"Slowest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the various geological agencies we must remember the almost inconceivable times in which they work. The slowest process when multiplied by the immense time in which it is carried on produces great results. The geologist looks upon the land forms of the earth's surface as monuments which record the slow action of weathering and other agents during the ages of ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... by subjecting her neighbors, the Latins, first, then the little peoples of the south, the Volscians, the AEquians, the Hernicans, later the Etruscans and the Samnites, and finally the Greek cities. This was the hardest and slowest of their conquests: beginning with the time of the kings, it did not terminate until 266, after four centuries ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... the air, and yep-yep-yeping uproariously when Forteune, their master, begged of them to bear a hand. Dean Presto might have borrowed from them a hint for his Yahoos. The threat to empty the Alugu (rum) upon the sand was efficacious. One by one they rose to work, and in the slowest possible way were produced five oars, of which one was sprung, a ricketty rudder, a huge mast, and a sail composed half of matting and half of holes. At the last moment, the men found that they had no "chop;" a franc produced two bundles ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... of the Lord, and so is the assurance of it. Where there is the life of God, there will be His witness, even in the heart of the weakest and slowest servant of all His household. If you are not clear about this first evidence of your Lord's coming, let me counsel you that there is something wrong. If Christ be formed in you, you will assuredly know it beyond the power of men or ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... and they sailed, and there was but little wind, and that from the south and against them. But Lucilla did not complain at their slow progress. The slowest vessel in the world was preferable just now to a desert island ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... woman called out to know if I would eat. I asked if she could give lodging also and she referred me to her husband inside. I stopped to peer in through the doorway and he answered there was not room enough as it was, which was evident to the slowest-witted, for the family of six or eight of all ages, more or less dressed, lying and squatted about the earth floor dipping their fingers into bowls of steaming food, left not a square foot unoccupied. He advised me to go "beg license" of the "senora" of the house farther ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... the tortoise is the symbol of the summer solstice, as the snail, which occurs only as a head ornament in the manuscripts and not independently, is the symbol of the winter solstice; both, as the animals of slowest motion, represent the apparent standstill of the sun at the periods specified. This explains why the month Kayab, in which the summer solstice falls, should be represented by the head of a tortoise, which has for its eye the sun-sign Kin (Foerstemann, Zur Entzifferung der Mayahandschriften ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... of the powers in the moral world, but one that, in its immediate result, is not always of the most worldly advantage to the possessor. It is one of the slowest, because one of the most durable, of agencies. It may take a thousand years for a thought to come into power; and the thinker who originated it might have died in rags or ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... yourself becoming bound to the dismal thought of your test and its terrors, free yourself from it every time, by concentrating upon the weight of your body, or the slowness of the slowest breaths you can draw. Keep yourself truly free, and these feelings of discouragement and all other mental distortions will steadily lose power, until for you they are no more. If they last longer ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... which calls Milan to the field, As had been made by shrill Gallura's bird." He spoke, and in his visage took the stamp Of that right seal, which with due temperature Glows in the bosom. My insatiate eyes Meanwhile to heav'n had travel'd, even there Where the bright stars are slowest, as a wheel Nearest the axle; when my guide inquir'd: "What there aloft, my son, has caught thy gaze?" I answer'd: "The three torches, with which here The pole is all on fire. "He then to me: "The ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... should take pains to minimise the annoyance; and once on his back you should sit quiet for longer than the ordinary time, and so urge him forward by the gentlest signs possible; next, beginning at the slowest pace, gradually work him into a quicker step, but so gradually that he will find himself at full speed without noticing it. (1) Any sudden signal will bewilder a spirited horse, just as a man is bewildered ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... stopped. The speed of the motor is uniform, being about 500 revolutions a minute, and is so arranged that it gives a multiplied power for climbing hills and the lower the rate of speed the greater power is furnished by the motor. The slowest that the carriage can be driven is three miles an hour and the speed can be increased to fourteen or fifteen miles an hour. The power is transferred from the driving wheel of the motor, which runs horizontally with the main shaft by an endless friction belt running on ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... a line is least for any given distance traversed by the planet; and then the planet moves fastest: when the planet is furthest from the sun, the area described by such a line is greatest for an equal distance traversed; and then the planet moves slowest. This law may be deduced from the hypothesis of a central force, but not from any other; the proof, therefore, as Mill says, satisfies ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... troops do not, then the British troops have to do all the work. The situation produced is that the highest paid soldier does no work and the lowest paid all the work. It soon percolates to the slowest Sussex brain that discipline does not pay. Nothing but the wonderful sense of order in the make-up of the average Englishman has prevented us from becoming an Anglo-Canadian rabble, dangerous to Bolshevik and Russian alike. I am told that Brigadier Pickford had done his best to ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... the march it watched. So long as one Israelite was in the channel it remained, a silent presence, to ensure his safety. It let their rate of speed determine the length of its standing there. It waited for the slowest foot and the weariest laggard. God makes His 'very present help' of the same length as our necessities, and lets us beat the time to which He conforms. Not till the last loiterer has struggled to the farther shore does He cease by His presence to keep His people safe on the strange ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... him about money, Calabressa mio—that I will explain to you. It has been coming in slowest of all from England, the richest of the countries, and just when we had so much need. Then, again, there is a vacancy in the Council, and Lind has a wish that way. What happens? He tries to induce the Englishman to take an officership ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... of this circular was a grave military offense, and if the purpose was to abate an evil, by making an appeal that would be heeded by me, the mode taken was one of the slowest and worst that could ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... expression of itself. In the higher worlds, the matter being very subtle and plastic, shapes itself very swiftly to the idea, and changes form as the thought changes. As matter becomes denser, heavier, it changes form less readily, more slowly, until, in the physical world, the changes are at their slowest in consequence of the resistance of the dense matter of which the physical world is composed. Let sufficient time be given, however, and even this heavy matter changes under the pressure of the ensouling idea, as may be seen by ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... long travelling. Though I felt that intense eagerness and expectation which the approaching termination of a tedious journey inspires, and was desirous of pushing forward with all imaginable despatch, yet here our course was sadly delayed. The horses could only proceed at the slowest of foot-paces, and we were constantly brought to a complete stop for some minutes before the post-boy could force a passage through the unwilling crowd. This produced a feeling of irritation, and despair of ever reaching my ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... since the morning puzzled Dierich Brower. The reason was this. When three run in company, the pace is that of the slowest of the three. From Peter's house to the edge of the forest Gerard ran Margaret's pace; but now he ran his own; for the mule was fleet, and could have left them all far behind. Moreover, youth and chaste living began to ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... tree. Not only is the wood useless as timber, but it is equally valueless as fuel, for the pith rots before it can be dried. The leaves are poisonous, and in spite of its being mere pith, it is one of the slowest-growing trees known, so that, take it all round, the solitary indigenous tree of Buenos Ayres is about the most useless arboreal product that could be imagined. The ombu is a handsome tree to the eye, not unlike an English walnut in its habit of growth, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... stop, or would he run desperately across, as he had dashed through the flood? That was with him. His hand was on the lever, and we were helpless; but, if there was time, it would be mere foolhardiness to go upon the trestle at any but the slowest speed, and without giving all but one an opportunity to walk across. One, surely, was enough to go down with the engine, if it, ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... a very tedious, trying, and harassing journey; we travelled only at night, by the slowest trains, and went but short distances at a time. Sometimes my husband was unable to proceed for a few days; but, with admirable courage and resolution, he managed to reach ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... been still longer to both, he would surely have passed him by, nor left it doubtful. Meriones again, the good attendant of Idomeneus, was left behind a spear's throw by the illustrious Menelaus, for his fair-maned steeds were the slowest, and he himself least skilful in driving a chariot in the contest. But the son of Admetus came last of others, dragging his beauteous chariot, driving his steeds before him. But him swift-footed, noble Achilles seeing, pitied, and standing amongst the Greeks, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... behind, and has sought the woods and meadows; but Nature never in the least accepts it, and rarely makes its path a part of her landscape's loveliness. The train passes alien through all her moods and aspects; the wounds made in her face by the road's sharp cuts and excavations are slowest of all wounds to heal, and the iron rails remain to the last as shackles upon her. Yet when the rails are removed, as has happened with a non-paying track in Charlesbridge, the road inspires a real tenderness in her. Then she bids it take or the grace ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... is one of the greatest insults to stride over a sleeping native, or to awaken him suddenly. They rouse one another, when necessity requires, with the greatest circumspection and by the slowest ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... woman mimicked impatiently. "It's easy enough to shout Yes, Ma; but where are you—that's what I want to know. You're the slowest creature on God's earth, I believe. A tortoise would be a race horse compared with you. What under ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... Breton, is a very vague and indefinite expression,' said the doctor, tapping his white shirtcuff with his nail in his slowest and most deliberate manner. 'It may mean a great deal, or it may mean very little. I don't want in any way to alarm you, or to alarm your husband; but there's certainly a marked incipient tendency towards tubercular deposit. Yes, tubercular deposit... Well, if you ask me the question ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... but a few miles when it became evident that the Salisbury was the slowest ship in the fleet, for, although she had every stitch of canvas set, she lagged behind the rest, and the other vessels were obliged to lower some of their sails, in order to allow her ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... companion went on to say, the bodily constitution of the Saturnians is wholly different from that of air-breathing, that is oxygen-breathing, human beings. They are the dullest, slowest, most ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Aimable, a heavily laden merchantman, was the slowest sailer, it was decided that she should take the lead, the other two following. La Salle, with his brother, Father Membre, and some others, transferred their quarters from the Joli to the Aimable. This movement was also probably influenced by La Salle's desire to escape from the uncongenial ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... for every person who thus gains more than usual, there is necessarily some other person who gains less. The loser, if things took place as Hume supposes, would be the seller of the commodities which are slowest to rise; who, by the supposition, parts with his goods at the old prices, to purchasers who have already benefited by the new. This seller has obtained for his commodity only the accustomed quantity of money, while there are already some things of which ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... unshaken faith in Heaven, immediately before her lover's triumph closes the piece, the whole opera is a series of exquisite conceptions, hardly one of which does not contain some theme or passage calculated to catch the dullest and slowest ear and fix itself on the least retentive memory; and though the huntsman's and bridesmaid's choruses, of course, first attained and longest retained a street-organ popularity, there is not a single air, duet, concerted ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... we pushed our way slowly, for in such a march none may go swifter than the slowest, namely, the carts and the waggons. Thus it befell that the Maid and the captains were in more thoughts than one to draw back to Compiegne, for the night was clear, and the dawn would be bright. And, indeed, after stumbling ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... a way the child can understand and appreciate. The foundation of it all is a sympathy in the things that children know and love. A child lives on a plane of his own. You cannot take him very far from it nor substitute anything in its place except by the slowest and most careful management. There can be no sympathy, no understanding that is not located on the childish plane. The father must come down where the child lives, must find his interest in the things that the child loves and must be sincere in every manifestation ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... The boat we intended to take met with an accident, while the one we did take proved the slowest tub that ever sailed. How is ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... I was filling baskets all Saturday, in my dull, mulish way, perhaps the slowest worker there, surely the most particular, and the only one that never looked up or knocked off, I could not but think I should have been sent on exhibition as an example to young literary men. 