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More "Rapidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mathematical master. He went to the blackboard, wrote up the problem, and again began the explanation. Raisky only noticed with what rapidity and certainty he wrote the figures, how the waistcoat with the cornelian seal and then the snuff-spattered shirt front came nearer—nothing, except the solution of the problem, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... under the command of the general officers. In this way, with the exception of Namur, Mons, and a very few other places, all the Spanish Low Countries were lost, and a part of ours, even. Never was rapidity equal to this. The enemies were ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... other. The fact soon became known. Shops were not numerous in the village in those days; and the wares they supplied were only second rate. Orders came pouring in, Mrs. Grumbit's knitting wires clicked, and her little old hands wagged with incomprehensible rapidity and unflagging regularity,—and Martin ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... harbour of Kiel there are about a hundred transports and some older ironclads and cruisers, which cannot offer a serious resistance to our fleet. All these ships must be attacked with the greatest rapidity and vigour. It is of the utmost importance to send a battleship to the entrance of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, in order to cut off the retreat of the German ships. All the German ships in the harbour are to be destroyed. The attack is to be commenced by some ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... seems to have been capricious in everything. She made and broke liaisons with amazing rapidity while undergoing a compulsory sojourn at Coppet. She formed there an attachment for the son of a person named M. Baranti, which very nearly cheated Rocca from becoming her husband, and the faithless Benjamin Constant from ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... To him they communicated the intelligence that Fanny had not returned; and the eccentric old man, without waiting to hear the recital of their fears, threw the basket on the table, bolted precipitately down stairs, and walked away towards Ann street with a rapidity that betokened the existence of some fixed purpose in his mind. Meanwhile, his reflections ran somewhat in the following strain, and were half muttered aloud, as he trudged quickly onward, now nearly upsetting a foot passenger and receiving ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... out, peering anxiously in every direction. Stealthily he raised himself. Then suddenly he made a low sound and with a rapidity which startled Archer, dropped ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... he grew older, in appearance anyhow, with exceptional rapidity; his face grew leaner and his beard, which he continued to shave, was soiled with ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... truths by casting sarcasm on the strong faith and evangelical piety of the forefathers. They then aimed to show that the Church and theology are altogether behind the age, and that science and art are advancing with a rapidity which must leave all dogmatism and authority far behind. They afterward examined the Scriptures by the light of Reason alone, and, by this idea, deluded multitudes of the young and inexperienced into the darkness and doubt which ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... eagerness of Barbadoro, so that tranquillity prevailed during the war with Lucca. But this being ended, and Niccolo da Uzzano dead, the city being at peace and under no restraint, unhealthy humors increased with fearful rapidity. Rinaldo, considering himself now the leader of the party, constantly entreated and urged every citizen whom he thought likely to be Gonfalonier, to take up arms and deliver the country from him who, from the malevolence ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... helping the clerks to keep the accounts of the episcopal revenues, and making complicated calculations with the assistance of balls threaded on rods; he even multiplied and divided numbers in his head, without the use of slate or pencil, with a rapidity and accuracy that would have been admired even in a past master of money and finance. For him it was a pleasure to keep the books of the Deacon Modernus, who, growing old, used to muddle the figures and fall asleep at his desk. To oblige the Bishop, and ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... known just how hungry they were until the first bite was taken, and then little was said for some time, on account of the rapidity with which those four sets of sturdy ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... the canal, which was completed in 1832, the receipts amounted to over half a million bushels of wheat, a hundred thousand barrels of flour, a million pounds of butter and nearly seventy thousand pounds of cheese, with other articles in proportion. Business went on increasing with great rapidity; every one was getting rich, in pocket or on paper, and Cleveland was racing with its then rival, but now a part of itself, Ohio City, for the distinction of being the great commercial centre of the West. At that moment, in the year 1837, the great crash came and business ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... a strong work ethic, mastery of high technology, and a comparatively small defense allocation (1% of GDP) have helped Japan advance with extraordinary rapidity to the rank of second most technologically powerful economy in the world after the US and third largest economy in the world after the US and China. One notable characteristic of the economy is the working together of manufacturers, ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... were filled with the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. They saw visions and prophesied, devils were cast out and the sick healed by the laying on of hands. From that time the work rolled forth with astonishing rapidity, and churches were formed in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri; in the last named state a considerable settlement was formed in Jackson co.; numbers joined the Church and we were increasing rapidly; ...
— The Wentworth Letter • Joseph Smith
... rushed to the assault of the castle. The arrival of envoys charged to take possession of it as a pontifical domain by no means gave them pause. Not one stone of it was left upon another.[29] Then, with incredible rapidity they enclosed their city with walls, parts of which are still standing, their formidable ruins a witness to the zeal with which the whole population labored ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... the result of the contact between human nature and its environment. During the period studied by the politician, human nature has changed very little, but political environment has changed with ever-increasing rapidity. ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... man felt for that woman may seem romantic, and all the more so because he was an officer in the Royal Guard. If he had been in the infantry, the affair might have seemed more likely; but, as an officer of rank in the cavalry, he belonged to that French arm which demands rapidity in its conquests and derives as much vanity from its amorous exploits as from its dashing uniform. But the passion of this officer was a true love, and many young hearts will think it noble. He loved this woman because she was virtuous; he loved ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the ground, consuming the grass down to the very roots over thousands of acres, and destroying fencing over many miles. Such fires pass on, leaving the standing trees unscathed, avoiding even the scrub, which is too moist with the sap of life for consumption, but licking up with fearful rapidity every thing that the sun has dried. He could watch the wool-shed and house, but with no possible care could he so watch the whole run as to justify him in feeling security. There need be no preparation of leaves. ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... Gray's paper—at least one fourth quicker; and preserves its perfect sensitiveness in the same proportion of time, three days in twelve. Thus, it is at the same time quicker and less variable. This comparative rapidity may be very well understood, by remembering that the ceroleine is an element much softer than its compound; and possesses a photogenic aptness which is peculiar to itself, which science will, no doubt, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... tanks prevented her dropping with great rapidity; but Thurid was firing rapidly now in an attempt to burst these also, that I might be dashed to death in the swift fall that would instantly follow ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Florida, and there would be about the same number under Sherman when Schofield in North Carolina could join him, but the number which Johnston could now collect together seems never to have exceeded 33,000. It was Sherman's task by the rapidity of his movements to prevent a very formidable concentration against him. Johnston on the other hand must hinder if he could Sherman's junction with Schofield. Just before that junction took place he narrowly missed dealing a considerable blow to Sherman's army at ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... With lightning rapidity he had examined all the spoil of his victim's pockets. A horrid silence had settled down over the ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... excited to pause for any of the more voluptuous movements of less violent desires, but rushed on in passion's wildest extasy, both far too eager to think of any restraint, and with the utmost vigour on both our parts, we ran our first course with great rapidity. My adored Miss Evelyn had quite got over every feeling of pain, and could not but be delighted with the heat and vigour of my attack. We both died away together, at the extatic moment pouring down a mutual flood of spunk to cool the inflamed members that had the instant before been ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... and his arm twisted round the pillar—that's Mr Gregsbury—the celebrated Mr Gregsbury,'—with any other little eulogium that might strike you at the moment. And for salary,' said Mr Gregsbury, winding up with great rapidity; for he was out of breath—'and for salary, I don't mind saying at once in round numbers, to prevent any dissatisfaction—though it's more than I've been accustomed to give—fifteen shillings a week, and ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... rapidity that the "trimmings" were not wanting. With old knowledge born of many years of restaurant work, he knew that any day some prospector might find that which all prospectors endlessly sought and that then he would grind his bare grubstake contemptuously under ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... hatched from the egg, it requires very close inspection to see them with the naked eye. The rapidity of growth depends on the temperature in which they are, as much or more than their good living. A few days in hot weather might develop the full-grown worm, while in a lower temperature it would ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... it is only fair to say, was earned very largely by that gift for acting which had won him fame as a schoolboy. Whispers that he was going to act in the Area Belle, or one of Gilbert and Sullivan's operas, travelled with amazing rapidity from station to station in India, and every performance in which he took part was attended by all the Europeans for miles round. Indeed his fame as an actor travelled so far afield that the manager of a London theatre wrote to him in India offering our astonished hero a position in his ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... induced by the rapidity with which the colony had attained its present strength to form sanguine hopes of future importance, instituted an inquiry into the extent of their patent, with a view to the enlargement of territory. To facilitate this object, commissioners were appointed to explore the Merrimack, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... expressed it in an infernal "Do!" After this I got out into the air, but not so fast as not to hear, when the door of the drawing-room opened, the disconcerted drop of Miss Collop's public manner: she must have been in the midst of the larger latitude. Producing with extreme rapidity, Guy Walsingham has just published a work in which amiable people who are not initiated have been pained to see the genius of a sister-novelist held up to unmistakeable ridicule; so fresh an exhibition does it seem to them of the dreadful ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... this daring and hazardous manoeuvre had opened the combat, both men sprang to life. Sometimes the log rolled one way, sometimes the other, sometimes it jerked from side to side like a crazy thing, but always with the rapidity of light, always in a smother of spray and foam. The decided spat, spat, spat of the reversing blows from the caulked boots sounded like picket firing. I could not make out the different leads, feints, parries, and counters of ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... headlong impetuosity into the more champaign districts, it often overruns its banks with its own waters, and then plunges into a lake called Lake Leman, and though it passes through it, yet it never mingles with any foreign waters, but, rushing over the top of those which flow with less rapidity, in its search for an exit, it forces its own way by the violence of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... with such terrifying rapidity that Peter Gudge had hardly time to keep track of them. But now he had plenty of time, he had nothing but time. He could think the whole thing out, and realize the ghastly trick which fate had played upon him. He lay there, and time passed; he had no way of ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... fixedness, immovability, firmness, security, impregnability; fortress, stronghold, citadel; swiftness, celerity, rapidity, expedition, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... on the rapidity of our movements. I beg you will let me insist upon your giving me at once the few items of information which I need for ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... now moving with a rapidity and decision which contrast pleasantly with some of his earlier operations. Although Dundee was only occupied on May 15th, on May 18th his vanguard was in Newcastle, fifty miles to the north. In nine days he had ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... first unattended with pain, is soon succeeded by copious vomiting of matters similar to those passed from the bowels, accompanied with severe pain at the pit of the stomach, and with intense thirst. The symptoms now advance with rapidity. Cramps of the legs, feet, and muscles of the abdomen come on and occasion great agony, while the signs of collapse make their appearance. The surface of the body becomes cold and assumes a blue or purple ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... therefore filed off to the left toward[10] Somerset Court House, leaving the enemy to continue his headlong march toward Brunswick, which was not reached until four o'clock in the morning, with troops completely broken down with the rapidity of their ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... the eyes of the universe, the prophecy of the holy Patriarch. There was in a very short time a great number of religious; his order extended itself to all parts with astonishing rapidity, and it has multiplied itself so wonderfully for seven centuries, that it may be looked upon as a representation of the birth and progress ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... small and so narrow and apparently so fragile that I could only compare it to a chalk-mark upon which, high in the air, I was running at a rate unknown to railroads. One circumstance during the trip did more to show me the terrible rapidity with which we dashed through the flume than anything else. We had been rushing down at a pretty lively rate of speed when the boat suddenly struck something in the bow, a nail, a lodged stick of wood or some secure substance which ought not to have been there. What was the effect? The red-faced ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... while the cause was before it, and put the judge, the jury, the defendant and his counsel, to the sword. Perhaps a more heart-felt convulsion never reached a country with the same degree of power and rapidity before, and never may again. Pity for the sufferers, mixed with indignation at the violence, and heightened with apprehensions of undergoing the same fate, made the affair of Lexington the affair of the continent. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... copyright. But as he continued in the resolution of not appropriating the sale of his works to his own use, I did not scruple to accept that of 'The Corsair,' and I thanked him. He asked me to call and hear the portions read as he wrote them. I went every morning, and was astonished at the rapidity of his composition. He gave me the poem complete on New-year's day, 1814, saying, that my acceptance of it gave him great pleasure, and that I was fully at liberty to publish it with any bookseller I pleased, independent of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... to within about thirty yards of the two animals, who were moving about now on one side and now on the other with the greatest rapidity, so that it would not be very easy, I knew, ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... telegraph service were imitated at once in telephone practice. Lines carrying many telephones each, were established with great rapidity. Telephones actually displaced telegraphic apparatus in the exchange method of working in America. The fundamental principle on which telegraph or telephone exchanges operate, being that of placing any line in communication with any other in the system, gave to each ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... such incredible rapidity that he seemed to be evaporating through the gaping wound in ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... long he would have to work and wait for that. He knew that things in Calvinton moved slowly; but he knew also that its silent and subconscious judgments sometimes crystallised with incredible rapidity and hardness. Was it possible that he was already classified in the group that came near but did not enter, an inhabitant but not a real burgher, a half-way citizen and a lifelong new-comer? That would be rough; he would not like growing ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... be to occupy pages filled with more or less technical descriptions of strategic movements, marches, and countermarches, skirmishes, reconnaissances, and battles, which followed each other with such unparalleled rapidity that the combined efforts of the war correspondents of the European press proved entirely inadequate to keep pace with them in the form of anything ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... river, all were certain that the dam above Camptown Falls had burst. The water ran with great rapidity and was filled with dirt and debris of various kinds. On the rocks that were low they had all they could do to keep ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... and wars broke out on every side. In these difficulties and dangers Camillus was the soul of the Republic. Again and again he led the Roman legions against their enemies, and always with success. The rapidity with which the Romans recovered their power after so terrible a disaster would seem unaccountable but for the fact that the other nations had also suffered greatly from the inroads of the Gauls, who still continued to ravage Central Italy. Two ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... which is the characteristic of an intellectual republic, there seems, as it were, a kind of destiny: a power impossible to resist urges the state from action to action, from progress to progress, with a rapidity dangerous while it dazzles; resembling in this the career of individuals impelled onward, first to obtain, and thence to preserve, power, and who cannot struggle against the fate which necessitates them to soar, until, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in his weapon, with amazing rapidity—to no avail. The cylinder had flung around like a wheel, but the sounds ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... years of immense material prosperity, "the golden age of our history."[340:1] The wealth of the nation in that time far more than doubled; its railroad mileage more than threefolded; population moved westward with rapidity and volume beyond precedent. Between 1845 and 1860 there were admitted seven new States and ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... or flow, murmur or thunder in your own ears, for you cannot fail to imagine what the waters must be in a land of such glens and such mountains. The chief rivers possess all the attributes essential to greatness—width—depth—clearness—rapidity—in one word power. And some of them have long courses—rising in the central heights, and winding round many a huge projection, against which in flood we have seen them dashing like the sea. Highland droughts are not of long duration; the supplies are seldom withheld at once by all ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... lines. The first step in this direction was to find that a nervous stimulus can be measured at least indirectly. When the nerve is stimulated there passes from one end to the other an impulse, and the rapidity with which it travels can be accurately measured. When such an impulse reaches the brain it may give rise to a conscious sensation, and a somewhat definite estimation can be made of the amount of time required for this. The periods are very short, of course, but they are not instantaneous. ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... sentences in a musical tone, which were answered by the chorus; and, at intervals, increased the measure of the dance, by clapping the hands, and quickening the motions of the feet, which, however, were never varied. At the end, the rapidity of the music, and of the dancing, increased so much, that it was scarcely possible to distinguish the different movements; though one might suppose the actors were now almost tired, as their performance had lasted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... my heart was beating with extraordinary rapidity. So powerful and so unpleasant was the impression made upon my mind by this possibly trivial incident and by the extraordinary dream which had preceded it, that on returning to bed (and despite the warmth of the night) I closed both lattices and ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... being thus left on Mother Earth, I, with indescribable rapidity, having still hold of the rope, passed the staves in mid-air, as I hastily descended, lighting in a sitting posture on the pile of bricks. The sensation, Faith and ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... certain amount of deviation from the existing type. And, as respects selection, which operates by extinguishing all but a small minority of variations, we have not the slightest means of estimating the rapidity with which it does its work. All that we are justified in saying is that the rate at which it takes place may vary almost indefinitely. If the famous paint- root of Florida, which kills white pigs but ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... consumed the dry roof and walls with incredible rapidity, which by this time had fallen in, but Oreeque was nowhere to be seen. I thought I saw something move in the midst of the fire, but it might have been fancy. Again, the white ashes heaved, and a half—consumed hand and arm were thrust through the smouldering mass, then a human head, with the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Friedrich's rapidity had served him ill with the Public, in this as in some other instances! Friedrich, contemplating his situation, not self-delusively, but with the candor of real remorse, was by no means yet aware how very bad it was. For six months coming, partly as ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... would give direct expression to reverie, to the speech of the soul with itself, there is some device that checks the rapidity of dialogue. When Oedipus speaks out of the most vehement passions, he is conscious of the presence of the chorus, men before whom he must keep up appearances 'children latest born of Cadmus' line' who do not share his passion. ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... seemed to us so enormous that it never could be spent. Like a young rake coming into a very large inheritance, we attacked this noble fauna with characteristic American improvidence, and with a rapidity compared with which the Glacial advance was eternally slow; the East went first, and in fifty years we have brought about an elimination in the West which promises to be even more radical than that effected by the ice. We ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... of nitrogenous substances are capable of undergoing this process of nitrification are not yet well known. The question is, of course, one of great importance, as the rapidity with which a nitrogenous body nitrifies will be an important factor in determining its value as a manure. Unfortunately, on this subject we know, as yet, very little. We are well aware that the nitrogen present in the humic matter of the soil is readily nitrifiable. In the experiments on ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... incapable of replying, for her breath was nearly exhausted by the rapidity of the motion, and Eliza continued entreating her to stop, and struggled violently to elude ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... however, has the feudal system prevailed throughout the West, than it becomes evident that Primogeniture has some great advantage over every other mode of succession. It spread over Europe with remarkable rapidity, the principal instrument of diffusion being Family Settlements, the Pactes de Famille of France and Haus-Gesetze of Germany, which universally stipulated that lands held by knightly service should descend to the eldest ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... who had brought them down with his double-barrelled fowling-piece. I have omitted to mention that Lumley was one of the noted crack-shots of the country at that time—noted not only for the deadly precision, but also for the lightning-like rapidity of ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... slightest change of timbre, requiring almost innumerable changes of force per second. I believe the free rotation I have spoken of through a limited range explains its remarkable sensitiveness and rapidity of action, and, according to this view, it would also explain why loud sounding telephones can never repeat all the delicacy of timbre that is easily done with those only requiring a force comprised in the critical limits of its free rotation. This property, I have found, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... advanced with extraordinary rapidity, and if it be not yet in the position of leader, it is certainly now well ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... in the recommendation of the Secretary that the three-battalion organization be adopted for the infantry. The adoption of a smokeless powder and of a modern rifle equal in range, precision, and rapidity of fire to the best now in use will, I hope, not ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... sight of the coin: he rammed the silver into his pocket with hungry rapidity; but he shook his head about ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... "grocer and draper" had two rival assistants, who prided themselves on their rapidity in serving customers. The young man on the grocery side could weigh up two one-pound parcels of sugar per minute, while the drapery assistant could cut three one-yard lengths of cloth in the same time. Their employer, one slack day, set them a race, giving ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... time, and with a vertiginous rapidity, from day to day, from hour to hour, the fatal news came crowding on. Like a river that overflows its banks, Prussia was overrunning France. Bazaine was surrounded at Metz; and the capitulation of Sedan capped the climax ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... In any representative democracy nominations and elections must be a difficult and complex matter; in the United States the problem is rendered doubly difficult by the great size of the country, and by the rapidity with which its population is increasing. In this country hundreds of thousands of public officials are placed in office annually, all of them either elected at the polls, or chosen by agents ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... mind the well-known incident when the unfortunate rebel of Castelnaudary leaped almost alone a large ditch, and found on the other side seventeen wounds, a prison, and death in the sight of Monsieur, who remained motionless with his army. In the rapidity of the Queen's enunciation he had not time to examine whether she had employed this expression proverbially or with a direct reference; but at all events, he decided not to notice it, and was indeed prevented from doing so by the Queen, ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... of a West-end theater, when one has the necessary cash, is not nearly such a complicated business as the layman might imagine. Roland was staggered by the rapidity with which the transaction was carried through. The theater was his before he had time to realize that he had never meant to buy the thing at all. He had gone into the offices of Mr. Montague with the intention of making an offer for the lease for, say, six months; and that wizard, ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... destruction are approaching perfection with frightful rapidity.[2] The Congreve rockets, the effect and direction of which it is said the Austrians can now regulate,—the shrapnel howitzers, which throw a stream of canister as far as the range of a bullet,—the Perkins steam-guns, which vomit forth as many balls as a battalion,—will ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... think of her throughout the whole of each blessed night. He recalled and secretly dilated upon every sign of decreasing reserve on her part. He shamed himself more than once for deploring the fact that her ankle was mending with uncommon rapidity, and that in a few days she would be quite able to walk without support. And he actually debased himself by wishing that the Rushcroft company might find it imperative to go on rehearsing for weeks ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... of testing the purity of samples of water, by watching the rapidity of its action on soap and similar compounds, has been introduced by the French savants, MM. Boutron and Boudet. The experiment tests, at the same time, the purity of the soap. Dissolved in water in which lime is ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... his command on Bridgeport with great rapidity and skill, but he showed a nervous temper, which gave the impression that in a great battle he would become too much excited for ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... these animals launch themselves from one branch to another, forty feet asunder, startling as it is, may be well credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making a revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and continue her progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular to observe how suddenly this Gibbon can stop, when the impetus giving by the rapidity and distance of her swinging leaps would seem to ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... discovery, during which many of the mighty have been put down from their seat and many of the humble have been exalted. I do not know that Butler can truthfully be called humble, indeed, I think he had very few misgivings as to his ultimate triumph, but he has certainly been exalted with a rapidity that he himself can scarcely have foreseen. During his lifetime he was a literary pariah, the victim of an organized conspiracy of silence. He is now, I think it may be said without exaggeration, universally accepted ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... that a disease which has never appeared among a people before, when it does attack them, spreads with terrifying rapidity and pursues a violent and destructive course on the new soil which they offer. This was the course of syphilis in Europe in the years immediately following the return of Columbus in 1493. Invading armies, always a fruitful means of spreading disease, ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... had left her husband behind her, but had brought her children, to whom Isabel now played with equal munificence and tenderness the part of maiden-aunt. Mr. Ludlow, toward the last, had been able to snatch a few weeks from his forensic triumphs and, crossing the ocean with extreme rapidity, had spent a month with the two ladies in Paris before taking his wife home. The little Ludlows had not yet, even from the American point of view, reached the proper tourist-age; so that while her ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... brotherhood, then it is not difficult to see wherein lies the lightning-like speed with which the electric current passes from heart to heart. Such a man was Buddha, such was the essential of his teaching; and such was the inevitable rapidity of Buddhistic expansion, and the profound influence of the shock that was produced by the new faith upon the moral consciousness of ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... scud:' scud is a name given by seamen to the lowest clouds, which are driven with great rapidity along the atmosphere, in squally ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... rule of the organization, that its members should all be well armed and skilled in the use of weapons. The rapidity of increase in numbers, rendered them conscious of their strength, and they became openly defiant and talked treason upon the corners of our streets, and wherever little groups of people assembled. The mob spirit was excited, and all were ready for mischief ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... head may be roughly estimated at a thousandth of a second. Here, therefore, we should have no room for sensation, and death would be painless. But there are other actions which far transcend in rapidity that of the rifle-bullet. A flash of lightning cleaves a cloud, appearing and disappearing in less than a hundred-thousandth of a second, and the velocity of electricity is such as would carry it ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the beginning of the year 1840—the price of a quarter of an acre in the center of the city had risen to $1,500. A decade later the established value was $17,500, and in 1860, $28,000. Chicago was growing with great rapidity; a network of railroads converged there; mammoth factories, mills, grain elevators, packing houses:—a vast variety of manufacturing and mercantile concerns set up in business, and brought thither swarms of workingmen and their families, ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... playing "Baccarat tournant," a game of terrible and infantile simplicity. There are no such things as skill or combination possible in it; science and calculation are useless. Chance alone decides, and decides with the rapidity of lightning. Amateurs certainly assert that, with great coolness and long practice, one can, in a measure at least, avert prolonged ill-luck. Maybe they are right, but it is not conclusively proved. Each person takes the cards in his turn, risks what he chooses, and when his stakes are covered, ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... was constructing submarines 25 per cent larger than anything the United States had ever seen or heard of. His information was to the effect that Germany had a building capacity for ten submarines a week. The ability to produce these boats with such rapidity is due to the process of standardization—the practice of modern efficiency which has made it possible for American factories to turn out such big quantities of automobiles in a ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... had often been made, the sitters endeavoured to avoid contact with the medium. For a long time Mrs Piper has fallen into the trance without holding anyone's hand. Her whole body reposes, plunged in a deep sleep, except the right hand, which writes with giddy rapidity and only rarely endeavours to touch the persons present. Professor Hyslop, in the report which has just appeared,[11] affirms that he avoided the slightest contact with the medium with all possible care, and yet we shall see farther on how exact were the ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... of as evolution, on account of their slowness. But there are others which, although of the same order, deserve the name of revolution by reason of their rapidity: we may instance the theories of Darwin, overthrowing the whole science of biology in a few years; the discoveries of Pasteur, which revolutionised medicine during the lifetime of their author; and the theory of the dissociation of matter, proving that the atom, formerly supposed ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... machine handled with ease and grace by the dexterity of two fearless and expert mariners, it excites some such admiration as that which springs from the view of a severe temple of antiquity The nakedness and simplicity of the construction, coupled with the boldness and rapidity of its movements, impart to the craft an air of grandeur, that its ordinary uses would not give reason ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... forms is drawn with the most studied chiaroscuro of delicate color, grays and greens, as silvery and pure as the finest passages of Paul Veronese, and with a refinement of execution which the eye strains itself in looking into. The rapidity and gigantic force of this torrent, the exquisite refinement of its color, and the vividness of foam which is obtained through a general middle tint, render it about the most perfect piece of painting of running water ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... be done with him. There were thirty or forty girls in the school, and but this one boy, and the reader may imagine the amount of studying he did. The girls were full of spirits, and in their society the fun-loving feature of his disposition burst out and grew with amazing rapidity. He was always in mischief of some kind, to the great delight of the girls, with whom he was extremely popular, and to the despair of his sister, who began to fear that he ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... superhuman health—increased in the countenance of Mrs. Edward Ten Eyck. Her hair was a bit slow in restoring itself, and a shade or two darker, but on the other hand, despite all she could do to prevent it, she resumed her natural proportions with a rapidity that was sickening. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Universal Religion.—What is most remarkable about Islam is the rapidity of its growth. Mahomet begins life a poor and lowly herdsman, and at his death bequeaths to his successors a kingdom which he has formed, and which is shortly to prevail over all its neighbours. In ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... added "Will they no come back again?" which was specially intended to apply to the sailors. These formalities having been completed, the young mariners proceeded to say their farewells, and kissed and cuddled with astonishing rapidity first one girl and then the others until all had shared the ebullition of their rugged endearment. The male portion of the assembly viewed this form of emphasizing good-bye with sheepish amazement. They would have been stupefied with shame if any one had ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... supplementary influence much needed to unify and nationalise the heterogeneous elements of our population. Men, women, and children, speaking all the languages and representing all the countries and races of Europe, are streaming in upon us weekly in widening currents. The rapidity with which they become assimilated to the native population is remarkable. But there is one element from abroad that does not Americanise itself so easily—and that, curiously, is one the most American that comes from Europe—in other words, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... the hoar frost beneath their footsteps and fell on their faces like taps from a switch, they refrained from sitting down. They walked quickly to and fro, wrapped in the pelisse, their cheeks blue with cold, and their eyes watering; and they laughed heartily, quite quivering with mirth, at the rapidity of their march through the freezing atmosphere. One snowy evening they amused themselves with making an enormous snowball, which they rolled into a corner. It remained there fully a month, which caused them ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... out; carriages-and-four were dashing down from London; bands were playing; the hotels swarmed with visitors come to see their friends off; ships were being commissioned and fitted out with unwonted rapidity; and all was life, activity, and energy. I now and then, on my way home, took a walk up High Street, for the amusement of observing the bustling, laughing, talking, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... been the rapidity of the demand for successive impressions of this book, that I have found it impossible, until now, to correct at pages 31, 87, and 97 three errors of statement made in the former editions; and some few other mistakes, not in themselves important, at pages 96, 101, and 102. I ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... State, he finally transplanted his school to this metropolis under the name of the New England Conservatory of Music, which it retains to the present date. It has, with characteristic American rapidity, become the largest music-school in the world, having within fifteen years instructed over twenty thousand pupils: in a single term it frequently numbers between eight and nine hundred. It has a connection with Boston ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... the rapidity with which new phrases float themselves into currency under our present omnipresence of the press, that this word, now (viz., in 1853) familiarly used in every newspaper, then (viz., in 1833) required a sort of apology ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the free-school in London called St. Anthony's, under the care of the famous Nicholas Holt, and when he had with great rapidity acquired a knowledge of his grammar rules, he was placed by his father's interest under the great Cardinal Merton, archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord High Chancellor, whose gravity and learning, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... received under the table, and which was much more sincerely meant, had raised in him one of those charming illusions, which are so frequent in our youth, and which promised so much happiness, with electrical rapidity. He could not doubt for a moment, that the daring invitation came from the third, the youngest and prettiest of the ladies, into whose company a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... for this exposition of the Odyssey to be brought to a close with some degree of rapidity. It has already expanded itself beyond its original purpose; it, too, like Ulysses, has asserted itself as limit-transcending. We shall try to indicate the general character of these remaining eight Books, to find their place in the total ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... gives Germany and Austria-Hungary their power of close intercommunion, of exactly coordinating all their movements, of using their armies like one army, and of dealing with rapidity alternate blows eastward and westward, produces contrary effects in the case of the Allies. Even if hourly communication were possible by telegraph between the two main groups, French and Russian, ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... worried about the quality of that pie. The rapidity with which it disappeared was the best possible evidence of its goodness, and Wanaka commended her before all the girls, who were willing enough to join the leader in ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... in the hall, had a swift vision of a tall figure, which issued with extreme rapidity from the library door, and went up the stairs, much like a horse taking a series of hurdles. But the figure lost momentum suddenly at the top, hesitated, and apparently moved forward on tiptoe. Grayson went into the library and sniffed at the unmistakable odor of a pipe. Then, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... stage of this disorder is commonly shown by retardation of thought and motion, the excited stage by pressure of activity and acceleration of thought. In the so-called "flight of ideas" words succeed each other with incredible rapidity, without goal idea, but each word suggesting the next by ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... that during the last few minutes Dr. Mackenzie's mind had been concentrated upon something else. She had not filled it at all. The next moment it was turned upon her and two swift turquoise gleams from under the shaggy brows swept over her, with the rapidity and brightness of search-lights. Dr. Mackenzie commenced speaking quickly, with ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... movement I make is determined in general by the end that I have in view; but in what way does my arm approach the object? how far do the other parts of my body follow this impulsion? What will be the degree of slowness or of the rapidity of the movement? What amount of force shall I employ? This is a calculation of which my will, at the instant, takes no account, and in consequence there is a something left to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... to travel more comfortably than we did. Stretched out on downy pillows, and provided with victuals wine, tea, and a charcoal basin, we moved down the stream with the rapidity of an express coach and without the least exertion. But the element which propelled us persecuted us in another form. Rain poured from the sky incessantly after our departure from Diarbekir. Our umbrellas no longer protected us, and our cloaks, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... furnishing in particular offers a promising field for girls with the necessary training and endowment. Many girls have ability for this work, and as the employment is being developed commercially, the opportunities for girls in house furnishing should increase with some rapidity. ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... thrown by chance into their keeping, long after their judgment has pronounced it no rarity—even the reverse, indeed, and without them the band of the worthy is incomplete. But Farfrae was not of those. It was inevitable that the insight, briskness, and rapidity of his nature should take him out of the dead blank which his loss threw about him. He could not but perceive that by the death of Lucetta he had exchanged a looming misery for a simple sorrow. After that revelation of her history, which must have come sooner or later in any ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... REEL. When the ship by her rapidity pulls the line off the log-reel, without its being assisted. Also, upright conduct. Also, any performance without stop ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... almost overwhelmed the historian and his auditor. But the military, fortunately, was equal to the emergency. With a tactical turn of his hand he thrust the remnant of the lollypop between the chattering jaws and spoke with sharp rapidity. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... only three able men. Carried on by the current, it shot through the channel with the rapidity of an arrow, passed before Harding and Herbert, who, not thinking it within range, withheld their fire, then, rounding the northern point of the islet with the two remaining oars, they pulled towards ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... rising in the rear of the army occupied with the siege of the strongholds of Samnium. Once more the fortune of war favoured the Samnites; Sora and Caiatia fell into their hands. But the Anagnines succumbed with unexpected rapidity before troops despatched from Rome, and these troops also gave seasonable relief to the army stationed in Samnium: all in fact was lost. The Samnites sued for peace, but in vain; they could not yet come to terms. The final decision was reserved for the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... usually tranquil waters seething and bubbling, and even as they looked down rushed a mighty stream, which entirely engulfed it, and Sylvain and Jocosa found themselves parted by a wide and swiftly-rushing river. All this had happened with such rapidity that they had only time to utter a cry, and each to hold up to the other the flowers they had gathered; but this was explanation enough. Twenty times did Sylvain throw himself into the turbulent waters, hoping to be able to swim to the other side, ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... regretted, we think, that Sir James Mackintosh did not wholly devote his later years to philosophy and literature. His talents were not those which enable a speaker to produce with rapidity a series of striking but transitory impressions, and to excite the minds of five hundred gentlemen at midnight, without saying anything that any one of them will be able to remember in the morning. His arguments were of a very different texture from those which are ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... English lessons had gone on was amazing, for Amy usually tired of everything in a day or two. Now, however, she was a devoted teacher, and her pupil did her great credit by the rapidity with which he caught the language. It looked like pleasant play, sitting among the roses day after day, Amy affecting to embroider while she taught, Casimer marching to and fro on the wide, low wall, below which lay the lake, while he ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... classmate are confirmed by Dr. Harrison, chairman of the Faculty, who remarks that the poet was a great favorite with his fellow-students, and was noted for the remarkable rapidity with which he prepared his recitations and for their accuracy, his translations from the modern languages ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... even in this little cottage by the river that days flew by with that pleasant rapidity which leaves nothing to record except a general sense of restful enjoyment. One expedition, however, might be described, a visit paid to a neighbouring estate which had been advertised for sale, as giving a glimpse of a typical ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... built in the form of an amphitheatre) and utter the stereotyped phrase, "Last lecture we stopped at..." when sentences spring up from my soul in a long string, and I am carried away by my own eloquence. I speak with irresistible rapidity and passion, and it seems as though there were no force which could check the flow of my words. To lecture well—that is, with profit to the listeners and without boring them—one must have, besides ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... said Fisher, speaking with unwonted rapidity. "I only thought you'd like to know my brother's found the money. Hurray! Rollitt's no thief; ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Germans were so easily urged to go into Gaul, he desired they should have fears for their own territories. Therefore, notwithstanding the difficulty of constructing a bridge, owing to the breadth, rapidity, and depth of the river, he devised and built one of timber and of great strength, piles being first driven in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... to do in the least time, and with the greatest possible noise. His paces were long, and made with wonderful rapidity; and each time his foot came to the ground, he uttered a horrible yell, as though it had been planted upon a ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... a shrill, piercing voice; and, to the astonishment of the doctor and his daughter, he made a bound, and then, with wonderful skill and rapidity, began turning the wheel, as it is called, going over and over on hands and feet, ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... Richard by his friends and Mr. Markham by strangers—not that he was insensible to the prestige which the title of Judge or Honorable gave him, but he was a plain, matter-of-fact man, who had not been lifted off his balance, or grown dizzy by the rapidity with which he had risen in public favor. At home he was simply Dick to his three burly brothers, who were at once so proud and fond of him, while his practical, unpretending mother called him Richard, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... to be expressed in the ordinary terms of miles per hour. The yellow star that was the sun detached itself from the firmament and leaped toward them, swelling visibly, momentarily, into a blinding monster of incandescence. And toward them also flung the earth, enlarging with such indescribable rapidity that Cleveland protested involuntarily, in spite of his knowledge of the peculiar mechanism of the vessel in ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... the progress of science has been slow, and subject to constant error and revision, because it would not accept the inevitable dependence of body on soul, as of effect on cause. But as soon as physical research begins to go hand-in-hand with moral or psychical, it will advance with a rapidity hitherto unimagined, each assisting and classifying the other. The study of human nature will give direction to the study of the nature that is not human; and the latter will illustrate and confirm the conclusions of the former. More than half the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... thus long with the humble clerk, let us turn to the rich merchant; for Jasper has become a man of extensive possessions. Wealth flowed in upon him with extraordinary rapidity—not in the regular course of trade, overreaching and unscrupulous as he was in dealing, but through what are called fortunate speculations. How he made his first hundred thousand dollars—the basis of his present very large fortune—was not clearly understood, though sundry ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... unusual rapidity for a woman, climbing the path without relaxing her gait or losing her breath. The sharp, damp air brought to her face colour that Carron had been unable to call up. He was, poor wretch, so utterly secondary to ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... deliberately met his look, encountering eyes so wide and so piercingly blue that she had a moment's bewildered feeling of uncertainty, as though she had looked into the eyes of a stranger. Then the colourless lashes descended again and veiled them as of old. He blinked with his usual disconcerting rapidity and ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... the murder of the Chief Priest of the Temple burst like a thunder-cloud, and spread with great rapidity until Ephesus and its environs rang with the tidings. Messengers hastened along the coast from Teos and Claros to Priene, and over the Meander to the Carian Miletus, to Magnesia and Mysa through to Sardis and Smyrna, in hopes by spreading the news that ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... the neighborhood of the Rue des Gravelliers and made for a broader street. Reaching the Boulevard de Sebastopol, he turned to the left, and took a fresh start. He darted on with marvelous rapidity, with his elbows pressed close to his body—husbanding his breath and timing his steps with the precision of a dancing-master. Never pausing, and without once turning his head, he ever hurried on. And it was ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... knitting which had been hurriedly dropped upon the arrival of Pete Davis. How her fingers did work! It was wonderful to watch them. How hard and worn they were, and yet so nimble. The needles flew with lightning rapidity, clicking against one another with a rhythmical cadence; the music of humble, consecrated work. But when Mr. Westmore began to tell about Tim Fraser, and his sudden death, the knitting dropped into her lap, and she stared at the speaker with ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... of North Staffordshire men cleared thirty yards of the trench by the rapidity with which they flung their hand-grenades at the German bombers who endeavored to keep them out, and again and again they kept at bay a tide of field-gray men, who swarmed up the communication trenches, by a series of explosions which blew many of them to bits as bomb after bomb ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... oversight of the numerous workmen who were employed during the winter collecting the materials required. It was he who, when the spring opened, superintended the digging and levelling, the cutting and carting that were being carried on, on a scale and with a rapidity that surprised even Jacob Holt, who in imagination had seen something like it done a hundred times over. It was in Mark's pastures, once again his own, that the horses and oxen used in the work found rest when it was needed, and it was he who had all to say ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... so;" Hazlehurst replied, in a low voice, and he drank off a cup of hot coffee with such rapidity, that Miss Wyllys looked ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... enlarging till it looked like a nearing wall. It was the concave face of a coming wave. On its summit a white edging arose with the aspect of a lace frill; it broadened, and fell over the front with a terrible concussion. Then all before them was a sheet of whiteness, which spread with amazing rapidity, till they found themselves standing in the midst of it, as in a field of snow. Both felt an insidious chill encircling their ankles, and they rapidly ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... been developed, is impossible and the whole house of cards collapses. The collapse is a process of dedifferentiation during which the old structures are destroyed, precedents are disavowed, new situations occur with bewildering rapidity, for dealing with which there is no recognized machinery available. Society reverts from a state in which a high grade of individual initiative and development was possible to a relatively communistic and paternalistic state, the slate is wiped clear, and a ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... sense of taste. The tongue is covered with minute cells surrounded by nervous filaments which are set in motion whenever any substance is brought into contact with the surface. Tasting is merely the movement of these filaments, of greater or less rapidity. ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... have said and printed too much that is light, false, wittingly disfigured. Armed with an instrumentality that multiplies thought and spreads it broadcast to the four corners of the earth with a rapidity unknown to our fathers, we have made use of it, for the most part, to extend slander more widely and to cause a greater amount of doubtful intelligence to swarm upon the earth. So well have we spun speech out in all our mouths, so thoroughly have we deprived it of its proper nature and caused ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... himself diligently to his work with ever-increasing interest; yet not altogether without an uncomfortable and humiliating conviction that if he did not do it with reasonable rapidity, and give moderate satisfaction, he ran the chance of ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... white, flakey matter; and its properties are entirely altered by this transformation: From being insoluble in water, it becomes not only soluble, but so greedy of moisture, as to attract the humidity of the air with astonishing rapidity; by this means it is converted into a liquid, considerably more dense, and of more specific gravity than water. In the state of phosphorus before combustion, it had scarcely any sensible taste, by its union with oxygen ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... gravely answered that our brother was detained by a suit with the Poligny family respecting the estate of Ribaumont, and, besides, that the rapidity of the journey would not have agreed with his state of health. I only then fully understood the matter, for our letter had been few, and had to be carefully written and made short; and though I knew that, at the battle of Naseby, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the hope of catching the last of the little fleet, but without success. Mad with disappointed rage, they waded back to the shore, and, standing in a line along the edge of the waves, reloaded their guns with the utmost rapidity. The poor Esquimaux knew well what would follow, and strained every nerve to increase their distance. Once more the guns belched forth their leaden shower, which went skipping over the water towards the flotilla. Only one kayak was ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... neck, to the saddle of their master's horse, have been driven at a smart trot, one or two hundred miles, being compelled to ford water courses, their drivers, according to their own confession, not abating a whit in the rapidity of their journey for the case of the slave. One tied a kettle of sand to his slave to render his ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Thirteenth Infantry holding the right of the brigade moved to the right and front, while the Ninth and Twenty-fourth moved almost directly to the front at first, thus partially gaining the flank of the enemy's position. The whole line moved with great rapidity across the open field and up the hill, so that when the Second and Tenth Infantry came to their position as support, the heroic Third Brigade was well up the heights. To the right of the Third Brigade the First Brigade, containing the gallant Sixth, under Colonel Egbert, and the Sixteenth, was ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... is short; and, surely, Time flies with fearful rapidity if we measure his course by years: three-score-and-ten, the allotted span of man, are soon numbered. But events, thoughts, feelings, hopes, cares, are better marks for the dial of life, than hours and minutes. In this view, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... noticed that they were still increasing and that now they fused together. Then all the crests were lost in the great masses of vapor which crept far down the slopes. The blue sky over their heads turned to gray with amazing rapidity. The air grew heavy and damp. Thunder, low and then loud, rolled among the western mountains. Lightning blazed in dazzling flashes across the lake, showing the waters yellow or blood red in the glare. The forest moaned and rocked, and with a scream ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... performance of the twelve-inch guns it is figured that these greater weapons should be able to deliver three shots a minute. If all ten guns of either of the projected Dreadnoughts should be brought into action at one time and maintain the three shot rapidity for one hour, the cost of the ammunition expended in that hour would reach ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... his frame, he climbed the ascent with a rapidity that made him gasp. The wind also was against him, blowing in strong gusts, and the raging of the sea below was as the roaring of a thousand torrents. The great waves boomed against the cliff far beyond the summer watermark. They had long since covered the quicksand, and ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... "With the rapidity of lightning, she flew to his side, and in an ecstacy of joy: 'Louis, Louis,' said she, 'I am your Emmeline, your long lost Emmeline! Have you ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... brawny butcher is too astonished to defend himself. His nerveless fingers are no longer on the rope; he stands like a stalled ox in front of his homicidal assailant. With the rapidity of lightning Pierre plunges his long Provencal dirk in the executioner's side. The butchered butcher falls with a single bawling outcry and a groan. The crowd is thunderstruck, and the pinioned de Vaudrey is wild with joy. Though bound ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... altitude of ten or twelve feet, in others not growing more than two or three feet from the ground. Botanists have enumerated between forty and fifty varieties of the tobacco plant who class them all among the narcotic poisons. When properly cultivated the plant ripens in a few weeks growing with a rapidity hardly equaled by any product either temperate or tropical. Of the large number of varieties cultivated scarcely more than one-half are grown to any great extent while many of them are hardly known outside of the limit of cultivation. ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... his clothes with incredible rapidity and piled them—or flung them—under the basswoods: the suddenly resuscitated technique of the small-town lad who could take avail of any pond or any quiet stretch of river on the spur of the moment. He waded in quickly up to his waist, and then ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... severe tempest in the Bay of Biscay, a flash of lightning struck the ship and set her on fire. The calmness with which orders were given and obeyed, and the rapidity with which the fire was extinguished, without the least hurry or confusion, made a deep impression on me. This was afterwards increased by the conduct of the crew in a severe gale of wind, when it was necessary to navigate one of the narrow channels, by which the squadron ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... further poems for three or four years. His time was taken up with his trade and his philanthropic missions. Besides, he did not compose with rapidity; he elaborated his poems by degrees; he arranged the plot of his story, and then he clothed it with poetical words and images. While he walked and journeyed from place to place, he was dreaming and thinking of his next dramatic poem—his Franconnette, which ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... bass voice, who shouted the names of approaching guests in a manner so uncompromising as to be terrific. Each time he so shouted the stout lady first started and then smiled, the two operations succeeding one another with almost inconceivable rapidity and violence. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... see so much commercial prosperity and rapidity of growth as is evinced in Warsaw. In matters of current business and industrial affairs it appears to be in advance of St. Petersburg. The large number of distilleries and breweries are unpleasantly suggestive of the intemperate habits ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... the divine light of genius shone from the brown eyes and the ample forehead. The enthusiasm of the multitude now knew no bounds. There was first a strange stillness, then, when the word seemed to have passed with a strange and lightning-like rapidity from mouth to mouth, there burst forth a great cheer, and it was known that ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... with it, and explode the iniquitous system it represents. See, in the name of humanity, of labour, of the unknown and unnumbered millions of the martyred poor, I set a match to this good little fuse, and, with the rapidity of thought, blow blasphemous tyrant Capital into a thousand fragments of reeking flesh and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... population by a habit of early marriages," he adds, "is further augmented by the greater rapidity with which the generations follow each other. By the joint effect of these two causes, a large effect ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... words, but also that he was known among the natives as one white man not an animal-killer. His name Son of Power had followed him to Hurda; word about him had travelled with mysterious rapidity. To his amazement Skag found that the people of Hurda knew something of the story of the tiger-pit and his part in delivering the Grass Jungle people from the toils and tributes of the great snake. . . . He ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... splendidly. My dear sirs, I have heard people abuse the Mauser as a diabolical weapon. Nothing of the sort; it is one of the most humane. The wounds are small, cleanly cut, and, so long as a bone is not touched, begin to heal with wonderful rapidity. Come ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... your foot, Tom," said Juarez, meaning the mule, not Cales. Tom's heel reached the right spot and up flew the mule's hind feet with the rapidity of a rapid fire-gun. ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... times a day, and encourage them to move about as much as possible; and see that they never go hungry, without allowing them to gorge. Let them play until they tire, and sleep until they hunger again, and they will be found to thrive and grow with surprising rapidity. At six weeks old they can fend for themselves, and shortly afterwards additions may be made to their diet in the shape of paunches, carefully cleaned and cooked, and Spratt's Puppy Rodnim. A plentiful ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... diverse forms and all daubed with fragrant powders of diverse hues, and dancing with joyous hearts in accompaniment with instruments of different kinds made of brass. Surrounded by these who move with electric rapidity in the mazes of the dance or refrain at times altogether from forward or backward or transverse motion of every kind, Mahadeva dwells there. That delightful spot on the mountains, we have heard, is the favourite abode of the great Deity. It is said that that great god as also his associates ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... surprised; that is natural, and I expected it. Answer me, come! or I shall think you have no longer that rapidity of judgment I have ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... atmospheric refraction of light. Thus optics, and with it astronomy, advanced with barology. After the discovery of atmospheric pressure had led to the invention of the air-pump by Otto Guericke; and after it had become known that evaporation increases in rapidity as atmospheric pressure decreases; it became possible for Leslie, by evaporation in a vacuum, to produce the greatest cold known; and so to extend our knowledge of thermology by showing that there is no zero within reach of our ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... attention to them. He thought alone of the Texans, who were now displaying the greatest energy. In the face of the imminent and deadly peril Travis, Crockett, Bowie and the others were cool and were acting with rapidity. The order was swiftly given to cross to the Alamo, the old mission built like a fortress, and the Texans were gathering in a body. Ned saw a young lieutenant named Dickinson catch up his wife and child on a horse, and join the group of men. All the Texans had their ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and the changes of fortune rapid and improbable, yet the former often attained a sublime, though forced elevation of sentiment; and the latter, by rapidity of transition and of contrast, served in no slight degree to interest as well as to surprise the audience. If the spectators were occasionally stunned with bombast, or hurried and confused by the accumulation of action and intrigue, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... to finish the long poem begun in the days of our betrothal, but he soon laid that aside, and another sprang forward with extraordinary rapidity. Perhaps he himself was hardly aware of the sorrow of that poem; perhaps he thought I would judge it so entirely as a work of art that I should not take note of its deep gloom, of its hopeless melancholy. But nothing ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... which move in front of it, we shall see a curious bending of the bars as they come up to the place of the yellow spot. The part which comes over the spot seems to start in advance of the rest of the bar, and this would seem to indicate a greater rapidity of sensation at the yellow spot than in the surrounding retina. But I find the experiment difficult, and I hope for better results from more ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... stage for the next day's operations. Till long after midnight the work goes merrily on in the huts or shelters over the stages, for the hard work then means no starvation next winter in the Newfoundland homes, and the fish are split, cleaned, headed, salted and packed with incredible rapidity. ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... events, however, were soon over; the city of pleasure finally capitulated; its people began rapidly to depart. That sudden movement resembled the migration of a swarm of bees to form a new colony, when, if the day be bright, the expedition issues forth with wondrous rapidity. So this human hive commenced to empty itself of queens, drones and workers. It was an outgoing wave of such life and animation as is apparent in the flight of a swarm of cell-dwellers, giving out a loud and sharp-toned hum from the action of their wings as they soar over ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... to what conclusions the rapidity and unabated steadiness of the increase of the English race in America must lead us as we go on to forecast the future. Carlyle somewhere speaks slightingly of the fact that the Americans double their numbers every twenty years, as if to have forty million dollar-hunters in the world ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... prayers. Why should she require more, when her notion of prayer was not to make request for what she wanted to One who could give it to her, but to gabble over one Creed, six Paternosters, and the doxology, with as much rapidity as she could persuade her lips to utter the words? Then, in another five minutes, after a few rapid motions, Derette drew the woollen rug over her, and very quickly knew nothing more, ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... beneficial financial act of the administration is the reduction of the interest on the public debt. The amount already accomplished is stated in my printed speech. The rapidity of this process depends entirely upon the credit of the government. Ewing's policy would destroy our credit and stop the process. The very doubts created by him and Pendleton have already damaged the government very largely. Confidence is so sensitive ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... of telegraph service were imitated at once in telephone practice. Lines carrying many telephones each, were established with great rapidity. Telephones actually displaced telegraphic apparatus in the exchange method of working in America. The fundamental principle on which telegraph or telephone exchanges operate, being that of placing any line in communication with any other ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... with great rapidity in the weak breast of the girl, besides a complication of the brain, not considerable, but giving much cause for concern—the normal condition of the mind shaken—that was the case. A long consultation was carried on in an undertone; some medicines ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... sensitiva.—The cotyledons are highly remarkable from the amplitude and rapidity of their movements during the day. The angles at which they stood above or beneath the horizon were measured at short intervals of time; and we regret that their course was not traced during the whole day. We will give only ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... not express the position of his figure, but, just the same, it would be hard to find another expression. He was neither walking nor jumping, but, nevertheless, he was in continual and violent motion. He threw his head—which was covered with red hair—backward and forward with great rapidity. With these swift movements, the sounds which came from his mouth were in perfect harmony; for he was murmuring, then shouting passionately, then pouring forth long ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... thinking as he listened to him was that he was not getting over the ground with much rapidity, and that it was time something was doing. He had not watched him for weeks without learning divers ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... guardian seraphs had retired on high, Finding their charges past all care below; Terrestrial business fill'd nought in the sky Save the recording angel's black bureau; Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply With such rapidity of vice and woe, That he had stripp'd off both his wings in quills, And yet was ...
— English Satires • Various
... Conybeare, it would be the ballad measures used by Wackerbarth. The movement of the ballad is easy, rapid, and garrulous. Now, if there are three qualities of which the Beowulf is not possessed, they are ease, rapidity, and garrulity. Not only does the poet avoid superfluous words—the ballad never does—but he frequently does not use words enough. His meaning is thus often vague and nebulous, or harsh and knotted. Nor can ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... aunt, the Lady Principal, had forgotten her breviary. As this was in a private 'scrutoire, she did not choose to send a servant for it, but gave the key to her niece. The niece, on opening the 'scrutoire, saw, with that rapidity of eye-glance for the one thing needed in any great emergency, which ever attended her through life, that now was the moment for an attempt which, if neglected, might never return. There lay the total keys, in one massive trousseau, of that fortress impregnable even to armies from ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the crowded shelves, but suddenly his attention was arrested, and his pulses, which had been beating somewhat fast, throbbed with eager rapidity. A dozen volumes or more, ranged together, were labelled, "Works by Mrs. Roland Sefton." Surprise, and pride, and pleasure were in the rapid beatings of his heart. By Felicita! He read over the titles with a new sense of delight ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... up she found inside the belly of the fish a living child. Pleased with its appearance she decided to adopt it. She put it in a basket, and tying the basket under her cloth pretended to be pregnant, and shortly afterwards announced that she had given birth to a child. The boy grew with marvellous rapidity. ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... cared to speak of the matter to Jim. Something in his stern, sad young face forbade it. But there was not a man on the job from associate engineer to mule driver who did not throw himself into his work with an abandon of energy that drove the work forward with unbelievable rapidity. All that his men could do to help Jim's record was ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Blackwall to London on his arrival, this was his first trip by rail, but, as his place was in one of the close first-class carriages, he saw nothing of the machinery by which the motion was effected, "though such was the rapidity of the vehicles, that I could distinguish nothing but an expanse of green all round, nor could I perceive even the trunks of the trees. Every now and then we were carried through dark caverns, where we could not see each others' faces; and sometimes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... inexplicable upon any fair supposition, except that he accounted the rules of spelling unworthy the attention of any but copyists and office drudges; or (which is more probable) that he wished this extraordinary spelling to be received as an indication of the great rapidity with which he could commit his thoughts ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... stage he proceeded much less radically than one might expect from his previous utterances. The tendency of the play was left intact, but many changes were made in the interest of brevity, simplicity and rapidity of movement. To these no one can seriously object, since Lessing's text is too long for an evening in the theater, as the matter was regarded in those pre-Wagnerian days. Not so readily to be approved are certain other changes which amount to a retouching of some of the portraits with which ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... and all power of resistance ebbed slowly away from him; he became perfectly passive—almost apathetic—and yielding to the somewhat rough handling of his guide, allowed himself to be urged with silent rapidity onward over the thick sand, till he presently became conscious that he was leaving the fresh open air and entering a building of some sort, for his feet pressed hard earth and stone instead of sand. All at once he was ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... now took leave of Cortes, assuring him that he would very soon return with an answer from Montezuma. Our presents, and intelligence of all that had passed at this interview, were conveyed with amazing rapidity to Montezuma by this officer, who was as much distinguished for swiftness of foot as for his high rank. Montezuma was particularly struck with the appearance of the helmet, as it impressed him strongly with the opinion that we were destined by heaven to acquire the rule over his empire[5]. On the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... to his grave, in a desert land. This image effaced everything else; the weaknesses she knew, and those she had begun to guess at. But at the same time she had not been crushed by the tragedy; she had often scourged herself in secret for the rapidity with which, after it, life had once more become agreeable to her. She knew that many people thought her incapable of deep feeling. She supposed it must be true. And yet there were moments when a self within ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the infinite variety of articulate sounds, perform the most necessary of all vital functions (that of respiration), masticate solid food, and swallow fluids. The miracle is, that any one set of organs in any conceivable juxtaposition should suffice to discharge with such amazing facility and rapidity these different and rapidly alternated functions; yet I suppose few who have studied anatomy will deny, that, though relatively to the variety of purposes it has to perform the apparatus is very simple, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... to this purpose much longer, with great rapidity, and then, suddenly, stopping, again said, "But I have yet another quarrel with you, and one you must answer. How comes it that the moment you have attached us to the hero and the heroine—the instant you have made us cling to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... her sleeve lifted, her blowzy face convulsed. As she laughed, Gwendolyn saw wrinkle after wrinkle in the black sateen taken up—with truly alarming rapidity. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... curiosity. Of his favourite, the Two Springs, the fiction is unnatural, and the moral inconsequential. In his tales there is too much coarseness, with too little care of language, and not sufficient rapidity ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... subjugation had depended on the rapidity with which the little white clouds proceeded from his sire's mouth, there is no doubt that it would have been a "fact" in a very short time, for they rushed from him with the violence of a high ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... to hear no more. They sprang into the creek with wonderful rapidity, and waded across, followed by Mike, who continually threatened them with a repetition of his weapon unless they behaved ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... vessel which, according to Rutherford, was captured in the bay he describes. Eighty years ago the arrival of a vessel at New Zealand was an advent of the utmost importance. The news spread throughout the land with surprising rapidity, and whole tribes flocked to the port to see the "Pakehas" and trade for their iron implements and guns. The Maoris of the district know of three white men, whom they called Riki, Punga, and Tapore, who lived amongst them ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... in getting a "good stand" and when once the plants have commenced to grow they come forward with a rapidity that is truly astonishing. The soil of Kentucky is well adapted for the production of the largest varieties of tobacco as well as the finest grades of cutting leaf. Much attention is paid to the selection of soil, that the light standard of Kentucky leaf may be further ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... which we immediately halted, and took up our abode there for the night. It may seem strange that so small a number could act thus unmolested by the native tribes, but our safety consisted chiefly in the rapidity of our movements, and their terror of strangers wholly unknown, perhaps unheard of, arriving on the backs of huge animals, or centaurs whose tramp they had only heard at nightfall. Like Burns's ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... prolixity which marks the speeches and the descriptions in Homer, I have gained a rapidity to the narration which I hope will make it more attractive, and give it more the air of a romance, to young readers; though I am sensible that, by the curtailment, I have sacrificed in many places the manners to the passion, the subordinate characteristics to the essential interests ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... were afterwards published in Italian, and subsequently translated into Latin by Pessuri, a Dominican monk of Bologna. Copies of the original manuscript, though written in the Venetian dialect, which is extremely different from the Tuscan or pure Italian, were multiplied with great rapidity in all parts of Italy, and even made their way into France and Germany. From one or more of these, corrupted by the carelessness or ignorance of transcribers, some of whom may have abridged the work, or may even have interpolated it from other sources, a thing quite common before ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... is a case in which everything depends upon rapidity of action. I leave Liverpool to-morrow afternoon. I came up from Lidford to-day on purpose to spend a few farewell hours with you. And I have been thinking, Jack, that you might run down to Liverpool with me to-morrow, and see the last of me, eh, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... enemy. Had the impulse been less powerful, Arabia, free at home and formidable abroad, might have flourished under a succession of her native monarchs. Her sovereignty was lost by the extent and rapidity of conquest. The colonies of the nation were scattered over the East and West, and their blood was mingled with the blood of their converts and captives. After the reign of three caliphs, the throne was transported from Medina ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... kind of unconsciousness. He would have called it sleep, but such it was not. All the time he could feel his brain working ceaselessly, like a machine running with unslackening rapidity. This went on, interrupted by little flickerings of consciousness, for three or four hours. Each time he had a glimmer of consciousness he wondered if ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... sympathy, did much to restore Barry to his normal health and spirits. A friendship sprang up between the M. O. and the chaplain. With this friendship a new interest came into Barry's life, and with surprising rapidity he regained both his ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... repining, he discovered that he must find in his desolation sterner sources of support than the memory of Venetia, and the recollections of the domestic joys of Cherbury. It astonishing with what rapidity the character of Cadurcis developed itself in solitude; and strange was the contrast between the gentle child who, a few weeks before, had looked forward with so much interest to accompanying Venetia to a childish festival, and the stern and moody being who paced the solitary ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... From the rapidity of the flash, and other circumstances, it may be conjectured that there is something of electricity in this phenomenon. Notes to Poems, 1796. Note 13, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... had spoken with feverish rapidity, and with every sign of the strongest agitation, occasionally stopping, and then resuming his remarks in a headlong way. But if he had felt agitation, Edith had felt at least quite as much. At the first mention of his proposal her head sank forward, and she looked fixedly upon the ground ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... gigantic opponent, not unlike an undersized but agile and skilful athlete in encounter with a large and lumbering, though more powerful, antagonist. Lieutenant Worden was the hero of the occasion in the rapidity of his manoeuvring, while Lieutenant Jones, now in command of the "Merrimac," was surprised to find that his shot made no impression on the "Monitor." After more than two hours of incessant fighting, Lieutenant Worden having been temporarily blinded through ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... better. Rylton looks back at her. He is silent, but she reads the disturbance of his soul in his firmly shut mouth, and the little, quick, flittering frown that draws his brows together in momentary rapidity. He had thought many things of her, but that she should hail with rapture the ruin that seemed to give her a chance of escape from him—that thought had not ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... sturdy citizens pouring in with their families, seeking homes; those who laid the enduring foundations of the social fabric, the laws and enterprises of necessity, pith, and moment, are the real fathers of the great Golden State. In the rapidity of settlement, all the manifold labors of civilization began together. Laus Deo! There were hands, brains, and hearts for those trying hours of the sudden acquisition ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... has not advanced in line, neither has it advanced in all departments with the same rapidity. It is with the race as it is with an individual. A man may turn his entire attention to some one subject—as, for instance, to geology—and neglect other sciences. He may be a good geologist, but an exceedingly poor astronomer; or he may ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... in with a tribe of Stone Indians, who had been threatening him, and had acted in a turbulent manner at the post a few days before. In the course of the afternoon, we saw a band of buffaloes, which fled from us with considerable rapidity. Though an animal apparently of a very unwieldy make, and as large as a Devonshire ox, they were soon out of our sight in a laboured canter. In the evening our encampment was surrounded by wolves, which serenaded us with their melancholy ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... World,' 'Sea, Sketches,' 'South and North,' 'Virey,' the 'Legitimate,' and others, which are to be issued in rapid succession from the press of WINCHESTER, 'the indefatigable,' as he may well be called; for the rapidity with which he sends out to the world the literary novelties of the day is a theme of public marvel. The German, in which these volumes are written, is said by competent judges, to be very pure and powerful: and indeed we ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... hardly solve the problem. Mr. Collins shows how the intellectual aristocracy of the past has been superseded by the present omnivorous reading-public afflicted with a perpetual craving for literary novelty. The inevitable rapidity of production results in a deluge of poor books which are foisted upon readers by a "detestable system of mutual puffery." This condition of affairs naturally offers few opportunities for the development of critical ideals; but it hardly applies to the incorruptible reviews ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... into a sitting position, facing down the slope, with feet spread out, as though steering a sleigh, Wilson allowed himself to go. The rapidity with which he gained momentum startled him. Soon the gray damp walls were passing upward like a glistening mist. With difficulty ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... autographed, as souvenir of Berlin Congress Farmers, usual indifference of French, to form of government enthusiasm of, over the Republic Ferry, Jules Fitz-Maurice, Lord Edmond France, astonishing rapidity of recovery of, after Franco-Prussian War Frederick-Charles, Prince French people self-centred attitude of conventions in dress of girls interest of women in their children lack of regard for, on part of Northern races defence of fine qualities ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... Methodists love your big sinners, as proper subjects to work upon—and indeed they have a plentiful harvest—I think what you call flagrancy was never more in fashion. Drinking is at the highest wine-mark; and gaming joined with it so violent, that at the last Newmarket meeting, in the rapidity of both, a bank-bill was thrown down, and nobody immediately claiming it, they agreed to give it to a ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... he said, speaking again, for she had touched the spot where she knew he was most sensitive. "France is tenacious of life, and I think she is going to astonish the world by the rapidity of her convalescence. True, she has many elements of corruption. I have not sought to hide them, I have rather, perhaps, exposed them to view. But you greatly misunderstand me if you imagine that I believe in her final dissolution, because I point out her ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... impulse, the mere release of thoughts and aspirations so long repressed, had brought about an extraordinary harmony, a victorious selflessness, among the members of the commission charged with the task. The work had gone with rapidity, yet with sureness, as in those early years of Christianity, which saw so rich and marvellous an upgrowth from the old soil of humanity. With surprising ease and spontaneity the old had passed over into the new; ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... now, through the shameful behaviour of the volunteers, become serious. The news of the defeat spread with great rapidity among the unruly tribes on the frontier of the Colony; and a Mohammedan priest, proclaiming himself a prophet, placed himself at the head of the movement. The Governor acted with promptitude; and recognising the great danger of delay, despatched, ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... was beating with painful rapidity. I had not counted on this warring with a woman; moreover, it was harder than I could have dreamt of. For some time I had been aware that by the charm of her personality and the art of her pleading she had brought me down from my judgment seat—had made it all but impossible for me to give ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... systems, and cheapening pots and pans instead of selling sentiment and philosophy." But even during this first busy year of housekeeping she was working upon O'Donnel, another national tale, for which she was paid five hundred and fifty pounds. It was highly praised by Sir Walter Scott, and sold with rapidity, but her Liberal politics made her unpopular with the leading Tory journalism of England. In point of pitiless invective the criticism of the Quarterly and Blackwood has perhaps never been exceeded. Her books were denounced as pestilent, and the public advised against maintaining her acquaintance. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... and the count felt great comfort in being once more alone. Since morning, events had followed one another with such bewildering rapidity that his thoughts could scarcely keep pace with them. At last, he was ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... he had been burned, that it was hot, muy caliente, wringing his hands as if, indeed, they had been scorched. Presently, finding that the burn left no mark and had stopped hurting, he shamefacedly picked up the ice again, shifting it from one hand to the other with the utmost rapidity, and occasionally crossing himself ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... solution of one part to 437 of water were placed on the discs of six leaves. The solution acted with extraordinary rapidity, for in 8 m. the outer tentacles on several of the leaves were much incurved. After 6 hrs. the tentacles of all six leaves, and the blades of two, were closely inflected. This state of things continued for 24 hrs., excepting that the blade of a third leaf became incurved. After 48 hrs. all the ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... being equal, takes place more easily in the young than in the old. New formation of cells goes on with great rapidity in intra-uterine life, the child, beginning its existence as a single cell one two hundred and fiftieth of an inch in diameter, attains in nine months a weight of seven pounds. The only similar rapidity of cell formation is seen in certain tumors; although the body may add a greater amount ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... along, nothing doubting that there might be time, if they hurried, to land their boat on the shore of some of the low-banked red clouds that lay in the sunset, where they could pick up shells,—blue and pink and purple,—enough to make them rich for life. The children were all excitement at the rapidity with which their little bark danced and rocked, as it floated outward to the broad, open ocean; at the blue, freshening waves, at the silver-glancing gulls, at the floating, white-winged ships, and at vague expectations of going rapidly somewhere, to something more beautiful still. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... poets his inferiors in imaginative quality, a poet of passages. Indeed, one cannot help having the feeling sometimes that the poem is there for the sake of these passages, rather than that these are the natural jets and elations of a mind energized by the rapidity of its own motion. In other words, the happy couplet or gracious image seems not to spring from the inspiration of the poem conceived as a whole, but rather to have dropped of itself into the mind of the poet in one of his rambles, who then, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... ascribed this pause to his natural timidity, attempted to encourage him; but instead of going on, he burst into a flood of tears, and retired off the stage. I don't know what were my feelings on this occasion; for they succeeded with too much rapidity for description: but I was soon awaked from this disagreeable reverie by Miss Wilmot, who, pale and with a trembling voice, desired me to conduct her back to her uncle's. When got home, Mr Arnold, who was as yet a stranger to our extraordinary behaviour, ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... its twenty-two years, that looked so eagerly from its dark grey eyes on to the activity of the playing children. But silences were generally short when Daisy was present, and she proceeded to unfold herself with rapidity and all the naturalness of which she deplored the lack in the ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... crinoline, for whom a carriage and pair of horses is always waiting immediately after dinner, whose fathers' pockets are bursting with dollars, it is a very gay place. Dancing and flirtations come as a matter of course, and matrimony follows after with only too great rapidity. But the place was not very gay for ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... village of Anfield worked with extraordinary rapidity. The first person of whom he asked the way to the Junction answered the riddle almost without thinking. He left his machine out in the road and went on to the platform. The first thing that caught his eye was the station clock ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... go, we are driven; like things that float, now leisurely, then with violence, according to the gentleness or rapidity ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... remembered as an elderly man in 1814, was still first favourite. 'He is the genuine representative of the English style of singing,' writes our critic, 'and in popular songs is the adored idol of the public. One cannot deny him great power of voice and rapidity of execution, but a more abominable style it is difficult to conceive.... The most striking feature to a foreigner in English theatres is the natural coarseness and brutality of the audiences. The consequence ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... got out into the air, but not so fast as not to hear, when the door of the drawing-room opened, the disconcerted drop of Miss Collop's public manner: she must have been in the midst of the larger latitude. Producing with extreme rapidity, Guy Walsingham has just published a work in which amiable people who are not initiated have been pained to see the genius of a sister-novelist held up to unmistakeable ridicule; so fresh an exhibition does it seem to them of the dreadful way men have always treated women. Dora Forbes, it's ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... atmosphere which, in virtue of an excessive heat, extended far beyond the orbits of all the planets, the planets as yet having no existence. The heat gradually diminished, and as the solar atmosphere contracted by cooling, the rapidity of its rotation increased by the laws of rotatory motion, and an exterior zone of vapour was detached from the rest, the central attraction being no longer able to overcome the increased centrifugal force. The zone of vapour might in some cases ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... hat go, and could see the balloon shoot up with tremendous rapidity, though, as he reckoned, the rate of velocity would need to be divided by about half, as he was simultaneously descending rapidly. He felt the rush of air, and shrank from the moment, coming nearer and nearer, when he should strike the earth. He seemed an unconscionably long time falling. Still, ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... immediately threatening, but the experienced physician knew its uncertainties only too well. He had known fever patients suddenly seized with violent internal inflammation, and carried off with frightful rapidity. He remembered the case of a convalescent, a young woman who had been attacked while in apparently vigorous general health, who, on being lifted too suddenly to a sitting position, while still confined to her bed, fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. It may well be ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into frenzied convulsion—heaving, boiling, hissing,—gryrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... shade, surrounded by young women, she sat with uncovered head and face, delighted with the music and the dancing—delighted that it was in her power to bring together so many souls to forget, though so briefly, the fretting of hard conditions daily harder growing. None knew better than she the rapidity ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... collect. Still less is it able to deliver the weight of each. It, therefore, presents us, even at its best when the testimony is not tainted, no more than one crude affirmation. This one relation is, as I have said, further propagated unanimously and with extreme rapidity. Instead of an organic impression formed at leisure in the comparison of many human sources, the reader obtains a mechanical one. At the same moment myriads of other men receive this same impression. Their adherence to it corroborates his own. Even therefore when the ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... he began, slowly and stumblingly at first, but accelerating into a rapidity of utterance that was almost incoherent; "I'm a rough sort of a man, I know that, and I know I don't know much of anything. I've never had any training in nice things. I've never made love before, and I've never been in love before either—and I don't know how to go about it any more ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... which in my youth had already awakened in me such deep and awe-struck interest, and had first aroused the wish to visit these lands—a desire now partially fulfilled! But we flew by with relentless rapidity. The whole region is deserted and bare. It seems as if nature and mankind were mourning together for the days gone by. The inhabitants may indeed weep, for they will never again be ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... twigs we clutched at sustained us for the while, or treacherously yielded to our grasp. For my own part, I scarcely knew whether I was helplessly falling from the heights above, or whether the fearful rapidity with which I descended was an act ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... took in the details with incredible rapidity; and the girl was still coming toward her as she noted the dazzling brightness of the great silvery wolf-skin that was flung about her shoulders and caught together at her soft throat; the mass of black ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... canoe. Some stuck in the sandbank, inside of which we were making our way. It showed us the danger of having to pass our enemies where the river became narrower. The only advantage we should there possess would be the greater rapidity of the current. We continued to ply our paddles with might and main. Now we had passed the sandbank, and a wide extent of water lay between us and the negro army. They, however, appeared to have discovered that should we get ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... with the fact that he possessed a short neck and a small figure whereof his turbulent blood made the circuit in a moment—was a man of fecund and astonishing imagination. In his brain the ideas performed their evolutions with the rapidity of hollow straws around a sieve. At the office, figures kept his steady attention by reason of their positive quality; but, outside, his mind took its revenge upon that inexorable occupation. The activity of the walk, the habit that led ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... he was objectionable to you,'—Mrs Proudie's foot worked on the hearth-rug with great rapidity,—'and that you would be more comfortable if he was out of the palace,' Mrs Proudie smiled, as a hyena may probably smile before he begins his laugh,—'and therefore I thought that if he got this place, and so ceased to be my chaplain, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... In political Strategy he could sense a new situation, wheel to meet it, throw overboard well-established plans, devise new ones, all in the twinkle of an eye. People who could not understand such rapidity of judgment pronounced him insincere, or at least, an opportunist. That he did not have the deep inflexibility of Lincoln may be assumed; that his convictions, such as they were, did not have an ethical cast may be safely asserted. Nevertheless, he was a great force, an immense human ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... and form into battle-line. But the confusion was so great that none of his followers paid attention to him. The Texans were aroused as never before, and struck at the Mexicans with such lightning-like rapidity that the enemy was dazed, and scores of them fell upon their knees begging for mercy. The shooting still continued, and now Dan was horrified to see his father go down, stabbed in the leg by a ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... bullet after bullet struck the wall of the cave. As he and the black boy threw themselves flat on the ground a few yards away, they both saw the flashes of rifles less than a hundred yards distant, and knew by the sound of and the rapidity of the firing that their unseen foes ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... of his sleeping recuperating physical body or it may be thousands of miles away in space, the magnetic connection still exists regardless of the distance. No matter what distance the astral man is away from his physical body, he can return to it with the rapidity of thought, as the saying is, for it is the soul that thinks, the brain is only ...
— The Secret of Dreams • Yacki Raizizun
... Somers was recognized, Hapgood and his party rushed forward, rightly judging, from the rapidity of his motions, that he was pursued. The sharp eye of the veteran sergeant was the first to perceive the ferocious Mississippian, who, undaunted by the appearance of the Union soldiers, continued the pursuit as long as there was even a gleam of hope that he could ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... the estates followed the rule of Primogeniture. No sooner, however, has the feudal system prevailed throughout the West, than it becomes evident that Primogeniture has some great advantage over every other mode of succession. It spread over Europe with remarkable rapidity, the principal instrument of diffusion being Family Settlements, the Pactes de Famille of France and Haus-Gesetze of Germany, which universally stipulated that lands held by knightly service should descend to the eldest son. Ultimately the law resigned itself to follow inveterate practice, and ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... sun detached itself from the firmament and leaped toward them, swelling visibly, momentarily, into a blinding monster of incandescence. And toward them also flung the earth, enlarging with such indescribable rapidity that Cleveland protested involuntarily, in spite of his knowledge of the peculiar mechanism of the vessel ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... sympathetically to the wheel but on her own axis. She moved round with the wheel but she was not of the wheel and she never became really incorporated with the wheel. The spokes were revolving with incredible rapidity when she first, began to notice them and they always remained relatively faster. There she was, sitting and watching and wondering; and the twig grows as it is bent or as it is left to bend. She looked on and absorbed things; and the first and by ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... right? Well, yes—since I came out at all. Oh, yes!" His voice mounted in the scale, under the impulse of a sudden access of rage against his enemies. He spoke with a savage rapidity of utterance: "And I can lick Carrington any day in the week. Why, I've already put him out. It's Morton—that old fox Morton who's got me guessing.... What do you think? They even had the nerve to threaten me. Of course, ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... this attracts the hammer, which is made of or is armed with a mass of iron. This breaks the circuit. The hammer falls at once on the anvil, again making the circuit, and the action is repeated with great rapidity. Hammer and anvil or key and anvil connections ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
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