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More "Dilatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He was a good runner at all times, but on the present occasion, believing that the faster he went the sooner dear little Margery might be recovered, he ran as he had never before run in his life. Had he been dilatory he might never have reached the Hall at all, for those who were on the watch for any one leaving the Tower, believing that he would have gone at an ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... many small bands, but were kept on the move constantly by the vigorous measures of General Miles, and he assumes that the Apache question would have been settled had his predecessor, General Crook, been less dilatory. The writer expressed his conclusion that in military skill, strategy and ability the Indians far excelled their opponents, and details that fifty or sixty Apaches the year before had killed more than 75 white settlers, all the while pursued by ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... you my apologies for not writing, they are so many. You have been very generous, I very promising and dilatory. I desired to send you an Account of the sales of the History, thinking that the details might be more intelligible to you than to me, and might give you some insight into literary and social, as well as bibliopolical relations. But many details of this account ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... order to ber-bantei or cut them up like cattle." It is here obviously the admission and not the scandal that should have weight. When Mr. Giles Holloway was leaving Tappanuli and settling his accounts with the natives he expostulated with a Batta man who had been dilatory in his payment. "I would," says the man, "have been here sooner, but my pangulu (superior officer) was detected in familiarity with my wife. He was condemned, and I stayed to eat share of him; the ceremony took us up three days, and it was only last night ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... for a while, for now it was clear that one way or the other he must make up his mind. All those strings of red tape, which he had meant to tie with such dilatory cunning hung loose in his grasp; to a Cabinet really set on resignation he could not apply them. Just as his hands had seemed full of power they became empty again. He knew that at the present moment no other ministry was possible, ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... Maria's character and conduct in dark colours. At the same time this Duke of Urbino passed for one of the first generals of the age. The greatest stain upon his memory is his behaviour in the year 1527, when, by dilatory conduct of the campaign in Lombardy, he suffered the passage of Frundsberg's army unopposed, and afterwards hesitated to relieve Rome from the horrors of the sack. He was the last Italian Condottiere of the antique type; and the vices which Machiavelli exposed in that bad system of mercenary ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... held as soon as possible, to consider amendments. Thus matters drifted until January, 1788, when Egbert Benson, now a member of the Legislature, offered a resolution for holding a state convention to consider the federal document. Dilatory motions blocked its way, and its friends began to despair of better things; but Benson persisted, until, at last, after great ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... 'patron.' There, indeed, was our Minucius at fault, as what honest, poor man is not, when confronted by the wiles of those bred to craft and trickery! See, too, how the consuls have followed the same dilatory measures, and can you doubt that it is all by agreement with these traitor nobles? Know well, now, that this war will have no ending until a man of the people ends it—a real plebeian; a new man. See you not that both consuls, by tarrying with the army, have set up an interregnum, that the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... had come to Weston on horseback, rode over separately. Mr Elliot was a man of good common sense, though his opinions were not quite so weighty as his person, which declined to rise in one scale when fifteen stone was in the other. He was a just man also, though perhaps he was less dilatory in attending to the wishes of a member of one of the great county families than he might be in the case of a mere nobody. If a rich man and a poor one had a dispute, he considered that the presumption was in favour of the former, but he did not allow this ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... sent by Mary for some book she affected to particularly want. He forgot the book, as Maggie forgot the flowers, and in half-an-hour, John Campbell was sent after his dilatory son. Old men do not like surprises as well as lovers, and Mary had thought it best to prepare him for the meeting that was close at hand. He had felt a little fear of the shock he was sure he would have to bear as ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... has been laid upon Lincoln on the ground that he was dilatory in reaching the determination to relieve the fort. That the decision should have been reached and the expedition dispatched more promptly is entirely evident; but whether or not Lincoln was in fault is quite another question. Three facts are to be considered: 1. The highest military ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... method of operation could hardly be held as dilatory. It would doubtless have commended itself more highly to his men if it had been somewhat more so, when at daylight on the morning after the splendid success of September 19th they were ordered in pursuit ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... particular peak as one's own private property. His lack of initiative in this matter aroused a certain amount of impatience among the sentimentally-minded women-folk of his home circle; his mother, his sisters, an aunt-in-residence, and two or three intimate matronly friends regarded his dilatory approach to the married state with a disapproval that was far from being inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were watched with the straining eagerness which a group of unexercised terriers concentrates on the ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... pleasure to receive to-day, that I am expected to be at C(astle) H(oward) on Saturday, when I do not set out till Sunday, so that, as I told Lord C. in my last, which he should receive to-day, I shall not be there till Wednesday. I am dilatory and procrastinating in my nature, but am not apt to defer what, when done, will make me so happy as I shall be at C(astle) H., and should not have been so now, if I had been more early apprised of your wish ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... who has not made the experiment, or who is not accustomed to require rigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge and distinctness of imagery ... To this dilatory notation must be imputed the false relations of travellers, where there is no imaginable motive to deceive. They trusted to memory what cannot be trusted safely but to the eye, and told by guess what a few hours before they had known with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Another day meant the drawing of new lines, and time for tallying and rallying, but what was done today was immutably done. Hardinge and Haswell stood near the post at whose head hung the sign, "Railway Generals." About them lounged a handful of dilatory brokers. Railway Generals had closed yesterday strong at 175, but quotations from London, where by reason of difference in time there had already been several hours of trading, reflected an unaccountable nervousness over-seas. So the stock opened ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... a simple one for the government. If it does nothing but register requests for justice, injustice may be done, not only to missionaries, but also to other citizens. Those dilatory, oriental governments, embarrassed by so many difficult problems of internal administration, do not willingly act except under some pressure. And pressure which is not war and which will probably not lead to war, can be brought to bear by ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... appearance, though still so imperfectly arranged, that the stockings, being quite wet, we were obliged to sling outside our knapsacks, while the damp shirts were left to dry, as they best might, within. But the precious time which our dilatory laundress had wasted, nothing could recall. We therefore felt ourselves under the necessity of confining our day's operations to the inspection of a hermitage, or einsiedlerstein, near Burgstein, with what was described to us as a short and pleasant walk afterwards, ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... geologist?—you may pick up leaves and chip rocks wherever you please, the live-long day. Are you a valetudinarian?—you may physic yourself by Nature's own simple prescription, walking in fresh air. Are you dilatory and irresolute?—you may dawdle to your heart's content; you may change all your plans a dozen times in a dozen hours; you may tell "Boots" at the inn to call you at six o'clock, may fall asleep again (ecstatic sensation!) five minutes after ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... pleasure, indeed," echoed Mrs. Ianson, deeply thankful to anything or anybody that stood in the breach between herself, her husband, and the dilatory cook. ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... movements of his head from side to side, in order to compel the apparition to repeat them. He found a comforting reassurance in asserting his command over his own shadow. He was temporizing, making, with unconscious prudence, a dilatory opposition to an impending catastrophe. He felt that invisible forces of evil were closing in upon him, and he parleyed ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... to the ship, however, the pilot, who was of the dilatory school, succeeded about 3 P.M. in getting us round that awkward but very necessary buoy, which makes so many foul winds of fair ones, when the ship's bead was laid to the eastward, with square yards. In half an hour the vessel had "slapped" ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in which this branch of the proceeding has been reverently and gravely dealt with reads like a metaphysical discussion in the dark ages. The names formerly used were superb. Complaint, demurrer, confession and avoidance, traverse, replication, dilatory pleas, peremptory pleas, rejoinder, ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... your arrangements to come ever to Locust Hill on Tuesday evening, and spend the night with us; as we start at a very early hour on Wednesday morning, and should not like to be kept waiting. My Hebe is also coming on Tuesday evening, to stay all night. Now, not a word, Thurston, I know what dilatory folks young people are. And I know very well that if I don't make sure of you on Tuesday evening, you will keep us a full hour beyond our time on Wednesday ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... o'clock, and the sleepy soldiers arouse from their beds on the ground, pack up their tents, blankets, and equipments, get a hasty breakfast, and fall into their ranks. If some commander—perhaps of a regiment only—has been dilatory, the whole movement is delayed. Many well-formed plans have been defeated by the indolence of a subordinate commander and his failure to put his troops in motion at the designated hour. Such a delay may embarrass the whole army by detaining other portions, whose ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in 1802 to suppress a statement of his grievances which could only have rendered ministers implacable.[284] But he found out what would hardly have been a discovery to most people, that officials can be dilatory and evasive; and certain discoveries about the treatment of convicts in New South Wales convinced him that they could even defy the laws and the Constitution when they were beyond inspection. He published (1803) a Plea for the Constitution, showing ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Monthly" years ago, and give them to the public now with the digested information which he alone can supply, and which is as yet inaccessible in his voluminous notes and sketches of the region. At Mr. Muir's home we saw literally barrels of these notes. He admitted that he had always been dilatory about writing, but not about studying or note-taking; often making notes at night when fatigued from climbing and from two and three days' fasting; but the putting of them into literature is irksome to him. Yet, much as he dislikes ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... salary and temporal concerns, they had suffered somewhat for his unpopular warfare with reigning sins,—a fact which had rather reconciled Mrs. Scudder to the dilatory movement of her cherished hopes. Since James was gone, what need to press imprudently to new arrangements? Better give the little heart time to grow over before starting a subject which a certain womanly instinct told her might be met with a struggle. Somehow she never thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... labour-market.' Oh, how the labourers swore and the farmers chuckled, when he put up steam-engines on all his farms, refused to give away a farthing in alms, and enforced the new Poor-law to the very letter. How the country tradesmen swore, when he called them 'a pack of dilatory jobbers,' and announced his intention of employing only London workmen for his improvements. Oh! how they all swore together (behind his back, of course, for his dinners were worth eating), and the very ladies said naughty words, when the stern political ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... side whiskers, and it really seemed to me absolutely certain that the other animals in the group appreciated and enjoyed the fun that comedian made. He pretended to be awkward, and frequently fell off his tub. He was purposely dilatory, and was often the last one to finish. The other animals seemed to be fascinated by his mishaps, and they sat on their tubs and watched him with what looked like genuine amusement. I remember another circle of seated animals who calmly ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... general congress. But in the course of that day the ministers received from various quarters more evidence that Bismarck's inflammatory telegram had been sent officially to the Prussian diplomatists at all the foreign courts; and they heard that Paris was literally foaming with exasperation at their dilatory indecision, while the temper of the Chamber convinced them that the proposal for a congress would be rejected with fiery scorn. Berlin and Paris vied with each other in turbulent patriotism and ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... and Ned was thus explained. The showwoman was secretly overjoyed to give the strangers a lift on their journey. But before the first day closed in the pair of adventurers found out what real hard work meant. Even Ned Dempster, accustomed to the dilatory, easy-going life of sea-fishing, knew nothing indeed of the drudgery and hustling and flurry of such everyday work as he had stepped into, unawares, among ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... see inscribed over the great gates of the noble inn to which he belonged; and which, indeed, a few years since might have been inscribed there with much justice. "Festina lente," Mr. Die would say to all those who came to him in any sort of hurry. And then when men accused him of being dilatory by premeditation, he would say no, he had always recommended despatch. "Festina," he would say; "festina" by all means; but "festina lente." The doctrine had at any rate thriven with the teacher, for Mr. Die had amassed a ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... bad look-out. If you had been born a Dumas—I am speaking of fecundity, if you please, and of nothing else—if you had been born a Dumas, and could rattle off a romance in a fortnight, you might be excused for not keeping tally of your productions. Pitiful, dilatory worker that you are, if you cannot remember them, how can you expect the world (good ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hand on anything before he does. (46.) On the other hand, he ought in due time to commence, to consider everything, entertaining the guests, and managing all so adroitly as to give time to the more dilatory to eat at their leisure; if necessary for this, slowly tasting the viands, or, when table-talk is permissible, introducing a little chat during the meal, so that the others ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... too dilatory to the Christino government, he was replaced by General Valdes, and appointed Viceroy of Navarre. The arrival of winter, however, and a heavy fall of snow, in some degree paralyzed the operations of the Christinos, whilst this occasioned incredible sufferings to the Carlists. One battalion of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... company dilatory in returning her notice, since from the time of her entrance into the room, she had been ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... presence of an immense concourse of plebeians and persons of every rank. The plebeian tribune accused, not only Marcellus, but the nobility generally. "It was owing," he said, "to their dishonesty and dilatory conduct, that Hannibal occupied Italy, as though it were his province, for now ten years; that he had passed more of his life there than at Carthage. That the Roman people were enjoying the fruits of the prolonged command of Marcellus; that his army, after having been twice defeated, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... really, Richard, do they?" she said in an apologetic tone—she referred to the casting of shadows. "It would be so useful if they did—" and she drew a sigh at Purdy's dilatory treatment of the girl ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... their tongues to reveal their sentiments more freely. They told me that it was their absolute design to take possession of the Ohio, and by G— they would do it; for that although they were sensible the English could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any undertaking. They pretend to have an undoubted right to the river from a discovery made by one La Salle sixty years ago, and the rise of this expedition is to prevent our settling on the river or the waters of it, as they heard of some ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... award of juries, not of judges. Pitt warmly approved the measure, maintaining that, far from protecting libellers, it would have the contrary effect. The Bill passed the Commons on 31st May; but owing to dilatory and factious procedure in the Lords, it was held over until the year 1792. Thanks to the noble plea for liberty urged by the venerable Earl Camden, it passed on 21st May.[45] It is matter of congratulation that Great Britain ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... augment these forces from the Island until they appeared like a large clover field in full bloom.... We lay very quiet in our ditch, waiting their motions, till the sun was an hour or two high. We heard a cannonade at the city, but our attention was drawn to our own guests. But they being a little dilatory in their operations, I stepped into an old warehouse which, stood close by me, with the door open, inviting me in, and sat down upon a stool; the floor was strewed with papers which had in some former period been used in the concerns of the house, but were then lying in woful ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... always in a hurry—that is, he seemed to be. In this also there was deliberation. It does not follow because a man is in a hurry that he is an important and busy person; no more does it follow that a man is an inconsequential procrastinator if he is leisurely and dilatory. The significance of action lies in intent. Some men can best gain their ends by creating an impression that they are extremely lazy, others by creating the impression that they are exceedingly energetic. The important point is to be on the spot at the moment most favorable for gaining ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Pupils who form the habit of getting to school any time in the morning, though usually late, are generally behind time all the way through life. They make the men and women who are late at meeting, late to meet their business engagements, late everywhere—a tardy, dilatory, inefficient class of persons, wherever they are found. It is good to be obliged to plan and do by car-time. The man who is obliged to keep his watch by railroad time, and then make all things bend to the same, is more likely to form the habit of being punctual, ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... the past two years had demonstrated the dilatory and unsatisfactory consequences of our indirect transaction of business through the foreign office in London, in which the views and wishes of the government of the Dominion of Canada were practically predominant, but were only to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... character leaked out just a little. Bombay turned out to be honest and trusty, but slightly disposed to be dilatory. Uledi did more talking than work; while the runaway Ferajji and the useless-handed Mabruki Burton turned out to be true men and staunch, carrying loads the sight of which would have caused the strong-limbed hamals ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... San Francisco, he returned and took up his work again. Artemus Ward, whom he had met in Virginia City, wrote him for something to use in his (Ward's) new book. Clemens sent the frog story, but he had been dilatory in preparing it, and when it reached New York, Carleton, the publisher, had Ward's book about ready for the press. It did not seem worth while to Carleton to include the frog story, and handed it over to Henry Clapp, editor of the Saturday Press—a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cheering welcome. It was denser and dirtier than the fogs we had encountered off the banks of Newfoundland, and more chilling and disagreeable to the human frame. It did not disperse the whole day. What with the difficulty that attended our landing, and the long delay consequent upon the very dilatory movements of the Custom-House officers, the night had fairly closed in—it did not add much to the darkness—before I was en route to an hotel. A Scotch fellow-passenger, who had maintained a sullen reserve throughout ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to our original problem, and consider if our dilatory way have led us to some glimpse ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... disappointment, and the popular feeling was at length completely reversed. The pendulum vibrated to the other extreme, and it is not easy to realize the wide-spread popular discontent which finally revealed itself respecting the dilatory movements of our forces. The people became inexpressibly weary of the reiterated bulletins that "all is quiet on the Potomac"; and the fact that General McClellan was in full sympathy with the Border State policy of the President aggravated their unfriendly mood. ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... dissatisfied with Warren's dilatory movements in the battle of White Oak Road and in his failure to reach Sheridan in time, that I was very much afraid that at the last moment he would fail Sheridan. He was a man of fine intelligence, great earnestness, quick ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... case, however, the prince killed the trespasser with his own hand, his sergeants refusing to execute his mandate.] The matter being brought to the notice of good King Louis, Sir Enguerrand was summoned to appear, and, finally, after many feudal shifts and dilatory pleas, brought to trial before Louis himself and a special council. Notwithstanding the opposition of the other seigniors, who, it is needless to say, spared no efforts to save a peer, probably not a greater criminal than themselves, the king was much inclined to inflict the punishment of death ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... at the admonition, heaped abuse upon me, swore that it was I who thwarted him, I who opposed the fulfilment of Don John's desires and fostered the dilatory policy of the King. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... may appear startling and indeed absurd; yet hard facts, I venture to believe, will enforce the conviction on unprejudiced minds that the warfare of the present when contrasted with the warfare of the past is dilatory, ineffective, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... greatly favoured the pretensions of Mr Swiveller, being accustomed to make slight mention of him as 'a gay young man' and to sigh and shake their heads ominously whenever his name was mentioned. Mr Swiveller's conduct in respect to Miss Sophy having been of that vague and dilatory kind which is usually looked upon as betokening no fixed matrimonial intentions, the young lady herself began in course of time to deem it highly desirable, that it should be brought to an issue one way or other. Hence she had at last consented ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... electors. The court upheld their right. The Secretary of State became convinced that the petition was fraudulent and did not appear in the further litigation. The suffrage forces were prepared with their evidence and wished to proceed at once with the case but all the dilatory tactics possible were used and it was not until the full legal time was about to expire that the opponents were brought to the point on May 17, 1918. Mrs. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... day wore on, he was several times conscious of a wish to quicken the passing of its moments, and when Sir Henry Grebe, the penultimate patient, proved to be an elderly malade imaginaire of dilatory habit, involved speech, and determined misery, he was obliged firmly to check a rising desire to write a hasty bread-pill prescription and fling him in the direction of Marlborough House. The half-hour chimed, and ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... coming on, we were obliged to beat back and come to Gorgona again, building a Tent ashore for our Armour and Sick Men. We spent till the 25th in Careening; on the 28th we got all aboard agen, rigged and stowed all ready for sea; the Spaniards who were our Prisoners, and who are very Dilatory Sailors (for they hearken more to their Saints than to the Boatswain's Pipe), were much amazed at our Despatch; telling us that they usually took Six Weeks or a Month to Careen one of their King's Ships at Lima, where they are well provided with all Necessaries, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... good traditions: highly respectable, very old-fashioned, slow moving, not to say dilatory, but tenacious of its dignity as regards other departments, and obstinately wedded to its own way of conducting the ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... the fine arts was indeed exquisite; and few modern sovereigns have written or spoken better. But he was not fit for active life. In negotiation he was always trying to dupe others, and duping only himself. As a soldier, he was feeble, dilatory, and miserably wanting, not in personal courage, but in the presence of mind which his station required. His delay at Gloucester saved the parliamentary party from destruction. At Naseby, in the very ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... will not dwell on them. My readers know the King's manner in such cases; have already been on two Marches with him, and even in these same routes and countries. We will say only, that the Russians were and had been very dilatory; Loudon much the reverse; and their and Loudon's Adversary still more. That, for five days, the Russians, at length close to Breslau (August 6th-11th), kept vaguely cannonading and belching noise and apprehension upon the poor City, but ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... victory that our forefathers were men of a temper not to be finally overcome. And so here. The war for our Union, with all the constitutional questions which it settled, and all the military lessons which it gathered in, has throughout its dilatory length but one meaning in the eye of history. And nowhere was that meaning better symbolized and embodied than in the constitution of this first Northern ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... Congress would expire by Constitutional limitation. The President had communicated his veto on the last day permitted by the Constitution, and it was generally believed that his motive for the postponement was to give the minority in one branch or the other the power to defeat the bill either by dilatory motions or by "talking against time." Mr. Le Blond and Mr. Finck or Ohio, and Mr. Boyer of Pennsylvania, frankly indicated their intention to employ all means within their power to compass this end. A system of parliamentary delay was thus ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... was so effective in the Franco-Prussian conflict and, if I am not mistaken, in the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866, also. This made of the individual soldier a host in himself. The old muzzle-loader, with its ramrod and dilatory "motions," ought to have been obsolete long before Grant left the West to lead the Army of the Potomac from the Wilderness to Appomattox. The Michigan cavalry brigade, armed as it was with repeating carbines, was never whipped when it had a chance to use them. In arming the infantry the government ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... of making full use of their long-desired Army, Navy and commercial fleet. There could be considered, as factors tending to the preservation of peace, only the pacific sentiment of the majority of the people working in alliance with the dilatory policy of the President, who still nourished a hope that some favorable turn or other in events, or perhaps the advent of peace, would give him a chance to avoid ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... have been dilatory and dumb; I should have made my way straight to you long ago; I should have blabbed nothing but you, I should ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... in his hand, stalked through the film of people who now swirled about him, eager to see the dead. There was no call for the law to make its appearance, and the representatives of the law were wisely dilatory ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... different parties were here, there and everywhere, looking after the interests of their respective candidates, talking, persuading, urging or buying the dilatory or vacillating vote. And the women found, early in the day, that in order to compete with the opposition, they must stay close to ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... of patients were commonly treated at one time. They drew near to each other, touching hands, arms, knees, or feet. The handsomest, youngest, and most robust magnetizers held also an iron rod with which they touched the dilatory or stubborn patients. The rods and ropes had all undergone a 'preparation' and in a very short space of time the patients felt the magnetic influence. The women, being the most easily affected, were ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... time-serving principle was visible even in the great question of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. He was, at one time, half inclined to surrender it into Mr. Pitt's dilatory hands, and seemed to think the gloss of novelty was gone from it, and the gaudy colouring of popularity sunk into the sable ground from which it rose! It was, however, persisted in and carried to ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... in the party under discussion; at least she asked no more questions and, dilatory as usual when not definitely directed, Armstrong dropped the lead. For a minute they sat so, gazing out into the night, silent. Under stimulus of a new thought, point blank, whimsical, came a ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... energies. To compass the abolition of slavery had been the passion of his life. He had hailed the Civil War as the great opportunity. He had never been quite satisfied with Lincoln, whose policy seemed to him too dilatory. He demanded quick, sharp, and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... St. John river was now drawing to a close. In the summer of 1767 he went to New York where we find him engaged, in company with the Rev. Dr. Ogilvie, in collecting the second annual subscription from the members of the society. The military gentlemen proved very dilatory in paying their subscriptions. Whether Capt. Glazier became disheartened at the outlook, or whether he received peremptory orders to rejoin the Royal American Regiment is uncertain. But about the end ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... parish-clerk Cares not for the dark As he winds in the tower At a regular hour The rheumatic clock, Whose dilatory knock You can hear when praying At the day's decaying, Or at any lone while From a pew in ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... himself into the fray, and then something had to give way, and the boys knew it wouldn't be Easy. To-day, something of that old conquering mood had come over him. He was possessed with a rage against his former dilatory self, and a fierce desire to win, to do the clean, square thing, no matter what the consequences. He had done it that New Year's morning, when John McIntyre's life lay in his hand. The call of duty had been imperative then. He had not even considered the possibility of shirking it, and in spite ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... and sugar! And I've no whiskey, and—" but there was a stiff turning just at this part of the river, and the skipper and pilot and everyone on board gave it all their attention, or we'd have been ashore. Soon after we met the dilatory down-river cargo boat, and waited where the channel was wide and she passed, its master shouting to us that the channel somewhere further up was "only four feet six, and very difficult." She had stranded somewhere ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... that ensued had its ignominious side; but it was entered into by neither of the parties principally concerned. Adams bore the disappointment, which the dilatory proceedings at Greenwich and Cambridge had inflicted upon him, with quiet heroism. His silence on the subject of what another man would have called his wrongs remained unbroken to the end of his life;[222] and he took every opportunity of testifying ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... seemed to decline, with trembling anxiety, the consideration of their own and the public danger. A silent consternation prevailed in the assembly, till a senator, of the name and family of Trajan, awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He represented to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had been long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by nature, and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy, at the head of the military force of the empire; and that ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... had resolved we should; but, as usually happens when matters are hurried, we met with an endless succession of petty delays at the last moment that detained us at anchor until nearly nightfall, and occasioned us a vast amount of trotting about in the broiling sun to put some life into the dilatory people who were keeping us waiting; the consequence of which was that when at last we lifted the anchor and stood out of the bay with the very last of the sea-breeze, to run into a calm when we had attained an offing of some two miles, I felt altogether too tired and knocked up to eat or drink; ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... eleven ships of the line, and fifty transports, with more than six thousand troops, arrived at Halifax, for the reduction of Louisbourg, and Lord Loudon ordered a large body of troops, designed to march upon Ticonderoga and Crown Point, to co-operate. But so dilatory was his Lordship, that before the expedition from Halifax was ready to sail, a French fleet of 17 sail had arrived at Louisbourg, with reinforcements, making the garrison nine thousand strong—and this fine specimen of a hereditary commander deemed it inexpedient to proceed, and abandoned the ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... daily striven to awaken a nation's conscience. Ames read the articles, and through the columns of the Budget sought to modify them to the extent of shifting the responsibility to the shoulders of the mill hands themselves, and to a dilatory Congress that was criminally negligent in so framing a cotton tariff as to make such industrial suffering possible. Nor did he omit to foully vilify the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... been a great deal of bitter discussion between Longstreet, Fitz Lee, Early, Wilcox, and others as to whether Lee did or did not order an attack to take place at 9 A.M., and as to whether Longstreet was dilatory, and to blame for not making it. When a battle is lost there is always an inquest, and a natural desire on the part of each general to lay the blame on somebody else's shoulders. Longstreet waited until noon for Law's brigade to come up, and afterward there was a good deal of marching and ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... and domestic slave trade; it nourishes and justifies the most cruel prejudices against color; it sneers at those who advocate the bestowal of equal rights upon our colored countrymen; it contends for an indefinite, dilatory, far-off emancipation; it expressly declares that it is more humane to keep the slaves in chains, than to give them freedom in this country! In short, it is the most compendious and best adapted scheme to uphold the slave system that ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... crush the disease at its outset by a vigorous campaign. Not until an amount of treatment which experience has shown to be an average requirement has been given, is it safe to draw breath and wait to see what the effect on the enemy has been. Dilatory tactics and compromises are often more dangerous than giving a little more than the least amount of treatment possible, for good measure. This is, of course, always provided the behavior of the body under the ordeal of treatment is closely studied and observed by an expert and that it is not blindly ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... has business, I believe," said Lady Mary, a little coldly. "There has been a dispute over some Crown lands, which march with ours. Officials are often very dilatory and difficult to deal with. Probably, however, you know more about it than I do. I am going alone. I have just been giving the necessary orders. I shall take a servant with me, as well as my maid, for I am such an inexperienced ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... the confines of India and Scythia, the satraps of the distant provinces were ordered to assemble their troops, and to march, without delay, to the assistance of their monarch. But their preparations were dilatory, their motions slow; and before Sapor could lead an army into the field, he received the melancholy intelligence of the devastation of Assyria, the ruin of his palaces, and the slaughter of his bravest troops, who defended the passage of the Tigris. The pride of royalty was humbled in the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... was exhausted by the delay of the Holy College, and he resolved to have recourse to means which were more efficacious, and more in accordance with his character. On the 13th May, 1801, he wrote to M. Cacault, French minister at Rome, that he had determined to accept no longer the irresolution and dilatory procedure of the Court of Rome; if in five days the scheme sent from Paris, and long discussed by the Sacred College, was not accepted, Cacault must leave Rome to join, in Florence, General Murat, the commander-in-chief of the army ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... swoon and fall. But he dared speak no more. The time had come to act, and with an angry gesture he rose up in his seat and threw his arm over as if to draw his sword and strike with the flat of the blade at the dilatory attendant who was