"Rapidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and, walking hastily along the passage, made a signal to him to follow. He did so, having little doubt that he was about to be conducted into the Countess's presence; but his surprise, at first excited by Fenella's appearance, was increased by the rapidity and ease with which she seemed to track the dusky and decayed mazes of the dilapidated Savoy, equal to that with which he had seen her formerly lead the way through the gloomy vaults of Castle Rushin, in ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... men of this country need is restraint, not stimulant; what this Nation needs is reserve. The only serious fear I entertain for our future is that the great rapidity of our common lives will make us neurotic. I prefer a young man to be a little less scintillant, than that his brilliancy should be at the expense of ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... slippers those were! He had only to say to them, "Go!" and they would impel him forward with the rapidity of the wind. They seemed ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... no doubt can exist that the comforts of the labouring poor depend upon the increase of the funds destined for the maintenance of labour, and will be very exactly in proportion to the rapidity of this increase. The demand for labour which such increase would occasion, by creating a competition in the market, must necessarily raise the value of labour, and, till the additional number of hands required were reared, the increased funds would be distributed to the same ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... Even the managing director of the Bank of Burma came in for his share of annoyance. He was obliged to send out a dozen cables of notification of the loss, all of which had to be paid out of accrued dividends. Thus Warrington had blocked up the avenues. The marvelous rapidity with which such affairs may be spread broadcast these days is the first wonder in a new epoch of wonders. From Irkoutsh to Aukland, from St. Johns to Los Angeles, wherever a newspaper was published, the news flew. Within twenty-four hours it would be as difficult ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... the mathematical master. He went to the blackboard, wrote up the problem, and again began the explanation. Raisky only noticed with what rapidity and certainty he wrote the figures, how the waistcoat with the cornelian seal and then the snuff-spattered shirt front came nearer—nothing, except the solution of the problem, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... under the command of the general officers. In this way, with the exception of Namur, Mons, and a very few other places, all the Spanish Low Countries were lost, and a part of ours, even. Never was rapidity equal to this. The enemies were ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... other. The fact soon became known. Shops were not numerous in the village in those days; and the wares they supplied were only second rate. Orders came pouring in, Mrs. Grumbit's knitting wires clicked, and her little old hands wagged with incomprehensible rapidity and unflagging regularity,—and Martin ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... harbour of Kiel there are about a hundred transports and some older ironclads and cruisers, which cannot offer a serious resistance to our fleet. All these ships must be attacked with the greatest rapidity and vigour. It is of the utmost importance to send a battleship to the entrance of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, in order to cut off the retreat of the German ships. All the German ships in the harbour are to be destroyed. The attack is to be commenced by some ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... seems to have been capricious in everything. She made and broke liaisons with amazing rapidity while undergoing a compulsory sojourn at Coppet. She formed there an attachment for the son of a person named M. Baranti, which very nearly cheated Rocca from becoming her husband, and the faithless Benjamin Constant from ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... To him they communicated the intelligence that Fanny had not returned; and the eccentric old man, without waiting to hear the recital of their fears, threw the basket on the table, bolted precipitately down stairs, and walked away towards Ann street with a rapidity that betokened the existence of some fixed purpose in his mind. Meanwhile, his reflections ran somewhat in the following strain, and were half muttered aloud, as he trudged quickly onward, now nearly upsetting a foot passenger and receiving ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... out, peering anxiously in every direction. Stealthily he raised himself. Then suddenly he made a low sound and with a rapidity which startled Archer, dropped ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... he grew older, in appearance anyhow, with exceptional rapidity; his face grew leaner and his beard, which he continued to shave, was soiled with ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... truths by casting sarcasm on the strong faith and evangelical piety of the forefathers. They then aimed to show that the Church and theology are altogether behind the age, and that science and art are advancing with a rapidity which must leave all dogmatism and authority far behind. They afterward examined the Scriptures by the light of Reason alone, and, by this idea, deluded multitudes of the young and inexperienced into the darkness and doubt which ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... eagerness of Barbadoro, so that tranquillity prevailed during the war with Lucca. But this being ended, and Niccolo da Uzzano dead, the city being at peace and under no restraint, unhealthy humors increased with fearful rapidity. Rinaldo, considering himself now the leader of the party, constantly entreated and urged every citizen whom he thought likely to be Gonfalonier, to take up arms and deliver the country from him who, from the malevolence ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... helping the clerks to keep the accounts of the episcopal revenues, and making complicated calculations with the assistance of balls threaded on rods; he even multiplied and divided numbers in his head, without the use of slate or pencil, with a rapidity and accuracy that would have been admired even in a past master of money and finance. For him it was a pleasure to keep the books of the Deacon Modernus, who, growing old, used to muddle the figures and fall asleep at his desk. To oblige the Bishop, and ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... known just how hungry they were until the first bite was taken, and then little was said for some time, on account of the rapidity with which those four sets of sturdy ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... the canal, which was completed in 1832, the receipts amounted to over half a million bushels of wheat, a hundred thousand barrels of flour, a million pounds of butter and nearly seventy thousand pounds of cheese, with other articles in proportion. Business went on increasing with great rapidity; every one was getting rich, in pocket or on paper, and Cleveland was racing with its then rival, but now a part of itself, Ohio City, for the distinction of being the great commercial centre of the West. At that moment, in the year 1837, the great crash came and business ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... a strong work ethic, mastery of high technology, and a comparatively small defense allocation (1% of GDP) have helped Japan advance with extraordinary rapidity to the rank of second most technologically powerful economy in the world after the US and third largest economy in the world after the US and China. One notable characteristic of the economy is the working together of manufacturers, ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... were filled with the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. They saw visions and prophesied, devils were cast out and the sick healed by the laying on of hands. From that time the work rolled forth with astonishing rapidity, and churches were formed in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri; in the last named state a considerable settlement was formed in Jackson co.; numbers joined the Church and we were increasing rapidly; ...
— The Wentworth Letter • Joseph Smith
... rushed to the assault of the castle. The arrival of envoys charged to take possession of it as a pontifical domain by no means gave them pause. Not one stone of it was left upon another.[29] Then, with incredible rapidity they enclosed their city with walls, parts of which are still standing, their formidable ruins a witness to the zeal with which the whole population labored ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... the result of the contact between human nature and its environment. During the period studied by the politician, human nature has changed very little, but political environment has changed with ever-increasing rapidity. ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... man felt for that woman may seem romantic, and all the more so because he was an officer in the Royal Guard. If he had been in the infantry, the affair might have seemed more likely; but, as an officer of rank in the cavalry, he belonged to that French arm which demands rapidity in its conquests and derives as much vanity from its amorous exploits as from its dashing uniform. But the passion of this officer was a true love, and many young hearts will think it noble. He loved this woman because she was virtuous; he loved ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the ground, consuming the grass down to the very roots over thousands of acres, and destroying fencing over many miles. Such fires pass on, leaving the standing trees unscathed, avoiding even the scrub, which is too moist with the sap of life for consumption, but licking up with fearful rapidity every thing that the sun has dried. He could watch the wool-shed and house, but with no possible care could he so watch the whole run as to justify him in feeling security. There need be no preparation of leaves. ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... Gray's paper—at least one fourth quicker; and preserves its perfect sensitiveness in the same proportion of time, three days in twelve. Thus, it is at the same time quicker and less variable. This comparative rapidity may be very well understood, by remembering that the ceroleine is an element much softer than its compound; and possesses a photogenic aptness which is peculiar to itself, which science will, no doubt, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... tanks prevented her dropping with great rapidity; but Thurid was firing rapidly now in an attempt to burst these also, that I might be dashed to death in the swift fall that would instantly follow ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Florida, and there would be about the same number under Sherman when Schofield in North Carolina could join him, but the number which Johnston could now collect together seems never to have exceeded 33,000. It was Sherman's task by the rapidity of his movements to prevent a very formidable concentration against him. Johnston on the other hand must hinder if he could Sherman's junction with Schofield. Just before that junction took place he narrowly missed dealing a considerable blow to Sherman's army at ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... With lightning rapidity he had examined all the spoil of his victim's pockets. A horrid silence had settled down over the ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... excited to pause for any of the more voluptuous movements of less violent desires, but rushed on in passion's wildest extasy, both far too eager to think of any restraint, and with the utmost vigour on both our parts, we ran our first course with great rapidity. My adored Miss Evelyn had quite got over every feeling of pain, and could not but be delighted with the heat and vigour of my attack. We both died away together, at the extatic moment pouring down a mutual flood of spunk to cool the inflamed members that had the instant before been ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... and his arm twisted round the pillar—that's Mr Gregsbury—the celebrated Mr Gregsbury,'—with any other little eulogium that might strike you at the moment. And for salary,' said Mr Gregsbury, winding up with great rapidity; for he was out of breath—'and for salary, I don't mind saying at once in round numbers, to prevent any dissatisfaction—though it's more than I've been accustomed to give—fifteen shillings a week, and ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... rapidity that the "trimmings" were not wanting. With old knowledge born of many years of restaurant work, he knew that any day some prospector might find that which all prospectors endlessly sought and that then he would grind his bare grubstake contemptuously under ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... hatched from the egg, it requires very close inspection to see them with the naked eye. The rapidity of growth depends on the temperature in which they are, as much or more than their good living. A few days in hot weather might develop the full-grown worm, while in a lower temperature it would ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... it is only fair to say, was earned very largely by that gift for acting which had won him fame as a schoolboy. Whispers that he was going to act in the Area Belle, or one of Gilbert and Sullivan's operas, travelled with amazing rapidity from station to station in India, and every performance in which he took part was attended by all the Europeans for miles round. Indeed his fame as an actor travelled so far afield that the manager of a London theatre wrote to him in India offering our astonished hero a position in his ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... induced by the rapidity with which the colony had attained its present strength to form sanguine hopes of future importance, instituted an inquiry into the extent of their patent, with a view to the enlargement of territory. To facilitate this object, commissioners were appointed to explore the Merrimack, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... expressed it in an infernal "Do!" After this I got out into the air, but not so fast as not to hear, when the door of the drawing-room opened, the disconcerted drop of Miss Collop's public manner: she must have been in the midst of the larger latitude. Producing with extreme rapidity, Guy Walsingham has just published a work in which amiable people who are not initiated have been pained to see the genius of a sister-novelist held up to unmistakeable ridicule; so fresh an exhibition does it seem to them of the dreadful ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... this daring and hazardous manoeuvre had opened the combat, both men sprang to life. Sometimes the log rolled one way, sometimes the other, sometimes it jerked from side to side like a crazy thing, but always with the rapidity of light, always in a smother of spray and foam. The decided spat, spat, spat of the reversing blows from the caulked boots sounded like picket firing. I could not make out the different leads, feints, parries, and counters of ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... headlong impetuosity into the more champaign districts, it often overruns its banks with its own waters, and then plunges into a lake called Lake Leman, and though it passes through it, yet it never mingles with any foreign waters, but, rushing over the top of those which flow with less rapidity, in its search for an exit, it forces its own way by the violence of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... with such terrifying rapidity that Peter Gudge had hardly time to keep track of them. But now he had plenty of time, he had nothing but time. He could think the whole thing out, and realize the ghastly trick which fate had played upon him. He lay there, and time passed; he had no way of ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... fixedness, immovability, firmness, security, impregnability; fortress, stronghold, citadel; swiftness, celerity, rapidity, expedition, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... on the rapidity of our movements. I beg you will let me insist upon your giving me at once the few items of information which I need for ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... now moving with a rapidity and decision which contrast pleasantly with some of his earlier operations. Although Dundee was only occupied on May 15th, on May 18th his vanguard was in Newcastle, fifty miles to the north. In nine days he had ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... first unattended with pain, is soon succeeded by copious vomiting of matters similar to those passed from the bowels, accompanied with severe pain at the pit of the stomach, and with intense thirst. The symptoms now advance with rapidity. Cramps of the legs, feet, and muscles of the abdomen come on and occasion great agony, while the signs of collapse make their appearance. The surface of the body becomes cold and assumes a blue or purple ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... therefore filed off to the left toward[10] Somerset Court House, leaving the enemy to continue his headlong march toward Brunswick, which was not reached until four o'clock in the morning, with troops completely broken down with the rapidity of their ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... the eyes of the universe, the prophecy of the holy Patriarch. There was in a very short time a great number of religious; his order extended itself to all parts with astonishing rapidity, and it has multiplied itself so wonderfully for seven centuries, that it may be looked upon as a representation of the birth and progress ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... small and so narrow and apparently so fragile that I could only compare it to a chalk-mark upon which, high in the air, I was running at a rate unknown to railroads. One circumstance during the trip did more to show me the terrible rapidity with which we dashed through the flume than anything else. We had been rushing down at a pretty lively rate of speed when the boat suddenly struck something in the bow, a nail, a lodged stick of wood or some secure substance which ought not to have been there. What was the effect? The red-faced ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... while the cause was before it, and put the judge, the jury, the defendant and his counsel, to the sword. Perhaps a more heart-felt convulsion never reached a country with the same degree of power and rapidity before, and never may again. Pity for the sufferers, mixed with indignation at the violence, and heightened with apprehensions of undergoing the same fate, made the affair of Lexington the affair of the continent. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... copyright. But as he continued in the resolution of not appropriating the sale of his works to his own use, I did not scruple to accept that of 'The Corsair,' and I thanked him. He asked me to call and hear the portions read as he wrote them. I went every morning, and was astonished at the rapidity of his composition. He gave me the poem complete on New-year's day, 1814, saying, that my acceptance of it gave him great pleasure, and that I was fully at liberty to publish it with any bookseller I pleased, independent of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... to within about thirty yards of the two animals, who were moving about now on one side and now on the other with the greatest rapidity, so that it would not be very easy, I knew, ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... telegraph service were imitated at once in telephone practice. Lines carrying many telephones each, were established with great rapidity. Telephones actually displaced telegraphic apparatus in the exchange method of working in America. The fundamental principle on which telegraph or telephone exchanges operate, being that of placing any line in communication with any other in the system, gave to each ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... such incredible rapidity that he seemed to be evaporating through the gaping wound in ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... long he would have to work and wait for that. He knew that things in Calvinton moved slowly; but he knew also that its silent and subconscious judgments sometimes crystallised with incredible rapidity and hardness. Was it possible that he was already classified in the group that came near but did not enter, an inhabitant but not a real burgher, a half-way citizen and a lifelong new-comer? That would be rough; he would not like growing ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... be to occupy pages filled with more or less technical descriptions of strategic movements, marches, and countermarches, skirmishes, reconnaissances, and battles, which followed each other with such unparalleled rapidity that the combined efforts of the war correspondents of the European press proved entirely inadequate to keep pace with them in the form of anything ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... river, all were certain that the dam above Camptown Falls had burst. The water ran with great rapidity and was filled with dirt and debris of various kinds. On the rocks that were low they had all they could do to keep ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... and wars broke out on every side. In these difficulties and dangers Camillus was the soul of the Republic. Again and again he led the Roman legions against their enemies, and always with success. The rapidity with which the Romans recovered their power after so terrible a disaster would seem unaccountable but for the fact that the other nations had also suffered greatly from the inroads of the Gauls, who still continued to ravage Central Italy. Two ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... which is the characteristic of an intellectual republic, there seems, as it were, a kind of destiny: a power impossible to resist urges the state from action to action, from progress to progress, with a rapidity dangerous while it dazzles; resembling in this the career of individuals impelled onward, first to obtain, and thence to preserve, power, and who cannot struggle against the fate which necessitates them to soar, until, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in his weapon, with amazing rapidity—to no avail. The cylinder had flung around like a wheel, but the sounds ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... years of immense material prosperity, "the golden age of our history."[340:1] The wealth of the nation in that time far more than doubled; its railroad mileage more than threefolded; population moved westward with rapidity and volume beyond precedent. Between 1845 and 1860 there were admitted seven new States and ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... or flow, murmur or thunder in your own ears, for you cannot fail to imagine what the waters must be in a land of such glens and such mountains. The chief rivers possess all the attributes essential to greatness—width—depth—clearness—rapidity—in one word power. And some of them have long courses—rising in the central heights, and winding round many a huge projection, against which in flood we have seen them dashing like the sea. Highland droughts are not of long duration; the supplies are seldom withheld at once by all ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... lines. The first step in this direction was to find that a nervous stimulus can be measured at least indirectly. When the nerve is stimulated there passes from one end to the other an impulse, and the rapidity with which it travels can be accurately measured. When such an impulse reaches the brain it may give rise to a conscious sensation, and a somewhat definite estimation can be made of the amount of time required for this. The periods are very short, of course, but they are not instantaneous. ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... sentences in a musical tone, which were answered by the chorus; and, at intervals, increased the measure of the dance, by clapping the hands, and quickening the motions of the feet, which, however, were never varied. At the end, the rapidity of the music, and of the dancing, increased so much, that it was scarcely possible to distinguish the different movements; though one might suppose the actors were now almost tired, as their performance had lasted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... my heart was beating with extraordinary rapidity. So powerful and so unpleasant was the impression made upon my mind by this possibly trivial incident and by the extraordinary dream which had preceded it, that on returning to bed (and despite the warmth of the night) I closed both lattices and ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... being thus left on Mother Earth, I, with indescribable rapidity, having still hold of the rope, passed the staves in mid-air, as I hastily descended, lighting in a sitting posture on the pile of bricks. The sensation, Faith and ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... certain amount of deviation from the existing type. And, as respects selection, which operates by extinguishing all but a small minority of variations, we have not the slightest means of estimating the rapidity with which it does its work. All that we are justified in saying is that the rate at which it takes place may vary almost indefinitely. If the famous paint- root of Florida, which kills white pigs but ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... consumed the dry roof and walls with incredible rapidity, which by this time had fallen in, but Oreeque was nowhere to be seen. I thought I saw something move in the midst of the fire, but it might have been fancy. Again, the white ashes heaved, and a half—consumed hand and arm were thrust through the smouldering mass, then a human head, with the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Friedrich's rapidity had served him ill with the Public, in this as in some other instances! Friedrich, contemplating his situation, not self-delusively, but with the candor of real remorse, was by no means yet aware how very bad it was. For six months coming, partly as ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... would give direct expression to reverie, to the speech of the soul with itself, there is some device that checks the rapidity of dialogue. When Oedipus speaks out of the most vehement passions, he is conscious of the presence of the chorus, men before whom he must keep up appearances 'children latest born of Cadmus' line' who do not share his passion. ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... seemed to us so enormous that it never could be spent. Like a young rake coming into a very large inheritance, we attacked this noble fauna with characteristic American improvidence, and with a rapidity compared with which the Glacial advance was eternally slow; the East went first, and in fifty years we have brought about an elimination in the West which promises to be even more radical than that effected by the ice. We ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... of nitrogenous substances are capable of undergoing this process of nitrification are not yet well known. The question is, of course, one of great importance, as the rapidity with which a nitrogenous body nitrifies will be an important factor in determining its value as a manure. Unfortunately, on this subject we know, as yet, very little. We are well aware that the nitrogen present in the humic matter of the soil is readily nitrifiable. In the experiments on ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... incapable of replying, for her breath was nearly exhausted by the rapidity of the motion, and Eliza continued entreating her to stop, and struggled violently to elude ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... however, has the feudal system prevailed throughout the West, than it becomes evident that Primogeniture has some great advantage over every other mode of succession. It spread over Europe with remarkable rapidity, the principal instrument of diffusion being Family Settlements, the Pactes de Famille of France and Haus-Gesetze of Germany, which universally stipulated that lands held by knightly service should descend to the eldest ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... who had brought them down with his double-barrelled fowling-piece. I have omitted to mention that Lumley was one of the noted crack-shots of the country at that time—noted not only for the deadly precision, but also for the lightning-like rapidity of ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... slightest change of timbre, requiring almost innumerable changes of force per second. I believe the free rotation I have spoken of through a limited range explains its remarkable sensitiveness and rapidity of action, and, according to this view, it would also explain why loud sounding telephones can never repeat all the delicacy of timbre that is easily done with those only requiring a force comprised in the critical limits of its free rotation. This property, I have found, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... advanced with extraordinary rapidity, and if it be not yet in the position of leader, it is certainly now well ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... in the recommendation of the Secretary that the three-battalion organization be adopted for the infantry. The adoption of a smokeless powder and of a modern rifle equal in range, precision, and rapidity of fire to the best now in use will, I hope, not ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... sight of the coin: he rammed the silver into his pocket with hungry rapidity; but he shook his head about ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... "grocer and draper" had two rival assistants, who prided themselves on their rapidity in serving customers. The young man on the grocery side could weigh up two one-pound parcels of sugar per minute, while the drapery assistant could cut three one-yard lengths of cloth in the same time. Their employer, one slack day, set them a race, giving ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... time, and with a vertiginous rapidity, from day to day, from hour to hour, the fatal news came crowding on. Like a river that overflows its banks, Prussia was overrunning France. Bazaine was surrounded at Metz; and the capitulation of Sedan capped the climax ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... In any representative democracy nominations and elections must be a difficult and complex matter; in the United States the problem is rendered doubly difficult by the great size of the country, and by the rapidity with which its population is increasing. In this country hundreds of thousands of public officials are placed in office annually, all of them either elected at the polls, or chosen by agents ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... mind the well-known incident when the unfortunate rebel of Castelnaudary leaped almost alone a large ditch, and found on the other side seventeen wounds, a prison, and death in the sight of Monsieur, who remained motionless with his army. In the rapidity of the Queen's enunciation he had not time to examine whether she had employed this expression proverbially or with a direct reference; but at all events, he decided not to notice it, and was indeed prevented from doing so by the Queen, ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... of a West-end theater, when one has the necessary cash, is not nearly such a complicated business as the layman might imagine. Roland was staggered by the rapidity with which the transaction was carried through. The theater was his before he had time to realize that he had never meant to buy the thing at all. He had gone into the offices of Mr. Montague with the intention of making an offer for the lease for, say, six months; and that wizard, ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... destruction are approaching perfection with frightful rapidity.[2] The Congreve rockets, the effect and direction of which it is said the Austrians can now regulate,—the shrapnel howitzers, which throw a stream of canister as far as the range of a bullet,—the Perkins steam-guns, which vomit forth as many balls as a battalion,—will ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... think of her throughout the whole of each blessed night. He recalled and secretly dilated upon every sign of decreasing reserve on her part. He shamed himself more than once for deploring the fact that her ankle was mending with uncommon rapidity, and that in a few days she would be quite able to walk without support. And he actually debased himself by wishing that the Rushcroft company might find it imperative to go on rehearsing for weeks ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... of testing the purity of samples of water, by watching the rapidity of its action on soap and similar compounds, has been introduced by the French savants, MM. Boutron and Boudet. The experiment tests, at the same time, the purity of the soap. Dissolved in water in which lime is ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... his command on Bridgeport with great rapidity and skill, but he showed a nervous temper, which gave the impression that in a great battle he would become too much excited for ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... these animals launch themselves from one branch to another, forty feet asunder, startling as it is, may be well credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making a revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and continue her progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular to observe how suddenly this Gibbon can stop, when the impetus giving by the rapidity and distance of her swinging leaps would seem to ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... discovery, during which many of the mighty have been put down from their seat and many of the humble have been exalted. I do not know that Butler can truthfully be called humble, indeed, I think he had very few misgivings as to his ultimate triumph, but he has certainly been exalted with a rapidity that he himself can scarcely have foreseen. During his lifetime he was a literary pariah, the victim of an organized conspiracy of silence. He is now, I think it may be said without exaggeration, universally accepted ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... that a disease which has never appeared among a people before, when it does attack them, spreads with terrifying rapidity and pursues a violent and destructive course on the new soil which they offer. This was the course of syphilis in Europe in the years immediately following the return of Columbus in 1493. Invading armies, always a fruitful means of spreading disease, ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... had left her husband behind her, but had brought her children, to whom Isabel now played with equal munificence and tenderness the part of maiden-aunt. Mr. Ludlow, toward the last, had been able to snatch a few weeks from his forensic triumphs and, crossing the ocean with extreme rapidity, had spent a month with the two ladies in Paris before taking his wife home. The little Ludlows had not yet, even from the American point of view, reached the proper tourist-age; so that while her ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... brotherhood, then it is not difficult to see wherein lies the lightning-like speed with which the electric current passes from heart to heart. Such a man was Buddha, such was the essential of his teaching; and such was the inevitable rapidity of Buddhistic expansion, and the profound influence of the shock that was produced by the new faith upon the moral consciousness of ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... scud:' scud is a name given by seamen to the lowest clouds, which are driven with great rapidity along the atmosphere, in squally ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... rule of the organization, that its members should all be well armed and skilled in the use of weapons. The rapidity of increase in numbers, rendered them conscious of their strength, and they became openly defiant and talked treason upon the corners of our streets, and wherever little groups of people assembled. The mob spirit was excited, and all were ready for mischief ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... head may be roughly estimated at a thousandth of a second. Here, therefore, we should have no room for sensation, and death would be painless. But there are other actions which far transcend in rapidity that of the rifle-bullet. A flash of lightning cleaves a cloud, appearing and disappearing in less than a hundred-thousandth of a second, and the velocity of electricity is such as would carry it ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the beginning of the year 1840—the price of a quarter of an acre in the center of the city had risen to $1,500. A decade later the established value was $17,500, and in 1860, $28,000. Chicago was growing with great rapidity; a network of railroads converged there; mammoth factories, mills, grain elevators, packing houses:—a vast variety of manufacturing and mercantile concerns set up in business, and brought thither swarms of workingmen and their families, ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... playing "Baccarat tournant," a game of terrible and infantile simplicity. There are no such things as skill or combination possible in it; science and calculation are useless. Chance alone decides, and decides with the rapidity of lightning. Amateurs certainly assert that, with great coolness and long practice, one can, in a measure at least, avert prolonged ill-luck. Maybe they are right, but it is not conclusively proved. Each person takes the cards in his turn, risks what he chooses, and when his stakes are covered, ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... was constructing submarines 25 per cent larger than anything the United States had ever seen or heard of. His information was to the effect that Germany had a building capacity for ten submarines a week. The ability to produce these boats with such rapidity is due to the process of standardization—the practice of modern efficiency which has made it possible for American factories to turn out such big quantities of automobiles in a ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... had often been made, the sitters endeavoured to avoid contact with the medium. For a long time Mrs Piper has fallen into the trance without holding anyone's hand. Her whole body reposes, plunged in a deep sleep, except the right hand, which writes with giddy rapidity and only rarely endeavours to touch the persons present. Professor Hyslop, in the report which has just appeared,[11] affirms that he avoided the slightest contact with the medium with all possible care, and yet we shall see farther on how exact were the ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... of as evolution, on account of their slowness. But there are others which, although of the same order, deserve the name of revolution by reason of their rapidity: we may instance the theories of Darwin, overthrowing the whole science of biology in a few years; the discoveries of Pasteur, which revolutionised medicine during the lifetime of their author; and the theory of the dissociation of matter, proving that the atom, formerly supposed ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... machine handled with ease and grace by the dexterity of two fearless and expert mariners, it excites some such admiration as that which springs from the view of a severe temple of antiquity The nakedness and simplicity of the construction, coupled with the boldness and rapidity of its movements, impart to the craft an air of grandeur, that its ordinary uses would not give reason ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... forms is drawn with the most studied chiaroscuro of delicate color, grays and greens, as silvery and pure as the finest passages of Paul Veronese, and with a refinement of execution which the eye strains itself in looking into. The rapidity and gigantic force of this torrent, the exquisite refinement of its color, and the vividness of foam which is obtained through a general middle tint, render it about the most perfect piece of painting of running water ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... be done with him. There were thirty or forty girls in the school, and but this one boy, and the reader may imagine the amount of studying he did. The girls were full of spirits, and in their society the fun-loving feature of his disposition burst out and grew with amazing rapidity. He was always in mischief of some kind, to the great delight of the girls, with whom he was extremely popular, and to the despair of his sister, who began to fear that he ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... superhuman health—increased in the countenance of Mrs. Edward Ten Eyck. Her hair was a bit slow in restoring itself, and a shade or two darker, but on the other hand, despite all she could do to prevent it, she resumed her natural proportions with a rapidity that was sickening. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Universal Religion.—What is most remarkable about Islam is the rapidity of its growth. Mahomet begins life a poor and lowly herdsman, and at his death bequeaths to his successors a kingdom which he has formed, and which is shortly to prevail over all its neighbours. In ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... added "Will they no come back again?" which was specially intended to apply to the sailors. These formalities having been completed, the young mariners proceeded to say their farewells, and kissed and cuddled with astonishing rapidity first one girl and then the others until all had shared the ebullition of their rugged endearment. The male portion of the assembly viewed this form of emphasizing good-bye with sheepish amazement. They would have been stupefied with shame if any one had ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... supplementary influence much needed to unify and nationalise the heterogeneous elements of our population. Men, women, and children, speaking all the languages and representing all the countries and races of Europe, are streaming in upon us weekly in widening currents. The rapidity with which they become assimilated to the native population is remarkable. But there is one element from abroad that does not Americanise itself so easily—and that, curiously, is one the most American that comes from Europe—in other words, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... the hoar frost beneath their footsteps and fell on their faces like taps from a switch, they refrained from sitting down. They walked quickly to and fro, wrapped in the pelisse, their cheeks blue with cold, and their eyes watering; and they laughed heartily, quite quivering with mirth, at the rapidity of their march through the freezing atmosphere. One snowy evening they amused themselves with making an enormous snowball, which they rolled into a corner. It remained there fully a month, which caused them ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... out; carriages-and-four were dashing down from London; bands were playing; the hotels swarmed with visitors come to see their friends off; ships were being commissioned and fitted out with unwonted rapidity; and all was life, activity, and energy. I now and then, on my way home, took a walk up High Street, for the amusement of observing the bustling, laughing, talking, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... been the rapidity of the demand for successive impressions of this book, that I have found it impossible, until now, to correct at pages 31, 87, and 97 three errors of statement made in the former editions; and some few other mistakes, not in themselves important, at pages 96, 101, and 102. I ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... State, he finally transplanted his school to this metropolis under the name of the New England Conservatory of Music, which it retains to the present date. It has, with characteristic American rapidity, become the largest music-school in the world, having within fifteen years instructed over twenty thousand pupils: in a single term it frequently numbers between eight and nine hundred. It has a connection with Boston ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... the rapidity with which new phrases float themselves into currency under our present omnipresence of the press, that this word, now (viz., in 1853) familiarly used in every newspaper, then (viz., in 1833) required a sort of apology ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the free-school in London called St. Anthony's, under the care of the famous Nicholas Holt, and when he had with great rapidity acquired a knowledge of his grammar rules, he was placed by his father's interest under the great Cardinal Merton, archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord High Chancellor, whose gravity and learning, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... received under the table, and which was much more sincerely meant, had raised in him one of those charming illusions, which are so frequent in our youth, and which promised so much happiness, with electrical rapidity. He could not doubt for a moment, that the daring invitation came from the third, the youngest and prettiest of the ladies, into whose company a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... for this exposition of the Odyssey to be brought to a close with some degree of rapidity. It has already expanded itself beyond its original purpose; it, too, like Ulysses, has asserted itself as limit-transcending. We shall try to indicate the general character of these remaining eight Books, to find their place in the total ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... gives Germany and Austria-Hungary their power of close intercommunion, of exactly coordinating all their movements, of using their armies like one army, and of dealing with rapidity alternate blows eastward and westward, produces contrary effects in the case of the Allies. Even if hourly communication were possible by telegraph between the two main groups, French and Russian, ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... worried about the quality of that pie. The rapidity with which it disappeared was the best possible evidence of its goodness, and Wanaka commended her before all the girls, who were willing enough to join the leader in ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... in the hall, had a swift vision of a tall figure, which issued with extreme rapidity from the library door, and went up the stairs, much like a horse taking a series of hurdles. But the figure lost momentum suddenly at the top, hesitated, and apparently moved forward on tiptoe. Grayson went into the library and sniffed at the unmistakable odor of a pipe. Then, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... stage of this disorder is commonly shown by retardation of thought and motion, the excited stage by pressure of activity and acceleration of thought. In the so-called "flight of ideas" words succeed each other with incredible rapidity, without goal idea, but each word suggesting the next by ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... that during the last few minutes Dr. Mackenzie's mind had been concentrated upon something else. She had not filled it at all. The next moment it was turned upon her and two swift turquoise gleams from under the shaggy brows swept over her, with the rapidity and brightness of search-lights. Dr. Mackenzie commenced speaking quickly, with ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... movement I make is determined in general by the end that I have in view; but in what way does my arm approach the object? how far do the other parts of my body follow this impulsion? What will be the degree of slowness or of the rapidity of the movement? What amount of force shall I employ? This is a calculation of which my will, at the instant, takes no account, and in consequence there is a something left to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... to travel more comfortably than we did. Stretched out on downy pillows, and provided with victuals wine, tea, and a charcoal basin, we moved down the stream with the rapidity of an express coach and without the least exertion. But the element which propelled us persecuted us in another form. Rain poured from the sky incessantly after our departure from Diarbekir. Our umbrellas no longer protected us, and our cloaks, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... furnishing in particular offers a promising field for girls with the necessary training and endowment. Many girls have ability for this work, and as the employment is being developed commercially, the opportunities for girls in house furnishing should increase with some rapidity. ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... thrown by chance into their keeping, long after their judgment has pronounced it no rarity—even the reverse, indeed, and without them the band of the worthy is incomplete. But Farfrae was not of those. It was inevitable that the insight, briskness, and rapidity of his nature should take him out of the dead blank which his loss threw about him. He could not but perceive that by the death of Lucetta he had exchanged a looming misery for a simple sorrow. After that revelation of her history, which must have come sooner or later in any ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... REEL. When the ship by her rapidity pulls the line off the log-reel, without its being assisted. Also, upright conduct. Also, any performance without stop ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... almost overwhelmed the historian and his auditor. But the military, fortunately, was equal to the emergency. With a tactical turn of his hand he thrust the remnant of the lollypop between the chattering jaws and spoke with sharp rapidity. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... only three able men. Carried on by the current, it shot through the channel with the rapidity of an arrow, passed before Harding and Herbert, who, not thinking it within range, withheld their fire, then, rounding the northern point of the islet with the two remaining oars, they pulled towards ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... rising in the rear of the army occupied with the siege of the strongholds of Samnium. Once more the fortune of war favoured the Samnites; Sora and Caiatia fell into their hands. But the Anagnines succumbed with unexpected rapidity before troops despatched from Rome, and these troops also gave seasonable relief to the army stationed in Samnium: all in fact was lost. The Samnites sued for peace, but in vain; they could not yet come to terms. The final decision was reserved for the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... usually tranquil waters seething and bubbling, and even as they looked down rushed a mighty stream, which entirely engulfed it, and Sylvain and Jocosa found themselves parted by a wide and swiftly-rushing river. All this had happened with such rapidity that they had only time to utter a cry, and each to hold up to the other the flowers they had gathered; but this was explanation enough. Twenty times did Sylvain throw himself into the turbulent waters, hoping to be able to swim to the other side, ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... regretted, we think, that Sir James Mackintosh did not wholly devote his later years to philosophy and literature. His talents were not those which enable a speaker to produce with rapidity a series of striking but transitory impressions, and to excite the minds of five hundred gentlemen at midnight, without saying anything that any one of them will be able to remember in the morning. His arguments were of a very different texture from those which are ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... English lessons had gone on was amazing, for Amy usually tired of everything in a day or two. Now, however, she was a devoted teacher, and her pupil did her great credit by the rapidity with which he caught the language. It looked like pleasant play, sitting among the roses day after day, Amy affecting to embroider while she taught, Casimer marching to and fro on the wide, low wall, below which lay the lake, while he ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... classmate are confirmed by Dr. Harrison, chairman of the Faculty, who remarks that the poet was a great favorite with his fellow-students, and was noted for the remarkable rapidity with which he prepared his recitations and for their accuracy, his translations from the modern languages ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... even in this little cottage by the river that days flew by with that pleasant rapidity which leaves nothing to record except a general sense of restful enjoyment. One expedition, however, might be described, a visit paid to a neighbouring estate which had been advertised for sale, as giving a glimpse of a typical ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... built in the form of an amphitheatre) and utter the stereotyped phrase, "Last lecture we stopped at..." when sentences spring up from my soul in a long string, and I am carried away by my own eloquence. I speak with irresistible rapidity and passion, and it seems as though there were no force which could check the flow of my words. To lecture well—that is, with profit to the listeners and without boring them—one must have, besides ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... said Fisher, speaking with unwonted rapidity. "I only thought you'd like to know my brother's found the money. Hurray! Rollitt's no thief; ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Germans were so easily urged to go into Gaul, he desired they should have fears for their own territories. Therefore, notwithstanding the difficulty of constructing a bridge, owing to the breadth, rapidity, and depth of the river, he devised and built one of timber and of great strength, piles being first driven in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... to do in the least time, and with the greatest possible noise. His paces were long, and made with wonderful rapidity; and each time his foot came to the ground, he uttered a horrible yell, as though it had been planted upon a ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... a shrill, piercing voice; and, to the astonishment of the doctor and his daughter, he made a bound, and then, with wonderful skill and rapidity, began turning the wheel, as it is called, going over and over on hands and feet, ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... Richard by his friends and Mr. Markham by strangers—not that he was insensible to the prestige which the title of Judge or Honorable gave him, but he was a plain, matter-of-fact man, who had not been lifted off his balance, or grown dizzy by the rapidity with which he had risen in public favor. At home he was simply Dick to his three burly brothers, who were at once so proud and fond of him, while his practical, unpretending mother called him Richard, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... to be expressed in the ordinary terms of miles per hour. The yellow star that was the sun detached itself from the firmament and leaped toward them, swelling visibly, momentarily, into a blinding monster of incandescence. And toward them also flung the earth, enlarging with such indescribable rapidity that Cleveland protested involuntarily, in spite of his knowledge of the peculiar mechanism of the vessel in ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... the progress of science has been slow, and subject to constant error and revision, because it would not accept the inevitable dependence of body on soul, as of effect on cause. But as soon as physical research begins to go hand-in-hand with moral or psychical, it will advance with a rapidity hitherto unimagined, each assisting and classifying the other. The study of human nature will give direction to the study of the nature that is not human; and the latter will illustrate and confirm the conclusions of the former. More than half the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... thus long with the humble clerk, let us turn to the rich merchant; for Jasper has become a man of extensive possessions. Wealth flowed in upon him with extraordinary rapidity—not in the regular course of trade, overreaching and unscrupulous as he was in dealing, but through what are called fortunate speculations. How he made his first hundred thousand dollars—the basis of his present very large fortune—was not clearly understood, though sundry ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... unusual rapidity for a woman, climbing the path without relaxing her gait or losing her breath. The sharp, damp air brought to her face colour that Carron had been unable to call up. He was, poor wretch, so utterly secondary to ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten |
