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Premature   /prˌimətʃˈʊr/   Listen
Premature

adjective
1.
Born after a gestation period of less than the normal time.
2.
Too soon or too hasty.  Synonym: previous.  "A premature judgment"
3.
Uncommonly early or before the expected time.  Synonym: untimely.  "Alcohol brought him to an untimely end"



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"Premature" Quotes from Famous Books



... at the adjacent joint, especially at the elbow, may result from imperfect reduction, or from exuberant callus. Arrest of growth of the bone in length is a rare sequel, and when it occurs, it is due, not to premature union of the epiphysis with the shaft, but to diminished action at the ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... clover, or the waste of field peas. These experiments were always unsatisfactory. So Howard wisely mixed his vegetation, first withering and drying green materials by spreading them thinly in the sun to prevent their premature decomposition, and then taking great care to preserve a uniform mixture of vegetation types when charging his compost pits. This strategy can be duplicated by the home gardener. Howard was surprised to discover that he could compost all the crop waste he had available with only ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... what I write you, Athalie. I am not trying to escape any responsibility excepting that of premature publicity. Whatever else has happened ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... the Dona Luisa; and thus to the joys of the first days of her married life succeeded the sorrows of a premature widowhood. ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... On the way, Captain Roy took note of the condition of Krakatoa, which at that time was quietly working up its subterranean forces with a view to the final catastrophe; opening a safety-valve now and then to prevent, as it were, premature explosion. ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... company. It is a pity. The plain common-sense man should believe in himself a little more. The result would perhaps startle his modesty. And he should begin instantly on the resumption of Parliament. He will of course be told that he is premature. But no matter. When he gets up and makes a row he will be told that he is premature, until Sir Edward Grey is in a position to announce in the icy cold and impressive tones of omniscience and omnipotence and perfect wisdom ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... when men laden with pails of water, and bottles and sponges, and thick white towels crowded through the ropes in front of him. Then the whole house was swept by a premature storm of hand-clapping for the men who, stripped save for the flat shoes upon their feet and the trunks about their hips, ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... conduce to the health and physical well being of a person with strong mental cravings as the reasonable satisfaction of those cravings. Cases can be cited where children, having what seemed to be a premature development of mental qualities coupled with weak or even diseased bodily constitutions, have rapidly improved in health when circumstances have allowed the free exercise of their intellectual powers, and have finally attained a maturity vigorous alike in body and ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... eminent poet, and that he used to write his exercises for him. Others, on the contrary, have alleged that it was the fame of his scholarship which led to his election for Agmondesham, a borough in Bucks, when he was only sixteen years of age. This story, so far as his premature learning goes, seems rather apocryphal; but certain it is, that when scarcely eighteen, he had become M.P. for the above-mentioned borough. The parliament in which he found himself, was one of those subservient and cringing assemblies ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... the very life-spirit of enthusiastic patriotism. There has probably never been a revolutionary gardener, or even a strong Radical who worked with open-air flowers. Of course, in greenhouses things can be forced, and the spirit of the ardent reformer may find expression in the nurture of premature blooms. Perhaps also the constant stooping which gardening necessitates, especially in the early spring, when the weeds grow plentifully, tends to destroy the stiff mental independence which must be the attitude of the militant patriot. It is very difficult ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... again near Shapoor, Hyderabad, and other places. All these monuments in the South of India are no doubt extremely interesting; but to call them Celtic, Druidical, or Scythic, is unscientific, or, at all events, exceedingly premature. There is in all architectural monuments a natural or rational, and a conventional, or, it may be, irrational element. A striking agreement in purely conventional features may justify the assumption that monuments ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... immense extent, amounting to no less than fifty miles. As late as 1846 another fire occurred in the wooden galleries, which was quenched by putting that part under water. The workmen labour in a tropical heat and an atmosphere full of deadly vapours. It is no wonder that a premature age overtakes many of them, and that young men are seen trembling in every limb, though it is said that those who survive their forty-fifth year may live on until they are sixty or seventy. To transport mercury, the greatest care is required. ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston

... faintness and the realization that the street was rapidly being emptied of its throng. A few stragglers hurried toward the ferry. He roused himself. A green-gold light was enlivening the west and giving a ghostly unreality to the street lamps twinkling in a premature blossoming. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... been written, but I would not have advised its publication," said Lebedeff's nephew, "because it is premature." ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... against the vain and premature hypotheses of the physiologists of his day that the greatest and noblest intellect in Greece revolted. Socrates was the knight-errant ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... work an allegorical title page, wherein not only the glory of his own sovereign, but that of heaven itself, was pictured as based upon a pyramid of these miraculous fossils. So robust was his faith that not even a premature exposure of the fraud could dissuade him from the publication of his book. Dismissing in one contemptuous chapter this exposure as a slander by his rivals, he appealed to the learned world. But the shout of laughter ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... a beautiful surprise, though, for poor father!' my mother would say, when my spoon touched bottom, and it always touched bottom premature; and then we would talk of what we should buy, and I would be carried away ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... accused of having by her sorceries caused sterility in many families, particularly in that of the ancient reigning house of Pomerania, and also of having destroyed the noblest scions of that house by an early and premature death. Notwithstanding the intercessions and entreaties of the Prince of Brandenburg and Saxony, and of the resident Pomeranian nobility, she was publicly executed for these crimes on the 19th of August 1620, on the public ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... scene, and restored barren, dismal winter in a single hour. The night drooped down without moon or star, and still Leslie sat listless, drowsy with sorrow, until as she rose she sank back sick and giddy; and then the idea of premature death, of passing away without a sign, of hiding her pain under the silent earth that has covered so many sins and sorrows, first ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... in the show business. He exhibited with much success all through Holland and Germany. August 3d, 1876, he found himself in the town of Linz, Austria. Here he met with an accident from which he almost lost his right eye, by the premature explosion of a torpedo. He was an invalid in the hotel on the banks of the Danube for two weeks. The constant sight of the inviting water of the Danube started the desire in his heart for another voyage, and it did not take him long to make up his mind ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... such a fight, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson are giving their attention largely to peace terms to be demanded of the enemy, and the diplomatic attitude to be assumed in the negotiations. Perhaps it is too early for such peaceful thoughts, and premature talk of this kind may eliminate these leaders as negotiators satisfactory to the small capitalists. Their interest for my present purpose is that they probably foreshadow the attitude that will finally be assumed when the large "Interests" see ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... touching story of Alvira has brought a charm and a balm. Seeking to impart to others its interest, its amusement, and its moral, we cast it afloat on the sea of literature, to meet, probably, a premature grave in this age of irreligion and presumptuous denial of the ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... Mrs. Goldthwaite—receiving one day a confidential note proposing to her a pleasant plan in behalf of Leslie, and intended to guard against a premature delight and eagerness, and so perhaps an ultimate disappointment for that young lady—should instantly, on reading it, lay it open upon the table before her daughter. "From Mrs. Linceford," she said, ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... you will perceive he sought to foster discord between your realm and us.... We had already ordered our men in Vestergoetland to go to your relief as soon as you should need them, which now, thank God, we trust will never be." The monarch's congratulation was a little premature. Norby's force was scattered, but it was not lost. Retiring with his stragglers to one of the Danish strongholds, he ensconced himself within, and there remained,—a constant menace to the neighborhood. ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... father recovered his senses, all that had taken place appeared like a horrid dream. I was under the sad necessity of relating to him my first suspicions concerning the premature death of my mother—suspicions which your highness's knowledge of the previous crimes of Dr. Polidori changed ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... occasion I became known to him through Mr. Palmer. His reputation and position came in aid of his obvious fitness, in point of character and intellect, to become the centre of an ecclesiastical movement, if such a movement were to depend on the action of a party. His delicate health, his premature death, would have frustrated the expectation, even though the new school of opinion had been more exactly thrown into the shape of a party, than in fact was the case. But he zealously backed up the first efforts of those who were principals in it; and, when he went abroad ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... men to live, will ever so exhaust the meaning of any single tale as to render its publication unnecessary for the study of others. The order adopted should be that which the bards themselves deter mined, any other would be premature, and I think no other will ever take its place. At the commencement should stand the passage from the Book of Invasions, describing the occupation of the isle by Queen Keasair and her companions, and along with it every discoverable tale or poem dealing with this ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady

... caution teachers against too much singing; and also against introducing it at improper times. Singing takes much out of the teacher, which will soon be felt in the chest, and cause pain and weakness there; and, if persevered in, premature death; and with women much sooner than men. This is another reason why one of each sex should be employed in the work. Singing is an exhilarating and exciting lesson; the children always like it: but even they are injured by the injudicious management of it, and by having too much of it ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... that great victor and statesman destroyed the Castle of Edinburgh with other strongholds, that it might not afford a point of vantage to the English invader or other enemies of the country's peace—a step which would seem to have been premature, though probably, in the great triumph and ascendency in Scotland which his noble character and work had gained, he might have hoped that at least the unanimity of the nation and its internal peace were secured, and that only an enemy would attempt to dominate the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... noticed a pale, bald, and already pot-bellied young man, who was staring with lack-lustre eyes at his whiskey and soda. This premature ruin was listening distraitly to a waiter who ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... term, to come up to town and meet as many of his pupils upon the platform as intended to return by a train previously specified at the foot of the school-bills; and Paul had even expressly insisted upon Dick's travelling under surveillance in this manner, thinking it necessary to keep him out of premature mischief. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... that they have been breathing, for hour after hour, decomposed air, charged with poisonous gases, which cannot escape through the tight walls, or over the tight windows, or through the tight stoves; and thus they keep on in the sure course to infirmity, disease, and premature death—all for the want of a little ventilation! Better indeed, that instead of all this painstaking, a pane were knocked out of every window, or a panel out of every door in ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... year the physical constitution of Napoleon sustained considerable change; and it may be presumed that his moral qualities were affected by that change. It is particularly important not to lose sight of the premature decay of his health, which, perhaps, did not permit him always to, possess the vigour of memory otherwise consistent enough with his age. The state of our organisation often modifies our recollections, our feelings, our manner ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... business, our congregations, our subjects of study, and we say to ourselves, 'What will become of them when I am gone? Everything would fall to pieces if I were withdrawn.' Do not be afraid. Depend on it, you will be left here as long as you are wanted. There are no incomplete lives and no premature removals. To the eye of faith the broken column in our cemeteries is a sentimental falsehood. No Christian life is broken short off so, but rises in a symmetrical shaft, and its capital is garlanded with amaranthine flowers in heaven. In one sense all our lives are incomplete, for they ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... which can endure this overstraining of the registers, and sooner or later the singer must experience the disastrous results of his or her fault—hoarseness, fatigue, roughness, and impureness in singing, and last, but not least, premature wearing out ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... further, and would have founded on it a long list of precious precepts of inestimable value, but that the young gentleman standing by in a somewhat uncomfortable and discomfited manner while she read her spouse this lecture, occasioned her to bring it to a premature conclusion. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... he had not wasted his hour, and he was pleasantly conscious of tha inward and spiritual satisfaction which every very young man feels when he is aware of having appeared at his best in the society of a woman alone. Youth without vanity is only premature old age ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... sat Jim Weeks, the wary, the close-mouthed, the reporter's despair, artlessly telling the whole inside history of the fight for the M. & T. At first the editor hardly dared to breathe for fear of bringing Jim to his senses and the story to a premature conclusion; but as the President talked apparently in his right mind, the editor became bolder and began asking questions. In answering, Jim told him that the fight was practically over. It would formally be decided on Tuesday at the stockholders' ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... presence. The other, whom she familiarly and caressingly called Binky, was small and lean and yellow; he had a young face with old, nervous lines in it, the twitching, tortured lines of the victim of premature high pressure, effete in one generation. The small man drank, most distinctly and disagreeably he drank. He might have been the wreck of saloon bars, or of the frequent convivial cocktail, or of ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... its rise and progress involved the failure of true epic. The German and English epic failed by exhaustion in the competition with Latin and Romance literature, though not without something to boast of before it went under. The Northern epic failed, because of the premature development of lyrical forms, first of all within itself, and then in the independent and rival ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... diagnosis was made in spite of the tympanitic distention is proof that a dangerous force was used in doing so, converting a typhlitic abscess into a perityphlitic one, and doubtlessly causing premature rupture into the bowel. Any professional man, with the right regard for his patient's welfare, and the judicial understanding that qualifies him for taking the responsibility of directing the treatment ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.

... imagine trees draw their support; but the box-tree spreads its roots very near the surface of the ground, having, I suppose, no prominent tap root, and can therefore receive no moisture from such a soil as that in which we so often found it in premature decay; the excess of moisture at one time, and the want of it at another, must be injurious to trees and plants of all kinds, and this circumstance may be a principal cause of the deficiency of timber in the interior ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... Brighton—fireside party I had almost said, but you scorn my words—seaside party then be it. Lady Scott and Anne join in kindest love. I must close my letter, for one of the consequences of our misfortunes is, that we dine every day at half-past four o'clock; which premature hour arises, I suppose, from sorrow being hungry as well as thirsty. One most laughable part of our tragic comedy was, that every friend in the world came formally, just as they do here when a relation dies, thinking that the eclipse of les ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... these ill-founded rejoicings were going on in Lisbon at the time the flagship was chasing the Portuguese fleet across the Equator! It is difficult to say how the Portuguese admiral contrived to reconcile this premature vaunt, and the unwelcome fact of his arrival in the Tagus, with the loss of half his troops and more ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... than equal terms "with established writers," that is, with Shakespeare and Otway, and could present to his countrymen an exacter and, so, more lifelike picture of the Venetian Republic. It is plain, too, that he was bitten with the love of study for its own sake, with a premature passion for erudition, and that he sought and found relief from physical and intellectual excitement in the intricacies of research. If his history is at fault, it was not from any lack of diligence ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... was a desert, until occupied by your noble little boy, my nephew and pupil. Clive is everything that a father's, an uncle's (who loves him as a father), a pastor's, a teacher's affections could desire. He is not one of those premature geniuses whose much-vaunted infantine talents disappear along with adolescence; he is not, I frankly own, more advanced in his classical and mathematical studies than some children even younger than himself; but he has acquired the rudiments of health; he has laid in ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... went from that hateful kloof which I have never seen since and hope I shall never see again, two of Zikali's men escorting us until we got into touch with white people. To these we said as little as possible. I think they believed that we were only premature tourists who had made a dash into Zululand to visit some of the battlefields. Indeed none of us ever reported our strange adventures, and after my experience with Kaatje we were particularly careful to say nothing in the hearing of any gentleman ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... then, the first wound in my infant heart. Not so the second. For thou, dear, noble Elizabeth, around whose ample brow, as often as thy sweet countenance rises upon the darkness, I fancy a tiara of light or a gleaming aureola [4] in token of thy premature intellectual grandeur,—thou whose head, for its superb developments, was the astonishment of science, [5]—thou next, but after an interval of happy years, thou also wert summoned away from our nursery; and the night, which for me gathered upon that event, ran after my steps far into life; and ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... important insurrection which then took place throughout England and Scotland, in favor of the Chevalier de St. George, or James the Third, a proud and haughty scion of the Roman Catholic house of Stuart. This singular and renowned rebellion, although premature in its beginning, and short in its duration, caused during its continuence, the Hanoverian incumbent of the English sceptre to tremble for the permanence of his seat on the throne, and though he at first pretended to despise both ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker

... at the conclusion of the Appendix, of one of Sir Isaac Brock's brothers, the bailiff or chief magistrate of Guernsey, and of two of their nephews, Lieutenant E.W. Tupper, R.N., and Colonel W. De Vic Tupper, of the Chilian service. The premature fate of these two promising young officers is, to those who knew them best, still a source of unceasing regret ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... fixing the precise date of an important event in ancient history. Herodotus[38] describing a war which had been going on for some years between the Lydians and the Medes gives the following account of the circumstances which led to its premature termination:—"As the balance had not inclined in favour of either nation, another engagement took place in the sixth year of the war, in the course of which, just as the battle was growing warm, day was suddenly turned into night. This ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... leave Camp Carrollton. Our first objective point was to be St. Louis, Mo., and what next nobody knew. Definite orders for the movement were issued later, and it then occurred to us that possibly all our recent apprehensions about not seeing any fighting were somewhat premature. ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... blow with sufficient troops. No less than seven infantry divisions at full strength and three cavalry divisions would be adequate for the purpose, and they would be none too many. Further, if the Turks began to press severely in Mesopotamia, or even to revive their campaign in the Hedjaz, a premature offensive might be necessitated on ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... I must again name the "Textrinum Antiquorum," by Yates. His premature death, and the loss that the world of art and manufacture has sustained by the chain of his invaluable researches being broken, cannot be appreciated but through the study of the first and only volume of this already rare book, from which ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... in Maeterlinck. The same apparent contradiction holds good in the case of the drama of "L'Aiglon," now being performed with so much success. Although the hero is a weakling, the subject a fiasco, the end a premature death and a personal disillusionment, yet, in spite of this theme, which might have been chosen for its depressing qualities, the unconquerable paean of the praise of things, the ungovernable gaiety of the poet's song swells so high that at the end it seems ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... premature emblems of her coming woe, she had discussed the desirability of threshing out of the shock instead of waiting for the stack to go through the sweating process; she talked, talked, talked, with an endless clacking, till her husband fled from her presence or cut her short with ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... ardent spirits, and yet suffer no bad effects from it? Have they no stomach complaints, no nervous maladies, no headaches? Do they live to a great age? Not one out of a hundred of those who daily drink ardent spirits, escapes uninjured; though their sickness and premature decay, resulting from this cause, are generally imputed to other causes; and as many as this would escape if arsenic were used, in moderate ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... him that we must learn what we wished to know; but it would be unwise to betray a premature thirst for information on any subject save the history or beauties of the Alcazar. Asking a question now and then of our guide, we wandered from patio to patio, from room to room of that wonderful royal dwelling once called "the ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... supply From the full fountain of its boundless love, For ever stifled, drained, and tainted now. Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade No solitary virtue dares to spring, 45 But Poverty and Wealth with equal hand Scatter their withering curses, and unfold The doors of premature and violent death, To pining famine and full-fed disease, To all that shares the lot of human life, 50 Which poisoned, body and soul, scarce drags the chain, That lengthens as it goes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... its grace; but an evil life had tainted the whole person. The face was coarse; the large eyes were red and pursed beneath the lower lids; there was no color in her cheeks. The lips were cynical and hard, and general neglect was leading rapidly to premature old age. Her attire was ill chosen and draggled. The mud of the road clung to her sandals. Iras ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... in this country, stuffed like Christmas turkeys with abstracts and notes, the pemmican of school-boy learnings, are more or less a weariness and a bore; but the youth who comes out from the admiring circle of sisters and aunts with the airs of a man of the world and the blight of a premature ennui is peculiarly insufferable. Of course he has never known at home any grown-up people beyond the chrysalis stage of undergraduatism, except to receive from them patronising hospitalities and little attentions in the shape of guineas and stalls at the opera, such as good-natured seniors ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... held there a meeting which has not something of extraordinary warmth in its character. I have mentioned above that the first public meeting ever held in it after its completion in 1742 was to commemorate the premature death of the donor of the edifice; on which occasion Mr. John Lovell ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... merits of her arts, without reference to the wisdom of her laws; and to describe the results of both, without investigating the feelings which regulated either. I cannot do this; but I will at once end these necessarily vague, and perhaps premature, generalizations; and only ask you to study some portions of the life and work of two men, father and son, citizens of the city in which the energies of this great people were at first concentrated; and to deduce from ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin

... from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me; The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others, they do not balk me, The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... the strong, the hearty, and the healthy. The latter have overtaxed their strength, their spirits, and their health. Even vitality itself, stronger in some than others, may in excess conduce to the premature wearing out and decay of the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... his own impatient spirit had fared forth to meet her with this premature gift of his attributes, she had to fight the growing fear within her. Now that the days of suffering were as they had not been, insistent questions dinned in her ears: was she entitled to the joys to come? What had she done to earn them? Had hers not been an attempt, on a gigantic scale, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... were a body long used to opposition, and therefore making blunders in office—who were borne to power by a popular impulse which they only half comprehended, and perhaps less than half shared. But the king's POLICY was wrong; he impeded the reaction instead of aiding it. He forced on a premature Tory Government, which was as unsuccessful as all wise people perceived that it must be. The popular distaste to the Whigs was as yet but incipient, inefficient; and the intervention of the Crown was advantageous to them, because it looked inconsistent with the liberties of the people. And in so ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... she was far advanced in her pregnancy; she fell into the pains of premature labour, and, ere Ellangowan had recovered his agitated faculties, so as to comprehend the full distress of his situation, he was the father of a female infant, and ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... As a premature demise was not on their program the cord was quickly loosened each time, and the man ahead warned to be more careful. These partial strangulations resulted from the fellow's anxiety to escape from the neighborhood ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... and were given a free passage back in returning men-of-war. But when the reflux had waned and died, there was still a residue of half a hundred families, most of whom were so destitute that they could not reach the coast. With them stayed a very few who were held by their premature investments or by a deeper loyalty or a greater pride. Among the latter was the head of the ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... jabbering in their own language, British seamen damning their eyes, as usual, in plain English, gave an idea of confusion and want of method to Newton Forster, which, in a short time, he acknowledged himself to have been premature in having conceived. Where you have to provide for such a number, to separate the luggage of so many parties, from the heavy chest to the fragile bandbox, to take in cargo, and prepare for sea, all at the same time, there must be apparently confusion. In a few days every ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... his discretion reminded him that the object of his coming there at all, namely, to arrange a meeting with an affluent widow, on whom he believed he had made a tender impression, would not have been promoted by his premature removal from the festive scene of which he was an ornament, in charge ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... the historical drama based upon the English, has been very successfully cultivated. A fine trilogy has been composed by Count A. Tolstoi (whose premature death all Russia deplored), on the three subjects, The Death of Ivan the Terrible (1866), The Tsar Feodor (1868) and ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... hope was short-lived: no Florence was I to see that night; nor was note of bird to gladden the dells. The mists again fell, and hid in premature night those fine valleys, so famous in Florentine history, which we were now approaching. We wound round hills, traversed deep ravines, heard on every side the thunder of the swollen torrents, and, when the parting vapour permitted, had glimpses of the ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... more as might be elsewhere attained. He was a severe and exacting disciplinarian, and permanently marred the nervous system of his child by the system he adopted of requiring her to recite her tasks on his return home at night, which was frequently very late. Hence a premature development of the brain, which, while it made her a youthful prodigy by day—one such youthful prodigy, it has been justly said, is often the pest of a whole neighbourhood—rendered her the nightly victim of spectral illusions, somnambulism, &c.; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various

... the stability would still be wanting. He had to find a mean between the wantonly arbitrary absolutism which had been attempted a century before by Richard II. and recently by Edward IV. and Richard III. on the one hand, and on the other hand the premature application of constitutional ideas under the House of Lancaster. The actual method evolved was the concentration of all control in the hands of the King, accompanied by an ostentatious deference to the forms of procedure which were liable to be put forward as popular rights, and a very ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... death-in-life, demoniacs whose hell-in-life, he had terminated with a single powerful word. Among these came loving hearts who thanked him for friends and relatives rescued for them out of the jaws of premature death, and others whom he had saved, by a power which did not seem different, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... arrangements were made for cutting of the first sod, in a field which was to form the site of the Llanidloes station, on October 3rd, 1855. Mrs. Owen, of Glansevern, was invited to perform the ceremony, but, owing to what she regarded as a premature announcement of the fact in the "Shrewsbury Chronicle," that lady sent an advertisement to the journal announcing the postponement of the function. Pages of the Company's minute book were devoted to expressions of the Board's "utmost ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... upon her lips, when the entrance of her son fortunately prevented their being for ever destroyed by a premature disclosure. He welcomed Mary with an appearance of the greatest pleasure, and looked so much happier and more animated than when she last saw him, that she was struck with the change, and began to think he might almost stand a comparison with ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... my joy was premature. A dark-complexioned man, who sat on his horse, with his hat drawn down over his brows, raised his ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... sugar mill near the mouth of the Mississippi. A very few years of that labour in that climate suffice to send the stoutest African to his grave. But he can well be spared. While he is fast sinking into premature old age, negro boys in Virginia are growing up as fast into vigorous manhood to supply the void which cruelty is making in Louisiana. God forbid that I should extenuate the horrors of the slave trade in any form! But I do think this its worst form. Bad enough is it ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... marriage of Letitia Ramolino to Carlo di Buonaparte was not solemnized until 1767—that the first two children were therefore born out of wedlock. On the other hand, the idol-worshippers would fain have Napoleon born as a god or Titan. Premature pangs seize the mother at church. She hurries home, barely reaching her apartment when the heroic babe is delivered, without an accoucheur, on a piece of tapestry inwrought with an effigy of Achilles! This probably occurred. It was the ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... Towns, especially from all Silesian ones, in those June days, as the drums beat homewards; elaborate Illuminations, in the short nights; with bonfires, with transparencies,—Transparency inscribed "FREDERICO MAGNO (To Friedrich THE GREAT)," in one small instance, still of premature nature. [Helden-Geschichte (ii. 702-729) is endless on these Illuminations; the Jauer case, of FREDERICO MAGNO (Jauer in Silesia), is ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... cannot altogether suppose that; for even their desires of self-aggrandizement could not torture my share in Bruce's restoration to his country into anything like treason our friend's rights are too undisputed for that; and all I should dread, by a premature discovery of his being in Scotland, would be secret machinations against his life. There are men in this land who might attempt it; and it is our duty, my dear Edwin, to suffer death upon the rack, rather ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... care must be taken that they stew merely, without being suffered to boil. Boiling produces a sudden effect, stewing a slower effect, and both have their appropriate advantages. But if preparations which ought only to stew, are permitted to boil, the process is destroyed, and a premature effect produced, that cannot be corrected by any future stewing. In order to have vegetables in the best state for the table, they should be gathered in their proper season, when they are in the greatest perfection, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... of the Sultan or of foreign Powers, but added that he would sooner run any risk than wholly abandon representative institutions. "But I think we should make a mistake if we forced upon this country premature arrangements which we dare not apply to India, where the strength of our own position and other circumstances afford not only better guarantees for success, but the power of retreating if the experiment ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... when the storm broke! It was stand out from under, all hands, and save your necks. And there were necks that were not saved. The springing of the conspiracy was premature. Johannes Maartens really precipitated the catastrophe, and what he did was too favourable for Chong ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... outlines, the noble forehead, and the large dark eye; but there was a tenuity in her features, a wasted appearance, such as to render the flesh transparent; her brow, when she mused, would sink into deep wrinkles, premature though they were; and the occasional flashing of her eyes strongly impressed you with the idea of insanity. There appeared to be some deep-seated, irremoveable, hopeless cause of anguish, never for one moment ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... to pay, and I used money which was not my own to do it, in the certainty that I could replace it before there could be any possibility of its being missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck pursued me. The money which I had reckoned upon never came to hand, and a premature examination of accounts exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently with, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than now, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a felon with thirty-seven other convicts in 'tween-decks ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... invaders of my peace. I write these things only to be quit of them, and not to let the crowd increase,—I have conceived a plan to destroy them all, as Jehu and Elijah with the priests of Baal; I feel Malthusian among my mental nurslings; a dire resolve has filled me to effect a premature destruction of the literary populace superfaetating in my brain,—plays, novels, essays, tales, homilies, and rhythmicals; for ethics and poetics, politics and rhetorics, will I display no more mercy than sundry commentators of maltreated Aristotle. ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... more or less land around the ocean?" said Magnet quickly; for she dreaded a premature display of the old seaman's peculiar dogmatism, not to ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... glucose is not so likely to be covered with a closely adherent skin of spent lime when decomposed by the addition of water to it. In the other process, the carbide is coated with or immersed in some oil or grease to protect it from premature decomposition. The latter idea, at least, fulfils its promises, and does keep the carbide to a large extent unchanged if the lumps are exposed to damp air, while solving certain troubles otherwise met ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... must rest with the young; yet by far the larger portion of parents are so flattered by alluring admirers, and led by the requirements and glamor of foolish fashion, that they seem, to the cool observer, to fairly dig and garland the premature ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... in fact, have asked him to declare himself on our side. While such a declaration might, in the existing state of public feeling, have caused revolt or riot, it would have put on their guard, perhaps driven to a premature attempt which he was not prepared to meet, the traitors whose scheme against his life the Prince felt confident that he ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... is, on this frontier, Corny," he said; "it is premature to think of introducing Christianity. Christianity is essentially a civilized religion, and can only be of use among civilized beings. It is true, my young friend, that many of the early apostles were not learned, after the fashion of this world, but they were all thoroughly ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... may be a feeble power ruling over our rebel selves, like some king beleaguered in his capital, who has no sway beyond its walls, afterwards it should become a peaceful sovereign who guides and sways all the powers of the soul and outgoings of the life. At first it may be like a premature rose putting forth pale petals on an almost leafless bough, afterwards the whole tree should be blossomed over with fragrant flowers, the homes of light and sweetness. The highest faith may be heightened, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... know, I think not," said Ida. In her premature trouble she seemed so much older than ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... can't force oneself to love," he assured himself, and at the same time he thought, "But shall I ever fall in love without? I am nearly thirty! I have never met anyone better than Vera and I never shall. . . . Oh, this premature old age! Old age ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Wakefield, professed to detect the errors in British colonisation, and to prescribe a new and more effective plan.[178] It consisted in selling land at "a sufficient price" to combine labor and capital, to collect all the elements of civilisation, to prevent the dispersion of population, the premature possession of land by the workman, and speculation by jobbers. Thus a colony, on this model, was compared to a tree transplanted, the fibres of its roots undivided, and ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... the school made upon Butler's time. Nor did he dare to make them even altogether so frequent as these avocations would permit. Deans received him with civility indeed, and even with kindness; but Reuben, as is usual in such cases, imagined that he read his purpose in his eyes, and was afraid too premature an explanation on the subject would draw down his positive disapproval. Upon the whole, therefore, he judged it prudent to call at Saint Leonard's just so frequently as old acquaintance and neighbourhood seemed to authorise, and no oftener. There was another person who was more ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... I think I was premature in promising. I'm not sure, now, but it's the best way to tell Chloe, and let her make up her mind to it. Tom'll have another wife, in a year or two; and she had better take ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... to be feared save the premature return from Thebes of Seti, the second son of Menephtah; for the former, after his older brother's death, had become heir to the throne, and carrier doves had brought news yesterday that he was now on his way. Therefore Siptah and the powerful priest who ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... grass and water, until further word came from the Platte Valley train and until they had more fully decided what to do. In spite of all the officers could do, the general advance was strung out over two or three miles. The rapid loss in order, these premature divisions of ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... Bolinbroke,[35] contrary, (p. 031) as the chroniclers say, to the known laws and customs of the realm, as well as to the principles of common justice, led by direct consequence to the subversion of Richard's throne, and probably to his premature death. ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... Christendom commends or even excuses the dance. All unite to condemn it." The late Episcopal bishop of Vermont, writes: "Dancing is chargeable with waste of time, interruption of useful study, the indulgence of personal vanity and display, and the premature incitement of the passions. At the age of maturity it adds to these no small danger to health by late hours, flimsy dress, heated rooms, and exposed persons." Episcopal Bishop Meade, of Virginia, declares: ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... of the cafe to see if there was anyone he knew inside from whom he could borrow money for a drink. It was two months since he had had any pay, and his pockets were empty. The sun had just set on a premature spring afternoon, flooding the sky and the grey houses and the tumultuous tiled roofs with warm violet light. The faint premonition of the stirring of life in the cold earth, that came to Andrews with every breath he ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... will seem to have crept over and through it, but of a delusive and unnatural kind. The corrosive properties of the acid still remain and gradually disintegrate the fibres until the whole mass becomes rotten. It may be fairly termed premature old age, as the lowering or toning down of the colour in wood and other materials seems to be caused by similar, if not identical, constituents of the ordinary atmosphere, but under different conditions. Another way is lay the pieces of wood upon a stove with a regulated heating power ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick

... these destructive employments. Researches of this nature tend much to the well-being of society, as they make us acquainted with the maladies and sufferings peculiar to certain classes of our fellow-men; and point out, also, the causes of their early decay, and premature death. The coal-miners—those in whose behalf I would now solicit the intervention of science—are most valuable in their place, and their exhausting labours promote, in no small degree, ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar

... else. Gothicism, driven southward, runs speedily to seed; an amazing luxuriance, a riot, strange flowers of heavy shapes and maddening savour; and then that worse corruption to follow a perfection premature. So mediaeval Christianity in Umbria is a ruin, but not for Salvator Rosa; it has not been suffered a dignified death. That is the sharpest cut of all, that the poor bleached skull must be decked with ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... a woman who, in the guise of a man with male accomplishments, is said for two years five months and four days to have been Pope of Rome between Leo IV. and Benedict III. about 853-855, and whose sex was discovered by the premature birth of a child during some public procession. She is said to have been of English parentage, and to have borne the name of Gilberte. However, it is but fair to say that the story is ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... their mineral characters alone; syenite, for instance, or granite with hornblende, being more modern than common or micaceous granite. But modern investigations have proved these generalisations to have been premature. ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... the story of the adventures of the two ladies from Northampton. Miss Garland's wish, at Leghorn, on finding they were left at the mercy of circumstances, had been to telegraph to Roderick and await an answer; for she knew that their arrival was a trifle premature. But Mrs. Hudson's maternal heart had taken the alarm. Roderick's sending for them was, to her imagination, a confession of illness, and his not being at Leghorn, a proof of it; an hour's delay was therefore cruel both to herself and to ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... is appalling to think what might have happened if through nervousness or modesty the writer had been frightened by the premature criticisms of ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... "Abortion" is; what causes abortion; what causes premature labor; the difference between the two; symptoms of threatened abortion, and how to prevent the same if possible; what to do for miscarriage, and to ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... moment ago, we are not in a position to secure it. It is premature to talk of advertising at the ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... independence. In the case of the majority of the men there were twenty years of deterioration, twenty years of steady, continuous and hopeless progress towards physical and mental inefficiency: towards the scrap-heap, the work-house, and premature death. What is it but false, misleading, nonsensical claptrap to say that their interests were identical with ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... what I said to myself by way of encouragement, so great was my haste to pour into her ears those instinctive words of hope and independence which it was natural to utter. And, let them be premature or tardy, barren or fruitful, I could not refrain ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... that if this was his intention, the course he was about to pursue was open to criticism. But it must be borne in mind that Fern was no expert on questions of the heart,—that he had had no blighting experiences yielding him an unwholesome harvest of premature wisdom. ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... the last of all Camillus's actions. In the year following, a pestilential sickness infected Rome, which, besides an infinite number of the common people, swept away most of the magistrates, among whom was Camillus; whose death cannot be called premature, if we consider his great age, or greater actions, yet was he more lamented than all the rest put together that then died ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... You may recall making an offer I considered premature. It is now no longer so. I am at home afternoons from 1 until 6 at 14, Little Bow Street, EC3 (3rd ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... the almost deserted terrace, were the couple whom I had come several hundred miles to put asunder. Hitherto I had only realised the distasteful character of my task; now at a glance I had my first inkling of its difficulty; and there ended the premature satisfaction with which I had learnt that there was "something in" the rumour which had reached ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... of melancholy mingled in her smile. It was not the thoughtless levity of a girl—it was not the restrained simper of premature womanhood—it was something which the poet Young might have remembered, when ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... price of French government bonds went down with a serious drop; England having announced soon afterward that she meant to land a great army on the shores of the Baltic, public confidence was further shaken. A year before, the French nation had been startled by the premature demand for more French youth; the new call to anticipate the conscription filled them with consternation. These were grave matters, and the roads from Paris to Osterode and Finkenstein continually resounded under the hoofs of horses and the roll of ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... sand, not the least glide in the world. If this goes on we shall have a bad time, but I sincerely trust it is only the result of this windless area close to the coast and that, as we are making steadily outwards, we shall shortly escape it. It is perhaps premature to be anxious about covering distance. In all other respects things are improving. We have our sleeping-bags spread on the sledge and they are drying, but, above all, we have our full measure of food again. To-night we had a sort of stew fry of pemmican and horseflesh, and voted it the ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... doctrine is, we may not, by our utmost care and diligence, avoid the causes of an early and premature death; but he who acts according to the rules which promote health, and avoids all things which tend to endanger it, has a much better chance of living to the natural period appointed for human life than he who acts otherwise—besides, as stated in the text, making his life more ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... hand, and the emergency was a serious one. Strangers undertaking the responsibility might ignorantly jar on past recollections, which it would, perhaps, be the death of her to revive too soon. Near relatives might, by their premature appearance at the bedside, produce the same deplorable result. The alternative lay between irritating and alarming her by leaving her inquiries unanswered, or trusting Captain Wragge. In the doctor's opinion, the second risk ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... Carl was thinking. Since, to date, her only remark had been "Y-yes?" he may have been premature. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... moment when he had, so mistakenly, turned aside from visionary promptings to a solid comfortable career, he might—what was it?—write. Perhaps his sharp regret at the loss of his youth was premature, youth itself comparatively unimportant. But no, that would involve him in fresh distasteful efforts, imperceptibly it would build up a whole new world of responsibilities: writing would be arduous, editors captious, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... nearly 40,000. Two new transcontinentals were added, and the older roads took on a new lease of life. At the end of this period of expansion, only the United States, Germany, and Russia had railroad mileage exceeding that of Canada. Much of the building was premature or duplicated other roads. The scramble for state aid, federal and provincial, had demoralized Canadian politics. A large part of the notes the country rashly backed, by the policy of guaranteeing bond issues, were in time ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton



Words linked to "Premature" :   prematurity, immature, previous, full-term, early



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