so long. Then all was over, for the slave jumped back now the stirrup was lengthened, and stood with bent head and extended hands as the horse bounded off along the empty side of the court, Frank passing the chief at full gallop, pointing to the lengthened stirrups ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... from the level of the plain, and seemingly lost in that expanse of open country, climbed to the sky the twin steeples of Martinville. Presently we saw three: springing into position confronting them by a daring volt, a third, a dilatory steeple, that of Vieuxvicq, was come to join them. The minutes passed, we were moving rapidly, and yet the three steeples were always a long way ahead of us, like three birds perched upon the plain, motionless and conspicuous in the sunlight. Then the steeple of Vieuxvicq ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... upon the support of the men who had been associated with him in the Maitland Mills Athletic Association. With their backing, he was certain that he could eliminate most of that very considerable wastage in time that even a cursory observation had revealed to him in the shops, due to such causes as dilatory workers, idle machines, lack of co-ordination, improper routing of work, and the like. He had the suspicion that a little investigation would reveal other causes of ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... or dilatory exceptions are merely temporary obstructions, their only effect being to postpone for a while the plaintiff's right to sue; for example, the plea of an agreement not to sue for a certain time, say, five years; for at the end of that time the plaintiff can effectually pursue ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... Tyrconnel. The Luttrells had, in the name of their countrymen, implored James not to subject so loyal a people to so odious and incapable a viceroy. Tyrconnel, they said, was old; he was infirm; he needed much sleep; he knew nothing of war; he was dilatory; he was partial; he was rapacious; he was distrusted and hated by the whole nation. The Irish, deserted by him, had made a gallant stand, and had compelled the victorious army of the Prince of Orange to retreat. They hoped soon to take the field again, thirty thousand strong; and they adjured ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... probably the physician who was left in charge during Cassanate's absence—and this man retaliated upon Cardan for having thus stirred up strife. Cardan's position was certainly a very uneasy one. The other physicians were full of jealousy and malice, and the Archbishop began to accuse him of dilatory conduct of the case, redoubling his complaints as soon as he found himself getting better under the altered treatment. So weary did Cardan become of this bickering that he begged leave to depart at once, but this proposition the Primate ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... good spirits in such temperaments as his. He declares, it is true, that he "sports much with my Uncle Toby" in the volume which he is now "fabricating for the laughing part of the world;" but if so he must have sported only after a very desultory and dilatory fashion. On the whole one cannot escape a very strong impression that Sterne was heartily bored by his sojourn in Toulouse, and that he eagerly longed for the day of his return to "the dalliance and ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Emperor Leopold reviewed his troops on the plains of Kitsee, not far from Preshurg, To this review, all who had promised to sustain Austria were invited. Her appeals had at last roused the German princes to action; but they had been so dilatory in their councils, that not one of them ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... says the same author, "was dilatory enough in suits of her own nature; and the lord treasurer Burleigh, being a wise man, and willing therein to feed her humor, would say to her; 'Madam, you do well to let suitors stay; for I shall tell you, Bis dat ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... himself. His criticisms of other judges, his references to the manner in which justice is administered in Austria, illustrate his temerity and independence. His scorn of the King of Saxony, on account of being dilatory in paying the subscription for the Grand Mass, was pronounced. He alludes to him as "the poor Dresdener" in his letters, and he even went so far as to talk about suing him when the payment was still longer ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... The Army, wherever its songs are heard, has ever been more than a kindly invitation. It has been an urging to which millions of undecided souls will for ever owe their deliverance from the dilatory and hindering influences around them, into an earnest start ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... would seem as if Persano, the Italian commander in chief, could easily have executed his savage-sounding orders to "sweep the enemy from the Adriatic, and to attack and blockade them wherever found." He was dilatory, however, in assembling his fleet, negligent in practice and gun drill, and passive in his whole policy to a degree absolutely ruinous to morale. War was declared June 20, and had long been foreseen; yet it was June 25 before he moved the bulk of his ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... whatsoever, so that Hugh too had to walk very slowly. The man stopped and looked in at the windows of many of the stores, and close behind him every time stood Hugh; he was at a loss to account for this behavior on the part of the man he was following, as his dilatory tactics were in sharp contrast to the way in ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... to do it was another matter; but even on that head Wylie could furnish a plausible excuse for the act. Retribution, if it came at all, would not be severe, and would be three or four years coming. And who fears it much, when it, is so dilatory, and so weak, and so doubtful into ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... and myself are quite annoyed to seem so dilatory in fixing our time for visiting you; however, we hope (D. V.) to be with you on Saturday, the sixth of July. I hope your little olive branches are both quite well, and also your sister; we shall be glad to renew and make fresh acquaintance amongst the young ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... Symes walked the floor the more he realized that payday must be met. Labor was not an account which could wait. Nothing would so arouse suspicion and hurt his credit as a dilatory payday. Local merchants would come down upon him like a thousand of brick for the settlement of the large accounts which at the present moment they were rather ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... recognized neither the independence of Texas nor its annexation by the United States, yet would probably have agreed to both as preferable to war, had the alternative been allowed. To be sure, she was dilatory in settling admitted claims for certain depredations upon our commerce, threatened to take the annexation as a casus belli, withdrew her envoy and declined to accept Slidell as ours, and precipitated the first actual bloodshed. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... journeying to England or entering into a long correspondence with those philosophers of that country whose knowledge and discoveries were of indispensable use to me in my present undertaking. The latter method of obtaining the desired intelligence was dilatory and unsatisfactory; besides, I had an insurmountable aversion to the idea of engaging myself in my loathsome task in my father's house while in habits of familiar intercourse with those I loved. I knew that a thousand fearful ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... necessary because the Boers were known to be intensely suspicious. Every weak power trying to resist a stronger one must needs take refuge in evasive and dilatory tactics. Such had been, such were sure to be, the tactics of the Boers. But the Boers were also very distrustful of the English Government, believing it to aim at nothing less than the annexation of their country. It may seem strange to Englishmen that the purity of their motives ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... for a sheep," thought I, and began to back the cockboat towards the corner where the dinghy lay. As I did so it occurred to me to wonder why the Captain and Mr. Rogers had been so dilatory. They must have started a full hour ahead of me; they had left the schooner at a brisk stroke, whereas I had merely floated up with the tide. Yet either I had all but surprised them in the act of stepping ashore, or, if they had landed at once, why had ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... and complicated as they seemed to him—they were now largely routine matters, in fact; and I hope I carried things along at a tempo which satisfied him. This is not to deny that Raymond seemed to have days when he found even me dilatory and exasperating; but old Brand would ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... the country with the idea that he was a good bridge-builder, but a little too dilatory in the matter of carnage, was succeeded ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... seem, in many clubs, has absolutely no excuse for its existence, except that it was the first to be introduced and has the reputation of being universally used in foreign countries. It requires scoring above and below the line, which is a most cumbersome and dilatory proposition. Keeping tally by this method involves, at the end of a rubber, long mathematical problems, which, as the scorer is then in a hurry, frequently result in serious, and ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... uncertain and dilatory; the Army of the Potomac was generally dissatisfied and clamoring for the restoration of McClellan, who, like Joseph E. Johnston, of the South, was always popular with his men; the Cabinet, too, was uncertain and hopelessly divided in its counsels. The cause of the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... he gets the notion that his "boss" is afraid of, or for, him or his feelings or his health, he loses interest in working for that man. So a little effort to lighten or expedite his work, a little leniency in excusing the dilatory finishing of a job, a little easing-up under stress of weather, are taken as so many indications of a desire to conciliate. And conciliation means weakness every time. Your lumber-jack likes to be met front to front, one strong man to another. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... witness on his way to give evidence, or to threaten him if he does give evidence, or to tamper with the jury, are all serious contempts. In short, there is a divinity which hedges a court of justice, and anybody who, by action or inaction, renders the course of justice more difficult or dilatory than it otherwise would be, incurs the penalty of contempt. Consider, for example, the case of documents and letters. Prior to the issue of a writ, the owner of documents and letters may destroy them, if he pleases—the fact of his having done so, if litigation ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... love fast! True love evades the dilatory. Life's bloom flares like a meteor past; A joy so dazzling ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... silver, when the charm moved it three hundred feet to the north-east. Joe tracked it with his peek-stone to its hiding-place. It was not so far under the surface this time—only about twenty feet—and the faithful again worked with a will. The dilatory movements of the silver caused anxiety to Mr. Isaac Hale, with whom the diggers had been "boarding round." Hale was a stiff old Methodist whose business judgment told him that he was taking too much stock in this "big bonanza." For all his anxiety, the silver again flitted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Jacket, who claims the sovereignty of the river, is declared to be a more confirmed knave, if possible, than they, and to have cheated him of a good deal of property. The writer describes King Forday as a man rather advanced in years, less fraudulent but more dilatory. King Boy, his son, alone deserved his confidence, for he had not abused it, and possessed more honour and integrity than either ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... to his mother was chargeable on the property, and this was an excuse on all occasions for the Squire's dilatory payment in other quarters. "Sir," he would say, "my mother's jointure is sacred—it is more than the estate can well bear, it is true, but it is a sacred claim, and I would sooner sacrifice my life, my honour, sir, than see that claim neglected!" Now all this ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... madam," he said quietly, and retired to a desk in the back part of the bank, where he opened a huge book, turned over some leaves rapidly, and ran his finger down a page. His dilatory action seemed to increase the young woman's panic. Her pallor increased, and she swayed slightly, as if in danger of falling, but brought her right hand to the assistance of the left, and so steadied herself against the ledge of ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... commencement of his progress towards the church, our enthusiast found himself placed among the hindermost of the members of the advancing throng, he soon contrived so thoroughly to outstrip his dilatory and discursive neighbours as to gain, with little delay, the steps of the sacred building. Here, in common with many others, he was compelled to stop, while those nearest the basilica squeezed their way through its stately doors. In such a situation ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... to those legendary drugs, which to his mind had no place save in the fifth acts of melodramas. Yet those abominable stories were true, those tales of poisoned knives and flowers, of prelates and even dilatory popes being suppressed by a drop or a grain of something administered to them in their morning chocolate. That passionate tragical Santobono was really a poisoner, Pierre could no longer doubt it, for a lurid light now illumined the whole of the previous day: there were the words ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... last began to give way. His heart was sinking. His messenger had been even more dilatory than he was prepared to expect. Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... but the court will not do so unless a determination of such point as shall arise make it necessary to the determination of a controversy, and hence a case must be presented in which there can be no rational doubt. All this would subject the aggrieved parties to much dilatory, expensive and needless litigation, which your memorialist prays your honorable body to dispense with by appropriate legislation, as there can be no purpose in special arguments "ad inconvenienti," enlarging or contracting the import of the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... question at Vaniman. The young man turned to Wagg, seeking support in that crisis, believing that the affair could be held on the basis of two against two in the interests of further dilatory tactics. Wagg had been showing indignant protest against the demands of the interlopers. But his corrugated face was smoothed suddenly. He had evidently decided to cash in on the new basis. "That's what I want to know—and what I have been trying to ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... her incurable desire to make others happy, and an instinctive sympathy with love-affairs, all contributed; moreover, Felix had said something about Derek's having been concerned in something rash. If darling Nedda were there it would occupy his mind and help to make him careful. Never dilatory in forming resolutions, she decided to take the girl over with her on the morrow. Kirsteen had a dear little spare room, and Nedda should take her bag. It would be a nice surprise for them all. Accordingly, next morning, not wanting to give any trouble, she sent Thomas down to the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... hopes of fighting at our cost, and by the unfavourable turn of M. Thugut's mind upon the subject of the Netherlands. For this purpose, the sooner a regular Minister is appointed here the better; because though the opening of the subsequent campaign is at present distant enough, the dilatory habits of this Government make every moment more precious than it should be; and the points, both of the barrier and the Dutch indemnity, may be found longer in discussion than they were expected to be when I left London, particularly upon the former ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... had proposed to the House of Commons to subject cases of libel to the award of juries, not of judges. Pitt warmly approved the measure, maintaining that, far from protecting libellers, it would have the contrary effect. The Bill passed the Commons on 31st May; but owing to dilatory and factious procedure in the Lords, it was held over until the year 1792. Thanks to the noble plea for liberty urged by the venerable Earl Camden, it passed on 21st May.[45] It is matter of congratulation that Great Britain gained this ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... travellers, not less than one hundred and seventy full-grown men were mercilessly slaughtered in cold blood, the greater part of them being allowed to bleed to death, a leg having been severed from the body. The unwarlike spirit and dilatory proceedings of the army, large as it was, enabled the inhabitants of other ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... to a new and quite different field. His chief weapons in the petty war which I am obliged to wage with him, as often as the interests which we represent diverge, are: (1) Passive resistance, i.e., a dilatory treatment of the affair, by which he forces upon me the role of a tiresome dun, and not infrequently, by reason of the nature of the affair, that of a paltry dun. (2) In case of attack, the fait ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... those others have attained their dignity, not by choosing their episodic chapters merely, but by forcing their own original and commanding thought upon all their matter. This is the case, whether the form be that of the comprehensive, large, secure, and elaborate Njla; of Laxdla, with its dilatory introduction changing to the eagerness and quickness of the story of Gudrun; of Grettir and Gisli, giving shape in their several ways to the traditional accumulation of a hero's adventures; or, not less remarkable, the precision of Hrafnkels Saga and Bandamanna,[49] which ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... he had been used, and his wife's death helped to decide him, in his disgust for place and people. Towards the end of 1484, he left Lisbon. Three years later, when he had become fully as much disgusted with the dilatory sloth and tricks of Spain, he offered himself again to Portugal. King John had repented of his meanness; on March 20, 1488, he wrote in answer to Columbus, eagerly offering on his side to guarantee him against any suits that might ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... who was the crack sprinter of his town—somewhere in the South—was unfortunate enough to have a very dilatory laundress. One evening, when he was out for a practice run in his rather airy and abbreviated track costume, he chanced to dash past the house of that dusky lady, who at the time was a couple of weeks ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... no excuse for its existence, except that it was the first to be introduced and has the reputation of being universally used in foreign countries. It requires scoring above and below the line, which is a most cumbersome and dilatory proposition. Keeping tally by this method involves, at the end of a rubber, long mathematical problems, which, as the scorer is then in a hurry, frequently result in serious, and at times ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... consuming desire to get it over, and if it be not a pleasure, it is difficult to understand his desire to have it at all. Mere size, it seems to me, cannot be a fault. The fault must lie in some disproportion. If some of Scott's stories are dull and dilatory, it is not because they are giants, but because they are hunchbacks or cripples. Scott was very far indeed from being a perfect writer, but I do not think that it can be shown that the large and elaborate plan on which his stories are built was by any means an imperfection. ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... Confederates recover from one blow before another struck them, the day would have certainly been theirs. Moreover, they would have inflicted not simply a defeat but a severe disaster on their enemy, who would have been caught in flank by the troops at the Stone Bridge; for these troops, however dilatory, must have known what to do with a broken and flying Confederate flank right under their very eyes. Premonitory symptoms of such a flight were not wanting. Confederate wounded, stragglers, and skulkers ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... peak as one's own private property. His lack of initiative in this matter aroused a certain amount of impatience among the sentimentally-minded women-folk of his home circle; his mother, his sisters, an aunt-in-residence, and two or three intimate matronly friends regarded his dilatory approach to the married state with a disapproval that was far from being inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were watched with the straining eagerness which a group of unexercised terriers concentrates on the ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... great Plain of Esdraelon, which we enter by the gateway of Jenin. There are a few palm-trees lending a little grace to the disconsolate village, and the Turkish captain of the military post, a grizzled veteran of Plevna, invites us into the guard-room to drink coffee with him, while we wait for a dilatory telegraph operator to send a message. Then we push out upon the green sea to a brown island: the village ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... heartfelt, showing no deceptive exterior, but the true native fibre of the man, full of the charity which is kind and thinketh no evil. It was not always so toward those above him. Under the timid and dilatory action of Hotham and Hyde Parker, under the somewhat commonplace although exact and energetic movements of Lord Keith, he was restive, and freely showed what he felt. On the other hand, around Hood and Jervis, who commanded his professional respect and esteem, he quickly threw the same halo of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... to room tying and untying brown paper parcels in his most methodical and most dilatory manner. His sisters stood watching him from ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... arrived the preceding night; and "his Holiness said that [such] doings were too sore for him to stand still at and do nothing."[607] It was "against his duty towards God and the world to tolerate them." The imperialist cardinals, impatient before, clamoured that the evil had been caused by the dilatory timidity with which the case had been handled from the first.[608] The consistory sate day after day with closed doors;[609] and even such members of it as had before inclined to the English side, joined in the common indignation. "Some extreme process" was instantly looked ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... have thought me very dilatory in returning the books you so kindly lent me. The fact is, having some other books to send, I retained yours to enclose them ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... organized until the month of August, 1840, and under the terms of the convention they were to terminate their duties within eighteen months from that time. Four of the eighteen months were consumed in preliminary discussions on frivolous and dilatory points raised by the Mexican commissioners, and it was not until the month of December, 1840, that they commenced the examination of the claims of our citizens upon Mexico. Fourteen months only remained to examine and decide upon these numerous and complicated cases. In the month of February, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Nor was the company dilatory in returning her notice, since from the time of her entrance into the room, she had been the object of ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... may be dated from the day in which our late noble leader, JOHN STUART MILL, addressed the House of Commons on this subject, in May, 1867), feel that our lives are passing away while wearily awaiting the dilatory educational development ...
— The First Essay on the Political Rights of Women • Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet
... to strike and strike quickly. But in order that there should be swift and effective action, there should be only one Government to be consulted. The Irish Ministry that was not actively hostile, but only unsympathetic and dilatory, might, in many ways, fatally embarrass Ministers ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... sprightly, deft, lively, swift, brisk, active, spry. Antonyms: slow, sluggish, clumsy, dilatory, unready, dull, heavy. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the more necessary because the Boers were known to be intensely suspicious. Every weak power trying to resist a stronger one must needs take refuge in evasive and dilatory tactics. Such had been, such were sure to be, the tactics of the Boers. But the Boers were also very distrustful of the English Government, believing it to aim at nothing less than the annexation of their country. It may seem strange to Englishmen ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... the Duchesse d'Angouleme, and backed by the promise of high office on its realization. A marriage is easy to arrange in France; not so the execution of the marriage-contract, which is rendered as wearisome by delays as the still more dilatory proceedings of the law; and therefore it was deemed advisable, in order to pass this dismal period, to despatch the Count de Cambis to Holland for the purchase of horses for the royal stable. Arrived at The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... Grenville) were sincerely desirous of peace, and that negotiations broke down owing to the masterful tone adopted by the Directory. It was perhaps unfortunate that Lord Malmesbury was selected as the English negotiator, for his behaviour in the previous year had been construed by the French as dilatory and insincere. But the Directors may on better evidence be charged with postponing a settlement until they had struck down their foes within France. Bonaparte's letters at this time show that he hoped for the conclusion of a peace with England, doubtless ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... operation could hardly be held as dilatory. It would doubtless have commended itself more highly to his men if it had been somewhat more so, when at daylight on the morning after the splendid success of September 19th they were ordered in pursuit of ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... making full use of their long-desired Army, Navy and commercial fleet. There could be considered, as factors tending to the preservation of peace, only the pacific sentiment of the majority of the people working in alliance with the dilatory policy of the President, who still nourished a hope that some favorable turn or other in events, or perhaps the advent of peace, would give him a chance to avoid breaking of relations ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... deal of bitter discussion between Longstreet, Fitz Lee, Early, Wilcox, and others as to whether Lee did or did not order an attack to take place at 9 A.M., and as to whether Longstreet was dilatory, and to blame for not making it. When a battle is lost there is always an inquest, and a natural desire on the part of each general to lay the blame on somebody else's shoulders. Longstreet waited until noon for Law's brigade to come ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... estates into the management of that noted economist, Sir Richard Steele, and other commissioners, was—the disgrace of Argyll. He, who with a petty force had saved Scotland, was represented by Cadogan and by his political enemies as dilatory and disaffected! The Duke lost all his posts, and in 1716 (when James had hopes from Sweden) Islay, Argyll's brother, was negotiating with Jacobite agents. James was creating ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... I shall advertise in the papers, that the committee having received applications for ten times the amount of stock, have been compelled, unwillingly, to close the lists. That will be a slap in the face to the dilatory gentlemen, and send ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... action. We are able to record the varying speeds of impulse transmission in the nerves of different individuals. If you were picking out a bad man, would you select one who, on the machine, showed a dilatory nerve response? Hardly. The relative fitness for a man to be "bad," to become extraordinarily quick and skillful with weapons, could, without doubt, be predetermined largely by these scientific measurements. Of course, having no thought-machines ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... some time, and then, as no one came, grew what she so seldom was, impatient and annoyed. What an odd hotel, and what dilatory, disagreeable ways! But just as she was thinking of getting up again ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... dilatory exceptions are merely temporary obstructions, their only effect being to postpone for a while the plaintiff's right to sue; for example, the plea of an agreement not to sue for a certain time, say, five years; for at the end of that time the plaintiff ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... fire-arm loaded at the breech which was so effective in the Franco-Prussian conflict and, if I am not mistaken, in the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866, also. This made of the individual soldier a host in himself. The old muzzle-loader, with its ramrod and dilatory "motions," ought to have been obsolete long before Grant left the West to lead the Army of the Potomac from the Wilderness to Appomattox. The Michigan cavalry brigade, armed as it was with repeating carbines, was never whipped when it had a chance ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... was akin to those Galilee fishermen who were called to be fishers of men. How he read the Book and pored over it, even at times, I suspect, nodding over it, and laying it down only to take up his rod, over which, unless the trout were very dilatory and the journey very fatiguing, he ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... studiously avoided. And yet we were making progress all the time, tacking across broad England like an unweatherly vessel on a wind; approaching our destination, not openly, but by a sort of flying sap. And at length, I can scarce tell how, we were set down by a dilatory butt-end of local train on ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... thought of the prospect of meeting his mother face to face for the first time since he had left his home. He hurried on his clothes, however, without a moment's delay, and went out directly—now walking at the top of his speed, now running, in his anxiety not to appear dilatory or careless in paying obedience to the summons that ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... Hartington being dull and stupid. He is a very clever man." What made this admission all the more memorable was that Mr. Chamberlain was at the moment in a condition of something like exasperation with his colleague's dilatory ways, and his constitutional unwillingness to tackle a question till it was almost too ripe; you simply could not hurry him. One of the difficult things about the Duke was that he never realised the full greatness of his position in politics, how much people depended on his lead, and how ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... very susceptible to feminine charm, an ardent but unstable lover, whose passions are apt to be as shortlived as they are violent. Story-telling and long-winded discussions give him keen enjoyment, for he is garrulous, metaphysical, and argumentative. In money matters careless and extravagant, dilatory and venal in affairs; fond, especially in the peasant class, of singing, dancing, and carousing; but his irresponsible gaiety and heedlessness of consequences balanced by a fatalistic courage and endurance in the face of suffering ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... unconscious fold of association from which it now emerged; for in itself it had no mark of the portentous. At the moment there could have been nothing more natural than that Ned should dash himself from the roof in the pursuit of dilatory tradesmen. It was the period when they were always on the watch for one or the other of the specialists employed about the place; always lying in wait for them, and dashing out at them with questions, reproaches, or ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... of the Charlie Chaplin type. It was a Himalayan black bear, with fine side whiskers, and it really seemed to me absolutely certain that the other animals in the group appreciated and enjoyed the fun that comedian made. He pretended to be awkward, and frequently fell off his tub. He was purposely dilatory, and was often the last one to finish. The other animals seemed to be fascinated by his mishaps, and they sat on their tubs and watched him with what looked like genuine amusement. I remember another circle of seated animals who calmly and patiently sat and watched while the trainer labored ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... I ask whether you have reached any conclusion as yet? That Moor is a very dilatory ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... joined by thirty Flemish ships, and carrying six thousand land forces on board, was sent to make an attempt on the coast of Brittany. The fleet was commanded by Lord Clinton; the land forces by the earls of Huntingdon and Rutland. But the equipment of the fleet and army was so dilatory that the French got intelligence of the design, and were prepared to receive them. The English found Brest so well guarded as to render an attempt on that place impracticable; but, landing at Conquet, they plundered and burnt the town, with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... pretended to bashfulness where Ludovic was concerned. She was not at all shy of referring to him and his dilatory courtship. Indeed, ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... attacks of the Volscians and other neighbouring hostile nations, should fail to do so when the Gauls were marching upon Rome. Moreover, the army which the Romans got together was but a weak one, since they used no signal effort to make it strong; nay, were so dilatory in arming that they were barely in time to meet the enemy at the river Allia, though no more than ten miles distant from Rome. Here, again, the Roman tribunes pitched their camp without observing any of the usual precautions, attending ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... passed before Lord Loudoun would issue his permission for the ship to sail. Every day this most dilatory and incompetent of men announced that the packet would sail to-morrow. And thus the weeks rolled on while Franklin was waiting, but we do not hear a single word of impatience or remonstrance from his lips. His philosophy ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Gentlemen, to our original problem, and consider if our dilatory way have led us to some glimpse of a ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... a Protestant minister would have led his congregation to imagine that their good pastor had lost his wits; but I have no doubt that it was eminently successful in abstracting the fourteen dollars from the pocket of the dilatory Peter N—-, and in preventing Alderman John from hunting hares on a holiday for ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... perfect respectability for her child and kept Christine in the country far away in Paris, meaning to provide a good dowry in due course. At forty-two she had not got the dowry together, nor even begun to get it together, and she was ill. Feckless, dilatory and extravagant, she saw as in a vision her own shortcomings and how they might involve disaster for Christine. Christine, she perceived, was a girl imperfectly educated—for in the affair of Christine's ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... while to insert here this note on the philosophy of sight-seeing, however dilatory or disproportionate it may seem. For I am particularly and positively convinced that unless these things can somehow or other be seen in the right historical perspective and philosophical proportion, they are not worth seeing at all. And let me say in conclusion ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... moves at a snail's pace here. I find delay in all things; at least, so it appears to me, who have too strong a development of the American organ of 'go-ahead-ativeness' to feel easy under its tantalizing effects. A Frenchman ought to have as many lives as a cat to bring to pass, on his dilatory plan of procedure, the same results that a Yankee would accomplish ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Dilatory tactics on the part of the Madrid Government delayed the actual transfer of the territory more than two years. After having twice refused, Jackson at length accepted the governorship of Florida, and in the early summer of 1821 he set out, by way of New Orleans, for his ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... plaits and gathers were laid, and the skirt basted to its band for the trying. Bel was dilatory one minute, and ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... not conversant with the methodical & dilatory arrangements of Law or Business, I know enough of Justice to direct my conduct by the principles of Equity, nor can I reconcile the "Insolence of office" to her regulations or forget in an Instant a ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... their stay in England. The three Arab workmen were placed in their suitable departments in the Pasha's work shops. But such was the natural energy of Affiffi, that when he was set to work beside the slow, dilatory, and stupid native workmen, he became greatly irritated. The contrast between the active energetic movements which he had seen at the Bridgewater Foundry and the ineffective, blundering, and untechnical work of his fellows was such that he could not stand it any longer. So one ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... very little advance is made. He is as the bee which does not make its final burglarious headlong plunge into the calyx until after a protracted course of circuitous buzzing and much prefatory waste of time: and this with all the insect's credit for industry. So over-perverse a traveller, so ultra-dilatory a bee as the author of Modern Painters, must shorten his journey, must leave much honey unfilched. He is as the army which commences in orderly retreat and ends in rabble-like riot and demoralization, gaining a place of safety at last, with the sacrifice of much baggage and treasure. So, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... anti-pope, and the great Frederic Barbarossa, Emperor of Germany. Moreover he was a personal friend of Henry, to whom he had been indebted for his elevation to the papal throne. His course, therefore, was non-committal and dilatory and vacillating, although he doubtless was on the side of the prelate who exalted ecclesiastical authority. But he was obliged from policy to be prudent and conciliatory. He patiently heard both sides, but decided nothing. All he consented to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... Spanish America and the French Louisiana. Mexico, proud, had recognized neither the independence of Texas nor its annexation by the United States, yet would probably have agreed to both as preferable to war, had the alternative been allowed. To be sure, she was dilatory in settling admitted claims for certain depredations upon our commerce, threatened to take the annexation as a casus belli, withdrew her envoy and declined to accept Slidell as ours, and precipitated the first actual bloodshed. Yet war might have been averted, and our Government, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... even the advantage of fighting behind well-constructed and perfect defences. No doubt, from the beginning to the end of the war—notably in the case of Burgoyne—the British were seriously hampered by the dilatory and unsafe counsels of Lord George Germaine, who was allowed by the favour of the king to direct military operations, and who, we remember, had disgraced himself on the famous ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... Humfray's extraordinary remark has projected this dilatory reception of your news. I beg you ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... beginning to move for extensions of territory or commercial advantages, until it looked much as if China was to be parceled out among the greater European powers, or at least held in commercial subjection, to the exclusion of those nations which had pursued a more dilatory policy. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... introduction to a hermit's life! Four weeks' torture, tossing, and sickness! Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons! And oh, this dearth of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible intimation of Kenneth that I need not expect to be ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... December sleet crackling against the window-panes—in order to varnish a certain fly-rod. Now rods ought to be put in order in September, when the fishing closes, or else in April, when it opens. To varnish a rod in December proves that one possesses either a dilatory or a childishly anticipatory mind. But before uncorking the varnish bottle, it occurred to me to examine a dog-eared, water-stained fly-book, to guard against the ravages of possible moths. This interlude proved fatal to the varnishing. A half hour went happily by in rearranging ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... Canadian parties to the great Imperial drive thought of Sir Wilfrid's dilatory, evasive and blocking tactics is not a matter of surmise. Upon this point they did not practise the fine art of reticence; and their angry expostulations are to be found in the pages of Hansard, in the editorial pages ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... myself are quite annoyed to seem so dilatory in fixing our time for visiting you; however, we hope (D. V.) to be with you on Saturday, the sixth of July. I hope your little olive branches are both quite well, and also your sister; we shall be glad to renew and make fresh acquaintance amongst the young ones. I suppose ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... campaign there was another difficulty,—the want of concert between the two branches of the service. The regular troops looked with contempt upon the unprofessional movements of the militia; the militia railed at the dilatory and useless formalities of the regulars. Each avowed the conviction that matters could be much better conducted without the other, and the militia, being prompt to act, sometimes took matters into their ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... of that province. And in order to try every method and to take every chance for his destruction, the said Warren Hastings did maliciously and oppressively keep him under confinement, for a part of the time without any inquiry, and afterwards with a slow and dilatory trial, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... them, or to entertain proposals for extending or altering his relations with the Indian government. An invitation from the viceroy to meet him in India, with the hope that these points might be settled in conference, was put aside by dilatory excuses, until at last the project was abandoned, and finally the amir agreed to receive at Kabul a diplomatic mission. The mission, whose chief was Sir Louis Dane, foreign secretary to the Indian government, reached Kabul early in December 1904, and remained there four months in negotiation ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... second riot had startled the metropolis in good earnest. Everyone became fully alive to the danger and increasing force of the disaffected community,—and the Government,—lately grown inert and dilatory in the transaction of business,—began seriously to consider ways and means of pacifying general clamour and public dissatisfaction. None of the members of the Cabinet were much surprised, therefore, when they each received a summons from the King to wait upon him at the Palace that day week,—'to ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... in many small bands, but were kept on the move constantly by the vigorous measures of General Miles, and he assumes that the Apache question would have been settled had his predecessor, General Crook, been less dilatory. The writer expressed his conclusion that in military skill, strategy and ability the Indians far excelled their opponents, and details that fifty or sixty Apaches the year before had killed more than 75 white settlers, all the while pursued by seventeen companies ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... bills, re-examination of witnesses, confronting of them together, declarations, denunciations, libels, certificates, royal missives, letters of appeal, letters of attorney, instruments of compulsion, delineatories, anticipatories, evocations, messages, dimissions, issues, exceptions, dilatory pleas, demurs, compositions, injunctions, reliefs, reports, returns, confessions, acknowledgments, exploits, executions, and other such-like confects and spiceries, both at the one and the other side, as a good judge ought to do, conform to what hath been noted thereupon. Spec. de ordination. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... a passion at the admonition, heaped abuse upon me, swore that it was I who thwarted him, I who opposed the fulfilment of Don John's desires and fostered the dilatory policy ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... instruments; the chief no longer has any practical hold on them; his orders, consequently, encounter only tame obedience, doubtful deference, sometimes even open resistance; their execution remains dilatory, uncertain, incomplete, and at length is utterly neglected; a latent and soon flagrant system of disorganization is instituted by the law. Step by step, in the hierarchy of Government, power has slipped downwards, and henceforth belongs by virtue of the Constitution to the authorities ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the fire-trenches by seven o'clock. My men, with every stitch of equipment on their backs, stood on the firing-step and kept up a dilatory fire on the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... the boat at the wharf, and went towards the quarters. Meeting one of the blowzed and slatternly female servants, Landless asked where they might find the overseer. He had gone to the three-mile field half an hour ago, after bestowing upon the two dilatory servants a hearty cursing, and promising to reckon with them at dinner-time. "Where was the master?" He had gone to the mouth of the inlet with Sir Charles Carew, who had grown impatient, and had sailed away under the Nancy's patched sail. The under overseer was in ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... Ten days after Chateauguay dilatory Wilkinson, tired of waiting for defeated Hampton, left the original rendezvous at French Creek, fifty miles below Sackett's Harbour. Like Dearborn in 1812, he began his campaign just as the season was closing. But, again like Dearborn, he had the ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... had joined Lord Shotover upon the hearth-rug, here intervened. He had a tendency to air local grievances, especially in the presence of his existing noble guest, whom he regarded, not wholly without reason, as somewhat lukewarm and dilatory in questions of reform. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... be worth anything at all, let them be polished to perfection; let an author "keep his piece nine years," or ninety and nine, till he has made it as musical as he can—at least, as musical as his other performances. Not that we counsel dilatory and piecemeal composition. The thought must be struck off in the passion of the moment; the sword-blade must go red-hot to the anvil, and be forged in a few seconds: true; but after the forging, long and weary polishing and grinding must follow, before your ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... of the past two years had demonstrated the dilatory and unsatisfactory consequences of our indirect transaction of business through the foreign office in London, in which the views and wishes of the government of the Dominion of Canada were practically predominant, but were only to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... hovered long 'twixt this world and the next, and weeks passed ere, in the house of a friend at Kingston, Jamaica, he came once more to his full senses. Even then his progress was but dilatory. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... dictators, and General San Martin was placed in command. This man had rendered good service to Chili when, in conjunction with O'Higgins, he had led the movement of independence; but his success had turned his head. He was vain and arrogant, and at the same time dilatory and vacillating. He, like the dictators, was jealous of the success and popularity of Lord Cochrane, and was bent upon thwarting him to the utmost. His army, four thousand two hundred strong, was ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... his great corpulence usually permitted the jovial man to move, he ascended to the deck, calling: "Great, greater, the greatest of news I bring, as the heaviest but by no means the most dilatory of messengers of good fortune from the city of cities. Prick up your ears, my friend, and summon all your strength, for there are instances of the fatal effect of especially lavish gifts from the blind and yet often sure aim of the goddess of Fortune. The Demeter, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the noble inn to which he belonged; and which, indeed, a few years since might have been inscribed there with much justice. "Festina lente," Mr. Die would say to all those who came to him in any sort of hurry. And then when men accused him of being dilatory by premeditation, he would say no, he had always recommended despatch. "Festina," he would say; "festina" by all means; but "festina lente." The doctrine had at any rate thriven with the teacher, for Mr. Die had ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... limit attached to our demand must be attributed to our long experience of the dilatory ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... was left in charge during Cassanate's absence—and this man retaliated upon Cardan for having thus stirred up strife. Cardan's position was certainly a very uneasy one. The other physicians were full of jealousy and malice, and the Archbishop began to accuse him of dilatory conduct of the case, redoubling his complaints as soon as he found himself getting better under the altered treatment. So weary did Cardan become of this bickering that he begged leave to depart at once, but this proposition the Primate took ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... perceiue These Cardinals trifle with me: I abhorre This dilatory sloth, and trickes of Rome. My learn'd and welbeloued Seruant Cranmer, Prethee returne, with thy approch: I know, My comfort comes along: breake vp the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the last ounce of his strength. But once he gets the notion that his "boss" is afraid of, or for, him or his feelings or his health, he loses interest in working for that man. So a little effort to lighten or expedite his work, a little leniency in excusing the dilatory finishing of a job, a little easing-up under stress of weather, are taken as so many indications of a desire to conciliate. And conciliation means weakness every time. Your lumber-jack likes to be met front to front, one strong man to another. As you value your authority, the ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... maiden loneliness for him. Then, too, the public announcement of her engagement and approaching marriage to M. La Touche might arouse him to the knowledge of how much he loved her. "How blessings brighten as they take their flight!" and jealousy is infallible to bring dilatory lovers to the point. No question of the right or wrong of the matter troubled the ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... to Meaux without formalities, but the formalities were simple. The dilatory train took seventy minutes, dawdling along the banks of the notorious Marne. In an automobile one could have done the journey in half the time. An automobile, however, would have seriously complicated the formalities. Meaux contains ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... Genoa, Venice, and Rome, in stirring up the great Italian confederacy, which eventually broke the power of King Charles; and his representations had tended, as much as any other cause, to alarm the jealousy of Sforza, to fix the vacillating politics of Alexander, and to quicken the cautious and dilatory movements of Venice. He had shown equal vigor in action; and contributed mainly to the success of the war by his operations on the side of Roussillon, and still more in Calabria. On the latter, indeed, he had not lavished any extraordinary expenditure; ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... Kildrummie Castle been conscious that the at first dilatory and then uncertain measures of their foes originated in the fact that the Earls of Hereford and Lancaster were not themselves yet on the field, and that they had with them a vast addition to their forces, they would not perhaps have rested so securely on the hopes which their unexpected ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... "something" came upon them with a suddenness that set the entire camp in an uproar. Grace, the dilatory, was picking berries before breakfast along the edge of the clearing, and popping them into her mouth as fast as she could ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... Ralph," he observed, "workmen are often dilatory, and we cannot always depend upon their doing what ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... limitation. The President had communicated his veto on the last day permitted by the Constitution, and it was generally believed that his motive for the postponement was to give the minority in one branch or the other the power to defeat the bill either by dilatory motions or by "talking against time." Mr. Le Blond and Mr. Finck or Ohio, and Mr. Boyer of Pennsylvania, frankly indicated their intention to employ all means within their power to compass this end. A system of parliamentary delay was thus foreshadowed, but was prevented by Mr. Blaine ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... East Indies station, the Centurion's men had been unpaid for eleven years; the Rattlesnake's for fourteen; the Fox's for fifteen. The Elizabethan practice compared with this will look almost precipitate instead of dilatory. To draw again on my personal experience, I may say that I have been kept without pay for a longer time than most of the people in Lord Howard's fleet, as, for the first two years that I was at sea, ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... dawdling, dilatory, gradual, lingering, slack, delaying, drowsy, inactive, moderate, sluggish, deliberate, dull, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... to pour, and made our developments slow and dilatory, for there were no roads, and these had to be improvised by each division for its own supply train from the depot in Big Shanty to the camps. Meantime each army was deploying carefully before the ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... destined by the king for an attack on England have attempted nothing except against my subjects; but, by St. George, if some redress be not seen to, I will take the matter into my own hands without waiting for your motions, tardy and dilatory as they are."[16] ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... Pomeroy on Pleading. The number of court decisions in which this branch of the proceeding has been reverently and gravely dealt with reads like a metaphysical discussion in the dark ages. The names formerly used were superb. Complaint, demurrer, confession and avoidance, traverse, replication, dilatory pleas, peremptory pleas, rejoinder, ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... also has been laid upon Lincoln on the ground that he was dilatory in reaching the determination to relieve the fort. That the decision should have been reached and the expedition dispatched more promptly is entirely evident; but whether or not Lincoln was in fault is quite another question. Three facts are to be considered: 1. The highest military ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... was their absolute design to take possession of the Ohio, and, by G——, they would do it; for that although they were sensible the English could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... warriors of that time. Yet victory had rarely crowned his brows with laurels. Imitating the cautious tactics of Braccio, and emulating the fame of Fabius Cunctator, he reduced the art of war to a system of manoeuvres, and rarely risked his fortune in the field. It was chiefly due to his dilatory movements that the disaster of the Sack of Rome was not averted. He had been expelled by Leo X. from his duchy to make room for Lorenzo de'Medici, and report ran that a secret desire to witness the humiliation of a Medicean Pontiff caused him to withhold ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... the note and went out of the room. Never had he seemed to her so dilatory and slow. She stared at the door as though her sight could pierce the panels. She imagined him climbing the stairs with feet which loitered more at each fresh step. Some one would surely stop him and ask for whom the letter was intended. She went to ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... angry at the fellow for being so dilatory and fastidious at such a time. The strange youth then spread his coat over the blanket, laid his right hand on it, and his left on bridle and mane, and with a leap from the ground threw himself astride the horse,—a display of agility ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... slowly. The man stopped and looked in at the windows of many of the stores, and close behind him every time stood Hugh; he was at a loss to account for this behavior on the part of the man he was following, as his dilatory tactics were in sharp contrast to the way in which Lena ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... in reality on the previous evening. "As Curione said to Caesar, delay is injurious to anyone who is fully prepared for action. I remember also to have read somewhere that such waste of time in diplomacy and palavering is the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds, who regard the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as an evidence of the most admirable and ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... nineteenth century when locomotives were invented capable of covering sixty miles an hour. Nowadays the old cumbrous locomotive, rumbling and puffing along and making only sixty miles in sixty minutes, is a very dilatory machine in comparison with our light and beautiful rocket cars, which frequently dart through the air at the rate of sixty miles in one minute. The advantages to a country like ours, over 3,000 miles wide, of swift transit ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... awoke to find that, under cover of a heavy bombardment, American troops had occupied Dorchester Heights and that if he would dislodge them he must make another attack similar to that at Bunker Hill. The alternative of stiff fighting was the evacuation of Boston. Howe, though dilatory, was a good fighting soldier. His defects as a general in America sprang in part from his belief that the war was unjust and that delay might bring counsels making for peace and save bloodshed. His first decision was to attack, but a furious gale thwarted his purpose, and he then prepared ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... however, in spite of both active Yankee and dilatory Dutchmen, the operation was completed, and the little Sumter once more ready for sea. Even now, however, she was not to get away without a parting arrow from her indefatigable enemy. On the morning of ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... some prominent Democratic leaders from Missouri. John B. Henderson in the Senate and John W. Noell in the House labored earnestly to secure the compensation for their State, but the bill was finally defeated in the House. By factious resistance, by dilatory motions and hostile points of order, the Democratic members from Missouri were able to force the bill from its position of parliamentary advantage, and to prevent its consideration within the period in which a majority of the House could control ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the saddle for weeks. My horses are worn out," (he chose to forget a fresh horse in the stable.) "Up late last night and worried all day about affairs over which I have no control, and fellows who will fail us at need. Sir Rowland must wait till dinner time to-morrow for news of these dilatory Spaniards. If he has to deal much more with them, it will be a useful lesson to ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... men in one and "his years were anything from sixteen to eighty," says Lloyd Osbourne in his "Memoirs." But when a letter came from San Francisco saying Fanny Osbourne was sick, all of that dilatory, procrastinating, gently trifling quality went out of his soul and he was possessed by one idea—he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... scrambled up, and was trying to decide whether some green sprouts were chickweed or the dilatory balsams when a sudden uproar in the next garden made her stop to listen, while Miss Henny said in a tone of great satisfaction, as the cackle of ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... how unpleasant all this is to read, this outbreak at two localities that have never done me any personal harm except a little mud-splashing. But this is a thing that has to be said now, because we are approaching a crisis when dilatory ways, muddle, and waste may utterly ruin us. This is the way things have been done in England, this is our habit of procedure, and if they are done in this way after the war this ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... windows to see them pass, the war-cry of the men that fight the flames. Charioteers behind blood-horses bathed in foam; heads helmeted in flashing splendour; eyes all intent upon the track ahead, keen to anticipate the risks of headlong speed and warn the dilatory straggler from its path. Nearer and nearer—in a moment it will pass and take some road unknown to us, to say to fires that even now are climbing up through roof and floor, clasping each timber in ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... my dilatory disposition. I have written to you mentally at least once a day, and I hope you have mentally received the results—that is to say, have assured yourself of my goodwill to you, and I ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... then presented a series of recommendations designed to expedite business. One of the proposed changes provided that the chair should entertain no dilatory motions. Such motions, whose purpose was merely to obstruct action, had long been common. The Republicans were said to have alternated motions to adjourn and to fix a day for adjournment no less than one hundred and twenty-eight times in an attempt to defeat the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854. ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... 'twill be the same story To-morrow, and the next more dilatory, For indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! What you can do, or think you can, begin it! Only engage, and then the mind grows heated; Begin it, and the work will ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... less than a minute the troupe did indeed emerge, and old Snaggs expostulated with a dilatory public, respectfully but firmly. It had been a queer year for Mr Snaggs. Rain had ruined the Wakes; rain had ruined everything; rain had nearly ruined him. July was obviously not a month in which a self-respecting theatre ought to be open, but Mr Snaggs had got to the point of catching ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... bear the passengers' luggage to its destination, but stop—do not imagine every one rushes and tears about in Finland, and that a few minutes sufficed to clear the decks and quay. Far from it; we were among a Northern people proverbially as dilatory and slow as any Southern nation, for in the extreme North as in the extreme South time is not money—nay, more than that, time waits ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... dance attendance; kick one's heels, cool one's heels; faire antichambre [Fr.]; wait impatiently; await &c (expect) 507; sit up, sit up at night. Adj. late, tardy, slow, behindhand, serotine^, belated, postliminious^, posthumous, backward, unpunctual, untimely; delayed, postponed; dilatory &c (slow) 275; delayed &c v.; in abeyance. Adv. late; lateward^, backward; late in the day; at sunset, at the eleventh hour, at length, at last; ultimately; after time, behind time, after the deadline; too late; too late for &c 135. slowly, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... his lip hard. The maid-of-honour walked on, her head turned still farther away than before. They were nearing the station. Just ahead lay a turn in the road—the last turn. The rest of the party, with a shout back at this dilatory pair, disappeared around it. From the distance came the long, shrill whistle of ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... the tide had set in for church. It was a proper, dilatory tide. Every silk-hat glistened, every shoe was blacked, the flowers on the women's hats were as fresh as the daffodils against the house fronts. Few met face to face, now and then a faster walker would catch up with acquaintances and join them or, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... your own shipwreck connected with the safety of Mr Wilder?" demanded the governess, unable any longer to await the dilatory explanation of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... natural labour, neither will it be so easy as though she had completed her nine months. The second thing is, that it be speedy, and without any ill accident; for when the time of her birth come, nature is not dilatory in the bringing it forth, without some ill accident intervene, ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
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