war on Tippoo. But the charge is refuted by dates. The French proclamation was dated 10th Pluviose, sixth year of the Republic, (30th January 1798.) Its truth or falsehood was carefully enquired into, until the evidence was completed by despatches from the British ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... made this observation, that when men have, through fear of miscarriage, hesitated a long time about any undertaking of consequence, the remaining impressions of their fear commonly push them afterwards with too much precipitancy upon the execution of their design. And this was my case. It was with the greatest reluctance that I determined to accept the dignity of a cardinal, because I thought it too mean to form a pretension to it without certainty ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... pure and free the gushing stream of life.— What silent purpose broods within thy soul? Is it destruction? Let me perish first! For now, deliv'rance hopeless, I perceive The dreadful peril into which I have With rash precipitancy plung'd my friends. Alas! I soon shall see them bound before me! How to my brother shall I say farewell? I, the unhappy author of his death. Ne'er can I gaze ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... gaoler's duty "Battista" should seek out the fellow and sit in talk with him. The pair became intimate, and intercourse between them grew more free and unrestrained. Garnache waited, wishing to risk nothing by precipitancy, and watched for his opportunity. It came on the morrow of All Saints. On that Day of the Dead, Arsenio, whose rearing had been that of a true son of Mother Church, was stirred by the memory of his earthly mother, who had died some three years before. He was silent and moody, and showed little ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... headlong precipitancy into the story of his love for Cornelia, and of the inexplicably cruel way in which it had been brought to a close. "And yesterday," he continued with a sob in his voice—"yesterday I heard that her father ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... rise is from stupid inadvertency, or heady precipitancy; when the man doth not heed what he saith, or consider the nature and consequence of his words, but snatcheth any expression which cometh next, or which his roving fancy doth offer, for want of that ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... that our operations were almost suspended. It is well known that food for the mind has but little savor for starving stomachs. The famine, and the unmistakable determination of the Boers to enslave my people, at last made me look to the north seriously. There was no precipitancy. Letters went to and from India respecting my project before resolving to leave, and I went at last, after being obliged to send my family to Kuruman in order to be out of the way of a threatened attack of the Boers. When we reached Lake 'Ngami, about which so much has ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... of princes and ministers, which I have since observed in many other courts, and their methods of treating criminals less obnoxious than myself, I should, with great alacrity and readiness, have submitted to so easy a punishment. But hurried on by the precipitancy of youth, and having his imperial majesty's license to pay my attendance upon the emperor of Blefuscu, I took this opportunity, before the three days were elapsed, to send a letter to my friend the secretary, signifying my resolution of setting out that morning for Blefuscu, pursuant ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... "he was strong, but not strong enough to make the populace suspend an opinion; yet it might be done: by chloroforming them." (Which leads one parenthetically to remark that it is great pity, then, that, in the prevalent headlong precipitancy of public judgment, anaesthetics have not been more generally employed on this side of the water of late.) Certainly he is no physician, they say. But, on the other hand, a conjecture that he has been before the mast is as plausible a one as that ever Herman Melville was; ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... you eat your dinner now? for it's all ready," she came saying an hour before dinner-time, the very first day after my mother left. Even now her desire to be punctual is chiefly evidenced by absurd precipitancy, to the danger of doing every thing either to a pulp or a cinder. Yet here she is, and here she is likely to remain, so far as I see, till death, or some other catastrophe, us do part. The reason of it is, that, with all her faults—and they are innumerable—she has some heart; yes, after ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... Crane. The gambler spirit, that was his of inheritance, had an instinctive truth as allied to finance; but, unfortunately for Philip Crane, chance and a speculative restlessness led him amongst men who commenced with the sport of kings. With acute precipitancy he was separated from the currency that had come to him. The process was so rapid that his racing experience was of little avail as an asset, so he committed the first great wise act of his life-turned his back upon the race course and marched into finance, so strongly, so persistently, that at ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... Sand, in Lucrezia Floriani, where she drew so unkind a picture of Chopin, has described her own life and character as marked by 'a great facility for illusions, a blind benevolence of judgment, a tenderness of heart that was inexhaustible; consequently great precipitancy, many mistakes, much weakness, fits of heroic devotion to unworthy objects, enormous force applied to an end that was wretched in truth and fact, but sublime in her thought.' George Eliot had none of this facility. Nor was general benignity in her at all of the poor ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... Rifles and 15th Punjaubees. Some Chinese batteries and junks were silenced; and then Sir John Michel ordered up the infantry, who rushed into the fortress, and bowled over the Tartars, as they scampered with precipitancy from the wall across the open into the village, while rockets, whizzing through the air over their heads in graceful curve, spread dismay among their masses, and hastened ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... a maxim with us, my dear sir, never to be premature in anything, especially when it may be—very prejudicial; you've really no idea, my dear Mr. Titmouse, of the world of mischief that is often done by precipitancy in legal matters; and in the present stage of the business—the present stage, my dear sir—I really do see it necessary not to—do anything premature, and ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... fellow, verging sometimes on silliness. He merely turned away. The vertiginous rapidity of his wife's developments, manoeuvres and transformations had dazed him into a sort of numbed idiocy. In two days, in a day, with no warning to him of her extraordinary precipitancy, she had 'flitted'! ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... joint-stock bank, he would give permission for any bank to dispose of its circulation to another bank; the aggregate of the two amounts to be taken as the joint circulation. To avoid any inconvenience or precipitancy, the plan would not come into operation until the 1st of January, 1846. Sir Robert Peel concluded by expressing his belief that this plan would add to the stability of the circulation in the United Kingdom, and would be an equitable way ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... picket lines this morning across the river, pushed ours back with considerable precipitancy, when a general skirmish occurred along the lines for a distance of about two miles. Captain Hasty was chief in command of our skirmishers. I assisted him, riding my sorrel pony, the only horse on the skirmish line, as all the ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... however, would be considered heresy in Canada, and a great many factors conspire to help woman's status in the Dominion. To begin with, there are half a million more men than women. A woman need never give herself so cheaply as to spend her life paying for her precipitancy. She is not a superfluous. Another point in which some other countries could emulate Canada is in the protection of women and children. A woman ill-mated has the same protection under the law as though she ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... he felt and regretted the precipitancy which had yoked him for life to "a mute and spiritless mate," the breach did not come from his side. The girl herself conceived an equal repugnance to the husband she had thoughtlessly accepted, probably on the strength of ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... the high road to the East. A line by the valleys of the Morava and the Maritsa, with its large towns, Philippopoli and Adrianople, is certainly not more chimerical and absurd than many that are now projected. Who can doubt of its ultimate accomplishment, in spite of the alternate precipitancy and prostration of enterprise? Meanwhile imagination loses itself in attempting to picture the altered face of affairs in these secluded regions, when subjected to the operation of a revolution, which posterity will pronounce to ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... before revolt was prepared or thought imminent elsewhere. Now, to the careful student of the situation, it seems among the most premature and rash of all the rebellions in history. But for the precipitancy of the uprising, and the patriotic frenzy that fired the public heart at news of the first bloodshed, many ripe scholars, many soldiers of experience, might have been saved to aid and honor the republic, instead of being ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... The precipitancy of this latest turn of events bewildered Judith; but yet a little while—a matter of weeks and days—and her friendship with Hamilton had been of that pleasantly indefinite estate situated somewhere on the borderland of romance, a kingdom where there ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... that Indra rode in the course of his encounter with Indra. Beholding the ruler of the Pandavas impetuously rushing against him, Salwa, that lion among kings, quickly urged his elephants, O king, for the destruction of Drupada's son. The latter, seeing the animal approaching with precipitancy, pierced it with three foremost of shafts, polished by the hands of the smith, keen, blazing, endued with fierce energy, and resembling fire itself in splendour and force. Then that illustrious hero struck the animal at the frontal globes with five other whetted and foremost of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... some argumentative reason to support it, shows great precipitancy of idea. It is like raising a sumptuous pile for the mere gratification ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... that no other terms need be proposed, nor would be accepted, beside those offered by them. None others have been offered on the part of Palmyra. And the ambassadors have been delayed rather to avoid the charge of unreasonable precipitancy, than in the belief that the public mind would incline to or permit any reply more moderate than that which they have borne back ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... clear. But out of the tail of my eye I watched my good friend Stefano, and I saw his right hand steal round to the region of his back where I knew his dagger to be slung. Yet was I patient. There should be no blundering through an excessive precipitancy. I talked on until I saw that my suspicions were amply realised. I caught the cold gleam of steel in the hand that he brought back as stealthily as he had carried it to his poniard. Sant' Iddio! What a coward he was for all his bulk, to go so ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... support it. If Robart's testimony be, as they now say, indispensable, why did they not send for him and hear his story before they made up their minds? They may thank their own intemperance, their own precipitancy, for his disappearance. He is a foreigner; he is timid; he hears that a transaction in which he has been concerned has been pronounced by the House of Commons to be highly criminal, that his master is impeached, that his friend Bates is in prison, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... happened. A parcel of us young people were upon a merry swangean* round this arkoe,** which we usually divert ourselves with at set times of the year, chasing and pursuing one another, sometimes soaring to an extravagant height, and then shooting down again with surprising precipitancy, till we even touch the trees; when of a sudden we ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... For we often lamented, between ourselves, the misfortunes which hung over the State, when we discovered the seeds of a civil war in the insatiable ambition of a few private Citizens, and saw every hope of an accommodation excluded by the rashness and precipitancy of our public counsels. But the felicity which always marked his life, seems to have exempted him, by a seasonable death, from the calamities that followed. But, as after the decease of Hortensius, we seem to have been left, my Brutus, as the sole ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... enough at the passers-by, when suddenly about midnight much excitement rose amongst them. They conversed eagerly in their own tongue for a few moments, and the lady had rushed off down the street by herself, whilst her two companions ran with equal precipitancy to join the third in the sitting-room they had engaged, and there they were still seated in moody expectancy, apparently watching for some ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... question in connection with their creation in the early stages was the provision of officers; the men were procured almost too fast. This became the business of the Military Secretary's Department. The M.S. Department holds tenaciously to the dogma that maladministration is the child of precipitancy and that deliberation stamps official procedure with the hall-mark of respectability. In later stages of the war one never was gazetted to an appointment until after one had passed on to the next one. But a gunner "dug-out," Colonel "Bill" Elliot, had ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... system itself you must attack and overthrow; not a mere instrument—a miserable painted lath such as this. And precipitancy will spoil everything. Above ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... that, possibly, they might be driven to use force; and the Governor replied that, if they did, he was determined to do his duty. But in August, 1853, when the agitation was increasing, Latrobe hurriedly reduced the fee to twenty shillings per month. This appeased the miners for a time; but the precipitancy with which the Governor had changed his intention showed too plainly the weakness of the Government, for there was at that time scarcely a soldier in Victoria to repress an insurrection, if one should break out. Among the confused ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... check the current of his thoughts, he pensively revolved his present situation and future prospects. The future was gloomy enough—the present fraught with danger. And now that the fever of excitement was passed, he severely reproached himself for his precipitancy. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... not the courage to pursue the downright course which his nature prompted. Little Coqueline was foremost in his thoughts. Then there was the memory of all the happiness his home meant to him, and he feared that which undue precipitancy might ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... Nigger, who was not in my reckoning, nor in Swope's, who put the match to the tinder and upset such carefully laid plans. As I feared, the revolt of the crew blazed up immediately. My shipmates were eager, too eager. As it turned out, their precipitancy was to cost them their chance of victory, for they began to riot while the three tradesmen were still handy to the roundhouse door, though, indeed, they had no knowledge, as had I, of the ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... after, he was thrown from his horse, and disabled from riding on horseback for a considerable time. But Mr. Turner finds it more convenient to give him this fall in his retreat before Tarleton, which had happened some weeks before, as a proof that he withdrew from a troop of horse with a precipitancy which Don Quixote ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... perspective a dot was advancing. It resolved itself into horse and sleigh. Puffs of vapor from the steaming animal indicated the urgent precipitancy ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... myself of precipitancy; but I soon remembered that every thing ought to be hazarded, where every thing is at stake. My fears were not for myself; and, while my arms were free, could I have come upon them thus suddenly, success ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... them astray: on us the shame; to us the dishonour. Theorists, indeed (wise after the fact, as is the wont of theorists), have discovered or invented an imaginary function for Second Chambers. They are to preserve the people, it seems, from the fatal consequences of their own precipitancy. As though the people—you and I—the vast body of citizens, were a sort of foolish children, to be classed with infants, women, criminals, and imbeciles (I adopt the chivalrous phraseology of an Act of Parliament), incapable of knowing ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... all the rest of the sons of Adam, I have bowed to the influence of the claims of a fair damsel of eighteen. I loved her like a man and told her of it like a sailor. The peculiarity of my situation occasion'd me to act with something like precipitancy. I am perfectly confident, however, I shall never have cause to repent of it—. As you are cooly to decide, I will as cooly give you the qualities of my mistress. Susan De Lancey is the daughter of a man of very respectable connections and ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... The precipitancy of this declaration served merely to confirm the opinion she had already conceived of the weakness of his understanding: but the obstinacy of Mr Harrel irritated and distressed her, though weary of expostulating with so hopeless a subject, whom neither reason nor gratitude ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... difficult to justify by precedent in their history." [32] This blunt expostulation of the honest courtier, equally creditable to the sovereign who could endure, and the subject who could make it, was received in the frank spirit in which it was given, and probably opened Isabella's eyes to her own precipitancy, as we find no further allusion ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... company—and was darting arrow-like up the stairs, her torn scarf flying behind her like a banner. Her flight had been so unexpected and so swift that young Fiske did not attempt to follow her; but she reached her room, flung the door shut, and locked it with as much precipitancy as though he were on her heels, instead of standing quite still, open-mouthed, where she had ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... breakup. By twos and threes the company drifted slowly up the road in her wake, while Captain Barber, going in the other direction, accompanied Captain Nibletts and party as far as the schooner, in order that he might have the opportunity of saying a few well-chosen words to Mr. Green on the subject of precipitancy. ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... the general, attired in full uniform for a ball, came darting in with such precipitancy that, hitching his boot in the carpet, and getting his sword between his legs, he came down headlong, and presented a curious little bald place on the crown of his head to the eyes of the astonished company. Nor was this the worst of it; ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... was reduced to the depths of perplexity and depression, Harry Dutton cautiously pleaded his cause, and, as a strong will bent on one object will always sway an irresolute mind, Bluebell listened, and for once tried to realize what it would be. She had been frightened at Dutton's precipitancy in the first instance; but now he had become in a manner necessary to her, and she certainly liked him,—immensely. Still, of course, after her experience of the grande passion, this mere entente cordiale could ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... convinced them that the shot had taken effect. The rest of the Indians continued behind trees, until they observed a reinforcement coming up to the aid of the whites, and they fled with the utmost precipitancy. Night soon coming on, those who followed them, had to give ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... such as arise for instance from inexpertness, defective vision, slowness in seizing the exact instant of the occurrence of a phenomenon, or precipitancy in anticipating it; from atmospheric indistinctness, insufficient optical power in the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... moral and personal courage compelled the admiration of his enemies. Arraigned before a Virginia court, the authorities hurried through his trial for treason, conspiracy, and murder, with an unseemly precipitancy, almost calculated to make him seem the accuser, and the commonwealth the trembling culprit. He acknowledged his acts with frankness, defended his purpose with a sincerity that betokened honest conviction, bore his wounds ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... combined nations of the entire world, during the experience of three centuries, and apparently deepened by their advancing civilization. Give us rules and modifications, give us guides and correctives, give us warnings against excess, precipitancy, and neglect of other enjoyments, or of important duties, if you will. The urbane aestheticism that regulates pleasure also limits it; and true refinement ever modifies the indulgence it pervades. But it is emulating Mrs. Partington and her mop to attempt ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... troop had penetrated so far into the interior as Marlborough. Had he pushed on at once, it is barely possible that Washington might have fallen at a less expense of human life than actually occurred. Perhaps, too, he commenced she attack at Bladensburg with a degree of precipitancy which hindered him from, taking advantage of an open ford, and compelled him to expose his troops to the fire of the enemy's artillery whilst crossing a narrow bridge in a single column. But these errors, if errors ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... testimony that there was a huge and desperate gang of them afoot. Revengeful dogs! it is difficult to deal with them. The laws forbid precipitancy and violence. A dozen or two may return and harm me; not me, indeed, but my tenants and servants. I would fain act with prudence, and like unto him who looketh abroad. He must tie his shoe tightly who passeth through mire; he must step softly who steppeth over ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... up his mind to move to York, and directed his pupil to prepare to accompany him forthwith. The lovers, of course, were in despair at the thought of their approaching separation. In the end they secured their mutual fidelity by a hasty and private marriage. Reproved for his precipitancy and imprudence, Romney replied that his marriage would surely act as a spur to his application: 'My thoughts being now still and not obstructed by youthful follies, I can practise with more diligence and success than ever.' ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... one of the secretaries to Government, upon the present favourable bias of government and the public in general to favour all plans for doing good, he told me that he believed the whole was owing to the prudent and temperate manner in which we had acted; and that if we had acted with precipitancy and indiscretion, he had every reason to believe the general feeling would have been as hostile to attempts to do good as it is now ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... built a hundred years ago (Mr. Close said!), we decided to take it, and most unwisely said so, thereby paying, as usual, the top price for something which we could have got at a bargain if we had waited. But such is the perennial foolishness and precipitancy of ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... been wounded in the back and hands in the battle, and to have fled with great precipitancy from the field of battle. He obtained, it is supposed, that shelter which, even under the most dangerous and disastrous circumstances, was rarely refused to the poor Jacobites. The exact spot of his retreat has never been ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... throne by the united voice of the whole people. The cause of the Bourbons became so desperate, that not the slightest hope remained for them, except what could arise from resorting to the aid of foreign arms to restore the King to the throne from which he had fled with the greatest precipitancy, without having made the slightest resistance. In fact the whole people were by this time completely sick of the Bourbons. The Despots of Europe, meanwhile, were in the greatest alarm, but they soon entered ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... understanding and the early development of imagination never permitted him to mingle in childish plays; and his natural aversion to tyranny prevented him from paying due attention to his school duties. But he was always actively employed; and although his endeavours were prosecuted with puerile precipitancy, yet his aim and thoughts were constantly directed to those great objects which have employed the thoughts of the greatest among men; and though his studies were not followed up according to school discipline, they were not the less diligently applied to." This high-soaring ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... the gist of her conversation with Ashley on the previous day and the one great decision to which they had led him up. It would have gratified Ashley, could he have overheard, to note the skill with which she conveyed precisely that quality of noble precipitancy in his words and resolutions which he himself feared they had lacked. If a slight suspicion could have risen in his mind, it would have been that of a certain haste on her part to forestall any possible questioning of his eagerness such as he had occasion ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... a half, on rounding a bend of the stream, they suddenly came in view of about twenty canoes, full of Indians, who had made a rush upon them with the most frightful yells; the two natives and the guide who conducted their little canoe, retreated with the utmost precipitancy, but seeing that they would be overtaken, they stopped short, and begged Mr. M'Kay to fire upon the approaching savages, which he, being well acquainted with the Indian character from the time he accompanied Sir Alexander M'Kenzie, and having met with similar occurrences before, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... old friend. It was but a small object of ambition, but we must do what we can, thought Edgar; and it is the best wisdom to content ourselves with mice when we have no lions to destroy. He did not, however, rush up to her with Alick's tactless precipitancy. He waited just long enough for her to desire, and not so long as to disappoint; then, speaking to Adelaide by the way, and giving her and Josephine each a helping hand, he came in a series of clean, showy curves to where Leam and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... has a further use. It not only serves as a shield to the Executive, but it furnishes an additional security against the enaction of improper laws. It establishes a salutary check upon the legislative body, calculated to guard the community against the effects of faction, precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, which may happen to influence a majority of that body. The propriety of a negative has, upon some occasions, been combated by an observation, that it was not to be presumed a single man would possess more virtue and wisdom ...
— The Federalist Papers
... that the administration party would take advantage of the insolent and outrageous conduct of the French minister to show the folly of precipitancy, and to gain popularity and strength for itself. Madison soon writes to Jefferson to acquaint him with the reaction taking place in Virginia, "in the surprise and disgust of those who are attached to the French cause, ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... just told us, though he did not actually vote, was Mr. Gladstone. Twenty years after, when he had risen to be a shining light in the world's firmament, he wrote to Hampden to express regret for the injustice of which in this instance 'the forward precipitancy of youth' had made him guilty.[94] The case of Hampden gave a sharp actuality to the question of the relations of church and crown. The particular quarrel was of secondary importance, but it brought home to the high churchmen what might be expected in weightier matters than the affair of Dr. Hampden ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... until the great year 1797, three years later, when "Christabel" and "The Ancient Mariner" are begun. Before and after, Coleridge is seen trying to write like Bowles, like Wordsworth, like Southey, perhaps, to attain "that impetuosity of transition and that precipitancy of fancy and feeling, which are the essential qualities of the sublimer Ode," and which he fondly fancies that he has attained in the "Ode on the Departing Year," with its one good line, taken out of his note-book. But here, in "Lewti," he has his style, his lucid ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... seems to have a music book under his arm, comes out, with a strange, screwy motion, as though through an opening much too narrow for him, and, having poised a moment to nervously pull some imaginary object from his right boot and hurl it madly from him, goes unexpectedly off with the precipitancy and equilibriously concentric manner of a gentleman in his first private ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... sold out. We shall see how long before England inclines to follow their example. It behoves us then to qualify ourselves for our mission. We must dare our destiny. We can do this, and can only do it by early measures which shall effect the abolition of slavery, without precipitancy, without oppression, without injustice to slaveholders, without civil war, with the consent of mankind, and the approbation of Heaven. The restoration of the right of suffrage to free men is the first act, and will draw after it in due time ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... urgently, "I admit that I am disturbed by the precipitancy of the action that has been taken. I feel as if I were like some powerful djinni giving gifts which the recipients may use ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... excuse the precipitancy in signing the treaty, has said to the Ministers of the Republic at Paris, that, on one side, America, who declared herself exhausted, feared an insurrection if the taxes were increased, demanded through Dr Franklin twenty millions for the ensuing campaign, if there were one, and wished ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... saying, and, supposing some man was insulting her, I acted as I did." Then I let go of him, and, turning, I continued, "I am very sorry, Miss Cullen, if I did anything the circumstances did not warrant," while cursing myself for my precipitancy and for not thinking that Miss Cullen would never have been caught in such a plight with a man unless she had been half willing; for a girl does not merely threaten to call for help if she ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... the moment he had forgotten. Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he drew out a key and unsteadily fitted it. But before turning it he stood an instant listening. No sound! Should he wait until the morrow? Prudence dictated that course; precipitancy, however, drove him on. Now, as well as ever! Better have an understanding! She would have to accede to his plans, anyway—and the sooner, the better. He had burned his bridges; there was ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... much more extensively than has yet been the case in this country, a select committee of the House of Commons made a report to that House which, declaring its approval of the competitive plan, deprecated, nevertheless, any precipitancy in its general adoption as likely to endanger its ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... inspire me with the desire that you should take a mother's place towards my son. But you must be aware that such an appointment could only be made when you are already one of the family, and this it is that leads me to entreat you to overlook any appearance of precipitancy on my brother's part, and return a favourable reply to the request, which with my complete sanction, he is ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shivering precipitancy in me, which makes emotion of any kind a thing to be shunned. It is my nerves, my nerves.... Such a nervous system as I have.... Thomas feeling in his breast for comfort and finding bilious fever.... All palpitating, fluttered with sleeplessness ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height. And this fall—this rushing annihilation—for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... greatly influence the poetic or artistic mind of her son for good, she may also influence it for evil. Thus the characteristics of Lord Byron—the waywardness of his impulses, his defiance of restraint, the bitterness of his hate, and the precipitancy of his resentments—were traceable in no small degree to the adverse influences exercised upon his mind from his birth by his capricious, violent, and headstrong mother. She even taunted her son with his personal deformity; and it was no unfrequent occurrence, in the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... out again, and to his almost incredulous astonishment, there was Joe dragging the unfortunate Anna towards an ighloo. As he looked back, to steer straight for the entrance-hole, he caught sight of the Boy, dropped his prey, and disappeared with some precipitancy into the ground. When Anna had gathered herself up, the Boy was standing in ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... greater powers of purchase, and a more resolute determination, as well as nicer skill, in exercising these powers, than himself. Thus rushing into the combat with the heat and vehemence of youth, he was of necessity compelled to experience the disappointment attendant upon such precipitancy. It was in vain that Philemon and myself endeavoured to make him completely satisfied with his purchase: nothing produced a look of complacency from him. At length, upon seeing the rising ground which was within two or three miles of our respective ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... passions; and if appetite had been the moving influence with him, he would scarcely, with the eyes of all the world fixed upon his conduct, have passed so extravagant an insult upon the nation of which he was the sovereign. The precipitancy with which he acted is to me a proof that he looked on matrimony as an indifferent official act which his duty required at the moment. This was the interpretation which was given to his conduct by the Lords and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... under excitement, and his long intervals of unproductiveness; to the heat and fury of his polemics; to the simplicity with which, fortunately for us, he inscribes small particulars of his own life side by side with weightiest utterances on Church and State; to the amazing precipitancy of his marriage and its rupture; to his sudden pliability upon appeal to his generosity; to his romantic self-sacrifice when his country demanded his eyes from him; above all, to his splendid ideals of regenerated human ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... multiplication by such a component of velocity; but by-and-by you come to feel that the motion is a necessary part of the power. I am told, indeed, that a constitutional tendency to hesitation in utterance is the speaker's real reason for this indulged precipitancy of speech. Not unlikely; but the final result of habit is ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... difficult to distinguish the obscure but not unmajestic law of change from the sorry custom of reaction. Change hastes not and rests not, reaction beats to and fro, flickering about the moving mind of the world. Reaction—the paltry precipitancy of the multitude—rather than the novelty of change, has brought about a ferment and corruption of opinion on Tennyson's poetry. It may be said that opinion is the same now as it was in the middle of the nineteenth century—the same, but turned. All that was not worth having of admiration then has ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... The French accused him of losing the battle of Moncontour by his impatience to engage; yet they acknowledged that to his masterly conduct it was owing that their retreat was effected in so successful, and even so brilliant a manner. He was censured for rashness and precipitancy in this last and fatal enterprise, but the reproach seems entirely without foundation. The expedition as already stated, had been deliberately arranged, with the full co-operation of his brother, and had been ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... field on the discussion of which I must not enter. I merely indicate it as one of those departments in which an intelligent philanthropy might find a great sphere for its endeavours; but it would be better not to touch it at all than to deal with it with light-hearted precipitancy and without due consideration of all the difficulties and dangers connected therewith. Obstacles, however, exist to be overcome and converted into victories. There is even a certain fascination about the difficult and dangerous, which appeals very strongly ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... true failings and defects of which we must endeavour to correct ourselves, inasmuch as they are displeasing both to God and man. Such are propensities to anger, grief, joy, excessive laughter, flattery, favouritism, self-pity, suspicion, over-eagerness, precipitancy, and vain affections. We must strive to rid ourselves of those defects which, like weeds, spring up without being sown in the soil of our corrupt nature, and incline us to evil from ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... with which he delivered himself up to their guidance. Overwhelmed with professional engagements, he still contrived to snatch some moments for the stars; and between the acts at the theatre was often seen running from the harpsichord to his telescope, no doubt with that "uncommon precipitancy which accompanied all his actions."[12] He now rapidly increased the power and perfection of his telescopes. Mirrors of seven, ten, even twenty feet focal length, were successively completed, and unprecedented magnifying powers employed. His energy was unceasing, his perseverance ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... first heat of her moral indignation that she had met Clement Westall. She had seen at once that he was "interested," and had fought off the discovery, dreading any influence that should draw her back into the bondage of conventional relations. To ward off the peril she had, with an almost crude precipitancy, revealed her opinions to him. To her surprise, she found that he shared them. She was attracted by the frankness of a suitor who, while pressing his suit, admitted that he did not believe in marriage. Her worst audacities did not seem to surprise him: he had thought ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... as an enemy: and,—though there are alleviations of its conduct in its great sufferings,—yet it must be remembered that these sufferings were due—not to the Gallicians—but to circumstances over which they had no controul—to the precipitancy of the retreat, the inclemency of the weather, and the poverty of the country; and that (knowing this) they must have had a double sense of injustice in any outrages of an English army, from, contrasting them with the professed objects of that army in entering ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... to himself and to Tess of the practical need for their immediate marriage, there was in truth an element of precipitancy in the step, as became apparent at a later date. He loved her dearly, though perhaps rather ideally and fancifully than with the impassioned thoroughness of her feeling for him. He had entertained no notion, when ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... king's pride is wounded, and he refuses to yield to the ascendancy of the prophet. He despatches Baruch to the Chaldeans with an insulting answer. But hardly has Baruch departed, when Zedekiah regrets his precipitancy. He vainly tries to sleep. Jeremiah's voice fills his thoughts, seems to break the silence of the night. Sending for the prophet, the king quietly recounts Nebuchadnezzar's terms, but does not say that they have been refused. He endeavours to secure Jeremiah's approval for the course he ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... was what you went for." She seemed to be answering some incessant voice that accused him, and he perceived that the precipitancy of his action suggested a very different interpretation. His position was odious enough in all conscience, but as yet it had not occurred to him that he could be suspected of complicity in the ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... the same time intimating in a faint tone, that she did hear; for she had not entirely recovered from the embarrassment attendant on the precipitancy of her advent ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... Christian preacher; and there is something wonderfully attractive in his rude, but vigorous and lovable personality. Besides, a study of the influences by which he was transmuted from the unstable and untrustworthy precipitancy of his earlier career into the rocklike firmness which made him fit to be a foundation-stone on which the Church was built would have taught us some of the most important truths which we require to learn; because these influences ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... not a few who were inclined to Secession as the only course in the face of the Republican victory, considered the precipitancy of South Carolina unwise and unjustifiable. She should, they thought, rather have awaited a conference with the other Southern States and the determination of a common policy. But in fact there can be little doubt that the ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... regret, and perhaps censure, equally with yourself, the precipitancy of our Carolinian brothers; but this is not an age, nor a country, where six millions of freeborn people can be controlled ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... sorry for my precipitancy, Mr. President," said Baker apologetically. "Thinking you were an accomplice of this lady's, I tried only ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... stolen was merely intended to lull our vigilance and to prevent us from discovering their designs until they were ripe for execution. That they frequently told their young men that they would defeat their plans by their precipitancy. That in their harangues to the Indians they frequently requested those who would not join their confederacy, to keep their secret. That they always promised them a rich harvest of plunder and scalps, declaring that the first stroke would put ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... speed—sustained speed—is the requisite of the battle fleet; that it is not machinery, as is often affirmed, but brains and guns, that win battles and control the sea. The true speed of war is not headlong precipitancy, but the unremitting energy which wastes ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... with difficulty in an unnatural posture. But his body, uptilted, poised as by a miracle in air, with the slender curve of its back, its flattened hips, its feet laid together like wings folded in the first downrush, might have been the body of a young immortal descending with facile precipitancy to earth. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... out, and in a few wild hours swept the whole fabric into chaos. Nothing caused more surprise at the moment than the extreme bitterness of animosity which the insurgents manifested towards the king's person, unless it were the tameness with which he submitted to his fate and the precipitancy of his flight. There was something rotten in the state of things, men said, which could thus dissolve, crushed like a swollen fungus by a casual foot. And indeed, whether with perfect justice or not, Louis Philippe's Administration had come to be deemed corrupt some time ere his fall. ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... He fled with precipitancy from the thought of this solace, brushing through the narrow passages, stalking across the great guest-chamber and the greater kitchen where, in the falling dusk, the fires glowed red upon the maids' faces and the cooks' aprons, the smoke rose unctuously upward tended with ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... likelihood of kindling an inextinguishable flame if I should admit any public and open contests; and I have grieved to see that some, who should have done their Majesties, and this Province, better service, have so far taken council of passion as to desire the precipitancy of these matters; these things have been improved by some to give me many interruptions in their Majesties service [which] has been hereby unhappily clogged, and the persons, who have made so ill improvement of these matters here, are seeking to turn it upon ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... however, there was a powerful party attempting to stem the precipitancy of the nation. The great moneyed corporations viewed the matter with alarm, and advocated peaceful settlement, or, at most, inaction. This, however, was attributed to their fears of unsettlement of values, and consequent depreciation of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... something. Mrs. Turner could fetch a conclusion from everything she saw, and was happy in her facility. Time and again her patient lord had ventured to point a moral from her repeated mistakes of judgment, and to suggest less precipitancy in the future; but to no good purpose. Mrs. Turner's faith in the justice of her prognostications was sublime, though not unusual. It has been within the compass of our experience to meet and know undaunted women who, day after day, could, with equal positiveness, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... from his design, and after he had weighed her representations in all points, replied: "I own, mother, it is great rashness in me to presume to carry my pretensions so far; and a great want of consideration to ask you with so much heat and precipitancy to go and make the proposal to the sultan, without first taking proper measures to procure a favourable reception, and therefore beg your pardon. But be not surprised that through the violence of my passion I did not at first see every measure necessary ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... is, however, one feature connected with a death in this country, that we could gladly see altered. It is the almost indecent haste; which so generally prevails, to get rid of the dead. Doubtless the climate has had an effect in establishing this custom; but the climate, by no means, exacts the precipitancy that is usually practised. ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... precipitancy than Eldon for procrastination, Sir John Leach, Vice-Chancellor, was said to have done more mischief by excessive haste in a single term than Eldon in his whole life wrought through extreme caution. The holders ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... could make no objection to this prompt agreement to their terms; on the contrary, it suited their plans very well. Yet, in order to appear indifferent and little anxious to conclude the business with any undue haste and precipitancy, Asmut said— ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... Denham did come to his office, he came with a pale face and an enfeebled step; also with a thick shawl wrapped round his neck. These peculiarities were so far taken advantage of by the rats that they ceased to fly with their wonted precipitancy when his step was heard, and in course of time they did not even dive into their holes as in former days, but sat close to them and waited until the merchant had passed, knowing well that he was not capable of running at them. One large young rat in particular—quite a rattling blade in his ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... now, and in torture lest he had spoiled all by his precipitancy. He waited, as patiently as he could, for the girl's answer, but it came not. Her silence seemed ominous to him. It seemed to mean that she was shocked and offended by a declaration of love, for which he had not in any ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... most commendable. It is the righteous man who is most ready to accuse himself; the unrighteous is least ready. Who is able when in deep trouble, rightly to analyze his feelings? Delay in action is not necessarily abandonment of duty; in Hamlet's case it is a due recognition of duty, which condemns precipitancy—and action in the face of doubt, so long as it is nowise compelled, is precipitancy. The first thing is to be sure: Hamlet has never been sure; he spies at length a chance of making himself sure; he seizes upon it; and while his sudden ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... pikes along, me frequently reproaching Sweet Caps for his precipitancy in spilling the beans. We passes through the village of Plentiful Valley without stopping and walks on and on and on some more, until we observes a large, prosperous-looking building of red brick, like a summer hotel with a lawn in front and a high stone wall ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... time as Cuvier's, were these or almost similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are "struck with the most lively terrors," and "often in the precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence as to cause instantaneous death." And however the general experiences in the fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in their full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the superstitious ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... adjourning and dissolving of Assemblies, and recording the same, contrar to the practise of this Church in our reforming times. We are not concerned to notice the protestation of some few persons at particular times, seeing their precipitancy and rashness in this matter, (as they accounted it) was afterward apologized for; and that it was not the deed of the Assembly. Their not asserting in any explicit and formal act the divine right of Presbytry, and the instrinsick power of the ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... rarely accompanies deep and wise convictions. They do not meet the real difficulties; they mistake them, misrepresent them, claim victories over adversaries with whom they have never even crossed swords, and leap to conclusions with a precipitancy at which we can only smile. It has been the unhappy manner of their class from immemorial time; they call it zeal for the Lord, as if it were beyond all doubt that they were on God's side—as if ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude |
