"Mechanically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... just as good at the new fighting as the most "seasoned troops." But there is no reason whatever why they should not be. "Leading," in the sense of going ahead of the men and making them move about mechanically at the word of command, has ceased. On the British side our magnificent new subalterns and our equally magnificent new non-commissioned officers play the part of captains of football teams; they talk ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... Mechanically she restored to him the first one, and gazed earnestly into his face. Its worn and harrowed features, its look of graven patience, smote her like a cry. She was about to speak to him eagerly and with sympathy, but ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... been little accustomed to wine, obeyed mechanically, swallowing down each glass a gorge deployee, as he was awoke from his meditations by the return of the bottle, and then filling up his glass again. Newton, who could take his allowance as well as most people, could not, however, venture to drink glass for glass with his uncle, and ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... forth so tumultuously that Lindley had found no chance to interrupt. Now he said, almost mechanically, the first words ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... welds—mechanically, of course—more surely than soft gold, owing to its greater softness; the folds can be interlaced or forced into each other, and united with more certainty, and with so much security that, after the ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... I mechanically, "a low, dissipated swindler—a common cheat, for I can call him nothing better; oh, it's impossible!—why, Mr. Vernor, your ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... against the back-cloth, rendering selections from popular Pekin revues on the drum, cymbal and one-stringed fiddle. There were the actors apparelled in the gorgeous costumes of old Cathay strutting mechanically through their parts, the female impersonators squeaking in shrill falsetto and putting in a lot of subtle fan-work. And there was the ubiquitous property-man drifting in and out among the performers, setting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... instinct; it is a purely mechanical task, which is conditioned by the implements, by the organisation of the insect. The nest, complex though it is in structure, results solely from the functioning of the organs, as in our human industries a host of objects are mechanically fashioned whose perfection puts the dexterity of the fingers ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... mind, Joel actually forgot the savages, and the risks he might run from their proximity. He walked, as it might be mechanically, to the place where he had left the pail, and then proceeded slowly towards the Knoll, pondering at every step on what he had just seen. He and the miller had secret communications with certain active agents of the revolutionists, that put them in possession of facts, notwithstanding ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... whole body lying then like a corpse with its arms trussed. There was a pause of five full minutes after this, and the blue-green flame died down. Janoo stooped to settle one of her anklets, while Azizun turned her face to the wall and took the terrier in her arms. Suddhoo put out an arm mechanically to Janoo's huqa, and she slid it across the floor with her foot. Directly above the body and on the wall were a couple of flaming portraits, in stamped paper frames, of the Queen and the Prince of Wales. They looked ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... least ten minutes' respite, was taken unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction, the form-master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said "Yes, yes," mechanically, and finally "That will do," whereupon Stone resumed his seat with the feeling that the age of miracles ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... her smoke-dimmed senses. When she was approaching the star-board boat to which her father had directed her she had lost her head, as persons will do in time of fire, and had wandered mechanically, unconsciously, to her cabin and locked herself in. But she was not frightened now. There was that in Dan which she trusted. She looked at him strangely and smiled. She caressed him with her eyes, trusting in, hanging upon, the strength ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... in her hand, and the first words formed. They looked such sprawling skeletons that Clotilde had the comfort of feeling sure they would be discerned as the work of compulsion. So she wrote on mechanically, solacing herself for what she did with vows of future revolt. Alvan had a saying, that want of courage is want of sense; and she remembered his illustration of how sense would nourish courage by scattering the fear of death, if we would only grasp the thought that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cafe and mechanically ordered beer. The seats were red plush this time and much worn. All about them groups of whiskered men leaning over tables, ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... at the moon riding high above the tops of the pointed trees. He knew the meaning of its overcast appearance, and the circle which surrounded it. There was no time to be lost. He must decide at once. But which should it be? Pete was asleep, and the fire was low. Mechanically he stooped and threw a few sticks upon the hot coals. As the flames leaped up they illuminated the ground for some distance around. They brought into clear relief the line made by the Indian upon the sand. This primitive symbol arrested his attention, and a sudden fancy entered his mind. ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... cast off all fear but that of wrong-doing, which no menace or peril can enthrall, which is calm in the midst of tumults, and possesses itself though all else be lost. I call that mind free which resists the bondage of habit, which does not mechanically repeat itself and copy the past, which does not live on its old virtues, which does not enslave itself to precise rules, but which forgets what is behind, listens for new and higher monitions of conscience, and rejoices to pour itself forth ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... before I had experience of a courtier's revenge, for two days after this circumstance, that is to say, on the 13th of May, on entering my cabinet at the usual hour, I mechanically took up the 'Moniteur', which I found lying on my desk. On glancing hastily over it what was my astonishment to find that the Comte Ferrand had been appointed Director of the Post-office in my stead. Such was the strange mode in which M. de Blacas made me feel the promised gratitude ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... mind now reeling in black despair. He had tried and failed. This was the end. The sound of footsteps had ceased. Well he knew that some one was at the door. He tried to pray and then—he crashed against the rafter. Mechanically he grasped ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... her white face as she spoke. After that there was silence for some time; but presently the Queen began to fan Beatrix again, and mechanically smoothed the coverlet. There are certain things which a womanly woman would do for her worst enemy almost unconsciously, and Eleanor was far from hating her rival. Strong and unthwarted from her childhood, and disappointed in her marriage, she had grown to look upon herself ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... his Greek and Latin were 'mechanically' taught; Hebrew scarce even mechanically; much else which they called History, Cosmography, Philosophy, and so forth, no better than not at all. So that, except inasmuch as Nature was still busy; and he himself 'went about, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... I found a supply of Haima gum, and eagerly began picking it from the tree; not that it could be used, but the thought of the brilliant light it gave was so strong in my mind that mechanically I gathered it all. The possession of this gum, when night closed round me again, produced in me an intense longing for artificial light and warmth. The darkness was harder than ever to endure. I envied the ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... for a woman that's set so many people by the ears, you let yourself up pretty easily. By Jove! here comes that fellow back again!" They all mechanically shrink aside, and leave Roberts exposed to the ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells
... heard him singing and shouting over his second toilet. I crept miserably out of the house and made my way to the mews. The ostler saddled my horse, a beautiful chestnut mare which Master Freake had given me, and I rode out of town, deep in thought. Mechanically, I went the way we had intended to go, and found myself at last on the heights that overlook London from the ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... mechanically toward the door. . . . Yes, he cared more for Joan's happiness than for his own. And she was suffering. Why, the tired truth of it was, he loved them both enough to want to see them happy . . . And he would be a ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... got paper and pencil into my hand again, and I sat and wrote mechanically the date, 1848, in each corner. If only now one single effervescing thought would grip me powerfully, and put words into my mouth. Why, I had known hours when I could write a long piece, without the least exertion, and ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... it from him, and opened it slowly and mechanically. She read it mechanically also—read it twice before she comprehended its full meaning, so great was the shock it gave her. Then she started from her seat with a cry that made the servant ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... shadow fell upon the glass. Someone was standing outside, in the hall. As if undecided, the owner of the shadow oscillated for a moment—and disappeared. Garrison, tempted to open the door and gratify a natural curiosity, remained beside his desk. Mechanically his hand, which lay upon a book entitled "A Treatise on Poisons," closed ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... originally intelligent may by frequent repetition and heredity so write their effects on the nervous system that the latter is prepared, even before individual experience, to perform adjustive actions mechanically which in previous generations were performed intelligently. This mode of origin of instincts has been appropriately called (by Lewes—see "Problems of Life and Mind" {54a}) the 'lapsing of ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... Roland took the paper mechanically. He wanted it as a diversion to the conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference in competition ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... near them listening with blanched cheek. She had not shed a tear. Her anxiety had been so concealed that no one had noticed it. She had occupied herself mechanically in the household cares. Now, she answered a gentle tap at the door, opening it to receive from a neighbor's hand a letter. "It is from him," ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... work-basket and stocking-knitting to wreak an hour of tediousness upon. The routine of business serves, I suspect, for the same purpose to us male wretches; it is seldom a burden to the mind, but a something which must be done, and is done almost mechanically; and though dull judges and duller clerks, the routine of law proceedings, and law forms, are very unlike the plumed troops and the tug of war, yet the result is the same. The occupation's gone. The morning, that the day's news must ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... she shook her head, he went on more slowly and there was no longer a wistful tremble in his voice to thrill her to her heels. "You remember the night when you offered me friendship instead of love and I scornfully refused the half loaf?" She nodded almost mechanically, her eyes on her fingers as they pleated a fold of her frock. "Well, I've changed my mind. Mary Rose has shown me that friends may have a big place in one's life and if you can't give me anything more I'm going ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... different kinds of stimuli.—This reaction under stimulus is seen even in the lowest organisms; in some of the amoeboid rhizopods, for instance. These lumpy protoplasmic bodies, usually elongated while creeping, if mechanically jarred, contract into a spherical form. If, instead of mechanical disturbance, we apply salt solution, they again contract, in the same way as before. Similar effects are produced by sudden illumination, or by rise of ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose
... evolution. Pointing out its influence in the cell-life of the tissues, he puts "cellular selection" above "personal selection," and shows how the finest conceivable adaptations in the structure of the tissue may be brought about quite mechanically, without preconceived plan. This "mechanical teleology" is a valuable extension of Darwin's monistic principle of selection to the whole field of cellular physiology and histology, and is ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... the darkness, and, at last, the rain subsiding somewhat, Jim stopped, partly to rest his smoking horse, and partly to feed his half-famished companions. Benedict ate mechanically the food that Jim fished out of the basket with a careful hand, and the boy ate as only boys can eat. Jim himself was hungry, and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... furniture in the silent apartments confronted me, bored like myself. The emptiness of my existence was never clearer to me than in such moments, until I seized a book—though none of them was sad enough for me—or mechanically engaged ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... same fashion; you are perched rather than seated on a bunch of carpets or quilts upon the summit of the hump. It happened that my dromedary veered rather suddenly from her onward course. Meeting the movement, I mechanically turned my left wrist as though I were holding a bridle rein, for the complete darkness prevented my eyes from reminding me that I had nothing but a halter in my hand. The expected resistance failed, for the halter was hanging upon that side of the dromedary’s ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... mechanically tossed her a coin, which, picking up, she gave him a farewell grin, and hastened to take her seat ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... trades must be carried on, but when the choice is ours, cleanliness should be taken into account; this is not a matter of class prejudice, our senses are our guides. In conclusion, I do not like those stupid trades in which the workmen mechanically perform the same action without pause and almost without mental effort. Weaving, stocking-knitting, stone-cutting; why employ intelligent men on such work? it is merely ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... cheek she turned to him, and went out, assuming a cheerfulness he did not feel. Madame leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, exhausted by the stress of emotion. The maid came in for orders, she gave them mechanically, then went into the living-room. She was anxious to be alone, but felt unequal to the exertion of ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... followed her. Coming along the Hawkbill road, about an eighth of a mile distant, they saw a body of horsemen, their heads and shoulders dressed in white. His revolver slipped from his fingers and rang on a fallen anvil. He picked it up mechanically, still staring into the moonlight. Again he wondered if he were afraid, as he was that night ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... the old man, with a strength scarcely to be expected, lifted up Devereux, and carried, rather than led him, down to the hold. Paul, meantime, had awakened O'Grady, who, though not comprehending what had occurred, followed him mechanically. The two midshipmen found themselves stowed away in total darkness among chests and casks ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... the room behind her and idly cleared a scrap of paper from a chair. Mechanically her hands went to the litter on his desk and she had straightened it all before she realised that there was no longer any need. To-morrow would bring a voice she did not know; would usher a stranger ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... cause, till at last you take refuge in the will of God—in other words, the sanctuary of ignorance. So, again, when they survey the frame of the human body, they are amazed; and being ignorant of the causes of so great a work of art, conclude that it has been fashioned, not mechanically, but by divine and supernatural skill, and has been so put together that one part ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... the room—from wall to wall seven paces, and at the fourth, that awful, unseen, brightly-lit profile passed as swiftly over the tranquil surface of the looking-glass. The power of concentration was gone again. He simply paced on mechanically, listening to a Babel of questions, a conflicting medley of answers. But above all the confusion and turmoil of his brain, as a boatswain's whistle rises above a storm, so sounded that same infinitesimal voice, incessantly repeating another question now, 'What are ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... point is to get back to the truth, to express the passions and emotions as nature manifests them, and not to repeat mechanically a series of conventional proceedings which are violations of the natural law. "Effects should be the echoes of a situation clearly comprehended and completely felt,"—such was the import of ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... Spilett that self-possession which he had lost in a moment of discouragement on feeling his great responsibility. He seated himself close to the bed. Cyrus Harding stood near. Pencroft had torn up his shirt, and was mechanically ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... the seal of the envelope, took out the key, and opened the box, half mechanically and ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... themselves to be drawn on to the hope of still explaining all states and processes in the world—the spiritual and the ethic processes as well as the physical—from the pure mechanism of atoms; and who see in that which thus far has been mechanically explained, the only and the infallible way of explaining all that is still obscure. They call this view the mechanical view of the world; and, as "monism," put it in opposition to the "vitalistic, teleological, and dualistic view of the world." In order to obtain a correct ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... desire for life chased away the helpless state of collapse; and Mark Heath, old athlete, expert swimmer, man hardened by his life in the southern colony, rose to the surface, and struck out, swimming slowly and mechanically, as if it were the natural action of his muscles. On and on, breasting the icy water, keeping just afloat, but progressing blindly where the tide willed; on and on through the darkness, with the yellow fog hanging like a solid bank a few feet above his head, as ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... shows itself almost virgin to the idea. Our theories assume, and our language is fitted to thinking of government as a frame—Massachusetts, I believe, actually calls her fundamental law the Frame of Government. We picture political institutions as mechanically constructed contrivances within which the nation's life is contained and compelled to approximate some abstract idea of justice or liberty. These frames have very little elasticity, and we take it as an historical commonplace that sooner ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... first sentence of this speech. Her mind was possessed by one idea. She must warn her lover. Mechanically she turned away, forgetful of her companion, and passing through the door with ever quicker steps, left her step-mother gazing ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... truths, which even in a cultivated age it was often found inexpedient to assert except under a veil of allegory, and which moreover lose their dignity and value in proportion as they are learned mechanically as dogmas, the shows of the Mysteries certainly contained suggestions if not lessons, which in the opinion not of one competent witness only, but of many, were adapted to elevate the character of the spectators, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... with terrible yells towards a neighbouring hill or mound, on which we observed the framework of a house lying ready to be erected. Sick with horror, yet fascinated by curiosity, we staggered after them mechanically, scarce knowing where we were going or what we did, and feeling a sort of impression that all we saw was a ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... to be raised another step and delivered to the next in series, etc., etc. This plan permits tapping off desired amounts of air at intermediate pressures with marked economy, and as it is slow speed, and generally direct connected with its motor on the same shaft, it is both quiet and mechanically efficient. ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... acceleration chair on the control deck of the Space Lance, waiting for Bill Sticoon to come aboard, Tom found his concern for Roger overriding his enthusiasm for the race. When Sticoon appeared and began to prepare the ship for blast-off, Tom went through the motions mechanically. The Space Lance was scheduled to leave first, with Kit Barnard following at the exact time interval of their arrivals. The Deimos tower operator's voice droned over the loud-speaker on the control deck of the Space Lance " ... minus five, four, three, two, one"—then the breath-taking ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... half the battle, and you ought to be into your dress-suit in five minutes; but you're an intellectual man, and your fingers are all thumbs, and so I'll give you ten minutes. Hello! What's this?" In speaking of shaving, Campbell has mechanically cast his eye towards the bureau, and has gradually become aware of the half-tumbler of water and the decanter of whiskey which Roberts has left standing there. He pounces upon the decanter, pulls out the stopple, and applies his nose to the mouth. "Ah, ha! This ...
— Evening Dress - Farce • W. D. Howells
... Gonzaga glanced mechanically round the chamber at the emission of these treasonable words. But there was nothing in its rude stone ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... Gentleman of long descent; and my fathers have fought and bled for the True King; and Norman blood's better than German puddle-mud," I replied, repeating well-nigh Mechanically that which my dear Kinswoman had said to me, and Instilled into me many and many a time. In my degraded Slavery, I had well-nigh forgotten the proud old words; but only once it chanced that they had risen up unbidden, when I was flouted and jeered at as Little Boy ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the rapid improvement seen in plumbing fixtures. In the development of these fixtures, as soon as a bad feature was recognized the fixture was at once discarded, until now the market offers fixtures as mechanically fine as can be produced. Plumbing fixtures were at first manufactured so that it was necessary to support them on a wooden frame, and this frame was enclosed in wood. The enclosure made by this framework soon became foul and filthy and a breeding place for all ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... from her bosom and handed them over. As Eleanor took them and began mechanically to inspect them, she caught an unconsidered trifle. Kate was not leaving the room. She had stepped over to the cheval-mirror, which faced the bed, and was adjusting the ribbon in her hair. Looking across the ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... While Harry mechanically adopted these suggestions, the gardener, getting upon his knees, hastily drew together the scattered jewels and returned them to the bandbox. The touch of these costly crystals sent a shiver of emotion through the man's stalwart ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... upon his ear. He became somewhat cooler; the images of madness which had swept through his stormy brain disappeared, and were succeeded by a lethargic vacancy of thought, which almost deprived him of the consciousness of his own identity. From the green field he descended mechanically to a little glen which opened beside it. It was one of those delightful spots to which the heart clingeth. Its sloping sides were clothed with patches of wood, on the leaves of which the moonlight glanced with a soft lustre, rendered more beautiful by their stillness. That side on which the light ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... advisable to attempt to get full or deep shades of indigo at one dip, for such would necessitate the use of strong baths. Dyeings produced in this way are liable to rub badly, because the indigo lies mostly on the surface, to which it is more or less mechanically attached. Light shades of indigo are fast to rubbing, and by repeated dippings in a light vat or a medium shade vat deep shades of fair fastness to rubbing can ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... stand and the sofa. This did not seem to disconcert her. She looked up, bowing almost imperceptibly in response to his greeting, without rising from the depths of the low chair in which she lay. Bending forwards, she stirred the fire briskly, and stooped to pick up a fallen glove, drawing it mechanically over her left hand, while her eyes wandered in search of its fellow. The glance was instantly checked, however, for she stretched out a thin, white, all-but-transparent right hand, with flawless ovals of rose-colored nail at the tips of the slender, ringless fingers, and pointed ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... into place and the sail was hoisted, the whale-boat heeled sharply over and began to cut her way through the water at a good speed, leaving the two prams far in the rear. The captain, who was steering mechanically, paid no heed to them, staring moodily ahead into the darkness. Hank looked around uneasily from time to time, then in a few ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Mechanically, as if in a dream, she opened a bandbox and put her hat away. She smoothed her soft hair before the glass. Her appearance pleased her, and she wondered if she were worth a man's life. She was a dainty morsel, no doubt, so dainty that ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... evident desire to be friendly, and the wine I was taking, I fell an easy prey to one who rarely failed to please when he was so minded. Too well amused to reflect that the hours were swiftly passing, I sat, taking glass after glass mechanically. As the night went on we had more punch, and the dice began to rattle on the tables, despite the landlord's remonstrance, who feared to fall into the hands of the law and lose his licence. But a lively major called out ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... hand mechanically. It seemed to him that a cold aura shot from it along his arm and chilled the blood running through his heart. He pressed it gently, looked at her with a face full of grave kindness and sad interest, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... which is well understood, and of which there are several mechanically equivalent forms, divides the applied driving power, whether forward or backward, between the main wheels, equally if the gear is perfect, unequally if imperfect. To understand the effect of the two ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... power of incantation and magic was still believed in) that he felt no doubt that the arch-enemy of the human race, who is continually at hand, had heard him and had now come in answer to his prayers. He sat up on the bed, feeling mechanically at the place where the handle of his sword would have been but two hours since, feeling his hair stand on end, and a cold sweat began to stream down his face as the strange fantastic being step by step approached ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... its owner mechanically. Then she started across the room. "I'll get you a pen and ink," ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... the threat. His form seemed to have grown larger; his eye dilated, flashing as it rolled, and the man shrank before its glance. He saw death in it if he disobeyed, and with a surly murmur he fumbled mechanically at his belt, and thrust the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... a little hot tea or broth, and it should be brought them upon their return without their being asked if they would care for it. Those who are in great distress want no food, but if it is handed to them, they will mechanically take it, and something warm to start digestion and stimulate impaired circulation ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... start, he wondered what set of brain-cells had been stirred to reproduce rhymes that he had, or so he deemed, long ago forgotten. And still musing, he almost mechanically went on with ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... back into the desk, and wished from the bottom of his heart he had never seen it. Mechanically he finished tidying the room, and clearing away to the adjoining study as much as possible of the superfluous furniture. Then with his own hands he lit the fire and carried out the various instructions of the doctor as to the steaming of the ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... grandpa," said Ralph, mechanically sitting up, though his ideas were still mixed ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... storm—that the castaways had chosen for their couch. But little pains had been taken in selecting the spot. It was the most conspicuous, as well as the driest; and, on stepping out of the water, they had tottered towards it, and half mechanically chosen it for their ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... and south, and mechanically prodded the ground with his walking-stick. A closer glance at his face corroborated the testimony of his clothes. It was self-complacent, yet there was small apparent ground for such complacence. Nothing irradiated it; to the eye of the magician in character, if not ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Hahn had been mechanically chewing gum most of the evening. Now his cheek muscles bulged more plainly and the end of his tongue showed for a second between his lips. His right hand dropped and he drew out a deuce. Eyes shifted from Sandy ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... and his eye travelled mechanically towards the bureau. "If we do," he said, cordially, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... yet quite "gone"; as the boat receded rapidly from view, becoming smaller and smaller, he continued mechanically to use his arms. But he had as little heart as little strength to go on with ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... back into the stirrup the Dauphin mechanically closed his knees, as a rider does to renew his grip after it has been relaxed. But with the tightening of the grip the bay started as if goaded by a vicious double rasp of the spurs, swerved violently, shaking his head ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... where, before January 1, 1978, a person has lawfully made parts of instruments serving to reproduce mechanically a copyrighted work under the compulsory license provisions of section 1(e) of title 17 as it existed on December 31, 1977, such person may continue to make and distribute such parts embodying the same mechanical reproduction without obtaining a new compulsory ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... thought, with the instinct born of a semi-guerrilla army experience, he raised his gun and fired twice at the point from which a faint puff of smoke showed the hostile bullet to have been sent. He stood a moment watching, and then rested his gun against the window, and reached behind him mechanically for the other weapon. It was not on the bench. As the sheriff realized this fact, he turned his head and looked into the ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... of attraction is seen to form, like those about the centrosomes which result in the division of the nucleus.[13] Even the external motions of a unicellular organism—of an amoeba, at any rate—are sometimes explained mechanically. The displacements of an amoeba in a drop of water would be comparable to the motion to and fro of a grain of dust in a draughty room. Its mass is all the time absorbing certain soluble matters contained in the surrounding water, and giving back to it certain others; these continual exchanges, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... him swiftly. In his sleep the young Wolfhound whimpered occasionally, and once or twice his whole great body shook to the sound of a growling bark, causing two bloodshot eyes to be half opened, and then mechanically closed again, with a small grunt, as Finn's muzzle drove a little deeper into the dry hay under his hocks, and he allowed sleep to strengthen its healing hold ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... A lead sleeve is here slipped back over the cable, out of the way, and the ends of the conductors brought together in a copper sleeve which is then sweated to a firm joint. This part must be as good a piece of work mechanically as electrically. The bare splice is then wrapped tightly with cotton or silk tape to a thickness slightly greater than that of the insulation of the cable, and is thoroughly saturated with the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... prayer ended and the minister announced the hymn, she seemed to have recovered her composure, and finding the page, offered her pretty gilt hymn-book to her guardian. He accepted it mechanically, and during the reading of the Scriptures that soon followed he slowly turned over the leaves until he reached the title-page. On the fly-leaf that fluttered over was written: "Regina Orme. With the love and prayers of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... some minutes in discovering a black horse well within the outer fringe of the cottonwoods, switching mechanically at the flies and mosquitoes that infested the place, and throwing his head impatiently to his side now and then when the sting was too sharp to ignore. With the glasses he could see the sweat-roughened hide ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... receiving no response, he concluded that Bill, in his prospecting, had wandered farther away than he intended. There was no reason for uneasiness. If he did not return soon, he would go in search of him. As he toiled on mechanically, he pondered: ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... ace of death, and my body still bore the marks of several wounds. Mazarin, to whose service I was pledged, had been banished, and I could find another patron only among his enemies. Completely wrapped up in these thoughts, I wandered along the dirty quay, and turning mechanically in the proper direction, reached the ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... beautiful Features, and well fashion'd Person, is not so agreeable as he who sits by him without any of those Advantages. When we read, we do it without any exerted Act of Memory that presents the Shape of the Letters; but Habit makes us do it mechanically, without staying, like Children, to recollect and join those Letters. A Man who has not had the Regard of his Gesture in any part of his Education, will find himself unable to act with Freedom before new Company, as a Child that ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to me she was not looking quite comfortable. I was not feeling quite comfortable myself. The atmosphere seemed a trifle oppressive: perhaps we had done wrong in having a fire after all. Lady Wickham appeared to notice it too. She sat very upright, fanning herself mechanically, and seemed disinclined to lean back ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... Ralph mechanically did as he was told; and fell off again into a heavy sleep, from which he did not awake ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... Mechanically he took the preferred letter, and with his eyes still lingering in admiration upon the classic outlines of her face and form, leaned back comfortably against the velvet lining ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... know that she was talking aloud; she was not conscious of what she was saying; she only knew that she was reaching out, with her whole soul, to the ever-present Love wherein lay protection and safety, and all the time mechanically pulling the portiere closer ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... book and laid it down. Furrows seamed his face, changing, re-forming, to the inner upheaval. After awhile, he lifted Weatherbee's watch from the desk and mechanically pressed the spring. The lower case opened, but the picture he remembered was not there. In its place was the face of the other ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... Count Paul." Sylvia heard herself uttering gently, composedly, the words which meant at once so much and so little to them both. "It is a pity that all men do not feel about this as you do," she concluded mechanically. ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... them exert themselves ever so energetically to train Chinese soldiers: let them even supply leaders: the Chinese Army will, nevertheless, even under the most favorable conditions, never be more than an artificially created, mechanically united, unstable organism. Subject it but once to the serious test of war, speedy dissolution will overtake such an army, which could never hope for victory over a foe animated with any real spirit." On the other hand, high testimony has ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Mechanically she copied the order on a slip of paper which she put into her pocket, left her desk and her work and the store, and hurried ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... bent over his desk lost in thought. He held a pencil in his hand and mechanically drew fantastic figures on a large sheet of white paper which lay before him. He suddenly came out of his revery. He had just solved a last difficulty; his plan was now entire and complete. ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... itself under the high-sounding title of—what? He could not formulate it. If his brain were only not so confused! What could so suddenly have affected him? He was always so clear-headed and logical. Was he going to be ill? When he reached his desk he sat down before it and mechanically took up his pen. He leaned his head on his hand, like a man in a state of mental exhaustion, and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them wide, with an exclamation which was almost a cry; and of his usual calm repose there was not a trace remaining. He leaned forward breathlessly and put ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... though known were never once remembered. Oh, no! I obtained, with great difficulty and as an unmerited favour a charitable condescension of power that knew not very well if it ought to be so kind to a being so unprotected, yes, I obtained—the office of usher! The honour of mechanically hearing declensions, conjugations, and rules of syntax and prosody, repeated by beings who detested the labour to which they were compelled, was conferred upon me! beings who looked on me, not as a benefactor, but as a tyrant! And tyrants all ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... as if turned to stone. Mechanically, she listened to the voice of the priest reciting the De Profundis; she listened to the call of the crickets shrilling through the summer night without; she listened to the heart-breaking sobs of faithful black Mandy crouching on the floor by the side of her "li'l Missy;" she ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... sight of her and stayed there, staring. She tried to speak, to welcome him, but could not, no words would come. He also seemed to be smitten with dumbness, and thus the two of them remained a while. At last he took off his hat almost mechanically, as though from instinct, and ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... accompanied by guards, drums, officers, and all the paraphernalia which mechanically inspire respect and awe, makes their countenance, when sometimes seen alone without these accompaniments, impress respect and awe on their subjects; because we cannot separate in thought their persons from the surroundings with ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... began to feel bad as he met the doctor's cold look; and he followed him mechanically ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... neighbouring village, likely one hundred years hence to be a place of pilgrimage for Americans and for Australians. Age, he said, improves true beauty; and his eyelids indicated a levelling to perform the soft intentness. Mechanically, a ball rose in her throat; the remark was illuminated by a saying of Colney's, with regard to his countrymen at the play of courtship. No laughter came. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the first time. Fanny Brandeis would have given everything she had, everything she hoped to be, to be able to take back that monosyllable. She was gripped with horror at what she had done. She had spoken almost mechanically. And yet that monosyllable must have been the fruit of all these months of inward struggle and thought. "Now I begin to understand you," Fenger went on. "You've decided to lop off all the excrescences, eh? Well, I can't say that I blame you. A woman in business is handicapped ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... alone, by night or by day, had no other object than that sex he seemed to flee from. The girls most careful of their persons were naturally those who pleased him most, and as the part least easy to keep clean is that which touches the earth it was to the foot-gear that he mechanically gave his chief attention. Agathe, Reine, and especially Madeleine, were the most elegant of the girls at that time; their carefully selected and kept shoes, instead of laces or buckles, which were not yet worn at ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... of the injury; and they weathered that dreadful time till the frantic fits ceased, and there was only the dull, silent, stoniness of look and manner, lasting on after his health had entirely returned, and he had begun mechanically to attend to the farm and stock, and give ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... patrol as it left the courtyard. The patrol bent its steps towards the right, by the Rue St. Honore, and mechanically La Valliere turned to the left. Her resolution was taken—her determination fixed; she wished to betake herself to the convent of the Carmelites at Chaillot, the superior of which enjoyed a reputation for severity which made the worldly-minded people of the court tremble. La Valliere ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... joggled along, his naked legs rising and falling mechanically. The wireless operator drew the folds of the kimono more closely about his throat, for the night air blowing off the Whang-poo ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... everything depends on just what kind of affixing we have to deal with. If we compare our English words farmer and goodness with such words as height and depth, we cannot fail to be struck by a notable difference in the affixing technique of the two sets. The -er and -ness are affixed quite mechanically to radical elements which are at the same time independent words (farm, good). They are in no sense independently significant elements, but they convey their meaning (agentive, abstract quality) with unfailing ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... fast losing that sense of well being which had been his during his travels through the fog; a fatigue tugged at his arms and weighed leaden on his shoulders. Mechanically he prospected for the next hold, and then the next. Above, the oblong of half-light grew smaller and smaller, sometimes half blotted out by the movements of Thorvald's body as the other followed him down ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... our friend the sportsman, who soon awoke from his sound slumber, quite refreshed. He yawned, stretched himself, and mechanically extended his hand towards the spot where ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... had long since stopped trying to make the lesson interesting, found herself saying mechanically, "What other birds have ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... of Lesbos [Aristophanes, Nic. Eth., v. 14.]; it could not be bent to suit the diversities of individual character, but was a rule iron and inflexible, which applied equally to all. His measure was that of Procrustes; the cleverest boys could not stretch themselves beyond it, the dullest were mechanically pulled into its dimensions. Hence some fared hardly under it; yet let me hasten to say that, on the whole, with the great number of average boys, it was a success. The discipline which he established was perfect, and though many boys winced under it at the time, it was valuable ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... at ease. He followed his guide mechanically as they made their way, in zigzag fashion, down the precipitous slopes and over slippery plateaus; and when at last he came in sight of the mighty arch, the long cavern, and the glimmer of sea and shore that could be seen through ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... in such haste?" he asked, taking the five pounds mechanically, and forgetting all that he had ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... was filled with bustle and movement, for it was the supper hour, when all tools were laid aside, and trestles and tables shifted. Christian had no knowledge of what he said and did; he moved and spoke mechanically, half thinking that soon he must wake from this horrible dream. Sweyn and his mother supposed him to be cold and dead-tired, and spared all unnecessary questions. And he found himself seated beside the hearth, opposite that dreadful Thing that looked like a beautiful girl; watching ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... disconsolate at dinner. He was one of those people, common enough in our Puritan civilization, who would rather forego any pleasure than incur the reaction which must follow with all the keenness of remorse; and he always mechanically pitied (for the operation was not a rational one) such unhappy persons as he saw enjoying themselves. But he had not meant to add bitterness to the anguish which Lily would necessarily feel in retrospect of the night's gayety; he had not known that he was recognizing, by ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... long, yet saw nothing, or remembered nothing that she had seen. Once or twice she thought, "Perhaps in a few days more, Maurice will be passing over this very line; he will be disappointed when he reaches home and finds that we are gone;" but all her meditations were dreamy and unreal—her mind acted mechanically. A kind of moral catalepsy benumbed her. Afterwards when she remembered this time, she wondered at herself; she could not comprehend the absence of sensation with which she had left the dear home and all the familiar ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... on the floor, and walked with his hands behind him to the window, out of which, still faintly whistling, he gazed with eyes that saw nothing. Once his lips opened to emit mechanically the Englishman's expletive of sudden enlightenment. At length he turned to the shelves again, and swiftly but carefully examined every one ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... curvature of the whole growing part for a length of from 7 to 8 mm. This occurred chiefly when the first curvature was small, and when an object had been affixed more than once to the apex of the same radicle. The attachment of a bit of card by shellac to one side of the tender apex may sometimes mechanically prevent its growth; or the application of thick gum-water more than once to the same side may injure it; and then checked growth on this side with continued growth on the opposite and unaffected side would account for the ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... the desk of the operator (the teacher), and there so arranged as to admit of opening and closing the circuit of an electric current at will by the simple touch of a button, and thereby producing along the line of that particular wire simultaneous electric impulses, intended to act mechanically upon all the styles connected with it. By these impulses, produced by the will of the sender, the styles are driven upward with a quick motion, but with only sufficient force to be felt and located upon the hand by the recipient. Twenty-six of these principal or primary wires are run from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... that the chapter entitled "Juana," in the superb tale of "The Maranas," as also the story of "La Grenadiere," was written in a single night. He gives at the same period this account of his habits of work: "I must tell you that I am up to my neck in excessive work. My life is mechanically arranged. I go to bed at six or seven in the evening, with the chickens; I wake up at one in the morning and work till eight; then I take something light, a cup of pure coffee, and get into the shafts of my cab until four; I receive, I take a bath, or I go out, and after dinner I go to bed. ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... scarcely less quiet than her slumbering companion; she sat in one changeless attitude, with her hands clasped together in her lap, and her eyes always looking straight forward, as they had looked when she walked upon the platform. Once she put her hand mechanically to the belt of her dress, and then shook her head with a sigh as she ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... pathos, no humanity in the more special sense, but a kind of hardness and cruelty rather, in those oft-repeated, long, matter-of-fact processions, on the [265] marbles of Nineveh, of slave-like soldiers on their way to battle mechanically, or of captives on their way to slavery or death, for the satisfaction of the Great King. These Greek marbles, on the contrary, with that figure yearning forward so graciously to the fallen leader, are deeply ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Her dress had been rich; it was now torn and damp, and clung in dank folds to her limbs. The child she carried appeared to be four months old. She held it convulsively at her breast, and when it gave forth a feeble cry she rocked it mechanically. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... and shrieked, are now sending forth leaves of tender green and the voice of the wind caressing them is softened to a tone as musical as the song of birds. Flowers are springing up, not in the rigid rows or precise squares of a mechanically inclined horticulturist, but surprising one by elbowing themselves out of the narrowest crevices, or peeping bashfully out from behind fallen trees, or clinging almost upside down to the ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... the pleasant hours, in spite of my misgivings, that I passed with a book in my hand, mechanically pacing the gravel walks of Russell Square. Certain readings of Shakespeare's plays, "Othello" and "Macbeth" especially, in lonely absorption of spirit, I associate for ever with that place. I remember, too, reading ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... up so suddenly as almost to throw the horse on its haunches, and, wheeling round, darted towards the savages. Bertram followed almost mechanically. ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... reading a short time under the ilex tree, where the Fathers congregate. I had St. Augustine's De Opere Monachorum. Some people passed on the upper road, talking in loud voices. I raised my head mechanically. Then, I cannot tell why, but instead of resuming my reading, I closed the book and fell to thinking. I thought of what St. Augustine says about manual labour for monks, I thought of the order of St. Benedict, of Rance, and of how the Benedictine order might again return to manual labour. ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... we reached the ships, and we had then been twelve hours upon our legs. Poor Ivaskin found himself exceedingly tired and overcome with fatigue; probably he was more sensible of it for want of a supply of snuff; for every step he took his hand dived mechanically into his pocket, and drew out his huge empty box. We had scarcely got into the tent, when the weather set in exceedingly rough and wet. We congratulated ourselves that we had not staid out another day, the Hospodin's box was replenished, and we forgot the fatigues and ill success of our ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... I threw the journal aside and occupied myself with other matters. Four days later, when the evening paper appeared with enormous head-lines announcing the murder of Mademoiselle Stangerson, the letters in the advertisement mechanically recurred to me. I had forgotten the two last letters, S. N. When I saw them again I could not help exclaiming, 'Stangerson!' I jumped into a cab and rushed into the bureau No. 40, asking: 'Have you a letter ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... out in a gay song: she went mechanically on with her dressing, listening to that merry song in the midst of her bewildering thoughts with a dreary feeling ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... blood rush back to his face in astonishment and indignation. His heels mechanically pressed his horse's flanks, and the ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... I comed from the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. Take me in, won't you?' Jerry said; and, mechanically leaning from the window, Arthur took her in, while Harold from below looked on, horror-struck with fear as to what the result might be if Jerry were left any time alone with a madman ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... advances from triumph to triumph vanquishing evil at every step. It is impossible to become absorbed in his personages, who have less body than his spectres, and whose adventures take the form of a walk through an exhibition of horrors, mechanically set in motion to prove their prowess. Dr. Drake seems happier when the hideous beings are put to rout, and the transformation-scene, which places fairyland before us, suddenly descends on the stage. Yet the bungling ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... Mechanically the criminal drew his sabre; he had thrown off his domino, and now stood revealed in the uniform he disgraced, and offered the hilt to the emperor. Napoleon clutched it, and snapped the blade under foot. Then, tearing off his epaulets, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... that he could not be mistaken; and though the other did not stop, but on the contrary rather hastily walked away towards the door, Esmond pursued him and faced him once more, as the officer helping himself to holy water, turned mechanically towards the altar to bow to it ere he ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his glass, and always, mechanically, he emptied it; but the wine kindled no spark of enterprise in him. He did not eat, and I myself ate hardly at all. I did not in my heart believe that any dash for freedom could save him. The chase would ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm
... line. The exigencies of the modern industrial system frequently place individuals and households in juxtaposition between whom there is little contact in any other sense than that of juxtaposition. One's neighbors, mechanically speaking, often are socially not one's neighbors, or even acquaintances; and still their transient good opinion has a high degree of utility. The only practicable means of impressing one's pecuniary ability ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... somebody now by his side, there always would be, to care for the things that happened to him; and Rachel, too, would be borne up on the wave of excitement and rejoicing that was shaking Rendel, to his own surprise, so strangely out of his usual reserved composure. He sat down mechanically at his writing-table and drew a sheet of writing-paper idly towards him, wondering how he should formulate his reply. To his great surprise and somewhat shamefaced amusement, he found that his hand was shaking ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... studied the patient thoughtfully. He explained the case briefly to his successor, as he had all the others, and before leaving the bed, he had the nurse take the patient's temperature. "Only two degrees of fever," he commented mechanically; "that is very good. Has his wife—has any one been in to see him?" The head nurse, who stood like an automaton at the foot of the bed, replied that she had seen no one; in any case, the doorkeeper would ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... He sat down mechanically and looked round the dull little room, and the dulness of it, the dinginess, the unhomelikeness of it struck on his heart as it had never ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... and the barns, working on the farms, wading the mud and water of the river bank, or tingling with cold on the ice went two Dannies. The one a dull, listless man, mechanically forcing a tired, overworked body to action, and the other ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... mechanically that Alec pressed the bulb of his camera at just the very second when that wall was toppling over. He had a faint recollection afterwards of doing so, though only filled with horror ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... He went on mechanically reading down the bulletin, leaving something of himself behind him that did not read on. Then he returned to that remarkable item and re-read it, and picked up that lost element of ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... and confounded by the collected manner of the baron, I placed my arm mechanically in his, and suffered him to conduct me whethersoever he would. We walked in silence for some distance, passed into the meanest quarter of the city, and reached a miserable and squalid street. The baron pointed to the most wretched house in the lane, and bade me direct my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... Alyosha mechanically let himself be led out. In the yard stood a covered cart. Horses were being taken out of the shafts, men were running to and fro with a lantern. Three fresh horses were being led in at the open gate. But when Alyosha and Rakitin reached the bottom of the steps, Grushenka's bedroom ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Axona; here is Berry-au-Bac; here was Caesar, here were the invaders, here was General French, here Foch, here Von Kluck. Curious, isn't it—two thousand years afterward?" His eyes for an instant filled with dreamy perplexity. A little while later I would hear him mechanically telephoning. "Poste A—five 'seventy-seven' shells, six mines, twelve trench shells; answer—ten 'seventy-five' shells, eight mines, eighteen trench shells; Poste B—two 'seventy-seven' shells, one mine, six grenades; answer—fifteen 'seventy-five' shells; ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... war was now begun not, as in other countries, by the mob, but by the government. Relics like the Blood of Hailes were destroyed, and the Rood of Boxley, a crucifix mechanically contrived so that the priests made it nod and smile or shake its head and frown according to the liberality of its worshipper, was taken down and the mechanism exposed in various places. At Walsingham in Norfolk was a nodding image of the Virgin, a bottle of her milk, still liquid, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... of the room, resumes work on her knees at the box. SAM HORROCKS is a hulking young man of a rather vacant expression. He is dressed in mechanic's blue dungarees. His face is oily and his clothes stained. He wears boots, not clogs. He mechanically takes a ball of oily black cotton-waste from his right pocket when in conversational difficulties and wipes his hands upon it. He has a red muffler round his neck without collar, and his shock affair hair is surmounted by a greasy ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... did not go towards Rectory Lane, but along the side path. Tom mechanically accompanied him, but without speaking. At last Mr. Cardew, finding that Tom did not leave him, retraced his steps and went up the lane. In about two minutes ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... nature, giving and receiving, action and reaction balance each other mechanically and automatically. What we gain in power we lose in speed or volume, and vice versa. This makes it possible for the mechanic, the scientist and the astronomer to predict with mathematical precision for ages in advance the results ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... knee against hers, she immediately looked at him fondly, and her breasts rose and fell tumultuously as she mechanically ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... hours; he swabbed it out, and poured in the powder and inserted the fuse; then filled up the rest of the hole with dirt and small fragments of stone; tamped it down firmly, touched his candle to the fuse, and ran. By and by the I dull report came, and he was about to walk back mechanically and see what was accomplished; but he halted; presently turned on his heel and thought, rather ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner |
