"Unready" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... might enact a romance in high life in this very room; it is high enough from the street to entitle it to be called a romance in high life," and the editor grinned uneasily, like an unready man who hopes to relieve a dilemma ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... Armies is due, and since the organisation of these forces is uniform this "more or less" of readiness exists in precise proportion to the sense of duty which animates the several Armies. Where the spirit of duty and self-sacrifice is low the troops are unready and inefficient; where, as in Prussia, these qualities, by the training of a whole century, have become instinctive, troops really are ready to the last button, and might be poured down upon any one of her neighbours with ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... and he has gone to bed," she said; and Penfield, still pallid and curiously unready of speech, said he believed ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... Shakespeare's dramatic work. It is affluent in beautiful imagery and metrical sweetness, but imbued with a tone of license which may be held either to justify the theory that it was a precocious product of the author's youth, or to show that Shakespeare was not unready in mature years to write with a view to gratifying a patron's somewhat lascivious tastes. The title-page bears a beautiful Latin motto from Ovid's ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... contortions of a caricature or the bewilderments of a dream. She felt as if in some long-previous existence she had seen this man as he dismounted at the gate and came up the path with his saddle-bags over his arm. But it was not until he mustered an unready, unwilling smile, that had of good-will and geniality so slight an intimation that it was like a spasmodic grimace, did she perceive how time had deepened tendencies to traits, how the inmost thought and the secret sentiment had been chiselled ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... fences? Where was there an opportunity to break out of this prison? Yet the chance came, came unexpectedly, came after some weeks of waiting and despondency, came at a moment, in fact, when it found Jules and Henri almost unready, unprepared to ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... which everything now clings. You complain that you did not experience sensible joys after your communion; this simply proves that you were not careful enough, or that, tired by the excess of the evening before, your imagination showed itself unready to play the infatuating fairy story you expected ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... happier or more desirable; for God is very zealous to be at all times with man, and teaches him that He will bring him to Himself if man will but follow. Man never desires anything so earnestly as God desires to bring a man to Himself, that he may know Him. God is always ready, but we are very unready; God is near to us, but we are far from Him; God is within, but we are without; God is at home, but we are strangers. The prophet saith: God guideth the redeemed through a narrow way into the broad road, ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... Danton, starting up, with clenched right-hand, Lasource having done: and descends from the Mountain, like a lava-flood; his answer not unready. Lasource's probabilities fly like idle dust; but leave a result behind them. "Ye were right, friends of the Mountain," begins Danton, "and I was wrong: there is no peace possible with these men. Let it be war then! They will not save the Republic with us: it shall ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly it is good to compound employments of both; for that ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... ungainly saddle, moreover, with holster-like appendages to it—while he watched her, wholly charmed, curious and shy, carried indeed a little out of himself, waiting for her to make further disclosures, since he felt absurdly slow and unready of speech. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... story, and the engineer may begin at once to assume his "angry countenance." Certainly the brass of the handrail will be clouded; and if the brass be not immaculate, certainly all will be to match—the reflectors scratched, the spare lamp unready, the storm-panes in the storehouse. If a light is not rather more than middling good, it will be radically bad. Mediocrity (except in literature) appears to be unattainable by man. But of course the unfortunate of St. Andrews was only an amateur, he was not in the Service, he had no uniform ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was not. But we didn't want them out at once; we wanted to keep them on until some one of constructive ability, in any party, was ready to take the reins. The trouble about the Labour people was that so far there was no one of constructive ability; they were manifestly unready. They had no one good enough. No party had. It was the old problem, never acuter, of 'Produce the Man.' If Labour was to produce him, I suspected that it would take it at least a generation of hard political training and education. If Labour ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... Richelieu, one's old friend in a sense: "Is Trajan pleased?" whispered Voltaire to his Richelieu; overheard by Trajan,—who answered in words nothing, but in a visible glance of the eyes did answer, "Impertinent Lackey!"—Trajan being a man unready with speech; and disliking trouble with the people whom he paid for keeping his boots in polish. O my winged Voltaire, to what dunghill Bubbly-Jocks (COQS D'INDE) you do stoop with homage, constrained by their appearance ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... monks of Lindisfarne fled and wandered with the relics of their beloved S. Cuthbert, eventually settling at Chester-le-Street, until, in the year 990, Bishop Aldhun, in terror of the Danes, again fled southward to Ripon. The country at this time was ruled by that weak monarch, Ethelred the Unready, and the Danes, finding no determined opposition, continually made piratical incursions, and eventually, through the treachery of three chieftains, the Castle of Bamburgh fell into their hands. After an interval of three or four months peace was made with the invaders, and Aldhun and his monks ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... get unready," smiled Lestrange. "Keep cool, Ffrench; I've got half an hour and I could start now. ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... far advanced, and again the Miobu rose to take leave. The moon was sailing down westward and the cool breeze was waving the herbage to and fro, in which numerous mushi were plaintively singing.[12] The messenger, being still somehow unready to start, hummed— ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... causation as the other factors. It manifests itself in a breaking through, shortening, or suspending of the infantile latency period and becomes a cause of disturbances inasmuch as it provokes sexual manifestations which, either on account of the unready state of the sexual inhibitions or because of the undeveloped state of the genital system, can only carry along the character of perversions. These tendencies to perversion may either remain as such, ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... watchers in the stockade on the headland beheld the great ship creep forward under the rising cloud of smoke, her mainsail unfurled to increase her steering way, and go about close-hauled to bring her larboard guns to bear upon the unready fort. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... without a plain statement of facts which would have taught us to prepare for the great ordeal? The Government ought to have known and told the truth. If this war came the manhood of the nation would be unready and untrained. We should have to scramble an army together, when perhaps it ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... "I'll be sure the death o' Black Dennis Nolan. Aye, so help me Saint Peter. I'll send 'im to hell, all suddent un' unready, for the black deed he done ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... drawing-room, and it was some minutes, as she didn't hear him announced, before he discovered and spoke to her. In this short interval he had seen St. George talking to a lady before the fireplace; but he at once looked away, feeling unready for an encounter, and therefore couldn't be sure the author of "Shadowmere" noticed him. At all events he didn't come over though Miss Fancourt did as soon as she saw him—she almost rushed at him, smiling rustling radiant beautiful. He had forgotten what ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... there is no hale man, howsoever desperate and careless of life, but who, faced with sudden, violent death, will not of instinct blench and find himself mighty unready to take the leap into that dark unknown whose dread doth fright us one and all; howbeit thus was it with me, for now as I stared from the pistol muzzle to the merciless eyes behind them, I, that had hitherto esteemed death no hardship, lay there in dumb and sweating panic, and, knowing myself afraid, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... the petty kingdoms which struggled for mastery in the peninsula, and Kudara, always nominally friendly to Japan, never hesitated to seek the latter's assistance against Shiragi and Koma. To these appeals the Yamato Court lent a not-unready ear, partly because they pleased the nation's vanity, but mainly because Kudara craftily suggested danger to Mimana unless Japan asserted herself with arms. But when it came to actually rendering material aid, Japan did nothing commensurate with ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... tongue, his cunning, and his eloquence—they are held in very different estimation. The Homer of the Iliad has little liking for a talker. Thersites is his pattern specimen of such; and it is the current scoff at unready warriors to praise their father's courage, and ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... decide by the circumstance that Barrington had written to propose a joint work on natural history. "If I publish at all," said Gilbert White to his nephew, "I shall come forth by myself." In 1780 he is still unready: "Were it not for want of a good amanuensis, I think I should make more progress." He was now sixty years of age. Eight years later he was preparing the Index, and at last, in the autumn of 1789, the volume positively made its appearance, in the maiden author's seventieth year. Few indeed, if ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... cheat on procreation will not pass. Besides, [In a higher tone.] the offence is so exorbitant, To mingle with a misbelieving race, That speedy vengeance would pursue your crime, And holy Mahomet launch himself from heaven, Before the unready thunderbolts were formed. [Emperor, taking him by the throat with one hand, snatches out his sword with the other, and ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... white as the snow which hung on the rocks above her, and she looked at the water and then at me, and she cried, "Oh dear! oh dear!" And then she began to sob aloud, being so young and unready. But I drew her behind the withy-bushes, and close down to the water, where it was quiet and shelving deep, ere it came to the lip of the chasm. Here they could not see either of us from the upper valley, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... of the Revolution was, nevertheless, due to the personal qualities of these officers and their troops, when directed by able commanders. In the early stages of the war the British generals were slow, timid, unready, and inefficient. Putnam, Wayne, Greene, and other American generals were natural soldiers; and in Washington we have the one man who never made a serious blunder, who was never frightened, who never despaired, and whose unflinching confidence ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... from the base of the hill El-Safra, oozing out in trickling veins bedded in soft dark mud. It can be greatly increased by opening the fountains, and economized by a roofing of mat: we tried this plan, which only surprised the unready Arab. After swinging to the left bank and running for a few yards, it sinks in the sand; yet on both sides there are signs of labour, showing that, even of late years, the valley has seen better days. Long leats and watercourses ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... the early morning start, Jewel had eaten little breakfast, but the soft resonance of the Japanese gong, when it sounded in the hall below, found her unready ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... up vehemently, as if his idea was to take her in his arms and stifle her outbreak that way. But something in her eyes, cold, unready, yet aware ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... deny that either, although I did not believe it. How should I, or any one, know what passed after Ranjoor Singh had been sent for by the Intelligence officers? I was his half-friend in those days, sahib. Worse than his enemy—unwilling to take part against him, yet unready to speak up in his defense. Doubtless my silence went for ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... of mock combat and jousting he delighted to engage, to the no small alarm of all spectators.[521] Unfortunately, however, the intellectual and moral development of the young prince had by no means kept pace with the growth of his physical powers. The sluggishness of his dull and unready comprehension had, at an earlier date, been noticed by the Venetian Marino Cavalli, while, with a courtier's flattery, he likened him to those autumnal fruits that are more tardy in ripening, but are of better quality and last longer than the fruits of summer.[522] ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... rather bewildered expression, but his large gray eyes were full of gratitude for her supposed kindness, even if his unready tongue was slow ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... and more a sense of exposure. His father after all had stood for the living world to him. Whilst his father lived Gerald was not responsible for the world. But now his father was passing away, Gerald found himself left exposed and unready before the storm of living, like the mutinous first mate of a ship that has lost his captain, and who sees only a terrible chaos in front of him. He did not inherit an established order and a living idea. The whole unifying idea of mankind seemed to ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... flowers, and streams of rippling water, you will forget all the misery that human folly has so recently allotted you. Oh! listen to me, my prince. I do not jest. I have a heart, and mind, and soul, and can read your own,—aye, even to its depths. I will not take you unready for your task, in order to cast you into the crucible of my own desires, of my caprice, or my ambition. Let it be all or nothing. You are chilled and galled, sick at heart, overcome by excess of the emotions which but one hour's liberty has produced in you. For me, that is a certain and unmistakable ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Him.' Let as pray for His coming. And in the mean time have we a care that our loins be girded about, and our lamps burning; that when He cometh and knocketh, we may open unto Him immediately. We shall be unready to open immediately, if our hands be overfull of worldly matters. It were not well to have to say to Him, 'Lord, let me lay down this high post, and that public work, and these velvet robes, and this sweet cup, and this bitter one—and then I will open unto Thee.' I had rather ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... plan that had worked so successfully the year before at Port Hudson. But against a weight, a volume, and a velocity of water such as had to be encountered here, it was now plainly seen that something else would have to be tried. No emergency, however great or sudden, ever finds a man of his stamp unready. As soon therefore as the collapse showed him the defect in his first plan, he instantly set about remedying it by dividing the weight of water to be contended with. At the upper fall three wing-dams were constructed. Just above the rocks a stone ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... your watchword, so that the blow, if it is coming, may not come upon you as a thief in the night, and may not find you unready and taken by surprise." Such had been Lord Randolph's warning. It was now learnt, with feelings in which disgust and indignation were equally mingled, that Lord Randolph's son was bent on coming to Belfast, not indeed as a thief in the night, but ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... have no lenger respite? I may say Death giveth no warning: To think on thee it maketh my heart sick; For all unready is my book of reckoning: But, [for] twelve year and I might have abiding, My counting-book I would make so clear, That my reckoning I should not need to fear. Wherefore, Death, I pray thee for God's mercy, Spare me, till ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... the French chassepot; they were in overwhelmingly superior numerical strength in every encounter save two with French regular troops, and they had on their banners the prestige of Sadowa. Their adversaries were utterly unready for a great struggle; the French army was in a wretched state in every sense of the word; indeed, after Sedan there remained hardly any regulars able to take the field. In August 1805 Napoleon's Grande Armee was at Boulogne looking across ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... disconcerted at the unexpectedness of the meeting, and returned the salutation in a confused way. The attempt which he had made to prevent Lord Blandamer from entering the choir was fresh in his memory, and he stammered some unready excuses. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... as great a shock as War. Hence the need of Preparedness to meet the inevitable conflict for Universal Trade. We—as a nation—are as unready for this emergency as we are to meet the clash of actual physical combat. Commercial Preparedness is as vital to the national well being as the Training ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... idea that if Sile were to meet one of them he would be in a manner helpless—a mere ignorant, green, untaught, unready, white boy, not the son of a Nez Perce chief, nor skilled in the wiles and ways of Western warfare. As for himself, he felt quite confident that all he needed wherewith to meet and overcome anything or anybody was just such a perfect "repeater" as Sile carried. He somehow overlooked ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... laboring in grave peril. The Revenge loomed as a spectral shape while Blackbeard was endeavoring to get her running free in pursuit of the Plymouth Adventure. But slovenly, reckless seamanship had caught him unready. His sails were blowing to ribbons, ropes flying at loose ends, and it was with great difficulty that the vessel could be made to ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... thought. Her eyes lifted toward him, then fled away, so full of strange, dark, desirous things was the look she encountered. Abruptly he rose—he was coming toward her, and she struggled suddenly to her feet, battling against the cold terror which held her dumb and unready. She flung one arm out before her and found it grasped by hands that were hot and burning. The touch shot her with a fierce rage that cleared her ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... were tending Menelaos of the loud war-cry, the ranks of shield-bearing Trojans came on; so the Achaians donned their arms again, and bethought them of the fray. Now wouldest thou not see noble Agamemnon slumbering, nor cowering, unready to fight, but very eager for glorious battle. He left his horses and his chariot adorned with bronze; and his squire, even Eurymedon son of Ptolemaios Peiraieus' son, kept apart the snorting steeds; and he straitly charged him to have them at hand whenever weariness ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... the personal experience of the individual and which therefore are in accord with his stage of development and his experience. Forced attention is necessary when the neurone tracts used by the attention are for some reason unready to act. Situations to which attention is given through fear of punishment, or when the activity involves a choice of ideal ends as opposed to personal desires, or when some instinctive tendency must be inhibited or its free activity is blocked or interfered with, or when ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... as well-remembered spots come into sight. A horseman rides round a bend of the road, and meets them—he stares hard at her—she takes no heed. It is a young farmer, an old acquaintance, anxious for some sign of recognition. After he has passed he lifts his hat, like a true countryman, unready at the moment. As for the brother, his features express gathering and almost irrepressible disgust. He kicks with his heavy boots, he whistles, and once now and then gives a species of yell. Mademoiselle turns up her pretty nose, and ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... world. Alas! the whole of the fabric was destroyed, the fair prospects hopelessly clouded over, by the intemperate ambition of the Kaiser, who, just because he believed that the Balance of Power was favourable to himself, that Russia was unready, that France was involved in serious domestic trouble, that England was on the brink of civil war, set fire to the magazine and engineered the ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... unexpected was the knocking, and it found the boys unready to answer it. They had no idea that the conspirators—either or both of them—would come directly from their conference to the room where a watch ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... the next campaign, Jackson employed himself in preparing the reports of his battles, which had been called for by the Commander-in-Chief. They were not compiled in their entirety by his own hand. He was no novice at literary composition, and his pen, as his letter-book shows, was not that of an unready writer. He had a good command of language, and that power of clear and concise expression which every officer in command of a large force, a position naturally entailing a large amount of confidential correspondence, must necessarily possess. But the task now set him ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Street, that stretches straight as an arrow along the whole ridge. Near the fort is the famous White Horse cut in the chalk, which, since its recent cleansing, gleams brilliantly from the hillside. It was cut out to commemorate the magnificent victory of Ethelred the Unready and Alfred over the Danes at Ashdown in 871. Readers of Tom Brown's School Days will recall the story of the Berkshire revels in 1857, when the scouring of the Horse took place. Judge Hughes was born ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... fear, and hope; but I must not be "entangled." Not so concerned about myself, either for sorrow or joy, that I should fail in anything to discern the Lord's will, or be unready, or be slow, to do it. Not so but that my heart should be free, looking to God for its chief strength and joy always and everywhere, - yes, and holding my hopes at his hand, to be given up if he called them back. With Thorold parted from me, in the thick of the war ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... employees came on. It was exceptionally strong in the cities of Illinois—Chicago, Decatur, Springfield, Galesburg, East St. Louis, and every other city of considerable size. The State was ill prepared for such a crisis. The strike ran along for several days with the State unready to bring the matter to a close. Having been in office but a few months, I had not yet secured any arms or other military equipment with which to combat organized violations of the law. The Illinois ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... Asia by Alexander the Great, though it found the Persians unready, was by no means of the nature of a surprise. The design had been openly proclaimed by Philip in the year B.C. 338, when he forced the Grecian States to appoint him generalissimo of their armies, which ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... battle until the last of all battles is at hand. But be of good cheer, for I shall not die till the end of the fight, and once more I shall be a man's help unto you. Now the first of the Romans we meet shall not be able to stand before us, for they shall be unready, and when their men are gotten ready and are fighting with us grimly, ye of the second battle shall hear the war-token, and shall fall on, and they shall be dismayed when they see so many fresh men come into the fight; yet shall they ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... Huguenots, he unwisely let loose Calvinist iconoclasm among a people who clung to their ancient images though they had renounced their ancient faith. Supinely he allowed Austria and the Catholic League to raise their Croats and Walloons with the ready aid, so valuable in that age of unready finance, of Spanish gold. Supinely he saw the storm gather and roll towards him. Supinely he lingered in his palace, while on the White Hill, a name fatal in Protestant annals, his army, filled with his own discouragement, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... reach his very heart. Tom had belted him with all his strength; and half a dozen of Tom's pals were waiting outside the door, and they came into the room, their wide mouths agrin, asking him how he liked it. But they were unready for the pain his face expressed, and in the midst of his agony he noticed that already they foresaw consequences, and he heard them reprove Tom Bryan, their intention being to dissociate themselves from him. Cowards! ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... already touched the trees, and Cartier, having accomplished his exploration, hastened back to Stadacone, where he set about making preparations for spending the winter. A fort was hastily built at the mouth of the St. Croix. But the exiles were unready for the violent season that soon closed in upon them, almost burying their fort in drifting snow and casing the ships in an armour of glistening ice. Pent up by the biting frost, and eking out a wretched ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... a part of me, all the more, no doubt, that it was denied me. Our aim in the world is beauty and happiness; but we are late in learning that they exist in the will and imagination, and not in this or that accredited and venerable thing or circumstance that is mechanically obtruded on our unready attention. If you were put down in the Garden of Eden, and told that you might stay there an hour and no more, what would you do? How would you "improve" your time? Would you run to and fro, and visit the spot where Adam first stood erect, and the place where he sat when ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... not unready or unwilling to execute the sentence—for she had bitterly resented Arthur's secession from nursery rule—the boy clung desperately with both his arms round his step- mother's waist, and the shriek of "Mother mother!" half fury, half despair, ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... nervously unready. All the little opening speeches she had prepared for the interview deserted her suddenly, driven away by her shocked realisation of the transformation which the few days since she had last seen him had wrought ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... generation. Unfortunately, the king, though an honest and well-intentioned man, was totally unfit to guide a country through a dangerous crisis. His courage was passive, his manners were heavy, dull, and shy, and, though steadily industrious, he was slow of comprehension and unready in action; and reformation was the more difficult because to abolish the useless court offices would have been utter starvation to many of their holders, who had nothing but their pensions to live upon. Yet there was a general ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one had he only been able to execute it, for, as we have seen, early success in Southern Germany would have meant the armed assistance of Austria and Italy. But the French army was in a condition more unready, one might truly say, of greater demoralization, thus early, than its severest critics had imagined. Considerable forces were indeed massed about Metz and Strasburg. But the commissariat and transport departments ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... again Bobus was a good deal missed, Jock was in a severe idle fit, and Armine did not come up to the expectations formed of him, and was found, when "up to Mr. Perkins," to be as bewildered and unready ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... only one moment in which to note the significance of her attitude, for Lesley changed it as soon as she heard his name. He gave her Ethel's message at once and Ethel's parcel, and then stood, a little confused and unready for she had risen and was looking as if, when his errand was accomplished, he ought to go. Fortunately, Doctor Sophy came in and invited him cordially to sit down; rang for tea and scolded him roundly for not coming oftener; then suddenly remembered ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... vacant face, Anna could see the suffering among the brightness. He was aware of some limit to himself, of something unformed in his very being, of some buds which were not ripe in him, some folded centres of darkness which would never develop and unfold whilst he was alive in the body. He was unready for fulfilment. Something undeveloped in him limited him, there was a darkness in him which he could not unfold, which would never unfold ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... misty heights whither our nature tends, or dive with you into the muddy depths whence it springs. I have heard from my brother John, and now expect almost hourly to see him. The Spanish revolution, as he now sees and as many foresaw, is a mere vision. The people are unready, unripe, unfit, and therefore unwilling; had it not been so they would have done their work themselves; it is as impossible to urge on the completion of such a change before the time as to oppose it when the time is come. John now writes that, all hope of rousing ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... "Why?" said Mr. Pole, sharply; "what do you want me to marry her for?" They were obliged to keep up the delusion, and said, "Because she seems suited to you as a companion." That satisfied him. "Oh! we won't be in a hurry," he said, and named a day within a month; and not liking their unready faces, laughed, and dismissed the idea aloud, as if he had not earnestly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of Ethelred the Unready, and afterwards of Canute, designed and embroidered many church vestments and altar-cloths, and Editha, wife of Edward the Confessor, ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... In seven-eight-three first came the Danes 783 Who caused the Saxons aches and pains. They sailed right up our rivers broad, Putting the natives to the sword. "Danegeld" For centuries our sadly fated 991 Towns by them were devastated. Etheldred the 'Unready Toff' By 'Danegeld' tries to ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... a king! The habitual lethargic meekness had vanished from his face, and the large crown threw a shadow, like a frown, over his brow. His spirit seemed to have risen from the weight it took from the sluggish blood of his father, Ethelred the Unready, and to have remounted to the brighter and earlier sources of ancestral heroes. Worthy in that hour he seemed to boast the blood and wield the sceptre of Athelstan ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... foolish man.[597] The objects that are stored with expectation are scarcely enjoyed. Such storing is never applauded by the wise, for death waits for no one (but snatches his prey whether the latter be ready or unready). The wise have said that the righteousness of all creatures is an attribute of the mind. For this reason, one should, in one's mind, do good to all.[598] One should practise virtue singly. In the practice of virtue ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... were of the loosest kind, and hence the noise at times was such that even the older pupils found it unbearable; but when the hour for recitation came, somehow a deathlike stillness fell upon the school, and the unready shivered with dread apprehension. And yet he never thrashed the boys; but his fear lay upon them, for his eyes held the delinquent with such an intensity of magnetic, penetrating power that the unhappy wretch felt as if any kind of calamity ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... Celestina looked quite composed; though so very quiet and silent a child, she was neither shy nor awkward. She was too little taken up with herself to have the foolish ideas which make so many children bashful and unready: it never entered her head that other people were either thinking of or looking at her. So she was free to notice what she could do and when she was wanted, and her simple kindly little heart was always pleased to render others a service, ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... undoubted naval superiority the results she might have expected in this war—the first act in a forty years' drama—and they give military officers a lesson on the necessity of having their minds prepared and stocked, by study of the conditions of war in their own day, if they would not be found unready and perhaps disgraced in the hour of battle.[89] It is not to be supposed that so many English seamen misbehaved through so vulgar and rare a defect as mere cowardice; it was unpreparedness of mind and lack of military efficiency ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... whose sublime stand had thwarted Germany's murderous plan against an unready world, were a sad little army when they reached the Yser about mid October. It was not what they had endured that contributed most to break their spirit; but what they ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... Ringkiobing Fiord, among the "sand hills of Jutland." And so business continued brisk with this curiously matched pirate firm—a giant and a boy—until, under the cliffs of Kinlimma, in Friesland, hasty word came to the boy viking that the English king, Ethelred "The Unready," was calling for the help of all sturdy fighters to win back his heritage and crown from young King Cnut, or Canute the Dane, whose father had seized the throne of England. Quick to respond to an appeal that promised ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... unseasoned, unleavened. unrehearsed, unscripted, extemporaneous, improvised, spontaneous, ad lib, ad libitem [Lat.]. fallow; unsown, untilled; natural, in a state of nature; undressed; in dishabille, en deshabille [Fr.]. unqualified, disqualified; unfitted; ill-digested; unbegun, unready, unarranged^, unorganized, unfurnished, unprovided, unequipped, untrimmed; out of gear, out of order; dismantled &c v.. shiftless, improvident, unthrifty, thriftless, thoughtless, unguarded; happy-go- lucky; caught napping &c (inexpectant) 508 [Obs.]; unpremeditated ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to his feet, furious but half-daunted with amazement, the ram danced backward a pace or two on his nimble feet, as if showing off, and then delivered his second charge. The bewildered bear was again caught unready, irresolute as to whether he should fight or flee; and again he was knocked headlong, a yard or two further down the slope. His was not the dauntless spirit that most of his kindred would have shown in such ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... captain's papers, though how he had mastered the science of navigation sufficiently to obtain them was a problem. Though he held a British navigator's license, he did not appear to be an Englishman. None of us ever knew, I think, from what country he originally came. His rough, mumbling, unready speech might have been picked up in any of the seaports of the English-speaking world. His manners smacked of the forecastle, and he was altogether so difficult to classify that I used to toy with the theory that he had murdered the real Captain ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... vainly searching his unready wit for the best means of carrying on the discussion. Suddenly his eyes lit, and he pointed ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... unready. The cruisers, on duty as sentinels, were not where they should have been, and so the gallant Pisani scuttled the hulks across the harbor entrance and caught the bold marauders like rats in a trap. The fleet of the enemy was paralyzed, particularly as another ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... unready tongue could not miss this great opportunity, "Yes, you will be everything,—my whole ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... I'm back before Etheldred the Unready wants me," he answered, bounding off with an elasticity that caused his mother to say the boy was made of india-rubber; and then putting his head in by the window to say, "By-the-bye, if there's ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... meet you, Mr. Mallock," he said. "I have had His Majesty's instructions very particular in your regard. I am ashamed that you should find me so unready; but I will not keep you above five minutes, if you will ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... expect to change mankind at once, or even "in three generations," by arrangement of groups and series, or flourish of trumpets for attractive industry. If these attempts are made by unready men, they will fail. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... regiments of horse, biting his lip till the blood ran down his chin. Leslie thought to surprise Cromwell; Cromwell surprised Leslie, crossed the Broxburn on the low level, before dawn, and drove into the Scots who were all unready, the matches of their muskets being wet and unlighted. The centre made a good stand, but a flank charge by English cavalry cut up the Scots foot, and Leslie fled with the nobles, gentry, and mounted men. In killed, wounded, and prisoners the Scots are said to have lost 14,000 men, a ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... been pressing their attack on Cyprus and were besieging the city of Nicosia. If the Christians had been moved by any united spirit they could have relieved Nicosia and struck a heavy blow at the Turkish fleet, which lay unready and stripped of its men in the harbor. But Gian Doria, who inherited from his great uncle his great dislike of Venetians, and who probably had secret instructions from his master, Philip II, to help as little as possible, succeeded in blocking any vigorous ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... flagrant miscarriage of justice of recent years, you have seen twelve fools bamboozled by a knave, you have heard a friend of yours grossly insulted, and you ask me what's the matter." The car swung round a corner, and Lady Touchstone, who was unready, heeled over with a cry. "I wish Mason wouldn't do that," she added testily, dabbing at her toque. "So subversive of dignity. What was I saying? Oh yes. A change. We'd better ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... he pulled out a watch, which he wound up, staring vacantly about the decks as he did so. "Tell me, boy," he said gently. "Is Lane come over with you?" To tell the truth, it flashed across my mind, when he pulled out his watch, that he was making me unready for a difficult question. I was not a very bright boy; but I had this sudden prompting or instinct, which set me on my guard. No one is more difficult to pump than a boy who is ready for his questioner, so I stared at him. "Lane?" I said, "Lane? ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... investment, it cheapened production by the application of initially expensive but ultimately repaying, apparatus, it effected enormous economies in wholesale production and distribution. Before the new methods of business the old gilds stood as helpless, as unready, as bowmen ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... honest fairy for his care, and the child for his beauty, and the mother for a happy woman. In brief, christened he was, at the which all this good cheer was doubled, which made most of the women so wise, that they forgot to make themselves unready, and so lay in their clothes; and none of them next day could remember the child's name but the clerk, and he may thank his book for it, or else it had been utterly lost. So much for the birth of ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... attitude of chastened devotion; eventually the hour came in which he had to stab her pride, and stab deep. It was an ugly, humiliating, exasperating business, and when at last it was over, Jim found himself sick of Berlin, and yet sullenly unready to go home to California, as if he had failed, as if he were under ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... purple-faced gentleman come to prepare her? Her heart gave a cry of anguish, while her eyes rested with apparent calmness on Sir Felix's unhappy face. Of course it was Mustapha. Would he never speak? Why could they not have found a better messenger than this unready inarticulate gentleman? ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... dry champagnes. Sleight of hand and inimitable quickness are the qualities by which he lives. Athelred,[11] on the other hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew to shine in conversation. You may see him sometimes wrestle with a refractory jest for a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to throw it in the end. And there is something singularly engaging, often instructive, in the simplicity with which he thus exposes the process ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Before the unready man could make motion to prevent her, she had opened the door and was gone, leaving it open, thus compelling the prisoner to be his own jailer and close it, for he had no wish now to leave the castle alone when he had been ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... these hundred years, no challenge so formidable as that represented by the new German fleet these three hundred years. It brings with it a crisis in the national life of England as great as has ever been known; yet this crisis finds the British nation divided, unready and uncertain what leadership ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... younger, Philip, there was hope. He had been an odd child, slim and pale while Aimery was large and ruddy, shy where his brother was bold and bold where he was shy. He was backward in games and unready in a quarrel, but it was observed that he had no fear of the dark, or of the Green Lady that haunted the river avenue. Father Ambrose, his tutor, reported him of quick and excellent parts, but marred by a dreaminess ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... anything to be gained by it, whereas his interest lay in the opposite direction, his object being to use the lad unconsciously to himself. He discovered also concerning him that he had lofty ideas of duty in everything; that he was very trusting, and unready to doubt; and that with him poetry was not, as with Lady Joan, a delight, but an absolute passion. After such discoveries, he judged it would not be hard to make for. himself, as for an idol, a high place in the imagination of ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... our enemy at the outset of the war had his fleet in two principal divisions: one still somewhat formless and as yet unready, but of very considerable power, was in the ports of the Peninsula; the other—Cervera's—at the Cape Verde Islands, a possession of Portugal. The latter was really exceptional in its qualities, as our Italian author has said. ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... and of too noble a mind to fall upon that stupid symptom, observable in divers persons near their journey's end, and which may be reckoned among the mortal symptoms of their last disease; that is, to become more narrow-minded, miserable, and tenacious, unready to part with anything when they are ready to part with all, and afraid to want when they have no time to spend; meanwhile physicians, who know that many are mad but in a single depraved imagination, and one prevalent ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... two out of the few who got back to the German lines. Most of the Prussians stayed in the ploughed field. Karl Heinz's scream had frozen the blood of the English soldiers, but it had also ruined the major's plans. He and his men, caught all unready, clumsy with the burdens that they carried, were shot to pieces; hardly a score of them returned. The rest of the force were attended to by an English burying party. According to custom the dead men were searched before they were buried, and some singular ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen
... Lawson's advice in 1683 was—"For the gathering of all other stone-fruit, as Nectarines, Apricots, Peaches, Pear-plums, Damsons, Bullas, and such like, . . . in the bottom of your large sives where you put them, you shall lay Nettles, and likewise in the top, for that will ripen those that are most unready" ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... down upon a green bank-side, Skirting the smooth edge of a gentle river, Whose waters seemed unwillingly to glide, Like parting friends who linger while they sever; Enforced to go, yet seeming still unready, Backward they wind their way in many ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... especially abounding in that time, one perceives how easily the Jomsburgers could recruit themselves, build or refit new robber fleets, man them with the pick of crews, and steer for opulent, fruitful England; where, under Ethelred the Unready, was such a field for profitable enterprise as the viking public never had ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... day, so much wished, has seemed to me, to the last moment, so distant, that now—now that it Is actually arrived, it takes me as if I had never thought of it before—it comes upon me all unexpected, and finds me unready!" ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... abroad, among, and by reason of the Presbyters. Some were clapped up to-day, and strict watch is kept in the City by the train-bands, and letters of a plot are taken. God preserve us! for all these things bode very ill. So home, and after going to welcome home Sir W. Pen, who was unready, going to bed, I staid with him a little while, and so to my lodging and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... made a powerful lunge that seemed to find the captain unready. But the latter, with a sharp involuntary cry, got his blade up in time to divert the point, by pure accident, with the guard of his hilt. His own point was thus turned straight toward his antagonist; and Tom, throwing ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... if there were no actual and deep piercing of the French lines, the pressure upon the French would lead them to call upon the British for help. British attack, while the British force was still unready, would lead to great losses and would exhaust the reserves in men and munitions of both France and Britain. At the worst this would mean that neither France nor Britain would be ready to take the field in their long-promised ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... Euphrosyne had not taken her place earlier on her invitation-list. She invited her, now, with all emphasis, to attend her "art reception," and hoped that she would allow her dear daughter to help pour tea. A sunburst exploded before Euphrosyne's unready eyes. She recovered herself and accepted ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... hearken all. As when before the furious South the driven flame doth fall Among the corn: or like as when the hill-flood rolls in haste To waste the fields and acres glad, the oxen's toil to waste, Tearing the headlong woods along, while high upon a stone The unready shepherd stands amazed, and hears the sound ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... same coveting desire to name a man of breeding, honour, station, for Nesta's husband. Perhaps in the cottage, choosing at leisure, her consent to see the brilliant young creature tied to the best of dull men would have been unready, without the girl to push it. For the Hon. Dudley was lamentably her pupil in liveliness; he took the second part, as it is painful for a woman with the old-fashioned ideas upon the leading of the sexes to behold; resembling ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... northern assailants, had from the first pointed it out as the place where a union between Dane and Englishman could best be brought about. The first attempt was foiled by the savage treachery of AEthelred the Unready. The death of Swegen and the return of Cnut to Denmark left an opening for a reconciliation, and Englishmen and Danes gathered at Oxford round the king. But all hope was foiled by the assassination of the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... delightful diary proves that "make-up" of a certain kind flourished at the Restoration. "To the King's house," says Pepys, "and there going in met with Knipp, and she took us up into the tireing-rooms;[A] and to the women's shift, where Nell (Gwyne) was dressing herself, and was all unready, and is very pretty, prettier than I thought. (Imagine the gloating eyes of the old hypocrite.) And into the scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave us fruit: and here I read the questions to Knipp, while she answered me, through all her part of 'Flora's Figarys,' which was acted ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... and, watching the daily miracle of birth, felt vaguely some corresponding process stir her own heart. Nature cherishes no yesterdays; the work of rebuilding and replenishing goes serenely on. Punctual dawn never finds the world unready, April's burgeoning colors bury away forever the memories of winter wind ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... the events since your arrival here. The rest counts for nothing. We are all on the ground here and I propose to act quickly. I learned some matters in Calcutta which have greatly enlightened me." The facile tongue of the renegade was slow to do the bidding of his unready brain. "Damme! But she's a cool one!" the ex-officer concluded, as he caught his breath. But, conscious of her watchful eye, he related all his adventures, with a judicious reserve as to Justine Delande. The burning eyes of Berthe Louison were steadily fixed upon the relator's ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... in a low tone, wondering gravely if she spake the truth. Somebody beside her laughed the short unready laugh of one ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the close, let us suppose, of our second month of war. The fleet has been neglected, and has been overwhelmed, unready and unprepared. We have been beaten twice at sea, and our enemies have established no accidental superiority, but a permanent and overwhelming one. The telegraph cables have been severed, one and all; these islands ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... harmless freedom of the watering-place Miss, which Avice had plainly acquired during her sojourn at the Sandbourne school, helped Pierston greatly in this role of jeune premier which he was not unready to play. Not a word did he say about being a native of the island; still more carefully did he conceal the fact of his having courted her grandmother, and engaged himself to marry that ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... week since his departure that Hugh returned to Starden, and found Mrs. Bonner a little surprised, but by no means unready. ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... ashes, and he drew me out and kindled the ashes to fire, so that I cheered myself thereat. And since now the flame is like to go out again, and the Master's teaching to be choked and concealed beneath that same ash-mountain, I pray God that He inspire my unready quill to set down a true picture of the Man and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Southern pastors, and nowhere have we heard more appreciative words respecting our work than from good people of the South who have acquainted themselves with what we are doing and how we are doing it. That multitudes are still unable to see and unready to prophesy does not count. The day of appreciative recognition has not fully come, but it has dawned, and will ...
— American Missionary, Volume 50, No. 8, August, 1896 • Various
... morning. She wore a bright dress,—blue, I think,—and a white crocus in her hair; she had a dainty white apron tied on, "to cook in," she said, and her pink nails were powdered with flour. Her eyes laughed and twinkled at me. I remember thinking how young she looked, and how unready for suffering. I remember that she brought the baby in after a while, and that Tip came all muddy from the garden, dragging his tiny hoe over the carpet; that the window was open, and that, while we all sat there together, a little brown bird brought some twine ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps |
