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More "Slacken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the dawning, tongue and pen; Aid it, hopes of honest men; Aid it, paper—aid it, type— Aid it, for the hour is ripe, And our earnest must not slacken Into play. Men of thought and men of ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... the Custom-house,—and then for the grand cast of the dice. Everything must depend upon speed. How lucky that Mannering has betaken himself to Edinburgh! His knowledge of this young fellow is a most perilous addition to my dangers,"—here he suffered his horse to slacken his pace—"What if I should try to compound with the heir?—It's likely he might be brought to pay a round sum for restitution, and I could give up Hatteraick—But no, no, no! there were too many eyes on me, Hatteraick himself, and ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... the Rowski's strength would slacken after exertion. The blows began to fall less thick anon, and the point of the unknown knight began to make dreadful play. It found and penetrated every joint of the Donnerblitz's armor. Now it nicked ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he said: "Notwithstanding the depressed financial condition of a large part of the country, I feel it would be a great mistake for us in any degree to slacken our efforts to keep the school before the public or to get funds. I believe, as Dr. H.B. Frissell, Principal of the Hampton Institute, has often expressed it, that a large part of the mission of both ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... feel bound to follow out the policy of his father, and may be impelled by the headstrong ambition of his brother Constantine. At all events, this change at Petersburg should not for the present slacken the proceedings and the arrangements ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... waves that up a quiet cove Rolling slide, and lying still Shadow forth the banks at will: [10] Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea: And the self-same influence Controlleth all the soul and sense Of Passion gazing upon thee. His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love, Leaning his cheek upon his hand, [11] Droops both his wings, regarding thee, And so would ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... moment the edge of the black clouds swept over them, and the rain fell down in torrents; but in a quarter of an hour the clouds had passed, and the sun was shining again, and the violence of the flood was beginning to slacken. In half an hour the flood had swept by; and with it had gone every vestige of the wing dam they had builded with so much labor and with ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... snow; as they passed the island the ice cracked twice without breaking. Charles Eugene trotted smartly toward the house of Charles Lindsay on the other bank. But when the sleigh reached midstream, below the great fall, the horse had perforce to slacken pace by reason of the water which had overflowed the ice and wetted the snow. Very slowly they approached the shore; there remained only some thirty feet to be crossed when the ice began to go up and down under the ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... there was none for him. His cries were stifled by the pressure of the rope, and then he made a desperate effort to gain his feet. In this he succeeded, and stood upright causing the noose for a moment to slacken. He profited by the temporary relief to attempt another ineffectual prayer for pity. A gasping, inarticulate noise in his throat was the sole result; for the muleteer continued his vigorous pulls at the cord, and in an instant the unhappy ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... present rate of sailing," he said, "we should be there about ten o'clock to-morrow. That is, provided the ship does not slacken speed or increase it." ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... slacken our pace, and they will think that our strength is failing, and will redouble their efforts. Then, when they are close to us, we ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... not a curse. This country had the good luck to be settled by the hardest workers in the world. Their big production made us rich. If we slacken production we will soon be poor. The Indians owned everything in common. They did not work. And they were so poor that this whole continent would support less than two million of them. Thousands of Indians used to starve and freeze to death ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... offenders, and take all revenge in their own hands. They watch the women and prevent child-murder and such things, and although their reign is one of terror, their influence, as a whole, on the race is not bad, because they suppress many vices that break out as soon as they slacken their severity. The chiefs in Big Nambas seem to have felt this, and systematically opposed the intercourse with whites. But this district is just where the best workmen come from, and the population is densest, and that is why the recruiters ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... which latter has established itself under my nails in a position of such natural strength that it defies all my efforts to dislodge it. The worst work I had was when David (MacDonald's eldest) and I took the charge ourselves. He remained in the lighter to tighten or slacken the guys as we raised the pole towards the perpendicular, with two men. I was with four men in the boat. We dropped an anchor out a good bit, then tied a cord to the pole, took a turn round the sternmost thwart ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reflected on the natural conditions of commerce and industry; but it was these things alone that enabled the poorest Government in Europe to be better armed than the richest, and to keep in the van. In a word, people wanted the spring to relax, and failed to see that to slacken the spring meant ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... heart to vibrate more firmly and evenly; but an unhealthy excitement, like fear or anger, will cause it to beat in a rapid and uneven manner. Contrarily, despondency, or a lethargic state of mind, causes the movement of the blood to slacken. The happiness of love is thus the best of all stimulants and correctives for a torpid circulation, and it expands the whole being of a woman like the blossoming of a flower in the sunshine. From ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... his back was turned. It was not strictly true, but it conveyed something of the magnetism with which he wrought upon them. He knew the crucial moment by instinct, when to grapple and when to slacken his hold, and ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... then pass directly before him across the pavement, glancing quietly up into his face as he said in a low voice but distinctly, the words "The Lamp is lighted," and without pausing a second walk on his way down the road. He did not slacken his pace or look back until he was some distance away. Then he glanced over his shoulder, and saw that the figure had crossed the street and was inside the railings. It was all right. His father would not be disappointed. The great man ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to find that his vanity deserved forgiveness because of his humanity and desire for progress. "O Lentulus," he says, at the end of the oration, "since I am restored to the Republic, as with me the Republic is itself restored, I will slacken nothing in my efforts at liberty; but, if it may be possible, will add something to my energy." In translating a word here and there as I have done, I feel at every expression my incapacity. There is no such thing as good translation. If you wish to drink the water, with its life and vigor ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... For meal after meal he divided these delicacies among them—morsels of biscuit, and tinned meats, and dried fruits. But his eyes meanwhile were turned again and again to the storm raging without, as it had raged for this the longest week he had ever spent. If it would but slacken, a boat could go out to the nets set in the lake near by some days before, when the sun of spring had melted the ice. From the hour the nets had been set the storm had raged. On the day when the last morsel of meat and biscuit had been given ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the Danish fire began to slacken and several of the floating batteries surrendered, though before they could be taken they were frequently remanned by fresh forces from the shore. Enough had been accomplished; and to end a difficult situation—if not to extricate himself from ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... criticisms on Greek and Hebrew words, and in efforts to make the worse appear the better reason. As for myself, I was committed to change. I was travelling downwards at the time, at a rather rapid rate, and was not to be turned back, or even made to slacken my pace. The ordinary kind of theological vanities I regarded with the utmost contempt, and I had come to look on some portions even of Christ's own teachings as nothing more than doubtful human opinions. ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... had been breaking up, again gathered, producing thicker darkness than before; and heavy peals of thunder, heralded by pale sheets of lightning that threw a ghastly but insufficient light over objects, were again heard rattling at a distance over the woods. The fire of the savages began to slacken, and by and by entirely ceased. They waited perhaps for the moment when the increasing glare of the lightning should enable them better to distinguish between the broken timbers, the objects of so many wasted volleys, and the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... resource against the famine, and thus they used to do:—on one of the days they would play games all the time in order that they might not feel the want of food, and on the next they ceased from their games and had food: and thus they went on for eighteen years. As however the evil did not slacken but pressed upon them ever more and more, therefore their king divided the whole Lydian people into two parts, and he appointed by lot one part to remain and the other to go forth from the land; and the king appointed himself to be over that one of the parts which ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... into his unwilling pupil's mouth, whilst the young horse, half-mad with terror, rolled his eyes impotently. The Joven, standing astride over the fallen animal, half-dancing on his toes in his canvas shoes, would shout to the men to slacken the heel- rope, and then to let go the head-rope. As the terrified animal struggled to his feet, the Joven slipped nimbly on to the recado. Then came a brief pause, as the horse puzzled over the unaccustomed weight on his back, and those abominable girths ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... hundred kinds of trees and ferns and vines. Now and then we came into a cleared space, a native plantation, a hut surrounded by breadfruit-, mango- and cocoanut-, orange- and lime-trees. No one called "Kaoho!" and Mademoiselle N—— did not slacken her pace. We swept into the jungle again without a word, my horse following her mount's flying feet, and I ducking and dodging branches ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... and woodbine, and the lovely vistas through leafy framings of sunny hillsides and woods, of pastures dotted with grazing cattle, and of peaceful farm homes. It is a country idyll, sweet and restful! We may slacken our horses reins while he crops the wayside grass, or we may sit on a fallen stone from the old wall, while we muse of early days when there was no turnstile to block our path, but we should wander on around the loops of Sargent's woods, and gather at will the blue and white ...
— Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain • Harriet Manning Whitcomb
... the duel of the cannon far down the harbor, and spoke joyously of the great event. They saw the shells of the shore batteries ignite portions of the fortress on the island. They watched the fire of the defenders—driven by the flames into a restricted area—slacken and cease. At last the flag of the Union fluttered down from above ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... anything during this period (rendered somewhat considerable by the extreme slowness of the movement), the players are then entirely left to themselves, without conductor; and as the rhythmical feeling is not the same with all, it follows that some hurry, while others slacken, and unity is soon destroyed. The only exception possible to this rule is that of a first-rate orchestra, composed of performers who are well acquainted with each other, are accustomed to play together, and know almost by heart the work they are ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... our side began to slacken, and General Meade, learning that our guns were becoming hot, gave orders to cease firing and to let the guns cool, though the Rebel balls were making fearful havoc among our gunners, while our infantry sought poor shelter behind every projection, anxiously awaiting ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... Juggernaut; great lizards ran from sunny rocks at the sound of their approach, and a deer bounded across the tracks fifty feet in front of the cow-catcher. MacWilliams escorted Hope out into the cab of the locomotive, and taught her how to increase and slacken the speed of the engine, until she showed an unruly desire to throw the lever open altogether and shoot them off the ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... windlasses, and wound round them in order that the strings, stretched out taut on them by means of the handspikes, on being struck by the hand, may respond with the same sound on both sides. Then they are wedged tightly into the holes so that they cannot slacken. So, in the same manner, they are passed through to the other side, and stretched taut on the windlasses by means of the handspikes until they give the same sound. Thus with tight wedging, catapults are tuned to the proper pitch by musical sense ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... Perspiration trickled down his face and he felt an unpleasant nervous tension. Yet nobody came near him and when he cautiously glanced round nobody was lurking in the gloom. He began to think he had cheated Olsen, but admitted that it was too soon to slacken his watchfulness. ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... replied the Bishop, "that some experiment were made of a gentler course than has hitherto been tried. It is now a long time since force was first employed: perhaps, were his Royal Highness to slacken the severities, conformity would lose some of its terrors in the eyes of the misguided presbyterians; at all events, a more lenient policy could do no harm; and if it did no good, it would at least be free from those imputed cruelties, which are supposed to justify the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... the fishery they are not prepared to cure or otherwise dispose of them as fast as they could be caught; of course the seines slacken in their work, or the fish lie and spoil when that is the only time I can make anything by the seine, for small hauls will hardly pay the wear and tear of the seine and the hire of ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... going back. At first they walked half turned to the thicket, then facing the mound they walked faster looking over their shoulders, then faster; soon they ran, it was a race at last, until they were near the knoll. Then Siss who was hindmost was first to slacken his pace. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken, The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers, And the waves ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... survived in Galata, or the Isle of Chios, were embittered by his own and the public reproach. [58] His example was imitated by the greatest part of the Latin auxiliaries, and the defence began to slacken when the attack was pressed with redoubled vigor. The number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps a hundred, times superior to that of the Christians; the double walls were reduced by the cannon to a ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... he was confident. He began to speak to the horse in a gentle, firm voice. At times the stallion faced him with head lifted, a singular look in his eyes, as though he meditated leaping upon his captor. At first Mose took no notice of these actions, did not slacken his pace, but continued to press the bay on and on. At last he began to approach the horse with his hand lifted, looking him in the eyes and speaking to him. Snorting as if with terror, the splendid animal faced him again and again, only to wheel ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... they go into the count's copse. The washed trees, stirred by a gust of wind, drop a perfect waterfall upon them. Terenty stumbles over stumps and begins to slacken his pace. ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... glassy stretch their relays shot out from the bank. But Harrington did not slacken. Watching his chance when the new sled swung in close, he leaped across, shouting as he did so and jumping up the pace of his fresh dogs. The other driver fell off somehow. Savoy did likewise with his relay, and the ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... slowly, watching the motion of your engine all the while. When you have obtained the speed you require, run the thumb nut down as tight as you can with your fingers. Never use a wrench on these nuts. To slow or slacken the speed, loosen the jam nut as before, except that you must run it up a few turns, then taking hold of the thumb nut, turn down slowly until you have the speed required, when you again set the thumb nut secure. In regulating the speed, ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard
... and faster they came, crowding one group behind another, until the ushers were nearly demented. When drove after drove had divided and passed to the right or the left, that is, to the ladies' or gentlemen's dressing-rooms, and the stream began to slacken a little, so that they could distinguish individuals, Mr. Joy in turn received and passed a "puritan preacher," a "cavalier soldier," a "Highlander," a "knight," a "minstrel," the "vailed prophet," a "Switzer," a "Chinese mandarin," a "Russian serf," and black, white, ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... friend, Is old Van Ryk, and of a humble nature, And yet with faculties and gifts of sense, Which place him justly on no lowly level— Why should I say a lowlier than my own, Or otherwise than as an equal use him? That with familiarity respect Doth slacken, is a word of common use. I ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... besieging artillery, consisting only of three twenty-four pounders and six, eighteen pounders, was not brought up until the end of April, and before that period threw assaults had taken place with very serious loss. On the 4th of May our powder began to fail us. This cruel event obliged us to slacken our fire. We also wanted shot; and an order of the day fixed a price to be given for all balls, according to their calibre, which might be picked up after being fired from the fortress or the two ships of the line, the 'Tiger' and 'Theseus', which were ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... was now coming on fast, and, rather to my uneasiness, masses of mist began to pour down the sides of the mountain. I hurried on, the road making frequent turnings. Presently the mist swept down upon me, and was so thick that I could only see a few yards before me. I was now obliged to slacken my pace, and to advance with some degree of caution. I moved on in this way for some time, when suddenly I heard a noise, as if a number of carts were coming rapidly down the hill. I stopped, and stood with my back close against the high ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... of these things mentioned should not make us slacken our diligence in prayer and other duties; and when they are aright considered, they will rather prove a spur and a goad in our side to set us forward, than a bridle to ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... properly to leap as on the prostrate body of a foe; 'to affront,' to strike him on the face; that 'to succour' means by running to place oneself under one that is falling; 'to relent,' (connected with 'lentus,') to slacken the swiftness of one's pursuit; [Footnote: 'But nothing might relent his hasty flight,' Spenser F. Q. iii. 4.] 'to reprehend,' to lay hold of one with the intention of forcibly pulling him back; 'to exonerate,' to discharge of a burden, ships being exonerated once; that 'to be ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... affair was as brief as it was hot and sudden. The potations which had swelled and bloated his carcase had already weakened the springs of energy. One more huge effort, that came near to overpower me, and in which the pistol happily exploded, and I felt his grasp slacken and weakness come on his joints; his legs succumbed under his weight, and he grovelled on his knees on the stone ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then cross paths appeared, but these were old. No horses had passed recently upon them, and he did not slacken his pace to ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... fire now began to slacken, and soon after entirely ceased. In this situation we remained until two o'clock, when, perceiving that most of the enemy were returned to their camp, it was thought a proper opportunity to seize one of the eminences from which the enemy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... up to the author of time, and carry news of our usage. All our prayers cannot entreat one of them either to return or slacken his pace. The misspents of every minute are a new record against us in heaven. Sure if we thought thus, we should dismiss them with better reports, and not suffer them to fly away empty, or laden with dangerous intelligence. How happy is it when they carry up not only the messages, ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... nature. And you'll see a fencing wire lying in the river, with the end fastened to a tree. When you haul the wire up out of the water, you'll find the other end tied to a tree on this bank. Very complete rig. And, I say, Collins; mind you slacken the wire down from this end after you get across, on account of steamers, and snags, and so forth, The canoe's dead certain to be on your side of the river. It belongs to a couple of splitters, living in the horse-paddock hut; and they only use it to come across for rations, or the like ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... said Harry, who felt now how he loved his friend with all his heart, "how I wish I was going with you on the campaign!" The other pressed both the boy's hands, in a grasp of friendship, which each knew never would slacken. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... silenced the camp-fire circle by raising a warning hand. The cowboys bent their heads, listening. Madeline listened with all her might. She heard one of the hounds whine, then the faint beat of horse's hoofs. Nick spoke again and turned to his supper, and the other men seemed to slacken in attention. The beat of hoofs grew louder, entered the grove, then the circle of light. The rider was Nels. He dismounted, and the sound of his low voice ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... thy powers, nor slacken in the course, Thy spotless fame shall quash all false reports: Exert thy powers, nor fear a rival's force, But thou shalt smile at all his vain efforts; Thy labours shall be crown'd with large success; The Muse's aid thy Magazine ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... "The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency." It was well receiv'd by the common people in general; but the rich men dislik'd it, for it increas'd and strengthen'd the clamor for more money, and they happening to have no writers among them that were able to answer it, their opposition slacken'd, and the point was carried by a majority in the House. My friends there, who conceiv'd I had been of some service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money; a very profitable jobb and a great help to me. This was another advantage ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... people, who had deserted the city and were going to the Alban hills; they had escaped the fire and wished to go beyond the line of smoke. Before he had reached Ustrinum he had to slacken his pace because of the throng. Besides pedestrians with bundles on their backs he met horses with packs, mules and vehicles laden with effects, and finally litters in which slaves were bearing the wealthier citizens. The town of Ustrinum was so thronged ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... a reflection caused him to slacken pace, and then come to a stop. It was still daylight, and there would be a guard stationed by the front gate, sure to see him along the road. The ground on the opposite side of the lane was a patch of rocky scrub—in short, a chapparal—into which in an instant after he plunged, and ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... another plate, measuring seven inches or a little more, in the centre. Dip a case-knife in hot water and cut around the plate, having the knife go two-thirds through the paste. Place the paste in a flat baking pan and put in a hot oven. After twelve or fifteen minutes close the drafts, to slacken the heat, and cook half an hour longer, being careful not to let it burn. As soon as the vol-au-vent is taken from the oven, lift out the centre piece with a case-knife, and take out the uncooked paste with a spoon. Return the cover. At the time of serving place in the ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... Alonzo Pinzon, impatient to be the first who should take possession of the treasure which this country was supposed to contain, quitted his companions with his ship, the Pinta, and though Columbus made signals to slacken sail, he ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... the telegraph table scribbling at a rapid rate, and you may be sure he does not slacken his speed when he becomes conscious of the presence of the formidable agent of the New York Trigger! Only one instrument is used for telegraphic purposes, so he whose telegram is first handed to the clerk is first to ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... ho'se's rottlen peaece Do slacken till his veet do beaet A slower trot, an' till her feaece Do bloom avore the tollman's geaete; Oh! he'd be glad to oben wide His high-back'd geaete, an' stand azide, A-given up his toll wi' pride, ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... friends had been more wisely selected than the friends of those who in similar circumstances had been beguiled, and he suspected not the fraud of his vanity, till he found his invitations daily slacken, and that his time was at his ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... mysterious way the bonds of sympathy, by which we had been hitherto more or less united, seemed to slacken and fall away. We lived on perfectly good terms with one another; but there was an unrecognized decrease of confidence among us, which I for one felt sometimes almost painfully. An unwholesome ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... bales, heaps, torrents of papers, that are snatched and flung about in what looks like a free fight, and off with a rush and clatter east, west, north, and south. The interest passes outwardly; the men from the little rooms are going homeward, the printers disperse yawning, the roaring presses slacken. The paper exists. Distribution follows manufacture, and we follow ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... our wheel dog Nanook. He spares himself not at all; the one absorbing occupation of every nerve and muscle of his body is pulling. His trace is always taut, or, if he lose footing for a moment and the trace slacken, he is up and at it again that the sled lose not its momentum if he can help it. When the lead line is pulled back that the sled may be started by the jerk of the dogs' sudden traction, Nanook lunges forward at the command, "Mush!" and strains at the collar, mouth open and panting, ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... few log-houses composed the town. An addition was made to their diminished stock of eatables, and away they push again. They steer now up the Bay of Quinte; and what a wild and beautiful scene that must have been! Could those toil-worn voyagers have failed to mark it? Why do they slacken their pace? Why do they so often rest upon their oars and look around? Why do they push into this little cove and that? Why do they laugh and talk more than usual? Perhaps their journey is drawing to an end! We shall ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... bank through which Clark transacted his affairs sat late one night in his office. He had just returned from dinner at the big house, where he left his host in an unusually genial and communicative mood. It seemed that Clark's mind, tightened with the continued strain of years, had wished to slacken itself in an hour or two of utter candor, and Brewster had listened with full consciousness that this was an occasion which might never be repeated. But in his small cubicle, walled in with opaque glass, Clark's magnetic accents appeared to dwindle before the inexorable ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... which we mean to attain them; for the purpose of discussion here in this place is action, and our action must move straight toward definite ends. Our object is, of course, to win the war, and we shall not slacken or suffer ourselves to be diverted until it is won. But it is worth while asking and answering the question, When shall we ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... banks of sand, by which he had passed at sea formerly, and which could not be unknown to them; that in case the ship should fall upon those sands, or any other dangers of that coast, before morning, they should be all lost; and therefore he thought fit to take down some of their sails and slacken their course till, by daylight, they might come to know more certainly in ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... began to sink into my soul and make me quiet. Everything seemed thinking about me, but nothing would tell me what it thought. Not feeling, however, that I was doing wrong, I was only awed not frightened by the stillness. I made Missy slacken her speed, and rode on more gently, in better harmony with the night. Not a sound broke the silence except the rough cry of the land-rail from the fields and the clatter of Missy's feet. I did not like the noise she made, and got upon the grass, for here there was no fence. But the moment she felt ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... When life and love are gathered, If the world were not living Long after one is gone, Song would not ring, nor sorrow Stand at the door in evening; Life would vanish and slacken, Men would be ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... driven, they are intensely suspicious, and of course frightened. They know every spot in the jungle, and are acquainted with all the paths, tracks, and open places in the forest. When they are nearing an open glade, or a road, they slacken their pace, and go slowly and warily forward, an old buck generally leading. When he has carefully reconnoitred and examined the suspected place in front, and found it clear to all appearance, they again put on the pace, and clear the open ground ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... comes the trusty valet whom she had put on guard: it was the expected chaise, which, as well as the three men who accompanied it, were made, without knowing why, to slacken speed. It was King James. Madame L'Hospital accosts him, says he is expected, and lost if he does not take care; but that he may trust in her and follow her. At once they both go to her friends. There he learns all that has happened, and they hide him, and the three men of his suite ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... wild heart, with all the cold arrogance of sagacity, that these imaginings were vain. She felt that she must write a brief and firm letter to Arthur and tell him to desist. She saw with extraordinary clearness that this course was inevitable. And lest her resolution might slacken, she turned instantly towards home and began to hurry. The dog glanced up ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... still, and the heat of the day made him slacken his pace. The sun beat down on us from a cloudless sky. My lips and throat were like dry leather. Alphonse had long been cooling his with snow. We did not care to speak now. All our hearts were in our eyes; at ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... with the fleetness of vague visions, whilst the distant hills, enveloped in mist, vanished more slowly, with the gentle rise and fall of a swelling sea. Between Beaugency and Les Aubrais the train seemed to slacken speed, though it still kept up its rhythmical, persistent rumbling, which the deafened ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... he ran swiftly down the hill, and, followed by the others, did not slacken his pace till they reached the city. They then shaped their course more slowly towards Saint Paul's, and having gained the precincts of the cathedral, Solomon Eagle, who now assumed the place of leader, conducted them to a small door on the left of the great ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... well all through that afternoon, and indeed up to about midnight; but the wind was softening all the time, and shortly after midnight our speed began to slacken, until by daylight of the next morning it had once more fallen to less than three knots. Moreover, the weather was by no means satisfactory in appearance; there were no actual clouds to be seen in the sky, but instead of being a clear, deep, rich blue, as it ought to have been, and as ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... form south of Mexico and strike Central America and Mexico from June to October (most common in August and September); southern shipping lanes subject to icebergs from Antarctica; occasional El Nino phenomenon occurs off the coast of Peru, when the trade winds slacken and the warm Equatorial Countercurrent moves south, killing the plankton that is the primary food source for anchovies; consequently, the anchovies move to better feeding grounds, causing resident marine birds to starve by the thousands because of the loss of their food source; ships ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... ravine with a hail of bullets, where apparently the Boers must have been caught in some numbers. At any rate they are said to have lost heavily there, and from that time the attack or rather fusilade directed against Observation Hill began to slacken. We had not many men hit considering that the skirmish had begun soon after daybreak and continued with little cessation up to nine o'clock, when the Rifle Brigade reported three wounded, one being young Lieutenant Lethbridge, who is so ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... the landing, the fleet of canoes seemed to slacken speed, many of the Indians stopped paddling, and the long line was thrown ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... she flew to the postern and slipped out, once more taking the course which had become so familiar to her feet. She did not slacken her speed until she reached the Bourcier cabin, where she had made her home since the night when Hamilton's pistol ball struck her. The little domicile was quite empty of its household, but Alice entered and flung herself into a chair, where she sat quivering and ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... in front, stopping the way in the narrow street between two rows of mud-brick houses, and consequently Frank's party had to slacken their pace, the driver having glanced insolently back at them and then fixed his eyes half-wonderingly upon Frank, before turning again and continuing his way, quite ignoring the fact that those behind were ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... mean to attain them; for the purpose of discussion here in this place is action, and our action must move straight toward definite ends. Our object is, of course, to win the war; and we shall not slacken or suffer ourselves to be diverted until it is won. But it is worth while asking and answering the question, When shall we ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... betrothd Youth, who lies Cold in the narrow dwelling, or the cries With which a Mother wails her darling's death, These from our nature's common impulse spring, 5 Unblam'd, unprais'd; but o'er the pild earth Which hides the sheeted corse of grey-hair'd Worth, If droops the soaring Youth with slacken'd wing; If he recall in saddest minstrelsy Each tenderness bestow'd, each truth imprest, 10 Such grief is Reason, Virtue, Piety! And from the Almighty Father shall descend Comforts on his late evening, whose young breast Mourns with no transient ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a corner ere she spoke to him again, and advanced along a street which showed a vista of receding darkness, beaded by the dull house-lamps set over the courtyard gates. Not till then did she slacken the hurry of her gait. She ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... the Laird of Gandercleugh, with his wife and three daughters, the minister, the gauger, mine esteemed patron Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, and some round dozen of the feuars and farmers, had been consigned to immortality by Tinto's brush, custom began to slacken, and it was impossible to wring more than crowns and half-crowns from the hard hands of the peasants whose ambition ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... Congregationalists that through this Association more has been done for the true enfranchisement of the freedmen than through any other agency, and it is our duty to see that this great work, in which we have borne so large and honorable a part, halt not nor slacken in its energy because of our failure to keep its treasury replenished and its faithful laborers re-enforced and supported by our gifts and ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... by, and Imre, letting go the bridle, cut right and left, his sword gleaming rapidly among the awkward weapons; and taking advantage of a moment in which the enemy's charge began to slacken, he suddenly dashed through the crowd towards the outlet of the rock, without perceiving that another party awaited him above the rocks with great stones, with which they prepared to crush him ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... them to those who seemed to be most in his confidence, for no one was permitted to approach or converse with him, except when he was hurrying to or returning from the Emperor. Even then he did not slacken his pace, but walked on hastily, for fear that those who approached him might waste his time without paying for it. Such was the manner in which ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... appeared in sight, the train seemed to slacken speed for a bit, and a man jumped off the back end, waving a goodbye to the train crew ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... And try how far my tethered strength May crawl in this poor breadth and length. Let me, since I can fly no more, At least spin dervish-like about (Till giddy rapture almost doubt I fly) through circling sciences, Philosophies and histories Should the whirl slacken there, then verse, Fining to music, shall asperse Fresh and fresh fire-dew, till I strain Intoxicate, half-break my chain! Not joyless, though more favored feet Stand calm, where I want wings to beat The floor. At least earth's ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Love's fair, furze-garmented, And brightly crowned with golden bracken. Your loyalty of heart and head, Of love (and lead) I'm sure won't slacken. "Bless ye, my children! May your New Love Be firm and lasting ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... minutes past six, ranged up on the starboard side of the sternmost ship, about 300 yards distant, and commenced the action by broadsides, both ships returning our fire with the greatest spirit for about fifteen minutes, then the fire of the enemy beginning to slacken, and the great column of smoke collected under our lee, induced (p. 248) us to cease our fire to ascertain their positions and conditions. In about three minutes the smoke clearing away, we found ourselves abreast ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... formed for jumping, with good loins, hocks, and thighs, can be taught to jump timber; but it is madness to ride at a gate or a stile with a doubtful horse. A deer always slacks his pace to a trot to jump a wall or park rails, and it is better to slacken to a trot or canter where there is no ditch on either side to be cleared, unless you expect a fall, and then go fast, that your horse ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... rower apparently outdoing himself, if not outdoing everything else. If cheers and shouts had inspired them before, the intense silence now was even more inspiring. Could anything have succeeded better? With every show of exertion, the rascals managed to slacken or quicken as the case required, until, when nearly home, they were ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... in harmony with the emperor's usual mode of acting, he suddenly granted a thirty years' monopoly to the company which, for the reasons referred to, he all along secretly or openly favoured. During the latter part of 1859, the British government made efforts to induce that of France to slacken the restrictive commercial system which it had favoured. At a later period, a treaty was made with such object, through the intervention of Lord Cowley and Mr. Cobden on the part ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... fall of Constantinople follows, then Prussia must begin to see that the case is hopeless." But we must not deceive ourselves, for even when her allies are defeated Prussia will still be hard to beat. Przemysl must not cause us to slacken our effort in any direction or in the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... who were inclined to it, from doinge the mischieue they desyred to do: But his power at Courte could not enough qualify him, to goe through with that difficulte reformation, whilst he had a superiour in the Church, who havinge the raynes in his hande, could slacken them accordinge to his owne humour and indiscretion, and was thought to be the more remisse to irritate his cholirique disposition, but when he had now the Primacy in his owne hande, the Kinge beinge inspired with the same zeale, he thought he should ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... complaint, the poor boy was left to keep his broken-hearted mother upon nothing but a Latin Grammar. And I fear it is like a purser's dip. But here we are at Stonnington—a long steep pitch. Let us slacken sail, my dears, as we have brought no cockswain. Neither of you need land, you know, but I shall go into ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... was composed of several low woody isles, the most of them of small extent, except the southernmost, which, on account of the day, I named St Bartholomew. It is six or seven leagues in circuit, and makes the N.E. point of Bougainville's Passage. At noon the breeze began to slacken. We were at this time between two and three miles from the land, and observed in latitude 15 deg. 23' the Isle of Lepers bearing from E. by N. to S., distance seven leagues; and a high bluff-head, at which the coast we were upon seemed to terminate, N.N.W. 1/2 ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... little, my man," Wilkinson said. "That will do, just enough to keep the wind on the starboard quarter. Keep her at that, keep her at that." Edgar had the sail ready to hoist. "Slacken the tack a little. Now, half a dozen of you tail on here, and get ready to haul it down as soon as the sail is up to its full height and the halliards secured. Now, lads, tail on to the halliards. Away ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... "slacken now their going, for that Champion will be an impediment to us in our challengings and our fightings; for when we stop for that purpose he will overtake us, and, be our feats what they may, his and not ours will be the glory. Slacken the going of the horses, for we must ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were set fast; on making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and jaws, but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through my mind to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why did I enter Hunsden's house this evening? Why, at dawn to-morrow, must I repair to Crimsworth's mill? All that night did I ask myself these questions, and all that night fiercely demanded of my soul an answer. I got no sleep; my head burned, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... free in mind; she would immediately abuse her freedom. She cannot become philosophical without losing her special gift, which is the worship of all that is individual, the defense of usage, manners, beliefs, traditions. Her role is to slacken the combustion of thought. It is analogous to that ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the hurry of the Ocean ceas'd, Soon as its God appear'd above the Waves: Who, managing his Steeds in Air serene, Flies swift with slacken'd Reins and ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... it so difficult to make an impression on this iron band of warriors, began at length to slacken their efforts, and finally allowed Ferdinand to draw off the remnant of his forces without further opposition. The king continued his retreat without halting, as far as the romantic site of the Pena de los Enamorados, about seven leagues ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... seen the green sea monsters Go writhing down the gale, But never a hand to slacken, And never ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... black again. The same black-clad lady of the other evenings. There could be no mistake about it; she had turned up at the same spot for the fourth time. She is standing perfectly motionless. I find this so peculiar that I involuntarily slacken my pace. At this moment my thoughts are in good working order, but I am much excited; my nerves are irritated by my last meal. I pass her by as usual; am almost at the door and on the point of entering. There I stop. All of a sudden an ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... whose hilly banks it wound. A treat to our boys to see rolling, cleared country. Fish towns and lumber towns on the right. Hay stacks and fields on the left, backed by forests. Here the trail is bareswept by the wind from across the river. Again it is snow blown and men and ponies slacken speed in the drifts. Early sets the sun, but the white snow affords us light enough. The point out of sight in front, the rear party is lost behind the curve. Tiny specks on the ice below and distant are interpreted to be sledges bound for some river port. Nets are exposed to the air and wait ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... day, or every week, as the case may be. On that we plunge back into the beautiful, poetic, inspiring city, and adhere to our poetry-reading program—for exactly a fortnight. Then, unaccountably, our resolve begins to slacken. We cannot seem to settle our minds to ordered rhythms "where more is meant than meets the ear." Our resolve collapses. Once again Palgrave is covered with dust. But vacation time returns. After a few days in green pastures and beside still waters the soul suddenly turns ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... a hundred yards or so at the end of the tow-line; and just before the boat itself drew even with ours she was laid over by her steersman to the opposite side of the ditch, her horses were checked so as to let her line so slacken as to drop down under our boat, her horses were whipped up by a sneering boy on a tall bay steed, her team went outside ours on the tow-path, and the passage was made. They made, as was always the case, a moving loop of their line, one end hauled by the ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... Arnold. "I believe he's going after something to stimulate the shovelers. They look as if they were getting a little winded. See them slacken down." ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... ridden by the hunters. Instead of being direct, it grew very sinuous, made so by the efforts to avoid many formidable obstacles that rose in front. All this was of little account to the dusky leader, though of necessity it prolonged the journey, and he was obliged to slacken his pace to suit those who were ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... ground was favourable, the speed of their journey was such as to prevent much communication; but when a steep ascent compelled them to slacken their pace, a new cause of apprehension occurred to ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... solitaries of his time, with regard to assiduity in prayer. He devoted to this exercise whole days and nights, without being sensible of any weariness or fatigue: nay, his ardor for it seemed rather to increase than slacken by its continuance. He generally prayed in an erect posture; but in his old age was forced to support his body by leaning on a staff. He gave advice in very few words to those that came to see him, to gain the more time for heavenly contemplation. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... acquisitions of my brother come up to them, but his efforts were not equally successful in both cases. The most vigilant and jealous scrutiny was exerted in vain: Reproaches and blows, painful privations and ignominious penances had no power to slacken my zeal and abate my perseverance. He might enjoin upon me the most laborious tasks, set the envy of my brother to watch me during the performance, make the most diligent search after my books, and destroy them without mercy, when they were found; but he could not outroot my darling propensity. I ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... allow such destruction of property. No sooner were both sets of buildings destroyed than men were set to work with buckets and chains to drench the dusty heaps of the ruins with water, nor would the Master Builder permit the workers to slacken their efforts until the whole mass of demolished ruin was reduced to the condition of ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... him. Every soldier in the army was devoted to him, for he shared all their toils and perils. "Cities," he said, "are not taken by keeping in tents; as scholars, in the absence of the master, shut their books, so my troops, without my presence, would slacken their blows." ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... under such circumstances are, "Is this person sick?" "Is the brain involved?" "Are endocrinal glands involved?" "Is there disease of some organ of the body, acting to lower the feeling of well-being, acting to slacken the purposes and the will or to ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... an offense against "good taste" based on the "bad taste" it arouses in the observer. In memory we are often disgusted at what we did in the heat of desire, but usually memory itself does not prevent us from repeating the act; desire itself must slacken. Thus the old are often intensely disgusted at the conduct of the young, and it is never wise for a young couple to live with older people. For in the early days of married life the intensity of the intimate feelings needs seclusion in order to avoid disgusting ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale, Till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray; Then must the pennant-bearer slacken sail, That lagging barks may make their lazy way. Ah! grievance sore, and listless dull delay, To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze! What leagues are lost before the dawn of day, Thus loitering ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... artillery and small arms, that at first the cavalry recoiled, but without abandoning the high ground. The guns and the infantry which they had brought with them, maintained the contest with spirit and effect. The French fire seemed to slacken Marlborough instantly ordered a charge along the line. The allied cavalry galloped forward at the enemy's squadrons, and the hearts of the French horseman failed them. Discharging their carbines at an idle distance, they wheeled round ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... them, and deprived them of the hopes they had of success against the Egyptians, and went on in overthrowing their cities, and indeed made a great slaughter of these Ethiopians. Now when the Egyptian army had once tasted of this prosperous success, by the means of Moses, they did not slacken their diligence, insomuch that the Ethiopians were in danger of being reduced to slavery, and all sorts of destruction; and at length they retired to Saba, which was a royal city of Ethiopia, which ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... insists upon so many hours and so much work in them, and will make not an inch of allowance either more or less. Sometimes my hours were more, sometimes they were less, but always my energy was apt to slacken with the slackening of the day. I never found inspiration in the midnight oil and oceans of coffee. I have always wanted my solid eight hours of sleep, and would not shrink from nine or ten if they fitted in with a worker's life. Youth often gave me the courage I have not now to take up work ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... his usual foresight when he predicted that the garrison of Quebec would soon slacken its vigilance. Arnold with the small remnant of his shattered forces gave up all attempt at a complete investment, but confined himself to an alert blockade. He burned the houses in the suburbs that interfered ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... those driving past to slacken their horses and gaze earnestly at the house, and, if any of us are upon the piazza or at the windows, they always bow—a mark of respect that is also shown us by all the farmers and working ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... the rear of his countrymen. The vanquished had nineteen ships sunk and taken. The victors lost only one. Sir John Lawson died soon after of his wounds. It is affirmed, and with an appearance of reason, that this victory might have been rendered more complete, had not orders been issued to slacken sail by Brounker, one of the duke's bed-chamber, who pretended authority from his master. The duke disclaimed the orders; but Brounker never was sufficiently punished for his temerity.[*] It is allowed, however, that the duke behaved with great ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... the reverse, which we believe might happen any year, and could certainly not be detected without far more accurate observations and calculations for the mean sea-level than any hitherto made, would slacken or quicken the earth's rate as a timekeeper by one- tenth ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... began to speak to the horse in a gentle, firm voice. At times the stallion faced him with head lifted, a singular look in his eyes, as though he meditated leaping upon his captor. At first Mose took no notice of these actions, did not slacken his pace, but continued to press the bay on and on. At last he began to approach the horse with his hand lifted, looking him in the eyes and speaking to him. Snorting as if with terror, the splendid animal faced him again and again, only to ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... in war, but to observe faith given, though to an enemy. Study piety toward the subject; show care to defend him. Be slow to punish in divers cases, but be a sharp and severe revenger of open crimes. Break no decrees or dissolve no orders to slacken the strength of laws. Choose neither magistrates, civil or ecclesiastical, by favour or price; but with long disquisition and report of their worth by all suffrages. Sell no honours, nor give them hastily, but bestow them with counsel ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... they had met no vehicles. But now the higher, wilder mountains were behind them, there was an occasional horseman. As they neared Cottonville, and teams were numerous on the road, Johnnie, jealously unwilling to slacken speed, kept the horn going almost continuously. People in wagons and buggies, or on foot, drawn out along the roadside, cupped hands to lips and yelled startled inquiries. Johnnie bent above the steering-wheel ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... minutes the canoe went flying over the water, and I continued to haul in line fathom by fathom, until I caught sight of, deep down in the water right ahead, a great phosphorescent boil and bubble. Then the pace began to slacken, as the gallant fighter began to turn from side to side, shaking his head and making futile breaks from port to starboard. Bidding me come amidships with the line, Ioane took in his paddle, and picked up the harpoon which we always carried on the outrigger platform in case of meeting ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... Cuculain, "slacken now their going, for that Champion will be an impediment to us in our challengings and our fightings; for when we stop for that purpose he will overtake us, and, be our feats what they may, his and ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... hundred and twenty miles within the last twenty-four hours; and still the breeze does not slacken. Much better in health. Bless the ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... felt now how he loved his friend with all his heart, "how I wish I was going with you on the campaign!" The other pressed both the boy's hands, in a grasp of friendship, which each knew never would slacken. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a wayward mind like his. He's got in a state now when I wouldn't trust him a yard. And I hope to God you'll hold the reins tight, miss, and not slacken till they're man and wife. Once let him see his way clear to bolt, and bolt ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... your ship is there I cannot get out, but if they saw you shifting your berth it would strike them at once that I might be intending to slip away. You must wait until it gets perfectly dark, and then throw off your warps and slacken out your cable as silently as possible, and let her drop down so as to leave me an easy passage. As soon as it is dark I will grease all my blocks, and when everything is quiet try to get her out. What wind ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... force I was drawn through the water; then when I found the strain slacken, I drew in the line. This manoeuvre was repeated several times, till I succeeded in obtaining a view of what I had caught; or, more properly speaking, of what had caught me. It was merely a glimpse; for the fish, which was a very large one, getting a sight of me within a few yards ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... the trouble or precaution to draw up their ships in line of battle, but trusting entirely to their own superior skill, and to the greater lightness of their ships, they bore down on the Romans in disorder. They, however, were induced, for a short time, to slacken their advance at the sight of the corvi; but not giving the Romans credit for any invention which could counterbalance their want of skill, experience, and self-confidence, they again pushed forward and attacked the Romans. ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... raged for two hours, the fire of the fort began to slacken, as one after another of the guns was dismounted. Monsieur Renault saw that the place could be no longer defended. Of his hundred and forty-six soldiers, over ninety had been killed and wounded. Collecting the remainder, ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... the nineteen-thousand-foot level, which was about midday, the wind was so severe that I looked with some anxiety to the stays of my wings, expecting momentarily to see them snap or slacken. I even cast loose the parachute behind me, and fastened its hook into the ring of my leathern belt, so as to be ready for the worst. Now was the time when a bit of scamped work by the mechanic is paid ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sea formerly, and which could not be unknown to them; that in case the ship should fall upon those sands, or any other dangers of that coast, before morning, they should be all lost; and therefore he thought fit to take down some of their sails and slacken their course till, by daylight, they might come to know more certainly in what part ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... on whom Nature has lavished virtue, grace, boldness, cleverness, and whose wisely directed energy is going to save the State. Oh! my good, gallant Lysistrata, and all my friends, be ever like a bundle of nettles; never let your anger slacken; the winds ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... consisting only of three twenty- four pounders and six, eighteen pounders, was not brought up until the end of April, and before that period threw assaults had taken place with very serious loss. On the 4th of May our powder began to fail us. This cruel event obliged us to slacken our fire. We also wanted shot; and an order of the day fixed a price to be given for all balls, according to their calibre, which might be picked up after being fired from the fortress or the two ships of the line, the 'Tiger' and 'Theseus', which were stationed ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the more set, the more rigid became all the habits and purposes of religion. Again and again he was tempted to soften them—to spend time with her that he had been accustomed to give to Catholic practice—to slacken or modify the harshness of that life of self-renouncement, solitude, unpopularity, to which he had vowed himself for years—to conceal from her the more startling and difficult of his convictions. But he crushed the temptation, guided, inflamed by that ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on our packs and slung our rifles over our shoulders, we mounted and rode forward, our animals going much more briskly than they had done on the previous evening. When the sun rose the heat became as great as ever and the poor beasts began to slacken their speed, but eager to get on, we urged them forward with spur and rein until we began to fear that they would break down altogether. Suddenly, however, pricking up their ears and stretching out their necks, ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... spirit by the fierce purity of the sea, he only saw the more clearly the darkness of the guilt in which he believed, and was more bitterly repelled by the motive at which he guessed. But now at least his zeal was awake again, and the sense of the hunt quickened. He would neither slacken nor spare; here need be no compunction. In the course of the day, he hoped, his net would be complete. He had work to do in the morning; and with very vivid expectancy, though not much serious hope, he awaited the answer to the ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... some accident might occur, I ran forward, and, seizing the pony by the bridle, drew him as near as I could to the hedge. On came the hoofs—trot, trot, trot; and evidently more than those of one horse; their speed as they advanced appeared to slacken—it was only, however, for a moment. I heard a voice cry, "Push on, this is a desperate robbing place, never mind the dark"; and the hoofs came on quicker than before. "Stop!" said I, at the top of my voice; "stop! or—" Before I could finish what I was about to say there was a stumble, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a little, my man," Wilkinson said. "That will do, just enough to keep the wind on the starboard quarter. Keep her at that, keep her at that." Edgar had the sail ready to hoist. "Slacken the tack a little. Now, half a dozen of you tail on here, and get ready to haul it down as soon as the sail is up to its full height and the halliards secured. Now, lads, tail on to the halliards. ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... personal ambition, striving for first places, even at the Last Supper. They displayed jealousy, envy, narrowness, ingratitude, unbelief, cowardice. As these unlovely things appeared in the men Jesus had chosen, his friendship did not slacken or unloose its hold. He had taken them as his friends, and he trusted them wholly; he committed himself to them absolutely, without reserve, without condition, without the possibility of withdrawal. No matter how they ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... die out. In this way he amused himself until the straggling town of the Divide came in sight, when, putting his spurs to his horse again, he managed, under pretense of the animal becoming ungovernable, to twice "cross the bows" of the fugitives, compelling them to slacken speed. At the second of these passages Van Loo apparently lost prudence, and slashing out with his whip, the lash caught slightly on the counter of Hamlin's horse. Mr. Hamlin instantly acknowledged it by lifting his hat gravely, and speeded on to the hotel, arriving ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... heads, working a devious way, men and women of all conditions wind a path over. They fill the interstices between the carriages and blacken the surface, till the vans almost float on human beings. Now the streams slacken, and now they rush amain, but never cease; dark waves are always rolling down the incline opposite, waves swell out from the side rivers, all London converges into this focus. There is an indistinguishable noise—it is not clatter, hum, or roar, it is not resolvable; made up of ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... long while they lay there waiting for the rain to slacken before he launched the bird. The men across the hog-back never stirred. Nobody approached from the rear. At last, behind Mount Terrible, the tall edges of the rain veil came sweeping out in ragged majesty. Vapours were ascending in its wake; a distant peak ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... himself off the edge, and in a very short time Malchus felt the rope slacken. He followed at once. The first twenty feet the descent was absolutely perpendicular, but after that the rock inclined outward in a steep but pretty regular slope. Malchus was no longer hanging by the rope; but throwing the principal portion of his weight ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... Every steam vessel which is directed by these rules to keep out of the way of another vessel shall on approaching her, if necessary, slacken her speed ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... which may be done by three o'clock in the afternoon; have pared and cut enough good apples to fill the kettle; put them in a clean tub, and pour the boiling cider over; then scour the kettle and put in the apples and cider, let them boil briskly till the apples sink to the bottom; slacken the fire and let them stew, like preserves, till ten o'clock at night. Some dried quinces stewed in cider and put in are an improvement. Season with orange peel, cinnamon or cloves, just before it is done; if you like ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... inside horse of breast-team No. 47, Chieftain had forgotten much about pedigree, but he had learned many other things. He had come to know the precise moment when, in easing a heavy load down an incline, it was safe to slacken away on the breeching and trot gently. He could tell, merely by glancing at a rise in the roadway, whether a slow, steady pull was needed, or if the time had come to stick in his toe-calks and throw all of his two thousand pounds on the collar. ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... impulse of anger, he suffered keenly for his bravado; for at every bound of the horse, his agony increased. Finally he could endure no more. He came to a complete stand, and requested his suite to slacken their pace. They rode on in perfect silence, the officers casting stolen glances at the king, whose lips quivered, while his face grew every moment paler with suppressed anguish. But he bore it all without a sigh, until they had reached the point for which ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... that friends who meet seldom write to each other rarely; and that, although letters are most valued by those who are far from home and long absent, yet it is precisely in the case of prolonged separation that the chain of friendly communication is apt gradually to slacken until it becomes entirely disconnected. So long, indeed, as men depended for news on private sources, there was always a kind of obligation to write; but the telegraph and the newspaper have now monopolised the Intelligence Department. ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... a while after that, while Betty regarded the increasingly muddy road ahead of her with anxious eyes. She had been forced to slacken her speed more and more until now they ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... to be done was to detach the truck half off the rails from the one completely so. To do this the engine had to be moved to slacken the strain on the twisted couplings. When these had been released, the next step was to drag the partly derailed truck backwards along the line until it was clear of the other wreckage, and then ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... earth to shake again; but though the earth shook, the single British howitzer was neither dismounted nor silenced; and though the artillery-men could not, perfectly exposed as they were, stand to their gun while the iron hail was striking thick and fast around, yet no sooner did the enemy's fire slacken for a moment than they sprang to their post, ready to return at least one shot for eighty. This extraordinary combat lasted from seven o'clock in the morning till near twelve at noon, when the French ship, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... stillness of the night began to sink into my soul and make me quiet. Everything seemed thinking about me, but nothing would tell me what it thought. Not feeling, however, that I was doing wrong, I was only awed not frightened by the stillness. I made Missy slacken her speed, and rode on more gently, in better harmony with the night. Not a sound broke the silence except the rough cry of the land-rail from the fields and the clatter of Missy's feet. I did not like ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... you would slacken the pace of your horses, to satisfy the passion of his amorous heart, and so make of a delightful night the longest night of all; that you would give him more time for his transports, and retard the birth of day since it will hasten the return of ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... night they should reach some villages of the Babylonian territory, as in fact they did; yet not before they had been alarmed in the afternoon by the supposed approach of some of the enemy's horse, and by evidences that the enemy were not far off, which induced them to slacken their march for the purpose of more cautious array.[6] Hence they did not reach the first villages before dark; these too had been pillaged by the enemy while retreating before them, so that only the first-comers under Klearchus could ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... growths of roses and blackberry-bushes, the tangle of ivy and woodbine, and the lovely vistas through leafy framings of sunny hillsides and woods, of pastures dotted with grazing cattle, and of peaceful farm homes. It is a country idyll, sweet and restful! We may slacken our horses reins while he crops the wayside grass, or we may sit on a fallen stone from the old wall, while we muse of early days when there was no turnstile to block our path, but we should wander on around ...
— Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain • Harriet Manning Whitcomb
... beginning to slacken, and they doubtless feared that a number of fire-barges might be launched at them did they venture higher up. On the way back, they launched a fire-ship at the Royal Oak, which was commanded by Captain Douglas. The flames speedily communicated to the ship, and the crew ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... do not think that Miss GROVES' pen is quite sufficiently dashing for this sort of thing. Historical and adventurous romance, if it is to earn my vote, must keep me out of breath the whole time. It should never be allowed to slacken pace; and (to be entirely candid) My Lady Rosia sometimes ambles rather heavily. I forgot to add that it is published by WASHBOURNE, printed on detestable paper, and contains some pleasant illustrations of the places mentioned in the story. In few, the best ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... apparent to the young scouts, they became gloomier and gloomier. But Henry, exulting at the opportunity to handle such an outfit, almost forgot their failure, and drank in eagerly the gossip of the night. So engrossed was he, that he was startled when he heard the order to slacken speed, and heard his captain say, "Well, here we ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... an explanation with an intensity of distress in voice and manner, that no one whose ears were not stopped with a stronger feeling could have been deaf to; but Mrs. Rossitur would not raise her head, nor slacken in the least the clasp of the fingers that supported it; that of themselves in their relentless tension spoke what no words could. Fleda's trembling prayers were in vain in vain. Poor nature at last sought a woman's relief in tears but they were heart- breaking, not heart-relieving ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... composed the town. An addition was made to their diminished stock of eatables, and away they push again. They steer now up the Bay of Quinte; and what a wild and beautiful scene that must have been! Could those toil-worn voyagers have failed to mark it? Why do they slacken their pace? Why do they so often rest upon their oars and look around? Why do they push into this little cove and that? Why do they laugh and talk more than usual? Perhaps their journey is drawing to an end! We shall ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... then, as his father's troubles deepened, and ended in his death of heart complaint, the poor boy was left to keep his broken-hearted mother upon nothing but a Latin Grammar. And I fear it is like a purser's dip. But here we are at Stonnington—a long steep pitch. Let us slacken sail, my dears, as we have brought no cockswain. Neither of you need land, you know, but I ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... at a rapid pace, and did not slacken his speed until he reached home. Dinner was ready, and he sat down with none but Helen, who could scarcely touch a morsel. Her father saw at once the state of her mind, and felt that it would be injudicious to introduce any subject that might be calculated to ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... hurry of the Ocean ceas'd, Soon as its God appear'd above the Waves: Who, managing his Steeds in Air serene, Flies swift with slacken'd Reins and ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... intrust them to those who seemed to be most in his confidence, for no one was permitted to approach or converse with him, except when he was hurrying to or returning from the Emperor. Even then he did not slacken his pace, but walked on hastily, for fear that those who approached him might waste his time without paying for it. Such was the manner in which Justinian ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... of the hopes they had of success against the Egyptians, and went on in overthrowing their cities, and indeed made a great slaughter of these Ethiopians. Now when the Egyptian army had once tasted of this prosperous success, by the means of Moses, they did not slacken their diligence, insomuch that the Ethiopians were in danger of being reduced to slavery, and all sorts of destruction; and at length they retired to Saba, which was a royal city of Ethiopia, which ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... thee will call To help them, but give thou no heed at all, But pass them swiftly; and then soon again Within a shed three crones shalt thou see plain Busily weaving, who shall bid thee leave The road and fill their shuttles while they weave, But slacken not thy steps for all their prayers, For these are shadows only, and set snares. "At last thou comest to a water wan, And at the bank shall be the ferryman Surly and grey; and when he asketh thee Of money for thy passage, hastily Show him thy mouth, ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... messenger stepped again into his recovered boat. A groan forced its way between his clenched teeth as he set his paddle to the dark waters of the bayou, but its rhythmic sweep did not slacken. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... fair, furze-garmented, And brightly crowned with golden bracken. Your loyalty of heart and head, Of love (and lead) I'm sure won't slacken. "Bless ye, my children! May your New Love Be firm and ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... took their leaves, with the same compliment of striking each other's hoof; and the gray made me signs that I should walk before him; wherein I thought it prudent to comply, till I could find a better director. When I offered to slacken my pace, he would cry hhuun hhuun: I guessed his meaning, and gave him to understand, as well as I could, "that I was weary, and not able to walk faster;" upon which he would stand awhile ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... shouted and pounded each other on the back. For several miles the speedometer needle never receded, and not until the roofs and church steeples of Clintonia were visible in the distance did Dr. Dale slacken pace and bring the big machine down to a ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... gave him no pleasant look. He wanted me to slacken my pace, and tell him, in confidence, my private opinion of her : but I told him, very truly, that as I knew her chiefly by account, not by acquaintance, I had not absolutely formed ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... the tutor of George Sand's father.] had taught me And indeed I found the lucky shoe, where it had fallen in a dark corner and not been seen. Whisky alone was accused. My knees hurt me very much for a few days but, I did not brag of them; and the explorations did not slacken. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Prince donned his armour, mounted his black steed, and, spear in hand, dashed out of the west gate of the city. He pressed on his horse, which went swift as the wind, nor did he slacken speed till he came up with the water-stealing dragons, who still retained the forms in which they had appeared to him in his dream. On a cart were the two identical baskets he had seen; in front of the cart, ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... Brand began to slacken speed on the morning of the thirteenth day (morning, of course, being a technical term: there are no horizons in space for the sun to rise over). Jupiter was still an immense distance off; but it took a great while to slow the momentum of the space ship, which, in ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... ought to be not to employ any means beyond those of reason and persuasion, as long as the employment of these afford a ground for rational expectation of success. Men are, in such a case, labouring, not for the present day only, but for ages to come; and therefore they should not slacken in their exertions, because the grave may close upon them before the day of final triumph arrive. Amongst the virtues of the good Citizen are those of fortitude and patience; and, when he has to carry on his struggle against corruptions deep and widely-rooted, he is not to expect the baleful ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... renders this passage often a disagreeable one in the foggy season; but when the weather is as cold as now, it is invariably clear, and we steered up the beautiful harbour of Halifax with no interruption but that caused by the closing in of the day, rendering it necessary to slacken our speed as we neared the town. It was dark when we arrived, but having two hours to spare, we took a walk, and after passing through the town-gate, saw what we could of the place, respecting which I felt great interest, from my father having been Chief-justice there many years; ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... of Mexico and strike Central America and Mexico from June to October (most common in August and September); southern shipping lanes subject to icebergs from Antarctica; occasional El Nino phenomenon occurs off the coast of Peru when the trade winds slacken and the warm Equatorial Countercurrent moves south, killing the plankton that is the primary food source for anchovies; consequently, the anchovies move to better feeding grounds, causing resident marine birds to starve by the thousands because of their ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... give it a right to be considered as such; but its depth in many parts is ludicrously out of proportion to its length and breadth. I remember one day seeing the captain of a large, flat-bottomed steamer slacken speed, to avoid running down a man on horseback who was attempting to cross his bows in the middle of the stream. Another day a not less characteristic incident happened. A Cossack passenger wished to be set down at a place where there was no ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... raged, till nightfall wrought partial cessation. The wearied troopers stretched out their lines so as to protect the packs and the field hospital, threw themselves on the ground, digging rifle-pits with knives and tin pans. Not until nine o'clock did the Indian fire slacken, and then the village became a scene of savage revel, the wild yelling plainly audible to the soldiers above. Through the black night Brant stepped carefully across the recumbent forms of his men, and made his way to the field hospital. In the glare of the single fire the red sear of a ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... of sailing," he said, "we should be there about ten o'clock to-morrow. That is, provided the ship does not slacken speed ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... man heard the old woman's words of farewell. They moved northward along the snowy path, hand in hand, running with no more sound than slipping star-shadows. So for a hundred yards; and then the speed began to slacken, and at last they walked. They reached the black crest where the brushwood of the drook showed above the level of the barrens. Here they halted, and Darling whistled guardedly. An answering note came ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... stopped. For an instant each man thought whether it would not be better to turn back, but it was only for a second, the enemy's fire seemed to slacken, the officers all drew their sabres ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... the corral were mere specks in the distance, and then even these faded from view. The pony kept to the open country, and not once did he slacken his speed. ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... flew by. The unwilling travellers, depressed beyond description, had given up all hope of leaving the car until it reached the point intended by the wily plotters. To their amazement, however, the speed began to slacken perceptibly after they had left the city ten or twelve miles behind. Truxton was leaning against the side of the door, gloomily surveying the bright, green landscape. For some time Loraine had been steadying herself by clinging to his ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... seeming pretty great, but nothing to the fire of London, that it made me think little of it. We could at that distance see an engine play—that is, the water go out, it being moonlight. By and by, it begun to slacken, and then I home ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... very little strain, so that, upon the whole, considering the situation in which the ships were lying, we thought ourselves fortunate in having incurred no very serious injury. A shift of wind to the southward in the afternoon at length began gradually to slacken it, but it was not till six A.M. on the 1st of August that there appeared a prospect of making any progress. The signal to that effect was immediately made; but, while the sails were setting, the ice, which had at first been three quarters of a mile distant from us, was observed ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... in a plaid, so that he could scarcely move, a stake being fixed in the earth, with a rope, or tedder, that was about the plaid; he had no sooner enquired what he was, but he conjured him to loose him, and out of sympathy he was pleased to slacken that, wherein he was, as I may so speak, swaddled; but, if I right remember, he signified, he did not recover."—Account of the Parish of Suddie, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... through the white moonlight of that night, Mukoki broke their trail, travelling at times so swiftly that the Missioner commanded him to slacken his pace on David's account. Even David did not think of stopping. He had no desire to stop so long as their way was lighted ahead of them. It seemed to him that the world was becoming brighter and the forest gloom less cheerless as they dropped that evil valley of Tavish's farther and farther ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... began to slacken, as though word had gone forth that the pursuit of the retiring foe must be temporarily abandoned. Victory had perched on the banner of the defenders of the soil; the lilies of France had swept proudly over the trenches of the foe; still further back from the imperiled capital had the ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... varied by the softest and most delicate shades. No cloud nor speck of vapour intercepted my view. One of my exclamations of delight awakened the Brahmin, who quickly arose, and looking down on the resplendent orb below us, observed that we must soon begin to slacken the rapidity of our course, by throwing out ballast. The moon's dimensions now rapidly increased; the separate mountains, which formed the ridges and chains on her surface, began to be plainly visible through the telescope; whilst, on the shaded side, several volcanoes ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... his chauffeur this time, was driving over the speed-limit, Peter perceived. He usually did. But he ought to slacken his pace now, or he would miss Peter by the wall. He was nearing the woodstack, just going to pass it, with a clear two yards between. It was not his doing: it was the woodstack that suddenly lessened the distance, lurching over it, taking the ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... runs out of the boat as if he was bewitched, with such an extraordinary swiftness, that he was out of sight as it were in an instant; but at his return I perceived him slacken his pace, because he had something in his hand. And this I found to be as he approached nearer, an earthen jug with some water for his father, with two more cakes of bread, which he delivered into my hands. Being very ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... got no farther, though the fire did not slacken on either side. The pirates lay among the scrub, hidden in the bushes, in little knots of two and three. They watched the castle embrasures after each discharge of cannon, for the Spaniards could not reload without exposing themselves ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... suppose a resemblance between ourselves and the subject that suffers. Everywhere where this resemblance makes itself known, pity is necessary; where this resemblance is lacking, pity is impossible. The more visible and the greater is the resemblance, the more vivid is our pity; and they mutually slacken in dependence on each other. In order that we may feel the affections of another after him, all the internal conditions demanded by this affection must be found beforehand in us, in order that the external cause which, by meeting with the internal conditions, has ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Riverside Drive, but did not slacken the speed of the machine. She knew that Lord Wisbeach would be waiting for her there, and she did not wish to meet him just yet. She wanted to be alone. She was feeling depressed. She wondered if ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... consequences of the Conquest had been to bind England to the civilisations of the south. The experiment had proved a successful one, the results obtained were definitive; there was no need to go further, the ties could now without harm slacken or break. Owing to that evolutionary movement perpetually evinced in human affairs, this first experiment having been perfected after a lapse of three hundred years, a counter-experiment now begins. A new centre, unknown till then, gradually draws to itself every one's attention; it will soon attract ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Sorel rides; Gerier Is mounted on his own Pass-deer: The reins they slacken, and prick full well Against the Saracen Timozel. One smites his cuirass, and one his shield, Break in his body the spears they wield; They cast him dead on the fallow mould. I know not, nor yet to mine ear was told. ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... mate some day, Surely, surely: Ripen on to June through May, While the sun shines make their hay, Slacken steps demurely: 20 Yet even there I ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... not be better to die than to grow old? If, as you teach us, there is no real death, should there be any real decay? What pleasure is there in life when the strength fails and the pulses slacken—when the warm blood grows chill and stagnant, and when even those we have loved consider we have lived too long? I who speak now am old, though I am not conscious of age— but others are conscious for me,—their looks, their words, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... Shadow forth the banks at will: [10] Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea: And the self-same influence Controlleth all the soul and sense Of Passion gazing upon thee. His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love, Leaning his cheek upon his hand, [11] Droops both his wings, regarding thee, And so would ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... narrower and the branches lower, but she would not slacken speed, though now and then she had to bend her head to avoid the leafy twigs as she passed. But this time she answered, ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... spear, Eagled-eyed e'en in his blindness, our chief sets his double array, Making the fleet two spears, to thrust at the foe, any way, . . . 'Anyhow!—without orders, each captain his Frenchman may grapple perforce: Collingwood first' (yet the Victory ne'er a whit slacken'd her course) 'Signal for action! Farewell! we shall win, but we meet not again!' —Then a low thunder of readiness ran from the decks o'er the main, And on,—as the message from masthead to masthead flew out like a flame, ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN WILL ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... was no longer able to carry sail. And now the chase in her turn began to gain upon her huge pursuer. But she was now in salt water, and her boilers were beginning to "prime" furiously. It was necessary to slacken speed for a time, and as she did so the Brooklyn again recovered her advantage. Then gradually the foaming in the Sumter's boilers ceased, and she was again put to her speed. The utmost pressure was put on; the propeller began ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... followed suit. And so, just as the sun was setting, they began another flight together,—riding now towards Bishops Waltham, with Mr. Hoopdriver in the post of danger—the rear—ever and again looking over his shoulder and swerving dangerously as he did so. Occasionally Jessie had to slacken her pace. He breathed heavily, and hated himself because his mouth fell open, After nearly an hour's hard riding, they found themselves uncaught at Winchester. Not a trace of Dangle nor any other danger was visible as they rode into the dusky, yellow-lit street. Though the bats ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... took up the thing instantly, after I had said this, and declared he was so much in the opinion that the treaty would end in nothing, that he then, in the presence of us all, gave orders to General Knox, not to slacken the preparations for the campaign in the least, but to exert every nerve in preparing for it. Knox said something about the ultimate day for continuing the negotiations. I acknowledged myself not a judge on what day the campaign should begin, but that whatever it was, that ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Stephenson gained yet another promotion in being raised to the rank of brakesman, whose duty it was to slacken the engine when the full baskets of coal reached the top of the shaft. This was a more serious and responsible post than any he had yet filled, and one for which only the best and steadiest workmen were ever selected. His ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... an officer passed an order along. Joe Hawkridge began to feel more sanguine of winning against odds. He had never seen such iron discipline as this in the bedlam aboard the Revenge. Stede Bonnet knew how to slacken the reins and when to apply the curb. His men were loyal because he dealt out ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... spectator grown; Judge-like thou sit'st, to praise, or to arraign The flying skirmish of the darted cane: But, when fierce bulls run loose upon the place, And our bold Moors their loves with danger grace, Then heat new-bends thy slacken'd nerves again, And a short youth ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... laugh she knew so well pursued her as she went, and once she fancied that some one called her by name. But she did not slacken speed to listen. She only dashed on ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... the train began to slacken—all too soon. She now dreaded to learn her fate. Was she, or was she not, worth a ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... paternal mansion was impossible. To relinquish my design of entering the city and to seek a temporary asylum, if not permanent employment, at some one of the plantations within view, was the most obvious expedient. These deliberations did not slacken my pace. I was almost unmindful of my way, when I found I had passed Schuylkill at the upper bridge. I was now within the precincts of the city, and night was hastening. It behooved me to come ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... to be feared, that is to say, when a man's crime is so publicly known, and so hateful to all, that he has no defenders, or none such as might cause a schism, the severity of discipline should not slacken." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... made much of "service" and "loyalty to duty." The Middle Ages regarded service as something very noble and beautiful. It was no disgrace to be a servant, provided you were a good servant and did not slacken on the job. As for loyalty, at a time when life depended upon the faithful per-formance of many unpleasant duties, it was the chief virtue ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... farm. A poor man could not afford the silly luxury of a useless pet. With whistle and call Ferris sought to check the flight of the flock. But, as every farmer knows, there is nothing else on earth quite so unreasonable and idiotic as a scared sheep. The familiar summons did not slacken nor swerve the stampede. ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... lying for weeks, frost stealing away the vital heat—ingenuity could not devise a more terrible scene of torture to the birds. Neither for the thrushes nor for the new-born infants in the tent did the onslaught of the winter slacken. No pity in earth or heaven. This one thrush did, indeed, by some exceptional fortune, survive; but where were the family of thrushes that had sung so sweetly in the rainy ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... had gotten away from the Lord. On our trip from Brookings, on the highway we drove eighty miles an hour and the pastor said, "Brother Susag, you do not need to go so fast." I thought that I would slacken down but the car was still going eighty miles; the pastor called again, "Brother Susag, you need not go so fast." I said nothing but felt rather sad that I was hurting the pastor's feelings, but still I was going eighty. Finally ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... chain thus formed passes over two pitch pinions, J, like the pinions, H, that are mounted at the extremities of an axle, j, that revolves in bearings, I', whose position with regard to the apparatus is capable of being varied so as to slacken or tauten the chain, I. This arrangement is shown in elevation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... of the black clouds swept over them, and the rain fell down in torrents; but in a quarter of an hour the clouds had passed, and the sun was shining again, and the violence of the flood was beginning to slacken. In half an hour the flood had swept by; and with it had gone every vestige of the wing dam they had builded with so much labor and with so many ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... ear, and she was responding with such a burst of speed that the beef-riders were quickly left far behind. At length nothing was to be seen or heard of them; and, believing that they had given over the chase as hopeless, the young trooper allowed the panting mare who had borne him so bravely to slacken her heading pace until it was reduced to ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... above the donkey's shoulders, with nothing below to balance, on a brand-new pack-saddle that had not yet been worn to fit the animal, and fastened with brand-new girths that might be expected to stretch and slacken by the way, even a very careless traveller should have seen disaster brewing. That elaborate system of knots, again, was the work of too many sympathizers to be very artfully designed. It is true they tightened ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lizards ran from sunny rocks at the sound of their approach, and a deer bounded across the tracks fifty feet in front of the cow-catcher. MacWilliams escorted Hope out into the cab of the locomotive, and taught her how to increase and slacken the speed of the engine, until she showed an unruly desire to throw the lever open altogether and shoot them off the rails ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... furious blast of wind came from a cleft between the hills, catching us with the sails close-hauled, and throwing the canoe nearly on its beam-ends, when we were about a mile from the shore. Jose had the presence of mind to slacken the sheet of the mainsail, while I leapt forward and lowered the sprit of the foresail, the two Indians standing stupefied in the prow. It was what the canoe-men call a trovoada secca or white squall. The river in a few minutes became a sheet ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... was killed about five yards from where Fernando stood. A ball passed through his head, and from the range of British bullets it seemed quite probable that he was accidentally shot by some of the Americans. This was the only man killed near where Fernando stood. The firing began to slacken when he fell. While three or four men were carrying the body away, a white flag was raised on the opposite side of the breastwork, and the firing ceased. The white flag was a handkerchief on a sword or stick. It was raised by a British major, who was cut off and unable to retreat ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... to slacken its pace, and the hideous wail and blare of the concealed organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his friend's manner had all at once altered, that he sat leaning forward away from the enthusiastic lady ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... as they can find about, which they discuss squatting down upon their hams, in which interesting position and occupation I generally find a number of them whenever I have sufficient hardihood to venture within those precincts, the sight of which and its tenants is enough to slacken the appetite of the hungriest hunter that ever lost all nice regards in the mere animal desire for food. Of our three apartments, one is our sitting, eating, and living room, and is sixteen feet by fifteen. The walls are plastered ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... driving resolves itself into this: that the master, looking after his own interest, is constantly accusing his laborer of a breach of his part of the contract. The men no doubt do become used to it, and slacken probably in their endeavors when the tongue of the master or foreman is not heard. But as to that matter of non- payment of wages, the men must live; and here, as elsewhere, the master who omits to pay once will hardly find laborers ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... swiftly as they could through the scented night. They could not go overfast, and it was the maid's hand that helped the man, not the man's hand the maid. Perpetua was as fleet as a deer, but the degraded King limped like the fool whose likeness had been flung upon him, and Perpetua had to slacken her speed in order that he might keep pace with her. But there were no signs of pursuit from the house of Lycabetta. The terror of the plague was so great that Robert's mantle was an unquestionable defence. ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... desolate as midnight—not a soul showed in the surrounding fields and the long road lay as pallid as a streak of frost. The loneliness and the hour set her eyes to dancing and the glad blood to bounding in her veins. When a startled rabbit shied from the brushwood she would slacken her speed to watch it, and when, as sometimes chanced, she frightened a covey of partridges from their retreat, she went softly, rejoicing ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... tried in a brave endeavor To chord my harp with the sun, But the strings would slacken ever, And the task was a weary one: And so, like a child impatient And sick of a discontent, I bowed in a shower of teardrops ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... subject. The latter expressed their belief that those who had brought intelligence of the evil intention of the confederacy had been misinformed as to facts, or else exaggerated sinister probabilities. The prevailing calm was therefore dangerous as well as deceitful, for it tended to slacken preparations which ought to have been made to lessen the apprehensions of coming events which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... we hurried for our lives, seeking to get as far as possible from that dangerous channel of ice-avalanches and seething waters; and it was not till a safe distance intervened, that I dared to slacken my pace so as to allow my companion to take breath. All this time she had not spoken a word, and had shown a calmness and an energy which contrasted strongly with her previous ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... that's something I have learned, and nobody can help like you. But the strain will slacken soon. The things that will make life easier for you are coming fast; branch railroads, telephones, busy little towns, neighbors, and social amusements. Much that you enjoyed in England will surround you on the plains. But it will not come as a gift, as it did at home; we will ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... are being driven, they are intensely suspicious, and of course frightened. They know every spot in the jungle, and are acquainted with all the paths, tracks, and open places in the forest. When they are nearing an open glade, or a road, they slacken their pace, and go slowly and warily forward, an old buck generally leading. When he has carefully reconnoitred and examined the suspected place in front, and found it clear to all appearance, they again put on the pace, and clear the open ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... as he fights his way through the battle of life; and, when tempted to slacken his fire, think of what the old revolutionary spirit, speaking through my muzzle, taught on that day,—'hold on, and hold fast, and hold out. Never stop, stay, or delay, but make ready!—present!—fire!—and, again ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... the shoulder part of a fore quarter of mutton, and having cut all the meat from the bone, put it into a soup pot with two quarts of water. As soon as it boils, skim it well, and then slacken the fire and simmer the meat for an hour and a half. Then take the remainder of the mutton, and put it whole into the soup-pot with sufficient boiling water to cover it well, and salt it to your taste. Skim it the moment the fresh piece of meat begins to boil, and about every quarter of ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... evidently impressed the others, for the two men in the middle seats turned at a whisper from the lady and regarded him curiously. Clarence blushed slightly and became silent. Presently the vehicle began to slacken its speed. They were ascending a hill; on either bank grew huge cottonwoods, from which occasionally depended a beautiful ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... cannon barred their way. Was it the anticipation of coming events, or the beat of drums and blare of trumpets, which so excited her companion, that he often pressed his hand to his forehead and she was obliged to request him to slacken his pace. There was a strange, constrained tone in his voice as, in accordance with her request, he told her that the Spaniards had come by ship up the Amstel, the Drecht, and the Brasem See to the Rhine and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... things leisurely, and Harry gradually allowed him to slacken his pace into a walk, and even occasionally to stop and lower his head to take a bite from some particularly tempting bunch of grass by the side ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... us fast into this inn* *house A kneading trough, or else a kemelin*, *brewing-tub For each of us; but look that they be large, In whiche we may swim* as in a barge: *float And have therein vitaille suffisant But for one day; fie on the remenant; The water shall aslake* and go away *slacken, abate Aboute prime* upon the nexte day. *early morning But Robin may not know of this, thy knave*, *servant Nor eke thy maiden Gill I may not save: Ask me not why: for though thou aske me I will not telle ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... throttled Finn, and brought him rolling on his back with all four feet in the air. Before he could rise again, the man had planted two ferocious kicks on his ribs; and Finn was thankful then to draw a free breath by moving towards his persecutor, so as to slacken the pressure on the lead. But, the moment he had drawn breath, the desire to escape possessed him once more, and he repeated his leap for freedom. This time the man was prepared, and, in addition to the pressure brought about by Finn's reaching ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... Chone, ashen with fear, clung to the edge of the car, and had eyes and ears for nothing save for the great beast charging full upon them. Jack hurled himself to and fro, trying to slacken a little the bonds which held him a prisoner under such fearful circumstances. If the pad-elephant would only make a fight of it, there would be a chance for its riders to slip down and escape, but how could Jack ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... his time, with regard to assiduity in prayer. He devoted to this exercise whole days and nights, without being sensible of any weariness or fatigue: nay, his ardor for it seemed rather to increase than slacken by its continuance. He generally prayed in an erect posture; but in his old age was forced to support his body by leaning on a staff. He gave advice in very few words to those that came to see him, to gain the more time for heavenly contemplation. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... out of the question, I suppose," Saxham said coldly, "that you should slacken in your ministrations among the sick and wounded, and keep out of daily ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... mellowness of balsam, the bland smell of river-water that makes the skin tingle with desire to bathe, the delicate acidity of grass that caused his horse to whicker. The trail alternated pretty regularly between wooded ridges, where the stones caused him to slacken his pace, and long traverses of the turfy river-bottoms, where he could give his horse his head. Twice during the night he picketed his horse in the grass, and took a short nap himself. At dawn, from the last ridge, he saw the ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... him that his patients never died until his back was turned. It was not strictly true, but it conveyed something of the magnetism with which he wrought upon them. He knew the crucial moment by instinct, when to grapple and when to slacken his hold, and he ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... insult' means properly to leap as on the prostrate body of a foe; 'to affront,' to strike him on the face; that 'to succour' means by running to place oneself under one that is falling; 'to relent,' (connected with 'lentus,') to slacken the swiftness of one's pursuit; [Footnote: 'But nothing might relent his hasty flight,' Spenser F. Q. iii. 4.] 'to reprehend,' to lay hold of one with the intention of forcibly pulling him back; 'to exonerate,' to discharge of a burden, ships being exonerated once; that 'to be examined' means ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... charm, and seemed to possess him with a strong belief that scarcely any real danger remained. New confidence and new hope, however founded, inspired new vigour; and though our state was the same as when the men first began to slacken in their labour, through weariness and despondency, they now renewed their efforts with such alacrity and spirit, that before eight o'clock in the morning the leak was so far from having gained upon the pumps, that the pumps had gained considerably upon the leak. Every body now ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... that suffers. Everywhere where this resemblance makes itself known, pity is necessary; where this resemblance is lacking, pity is impossible. The more visible and the greater is the resemblance, the more vivid is our pity; and they mutually slacken in dependence on each other. In order that we may feel the affections of another after him, all the internal conditions demanded by this affection must be found beforehand in us, in order that the external cause which, by meeting with the internal conditions, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of a great hotel there are periods during which its bewildering activities slacken, and the vast organism seems to be under the influence of an opiate. Such a period recurs after dinner when the guests are preoccupied by the mysterious processes of digestion in the drawing-rooms or smoking-rooms or in the stalls of a theatre. On the evening of this nocturne ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... excellent Disguise to show her Liberality. But afterwards being weary of the Charge, and finding by the Information of several Englishmen that pass'd thro' Antwerp, that her Prisoner was not the Person he pretended to be, but a meer Sharper and Knight of the Post, she slacken'd in her Charity, and gradually brought him down to a common Allowance, and at last discharg'd him. His Life after that was a meer Romance; He first went into Gaunt, here he took up a large Apartment of four or five Rooms well furnish'd, ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... watchman's work, with all its solemn consequences, knowing how weak his voice was, and how deaf the ears that should hear, unless he could bring God's might to his help? and who could honestly remind God of His promises and forget his own responsibilities? Prayerless work will soon slacken, and never bear fruit; idle prayer is worse than idle. You cannot part them if you would. How much of the busy occupation which is called 'Christian work' is detected to be spurious by this simple test! How much so-called prayer is reduced by it to mere noise, no better ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the town. An addition was made to their diminished stock of eatables, and away they push again. They steer now up the Bay of Quinte; and what a wild and beautiful scene that must have been! Could those toil-worn voyagers have failed to mark it? Why do they slacken their pace? Why do they so often rest upon their oars and look around? Why do they push into this little cove and that? Why do they laugh and talk more than usual? Perhaps their journey is drawing to an end! We shall see. They go up the bay until they reach township number five. This township, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... hand. Fleda growing desperate then implored an answer in words—prayed for an explanation—with an intensity of distress in voice and manner, that no one whose ears were not stopped with a stronger feeling could have been deaf to; but Mrs. Rossitur would not raise her head, nor slacken in the least the clasp of the fingers that supported it, that of themselves in their relentless tension spoke what no words could. Fleda's trembling prayers were in vain, in vain. Poor nature at last ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... he seeks. He felt his own life offered for hers. So that the more he loved her, the more set, the more rigid became all the habits and purposes of religion. Again and again he was tempted to soften them—to spend time with her that he had been accustomed to give to Catholic practice—to slacken or modify the harshness of that life of self-renouncement, solitude, unpopularity, to which he had vowed himself for years—to conceal from her the more startling and difficult of his convictions. But he crushed ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... you to my apron, and how will you like that?" "O mamma darling," came the fervent answer, "do let it be in a knot." And, indeed, the tie of love between us was so tightly knotted that nothing ever loosened it till the sword of Death cut that which pain and trouble never availed to slacken in the slightest degree.] But it was urged upon her that the advantages of education offered were such as no money could purchase for me; that it would be a disadvantage for me to grow up in a houseful ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... of the sea, he only saw the more clearly the darkness of the guilt in which he believed, and was more bitterly repelled by the motive at which he guessed. But now at least his zeal was awake again, and the sense of the hunt quickened. He would neither slacken nor spare; here need be no compunction. In the course of the day, he hoped, his net would be complete. He had work to do in the morning; and with very vivid expectancy, though not much serious hope, he awaited the answer to the telegram which he had shot into ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... his armour, mounted his black steed, and, spear in hand, dashed out of the west gate of the city. He pressed on his horse, which went swift as the wind, nor did he slacken speed till he came up with the water-stealing dragons, who still retained the forms in which they had appeared to him in his dream. On a cart were the two identical baskets he had seen; in front of the cart, dragging it, was the old woman, while ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... up a long hill, and though Uncle Sam made no more concession to it than to slacken his unprecedented rate of speed the merest trifle, the difference communicated itself to Tom at once and it seemed, by contrast, as if they were creeping. On and up Uncle Sam went, plying his way sturdily, making a great noise and a terrific ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... this horse bears them along on the wings of his speed, they chance to see some great personage, a man of noble birth, high wisdom, and universal fame, then, however pressing their haste, they refrain their speed that they may do him honour, slacken their pace and rein in their horse: then straightway leaping to the ground they transfer to their left hand the switch, which they carry wherewith to beat the horse, and with right hand thus left free approach the great man and salute him. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... "We must keep upstream. You see, sir," he went on, "if once we dropped to leeward of the landing-place, it's hard to say where we should get ashore, besides the chance of being boarded by the gigs; whereas, the way we go the current must slacken, and then we can dodge back along ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Ketill. "Could you not have told us to slacken speed? The dead could hear a landing ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... to come to my mind, however, that the infernal uproar of the earth tremor was beginning to slacken somewhat, as though Zaemon knew he had done the work that he had promised, and was minded to give the wretched city a breathing space. So I took my fortitude in hand, and clambered up on to the flat of the stone. The lightning flashes had ceased and all was darkness again and stifling dust, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... soon calmed down again, though he did not slacken his pace, keeping on as fast as his weakness and the darkness would allow, with the result that it was not more than half of his ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... the natural conditions of commerce and industry; but it was these things alone that enabled the poorest Government in Europe to be better armed than the richest, and to keep in the van. In a word, people wanted the spring to relax, and failed to see that to slacken the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... the rope by which he was led slacken, when Archy cried out, "Stop, I see something ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... encounter at full speed, men and horses would be crushed, and neither men nor horses wished such an encounter. The hands of the cavalrymen reined back, the instinct of men and horses was to slacken, to stop, if the enemy himself did not stop, and to make an about if he continued to advance. And if ever they met, the encounter was so weakened by the hands of the men, the rearing of the horses, the swinging of heads, that it was a face to face stop. Some blows were exchanged with the sword ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... "Slacken off those lee braces a bit, and haul in these to the weather-side!" said the captain, as soon as he had got back to his proper place on the poop again. "I think the wind is coming round more aft, and we can lay her on ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... treatment. The jarring chords could not be made to vibrate in tune by sweeping them with a rough and unsympathising stroke; all could be reduced to harmony only by some loving and judicious action which would draw up or slacken the discordant strings with a force which would be felt only in its results. It was therefore arranged that on the morrow the physician should bring his patient to the sea-side at noon, and that, while he and she were seated ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... resistance against him was hard as iron; but as he had risked life and limb in the leap which had seated him across the harnessed loins of the now terrified beast, so he risked them afresh to get the mastery now; to slacken them, turn them ever so slightly, and save the woman he loved—loved, at least in this hour, as he had not loved her before. One moment more, while the half-maddened beast rushed through the shadows; one moment more, till the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... white moonlight of that night, Mukoki broke their trail, travelling at times so swiftly that the Missioner commanded him to slacken his pace on David's account. Even David did not think of stopping. He had no desire to stop so long as their way was lighted ahead of them. It seemed to him that the world was becoming brighter and the forest gloom less cheerless as they dropped ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... the runaway. As they rode on, they still looked ahead. At every turn in the road they still expected to see the fugitive; and it was not until the donkeys themselves gave signs of fatigue, that they were willing to slacken their pace. But the nature of these donkeys was, after all, but mortal; like other mortal things, they were subject to weakness and fatigue; and as they were now exhausted, their riders were compelled to indulge them with a breathing space, ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... out of sight; for, fearing a fresh pursuit, he had plunged into the cross roads, along which he rode a good hour longer at full gallop. When he felt pretty sure of having shaken the police off his track, and that their bad horses could not overtake him, he determined to slacken to recruit his horse; he was walking him along a hollow lane, when he saw a peasant approaching; he asked him the road to the Bourbonnais, and flung him a crown. The man took the crown and pointed out the road, but ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... into his own at last, and he vowed with tight-shut teeth that no wheel should stop, no belt should slacken, no man should leave his duty till the run had passed. At the entrance to the throbbing, clanging building he paused an instant, and with a smile looked toward the yacht floating lazily in the distance. Then, with knees sagging beneath ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... black boat for a time, but she appeared to slacken speed as she drew closer, as if those in charge of her had no desire to come any nearer to ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... strike Central America and Mexico from June to October (most common in August and September); southern shipping lanes subject to icebergs from Antarctica; cyclical El Nino phenomenon occurs off the coast of Peru, when the trade winds slacken and the warm Equatorial countercurrent moves south, killing the plankton that is the primary food source for anchovies; consequently, the anchovies move to better feeding grounds, causing resident marine ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... one five-minute interval of excitement when, far down the tunnel through the forest, we saw a light gleaming. The engineer said there was no house there, that it must be a fire. But we did not slacken our speed, and gradually the leaping flames grew larger and redder until we were ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... thought Shuey, in the rear. He himself did not slacken his speed, although he could not be in time for the catastrophe. Suddenly he stiffened; Winslow was ...
— Different Girls • Various
... light and find it. But where could he discover a safe spot; his problem was a dual one; primarily, he must consider himself; he must not forget his own desperate situation and danger. The train, beginning to slacken, brought the sense of it once more poignantly to mind. His companion hadn't reached the station yet but he suddenly rose. The car stopped with a jerk; Mr. Heatherbloom murmured something hurriedly and dived ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... racket began to slacken, as though word had gone forth that the pursuit of the retiring foe must be temporarily abandoned. Victory had perched on the banner of the defenders of the soil; the lilies of France had swept proudly ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... whistling of a distant locomotive made us listen attentively. We then heard two, three, and four crackers bursting under our wheels. We could perfectly well feel the efforts the engine-driver was making to slacken speed, but before he could succeed we were thrown against each other by a frightful shock. There were cracks and creaks, the hiccoughs of the locomotive spitting out its smoke in irregular fits, desperate cries, shouts, ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... at length began to slacken, and in little more than a quarter of an hour down came the tricoloured flag, loud cheers bursting from the throats of the Thisbe's crew. A boat was instantly sent under the command of the second lieutenant ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... eight dollars and twenty-seven cents the third. All the earnings at our table were low that last week—Margaret's were around twelve dollars. For one thing, there was a holiday. No wonder employers groan over holidays! The workers begin to slacken up about two days ahead and it takes two days after the day off to recover. Then, too, we indulged in too much nonsense that last week. We laughed more than we worked, and paid for it. The next week Mamie and Margaret claimed they were going to bring their dinners the whole week to ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... evident, then, that contented acquiescence with the old state of things already belongs to the past, and that a return to it is impossible. We must perforce advance, for good or ill, in the path of revision, and cannot even materially slacken the pace nor defer the crisis. One choice, however, is left in our power, and that is the most important of all, namely, the direction which revision shall take—that of conservative and recuperative addition, or that of further ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... some sense to that, Dalgard had to agree. He made fast the end of the cord and went in his turn into the dark, burning the palm of one hand before he was able to slacken the speed of his descent. Then he landed thigh-deep in water, from which arose an ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... before the world itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of the mate, and when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him, while Radney stood .. up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or slacken the line, at the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats were lowered, the mate's got the start; and none howled more fiercely with delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... firmly fixed in the animal's body the rope unwinds and the handle floats on the surface. The hunter next goes to the handle and hauls on the rope till he knows that he is right over the beast: when he feels the line suddenly slacken he is prepared to deliver another harpoon the instant that hippo.'s enormous jaws appear with a terrible grunt above the water. The backing by the paddles is again repeated, but hippo. often assaults ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... difficult to make an impression on this iron band of warriors, began at length to slacken their efforts, and finally allowed Ferdinand to draw off the remnant of his forces without further opposition. The king continued his retreat without halting, as far as the romantic site of the Pena de los Enamorados, about seven leagues distant from Loja; and, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... now lasted about an hour and a half, and the fire from the enemy began to slacken, when we suddenly discovered that all the sails on her mainmast were enveloped in a blaze. Fire spread with amazing rapidity, and, running down the after rigging, it soon communicated with her magazine, when her whole stern was blown off, and her valuable ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... telegraph table scribbling at a rapid rate, and you may be sure he does not slacken his speed when he becomes conscious of the presence of the formidable agent of the New York Trigger! Only one instrument is used for telegraphic purposes, so he whose telegram is first handed to the clerk is first to be served by ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... tent duty," he announced after supper. "Rain threatens. See that trenches are clear. Slacken tent ropes a little, especially where they are new. See that nothing in the tents touches the walls. Have your beds all ready to turn in. You will then all assemble at the camp-fire for ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... authority, and where coercive laws are yet in a degree destitute of vigor, where the climate and manners can add but little to their energy, where the spirit of party, private interest, slowness and national indolence, slacken, suspend, and overthrow the best concerted measures; although so situated he has found out a method of keeping his troops in the most absolute subordination; making them rivals in praising him; fearing him when he is silent, and retaining their full confidence ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... further on. The great point is, that if you are worthy of this impression at all, there isn't a single item of it of which the association isn't noble. Hold to it fast that there is no other such dignity of arrival as arrival by water. Hold to it that to float and slacken and gently bump, to creep out of the low, dark felze and make the few guided movements and find the strong crooked and offered arm, and then, beneath lighted palace-windows, pass up the few damp steps on the precautionary carpet—hold to it that these things constitute a preparation ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... his death of heart complaint, the poor boy was left to keep his broken-hearted mother upon nothing but a Latin Grammar. And I fear it is like a purser's dip. But here we are at Stonnington—a long steep pitch. Let us slacken sail, my dears, as we have brought no cockswain. Neither of you need land, you know, but I shall go into ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... to his big horse and galloped off down the valley, leaving Lennon to trail behind with the Navahos. The pace did not slacken until the party raced down into the lower canon and around a double turn to the ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... catch already my chief ground of complaint. Frankly I do not think that Miss GROVES' pen is quite sufficiently dashing for this sort of thing. Historical and adventurous romance, if it is to earn my vote, must keep me out of breath the whole time. It should never be allowed to slacken pace; and (to be entirely candid) My Lady Rosia sometimes ambles rather heavily. I forgot to add that it is published by WASHBOURNE, printed on detestable paper, and contains some pleasant illustrations of the places mentioned in the story. In few, the best ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... Penrod; they laughed enthusiastically about things beyond his ken; they appeared to have arranged a perfect way to enjoy themselves, no matter whether he was with them or elsewhere but presently their briskness began to slacken; the appearance of interest became perfunctory. Within ten minutes the few last scattering semblances of gayety had passed, and they lapsed into the longest and most profound of all their silences indoors that day. Its effect upon ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... nor slacken in the course, Thy spotless fame shall quash all false reports: Exert thy powers, nor fear a rival's force, But thou shalt smile at all his vain efforts; Thy labours shall be crown'd with large success; The Muse's aid thy ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... pirates got no farther, though the fire did not slacken on either side. The pirates lay among the scrub, hidden in the bushes, in little knots of two and three. They watched the castle embrasures after each discharge of cannon, for the Spaniards could not reload without exposing themselves as they ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... Bronson was to interest his wife in our protegee. Back I flew, my ears deafened by more "Ya Welads," but though I met many things and many creatures on the congested road, there was no arabeah containing the desired ones. I made my driver slacken pace as we neared the big, square pink house of Rechid Bey, set far back in its garden of palms and impossible statues, on the bank of the Nile. No green turban was in sight, and I wondered what could have happened, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... the Coppice And we're down by the Mill, We're out upon the Common, And the hounds are running still. You must tighten on the leather, For we blunder through the bracken; Though you're over hocks in heather Still the pace must never slacken As we race through Thursley Common in ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... superior being of the earth. Whatever happens, he is still a man. Business may slacken tomorrow—he is still a man. He goes through the changes of circumstances, as he goes through the variations of temperature—still a man. If he can only get this thought reborn in him, it opens new wells and mines in his own being. There is no security ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... the last damage she received. Her crew, also, had got as well as could be out of harm's way—both the sound and wounded—and were lying quietly as possible deep down in the vessel's run. When daylight broke the breeze began to slacken, but she was by this time hull down from the corvette, a long way beyond the reach of her long eighteens in the bow ports, and eating her way to windward, with no chance of ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... he checked their flight. Slowly at first he cut off the exhaust from their stern and opened the bow valve. Slowly, for their wild speed must slacken as it had been built up, by slow degrees. The self-adjusting floor swung forward and up. Their deceleration was like the pull of gravity, and now straight ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... dyke as a spear, Eagled-eyed e'en in his blindness, our chief sets his double array, Making the fleet two spears, to thrust at the foe, any way, . . . 'Anyhow!—without orders, each captain his Frenchman may grapple perforce: Collingwood first' (yet the Victory ne'er a whit slacken'd her course) 'Signal for action! Farewell! we shall win, but we meet not again!' —Then a low thunder of readiness ran from the decks o'er the main, And on,—as the message from masthead to masthead flew out like a flame, ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... should have to endure the anxieties of several. Each man, say they, has enough and to spare on his own hands; it is too bad to be involved in the cares of other people. The wisest course is to hold the reins of friendship as loose as possible; you can then tighten or slacken them at your will. For the first condition of a happy life is freedom from care, which no one's mind can enjoy if it has to travail, so to speak, for others besides itself. Another sect, I am told, gives vent to opinions still less generous. I briefly touched on ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... me most dear, That undivided we from year to year 5 Might work in our high Calling—a bright hope To which our fancies, mingling, gave free scope Till checked by some necessities severe. And should these slacken, honoured BEAUMONT! still Even then we may perhaps in vain implore 10 Leave of our fate thy wishes [1] to fulfil. Whether this boon be granted us or not, Old Skiddaw will look down upon the Spot With pride, the Muses love it ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... to be undistinguishable by human eyes from the entire neglect of the unbelieving. There is, however, in all cases, a dividing line, although we may not be able to trace it—"the Lord knoweth them that are his." Nor does this conception really weaken the motive to diligence; for if any one should slacken in his efforts to serve the Lord on the ground that a great degree of negligence, although it may diminish his reward, does not imperil his safety, this very thing would conclusively prove that he has no part in Christ. It is the nature of the new creature to be forgetting the things behind, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... one's hand before one's face. Fortunately we could achieve the rate of fire required by using three guns only, so we left No. 1 out of action for the time. The enemy's bombardment, as far as we were concerned, was beginning to slacken a little, but was still heavy. The Major, out on the road with a signaller mending wire, was hit in the face with shrapnel. It turned out, happily, not a serious wound, but at the time it looked less hopeful. He went down the mountains in the same Field Ambulance with the ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... of temper all day, if he does not find his hat on its proper nail and his cane in its allotted corner. He chooses a particular walk, where he may take his prescribed number of turns without interruption, for he would prefer suffering a serious inconvenience rather than be obliged to quicken or slacken his pace to suit the speed of a friend who might join him. My uncle Simon was a character of this cast. I could take it on my conscience to assert that, every night for the forty years preceding his death, he had one foot in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... surface of the water, while others were from eight to ten feet vertically upward. The tarpon then darted away in a new direction, blistering Dick's hands as the line tore through them. For a quarter of an hour the drag of the canoe made little difference in the speed of the tarpon, but then it began to slacken and Dick was able to pull the canoe up beside the fish, which gave a leap and a sweep of its tail that drenched both of the boys and, if the tarpon had been a foot nearer, would have wrecked their ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... reached Mr. Kilshaw, soon after he had, by his bargain with Benham, been put in possession of the facts that gentleman had to dispose of. Kilshaw knew Dick Derosne very well, and for a time he remained quiet, expecting to see Dick's zeal slacken and his infatuation cease of their own accord. When the opposite happened, Kilshaw's anger was stirred within him; he was ready to find, and in consequence at once found, a new sin and a fresh cause of offence in the Premier. Without considering that Medland had many things ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... with them seas and lands, and the depth of heaven, and sweep them through space in their flying course. But, fearful of this, the lord omnipotent hath hidden them in caverned gloom, and laid a mountain mass high over them, and appointed them a ruler, who should know by certain law to strain and slacken the reins at command. To him now Juno spoke thus ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... dawning, tongue and pen; Aid it, hopes of honest men; Aid it, paper—aid it, type— Aid it, for the hour is ripe, And our earnest must not slacken Into play. Men of thought and men of action, ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... cannon far down the harbor, and spoke joyously of the great event. They saw the shells of the shore batteries ignite portions of the fortress on the island. They watched the fire of the defenders—driven by the flames into a restricted area—slacken and cease. At last the flag of the Union fluttered down from ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... hilly banks it wound. A treat to our boys to see rolling, cleared country. Fish towns and lumber towns on the right. Hay stacks and fields on the left, backed by forests. Here the trail is bareswept by the wind from across the river. Again it is snow blown and men and ponies slacken speed in the drifts. Early sets the sun, but the white snow affords us light enough. The point out of sight in front, the rear party is lost behind the curve. Tiny specks on the ice below and distant are interpreted to be sledges bound for some river port. Nets are exposed to the air and ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... heart. Everywhere we try at least to give the adversary as good as he brings; and, with swift force or slow watchful manoeuvre, extinguish this and the other solecism, leave one solecism less in God's Creation; and so proceed with our battle, not slacken or surrender in it! The Fifty feudal Knights, for example, were of unjust greedy temper, and cheated us, in the Installation-day, of ten knights'-fees;—but they know now whether that has profited them aught, and I Jocelin know. Our Lord Abbot for the moment had to endure ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... the season did Coach Morton allow the training work to slacken. Regularly the entire squad turned out for field work. If the afternoon proved to be stormy, then four blasts on the city fire alarm, at either two o'clock or two-thirty, notified the young men that they were to report at the gym. instead. There, the work, though different, was just as severe. The ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... days: You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips: I led you then to all the Castalies; I fed you with the milk of every Muse; I loved you like this kneeler, and you me Your second mother: those were gracious times. Then came your new friend: you began to change— I saw it and grieved—to slacken and to cool; Till taken with her seeming openness You turned your warmer currents all to her, To me you froze: this was my meed for all. Yet I bore up in part from ancient love, And partly that I hoped to win you back, And partly conscious ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... repine at fortune, which, in all his walks, had never given him such an opportunity of showing his honesty. They had proceeded above three miles, when Partridge, being unable any longer to keep up with Jones, called to him, and begged him a little to slacken his pace: with this he was the more ready to comply, as he had for some time lost the footsteps of the horses, which the thaw had enabled him to trace for several miles, and he was now upon a wide common, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... time the ponies began to slacken their stride, but the vigorous rowelling they received from the spurs of the men on their backs told them they were bound on pressing ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... KNOTS.—Beginners must be careful, in macrame as in tatting, not to move or slacken the cord, or horizontal thread that carries the knots. The knots made by the "knotting-thread", as it will be called in future, consist of loops formed over the cord and then tightened. The knotting-thread and the cord are constantly changing places, as you work, loops having to be made now with ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... speaking more to the purpose and at length brought him to say that he should not be unwilling to marry her. Harriot feared lest the belief of Mr Parnel's still retaining an affection for her might render Miss Alworth uneasy, and therefore advised him gradually to slacken his addresses to her and at the same time to increase in proportion his attentions for Miss Alworth, that he might appear to prefer her, since a symptom of inconstancy she knew would not so much affect her as any sign of indifference, and Harriot's generosity so far exceeded her vanity ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... was singing as he brought his boat about. "Slacken your sheet, Peggy! easy—that's right! a half-hitch—look here, young lady! I believe you have been humbugging us all; don't tell me you never sailed a ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... always the way with such folks. The poor tar is welcomed and made much of as long as his pockets are well lined; but let them begin to lighten, and then the smiles begin to slacken off; and when the rhino is all gone, poor Jack, who was held up as such a great man, is frowned upon, and at last kicked out of doors: or if, mayhap, they have let him run up a score, he is hastily shipped off, perhaps half naked, and the advance is grabbed by the hard-hearted landlord, who made ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... some reason never well explained—probably some timid order given by his attendant, Brouncker, in order to lessen the risk to the Duke, or, more strange still, in order not to disturb his sleep—a command was issued to slacken sail, and the fugitives escaped. The story was never cleared up, but reasons of policy brought about an order that, as heir to the Crown, the Duke should not again assume ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... won't, not so early as this. It's all in the way of business to them, too. Let's pass them first," he suggested, "and then slacken down and wait ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... the railway ravine with a hail of bullets, where apparently the Boers must have been caught in some numbers. At any rate they are said to have lost heavily there, and from that time the attack or rather fusilade directed against Observation Hill began to slacken. We had not many men hit considering that the skirmish had begun soon after daybreak and continued with little cessation up to nine o'clock, when the Rifle Brigade reported three wounded, one being young Lieutenant Lethbridge, who is so badly injured that recovery ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... strength would slacken after exertion. The blows began to fall less thick anon, and the point of the unknown knight began to make dreadful play. It found and penetrated every joint of the Donnerblitz's armor. Now it nicked ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... almost said my say on munitions, though I could continue the story much longer. But the wonder of it consists really in its vastness, in the steady development of a movement which will not end or slacken till the Allies are victorious. Except for the endless picturesqueness of the women's share in it, and the mechanical invention and adaptation going on everywhere, with which only a technical expert could deal, it is of course monotonous, and I ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... soon. For the motor cycle had not gone ten feet into the uneven field, jolting, swaying and all but throwing off the moving picture boys, than the sound of the explosions suddenly ceased, and the machine began to slacken speed. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... great courage. At length—his troops almost annihilated, himself wounded in two places—he suffered John to half force him from the field; and, with a few of his lords, and only sixty men-at-arms, reached his nearest castle of Broye in safety. At midnight he again set out, and did not slacken his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... like to keep up with you, if my legs were long enough; and as they're not, and as company is not easily to be had in these forlorn streets, I should feel obliged to you if you would just slacken your pace a trifle, ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... he heard rapid hoof-beats behind him and paused to listen, for it was a little-travelled road. Nearer and nearer they came, and then he could distinguish a white dress fluttering in the wind from the flying animal's back and knew the rider must be a woman. The speed of the horse began to slacken as she was almost upon him, and he saw that it was ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... feeling the same as another, within the glass walls and the crystal roof of this place. And the old Queen, your godmother, sending her own Chamberlain to take charge of you, and to be your Guardian, and Governor of the Island. Sure, the wind itself must slacken coming to ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... wings, fly up to the author of time, and carry news of our usage. All our prayers cannot entreat one of them either to return or slacken his pace. The misspents of every minute are a new record against us in heaven. Sure if we thought thus, we should dismiss them with better reports, and not suffer them to fly away empty, or laden with dangerous intelligence. How happy is it when they carry up not only the messages, but the fruits ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... Mamma, Maida, and I put on the motor-veils we had discarded after the first few hours of the trip till now; things made of pongee silk, with windows of talc over our eyes and little lace doors for our breath to pass through. It was fun when we would slacken speed in some town or village, to see how the young Italians tried to pry into the motor-masks' secrets and find out if we were pretty. How much more they would have stared at Maida than at her two grey-clad companions, if they had known! ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... cedars, I wondered whether either his or the surveyor's forecast would come true, and decided if that were so England would have cause to be proud of this rich country. For the rest, Harry and I never found our interest slacken, and looked on in silence as that most gorgeous panorama of snow-peak, forest, and glacier unwound itself league after league before us, until at last amid a grinding of brakes the long freight train ran onto a side track. She was only ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... things for use, because they were useful and beautiful, we should go on producing with a good will until everybody had a plentiful supply. If we found ourselves producing too rapidly, faster than we could consume the things, we could easily slacken our pace. We could spend more time beautifying our cities and our homes, more time cultivating our minds and hearts by social intercourse and in the companionship of the great spirits of all ages, through the masterpieces ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... if we can sustain and bear, Our Supreme Foe in time may much remit His anger, and perhaps, thus far removed, Not mind us not offending, satisfied With what is punished; whence these raging fires Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames. Our purer essence then will overcome Their noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel; Or, changed at length, and to the place conformed In temper and in nature, will receive Familiar the fierce heat; ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... are once at work, they keep them constantly employed for many months together, never suffering the fire to slacken night or day, but still supplying the waste of fuel and other materials with fresh, poured in at ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... free accord Adopts their guidance; yields himself secure To Nature's prudent impulse; and converts Instinct to duty and to sacred law. 190 Hence Right and Fit on earth; while thus to man The Almighty Legislator hath explain'd The springs of action fix'd within his breast; Hath given him power to slacken or restrain Their effort; and hath shewn him how they join Their partial movements with the master-wheel Of the great world, and serve that sacred end Which he, the unerring reason, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... veranda were Mr. Underwood and his sister, the one with his pipe and newspaper, the other with her knitting; but the newspaper had slipped unheeded to the floor, and though Mrs. Dean's skilful fingers did not slacken their work for an instant, yet her eyes, like her brother's, were fastened upon Darrell, and a shade of pity might have been detected in the look of each, which the occasion at first sight hardly ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... with neigh after neigh dashed down to a great, rambling, old farm-house just visible under the trees at the foot of the lane, two hundred yards away. The way was rough and the descent sharp, but the horse did not slacken his speed. She knew it was useless to attempt to check him, and only clung to the saddle pale with fear as he neared the high gate which closed its course. As he rose with a grand lift to take the leap she closed her eyes in terror. Easy ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... hundred yards, and that was not far enough. It could be traversed in ten seconds, they would have him before he could string it and fit an arrow. If only he had been fresh as in the morning! But he had had a long walk during the day and not much food. He knew that his burst of speed must soon slacken, but he had ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... cannonading himself through the air that at each extremity of his increasing arc his body, standing in the swing, was almost horizontal. Should he once pass above the level of the rope's attachment he would be lost; the rope would slacken and he would fall vertically to a point as far below as he had gone above, and then the sudden tension of the rope would wrest it from his hands. All saw the peril—all cried out to him to desist, and ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... afternoon; have pared and cut enough good apples to fill the kettle; put them in a clean tub, and pour the boiling cider over; then scour the kettle and put in the apples and cider, let them boil briskly till the apples sink to the bottom; slacken the fire and let them stew, like preserves, till ten o'clock at night. Some dried quinces stewed in cider and put in are an improvement. Season with orange peel, cinnamon or cloves, just before it is done; if you like ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... grinning cheerfully, then forced a thong of raw hide into his unwilling pupil's mouth, whilst the young horse, half-mad with terror, rolled his eyes impotently. The Joven, standing astride over the fallen animal, half-dancing on his toes in his canvas shoes, would shout to the men to slacken the heel- rope, and then to let go the head-rope. As the terrified animal struggled to his feet, the Joven slipped nimbly on to the recado. Then came a brief pause, as the horse puzzled over the unaccustomed weight ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... their horses, stood around it till they saw that no efforts which the peasants might use could extinguish the flames. Westerman then gave the word of command for their return; they started at a sharp trot, and he did not allow them to slacken their pace till he had again passed the ruins of the little ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... trail of blood behind it. I felt assured from this that it would soon drop, and I pursued as fast as my legs could carry me, reloading as I ran. It had, however, got out of shot. Still I followed, certain that it would slacken its speed, and that I should again get it within range of my rifle. On and on I went, not having time to look behind me to ascertain if my companions were following, as I supposed they ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... and, likewise, the dust. The cowboys did not slacken their pace! It took two hours of exceedingly strenuous labor to tie up all the wild horses. Each horse had presented a new fight. Then came the quick job of packing their outfits, which Juan had gotten together. Everyone of the men had been kicked, pulled, ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... and he closes the book. Two of the men quietly slacken the ropes which hold the body in position, another pulls off the flag, and the dark mass on the planks plunges downward into the oily sea. Another pause, while I picture it rushing "down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... The grip of his arms about her made response. "Love you? I love you with my soul and my body, here and through whatever comes Hereafter. You are my earth and heaven—the whole meaning of things—" He broke off abruptly, and she felt his arms slacken their hold and slowly unclasp as though impelled to it ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... by my movement, perhaps—had turned, and, seeing our two figures, started to fly in the opposite direction. Instinctively I darted forward in pursuit, but was soon passed by the man behind me. This caused me to slacken; for I had recognised this latter, as he flew by, as Sweetwater, the detective, and knew that he would do this ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... contradicted the gossip that had reached her; but that as yet, like other absolute sovereigns, the Queen of the Hill thought it politic to go with the popular stream, reserving all check on its direction till the rush of its torrent might slacken; and that it would be infinitely wiser in Mrs. Ashleigh to postpone conversation with Mrs. Poyntz until Lilian's return to L—— as my wife. Slander by that time would have wearied itself out, and Mrs. Poyntz (assuming her friendship to Mrs. Ashleigh to be sincere) would then be enabled ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... keel-compelling gale! Till the broad Sun withdraws his lessening ray: Then must the Pennant-bearer slacken sail, That lagging barks may make their lazy way.[125] Ah! grievance sore, and listless dull delay, To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze! What leagues are lost, before the dawn of day, Thus loitering pensive on the willing seas, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... the village of Verdu, when, oddly enough, my horse began to show signs of distress, and I was compelled to slacken pace. The captain expressed his sorrow, and would not ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... to their feet. It might be only a hunting band of friendly Catawbas that passed, or a lone Cherokee who knew that this was not his hour. If the latter, we can, in imagination, see him look once at the new house on his hunting pasture, slacken rein for a moment in front of the group of families, lift his hand in sign of peace, and silently go his way hillward. As he vanishes into the shadows, the crimson sun, sinking into the unknown wilderness beyond the mountains, pours its last glow on the roof of the cabin and on the ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... Joe, when they felt that they could slacken their pace to get their breath, "I want you to tell ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... battering the door and listened. The rifle fire began to slacken. No more than an occasional shot was to be heard. The fighting had died down. It was too late for the prisoners to take any active part in it. They began to consider the future. They made up their minds to take the advice given ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... to cut them down. There was a deep ditch between the trees and a belt of rough grass, then the narrow road, and a ditch on the other side. After a few minutes a dark mass loomed in the haze and Jim knew it would be prudent to slacken speed, but his lamps were nearly out, and a little farther on he must avoid an ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... rest, And try how far my tethered strength May crawl in this poor breadth and length. Let me, since I can fly no more, At least spin dervish-like about (Till giddy rapture almost doubt I fly) through circling sciences, Philosophies and histories Should the whirl slacken there, then verse, Fining to music, shall asperse Fresh and fresh fire-dew, till I strain Intoxicate, half-break my chain! Not joyless, though more favored feet Stand calm, where I want wings to beat The floor. At least earth's bond ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... independent labour, but they have their several prizes, to which all who excel, may confidently look forward when the time of weariness and exhaustion shall come; when the pressure of years shall slacken exertion, and diminished vigour crave some haven of repose, or, at the least, some mitigated toil, with greater security of income: some place of honour with repose—the ambition of declining years. The influence of the great prize of the law, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... pace ate up the energies of the men. As if by agreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed. The volleys directed against them had had a seeming windlike effect. The regiment snorted and blew. Among some stolid trees it began to falter and hesitate. The men, staring intently, began to wait for some of the distant walls of smoke to move and disclose ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... forward hastily to pluck them, she heard a sound close by her. Looking quickly about her, she spied a large snake just below her naked feet, among the loose stones. Uttering a loud scream, she sprang terrified from the spot; nor did she slacken her speed until she reached the schoolhouse, her delicate feet cut and bleeding in several places, and a large thorn in the side of one foot, which pained her sadly. The girls laughed at her fright, and one rude boy ran out, shouting, at the top of ...
— The Allis Family; or, Scenes of Western Life • American Sunday School Union
... potencies. But with the presence of such idealism as a conviction in the mind and life, history teaches us that the seemingly impossible [p.8] is partially realised, and that a new depth of life is reached. All this does not mean that the individual is to slacken his interests or to lose his affection for the material aspects of life; but it does mean that the things which appertain to life have different values, and that it is of the utmost importance to judge them all from the highest conceivable standpoint—the ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... have a share in the good things of life. Unless the employing and governing classes meet their demands halfway, gunpowder and dynamite pretty surely lie ahead. Will the spirit of lawlessness spread? Ought we to slacken our process of lawmaking lest we make the yoke too hard to bear? As a matter of fact, it is through more laws, better laws, and a better mechanism for punishing infraction of laws, that we can hope to check lawlessness. Lynching-as we noted in chapter XXV-have been the product of inadequate ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... saw its forests reeling by in the spray. It cracked like a bubble and was dissolved in rainbows—wisps caught in the rocks and fluttering in the wind of the boat's flight. Then, as the pressure on heart and chest grew intolerable, the speed began to slacken and he drew a shuddering breath; but his brain still kept the whirl of the wild minutes past and his hand scarcely relaxed its grip on the gunwale. As a runaway horse, still galloping, drops back to control, so the canoe seemed to find her senses and leapt at the waves with ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... one ignorant amateur to another," I asked, "isn't the right thing to pull gently on the reins and then slacken? You go on doing it till the animal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... for two hours, the fire of the fort began to slacken, as one after another of the guns was dismounted. Monsieur Renault saw that the place could be no longer defended. Of his hundred and forty-six soldiers, over ninety had been killed and wounded. Collecting the remainder, and their officers, ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... the shattering force of the iron; and the precipitous steepness of the ruins offered no opportunity for storming. For the heated guns, and for the weary artillerymen, worn out by incessant firing, repose was absolutely necessary. By degrees the firing from the batteries by land and sea began to slacken; thick clouds of smoke, floating from the shore, expanded over the waves, sometimes concealing, sometimes discovering, the flotilla. From time to time a ball of smoke flew up from the guns of the fortress, and after the rolling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... signification. He was an excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a degree of wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his industry, but to a decent old age spent the life and fortune which was superfluous to himself, in the service ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... westward for eight hours; when (just as the sun began to have power enough to make the queen almost faint with the heat and her former fatigue) they arrived at the side of a shady wood; upon entering of which, the fairy made her horses slacken in their speed, and having travelled about a mile and a half, through rows of elms and beech trees, they came to a thick grove of firs, into which there seemed to be no entrance. For there was not any opening to a path, and the underwood consisting ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... distance he had placed between himself and his pursuers, Falcon slackened speed, and began to breathe hard. What was the meaning of it? Had an accident befallen him, or had he grown weary? Paul knew enough of the animal to know that it would not readily slacken speed through weariness. Falcon was one of those sterling animals who would take every inch from himself before he would give in ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... the trade beginning to slacken, we hove our anchor up, set our topsails, ran the stars and stripes up to the peak, fired a gun, which was returned from the Presidio, and left the little town astern, running out of the bay, and bearing ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... again and again as the mustang tore along, now leaving the yells behind, now slackening or seeming to slacken, till the Indians' whoops were very near, ringing behind and even passing the fugitive, to run echoing from side to side ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... Indians. Dugald is close at the turning-point now, but he sees the foremost savage getting the deadly lasso ready. He must shoot, though he has to slacken speed slightly ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... this time, was driving over the speed-limit, Peter perceived. He usually did. But he ought to slacken his pace now, or he would miss Peter by the wall. He was nearing the woodstack, just going to pass it, with a clear two yards between. It was not his doing: it was the woodstack that suddenly lessened the distance, lurching over it, taking the ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... was attended with complete success. A shower of rain had already caused the enemy to slacken their fire, when finding by reports that their camp was attacked and taken, they withdrew and left the militia in possession of ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... standing in the midst of a sky of brass, with his wake under him sinking in a sinuous dazzle, as though it was his fiery glance piercing to the green depths a thousand fathoms deep. It was hot enough to slacken the nerves and give the imagination a longer scope than sanity would have ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... and, putting his hands up, found the loop of the lasso, which he loosened, but did not think to slip over his head, in the confusion of his perceptions and thoughts. It was a wonder that it had not choked him, but he had fallen forward so as to slacken it. ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... be better to die than to grow old? If, as you teach us, there is no real death, should there be any real decay? What pleasure is there in life when the strength fails and the pulses slacken—when the warm blood grows chill and stagnant, and when even those we have loved consider we have lived too long? I who speak now am old, though I am not conscious of age— but others are conscious for me,—their looks, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... haven't," said Josh; "conger eels often do like that. You pull hard; he pulls hard and tries to get to the bottom. You slack the line, and as there's nobody pulling up, he comes to see what's the matter. Now, slacken!" ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... good to Smith. It looked peaceful, and quiet, and inviting; yet Smith knew that the whole Indian police force might be there to greet him. He had been gone many days, and much might have happened in the interim. It was characteristic of Smith that he did not slacken his horse's ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... while it was buried in sleep; so that it paid for its heedlessness with destruction, and was more pitiable for its own sloth than by reason of the valour of the foe. For in warfare nought is found to be more ruinous than that a man, made foolhardy by ease, should neglect and slacken his affairs and ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... as silent as the grave save for the sound of escaping steam from the early morning train. Happening to glance toward the station, something in the appearance of a man carrying a suitcase across the cinders attracted her attention and caused her to slacken her pace. It looked like Ogden Van Lennop. It was Ogden Van Lennop. He was leaving! What did it mean? Her air-castles collapsed with a ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... of the train began to slacken—all too soon. She now dreaded to learn her fate. Was she, or was she not, worth a few ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Imre, letting go the bridle, cut right and left, his sword gleaming rapidly among the awkward weapons; and taking advantage of a moment in which the enemy's charge began to slacken, he suddenly dashed through the crowd towards the outlet of the rock, without perceiving that another party awaited him above the rocks with great stones, with which they prepared to crush him ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... out by the wheels and under the horses' heads, working a devious way, men and women of all conditions wind a path over. They fill the interstices between the carriages and blacken the surface, till the vans almost float on human beings. Now the streams slacken, and now they rush amain, but never cease; dark waves are always rolling down the incline opposite, waves swell out from the side rivers, all London converges into this focus. There is an indistinguishable noise—it is not clatter, ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... court, and friendly. Its walls are near and sheltering. People like to sit here in the shelter of the close thickets around the still pool in the center. I notice, too, that persons hastening across the grounds come this way, and that they unconsciously slacken pace as ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... little thing to distress himself about at such a time, but it hurt him keenly. And then the lights grew blurred, and he felt that he was making heavy mechanical strokes that barely kept his lips above the water-line. He felt the current slacken perceptibly, but he was too much exhausted to take advantage of it, and drifted forward with it, splashing feebly like a dog, and holding his head back with a desperate effort. A huge, black shadow, only a shade blacker than the water around ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... but a sadder answer to the aspiration, a bitter truth that made that aspiration futile and hopeless, had lain ever since the evening of the day before in the Beebeegur, and almost as the chief was speaking the Well was receiving its dead inmates. Where the train begins to slacken its pace on approaching the station, it is passing over the field of the first—the creditable—battle of Cawnpore. Fresh from the butchery Nana Sahib (Dhoondoo Punth) himself had come out to aid in the last stand against the ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... for the wax, which keeps the rubbing from wearing it. The wax also protects it afterwards, and keeps the wet from rotting it. The waxed thread fills the hole better too, and what is of as much consequence as anything, it sticks so that the last stitch doesn't slacken before the next comes, but holds so tight that, although the leather is very springy, it cannot make it slip. The two pieces are thus got so close together that they are like one piece, as you will see when ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... pending negotiation been permitted for a moment to interrupt or slacken military preparation. Napoleon had sent Beauharnois into Italy, to be ready in case of any Austrian demonstration in that quarter; and General Wrede, with the Bavarian army, guarded his rear. An Austrian army, 60,000 strong, was ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... had not gone very far before the speed of the locomotive began to slacken. The fire in the furnace refused to burn, and the steam was low. While the engineer was trying to discover what was wrong, Andrews ordered the men to cut the telegraph wire and tear up a rail from the track. By the time the rail had been torn up and the wire cut, the engineer had discovered ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... lightly and easily, but somehow the heavy, clumsy creature managed to keep abreast of her; was even gaining upon her, drawing up, up, above her head. Vivia put on a spurt, and passed Peggy, climbing very swiftly—for a moment; then the ache in her wrists compelled her to slacken her rate of speed, and the thickset figure came up, up, steadily and surely. Truth to tell, though Peggy Montfort was awkward, she was as strong as a steer. Her weight was not fat, but sheer bone and brawn; and her ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... the hammer was struck, by some inconceivable fortuity, at the moment when the Duchesse de Fontanges expired. Her death did not weaken my resolutions nor slacken my ardour. I got away quite often to cast an eye over the work, and ordered my architect to second my impatience and spur on ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... were spoken, and after them came silence—such a silence as could be felt. Once the hands that gripped Crowther's seemed about to slacken, and then in a moment they tightened again as the hands of a drowning man ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... far as the facts have been noticed, there seems no great inequality, as to strength or endurance, between the sexes. In migratory tribes, as of birds or buffaloes, the males are not observed to slacken or shorten their journeys from any gallant deference to female weakness, nor are the females found to perish disproportionately through exhaustion. It is the English experience that among coursing-dogs and race-horses ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... life and love are gathered, If the world were not living Long after one is gone, Song would not ring, nor sorrow Stand at the door in evening; Life would vanish and slacken, Men would be ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... verily mapped out before the world itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of the mate, and when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him, while Radney stood .. up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or slacken the line, at the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats were lowered, the mate's got the start; and none howled more fiercely with delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... steadily, the storm increased, and he was forced to slacken his pace. As the blinding snow grew thick, the sound of the wind deadened, unable to penetrate the dense white wall through which he forced his way. The world narrowed to a space whose boundaries he could touch with his extended hands. In this white mystery that wrapped him, nothing ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... punishment and reward is so accurate in its working, that a horse soon learns the lesson set before him. But with a running martingale, the rider, in order to reward the horse for bringing his head into proper position, would have to slacken out the reins with a promptness that would be seldom attainable, and with an entire disregard of control over the animal. In fact, with a running martingale, adjusted so as to prevent the horse from getting his head too high, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... the man heard the old woman's words of farewell. They moved northward along the snowy path, hand in hand, running with no more sound than slipping star-shadows. So for a hundred yards; and then the speed began to slacken, and at last they walked. They reached the black crest where the brushwood of the drook showed above the level of the barrens. Here they halted, and Darling whistled guardedly. An answering note came up to them from the blackness below and to seaward. Darling stepped down, parted ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... Ailie with her cane when she is pandying," he told Grizel. "You begin well, but you slacken just when you ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... coups de main. They would thereby have harassed the army, and retarded its march, but Barclay seemed fearful of discouraging us: he put out his strength only against our advanced guard, and that but just sufficiently to slacken without stopping ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... knowing that she was going home to her lines, opened out like a winner racing up the straight. The extravagance of her speed exactly fitted my extravagant mood. I promised myself that, just as I was letting my animal have its head, so I would slacken all moral reins, and let my life run uncontrolled. There was not more beauty in things than ugliness, nor more happiness in life than pain. Have done with this straining after ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... spite of infinite turmoil and confusion. Moreover the effort now is less concentrated, less dramatic. There is no one vital center to the modern movement which disaster can strike or decay undermine. If Paris or New York slacken and grow dull and materialist, if Berlin and London conspire for a mutual destruction, Tokio or Baku or Valparaiso or Christiania or Smyrna or Delhi will shelter and ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... poetry every day, or every week, as the case may be. On that we plunge back into the beautiful, poetic, inspiring city, and adhere to our poetry-reading program—for exactly a fortnight. Then, unaccountably, our resolve begins to slacken. We cannot seem to settle our minds to ordered rhythms "where more is meant than meets the ear." Our resolve collapses. Once again Palgrave is covered with dust. But vacation time returns. After a few days in green pastures and beside still waters the soul suddenly ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... train began to slacken speed had the Prince finished. Then, blotting and refolding the paper, he ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... another, until the ushers were nearly demented. When drove after drove had divided and passed to the right or the left, that is, to the ladies' or gentlemen's dressing-rooms, and the stream began to slacken a little, so that they could distinguish individuals, Mr. Joy in turn received and passed a "puritan preacher," a "cavalier soldier," a "Highlander," a "knight," a "minstrel," the "vailed prophet," a "Switzer," a "Chinese mandarin," a "Russian serf," and black, ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... it ever be over, if we allow the incompatibility to remain, childishly satisfied with a mere change of shape? This has been the grapple of two brothers that already struggled with each other even in the womb. One of them has fallen under the other; but let simple, good-natured Esau beware how he slacken his grip till he has got back his inheritance, for Jacob is cunninger with ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... children say. The hand that clasps anything, by slow and imperceptible degrees, loses muscular contraction, and the grip of the fingers becomes slacker. Our minds and affections and wills have that same tendency to slacken their hold of what they grasp. Unless we tighten up the machine it will work loose; and unless we make conscious efforts to keep ourselves in touch with God, His hand will slip out of ours before we know that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was trying to slacken headway and regain the desired position, the enemy's shot disabled his headsails, and the Chesapeake came up into the wind with canvas all a-flutter. It was a mishap which a crew of trained seamen might have quickly mended, but the frigate was taken aback—that is, the breeze drove her stern foremost ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... worker is entitled to slacken up a little as success comes to him, but the moment his energies commence to wane, he should see to it that he gets the right sort of young material in the institution to keep up the enthusiasm and hard work which he himself ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... knowledge of the art and a possible skill in its exercise come almost of themselves. The real test of the artist in love is in the skill to carry it beyond the period when the interests of nature, having been really or seemingly secured, begin to slacken. The whole art of love, it has been well said, lies in forever finding something new in the same person. The art of love is even more the art of retaining love than of arousing it. Otherwise it tends to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... brush, would bring the builders with a leap to their feet. It might be only a hunting band of friendly Catawbas that passed, or a lone Cherokee who knew that this was not his hour. If the latter, we can, in imagination, see him look once at the new house on his hunting pasture, slacken rein for a moment in front of the group of families, lift his hand in sign of peace, and silently go his way hillward. As he vanishes into the shadows, the crimson sun, sinking into the unknown wilderness beyond the mountains, pours its last glow on the roof of the cabin ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... is, that if you are worthy of this impression at all, there isn't a single item of it of which the association isn't noble. Hold to it fast that there is no other such dignity of arrival as arrival by water. Hold to it that to float and slacken and gently bump, to creep out of the low, dark felze and make the few guided movements and find the strong crooked and offered arm, and then, beneath lighted palace-windows, pass up the few damp steps on the precautionary carpet—hold to it that ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... broken and much undulated, so that although they knew that the band they were pursuing were but a short distance ahead they had not yet caught sight of them, and they hoped that, having no reason to dread any immediate pursuit, these would soon slacken their pace. This expectation was realized, for on coming over a brow they saw the party halted at a turf-burner's cottage in the hollow below. Three of the men had dismounted; two of them were examining the hoof of one of the horses, ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... attempt to light matches it ended in failure. Dick bumped his head against the woodwork of the carriage; Kate felt she hated the little comedian, and before she recovered her temper the train began to slacken speed, and there were frequent calls for Dick from the ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... been before estranged; and terrible though these perils may be, there is always a deep sense of underlying consolation in the closer drawing of the bond of brotherhood. But when the scourge of deadly sickness has passed over the land, the effect has almost always been to slacken this tie; the inherent love of life, natural to human beings, turning to an almost incredible selfishness, and inducing men to abandon their nearest and dearest in the hour of peril, leaving them, if stricken, to die alone, or turning them, sick to death though they might be, away from ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... after leaving Liverpool they were, however, awakened early one morning by feeling the express-train suddenly slacken speed. The big cars shook with a violent jarring, and George hurriedly swung himself down from his upper berth. He had some difficulty in getting into his jacket and putting on his boots, but he pushed through the startled passengers and sprang down upon the ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... had fairly entered London he had had to slacken his pace more and more, the little folks crowded so mightily upon him. The crowd grew denser at every step, and at last, at a corner where two great ways converged, he came to a stop, and the multitude flowed about him and closed ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... they came up, forced their way into the dense mass and engaged such ships as they could best attack. The weather division was doing the same, rather ahead of the centre, and at about 1:30 p.m. the battle was at its height. At about 3 p.m. the firing began to slacken, and two hours afterwards had wholly ceased, by which time 9 French sail of the line, including one burnt, and 9 Spanish were captured. Nine French and 6 Spaniards escaped, of which 4 French ships made sail to the southward, ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... who felt now how he loved his friend with all his heart, "how I wish I was going with you on the campaign!" The other pressed both the boy's hands, in a grasp of friendship, which each knew never would slacken. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... could not go overfast, and it was the maid's hand that helped the man, not the man's hand the maid. Perpetua was as fleet as a deer, but the degraded King limped like the fool whose likeness had been flung upon him, and Perpetua had to slacken her speed in order that he might keep pace with her. But there were no signs of pursuit from the house of Lycabetta. The terror of the plague was so great that Robert's mantle was an unquestionable defence. The most licentious youth in ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... conscious of the difficulties under which he is laboring. To discuss religion in Russia is far from agreeable. "It is," he says, "as if a master, pretending to exhibit his skill in racing, were to enter into competition publicly with his slave ... and at the same time wink at him to slacken his speed." Of one thing he is certain: Judaism is a progressive religion. It had been and might be reformed from time to time, but this can and must be only along the lines of its own genius. To improve the moral and material condition of the Jews by weaning them ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... Mosby was back with his command; his wound had not been as serious as it might have been for the bullet had expended most of its force against the butt of one of the revolvers in his belt. Operations against the railroads had been allowed to slacken during Mosby's absence; now they were stepped up again. Track was repeatedly torn up along the Manassas Gap line, and there were attacks on camps and strong points, and continual harassing of wood-cutting parties obtaining fuel for the locomotives. The artillery was taken out, and trains ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper
... Smith. It looked peaceful, and quiet, and inviting; yet Smith knew that the whole Indian police force might be there to greet him. He had been gone many days, and much might have happened in the interim. It was characteristic of Smith that he did not slacken his horse's ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... very well, and I was admiring the pretty back with its girlish shoulders and slim tapering waist, when suddenly a woman, riding in the opposite direction, swerved across the road on her wheel, before Miss Cunningham had been given either time to slacken her speed or to turn out of ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... another, and then trying everything all over again. And oh! what a lot he drank!—first milk and then cider, and then mixed the two together in a way that would have disagreed with anybody except a Brownie. As it was, he was obliged to slacken his belt several times, and at last took it off altogether. But he must have had a most extraordinary capacity for eating and drinking—since, after he had nearly cleared the table, he was just as lively as ever, and began jumping about on the table as if he had ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... may very easily have for effect to slacken the speed of the circulation of money, to promote the hoarding and even the burial of treasure for a rainy day, and to paralyze credit and its power to supply the place of money. Hence, it seems preferable ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Babbitt took part, and completely won back to self-respect, placidity, and the affection of his friends. But he began to protest, "Gosh, I've done my share in cleaning up the city. I want to tend to business. Think I'll just kind of slacken up on this G.C.L. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... intelligence of the evil intention of the confederacy had been misinformed as to facts, or else exaggerated sinister probabilities. The prevailing calm was therefore dangerous as well as deceitful, for it tended to slacken preparations which ought to have been made to lessen the apprehensions of coming events which threw ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... The liner began to slacken her speed, and the tugboat soon was alongside. Up above the inky blackness of the hull figures could be made out, leaning over the port railing, as though peering eagerly at the little craft which was bearing down ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... last reached Mr. Kilshaw, soon after he had, by his bargain with Benham, been put in possession of the facts that gentleman had to dispose of. Kilshaw knew Dick Derosne very well, and for a time he remained quiet, expecting to see Dick's zeal slacken and his infatuation cease of their own accord. When the opposite happened, Kilshaw's anger was stirred within him; he was ready to find, and in consequence at once found, a new sin and a fresh cause of offence in the Premier. Without considering that Medland had many things to do besides watching ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... whipped cattle were they, such as rowed the triremes of Phoenicia, but freemen born, sons of Athens, who called it joy to die for her in time of need. Therefore despite the keleustes's beats, despite Themistocles's command, the rowing might not slacken. And the black wave around the Nausicaae's bow ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... came into the leading thoroughfare where the Marshalsea was, and then he saw them slacken their pace, and soon turn down a by-street. He stopped, felt that he had no right to go further, and slowly left them. He had no suspicion that they ran any risk of being houseless until morning; had no idea of the truth until ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... upstream. You see, sir," he went on, "if once we dropped to leeward of the landing-place, it's hard to say where we should get ashore, besides the chance of being boarded by the gigs; whereas, the way we go the current must slacken, and then we can dodge back along ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... only hear the shouts and yells. He kept the water up to his chin and continuously splashed his face in the endeavour to slacken the efforts of the mosquitoes. The cries approached. He saw men outlined against the stars and then some gleams of lanterns. Something stirred ponderously near to him. It might be a crocodile, but he dared not move. The figures seemed ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... he heard the distant sound of hoofbeats behind him, but they soon died away. Then he entered a belt of forest, and when he passed out on the other side no pursuit could be seen. But he did not slacken speed. He knew that all Sherburne had said about Stonewall Jackson was true. He would forgive no dallying by the way. He demanded of every ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... directly toward the redskin, who harbored no suspicion that there was any of his race in his neighborhood. The plan the lad had resolved upon required nerve, resolution and quickness. He stepped as lightly as was consistent with speed until he had passed half the distance, when he began to slacken his gait and to proceed with greater caution ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... them was killed about five yards from where Fernando stood. A ball passed through his head, and from the range of British bullets it seemed quite probable that he was accidentally shot by some of the Americans. This was the only man killed near where Fernando stood. The firing began to slacken when he fell. While three or four men were carrying the body away, a white flag was raised on the opposite side of the breastwork, and the firing ceased. The white flag was a handkerchief on a sword or stick. It was raised ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... sigh— But fast we fled, away, away, And I could neither sigh nor pray; And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain Upon the courser's bristling mane; But, snorting still with rage and fear, He flew upon his far career: At times I almost thought, indeed, He must have slacken'd in his speed; But no—my bound and slender frame Was nothing to his angry might, And merely like a spur became; Each motion which I made to free My swoln limbs from their agony Increased his fury and affright: I tried my voice,—'t was faint and ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... little while she called, "Do not outrun me, Fair Brother!" But he seemed not to hear her, for not a bit did he slacken the ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... enough time to dress, they began to pass landmarks, and presently to slacken speed; and then they were stepping down from the train, out into the hotch-potch gathering ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... on still harder, the English horse began to lay back his ears and pull so violently on the rein that his rider had all she could do to hold him, and lacked sufficient strength to direct his course. Seeing Zibeline's danger, Henri hastened to slacken his horse's pace, but it was too late: the almost perpendicular declivity of the other side of the hill added fresh impetus to the ungovernable rush of Seaman, who suddenly ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... dealing with heretics and persons of similar quality, nothing but trickery was to be expected. The chief good to be hoped for was to "chill the Queen in her plots, leagues, and alliances," and during the chill, to carry forward their own great design. To slacken not a whit in their preparations, to "put the Queen to sleep," and, above all, not to leave the French for a moment unoccupied with internal dissensions and civil war; such was the game of the King and the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... They talked with warm interest of people and events unknown to Penrod; they laughed enthusiastically about things beyond his ken; they appeared to have arranged a perfect way to enjoy themselves, no matter whether he was with them or elsewhere but presently their briskness began to slacken; the appearance of interest became perfunctory. Within ten minutes the few last scattering semblances of gayety had passed, and they lapsed into the longest and most profound of all their silences indoors that day. Its effect upon Penrod was to make ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... in the death of your old friend Sir Roderick Murchison. My own tenure of office expires in May, and it is not yet decided who is to succeed me, but whoever may be our President, our interest in your proceedings will not slacken. Mr. Waller will, I daresay, have told you that we have just sent a memorial to Mr. Gladstone, praying that a pension may be at once conferred upon your daughters, and I have every hope that our prayer may be ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... immiscibility.] Incoherence — N. nonadhesion^; immiscibility; incoherence; looseness &c adj.; laxity; relaxation; loosening &c v.; freedom; disjunction &c 44; rope of sand. V. make loose &c adj.; loosen, slacken, relax; unglue &c 46; detach &c (disjoin) 44. Adj. nonadhesive, immiscible; incoherent, detached, loose, baggy, slack, lax, relaxed, flapping, streaming; disheveled; segregated, like grains of sand unconsolidated &c 231, uncombined ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... intentionally foregoes the graces of polish on the one hand, and of scholastic precision on the other—that quality of merit has never been attained in a degree so eminent. This first interchange of thought upon a topic of literature did not tend to slacken my previous disposition to retreat into solitude; a solitude, however, which at no time was tainted with either the moroseness or ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... were open and every man was alertly at his station. It was a silent ship excepting when an officer passed an order along. Joe Hawkridge began to feel more sanguine of winning against odds. He had never seen such iron discipline as this in the bedlam aboard the Revenge. Stede Bonnet knew how to slacken the reins and when to apply the curb. His men were loyal because he dealt out justice ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... with a quick glance as he came up, but he did not slacken his pace until he was within ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... top of it George could see a number of lights twinkling and bobbing about through the fringe of bush that covered it. His captors gave him but little time to speculate as to the place they were nearing, for not for one instant did they slacken their speed as they ascended the steep slopes. Helmar knew by the pace of the journey that he could not be far from Kafr Dowar, but he had never heard that it was on a hill, and besides, the railway passed through it. This latter thought convinced him that ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... and as long as the people would allow him. The Germans argued away time with him while they got their submarine fleet built. Then they carried out the programme they had always had in mind and had never thought of abandoning. Now they wish to gain more time, to slacken the efforts of the Allies, if possible to separate them by asking for "discussions"—peace by "negotiation." When you are about to kill the robber, he cries out, "For God's sake, let's discuss the question between us. We can come to terms."—Now here's where the danger comes from ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... was beginning to slacken, and they doubtless feared that a number of fire-barges might be launched at them did they venture higher up. On the way back, they launched a fire-ship at the Royal Oak, which was commanded by Captain Douglas. The flames speedily ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... pounders, was not brought up until the end of April, and before that period threw assaults had taken place with very serious loss. On the 4th of May our powder began to fail us. This cruel event obliged us to slacken our fire. We also wanted shot; and an order of the day fixed a price to be given for all balls, according to their calibre, which might be picked up after being fired from the fortress or the two ships ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the ditch which served as enclosure to the park. Lambernier, for it was he who showed himself so prompt at keeping his promise, directed his steps through the thickets toward the corner of the Corne woods which he had designated to Marillac; but, after walking for some time, he was forced to slacken his steps. The hunting-party were coming in his direction, and Lambernier knew that to continue in the path he had first chosen would take him directly among the hunters; and, in spite of his insolence, he feared ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain, and the lee-shrouds slacken, The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers, And the waves with the coming ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... could do mighty things, and could contemn Riches though offer'd from the hand of Kings. And what in me seems wanting, but that I 450 May also in this poverty as soon Accomplish what they did, perhaps and more? Extol not Riches then, the toyl of Fools The wise mans cumbrance if not snare, more apt To slacken Virtue, and abate her edge, Then prompt her to do aught may merit praise. What if with like aversion I reject Riches and Realms; yet not for that a Crown, Golden in shew, is but a wreath of thorns, Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights 460 To him who wears the Regal ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... for jumping, with good loins, hocks, and thighs, can be taught to jump timber; but it is madness to ride at a gate or a stile with a doubtful horse. A deer always slacks his pace to a trot to jump a wall or park rails, and it is better to slacken to a trot or canter where there is no ditch on either side to be cleared, unless you expect a fall, and then go fast, that your horse may ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... growing calm as she saw her mother blanch and tremble in the pale light; but Mrs. Dering waited for no more; grasping Olive's hand still tighter, she broke into a swift run, that did not slacken, until the steps were reached, and the sobbing within reached their ears; then Olive forcibly held her back ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... about an hour and a half, and the fire from the enemy began to slacken, when we suddenly discovered that all the sails on her mainmast were enveloped in a blaze. Fire spread with amazing rapidity, and, running down the after rigging, it soon communicated with her magazine, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... not slacken speed until the chapel came into view, its grey walls glistening in the morning light, a clump of feathery rowan trees beside it; at its back a mighty rock, flung down in bygone centuries from the mountain which towered behind ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... saw that my plan would succeed, though skill and considerable practice were necessary in the use of my patent bridle. It was difficult to remember that to check the courser's speed it was necessary to slacken rein, and that the tighter the reins were drawn, the faster he would fly. We at length, however, all learned to manage Master Hurricane, and the distance between Rockburg and Falconhurst was traversed in an almost ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... disappeared under the bulge in the wall, while I, placing my hand upon the rope, presently felt the strain slacken, whereupon I ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... groggery was near at hand did he slacken speed, and then, assuming as best he could an air of composure, he opened the door cautiously ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... may be done by three o'clock in the afternoon; have pared and cut enough good apples to fill the kettle; put them in a clean tub, and pour the boiling cider over; then scour the kettle and put in the apples and cider, let them boil briskly till the apples sink to the bottom; slacken the fire and let them stew, like preserves, till ten o'clock at night. Some dried quinces stewed in cider and put in are an improvement. Season with orange peel, cinnamon or cloves, just before it is done; if you ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... prove by this experiment that the quicker the blows are, the higher the note will be. I pull the string gently at first, and then quicker and quicker, and you will notice that the note grows sharper and sharper, till the movement begins to slacken, when the note goes down again. This is because the more rapidly the air is hit, the shorter are the waves it makes, and short waves give a ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... a rapid pace, and did not slacken his speed until he reached home. Dinner was ready, and he sat down with none but Helen, who could scarcely touch a morsel. Her father saw at once the state of her mind, and felt that it would be injudicious to introduce any subject that might be calculated to excite ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... to horse! my coal-black steed Paws the ground and snuffs the air! There's not a foal of Arab's breed 550 More knows whom he must bear; On the hill he will not tire, Swifter as it waxes higher; In the marsh he will not slacken, On the plain be overtaken; In the wave he will not sink, Nor pause at the brook's side to drink; In the race he will not pant, In the combat he'll not faint; On the stones he will not stumble, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... desperate then implored an answer in words—prayed for an explanation—with an intensity of distress in voice and manner, that no one whose ears were not stopped with a stronger feeling could have been deaf to; but Mrs. Rossitur would not raise her head, nor slacken in the least the clasp of the fingers that supported it, that of themselves in their relentless tension spoke what no words could. Fleda's trembling prayers were in vain, in vain. Poor nature at last sought a woman's relief in tears—but they were heart-breaking, not heart-relieving tears—racking ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... been long sick, wrapped in a plaid, so that he could scarcely move, a stake being fixed in the earth, with a rope, or tedder, that was about the plaid; he had no sooner enquired what he was, but he conjured him to loose him, and out of sympathy he was pleased to slacken that, wherein he was, as I may so speak, swaddled; but, if I right remember, he signified, he did not recover."—Account of the Parish of Suddie, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... on after freedom for the man we was owned by. We worked crops and patches. I didn't see much difference then. I see a big change come out of it. We had to work. The work didn't slacken a bit. I never owned land but my father owned eighty acres in Drew County. I don't know what become of it. I worked on the railroad section, laid crossties, worked in stave mills. I farmed a whole lot all along. I hauled and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... as long as your ship is there I cannot get out, but if they saw you shifting your berth it would strike them at once that I might be intending to slip away. You must wait until it gets perfectly dark, and then throw off your warps and slacken out your cable as silently as possible, and let her drop down so as to leave me an easy passage. As soon as it is dark I will grease all my blocks, and when everything is quiet try to get her out. What wind there is is from the southwest, which ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... mile flew by. The unwilling travellers, depressed beyond description, had given up all hope of leaving the car until it reached the point intended by the wily plotters. To their amazement, however, the speed began to slacken perceptibly after they had left the city ten or twelve miles behind. Truxton was leaning against the side of the door, gloomily surveying the bright, green landscape. For some time Loraine had been steadying herself by clinging to his arm. They had cast ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... furnaces are once at work, they keep them constantly employed for many months together, never suffering the fire to slacken night or day, but still supplying the waste of fuel and other materials with fresh, poured ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... his fancy when you marked the blind heave of the swell to the sun standing in the midst of a sky of brass, with his wake under him sinking in a sinuous dazzle, as though it was his fiery glance piercing to the green depths a thousand fathoms deep. It was hot enough to slacken the nerves and give the imagination a longer scope than sanity would have it ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... woody isles, the most of them of small extent, except the southernmost, which, on account of the day, I named St Bartholomew. It is six or seven leagues in circuit, and makes the N.E. point of Bougainville's Passage. At noon the breeze began to slacken. We were at this time between two and three miles from the land, and observed in latitude 15 deg. 23' the Isle of Lepers bearing from E. by N. to S., distance seven leagues; and a high bluff-head, at which the coast we were upon seemed to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... o'clock we approached the village of Verdu, when, oddly enough, my horse began to show signs of distress, and I was compelled to slacken pace. The captain expressed his sorrow, and would not hear of ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... by this time all but dark, and the firing began to slacken on all sides; Salvation and his brother gunners, having covered up their slaughtering tackle with tarpaulings, retired for the night, leaving Amyas, who had volunteered to take the watch till midnight; and the rest of the force having got their scanty supper of biscuit (for provisions ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... with One to me most dear, That undivided we from year to year 5 Might work in our high Calling—a bright hope To which our fancies, mingling, gave free scope Till checked by some necessities severe. And should these slacken, honoured BEAUMONT! still Even then we may perhaps in vain implore 10 Leave of our fate thy wishes [1] to fulfil. Whether this boon be granted us or not, Old Skiddaw will look down upon the Spot With pride, the Muses ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... of forgery can always be settled out of court in France if the missing amount is returned. The losers by the crime are usually well-to-do, and have no wish to blight an imprudent man's character. But du Croisier had no mind to slacken his hold until he knew what he was about. He meditated until he fell asleep on the magnificent manner in which his hopes would be fulfilled by the way of the Assize Court or by marriage. The murmur of voices below, the lamentations ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... forth, though strongly suspecting that they must have been asleep. But what he said caused more than one cheek to flush; and doubtless a number of lads inwardly resolved that from henceforth they would never, never allow themselves to slacken ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... along the pond, had taken the main street, which leads to the Tol-Hek, giving directions to the coachman to slacken his pace, in order not to excite ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... for a while after that, while Betty regarded the increasingly muddy road ahead of her with anxious eyes. She had been forced to slacken her speed more and more until now they were barely ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... curtain of dust, as lightning strikes through a cloud, darted a great, raw-boned, ugly chestnut. Like the Empire Express, he came rocking, thundering, spurning the ground. At his coming, Gold Heels, to the eyes of the crowd, seemed to falter, to slacken, to stand still. The crowd gave a great cry of amazement, a yell of disgust. The chestnut drew even with Gold Heels, passed him, and swept under the wire. Clinging to his neck was a little jockey in a green cap, green jacket, and hoops of ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... south of Mexico and strike Central America and Mexico from June to October (most common in August and September); southern shipping lanes subject to icebergs from Antarctica; occasional El Nino phenomenon occurs off the coast of Peru when the trade winds slacken and the warm Equatorial Countercurrent moves south, killing the plankton that is the primary food source for anchovies; consequently, the anchovies move to better feeding grounds, causing resident marine birds to starve by the thousands because of their lost food source Note: ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... on, an Indian hunter drew near on horseback, but Nakpa did not pause or slacken her pace. On she fled through the long dry grass of the river bottoms, while her babies slept again from sheer exhaustion. Toward sunset, she entered the Sioux camp amid great excitement, for some one had spied her afar off, and the boys and ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... lay, so close and warm, While Reynard tore apace, And laugh'd, as only shrimps can laugh, In his comfortable place. At length, as Reynard near'd the goal, He slowly slacken'd speed, And stopping, ere he touch'd the post, He ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... and seemed to possess him with a strong belief that scarcely any real danger remained. New confidence and new hope, however founded, inspired new vigour; and though our state was the same as when the men first began to slacken in their labour, through weariness and despondency, they now renewed their efforts with such alacrity and spirit, that before eight o'clock in the morning the leak was so far from having gained upon the pumps, that the pumps had gained considerably upon the leak. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... heartily believe that the morrow will come. This faith does not amount to certitude; I may confess, if challenged, that before to-morrow I and the world and time itself might conceivably come to an end together; but that idle possibility, so long as it does not slacken action, will not disturb belief. Every moment of life accordingly trusts that life will continue; and this prophetic interpretation of action, so long as action lasts, amounts to continual ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... all the hurry of the Ocean ceas'd, Soon as its God appear'd above the Waves: Who, managing his Steeds in Air serene, Flies swift with slacken'd Reins and ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
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