'Here is how to learn to write' might be the motto. You should have seen us; the veranda ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... impossible to see the actual landing-place. Hence, there was no course open but to race on at the utmost speed, though De Sylva was careful to keep his small force compact, and its pace was necessarily that of its slowest members. Among these was Coke, who had never walked so far since he was granted a captain's certificate. He swore copiously as he lumbered along, and, what between shortness of breath and his tight boots and clothing, the latter ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... he could no longer defend all the women, so he made up his mind to leave those that had the slowest horses to the mercy of the enemy, while he would go on with those that had the faster ones. When he found that he must leave the women, he was excited and rode on ahead; but as he passed, he heard some one call out ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... I guess he'll never ketch up with his work, now he's got them hangin' to his heels.... He doos beat all for slowness! Slocum's a good name for him, that's certain. An' 's if that wa'n't enough, his mother was a Stillwell, 'n' her mother was a Doolittle!... The Doolittles was the slowest fam'ly in Lincoln County. (Thank you, I'm well helped, Samanthy.) Old Cyrus Doolittle was slower 'n a toad funeral. He was a carpenter by trade, 'n' he was twenty-five years buildin' his house; 'n' it warn't no great, either.... The stagin' was up ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the evening journey longer than Roland had anticipated; but he caught, at intervals, the fresh foot-prints of his comrades in the soil where it was not exposed to the rains, and reflected with pleasure, that, travelling even at the slowest pace, he must reach the ford where he expected to find them encamped, long before dark. He felt, therefore, no uneasiness at the delay; nor did he think any of those obstacles to rapid progress a cause for regret that gave him the better ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... The slowest hours, days the most wearisome, long nights that know not sleep, must end at last. The first of August dawned, a long streak of red light in the clear gray east. Vixen saw the first glimmer as she lay wide awake ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... from the first period of actual imitation of nature was succeeded by many centuries of the very slowest progress. Renouf speaks,[77] however, of "the astonishing identity that is visible through all the periods of Egyptian art" (for you could never mistake anything Egyptian for the produce of any other country). "This identity and slow movement," he says, "are not inconsistent with an immense amount ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... even of our heaviest and slowest contemporaries in the notice of this volume, is a fact for which we cannot satisfactorily account to ourselves, and can therefore hardly hope to be able to make a valid excuse to our readers. The truth is, that whenever we ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... with Mr. Coventry. But by the way Mr. Coventry was saying that there remained nothing now in our office to be amended but what would do of itself every day better and better, for as much as he that was slowest, Sir W. Batten, do now begin to look about him and to mind business. At which, God forgive me! I was a little moved with envy, but yet I am glad, and ought to be, though it do lessen a little my care to see that the King's ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... when he had a mate), he would have preferred to be hitched behind, with me between the shafts pulling buggy and him. That was his weakness, but in it there also lay his strength. As soon as I started to dream or to be absorbed in the things around, he was sure to fall into the slowest of walks. When then he heard the swish of the whip, he would start with the worst of consciences, gallop away at breakneck speed, and slow down only when he was sure the whip was safe in its socket. When we met a team ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... habited in his full Pontifical robes of white and gold; fans of peacocks' feathers were waved on each side of his throne, and boys flung clouds of incense from their censers. As the procession advanced at the slowest possible foot-pace, the Pope from time to time stretched forth his arms which were crossed upon his bosom, and solemnly blessed the people as they prostrated themselves on each side. I could have fancied it the triumphant approach of an Eastern despot, but for the mild and venerable ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... experiences, repeated interchange of thought and observation, mutual enjoyment of beauty and fun, particularly in expressing common ideals and working together for common causes, there grows to maturity this wonderful relationship "the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... about north-west, the convoy bearing up for Halifax and the Gulf of St. Lawrence—still the sailing powers of the vessels varied considerably. The strength of an iron chain equals the strength of its weakest link, and the speed of a fleet of merchantmen is measured by that of its slowest sailer. While at San Miguel, Jack had tried to impress this upon the minds of his various skippers. He held a meeting of these on board a large full-rigged ship, and told them their motto must be, "Keep together," as the danger of an attack was ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... called; "I've been expecting you for an hour. What kept you? Gee! but these smoked guys are the slowest you ever saw. They ain't on, at all. Come along in, and I'll make this coffee-coloured old sport with the gold epaulettes open one for ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... spell, I say, that will change anything to its contrary. To turn it upon a snail, there is hardly a greyhound but it would overtake; but a hare it would turn to be the slowest thing in the universe; too slow ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... Freda enjoys a family-party better than I do,' said the colonel, looking at her as he spoke. 'Of all things on earth, it is the slowest.' ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... said Gus, with a look of disgust; "it's the slowest place in London—nothing on but that old fool Shakespeare's plays, or somebody's equally stupid. You come along with us, Tom, we'll take you to a place where you'll get your money's worth and ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... which cards could be concealed and drawn out by silken threads, it did not seem possible that this could be done with such quickness as to be unobserved. It was only when his teacher showed him, at first in the slowest manner, and then gradually increasing his speed, that he perceived that what seemed impossible was easy enough when the necessary practice and skill had been attained. The man was indeed an adept at a great variety of tricks by which the unsuspecting could ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... breathed; and still heard the eager, "Kiss me, Edward, once, before I die!"—a new light broke upon him,—and he was suddenly stung by sharp and self-reproaching thoughts. Had he not killed her, and, by the slowest and most agonizing process by which murder can be committed? There was in his mind a startling perception that such was the awful crime of which ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... started on again, but it hadn't gone very far before it stopped once more. 'Say, Conductor, why in blazes have we stopped again?' asked the traveler. 'Seems to me this is the slowest train I ever ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... will join the army of God!" Urban commands the bishops to rouse their dioceses by preaching the instant duty of war for the Holy Sepulcher. The enthusiasm spread everywhere like an infection under ripe conditions. France took the lead; Germany with slower step; the Italians slowest of all, except the Normans who dwelt among them. England contributed least of all, the Normans being still busy in holding what they had won, and Anglo-Saxons too discouraged over their own defeats. Spain had her own anti-Mohammedan battle ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... have no idea what ants can do in the tropics. The Kafirs of South Africa used to stake down their prisoners (among them a poor friend of mine) upon an ant-hill and they were eaten atom after atom in a few hours. The death must be the slowest form of torture; but probably the nervous system soon becomes insensible. The same has happened to more than one hapless invalid, helplessly bedridden, in Western Africa. I have described an invasion of ants in my "Zanzibar," ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... train started, and there I sat in my glory till we got to Annapolis, just the sleepiest town, crowded full of the oldest houses and the slowest people that I ever saw in my born days. Some colored persons were dawdling around the depot, and a few lazy white folks passing down the street, stopped to look at us as we got out of the cars. Especially my white hat and double-breasted ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... a sense of the excuse that must be made for others. What he had said about the signs of breed in Hugh's exterior, certainly applied to himself as well. His carriage was full of dignity, and a certain rustic refinement; his voice was wonderfully gentle, but deep; and slowest when most impassioned. He seemed to have come of some gigantic antediluvian breed: there was something of the Titan slumbering about him. He would have been a stern man, but for an unusual amount of reverence that ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... science. We are not in a world ungoverned by the laws and the power of a Superior Agent. Our efforts are in His hand, and directed by it; and He will give them their effect in his own time. Where the disease is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the Northern States it was merely superficial, and easily corrected. In the Southern it is incorporated with the whole system, and requires time, patience and perseverance in the curative process. That it may finally be effected, and its process hastened, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... encouraging the prospect really is. The individual actor may fail—in fact, he must. Where two people ride together on horseback, the married have ever been warned, one must ride behind. And when two people are speaking slowly one must needs be the slowest. Comparative success implies the comparative failure. But where this actor or that actress fails, the great cause of slowness profits, obviously. The record is advanced. Pshaw! the word "advanced" comes unadvised to the pen. It is difficult to remember ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... of a blow, can destroy a battleship. The submarine has no other effective, weapon than the torpedo, which is delivered from a small tube. There is this advantage in favor of the battleship, however: the submarine is a slow craft. It is slower than the slowest battleship when it proceeds under water. When it gets to the surface its speed is doubled, but then it is an easy target for the guns of the threatened battleship and also for the swift torpedo boats and torpedo destroyers which are always thrown out as escorts when a submarine attack is ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... anatomy to natural history." The slower motions of the owl prove to the natural historian that it consumes less oxygen than the eagle. By the same physiological principle he can tell that the herring is the most active among fish, and the flounder the slowest, by merely seeing the gills of each: those of the herring being very large, prove that it consumes much oxygen and is very active; while the flounder, with its small gills, consumes but little, and is very slow in its motions ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Carey's slowest steed was swishing over the grass, Blue-curls cried out: "Mother Carey, Mother Carey, won't you hear me and grant ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... sample of the hand I get When I am playing more than solitaire, Showing how I become the slowest yet When it's a case of razors in the air, And competition knocks me off creation Like a gin-fountain smashed by ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin
... Macbeth is the most rapid, Hamlet the slowest, in movement. Lear combines length with rapidity,—like the hurricane and the whirlpool, absorbing while it advances. It begins as a stormy day in summer, with brightness; but that brightness is ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... stopped in a blaze of sunshine at Framlynghame Admiral, which is made up entirely of the name-board, two platforms, and an overhead bridge, without even the usual siding. I had never known the slowest of locals stop here before; but on Sunday all things are possible to the London and Southwestern. One could hear the drone of conversation along the carriages, and, scarcely less loud, the drone of the bumblebees in the wallflowers up the bank. My companion ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... stealthy-paced water, and the subterranean fire. Aristotle said, "As time never fails, and the universe is eternal, neither the Tanais nor the Nile can have flowed forever." We are independent of the change we detect. The longer the lever the less perceptible its motion. It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero then will know how to wait, as well as to make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely; we shall sooner overtake the dawn by remaining here than by hurrying ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... are now drawing to a close. Enough has been said to make it plain to the slowest intellect among us, what is gained by having been born in the twentieth century, instead of in the nineteenth, and by being born a Canadian, instead of to any other land. There can hardly be to-day such a woeful creature as a Canadian ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... and the story of Bellerophon so effectively as to make it impossible for the elder poet either to escape or to sustain comparison with the author of "The Earthly Paradise"; but the most appreciative admirers of Morris will not be the slowest or the least ready to do justice to the admirable qualities displayed in Heywood's dramatic treatment of these legends. The naturally sweet and spontaneous delicacy of the later poet must not be looked for in the homely and audacious realism of Heywood; in whose work the style of the Knight's ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... canon of naval tactics is to maintain formation. Another is to keep moving, at the full speed of the slowest ship, not only to disconcert the enemy's fire, but to obtain and hold the most advantageous position—if possible, to flank him. As these rules apply equally well to both sides, it is obvious that two fleets, passing in opposite directions, and each trying to flank the ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... is indeed a thing, that is notoriously set at nothing by generous souls, who have fervently devoted themselves to an overwhelming purpose. There have been instances of persons, exposed to all the horrors of famine, where one has determined to perish by that slowest and most humiliating of all the modes of animal destruction, that another, dearer to him than life itself, might, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... still the maddest, and most crackt, Were found the busiest to transact 260 For though most hands dispatch apace, And make light work, (the proverb says,) Yet many diff'rent intellects Are found t' have contrary effects; And many heads t' obstruct intrigues, 265 As slowest insects have most legs. ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... gorgeous or more ravishing than the play of light and shade, the rainbow shiftings and the fiery pinks and purples and embers and carmines of the sunset scenery—the gorgeous death-bed of the Day. No tint more tender, more restful, than the uniform grey, pale and pearly, invading by slowest progress that ocean of crimson that girds the orb of the Sun-King, diminishing it to a lakelet of fire and finally quenching it in iridescent haze. No gloom more ghostly than the murky hangings drooping like ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... to leeward, but that the Catamaran was making less; and, therefore, if there was a chance of the swimmers coming up with the former, there was an equal probability of their overtaking the latter,—which would be better in every way. Indeed, the raft was now going at such a rate, that the slowest swimmer might easily overtake her, provided the distance between them was not ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... Sheba, is full of years. Once his glossy brown coat was the pride of some Mexican's heart, but time has added to his color also, and now he is blue. His eyes are sunken and dim, his ears no longer stand up in true donkey style, but droop dejectedly. He has to trot his best to keep up with Sheba's slowest stride. About every three miles he balks, but little Cora Belle doesn't call it balking, she says Balaam has stopped to rest, and they sit and wait till he is ready to trot along again. That is the kind of layout which drew up before our ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... sacrificing the offensive power of the larger. Not only so; in case of injury to the boilers or engines of one, it was hoped that those of her consort might pull her through. To equalize conditions, to the slowest of the big ships was given the most powerful of the smaller ones. A further advantage was obtained in this fight, as at Mobile, from this arrangement of the vessels in pairs, which will be mentioned at the time of its occurrence. The seventh ship at Port Hudson, the ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... household, such as their being three mistresses to be obeyed the youngest mistress a thought too lax and the second one undoubtedly too severe, still no girl could live with these high-principled, much-enduring women without being impressed with two things which the serving class are slowest to understand—the dignity of poverty, and the beauty of that which is the only effectual law to bring out good and restrain evil—the ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... early hours of this morning taking the Wady Toomilat, east, toward the gates of the Rameside wall. It was the going forth of a multitude,—the exodus of a nation! And they will travel at the pace of their slowest lambs. Thus Meneptah can gather his legions and make ready to pursue ere they have reached the wall." The priest had begun calmly, but the thought of pursuit ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... to be lost. We sprang to our hobbled thoats, freed them, and mounted. Then we turned our faces once more toward the north and took our flight again at the highest speed of our slowest beast. ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with colours flying, and her guns roaring out salutes. By herself she was greedy for every pound of steam and raced her engines as though speed were a matter of life and death; but, once in company, she was content to lag with the slowest, and suit her own pace to the stately progress of the schooners and cutters that moved by the wind alone. She found friends amongst all nations, and, in that cosmopolitan society of ships, dipped her flag to those of England, ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... shall see. As for letting you have my Lord Deucalion, that is out of the question. For see here, pot-mate Dason; in the first place, if I went to Atlantis without Deucalion, my other lord, Tatho, would come back one of these days, and in his hands I should die by the slowest of slow inches; in the second, I have seen my Lord Deucalion kill a great sea lizard, and he showed himself such a proper man that day that I would not give him up against his will, even to Tatho himself; and in the third place, you owe me for your share in our last wine-bout ashore, and I'll ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... the chisel of the sculptor. Great changes occur in the history of nations, but they are brought about slowly, like the changes in the frame of nature, upon which the puny arm of man hardly makes an impression. And, speaking generally, the slowest growths, both in nature and in politics, are ...
— Statesman • Plato
... play in the yard and climb about in the woodhouse. Already the business of being grown up began to pall upon her, the outlook dreary that included nothing but a whole hour at the piano, an endless care of her skirts, and the slowest kind of walk through Washington Square and down to Derby Wharf, where—no matter in which direction and for what purpose they started forth—her grandfather's way ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and was examined. It was such a queer concern. One of the junior Tutors had me up, and he must be a new hand, he was so uneasy. He gave me the slowest examination! I don't know to this minute what he was at. He first said a word or two, and then was silent. He then asked me why we came up to Dublin, and did not go down; and put some absurd little questions about {GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA}{GREEK ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... as ganger or overseer, would find a bricklayer's assistant, male or female, sitting in the shade doing nothing. Women are employed largely as day-labourers, and more often than not it was the woman who was the slowest to obey. The overseer would tell her peremptorily to get up and go to work. The woman would pretend not to hear him. The command would be repeated in louder tones. The woman would continue to wear an air of supreme indifference, and would remain sitting. Rougher words, accompanied ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... United States three new methods of transportation made their appearance at almost the same time—the steamboat, the canal boat, and the rail car. Of all three, the last was the slowest in attaining popularity. As early as 1812 John Stevens, of Hoboken, aroused much interest and more amused hostility by advocating the building of a railroad, instead of a canal, across New York State from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, and for several years this indefatigable spirit ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... the desert far, Where palms plume, siroccos blaze, He roves unhurt the burning ways In climates of the summer star. He has avenues to God Hid from men of Northern brain, Far beholding, without cloud, What these with slowest steps attain. If once the generous chief arrive To lead him willing to be led, For freedom he will strike and strive, And drain his heart till ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... that night, every man knew that one direct hit of a "two ten" German shell on his particular cellar wall, would mean taps for everybody in the cave. Such a possibility demands consideration in the slowest moving minds. ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... how it happens that a letter of yours, dated the 8th September, should have reached me only a fortnight ago in London. Either it must have been forgotten after written, and not sent for some time, or Messrs. Harnden and Co.'s Express is the slowest known conveyance in the world. However that may be, the letter and the Philadelphia Bank statement did arrive safe at last, and my father desires me to thank you particularly for your kindness in sending it to him. Not, indeed, that it is peculiarly ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five years, and at this rate in less than a thousand years there would literally not be standing room for the progeny." It has been computed that if the offspring of the elephant, which is believed to be the slowest breeding animal known, were to survive, there would be about 20,000,000 elephants on the earth in 750 years. The roe of a single cod contains eight or nine millions of eggs, and if each egg were to hatch, and the fish survive, the sea ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... slowest player I ever saw, and one of the best. It is tiresome to watch him prepare to make a shot. He averages four practise strokes. He has become so addicted to the practise-stroke habit that he makes a series of preliminary manoeuvres before carving a steak, and he raises his glass and sets ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... unless there are changes they must go into other business; and many of them say this honestly, as is shown by the hundreds of ships which of late years we can always find lying up, awaiting improvement in business. Now, let even the slowest and cheapest running screw vessel attempt to carry the same freights, to say nothing of fast side-wheel mail vessels, and we shall see against what odds the screw or other steamer has to contend. In the first place, her ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... before the rangers knew well that he had been there. Very rarely did one settler have another neighbor at a distance of less than two hundred miles. It meant arduous and continual riding, and a horse with any defect was worse than useless because the speed of the gang had to be the speed of the slowest horse ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... breeze lasted fresh for four full days after his encounter with the pirate schooner, so fresh indeed that once or twice he was obliged to furl his royals, in order to save the sticks; and the barque, no longer compelled to moderate her pace to that of the slowest sailer in a large fleet, maintained a steady speed of twelve knots during the whole of that time, thus fully making up, in the skipper's opinion, for the time and ground lost during the gale, and encouraging him to look forward hopefully to the ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... cove in the slowest manner. Only occasionally did he dip the paddle into the water to change the course of the little craft, or to push it ahead a little into the more shaded places. Marjorie did not assist in this, for he desired her to sit in the bow facing him, while he, himself, essayed the ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... 1870. Oklahoma people increased 518.2 per cent. Indian Territory, Idaho, and Montana came next in rapidity of growth. Kansas, with 2.9 per cent. increase, and Nebraska, with only 0.7 per cent., showed the slowest progress, the figures resulting in considerable part from padded returns in 1890. Vermont, Delaware, and Maine crawled on at a snail's pace. In numerical advance New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois led. Texas marched close to ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the four nights spent at Mouquet Farm my company supplied parties to carry wire and stakes up to the front line. These journeys were made through heavy shelling, and we were always thankful to return safely. My policy was never to allow the pace to become that of the slowest man, for there was no limit to such slowness. I myself set a pace, which I knew to be reasonable, and men who straggled interviewed me next day. By this policy the evening's work was completed in two-thirds of the time it would otherwise have taken, ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... and ineffective; since the constant abuse of it has accustomed the horse to the crack, he does not quicken his pace for it. This is especially noticeable in the unceasing crack of the whip which comes from an empty vehicle as it is being driven at its slowest rate to pick up a fare. The slightest touch with the whip would be more effective. Allowing, however, that it were absolutely necessary to remind the horse of the presence of the whip by continually cracking it, a ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... necessarily be either imported from abroad, or else a fantastic sally (in rather questionable taste) totally unrelated to the existing body of thought. I urge them to remember that this body of thought is the slowest of growths and the rarest of blossomings, and that if there is such a thing on the philosophic plane as a matter of course, it is that no individual can make more than a minute contribution to it. In fact, their conception of clever persons parthenogenetically ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... the most remarkable expression of a movement, accomplished and proceeding in a quarter that, if any on this earth, might be thought sacred from change. Oh, fearful are the motions of time, when suddenly lighted up to a retrospect of thirty years! Pathetic are the ruins of time in its slowest advance! Solemn are the prospects, so new and so incredible, which time unfolds at every turn of its wheeling flight! Is it come to this? Could any man, one generation back, have anticipated that an English dignitary, and speaking on a very delicate religious question, should ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... slowest and most anxious circumspection. Every thing was found in its pristine state. The girl noticed my entrance with a mixture of terror and joy. My gestures and looks enjoined upon her silence. I stooped down, and, taking another hatchet, cut ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... silver and iron, and gold too, all sorts of natural wealth, millions and millions of the finest hard-wood timber, lie here undeveloped, without making the least effort to realize on it, without lifting a finger. They have got no enterprise in the world, and they are the most dilatory, slowest gang I ever ran across ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... likewise fawned, and lied, and flattered? Must I cringe to them before I can hope to be their accomplice? Well, then, I decline. I mean to work nobly and with a single heart. I will work day and night; I will owe my fortune to nothing but my own exertions. It may be the slowest of all roads to success, but I shall lay my head on the pillow at night untroubled by evil thoughts. Is there a greater thing than this—to look back over your life and know that it is stainless as a lily? I and my life are like a young man and his betrothed. Vautrin has put before me ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... yearning affection for fiery, untamed arrack, is a confirmed opium smoker, and after last night's debauch for supper and "hitting the pipe " this morning for breakfast, he doesn't feel very dashing in the saddle; consequently I have to accommodate myself to his pace. It is the slowest seven miles ever ridden on the road by a wheelman, I think; a funeral procession is a lively, rattling affair, beside our onward progress toward the mud battlements of Khoi, but there is no help for it. Whenever I venture to the fore a little the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... belongs to y'e Chiefest in Company to unfold his Napkin and fall to Meat first, But he ought to begin in time & to Dispatch with Dexterity that y'e Slowest may have ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... the meetin', hey? I'm willin', only the laugh's ruther ag'inst me, ef I tell that story; expect you'll like it all the better fer that." Flint coiled up his long limbs, put his hands in his pockets, chewed meditatively for a moment, and then began, with his slowest drawl:— ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... It is a great comfort to those who gamble away their substance in the Board of Trade to reflect that the weathercock that surmounts its tower is the biggest ever seen by human eye. There is not one of them that will not tell you, with a satisfied smile, that the slowest of their fire-engines can go from one end of the city to the other in five seconds. There is not one of them who, in the dark recesses of his mind, is not sure that New York is a "back number." They are proud ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... and, unluckily, as I was pulling on my silk stocking, I tore a hole in the leg, or as my wife expressed it, a stitch dropped, and I was forced to wait while she repaired the evil. Certainly this operation of taking up a stitch, as I am instructed to call it, is one of the slowest operations in nature; or, rather, one of the most tedious and teazing manoeuvres of art. Though the most willing and the most dexterous fingers that ever touched a needle were employed in my service, I thought the work would ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Captain Marshall, I should be inclined to define him; but I must give Mr. Tree his full credit in the matter. When he crucifies himself, so to speak, symbolically, across the door of the jury-room, remarking in his slowest manner: "The bird flutters no longer; I must atone, I must atone!" one is, in every sense, alone with the actor. Mr. Tree has many arts, but he has not the art of sincerity. His conception of acting is, literally, to act, on ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... thee? Surely not! such things could never be! Although thou wentest slowest when I fain would haste to tea. Creeping at snail's pace only—while I couldn't make thee learn That donkeys' legs were never made to stop at ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... But even in the case of shells having the habits of this Mytilus and Mesodesma, beds of them, wherever the sea gently throws up sand or mud, and thus protects its own accumulations, might be upraised by the slowest movement, and yet remain undisturbed by the waves of ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... carelessness; and 119, or almost one third, were caused by camp-fires! The money loss to the state was $1,000,000; but this was not all the damage. A forest, or a single tree, is not replaced in a year, or in ten years; and the stately evergreen trees grow slowest of all. ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... present the student has been urged to fill his chest, after days of less vigorous practice, to the fullest, retain the mechanism in this condition for a short time, and then in the slowest and most regular fashion relax it, the purpose being development and control. In actual speaking and singing such breathing is not usually either possible ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... quite marvellous in Berrichon domestics. Nevertheless, at the least semblance of delay he raised his voice, knitted his eyebrows (which still showed very black under his white hair), and muttered a few expressions of impatience which lent wings even to the slowest. At first I was somewhat shocked at this habit; it appeared to savour rather too strongly of the Mauprats. But the kindly and almost paternal manner in which he spoke to them a moment later, and their zeal, which seemed so distinct from fear, soon reconciled me to him. Towards us, moreover, he showed ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Professor Greenhill—operates to cause the movement of a ship. The water is driven in one direction, the ship in another. Now, Professor Rankine has laid down the proposition that, other things being equal, that propeller must be most efficient which sends the largest quantity of water astern at the slowest speed. This is a very important proposition, and it should be fully grasped and understood in all its bearings. The reason why of it is very simple. Returning for a moment to our gun, we see that a certain amount ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... movement measures real distance. The mean brilliancy of his classified stars seemed, on the contrary, quite independent of their mobility. Indeed, its changes tended in an opposite direction. The mean magnitude of the slowest group was 6.0, of the swiftest 6.5, of the intermediate pair 6.7 and 6.1. And these are not isolated facts. Comparisons of the same kind, and leading to identical conclusions, were made by Prof. Eastman at Washington in 1889 (Phil. Society Bulletin, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... absorbed in thought. There they were, in the same room—seated near each other; united by the most intimate of human relationships—and yet how far, how cruelly far, apart! The slowest of all laggard minutes, the minutes which are reckoned by suspense, followed each other tardily and more tardily, before there appeared the first sign of a change. He lifted his drooping head. Sadly, longingly, he looked at her. The unerring instinct of true love encouraged ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... scout that finishes her bed can go and catch fish for supper," declared Amy, who was the slowest of the weavers. ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... night behind the slow-moving Belgian. The ape-man chafed at the delay, but the European could not swing through the trees as could his more agile and muscular companions, and so the speed of all was limited to that of the slowest. ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... The entire course should easily be covered in one year with recitations of about 25 minutes daily. Two 50-minute periods a week give a better division of time and also ought to finish the course in a year. Under the individual system, the slowest diligent children finish in 7 or 8 school months, working 4 half-hours weekly. The fastest do it in ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... informer sitting triumphant above him crowned with laurel—the frantic rabble exulting in his humiliation, and with difficulty restrained from laying violent hands upon him. Charles X. on the contrary, travels, with his family, in open day, by the slowest and easiest journeys, under the respectful escort of the commissaries of the new government; and the people, every where, so far from any vulgar display of insolent triumph, touch their hats in silent respect for the sorrows of ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... dispositions, and each day they preserved the same positions, so that every mahout knew his place, and the elephants were accustomed to the animals upon the right and left. In the centre were the slowest, and upon either flank were the fastest elephants, while two exceedingly speedy animals, with intelligent mahouts, invariably acted as scouts, generally a quarter of a mile ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... drearily and slowly to Master Raymond. The waiting for the hour of action is so irksome, that even the approach of danger is a relief. But patience will at last weary out the slowest hours; and punctually at six o'clock, the young man stood again at the ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... by some other motive, offered their services to look after her; but the Queen briefly answered, "Ladies, under favour, no. You have all (give God thanks) sharp ears and nimble tongues; our kinsman Hunsdon has ears of the dullest, and a tongue somewhat rough, but yet of the slowest.—Hunsdon, look to it that none ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... written language of the people. As a rule, my acquaintances wrote slowly and laboriously, and yet the fact that they knew exactly what was in my mind rendered their responses so apt that, in my conversations with the slowest speller of them all, the interchange of thought was as rapid and incomparably more accurate and satisfactory than the fastest talkers ...
— To Whom This May Come - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... out his objections and meet them, how you lead up to the signing minute, and show him where to sign. *What you say is about half the trick: *how you say it is the convincing part—the thing the slowest man in the force by watching you can learn more quickly than the smartest could ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... to be all that, madam," laughed Raynal, putting her down good-humoredly; "but it was in the days when armies came out and touched their caps to one another, and went back into winter quarters. Then the struggle was who could go slowest; now the fight is who can go fastest. Time and Bonaparte wait for nobody; and ladies and other strong places are taken by storm, not undermined a foot a month as under Noah Quartorze: let me cut this short, as time ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... the slowest and most expensive means of making bottles, is by far the most picturesque. Imagine a long, low, dark building—dark as far as daylight is concerned, but weirdly lit by orange and scarlet flashes from the great furnaces ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... rather than run the risk of passing us during the storm," he said half to himself. "Inasmuch as the slowest of that crowd can travel two yards to our one we are likely to be overhauled in ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... for the night was extremely dark and the land scarcely visible. Not a light was shown, not a voice raised on board, and the only sound heard was the gentle splash of the paddles as they revolved at their slowest rate of speed. The falls had been greased, the rowlocks muffled, and the crew took their places ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... were will become apparent in due course. The weather was fairly good for the time of year, and, as there was but little danger of collision on the now deserted waters of the Atlantic, the whole flotilla kept at full speed all the way. As, however, its speed was necessarily limited by that of its slowest steamer until the scene of action was reached, it was after midnight on the 5th of December when its various detachments had reached their appointed stations on the ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... instance— were capable of steaming fifteen or sixteen knots, but the battleships were not good for more than thirteen, while some of the older cruisers could not be relied upon for more than ten or eleven; and as the speed of a fleet is necessarily that of its slowest ship, this meant that the whole squadron could not steam at more than ten knots or thereabout. The speed of the slowest Japanese ships he knew to be not less than thirteen knots; so, in the event of ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... before, or to see the same elderly gentleman treading the pavement in discourse with himself, shaking his head after the same percussive butcher's boy, and pausing at the same shop-window to look at the same prints. If the swiftest thinking has about the pace of a greyhound, the slowest must be supposed to move, like the limpet, by an apparent sticking, which after a good while is discerned to be a slight progression. Such differences are manifest in the variable intensity which ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... his stick was so thin that the most malevolent could not insinuate that it was of any possible use in walking; his teeth had put on all the vigour and freshness of a second spring. Hence his look was the slowest of possible clocks in respect of his age, and his manner was equally as much in the rear of ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... of the song was repeated three or four times before proceeding to the next, and those songs which were of the slowest measure and least emotional in character were selected for the earlier hours of the festivals. None of the songs was lengthy, even the longest, in spite of the repetitions, rarely ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... Nic rode on homeward, the slowest, saddest ride he had had since he entered the colony, for as soon as he was out of sight of the house he drew rein ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... long day it was! How the hours seemed to double themselves, and creep along at the slowest ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... a neighbouring height, and perceived with regret the difficulty which they found in making their way, which was still more increased by the necessity for their keeping in a body, and waiting for the slowest and worst manned vessels, which considerably detained those that were more expeditious. They made some progress, however; nor had the commander-in-chief the least doubt, that before sunset they would safely reach the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott |
