"Insecurely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... low warned them to hasten their return; but to their consternation, when they again reached the end of the passage, they found its entrance closed. The great slab, insecurely supported, had fallen into place, and the utmost exertion of their feeble strength ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... and overcoat, he made his way noiselessly to his studio in the attic. With cautious movement he fingered the locks on his door. Would Miller's plan for catching Spencer's murderer work out? According to their arrangement he had left the door insecurely fastened. ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... down from the bench; tied insecurely and crookedly to the tentpole, the Union Jack hung limp on the windless air. "If only I could do things like that!" he thought, as he carried the bench back ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... Penrod, of Penrod and Sam, and of Seventeen passes for an expert in youth; rarely has so persistent a reputation been so insecurely founded. What all these books primarily recall is the winks that adults exchange over the heads of children who are minding their own business, as the adults are not; the winks, moreover, of adults ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... stepped gingerly in, half-frightened at my own temerity, and sat down. The boat glided slowly out again to the length of its chain and then became motionless. But it was motionless only for a moment or two. A splash in the water drew my attention to the chain. It had been insecurely fastened to a branch of the willow; my weight in the boat had caused it to become detached and fall into the water, and with horrified eyes I saw that I had now no means of getting back to the shore. Next moment the strength of the current ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... place to public exhibition at a guinea a ticket, and sold seventy-two hundred tickets. Then for thirty-seven days he conducted an auction-sale of the treasures at Fonthill, charging a half-guinea admission. He ultimately sold the estate for $1,750,000. In 1825 the tower, which had been insecurely built, fell with a great crash, and so frightened the new owner, who was an invalid, that, though unhurt by the disaster, he died soon afterwards. The estate was again sold and the abbey taken down, so that now only ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... her as she fell," remarked the latter, after a cursory examination of the glittering trinket. "The pin by which she attached it to her dress must have been insecurely fastened." Then quickly and with a sharp look at Miss Tuttle: "Do you know if this ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... sayest is true. Greater is Thy care for me than all the care which I am able to take for myself. For too insecurely doth he stand who casteth not all his care upon Thee. Lord, so long as my will standeth right and firm in Thee, do with me what Thou wilt, for whatsoever Thou shalt do with me cannot be aught but good. Blessed be Thou if Thou wilt leave me in darkness: blessed also be Thou if Thou wilt leave ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... tendency. The Tite Barnacles do not imagine or pretend that they are saving the Republic; they simply make use of a convenient political machinery to serve their private ends. Therefore their position, however strong it may seem for the moment, is insecurely founded. It rests upon no moral basis, it finds no stronghold in the national character. Outsiders may think the average American citizen strangely tolerant of abuses, and indeed I find him smiling with placid amusement at things which, were I in his place, would make ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... the door. The "Saints" held daily meetings, and the people had time enough to attend them. Winter proved how insecurely the town was established, how feeble were its roots; it was not here as it was up in the country, where a man could enjoy himself in the knowledge that the earth was working for him. Here people made themselves ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... programme. Every time he was thus awakened he drove back the wolves with flying brands, replenished the fire, and rearranged the pine-knot on his hand. All worked well, but there came a time when he fastened the pine- knot insecurely. As his eyes closed it fell away from ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... mean time they in the ships were at their wits end, hearing nothing from us ashore, and not knowing well what to do. They rode very insecurely in an open anchorage, the wind blowing continually hard at S.S.E. inclosed all round with shoals, and their water beginning to fail, as we had started fifty tons in our large ship to lighten her when we got aground. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... the middle of the room, standing insecurely, his legs far apart, the decanter in his hand, the decanter which had been more than half full when Honor left the room and had now less than an inch of liquor in it. Yaqui Juan, his face sullen, his eyes black and bitter, crouched on the floor, ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... pain stabbed his groin, as though he had been stuck by a penknife; each time he bent his ankle in the recover the mal de raquette twisted his calves, and stretched his ankle tendons until he felt that his very feet were insecurely attached and would drop off. During the evening he sat quiet, but after he had fallen asleep from the mere exhaustion of the day's toil, he doubled up, straightened out, groaned aloud, and spoke rapidly in the strained ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... other hand, was naturally eager for an early engagement. He was still very insecurely seated upon the English throne. The people were either discontented or indifferent. They looked with impatience and indignation at the crowd of Dutch officers and civilians, whom William had brought over with him; while the cold and ungracious ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... she hung on to the baby's white dress, which she had already torn to ribbons in her clutches. She heard the swift oncoming of the motor boat and feared lest its waves might even yet wash the little form away that she held so insecurely. She refused to lift her eyes as the sound of the engine grew louder and she felt a sickening fear of the first waves that might reach her from ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... feet were covered by the earth. It is exactly like the other figure, with the hands over the belly, aproned and ornately tasseled on its left. It has armlets and a ruff-like ornament round its neck. The interesting part of the statuette is most decidedly its head, which had been knocked off and only insecurely replaced, when I first set eyes on it. The thick-lipped, broad-nosed face is negroid in type.... The treatment of the hair in this granite head is especially of the very greatest interest. The hair is represented by little iron pegs ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... her dislike of the remark, with its implied criticism of her own judgment. And she was uneasy over the turn that the whole matter had taken. Farvel married, no matter to whom, was one thing: Farvel very insecurely tied, and possessed of a small daughter whose mother repudiated her, that was quite another. She watched Sue narrowly, for Sue was ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... and dressed herself for the first time alone. Though her fingers were deft and skillful at the tapestry frame, and neat and clever at limning, they were slow and bungling when drawing together the laces of her girdle, indeed 'twas very insecurely done, and when she was dressed she had forgotten her stays, and but for the lateness of the hour would have disrobed and donned them. It seemed like an endless task to try and dress again by the poor light of the single candle, ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... of an intensely modern Gobelin sofa, studied her cousin as he balanced himself insecurely on one of the small gilt chairs which always look surprised ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... lay, expecting no attack, at Neustadt, Intrenched but insecurely in our camp, When towards evening rose a cloud of dust From the wood thitherward; our vanguard fled Into the camp, and sounded the alarm. Scarce had we mounted ere the Pappenheimers, Their horses at full speed, broke through ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... days later one of the Persians saw close by one of the towers the mouth of an old underground passage, which was insecurely concealed with some few small stones. In the night he came there alone, and, making trial of the entrance, got inside the circuit-wall; then at daybreak he reported the whole matter to Cabades. The ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... her glorious hair was twisted in a loose coil and pinned insecurely; the habit she had thrown on was ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... was in active service at the beginning of the war. Her two successors on the company's building ways were less fortunate. La Patrie, after many successful trips, and manoeuvres with the troops, was insecurely moored at Verdun, the famous fortress where she was to have been permanently stationed. Came up a heavy gale. Her anchors began to drag. The bugles sounded and the soldiers by hundreds rushed from the fort to aid. Hurled along by the wind she dragged the soldiers after her. Fearing disaster ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... golden brown hair were pushed a bit awry, and her face was so wan and thoughtful that even her dress of crimson wool did not lessen its pallor. The voices of the three children on the floor grated on the old man's mood as they were busied in defending a settler's fort, insecurely constructed of stones and sticks, and altogether roofless, garrisoned by a number of pebbles, while a poke full of wily Indian kernels of corn swarmed to ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... pile of rocks which formed the Chimneys was solid. It was composed of enormous blocks of granite, a few of which, insecurely balanced, seemed to tremble on their foundations, and Pencroft could feel rapid quiverings under his head as it rested on the rock. But he repeated to himself, and rightly, that there was nothing to fear, and that their retreat would not give way. However he heard the noise of stones ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... Sunlander could hope to pass and live. In the village remained only the wounded men, while every able man—and there were thirty of them—followed Oloof to the secret opening. A hundred feet of broken ledges and insecurely heaped rocks were between it and the earth, and because of the rocks, which might be displaced by the touch of hand or foot, but one man climbed at a time. Oloof went up first, called softly for the next to come on, and disappeared ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... retained her hand—with the other she clung to a withered tree, whose roots held insecurely by the rock. Making another effort, she sprang from his grasp; but the tree was rent from its hold, and she fell with it to the edge of the precipice. Ere the Silver Knight could interpose, a faint shriek announced her descent: a swift crash ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... launch, various modes of landing are required by the vagaries of the tide, the outlying reefs, and the position of the ports. A wobbling erection of crossed oars, a plank insecurely poised on the shoulders of two men, a rocking bloto, and an occasional wade to shore, with shoes and stockings in hand, vary the monotony of the proceedings. Landing at Batjan is accomplished in a chair, borne aloft on two woolly black ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... conducted, a brief reference to the course of the war is necessary. The change from regular to guerilla warfare initiated by the Boer leaders in the later months of this year (1900), and the consequent withdrawal of British garrisons from insecurely held districts both in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, were accompanied by the return to arms of many burghers who, on taking the oath of neutrality, had been allowed to resume their civil occupations. This breach of faith, whether voluntary or compulsory, ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... The shrewish December wind snapped trousers about legs like broom-handles. Black pads were hugged to his ears by a steel strip that curved behind his head, and he wore a hard hat that seemed merely to perch insecurely on his caput instead of fit. Constable Nute, getting a glimpse of him through the store-window, remarked that with five minutes and a razor-strop he could put a shaving edge on the stranger's visage, but added promptly when he saw him disappear into the town office ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... de Marigny, "Directeur & Ordonnateur General de ses Batimens, Jardins, Arts, Academies & Manufactures" to Lewis the Fifteenth, above which is a delicate headpiece by M. Charles-Nicolas Cochin (the greatest of the family), where a couple of that artist's well-nourished amorini, insecurely attached to festoons, distribute palms and laurels in vacuity under a coroneted oval displaying fishes. For Monsieur Abel-Francois Poisson, Marquis de Marigny et de Menars, was the younger brother of Jeanne-Antoinette ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... favourite books had been gathering there for years, and now lined two walls and overhung the bed after a very perilous fashion, and had dispossessed the looking-glass,—which had become a nomad and was at present resting insecurely on John Owen,—and stood in banks round the bed. During his few days of illness the Rabbi had accumulated so many volumes round him that he lay in a kind of tunnel, arched over, as it were, with literature. ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... of the smelting town, where eyrie houses perched insecurely on a precipitous landscape. It was a broad, well-engineered road that took them up a grade miles long and plunged down into the Canyon of the Sacramento. The road, rock-surfaced and easy-graded, hewn out of the canyon wall, grew ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... out at the faint stars, and comfort herself with a feeble repetition of her favourite plea, that it was not "my fault." The poor lady was startled out of her own troubles by the sight of her nephew's tall unmistakable figure; and, as bad luck would have it, Rosa's hat, tied insecurely by her agitated fingers, blew off at that moment, so that Mr Wentworth's aunt became aware, to her inexpressible horror and astonishment, who his companion was. The unhappy Curate divined all the thoughts that would arise in her perturbed bosom, when he saw the indistinct ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... down helpless by the soldiers, and laid me in a more comfortable and cleaner part of the tent. Then he ordered a soldier to bring me a blanket. Next, to my astonishment, he became very severe, and said he must examine my bonds. He turned quite angry, scolding the soldiers for leaving me so insecurely tied, and proceeded to make the knots firmer, a thing which I felt was impossible. Though he pretended to use all his strength in doing this, I found, much to my amazement, that my bonds were really ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... attention to their lips and eyes. For Maurice loved a thing of beauty, were it a woman, a horse or a Mediterranean sunset. What a difference between these two years in Vienna and that year in Calcutta! He never would forget the dingy office, with its tarnished sign, "U. S. Consul," tacked insecurely on the door, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... fiddle" among many, the faulty individual will, I hope, escape detection. The story of the flying play-bill is calculated to expose a practice much too common, of pinning play- bills to the cushions insecurely, and frequently, I fear, not pinning them at all, if these lines save one play-bill only front the fate I have recorded, I shall not deem my labour ill employed. The concluding episode of Patrick Jennings glances at the boorish fashion of wearing ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... apply his skill, The harder is the matter still; Plain are indeed the law's demands, Yet judgment insecurely stands As some poor cow on shifting ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... were scattered around. One of the latter, in particular, attracted his attention; it was of crystal, and fine figures were cut thereon. He lifted it up and turned it on all sides; but, oh horror! he had not observed that it had a lid, which was but insecurely fastened on: it fell to the floor, and broke into ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... applied to the viewless art of literature, must fit it loosely and insecurely at best—does it not seem so? They are words usurped from other arts, words that suppose a visible and measurable object, painted or carved. For criticizing the craft of fiction we have no other language than that which has been devised ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... represented. The stone, detached from the mountain, and apparently self-moved, dashes against the heterogeneous mass of iron and clay on which the colossus insecurely stands, and down it comes with a crash, breaking into a thousand fragments as it falls. 'Like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors' (Daniel ii. 35) is the debris, which is whirled out of sight by the wind. Christ and His kingdom have reshaped the world. These ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... live either in some corner of the stable, or in the loft. At first I felt very frightened at thus passing the night alone, surrounded by the wild gloom of the forest, and in a room that was only very insecurely fastened; but, as I was everywhere assured that such a thing as a forcible entry into a house had never been heard of, I soon dismissed my superfluous anxiety, and enjoyed ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... little check upon my descent. I followed the edge of the sail right away out over the sea, to where it was secured to the large horizontal projecting boom, and here my feet rested as I held on and looked inboard from where I insecurely stood, faintly making out the figure of Bob Hampton, who was in perfect ignorance of my descent, though how it was he did not hear the rustling I cannot make out, unless he was asleep—though he never would own to it in ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... gesticulations, and rhythmic pacings that stun and dismay my nerves, I find, the same object sought, release from self, and the same end, the end of identification with the immortal, successfully if perhaps rather insecurely achieved. I see God indubitably present in these excitements, and I see personalities I could easily have misjudged as too base or too dense for spiritual understandings, lit by the manifest reflection of divinity. One may be led into the absurdest underestimates of religious ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... with the question of the cost of drainage. If the work is insecurely done, and is liable, in five years or in fifty, to become worthless; the increase of the crops resulting from it, must not only cover the yearly interest on the cost, but the yearly depreciation as well. Therefore what may seem at the time of ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... forked animal,"—worse clothed than the birds, worse housed than the beaver, worse fed than the jackal. "Weak in himself," says Carlyle, "and of small stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of some half square foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs, Jest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals are a crushing load for him; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft like a waste rag. Nevertheless he can use tools, can devise tools: with these the granite mountain melts into light dust ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... men exercising a large influence over the worst elements of the population of this city, giving to those elements an immunity for riot and bloodshed, the general-in-chief will see how insecurely I felt in letting them occupy their respective positions in the troubles which might occur in registration and voting in the reorganization ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... flurries of the wind, striking the sea like flails, came momentary pauses or long silences. In one of these the woman raised her arms, she the while unheeding the cold tide wash about her feet, where she stood insecurely on the wet ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... of logs, insecurely fastened together, rolled and then pitched loose again, but the short delay had been ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... little way off among charred dead weeds stands the abandoned station,—abandoned because every man who stayed two months at that station stayed to die, eaten up mysteriously like a leper with its dismantled sheds and its decaying pier of wormrotten and oblique piles and planks, still insecurely possible. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... build, in any style, what will last for ages; but only in the Gothic is it possible to give security and dignity to work wrought with imperfect means and materials. And I trust that there will come a time when the English people may see the folly of building basely and insecurely. It is common with those architects against whose practice my writings have hitherto been directed, to call them merely theoretical and imaginative. I answer, that there is not a single principle asserted either in the "Seven Lamps" or here, but is of the simplest, sternest veracity, and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... face the major, and report to him that I had met the rebel captain, talked with him, drank with him, enjoyed his hospitality, and then let him escape? I felt that my military career had come to an inglorious ending. "We rode slow, because the Iron Brigade was insecurely mounted on a slippery bare-backed mule. As we neared the corporal and one man, that I had left to guard the cross-roads, I noticed that there was a stranger with them, and on riding closer what was my ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck |
