"Well-timed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... policemen and mounted guardsmen began firing into the crowd at the square, without sense or discretion, falling back, nevertheless, before the well-timed, deliberate advance of the mercenaries. From somewhere near the spot where Olga Platanova fell came a ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... streets, and large sums of money were distributed among the populace. The nobles assembled in the Alcazaba were promised honors and rewards by Boabdil as soon as he should be firmly seated on the throne. These well-timed measures had the customary effect, and by daybreak all the motley populace of the Albaycin ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... with all the miseries of destitution, aggravated by disease, had increased his natural roughness and irritability, on the other hand it had helped largely to bring out his sterling virtues,—his discriminating charity, his genuine benevolence, his well-timed generosity, his large-hearted sympathy with real suffering. But he required it to be material and positive, and scoffed at mere mental or sentimental woes. "The sight of people who want food and raiment is so common in great cities, that a ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... fully at her visitor, finding her not as handsome as she expected, nor as young but in all other points she had not perhaps been exaggerated. Cultivated and self-possessed, she was still very pleasing in her manner, making Katy feel wholly at ease by a few well-timed compliments, which had the merit of seeming genuine, so perfect was she in the art of deception, practicing it with so much skill that few saw through the mask, and knew it was ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Champagne there was no lack. Twenty-six sat down to the sumptuous repast; and when the cloth was removed, the wine circulated briskly, while the bond of amity between the French and English sailor, was strengthened by the interchange of many a loyal toast and happy well-timed allusion to the brave and martial character of the two nations; nor was music wanting to complete our joyous revelry: the whole budget of lower deck songs was completely exhausted; the guests contributing their quota of chansons ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... by which he hoped better to carry out the scheme of the story, and to get, for its following part, an effect for his heroine that would increase the tragic interest. "I am still in stout heart with the tale. I think it well-timed and a good thought; and as you know I wouldn't say so to anybody else, I don't mind saying freely thus much. It has great possession of me every moment in the day; and drags me where it will. . . . If you only could have read it all at once!—But you never would have done that, anyway, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... become so in our academies and minor schools. Few exercises bring more muscles into play than the steady stroke of the oar. Few are more exhilarating and pleasant to those who have tried them. Give us the strong pull through an open bay before all boating on placid lakes or rivers. The long, well-timed stroke becomes a mere mechanical effort, leaving the mind at liberty to enjoy the sense of freedom, the tonic salt-breeze, and the enlivening scenes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... from the road, if well-timed, would land a man among some very stalwart branches. It's a risk and it takes nerve; but it succeeded once, and I dare say has ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... qualified to discuss, in the Greek language, a metaphysical question, or an article of faith. But the credit of his favorite Osius, who appears to have presided in the council of Nice, might dispose the emperor in favor of the orthodox party; and a well-timed insinuation, that the same Eusebius of Nicomedia, who now protected the heretic, had lately assisted the tyrant, might exasperate him against their adversaries. The Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine; and his firm declaration, that those who resisted the divine judgment of the synod, must ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Father," said I, "your reproof is well-timed. A man should not boast, and I'll say no more of my castles and my acres, though the ships on the sea pay tribute to them. But all good Saints preserve us, Earl of Westport, if you feel proud to own this poor estate of Brede, think how little it weighed with my father, who all ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... and the Germans in front of the First Division were observed to be "sapping" up to our lines and trying to establish new trenches. Renewed counter-attacks were delivered and beaten off during the course of the day, and in the afternoon a well-timed attack by the First Division stopped ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... the winding and ill-defined path which led to the summit. Woodgate, the Lancashire Brigadier, and Blomfield of the Fusiliers led the way. It was a severe climb of 2000 feet, coming after arduous work over broken ground, but the affair was well-timed, and it was at that blackest hour which precedes the dawn that the last steep ascent was reached. The Fusiliers crouched down among the rocks to recover their breath, and saw far down in the plain beneath them the placid lights which showed where their comrades were ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the friend of Scaliger; Lewis Nonnius, a distinguished physician and erudite scholar, born early in the seventeenth century. Few places have produced so many painters of merit, as will be seen at page 380, by a well-timed communication from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... were not always successful in their efforts to carry off a victim, but as time went on they stopped at nothing and indeed braved any danger in order to obtain their favourite food. Their methods then became so uncanny, and their man-stalking so well-timed and so certain of success, that the workmen firmly believed that they were not real animals at all, but devils in lions' shape. Many a time the coolies solemnly assured me that it was absolutely useless to attempt to shoot them. They were ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... instructive. The well-sustained argument of the article on "Army Organization" was a most effective aid to General Totten's efforts as Chief Engineer to secure the organization of our first engineer company. This company proved to be the well-timed and successful school in which our pontoon-drill grew up and became available for use in the present war. There are now four regular companies and several volunteer regiments of engineer troops, whose services are too highly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... slight inclination to grey on his dingy old coat, one that looked as though he had survived his kindred and had already lived beyond his day. Jorrocks, however, saw him differently, and his eyes glistened as he came within range of his gun. A well-timed shot ends poor Tom's miseries! He springs into the air, and with a melancholy scream rolls neck over heels. Knowing that Pompey would infallibly spoil him if he got up first, Jorrocks, without waiting to load, was in the act of starting off to pick him up, when, at the first step, he found ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... busy men would have flung into the waste-paper basket,—his interest in such works as Samuel Bamford's Life of a Radical, and admirable advice to the writer; his instructions to a young student on the choice of books, and well-timed warning to another against the profession of literature, are sun-rifts in the storm, that show "a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity." The same epoch, however,—that of the start of the great writer's almost uninterrupted triumph—brings us in face of an episode ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... who plainly saw both the defects and the excellent qualities of his young ward, hoped that, by playful raillery, and by well-timed reasoning, he might mix a sufficient portion of good sense with Forester's enthusiasm, might induce him gradually to sympathize in the pleasures of cultivated society, and might convince him that virtue is not ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... experience in wider ranges of life—he actually, I say, thought it possible that they might be better acquainted with the properties and distinctions of knowledge than himself. At all events, the Parson's words were so far well-timed, that they produced in Leonard very much of that state of mind which Mr. Dale desired to effect, before communicating to him the startling intelligence that he was to visit relations whom he had never seen, of whom he had heard but little, and that it was at least possible ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... disgusting. One instance alone, related by the Duke de St. Simon, will show the unworthy avarice which infected the whole of society. A man of the name of Andre, without character or education, had, by a series of well-timed speculations in Mississippi bonds, gained enormous wealth, in an incredibly short space of time. As St. Simon expresses it, "he had amassed mountains of gold." As he became rich, he grew ashamed of the lowness of his birth, and anxious above all things to be allied ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... doubted; certain it is, however, that the corps which then passed reinforced betimes the positions in the mountains, which steadfastly, yet barely, checked the Austrian attack there the following day. Beaulieu wrote that the well-timed co-operation of the squadron had saved a number of fine troops, which must have been lost in the attack. This was so far satisfactory; but the economizing of one's own force was not in Nelson's eyes any consolation for the escape of the enemy, whose number ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... again in reaction against this, the wild mixture of poetry and prose, in our wild nineteenth century, under the influence of such writers as Dickens and Carlyle: such are the three periods into which the story of our prose literature divides itself. And Mr. Saintsbury has his well-timed, practical suggestions, ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... in Washington, when the minority was too insignificant in numbers and ability to keep the too powerful majority from doing itself such harm as might have been fatal to it but for the President's well-timed antics. Next to a sound and able majority, the great need of a free country is a vigorous, vigilant, audacious, numerous minority. Better a factious and unscrupulous minority than none at all. The Federalists, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... though he had quite science enough to explain why there was no immediate danger at all—whereupon his younger brother suggested that he should just go out and treat us to a repetition of Franklin's experiment with the cloud and the kite—a well-timed proposition which sent the Explainer down with a white face into the cellar. What a grand sight your tree was—is, for I see it. My father has a print of a tree so struck—torn to ribbons, as you describe—but ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... right of private judgment had much abated, and those prejudices against the hierarchy, which the first emigrants carried from England with them, were now almost entirely worn off from the succeeding generation. To bring about this change, no doubt the well-timed zeal and extensive bounty of the society, incorporated for the propagation of the Gospel, had greatly contributed. At this time the corporation had no less than twelve missionaries in Carolina, each of whom shared of their bounty. Indeed, a ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... thirst, whenever any distemper or duty of life may put her upon such difficulties; and at the same time give her an opportunity of extricating herself from her oppressions, and recovering the several tones and springs of her distended vessels. Besides that, abstinence well-timed often kills a sickness in embryo, and destroys the first ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... public effort in that career of religious imposition, which in a few years was felt by the remote tribes of the upper lakes, and on the broad plains which stretched beyond the Mississippi." The appearance of the Prophet was not only highly dramatic but extremely well-timed. The savage mind was filled with gloomy forebodings. The ravages of "fire-water," the intermixture of the races, the trespassing of the white settlers on the Indian domain, and the rapid disappearance of many of the old hunting grounds, all betokened a sad ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... accommodated by treaty, and mutual reparations were made to the merchants; but nothing could repair the loss which so well-timed a blow inflicted on the Spanish government in the Low Countries. Alva, in want of money, and dreading the immediate mutiny of his troops, to whom great arrears were due, imposed, by his arbitrary will, the most ruinous taxes on the people. He not only required the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... the barons most favourably situated, or of those who were most unprincipled in pursuit of their own gain, it was a time when almost anything they saw fit to demand might be won from one side or the other, or from both alternately by well-timed treason. It was the time in the history of England when the continental feudal principality most nearly came into existence,—the only time after the Conquest when several great dominions within ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... earnest, gives an idea of what that of the Philosopher of Ferney must have been when in a good humour, and adds piquancy to his narrations. Madame C——, who is an especial favourite of his, and who can draw him out in conversation better than any one else, in paying him a delicate and well-timed compliment on his celebrity, added, that few had ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... created in order to establish German union under the House of Hohenzollern, and they have been employed for no other object. It is the triumph of statesmanship, and it has been the glory of Prince Bismarck, after thus reaping the fruit of a well-timed homage to the God of Battles, to know how to ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... church in person, but committed the office of execution to an inferior officer. The prisoners, as might be expected, refused to submit to this indignity; upon which a second order was issued, and their clothes were taken from them. The well-timed remonstrance of Boyer, Marquis D'Eguilles, who had been sent by the court of France in the character of Ambassador to Charles Edward, arrested, however, the act of cruelty, which not even extreme necessity can excuse. This nobleman ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... mind of the poor, but honest man, so much like a public confession that he was a rogue, that he could not do it. And yet this was his only right course, and he should have taken it firmly. Letters are often written, calling attention to the old matter, in which are well-timed allusions to the debtor's known integrity of character, and willingness to pay every dollar he owes in the world, if ever able. Such letters should never be answered, for the answer will be almost sure to contain something that, in a court of justice, will be construed into ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... actor in the deed, and destroy at once his life and his evidence. The real assassins, Sarrasin felt assured, had no doubt that their hireling would get a fair way on the road to his business of assassination, and then a well-timed dynamite cartridge would make sure his work, and would make sure also that he never could appear in evidence against the men ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... sardonic, is made use of with great success in all kinds of disputation. The proficients in this kind, by a well-timed laugh, will baffle the most solid argument. This upon all occasions supplies the want of reason, is always received with great applause in coffee-house disputes, and that side the laugh joins with is generally observed to gain the better of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... sunk, and the rest allowed to escape round the opposite point, while the barracks and the other buildings were burned. The British, having four men only wounded, re-embarked, and the ships returned the same evening to their former anchorage in Macao roads. This well-timed and important piece of service of Captain Smith's was the last hostile movement of the British during the year 1840. On the 6th November a truce was announced by Admiral Elliot, and on the 29th he resigned his command from extreme ill-health, and returned to England, ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... languished, and intemperance seemed likely once more to overwhelm the land with more desolating evils than had ever yet been known, there was yet to be found in Chester County an association of females who were nobly bearing the standard of total abstinence, and by their well-timed labors giving evidence that there was yet vitality in the cause! Thus we have seen not only in this, but in other fields of moral reform, that the progress has uniformly been commensurate with the intellectual ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... it, that the whole great multitude turned with him and stared towards the horizon, as though they expected to see the long lines of avengers creeping across the plains. Silence followed his speech; his imperturbability and his well-timed address had saved his life. From that day his name was a power in ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. "Oh, I had forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... would have suffered still more had it not been for that valuable creature that trotted along behind the wagon—the cow—"old Graaf," as she was called. She had yielded several pints of milk, both the night before and that morning; and this well-timed supply had given considerable relief ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... The well-timed and splendidly executed offensive from Egypt by the British Eighth Army was a part of the same major strategy of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... its representative; and while the lower house was guarded in its terms of approval of the proclamation of neutrality that had been so loudly condemned by the partisan press, the senate pronounced it "a measure well-timed and wise, manifesting a watchful solicitude for the welfare of the nation and calculated ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... at the Manor Green had assembled for luncheon, the rector was announced. He came in and joined them, saying,with his usual friendly bonhomie, "A very well-timed visit, I think! Your bell rang out its summons as I came up the avenue. Mrs. Green, I've gone through the formality of looking over the accounts of your clothing-club, and, as usual, I find them correctness ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... the smoke, and a column of boats, moving with well-timed oars, could for a moment be seen as ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Give place to him, Writers of Rome and Greece. This application to Milton of a line from the last elegy (25th) in the second book of Propertius is not only an example of Addison's felicity in choice of motto for a paper, but was so bold and well-timed that it must have given a wholesome shock to the minds of many of the Spectators readers. Addison was not before Steele in appreciation of Milton and diffusion of a true sense of his genius. Milton was the subject of the first piece of poetical criticism ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... crying down public wrongs, upon finding the responsibility of a coronet on their shoulders, suddenly become arrant sticklers for hereditary rights. We are amused to notice, among those peers who have risen above the selfishness by which they are surrounded, and have given us a well-timed sympathy, but few who are of new creations: for the Duke of Argyle and the Earls of Carlisle and Clarendon are descendants of the oldest and ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... we rapidly retraced our steps to the dell, which had been appointed as our place of rendezvous. Here we found the greater part of our men assembled; and so well-timed had Jack's movements been, that not one of them all had been able to overtake or slay a single enemy. Thus, by able generalship, had Jack gained a complete and ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... to look at the old man who had been distinguished by the name of Prime Minister, imagined that he saw in his features a disapprobation of the present proceedings, and willing to improve the advantage, he grasped the Indian's hand, and gave him an old broadsword. This well-timed present produced all the good effects that could be wished. The prime minister was enraptured at so honourable a mark of distinction, and, brandishing his sword over the head of the impertinent Portuguese, he made both him and the men who commanded ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... into Don Quixote as if he had no separate existence. He accomplished more for the improvement of Spanish literature with his well-timed satire than all the laws or sermons could effect. His remarkable mind seems to have escaped the influence of the times, unless we make an exception of his drama "Numancia," which, while it excites the imagination, fills us with horror at its details, and fails to touch our hearts, but ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... handling the people aboard. Both pilots, up yonder, knew this was his role. Already he had tried his unskill—or let "Ramsey" try it—and had learned a point or two. She had shown him, at least twice, what value there might be in a well-timed, unmanageable laugh. But a well-timed, unmanageable laugh is purely a natural gift. If it was to come to his aid, it would have to come of itself. Lucian, the twin who had asked the last ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... was written after the appearance of "Don Quixote;" and from that time to the present they have been constantly disappearing, until they are now among the rarest of literary curiosities,—a solitary instance of the power of genius to destroy, by a well-timed blow, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... thing in Mr. Simonds' lecture last night was the peroration, in which he told the audience that 'an artist cannot be made.' But for this well-timed warning some deluded people might have gone away under the impression that sculpture was a sort of mechanical process within the reach of the meanest capabilities. For it must be confessed that Mr. Simonds' lecture was at once too elementary and too elaborately technical. The ordinary art student, ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... been fairly raining shells round us. Fortunately most of them burst only on impact, and are harmless, owing to the soft ground, outside a very small radius; they seem to be chiefly segment shell, but I saw a good many shrapnel, bursting high and erratically. The aim was excellent, and well-timed shrapnel would have been very damaging. Still, we have been very lucky even so, only one man wounded, and no guns, waggons or horses touched. Once, when trotting out of action, a shell burst just beside our team—an excellent running shot for the sportsman who fired it! It made a deafening ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... insult they had committed, immediately sounded a parley, and united to reinstate poor Teddy O'Rafferty in his former situation. This was the signal for Horace and myself to proceed round to the front door, and pretending we were strangers excited by curiosity, succeeded, by a little well-timed flattery and a small trifle to drink our good healths, in freeing the assailants from all the horrors of a watch-house, and eventually of restoring peace and unanimity. It was now past midnight; leaving therefore poor Barney O'Finn to attend mass, and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... serried ranks, gleaming from bayonet and cannon, and stretching long black shadows athwart the road. From time to time along the column could be heard the ringing voice of some commander, as he galloped to the van, cheering his men with some well-timed allusion, or dispelling the surrounding gloom with a cheerful promise of victory. Where the wood road branched from the Warrentown turnpike, Gen. McDowell, standing in his open carriage, looked down upon the passing columns, and raised his hat, when the excited soldiers cheered ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... for France prepared to give something that they had never given before, and France did not seem to want it. At last their passports came; without taking any chances, they got out of Paris and started for the Front. Their haste was well-timed; no sooner had they departed than a message arrived, cancelling their permissions. They had reached the doomed city in which I was at present, two days before its sentence was pronounced. Within four hours ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... of those who had hitherto leant most upon the charity of the Hall. A certain picturesquely tattered man, living at some distance from the village, who was in the habit of waylaying my father at certain points on the estate, with well-timed agricultural remarks and a cunning affectation of half-wittedness and good-humour, got henceforward no half-crowns for ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... settlement with that attention which, as English subjects, we were proud to pay to it. The Susan (with American colours flying), though provided with only six or eight guns, contrived to fire at one o'clock with the king's ships, a well-timed salute of twenty-one guns in ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... satisfactory answer, it is sufficient by assenting and agreeing to his view to get the reputation of being a pleasant fellow; and if no satisfactory answer is given, then to enlighten ignorance and supply the necessary information is well-timed and does not excite envy. But let us be especially on our guard that, if anyone else is asked a question, we do not ourselves anticipate and intercept him in giving an answer. It is indeed perhaps nowhere good form, if another is asked a favour, to push him aside and undertake to grant ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... captain without reflecting on the character of the offender. A thorough-bred seaman is very seldom in fault, and should he unfortunately trespass a little on the discipline of the ship, his offence should be visited as lightly as possible. Well-timed admonition will make a surer impression than half-a-dozen cats. I speak from experience. Before we sailed I had occasion to purchase some stockings, as I found on inquiry that my dingy-faced washerwoman had supplied her "lubing bruder" with several pair belonging to me, to dance with her ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... exceedingly disastrous. We were very near having our entire train of wagons and supplies destroyed, upon one occasion, by the carelessness of one of our party in setting fire to the grass, and it was only by the most strenuous and well-timed efforts of two hundred men in setting counter fires, and burning around the train, that it was saved. When the grass is dry it will take fire like powder, and if thick and tall, with a brisk wind, the flames run like a race-horse, sweeping every thing before ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... and his explorers were ever heard of again, or had left any memorials of themselves but their bones, a wild Bedouin was seen, "like a delivering angel," hurrying forward with a large skin, filled with muddy water. This well-timed supply was divided among the fainting people: a quantity was poured over the face and down the throat of each; and at a late hour, "ghastly, haggard, and exhausted, like men who had escaped from the jaws of death, the whole had contrived to straggle into a camp, which, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... This well-timed exclamation of mine, I perceived, did not fail to have its weight. We again sat down to table, and I was treated with more than usual kindness by the marquis and his brother, as if in compensation for their having, for a moment, harboured a suspicion of my honesty. But I was ill at ease; ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... a harrowing story of a dead soldier who had left a bedridden wife with thirteen children. Vane had not heard a word of the story, but the butler's face had crossed his mental horizon periodically, and he chose that moment to laugh. It was not a well-timed laugh, but he floundered out of it somehow. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... at leisure. He thought he made out a crafty underlook in Ingerman which he had failed to detect the previous night. That slow, smooth voice seemed to weigh each syllable. Such a man would never blurt out an unconsidered admission. He was a foe to be reckoned with. The subtle malignancy of that well-timed outburst was proof positive in ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... by the beauty of the stars. The only God he could have any use for would be the kind the Salvationists talk about, who goes about giving drunken men an arm past the public-house and coming between the pickpocket and Black Maria with a well-timed text. There was nothing in Science that would lift him out of this hell of loneliness, this conviction of impotence, this shame of achievementless maturity. He perceived that he had really known ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... you, is it? This is well-timed. I have a word for you as well. Just now you spoke of a woman who, after having loved Lord Linnaeus ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... their way of thinking. However, I stopped myself in time from following that dangerous road, and, as I have made it a rule not to reject anything decisively and not to trust anything blindly, I cast metaphysics aside and began to look at what was beneath my feet. The precaution was well-timed. I only just escaped stumbling over something thick and soft, but, to all appearance, inanimate. I bent down to see what it was, and, by the light of the moon, which now shone right upon the road, I perceived that it was a pig which had been ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... moderate, but really well-timed and effective appeal of the president, drooping heads began to be raised, perplexed and desponding countenances grew brighter, and by the time he had closed, several speakers were on their feet, eager ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... fear they were not a few, which had kindly given her credit, some for weeks, some for months, and more than one for a year, the happy house-wife went to pay in full; and not this only, but with many thanks, to press a little present upon each, for well-timed ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... both hands, crossed the room, and made the advantage his own. Dr. John, throughout his whole life, was a man of luck—a man of success. And why? Because he had the eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed action, the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion dragged him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. How well he looked at this very moment! When Paulina looked up as he reached ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... my custom, one lovely evening I had assembled a large company in an illuminated garden. I was wandering about with my divinity arm-in-arm, separated from the rest of the guests, and endeavouring to amuse her with well-timed conversation; she looked modestly towards the ground, and gently returned the pressure of my hand. At this moment the moon unexpectedly burst through the clouds: her shadow alone was there,—she started, looked alarmed at me, ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... an attentive throng Give well-timed lectures for his Country's weal; Yet his remembrances will live among Those whom his conduct ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... and had become familiar, but not tame. They kept up a regular romp with Noble. They would come down from the maple trees with provoking coolness; they would run along the fence almost within reach; they would cock their tails and sail across the road to the barn; and yet there was such a well-timed calculation under all this apparent rashness, that Noble invariably arrived at the critical spot just ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... gave directions, then a roll of smoke, a flash, a cracking bang, a gun runs back, and intently-watching eyes presently see a small cloud of smoke over the top of a distant kopje, and a faint, far-away crack announces that the well-timed shrapnel is searching the rocky ridges; then bang, bang! bang, bang! and the rest quickly follow, firing in turn and now and again in twos or threes. Then it's "limber up" and forward, and their attention ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... brick yielded to the vigorous and well-timed efforts of Ulpius. He had already made a cavity, in an oblique direction, large enough to creep through, and was preparing to penetrate still further, when a portion of the rotten material of the interior ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... engaged in the practice of the law, in which he was successful. He was a man of strong intellect, sound judgment, and keen observation. He wrote a piece called the "Mecklenburg Censor," abounding with sarcastic wit and well-timed humor, making him truly the "learned blacksmith" of ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... catechism in reference to a certain vote he had given, which she had found it necessary, as the mother of the modern Gracchi, to deprecate in a line by itself, set up expressly for the purpose in German text. But Mr Pogram evading it by a well-timed allusion to the star-spangled banner, which, it appeared, had the remarkable peculiarity of flouting the breeze whenever it was hoisted where the wind blew, she forgave him. They now enlarged on certain questions ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... his high descent. Amidst the ranks Lycaon's son she found, The warlike Pandarus, for strength renown'd; Whose squadrons, led from black AEsepus' flood,(130) With flaming shields in martial circle stood. To him the goddess: "Phrygian! canst thou hear A well-timed counsel with a willing ear? What praise were thine, couldst thou direct thy dart, Amidst his triumph, to the Spartan's heart? What gifts from Troy, from Paris wouldst thou gain, Thy country's foe, the Grecian glory slain? Then seize the occasion, dare the mighty deed, Aim at his breast, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... bearing the pride of younger England, the heir to the throne. On the deck before him his passengers were gathered in merry groups, singing, laughing, chatting, the ladies in their rich-lined mantles, the gentlemen in their bravest attire; while to the sound of song and merry talk the well-timed fall of the oars and swash of driven waters ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Princess, Kojijiu by name, who was present, was a sagacious woman, and noticing the embarrassment of the lady, she advanced to her side, and made the following reply in such a well-timed manner that her real object, which was to conceal the deficiencies of her mistress, did not ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... assigned the reading of the Declaration of Independence, and I embraced the opportunity of interspersing a few remarks not found in that honored document, to the delight of our friends and the disgust of our foes. The other ladies all made original, excellent and well-timed addresses. In 1881 we got up the Fourth of July celebration[475] ourselves, and gave the men half the programme without their asking for it. In 1883 we had a "Foremothers' Day" celebration, and confined the programme to our own society. In September, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... with the repeal of the Missouri compromise, was not an accident, as any one could see who had studied the tactics of the slave-holders. It was a well-timed scheme to divide the people of the free States upon trifles and side issues, while the South remained a unit in defense of its great interest. It was the cunning attempt to balk and divert the indignation aroused by the repeal of the Missouri ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... softer arts In ambush lay about thy flowing tongue; Alas, how chop-fallen now! Thick mists and silence Rest, like a weary cloud, upon thy breast Unceasing.—Ah! where is the lifted arm, The strength of action, and the force of words, The well-turn'd period, and the well-timed voice, With all the lesser ornaments of phrase? 310 Ah! fled for ever, as they ne'er had been; Razed from the book of fame; or, more provoking, Perchance some hackney hunger-bitten scribbler Insults thy memory, and blots thy tomb With long flat narrative, or duller rhymes, With ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... the wounded Parthian falling from his horse. Nevertheless you may describe him just and brave, as the wise Lucilius did Scipio. I will not be wanting to myself, when an opportunity presents itself: no verses of Horace's, unless well-timed, will gain the attention of Caesar; whom, [like a generous steed,] if you stroke awkwardly, he will kick upon you, being at all quarters on his guard. How much better would this be, than to wound ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Marian's admonition was well-timed but she felt it was rather wasted later that afternoon. The little girls had accepted her invitation and had brought their flowers and May baskets over for her help and advice. Katy was filling hers deftly, chattering as she worked. She was especially particular ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... On the other hand we have the school of Monck and Rupert, which was inclined anarchically to submit all rules to the solvent of hard fighting, and to take tactical risks and unfetter individual initiative to almost any extent rather than miss a chance of overpowering the enemy by a sudden well-timed blow. Knowing as we do the extent to which the principles of the Duke of York's school hampered the development of fleet tactics till men like Hawke and Nelson broke them down, we cannot but sympathise with their opponents. Nor can we help noting as curiously significant that whereas it was the ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... however, be questioned, that the declaration of independence was wise, and well-timed. The soundest policy required that the war should no longer be a contest between subjects and their ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... man, fervently, "you were the kind angel who interposed to save me from the precipice over which I have well-nigh fallen. Be assured the warning shall not be in vain. A thousand thanks for this well-timed caution," he added, more cheerfully, as they parted, "the Knight of the Ringlet will ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... drivers, whose black polished faces are aglow with negroid bonhomie. "Aihu, Aihu. Bom-Bom. Scellum[13] Oom Paul. Scellum President Steyn." Then a crack from the great 12-foot whip-thong, sounding like a well-timed volley. At the bottom of the incline a small spruit. There on the bank stands Willem the Zulu. A dilapidated coaching-beaver on his head. A square foot of bronzed chest showing between the white facings of an open infantry tunic. His nether ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... identity by a deadly volley, delivered at a range of seventy yards. Every gunner was shot down; the teams were almost annihilated, and several officers fell killed or wounded. The Zouaves, already much shaken by Stuart's well-timed charge, fled down the slopes, dragging with them another ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... remembrances and enquiries after health. Were it possible to state all he has done for numerous friends, he would appear amiable indeed. For myself, I am bound to acknowledge, in the fullest and warmest manner, his most generous and well-timed aid; and, were my poor friend Bland alive, he would as gladly bear the like testimony;—though I have most reason, of all men, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... infancy, and he will find some way to strangle with the skipping-rope or brain with the brick. Circumstances may be favourable, training may be admirable, hopes may be high, but the huge elemental hunger of Innocent Smith for blood will in its appointed season burst like a well-timed bomb." ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... collected edition of the noble bard's writings in the hands of the younger members of their family.—Speeches on Parliamentary Reform, by the Right Hon. T. B. Macaulay. This new number of Longman's Traveller's Library is well-timed, and very acceptable. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... earnest and thoughtful, or even excited and indignant. Self-accusation and annoyance might perhaps cause a few to get angry; but our impression was quite different: the only thing I do not know is how exactly to describe it. This hour was so well-timed for us, and our minds were so well prepared, that we sat there like empty vessels, and now it seems as if we were filled to overflowing with this new wisdom: for I no longer know how to help myself, and if some one asked me what I am thinking of doing to-morrow, ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... a brief and well-timed reference to the accomplished Hypatia, familiar to ladies from Kingsley's novel—in the days when ladies used to read novels—and also the Royal ladies whom Descartes and Leibnitz found apter disciples than the savants. It ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... him on the raw. He was an old Etonian, and had in his time been a good player; and was now as active as any stout gentleman of seven-and-thirty, who had been twelve years a steady admirer of bursary dinners and common-room port. So, after some decent scruples on his part, and some well-timed compliments touching his physical abilities on ours, (he was much vainer of the muscle of his arm than of his high reputation as a scholar,) we succeeded in drawing from him a sort of promise, that if we were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... movement of Spain, in the year 1808, which led to consequences so important to the rest of Europe, though it has left herself as enslaved and priest-ridden as ever, was hailed by Sheridan with all that prompt and well-timed ardor, with which he alone, of all his party, knew how to meet such great occasions. Had his political associates but learned from his example thus to place themselves in advance of the procession of events, they would not have had the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... excited open rebellion a second time in Pennsylvania, and thereby compelled the employment of a military force to aid the civil authority in the execution of the laws. We rejoice that your vigilance, energy, and well-timed exertions have crushed so daring an opposition and prevented the spreading of such treasonable combinations. The promptitude and zeal displayed by the troops called to suppress this insurrection deserve our highest commendation and praise, and afford a pleasing proof of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... drama of The Curate's Daughter" was to be performed at night, in the "unrivalled Sans Pareil Theatre," by "the most talented company in England," before "the most discerning audience in the world." As far as we were individually concerned, this theatrical announcement was remarkably tempting and well-timed. We were now within one day's journey of Piran Round, the famous amphitheatre where the old Cornish Miracle Plays used to be performed. Anything connected with the stage was, therefore, a subject of ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... admirable presentation of the opera, I had inspired Luttichau with the idea of inviting Spontini to undertake the personal superintendence of his justly famous work. He had just left Berlin for ever, after enduring great humiliation there, and such an invitation at this moment would be a well-timed proof of respect. This was accordingly sent, and as I had myself been entrusted with the conductorship of the opera, I was given the singular task of deciding this point with the master. My letter, it appears, although written in French, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the objects of the assembly. The president of the republic looked coldly upon the gathering, having no cordial feeling to the chairman. The meeting was got up by the English peace party, and chiefly under the auspices of Mr. Cobden. They regarded it as peculiarly well-timed, whereas it is almost inconceivable how any number of men of ability could suppose the occasion suitable, or that the state of Europe offered the smallest hope of producing any influence by such a convention. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... them, and which, after weeks of careful research, she discovered adjoined a tract owned by Ames. Pushing aside office boy, clerk, and guard, she reached the inner sanctum of the astonished financier himself and offered to sell at a ruinous figure. A few well-timed tears, an expression of angelic innocence on her beautiful face, a despairing gesture or two with her lovely arms, coupled with the audacity which she had shown in forcing an entrance into his office, effected the man's capitulation. She was then ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Government itself was not to blame for this affair. He has asserted repeatedly that this high-handed procedure was the individual action of the French consul-general. As far as I can see, these little "affairs" always take place in the absence of the minister,—a well-timed vacation, during which an irresponsible charge d'affaires acts on his own initiative. Be that as it may, on this occasion the French minister happens to be in Paris, and the "Gazette" is insisting that the charge d'affaires has exceeded his authority ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte |
