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More "Insecure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pole slipped from its insecure support into the miry mud, and Frank, instead of landing on the hummock for which he had aimed, lost his direction, and soused flat on his side with a loud "spa-lash," in the water and mud ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... of his Commission appear to be highly punishable, if not a just ground for forfeiture of their Charter, more especially being conjoyned with this of a great many of that Colony, their keeping a continued Correspondence with the Pirates, which renders the fair Traders very uneasy, and insecure. All which I humbly submit to their Lordships Consideration, and pray for redress, suitable encouragement, and ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... was there, as the Markovitches had no children. Nicolai Leontievitch sat at a table under the little window, and his favourite position was to sit with the chair perched on one leg and so, rocking in this insecure position, he brooded over his bottles and glasses and trays. This room was so dark even in the middle of the day that he was often compelled to use a lamp. There he hovered, with his ragged beard, his ink-stained ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... to 1815 young La Baudraye added several plots to his vineyards, and devoted himself to the culture of the vine. The Restoration seemed to him at first so insecure that he dared not go to Paris to claim his debts; but after Napoleon's death he tried to turn his father's collection of autographs into money, though not understanding the deep philosophy which had thus mixed up I O U's and copies ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... insecure. Two bowshots south of Astley Church there stood in the park an old decaying tree, in the hollow of which the father of Lady Jane Grey concealed himself; and there, for two winter days and a night, he ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... workmanship. It is a kind of fear, which causes this sentiment of disapprobation; but the passion is not the same with that which we feel, when obliged to stand under a wall, that we really think tottering and insecure. The seeming tendencies of objects affect the mind: And the emotions they excite are of a like species with those, which proceed from the real consequences of objects, but their feeling is different. Nay, these emotions are so different in their feeling, that ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... to their fellow-citizens; and it would be easy for the governors, by appointing corrupt men as judges, to prevent the proper administration of justice by the courts, and thus to make men's lives and property insecure. Most Americans in 1750 felt this danger very keenly. They had not forgotten how, in the times of their grandfathers, two of the noblest of Englishmen, Lord William Russell and Colonel Algernon Sidney, had been ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... look; the rains and the streams have not yet carved them to their perfect shape. The forests spring like mushrooms from the unexhausted soil; and they are mown down yearly by the forest fires. We are in early geological epochs, changeful and insecure; and we feel, as with a sculptor's model, that the author may yet grow weary of and shatter ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... influences the movement of the animal by detracting from its firmness and practically weakening the entire frame, even to the extent of rendering him insecure on his feet and liable to fall. This condition of weakness is sometimes so pronounced that he is exposed to fall even when standing at rest and unmolested, the knees being unable even to bear their portion of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... Provisors,[86] but he allowed them to sink into disuse. He forbade the further mooting of the confiscation project; and to him is due the first permission of the bishops to send heretics to the stake.[87] If English tradition is to be trusted, the clergy still felt insecure; and the French wars of Henry V. are said to have been undertaken, as we all know from Shakspeare, at the persuasion of Archbishop Chichele, who desired to distract his attention from reverting to ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... by stipulating with the Court for our security without putting us in possession of it, and by ending the civil war in the confirmation of our slavery. "The Parliament," I said, "inclines to an insecure and scandalous peace. We can make the people rise to-morrow if we please; but ought we to attempt it? And if we divest the Parliament of its authority, into what an abyss of disorders shall we not precipitate ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... Children of the King in fetid slum and murky alleys, where the devil hath his many mansions, where light and air, the great purifiers, are already dimmed and corrupted before they do him service. He is insecure in the labor by which he lives. He works today, and tomorrow he may be told there is no further need for him, and his fate and the fate of those dependent on him are not remembered by those who dismissed him. If he dies, leaving ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... which the nature and circumstances of the case would admit. We have in no instance hitherto thought fit to dispense with the personal appearance and examination of the claimant, conceiving the inquiry would be extremely imperfect and insecure against fraud and misrepresentation if we had not the advantage of cross-examining the party himself, as well as his witnesses; nor have we, for the same reason, allowed much weight to any testimony that has not been delivered on oath before ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... anything else. What has made the path of faith a steep one to tread is partly that it has got terribly encumbered with ecclesiastical traditions; it has been mended, like the Slough of Despond, with cartloads of texts and insecure definitions. And partly too the old simple undisturbed faith in the absolute truth and authority of the Bible has given way. It is admitted that the Bible contains a considerable admixture of the legendary element; and ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the pursuit of happiness." In the very conquest for this baser type a man blights his sensibilities, minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if we are of this type, simply seeking ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... of their victim. They were mistaken. The new king, by this time, had forgotten even the existence of the favourite of the prince. But Guzman, who, while affecting to minister to the interests of Uzeda, was secretly aiming at the monopoly of the royal favour, felt himself insecure while Calderon yet lived. The operations of the Inquisition were too slow for the impatience of his fears; and as that dread tribunal affected never to inflict death until the accused had confessed his guilt, the firmness of Calderon baffled the vengeance of the ecclesiastical law. New inquiries ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... century. They were notorious in the eighteenth century for their lawlessness, and gave the imperial Mughal officers much trouble in the neighbourhood of Agra, rendering the communications between that city and Etawah insecure. In the Mutiny they broke out again, and are generally a turbulent, ill-conducted sept, always ready for petty acts of violence and cattle-stealing. They are, however, recognised as Rajputs of good position and intermarry with ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... please. To a simple play, adjusted to my primitive taste, I can bring a certain bucolic appreciation that enables me to extract from the performance the maximum of enjoyment; and when, on this occasion, the final curtain fell and the audience rose, I rescued my hat from its insecure resting-place and turned to go with the feeling that I had spent a ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... was left in 1521 to administer the State of Florence single-handed. He was archbishop, and he resided in the city, holding it with the grasp of an absolute ruler. Yet he felt his position insecure. The republic had no longer any forms of self-government; nor was there a magistracy to whom the despot could delegate his power in his absence. Giulio's ambition was fixed upon the Papal crown. The bastards he was rearing were but ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... took the following from Rev. William Ellery Channing: "Of modern civilization, the natural fruits are, contempt for others' rights, fraud, oppression, a gambling spirit in trade, reckless adventure and commercial convulsions, all tending to impoverish the laborer and render every condition insecure. Relief is to come, and can only come from the new application of Christian principles, of universal justice and universal love, to social institutions, to commerce, ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... who at length stalked away at the head of his men towards the fort, leaving Tom with the Malay girl and the party escorting her, and some of the men who had captured him. Still Tom felt his position very insecure. At any moment, should the pirates be defeated, they might, in revenge, put him to death, and even should Jull lose his life, Tom thought his protectress might probably turn against him from the same motive. He did his best, however, to ingratiate ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... indeed he thought, he could be sure Juan had not betray'd himself; in fact 'Twas certain that his conduct had been pure, Because a foolish or imprudent act Would not alone have made him insecure, But ended in his being found out and sack'd, And thrown into the sea.—Thus Baba spoke Of all save Dudu's dream, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... dear. And romantic people always prefer windows to doors and darkness to light. The windows here are so insecure," added Lady Garvington, glancing at the facade above her untidy hair. "He could easily get in by sticking a penknife in between the upper and lower sash of the window. It ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... other securities that Hallam deemed insecure, and by this time Hallam had begun to wonder what was the matter with Tandy. He knew, or thought he knew, that the man must have greatly more money invested somewhere than these things represented. He had a great curiosity to know what the other investments were, ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... the latter catastrophe in particular there was little immediate recognition. Even Seddon, the Secretary of War, in November, reported that "the communication with the Trans-Mississippi, while rendered somewhat precarious and insecure, is found by no means cut off or even seriously endangered." His report was the same sort of thing as those announcements of "strategic retreats" with which the world has since become familiar. He even went so far as to argue that on the whole ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... happiness, she threw herself down beside him and kissed his hands. And then, as he took no notice of all that, a slow astonishment came over her. Also, she had an insecure feeling that his ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... been annihilated. "As soon as we demand to pass beyond mere awareness to a genuine knowledge, we discover our deplorable poverty, and must confess that what is termed certain seems on clearer investigation to rest upon a totally insecure foundation."[75] "It is not natural science itself which leads to naturalism, for, indeed, no natural science could arise if reality exhausted itself in the measurements of naturalism; but it is rather the weakness of the conviction of the spiritual life; it is the failure of certitude ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... rough riding over the Rattlesnake Mountains, where often the indistinct trail led him through dark and narrow defiles, or along the brink of dangerous precipices, where the ground was of loose stones, perilously insecure. The mountain torrents, swollen by recent rains, had to be crossed unhesitatingly, and without the help of bridges. But all these dangers and difficulties were familiar to him, and he passed through ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... sweet? There is no new business, no foreign trade, sufficient to take up old obligations and renew those which are unpayable. Lessened incomes mean lessened consumption and lessened demand for goods. Hence the credit system is based on an uncertain and insecure foundation, dependent wholly upon contingencies far in the future which may, or may not, take the non-liquid assets out of cold storage and give ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... interview took place had a sordid and miserable look. Rotten, and covered with a thick coat of dirt, the boards of the floor presented a very insecure footing; the bare walls were scored all over with grotesque designs, the chief of which represented the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar. The rest were hieroglyphic characters, executed in red chalk and charcoal. The ceiling had, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... from a private station arrived at the empire by corrupting the soldiery. They sustained their elevation only by the pleasure and fortune of those who advanced them, two foundations equally uncertain and insecure. They had neither the experience nor the power necessary to maintain their position. For, unless men possess superior genius or courage, how can they know in what manner to govern others who have themselves always been accustomed to a private station? Deficient in knowledge, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... peace; and therefore they represent the opinions of the people. The people wish for peace—so do I! But for what peace? Not for a peace that is made to-day and will be broken to-morrow! Not for a peace that is more insecure and hazardous than war. Why did I wish for peace at Lisle? Because war was then more hazardous than peace; because it was necessary to give to the people a palpable proof of the necessity of the war, in order to their cordial concurrence with that ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... anticipated happened. Her foot slipped from its insecure rock hold and she stumbled. His arm was round her waist ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... she was reading a great deal. What a mess they had made of their affairs, she said. She had so little to do now that she spent her time imagining how differently things might have turned out. Her whole environment appeared insecure—and a few years back she had seemed to hold all the strings in her own ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... hastily and heedlessly, for the earth can show itself as unstable as the air, and our solid footing become as insecure as the deck of a ship laboring in a storm at sea. The powers of the atmosphere, great as they are and mighty for destruction as they may become, are at times surpassed by those which abide within the earth, deep laid in the so-called everlasting rocks, ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... Rob that he must guard the basket, and that they must sit still. "Goodbye, dears. Say a prayer for sister, Rob. If you ever see father and mother, tell them I took care of you." Then the water seized the insecure vessel, and out into the dark ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... feel, to understand the sacred words of progress, of people, of free brotherhood, but incapable of making himself their interpreter; fearful of the consequences, and trembling like one who feels himself insecure, lest he should see the people, raised to a new consciousness of its own faculties and of its own rights, question the authority of the pontificate—Pius IX. vacillated contemptibly between the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... attached to it, over-hanging the water. Above the doorway was placed a sign whereon might be read the words, "Beaver Beach, Mike's Place." The shore end of the pier was so ruinous that passage was offered by a single row of planks, which presented an appearance so temporary, as well as insecure, that one might have guessed their office to be something in the nature of a drawbridge. From these a narrow path ran through a marsh, left by the receding river, to a country road of desolate appearance. ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... walls with respect to apparent solidity and stability, it was found that nearly all are in fair or good condition. The only portion that would seem in special danger is the central section of the southern exterior wall. This section seems insecure, and might at any time be overthrown by a heavy wind following a rain storm. This section was not, unfortunately, braced or tied to the stronger interior wall when the protective works ...
— The Repair Of Casa Grande Ruin, Arizona, in 1891 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... what he sees, he sees with his whole soul: what he paints, he paints with his whole might. Sir Joshua sees partially, slightly, tenderly—catches the flying lights of things, the momentary glooms: paints also partially, tenderly, never with half his strength; content with uncertain visions, insecure delights; the truth not precious nor significant to him, only pleasing; falsehood also pleasurable, even useful on occasion—must, however, be discreetly touched, just enough to make all men noble, all women lovely: "we do ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... few days nothing happened; then, determined to set out on an expedition to La Mancha (the delay had been due to the insecure state of the roads), Borrow sent his passport (24th Nov.) for signature to ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... always to be met with in the doings of the man of effrontery, who only achieves by accident the goal he aims at, and then only in the most insecure way. ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... was at its height a year ago, the police authorities in more than one American city confessed their impotence to impose effective restraints. Life and property had seemingly become almost as insecure as during the ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... the second ruined pile that fronted the bay. The steps to the gaping entrance had rotted away and they were forced to mount an insecure side piece. The interior, as Woolfolk had seen, was composed of one high room, while, above, a narrow, open second story hung like a ledge. On both sides were long counters with mounting ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... look into it. As he lifted it towards him, it fell open, the mirror proper being fastened to a leather back, which was glued to the ivory, and formed a hinge. It fell open; and his grasp had been insecure; and the jerk as it opened was enough. It slipped from his fingers, and dropped with a crash upon ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... northern end of the island, and that an attack upon Paowang's tribe had been planned. The chief of the party into whose hands he had fallen was, he found, called Oamo; he appeared to be a fierce, sanguinary savage, and he felt that his own life, while he remained in the chief's power, was very insecure. So, finding that he could much more easily reach us than get back southward, and that his captors were less likely to look out for him on our side, he resolved to escape; and that very night ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... forestalled them, and hastened the event by a few seconds of time; and it was evident that had they shot the man instead—these reckless ruffians—they would have been equally disregardful of consequences— equally without remorse or regret. No wonder I felt that my life was insecure—no wonder my mind was filled ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... Rome, and my sister will follow him as soon as the weather will admit of her crossing the Alps with her babies. All his property is in the French funds, that seems an insecure security nowadays.... ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... have removed all their light-ships, all their buoys, and, like the French, the German ports are also defended by mines. An ironclad, given calm sea, is strong as against another ship, but the nature of its build makes it weak in a storm and in insecure waters. An ironclad, owing to its enormously heavy armament, goes to the bottom very rapidly, as soon as it gets a heavy list either on the one side or the other. Again, owing to its enormous weight, it can never ram another vessel for fear ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... not trouble you, perhaps, to see stone after stone, buttress after buttress, foundation after foundation, removed from the walls of Zion, until the whole structure trembles and totters, and is pronounced insecure. Your boasted unconcern is very little to the purpose, unless we may also know how dear to you the safety of Zion is. But if you make indignant answer,—(as would to Heaven you may!)—that your care for GOD'S honour, your ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... short sharp horns and a wicked look, which had been gradually, as was her wont, edging nearer and nearer to the corn, turned suddenly and ran for it, jumped the dyke, and plunging into a mad revelry of greed, tore and devoured with all the haste not merely of one insecure, but of one that knew she was stealing. Now Gibbie had been observant enough during his travels to learn that this was against the law and custom of the country—that it was not permitted to a cow to go into a field ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole was made; and, about midnight, the picture would be up - very crooked and insecure, the wall for yards round looking as if it had been smoothed down with a rake, and everybody dead beat and wretched ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... much more afraid of life than our ancestors, and cannot find it in our hearts either to marry or not to marry. Marriage is terrifying, but so is a cold and forlorn old age. The friendships of men are vastly agreeable, but they are insecure. You know all the time that one friend will marry and put you to the door; a second accept a situation in China, and become no more to you than a name, a reminiscence, and an occasional crossed letter, very laborious to read; a third will take up with some religious crotchet and treat you to ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... capital under such appellations as the "Metropolitan Co-operative" or the "Universal Supply Stores" endeavours to increase its display behind plate-glass windows of immodest size, the life of old buildings seems painfully insecure. ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... circumstances he could have bounded over it like a chamois, but he was weak now from hunger and fatigue; besides which, the wedge on which he stood was rotten, and might yield to his bound, while the opposite edge seemed insecure and might fail him, like the mass that had proved ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... Washington and Lee were held by the Americans, his movements were checked, and York Island insecure. With a view to the acquisition of these posts, he directed General Knyphausen to take possession of Kingsbridge, which was defended by a small party of Americans placed in fort Independence. On his approach, this party retreated to fort Washington; and Knyphausen encamped ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... had brought the feast to a sudden end, and the Kalevide consulted with his friends, and proposed to bury his treasure, thinking it might otherwise be insecure. So at dead of night the Kalevide, Alevide, and Sulevide dug a deep pit in a secret place. Then the Kalevide solemnly delivered over the treasure to Taara's protection, and declared that no one should obtain it but the son of a pure mother, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... had done his lordship's bidding, and Mr. Caryll stood weaponless amid his enemies. He mastered himself at once. Here it was plain that he must walk with caution, for the ground, he perceived, was of a sudden grown most insecure and treacherous. Rotherby and Green in league! It gave him matter for ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... never came to her, and as she stood listening her heart bled in anguish for the love that was no more. Could such love really die? she asked herself. If it could, then the vows Eberhard Ludwig had spoken were mockery. Had she built her life on so insecure a foundation? The whole fabric of her being was shattered. Her anguish was almost physical pain, and she knew why people said 'my heart bleeds,' for, of a truth, it seemed to her as though the strength ebbed ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... a jangling at the janitor's bell. Our opportunity for talk was slipping away. And we were both still undecided, both blunderingly nervous and insecure. We were hurried into clumsy phrases that afterwards we would have given ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... clamber up to yonder stone where the raven sits, and tell me what thou beholdest far away to the west?" Whereupon Wattie, who was agile enough, and anxious to help the stranger, began to climb up, stone by stone, the outer wall of the ruined fortress. A larger man might have felt giddy and insecure; but he, with his tiny figure, sprang from ledge to ledge so swiftly, holding firmly by the tufts of grass and the trailing ivy, that ere he had time to think of danger, he had reached the spot where, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... parable of wise and foolish virgins, some of whom happened to be asleep, and awoke at the critical hour to find that during the long night-watch for the bridegroom their store of oil had become exhausted? Surely tropes and parables are a highly insecure foundation whereon to build such a momentous teaching. Certainly, it is gravely questionable whether any direct statement in the Hebrew or Christian writings can be adduced to support the common notion ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... where slaves abound, when contrasted with those where very few are held. Who does not know that there are fewer deadly affrays in proportion to the white population—that law has more sway and that human life is less insecure in East Tennessee, where there are very few slaves, than in West Tennessee, where there are large numbers. This is true also of northern and western Virginia, where few slaves are held, when contrasted with eastern Virginia; where they abound; the same ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the chief's plans over; they're very insecure. It plays right into the hands of his enemies, too, and of course Gordon's press bureau will ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... enemies, the damps and frosts of the chill sea-air in that exposed situation might be death to him in his weak state; or whether he had better climb the next hill, and pierce the depth of some shady wood, in which he might find a warm and sheltered though insecure repose, subject to the approach of any wild beast that roamed that way. Best did this last course appear to him, though with some danger, as that which was more honourable and savoured more of strife and self-exertion, than to perish without ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... readers, according to his own account, began to say that the fellow could talk of nothing but the Union, and had grown mighty dull of late, Harley's position in the Ministry was gradually becoming very insecure. He was suspected of cooling in his zeal for the war, and of keeping up clandestine relations with the Tories; and when Marlborough returned from his campaign at the close of the year he insisted upon ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... which has been the home of the potter for ten centuries, is the most ancient of the Five Towns in Staffordshire. The boys, dressed for the most part in shirt, trousers, and boots, all equally ragged and insecure, were ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... is certain,—that in this political game the great lottery of power is that into which men will purchase with millions of chances against them. In Turkey, where the place, where the fortune, where the head itself are so insecure that scarcely any have died in their beds for ages, so that the bowstring is the natural death of bashaws, yet in no country is power and distinction (precarious enough, God knows, in all) sought for with such ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and chuckling negro, Tom and Ned went to the rather insecure stable where the mule Boomerang was kept. That is, the stable was insecure from the standpoint of a jail. But the sight of the giant Koku marching up and down in front of the place, armed with ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... of astounding success which members of that craft usually achieve. That is to say, he "found a clew." But you can't hang a "clew" for murder, and so after that detective had got through and gone home, Tom felt just as insecure as he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... escaped, meet them again in their course; they multiply and thicken on them; they are involved, through a labyrinth of confused detail, in an industry without limit, and without direction; and, in conclusion, the whole of their work becomes feeble, vicious, and insecure. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... think of desisting until we have imparted this quality to our laws; for it is ridiculous, after a great deal of labour has been spent, to place a thing at last on an insecure foundation. ...
— Laws • Plato
... of rebellion going too far. The barriers confronting it are too solid, and the Idol of the Herd is too carefully enshrined. A perpetual rebellion of every one against everything would give us an insecure, though exciting, existence, and we are protected by man's disposition to obedience and his solid love of custom. Against the first vedettes of rebellion the army of routine will always muster, and ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... be a welcome guarantee of his security when he had learned that Bernardo del Nero's head was off the shoulders. The new knowledge and new attitude towards him disclosed by Romola on the day of his return, had given him a new dread of the power she possessed to make his position insecure. If any act of hers only succeeded in making him an object of suspicion and odium, he foresaw not only frustration, but frustration under unpleasant circumstances. Her belief in Baldassarre had clearly determined her wavering feelings against further submission, and if ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... is hardly a shelter, but is allowed to remain in ruins because the foundation of a frame house was once dug. A horse is always sure to be lame for want of a shoe nail, or a saddle to be useless from a broken buckle, and the wagon and harness are a marvel of temporary shifts, patchings, and insecure linkings with strands of rope. Nothing is ever ready or whole when it is wanted. Yet Chalmers is a frugal, sober, hard-working man, and he, his eldest son, and a "hired man" "Rise early," "going forth ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... Insecure in the hearts of his people, uncertain even of the continued favor of the volatile monster who was lounging then in his Caprian retreat, it was with the idea of pleasing the one, of flattering the other, that he had instituted the games. For here in his brand-new Tiberias, ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... afraid to lower myself, anyhow," he observes, for he has the notion that everything about the Africa is insecure. ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... an account of what had happened in Paris. He informed me that Napoleon was much agitated on perusing them, and that he launched into abuse of the inefficiency of the police. Rapp added that he did not confine himself to complaints against the agents of his authority. "Is, then, my power so insecure," said he, "that it may be put in peril by a single individual, and a prisoner? It would appear that my crown is not fixed very firmly on my head if in my own capital the bold stroke of three adventurers can shake it. Rapp, misfortune ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... for the first time, solidity is the word which comes naturally to his mind, as expressive of every thing around him, has only the look of what she was in her days of greatness, and on the surface of the earth there is not to-day a more unsteady, shaky, insecure spot, scarcely worthy of being chosen by a nomad Tartar as a place wherein to pitch his tent for the night, and hurry off at the first appearance of the rising sun on the morrow. Can the shifting sands of Libya, the ever-shaking volcanic mountains ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... closed—their small stock of furniture and provisions unpacked, and a couch prepared for Mary, now far too feeble to sit up. The members of the safe and happy party gathered about the hearth, and discussed hopefully their future prospects. Dr. Bryant raised his eyes to the somewhat insecure roof, through which the light of day ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... Marie and I have gone over and over the same reasoning, trying to get at why we were arrested. To write it all out may help the restlessness and anxiety and—yes—the panicky fear that rises in my throat like nausea. Life is so terribly insecure. I feel as though I had been stripped naked and turned out into the streets, with no person ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... country's expense; and so it is with all the other monopolists, they naturally unite together, and it requires their mutual aid and all their combined power and influence to preserve a system which they know stands upon rather an insecure foundation, and if once broken in upon would soon fall to pieces; and thus it is that we are subjected to the sugar monopoly, and though it is manifestly our interest to buy this important necessary of life (as well as every other) ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... of the Wilson-Gorman act was declared null and void. Probably no decision since the Dred Scott case, with the single exception of the Legal Tender cases, has put the Supreme Court in so unfortunate a light. Certainly in none has it seemed more swayed by class prejudice, and so insecure and vacillating ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... glanced at herself in the glass, mocked her own radiant beauty of face and form and dress. Not really a full human being; merely a decoration. No more; and no worse off than most of the women everywhere, the favorites licensed or unlicensed of law and religion. But just as badly off, and just as insecure. Free! No rest, no full breath until freedom had been won! At any cost, by straight way ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... their military expeditions against each other. In consequence of the almost continued hostilities between the northern and southern Indians, these expeditions were very frequent, and tended somewhat to retard the settlement of the valley, and render a residence in it, for some time, insecure and unpleasant. Between the Alleghany mountains and the Ohio river, within the present limits of Virginia, there were some villages interspersed, inhabited by small numbers of Indians; the most [40] of whom retired north west of that river, as ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... fair-haired boy of seventeen, sauntering into his sister's room and taking a somewhat insecure seat upon a fancy table, where, with hands in pockets, he regarded her quizzically. "Great Scott, what a turn out! You look like a magician in the midst of a magic circle. Are you going to witch the ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... vengeance for his brother, and of the execution and banishment of a large number of persons, Hippias became a distrusted and an embittered man. About three years after the death of Hipparchus, finding his position in the city insecure, he set about fortifying Munichia, with the intention of establishing himself there. While he was still engaged on this work, however, he was expelled by Cleomenes, king of Lacedaemon, in consequence of the Spartans being continually incited by oracles to overthrow the ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... wholesome warning to other unwelcome prophets. Its subsequent history was uneventful until the Civil War, when it was greatly enlarged and strengthened, occupying the upper part of the hill overlooking the village. Now it is ruined in every part: the entrance-gateway leans over and is insecure, the walls are rent, and the towers shattered, while the keep is but a broken shell, with one side entirely gone. This destruction was done in the Civil War, when Corfe was held for King Charles. In 1643, when the ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... Delphic oracle had declared to be her hope in the Persian invasion. The victory at Salamis had confirmed the wisdom of the prediction, and given to Athens an imperishable glory. Themistocles persuaded his countrymen that the open roadstead of Phalerum was insecure, and induced them to inclose the more spacious harbors of Peireus and Munychia, by a wall as long as that which encircled Athens itself,—so thick and high that all assault should be hopeless, while within its fortifications the combined fleets of Greece could ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... statutes, fines, pains, and penalties were reasonable and not repugnant to law. [Footnote: History of Tiverton, App. 5.] The foreign trading company was an offshoot of the guild, and was intended to protect commerce. Obviously some such organization must have been necessary, for, if property was insecure within the realm, it was far more exposed without; and, indeed, in the fourteenth century, English merchants domiciled on the Continent could hardly have been safer than Europeans are now who garrison the so-called factories upon ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... this southern country, makes the worst roads for travel. The rain erodes it into the oddest of forms, leaving projecting ridges almost as sharp as knife-edges, with irregular hollows pitting the surface, so that it forms a most insecure and unpleasant foot-hold for the animals. Not only so, but the surface, rough as it is, is frequently as polished as glass, and, whether wet or dry, is slippery to the tread. Walking over these jagged surfaces of limestone is destructive to any ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... egoism might have got fresh books somehow from somewhere, had she really believed in the virtue of books. Thus far, however, books had not furnished her with what she wanted, and her faith in their promise was insecure. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... to the perpetual wars and feuds amongst the chieftains and tribes in these parts, and the bad and unsettled governments which now exist in Tigre, and, in fact, in all Abyssinia. Travelling in these parts is difficult and insecure, owing to the plundering dispositions of the people, and the rapacity of the chiefs, who live beyond the control of any commanding or great sovereign power. At Gatera Mr Krapf was robbed of every ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... graves, we say? it shall be testified That living men who burn in heart and brain, Without the dead were colder. If we tried To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure The future would not stand. Precipitate This old roof from the shrine, and, insecure, The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate. How scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer! The tall green poplars grew no longer straight Whose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight For Athens, and not swear by Marathon? Who dared build temples, without tombs in sight? Or live, without ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... hurricane-like, fled toward the east. But that division which had been despatched for that purpose, rushed to meet them; but by dint of superior fighting and the greater weight of the horses, they fell in a moment like flax before a storm. The road to the castle was open, but escape thither was insecure and too far away, because the Zmudzian horses were fleeter than those of the Germans. The blue knight was quite aware ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of great antiquity, like the stately remains which crown the Crag of Cashel; others built by the early English conquerors; others, and probably the greater part, erections of the times of Elizabeth and Cromwell. The whole speaking monuments of the troubled and insecure state of the country, from the most remote periods to ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... headed. Reaching them they entrenched themselves in what they could not but feel was an immensely insecure position. ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... and been returned by them for revision by the duke, and the softening of its rather uncourtly decisiveness of expression. It stated, that even the conquest of France, if it could be effected, must be wholly useless without the conciliation of the people: that it must be insecure, that it never could be complete, and that even the attempt might rouse this powerful people to feel its own force, and turn its vast resources to war. The first measure ought, therefore, to be an address to the nation, pronouncing, in the clearest language, an utter ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... description of the woman like one of those anatomical zodiacs in the Farmers' Almanac." She turned her horse, without warning, through a break in the fence; and, putting him at a smart run, jumped a stream with a high insecure bank beyond, and went with a pounding rush up a sharp incline. He followed, but more conservatively; and, at the solid fence she next took, he shouted that she'd have to continue on ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... answer was an incredulous laugh, and an instant later the man's shoulder struck the panels with a crash that cracked one of them and partly tore the bolt from its insecure fastenings. ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... is a parallelism even in respect of the exceptions to this automatic action. For in the individual creature it happens that under circumstances of sudden alarm, as from a loud sound close at hand, an unexpected object starting up in front, or a slip from insecure footing, the danger is guarded against by some quick involuntary jump, or adjustment of the limbs, which occurs before there is time to consider the impending evil and take deliberate measures to avoid ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... miles of the journey he earned his four francs. Twice he reshifted the pack because Constance thought it insecure (it was a disgracefully unprofessional pack; most guides would have blushed at the making of it); once he retraced their path some two hundred yards in search of a veil she thought she had dropped—it turned out that she had had it in her pocket ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... annihilated. "As soon as we demand to pass beyond mere awareness to a genuine knowledge, we discover our deplorable poverty, and must confess that what is termed certain seems on clearer investigation to rest upon a totally insecure foundation."[75] "It is not natural science itself which leads to naturalism, for, indeed, no natural science could arise if reality exhausted itself in the measurements of naturalism; but it is rather the weakness of the conviction of the spiritual life; it is the failure ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... Cavour nor the work of Garibaldi were more necessary than his. But the failure of Louis Philippe to use his reserve power as constitutional monarch is the most instructive proof how great that reserve power is. In February, 1848, Guizot was weak because his tenure of office was insecure. Louis Philippe should have made that tenure certain. Parliamentary reform might afterwards have been conceded to instructed opinion, but nothing ought to have been conceded to the mob. The Parisian populace ought to have been put ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... last century life and property were insecure, and men went armed in daylight in the streets of Pachuca even in 1890. At Guanajuato the English company which had acquired the great Valenciana and La Luz mines worked them successfully for years, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... deserves a few words of description. He found Thebes in a state of anarchy; civil war raged on every side; all the traditions of the past were forgotten; noble fought against noble; the poor were oppressed; life and property were alike insecure; "there was stability of fortune neither for the ignorant nor for the learned man." One night, after he had lain down to sleep, he found himself attacked in his bed-chamber; the clang of arms sounded near at ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... done his lordship's bidding, and Mr. Caryll stood weaponless amid his enemies. He mastered himself at once. Here it was plain that he must walk with caution, for the ground, he perceived, was of a sudden grown most insecure and treacherous. Rotherby and Green in league! It gave ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... government. By the cession of this island, all future attempts of the Chinese government to prevent the introduction of opium are frustrated. Previously, those who dealt in this article were confined to the insecure depot of a receiving vessel, liable to attack, fire, and wreck. Now they possess an island capable of a strong defence, where the opium can be imported in any quantity, under the protection of the English flag, and from whence it can be exported at leisure to any point in China. ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... amazed to find the men tattooed; polite Italians came not long ago to England and found our fathers stained with woad; and when I paid the return visit as a little boy, I was highly diverted with the backwardness of Italy: so insecure, so much a matter of the day and hour, is the pre-eminence of race. It was so that I hit upon a means of communication which I recommend to travellers. When I desired any detail of savage custom, or of ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He forbade the further mooting of the confiscation project; and to him is due the first permission of the bishops to send heretics to the stake.[87] If English tradition is to be trusted, the clergy still felt insecure; and the French wars of Henry V. are said to have been undertaken, as we all know from Shakspeare, at the persuasion of Archbishop Chichele, who desired to distract his attention from reverting to dangerous subjects. Whether this be true or not, no prince of the house ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... tenants. I pleaded hard to be removed to these apartments altogether,—to be allowed to sleep there, as well as to pass the days there. As it was merely for the non-payment of a sum of money that I was held, I thought I had a right to be treated as a debtor. But those apartments were so insecure, that the keepers did not care to trust me there ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... the world might lead her to exaggerate Maurice's misdoings. And for herself and Stephen, no less than for her father, Maurice was still the darling and Benjamin of the family, commended to them by a precious mother whose death had left the whole moral structure of their common life insecure. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... San Gabriel, overlooking the lowland vines and fruit groves, Mother Nature is most ruggedly, thornily savage. Not even in the Sierra have I ever made the acquaintance of mountains more rigidly inaccessible. The slopes are exceptionally steep and insecure to the foot of the explorer, however great his strength or skill may be, but thorny chaparral constitutes their chief defense. With the exception of little park and garden spots not visible in comprehensive views, the entire surface is covered with it, from the highest ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... mow, reap. seguida f. continuation; en —— forthwith, immediately. seguir follow, succeed, pursue, go on, continue. segn prep. according to. segundo, -a second. seguro, -a secure, safe, confident, certain, unfailing, stanch; mal —— unsafe, insecure. seis card. six. sellar seal, cover. sello m. seal, stamp, mark. semblante m. countenance, face. semejante adj. similar, like, resembling. semejar resemble, be like. sempiterno, -a eternal. Sena pr. n. f. Siena. seno m. bosom, breast, depths. sensacin f. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... throughout the season there had been dancing in the great hall;—there was dancing that night also. The population of the hotel had been augmented by the advent of families from other parts of the island, who found their summer cottages insecure places of shelter: there were nearly four hundred guests assembled. Perhaps it was for this reason that the entertainment had been prepared upon a grander plan than usual, that it assumed the form of a ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... up your final doubt. Does not the admission of such an unguaranteed chance or freedom preclude utterly the notion of a Providence governing the world? Does it not leave the fate of the universe at the mercy of the chance-possibilities, and so far insecure? Does it not, in short, deny the craving of our nature for an ultimate peace behind all tempests, for a blue zenith ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... bring on shore many articles of infinite value to us, which, if we do not now recover, we may finally lose entirely. On the other hand, I feel that there is an immense deal to be done on shore, and that I ought not to leave you in such an insecure shelter as this tent." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the carcass of the dead whale. Nor was it to be done without danger. The slippery epidermis of the huge leviathan,—lubricated as it was with that unctuous fluid which the skin of the sperm-whale is known to secrete,— rendered footing upon it extremely insecure. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... mosque, but I regard it also as something which actually protects me; as something which conserves my life and prolongs my youth. I would not suffer any one to change it in the least, and should it be demolished I would feel as if the very supports under my life were insecure. May it not be because certain things persist, and are known to us throughout our lives, that we borrow from thence delusions in regard to our own stability and our own continuance. Seeing that they abide we suppose that we cannot change ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... distant but lower spot, such as is found to have led from the Broad Moor Collieries to Cinderford, a mile and upwards in length. The shaft of the pit was made of a square form, in order that its otherwise insecure sides might be the better supported by suitable woodwork, which being constructed in successive stages was occasionally used as a ladder, the chief difficulty being found in keeping the workings free from water, which in wet seasons not ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... myself. I seem to be a consciousness, vague and insecure, placed between two worlds. One of these worlds seems clearly "not me," the other is more closely identified with me and yet is still imperfectly me. The first I call the exterior world, and it presents itself to me as existing in Time and ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... situation was fast becoming tragic; but Louise gathered herself up anew and turned to the right, only to plunge in deeper than before; to the left, to meet with the same fate. Desperately she tried one spot after another. Now painfully scrambling to an insecure footing on top of the crust, now violently descending into the depths again, until the snow about her was marked thick with deep, round holes, and her feet were drenched and well-nigh frozen with the icy water which trickled up and down inside her shoes, as she lifted ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... very purpose of one's existence—"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In the very conquest for this baser type a man blights his sensibilities, minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if we are of this type, simply seeking the Golden Fleece for ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... programme, for he realized that the one is lasting, the other shifting. He knew that if you stand on sound footing and look at a subject from the true angle, you may safely modify your plan of action as often and as rapidly as may be necessary to fit changing conditions. But if your footing is insecure or your angle of vision distorted, the most attractive programme in the world may come to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... captain writhed uneasily, not so much with mental anguish as on account of the rheumatic twinges which his cramped position had set to running up and down his legs and back. Then, with a close fidelity to the old histories, an imposing throne was brought in, and Jean, as Powhatan, mounted the insecure structure; two stones were rolled into place at her feet, the captives' heads were arranged on these comfortless pillows, and a brave, ball-club in hand, took his place beside each. The sailor proved ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... wanting. Even his choice of a site is justified by results, although earlier accounts unanimously agree in saying it was little better than a swamp. That such descriptions of the place were true is evident enough; the subsidence of the tower piers show that their foundation was insecure, and the curious feature of a continuous base to the piers of the nave prove also that provision was taken from the first to overcome this obstacle. We have frequent records of floods to the extent at times of causing the daily service to be suspended owing to ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... Miss Gregg with, unlimited facilities for meeting Billy, who was always running over from Medlicott to the White House. Miss Gregg's passion for young Billy hung by so slender, so nervous, and so insecure a thread that it required the continual support of conversation with an experienced and sympathetic friend. Miss Gregg had never known anybody so sympathetic and so experienced as Mrs. Levitt. The first time they were alone together she had seen ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... it seemed to her that to tackle Mrs. Considine in her husband's house was dangerous, that it would give to Gabrielle an unreasonable but inevitable advantage. At Lapton Mrs. Payne felt she was a stranger, insecure of her ground, and therefore in an inferior position; and this struck her more forcibly when she reflected that, though she was confident of the rightness of her conclusions, the actual evidence that she possessed was extremely small. She admitted to herself that it would be difficult to carry ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... happy one, for we children were fond of one another and all loved the father and mother who worked so hard for us. We were the first to realize that our home was insecure, upheld by a single prop, our father's labor. The breaking of his right arm might have broken up our home. We wanted to acquire property so that mother would be safe. For we knew that God was a just God. He did not ordain that one class should labor and be insecure while ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... the abolitionists of an adjoining state, not contented with the mere promulgation of opinions and views calculated to excite a feeling of disaffection among our slave population, and to render this description of property insecure in the hands of its proprietors, have extended their operations so far as to mingle personally with our slaves, to enter into arrangements with them, and to afford them the means and facilities to escape from their owners. This flagitious conduct is not to be ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... form and dress. Not really a full human being; merely a decoration. No more; and no worse off than most of the women everywhere, the favorites licensed or unlicensed of law and religion. But just as badly off, and just as insecure. Free! No rest, no full breath until freedom had been won! At any cost, by straight ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... I don't think you can question. But I didn't experience it; I merely observed it. We were coming down the stairs to take our hack at the foot of the pier, and an elderly lady who was coming down with us found the footing a little insecure. The man in charge bade her be careful, and then she turned upon him in severe reproof, and scolded him well. She told him that he ought to have those stairs looked after, for otherwise somebody would be killed one of these days. ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... the other about three miles more inland, and parallel to it: these are covered thickly with trees, and are of loosely-coherent granite: many villages are in the space enclosed by these ranges, but all insecure. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... Bernardone, was a wealthy cloth-merchant. We know how different was the life of the merchants of that period from what it is to-day. A great portion of their time was spent in extensive journeys for the purchase of goods. Such tours were little short of expeditions. The roads being insecure, a strong escort was needed for the journey to those famous fairs where, for long weeks at a time, merchants from the most remote parts of Europe were gathered together. In certain cities, Montpellier for example, the fair was perpetual. Benjamin of Tudela shows us that city frequented by ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... the church of the monastery to which William the Conqueror was carried, out of the noise and the feverish air of the great city, to die, and which witnessed the strange struggle, in his last moments, between his rapacious passions and his late-awakened remorse. So insecure was the state of society, that, when he whose iron hand had preserved order among his feudal nobles had expired, those about him fled to their strongholds in expectation of a general anarchy. Government was still only personal: law had not yet been enthroned in the minds of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... however, the Natives again felt that the outbreak was only a matter of days. In the country, especially the Orange "Free" State, our people are helplessly mixed up with the Boers, and it can readily be understood that they felt somewhat insecure, notwithstanding the Government's assurances. One native farmer sent the following letter to ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... settled intention of the Eastern Kalmucks might not have been suddenly interrupted by adverse intelligence. Others have supposed that the ice might not be equally strong on both sides of the river, and might even be generally insecure for the treading of heavy and heavily-laden animals such as camels. But the prevailing notion is, that some accidental movements on the 3d and 4th of January of Russian troops in the neighborhood of the Western Kalmucks, though really having no reference to ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... this country town. The Albergo di Pompeii is a truly sumptuous place. Sofas, tables, and chairs in our sitting-room are made of buffalo horns, very cleverly pieced together, but torturing the senses with suggestions of impalement. Sitting or standing, one felt insecure. When would the points run into us? when should we begin to break these incrustations off? and would the whole fabric crumble at a touch into chaotic heaps ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... was found that they were not sufficient to make a warlike entry. A fort was built there, and a request for more men sent to Lao. In the meantime, secret letters were despatched to probe the hearts of the leading men. The men from Lao delayed, and no answers were received to the letters. Feeling insecure in that place, they deliberated upon returning to Lao, but at this juncture news arrived from Ocuna Lacasamana, one of the Malays who had fortified himself in his own land, saying that he was on their ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... victim. They were mistaken. The new king, by this time, had forgotten even the existence of the favourite of the prince. But Guzman, who, while affecting to minister to the interests of Uzeda, was secretly aiming at the monopoly of the royal favour, felt himself insecure while Calderon yet lived. The operations of the Inquisition were too slow for the impatience of his fears; and as that dread tribunal affected never to inflict death until the accused had confessed his guilt, the firmness of Calderon baffled the vengeance ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... persecution of the best citizens may leave the masses content, and, in fact, at least in the capital, the basso popolo was royalist, as was the scarcely less ignorant nobility. The bulk of the clergy and the army was also loyal. All this support made the Bourbon regime look not insecure to those on the spot, who failed to understand the complete rottenness of ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... commented the fair-haired boy of seventeen, sauntering into his sister's room and taking a somewhat insecure seat upon a fancy table, where, with hands in pockets, he regarded her quizzically. "Great Scott, what a turn out! You look like a magician in the midst of a magic circle. Are you going to witch the lot into newts and toads? Whence this thusness? ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Survey of it—a Survey which, meseemed, it would have been well had Others made with similar Attentiveness—I found that the Arch thereof looked shaky and insecure; moreover, that a Great and Irregular-shaped Cleft or Crack ran, after the fashion of a Lightning-flash in a Painted Sea-scape, athwart the structure thereof from Keystone to Coping. As I was regarding ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... strength, flexibility, and tenaciousness, was the very hardest physical performance I ever accomplished, for, besides being unable to get a firm grip on it, I found, to my dismay, that the great pillar I clung to was insecure in its position, and threatened to fall and crush me beneath its weight. And as inch by inch I slowly and persistently worked my way upward and outward, so inch by inch did it slowly, but surely, work its way downward. Passing my feet and legs beyond the brink of the opening, I doubled myself ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... through his light sleep, had a consciousness of holding on to himself, refusing to think, refusing angrily to fear. The sleep seemed to him like a thin, slippery coating over gulfs unplumbed; it was insecure, yet it failed to let him down into blessed depths of oblivion below. But he would not think to no purpose (he had a dread of the wild, disordered clacking of the wheels in unproductive thought), and he would not invite again ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... awful chasms and precipices among the mountains, and saw the turbid torrents descending from them, their fears revived. It was, however, now too late to retreat. They pressed forward, ascending continually, till their road grew extremely precipitous and insecure, threading its way through almost impassable defiles, with rugged cliffs overhanging them, and ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Scoodrach to Kenneth; but the latter could not pull for laughing. And besides, he had the whole of the young gillie's weight to bear, while his foothold was exceedingly insecure. ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... for the new life," he echoed and stood up. Father and daughter regarded each other warily, each more than a little insecure with the other. He made a movement toward her, and then recalled the circumstances of their last conversation in that study. She saw his purpose and his doubt hesitated also, and then went to him, took his coat lapels, and kissed him on ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... over-hanging the water. Above the doorway was placed a sign whereon might be read the words, "Beaver Beach, Mike's Place." The shore end of the pier was so ruinous that passage was offered by a single row of planks, which presented an appearance so temporary, as well as insecure, that one might have guessed their office to be something in the nature of a drawbridge. From these a narrow path ran through a marsh, left by the receding river, to a country road of desolate appearance. Here there was a rough enclosure, or corral, with some tumble-down ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... disadvantage that might have rendered all his strength and address unavailing, had not the foliage and the lesser branches of the tree, interfered with the swing of the long and heavy weapon of his adversary, and the footing being too insecure to permit it to be used with full effect. As Browne steadied himself and drew back for a sweeping blow, Atollo shook the boughs upon which he stood, so violently, as greatly to break the force of the stroke, which he ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... all churches were not the same, which really means, you of course understand-"all churches are not of my denomination." And so, in spite of her regard for the printer, she could not bring herself to link her destiny with one whose eternal future was so insecure, and whose life did not chord with that which was to her, the one great keynote of the universe, the church. And then, too, does not the good book say: "Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers." What could that mean if not, "Do ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... calculations of self-interest were softened by their surroundings; which shows, like many another chapter in history, that in the mighty impulses which guide the destinies of nations, the heart is above the head. The advocates of slavery felt insecure because they knew that even if legally right they were divinely and humanly wrong. They were not satisfied to have the Free States acquiescent and even submissive; they were determined, in their fever of unrest, to drive freedom to the wall, and to make the people of the North slave-catchers, ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... doctrine of evolution, as applied to the organic world, took in Darwin's hands, would prove to be final or not, was, to me, a matter of indifference. In my earliest criticisms of the 'Origin' I ventured to point out that its logical foundation was insecure so long as experiments in selective breeding had not produced varieties which were more or less infertile; and that insecurity remains up to the present time. But, with any and every critical doubt which my sceptical ingenuity could suggest, the Darwinian hypothesis remained incomparably ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... and her counsellors did not wish to go so far. They remarked that to declare a Parliament invalid for some errors of form was a step of such consequence as to make the whole government of the nation insecure. But even without this it was not the Queen's purpose merely to revert to the forms which had been adopted under her brother. She did not share all the opinions and doctrines which had then obtained the upper hand: ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... find them generally upon acquaintance very amiable. But all this was different with the Italians: they had known, seen, and felt tyrants, both foreign and domestic, of every kind; spies and informers had helped to make their restricted lives anxious and insecure; and priests had leagued themselves with the police and the oppressors until the Church, which should have been kept a sacred refuge from all the sorrows and wrongs of the world, became the most dreadful of its prisons. ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... passed large groups of pretty girls. He felt very light and insecure in his new gun-metal-finish pumps now that he had taken off his rubbers and essayed the slippery floor. He tried desperately not to use his handkerchief too conspicuously, though ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... by glaciers are sometimes called erratics. Such are the bowlders of the drift of our northern states. Erratics may be set down in an insecure position on the melting ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... and tedious. Even Omar, who had commenced by running up like a squirrel in his eagerness to gain the land from which he had so long been absent, was soon compelled to pause and steady himself, or he would assuredly have been jerked from his insecure position. ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... shelves, and as I turn the crackling, stained, irregular pages—it may be a volume of controversial divinity or outworn philosophy—it seems impossible to imagine that it can ever have been woven out of the live brain of man, or that any one can ever have been found to follow those old, vehement, insecure arguments, starting from unproved data, and leading to erroneous and fanciful conclusions. The whole thing seems so faded, so dreary, so remote from reality, that one cannot even dimly imagine the frame ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the French army before Milan was now becoming more and more, not insecure only, but critical. Bonnivet considered it his duty to abandon it and fall back towards Piedmont, where he reckoned upon finding a corps of five thousand Swiss who were coming to support their compatriots engaged in the service ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the middle of it, where we moored, we were barely an arrow's flight from the shore, in every direction but that which led to the narrow entrance. It was a most secure anchorage, as against the dangers of the sea, but a most insecure one as against the dangers of the savages. This we all felt, as soon as our anchors were down; but, intending to remain only while we bartered for the skins which we had been told were ready for ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... cause for this invasion of the rights and authority of the Government of the United States? The cause alleged is that the institutions of the Southern States are not safe under the Federal Government. What evidence has been presented that they are insecure? I appeal to every man within the sound of my voice to tell me at what period from the time that Washington was inaugurated down to this hour, have the rights of the Southern States—the rights of the slave-holders—been more secure than they are at this ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... his own account, or in lending it to others to be so employed, there is always some additional risk over and above that incurred by keeping it idle in his own custody. This extra risk is great in proportion as the general state of society is insecure: it may be equivalent to twenty, thirty, or fifty per cent, or to no more than one or two; something however, it must always be; and for this the expectation of profit ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... her progress was sober, even stately. But soon, either from the steep, insecure nature of the ground or from less obvious and material cause, her pace quickened until it became a run. She ran neatly, deftly, all of a piece as a boy runs, no trace of disarray or feminine floundering in her action. More than ever, indeed, did she appear a fine nymph-like ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... but was a liberal contributor to the funds of the cathedral. The Dean, John Barwick, was a good musician, and restored the choir of the cathedral to decent and orderly condition. But it was soon found that the building was in an insecure, indeed dangerous condition, and it became a pressing duty to put it in safe order. Inigo Jones had died in 1652, and the Dean, Sancroft, who had succeeded Barwick in 1664, called on Dr. Christopher Wren to survey the cathedral and ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... been severely blamed for planning the entire reconstruction of his cathedral. It must, however, be urged in his defence that the structure had already, in 1447, been pronounced insecure. Nicholas V. ordered his architects, Bernardo Rossellini and Leo Battista Alberti, to prepare plans for its restoration. It is, of course, impossible for us to say for certain whether the ancient fabric could have been preserved, or whether its dilapidation ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... appeared to our eyes, loosening fragments of the crumbling rocks as they came, now poised upon some narrow shelf and preparing for the next leap, zigzagging or plunging straight down till the bottom was reached, and not one accident or misstep amid all that insecure footing. I think the President was the most pleased of us all; he laughed with the delight of it, and quite forgot his need of a hat and coat till I sent ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... it shall be testified That living men who burn in heart and brain, Without the dead were colder. If we tried To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure The future would not stand. Precipitate This old roof from the shrine, and, insecure, The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate. How scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer! The tall green poplars grew no longer straight Whose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight For Athens, and not ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... captain, who at length stalked away at the head of his men towards the fort, leaving Tom with the Malay girl and the party escorting her, and some of the men who had captured him. Still Tom felt his position very insecure. At any moment, should the pirates be defeated, they might, in revenge, put him to death, and even should Jull lose his life, Tom thought his protectress might probably turn against him from the same motive. He did his best, however, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... the sovereign in the elevation of those able servants of the crown. The consequence was, success in all the enterprises of Catharine, the rapid advance of the nation in European influence, the establishment of an insecure throne on the strongest footing of public security, the popularity of a despotism, the comparative civilization of a people half Asiatic, and who but half a century before had been barbarians, and the personal attachment ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... black, clumsy images pinned to the blazing whiteness hurled by radionic tubes against the back wall of snowy marble from Mars' arctic quarries. Besides, that glass, proof though it was against anything but an atomic explosion, still made every true art lover feel disquietingly insecure. ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... counting the money came round, it was found that the walls were so insecure that there was danger of their giving way and crushing some of the clerks under the weight of ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 30, June 3, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... it. All this would be proved by unimpeachable witnesses. The attorney added that the duty of the jury, however painful it might be, would be plain and simple. They were citizens, husbands, perhaps fathers. They knew how insecure life had become in the metropolis. Tomorrow our own wives might be widows, their own children orphans, like the bereaved family in yonder hotel, deprived of husband and father by the jealous hand of some murderous female. The attorney sat down, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... i. 5.) The disturbances in the Roman State had encouraged these freebooters in their depredations. Caesar, when a young man, fell into their hands (Life of Caesar, c. 1); and also P. Clodius. The insecure state of Italy is shown by the fact of the pirates even landing on the Italian coast, and seizing the Roman magistrates, Sextilius and Bellienus. Cicero in his oration in favour of the Lex Manilia (c. 12, c. 17, &c.) gives some particulars of the excesses of the pirates. Antonia, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... each other, and that he was right in saying no past folly could ever put them asunder. If there was a shade of difference in her feeling for him it was that of an added intensity. She felt restless, insecure out of his sight: she had a sense of incompleteness, of passionate dependence, that was somehow at variance with her own conception ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... pluralism. Its world is always vulnerable, for some part may go astray; and having no 'eternal' edition of it to draw comfort from, its partisans must always feel to some degree insecure. If, as pluralists, we grant ourselves moral holidays, they can only be provisional breathing-spells, intended to refresh us for the morrow's fight. This forms one permanent inferiority of pluralism ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... chapter of history; or was it his own future of which he was thinking,—a future which, to the world, must seem so full of brilliant possibilities, and yet which he himself must feel to be so fatally and miserably insecure? ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... His insecure position in life, as one dependent upon the bounty of friends, had hitherto oppressed Tegner, and at times made him moody and despondent. He had felt impelled, in justice to himself and to satisfy the expectations of his patrons, ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... seaports along the African coast of the Mediterranean were the hives of pirates, whose small rapid vessels were the terror of every unarmed ship that sailed in those waters, and whose descents upon the coasts of Spain, France, and Italy rendered life and property constantly insecure. A regular system of kidnapping prevailed; prisoners had their fixed price, and were carried off to labour in the African dockyards, or to be chained to the benches of the Moorish ships which their oars propelled, until either a ransom could be procured from their friends, or they ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lit a small lamp, which proved insufficient, and Mr. Ottinger brought a second from his quarters. Gordon found himself in a long, narrow chamber furnished with two wooden beds, two identical, insecure bureaus, stands with wash basins and pitchers, and a table. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, were resinous yellow pine, and gave out a hot, dry smell from which there was no escape but the door, for the room was ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... in discovering that his position was insecure, and incapable of being made safe. Whatever policy he might adopt—and he was disposed, it appears, to govern wisely and well—was sure to displease some of his subjects; and in the hands of a hostile faction, his want of hereditary claim ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... yes! C'est l'amour! The most mysterious of all mysteries, the most inexplicable of all that can't be explained, the most precarious of all that's insecure. ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... at last, we drove in one of the queer little Serb carts we had avoided so anxiously. A few planks nailed together and bound around with an insecure rail, four wheels slipped on to the axles with no pins to hold them, a Turkish driver dangling his legs—such was our chariot. Some hay was produced to improvise a seat; we bought some apples on tick, as the vendor ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... Prague opposite, diversified by a future Lind practicing her scales unweariedly; water-pipes bursting in the frost, walls streaming in the thaw, the lower offices reeking and green with damp, and the upper rooms too insecure for unrestricted movement—all these, and more miseries of the same kind, she willingly encounters rather than shift into a locality relatively unfashionable to her sphere, but where she could ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... other side of the ship part of another group of penguins were quarrelling for the possession of a small pressure block which offered only the most insecure foothold. The scrambling antics to secure the point of vantage, the ousting of the bird in possession, and the incontinent loss of balance and position as each bird reached the summit of his ambition was ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... wrong. I simply assert that it is uncertain. The very existence of such a periodical must in itself be most insecure." Sir Marmaduke, amidst the cares of his government at the Mandarins, had, perhaps, had no better opportunity of watching what was going on in the world of letters than had fallen to the lot of Miss ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... rein, and of her insecure hold on the stirrup, she struck the mare more sharply than she knew. The astonished animal bounded forward, stumbled on a round stone, and came down on her knees, pitching Evelyn over her head into the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... momentary. Having had for some years a rather damaged heart, I was interested in experimenting as regards the effects of tigers on its action, but could come to no very distinct conclusion. I was once in an extremely insecure position on a conspicuous cleft of a bare tree, with my feet not more than seven or eight feet from the ground, when the tiger galloped into the arena as it were in the most sudden manner, and passed within ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... own avowal a breakwater would still be necessary at the entrance of Limon Bay, which is situated round Point Brujas, about eight geographical miles higher up towards Porto Bello than the mouth of that river, as the heavy sea setting into the bay would render the anchorage of vessels insecure. An immense deal of work would consequently still remain to be performed before a corresponding outlet into the Pacific could be obtained; and whether this can be accomplished is yet problematical. In the interval, a railroad, on the plan above ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... to the furnishing of necessary contributions for garrison expenses, and the result would be that the most important cities and strongholds, especially those on the frontier, which were mainly inhabited by Catholics, would become insecure. Being hostile to a Government which only controlled them by force, they would with difficulty be kept in check by diminished garrisons, unless they should obtain ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and retraced our steps along the edges of chasms where the ice was disintegrated and insecure, and succeeded at length in finding a bridge which bore us across the crevasse. This error caused us the loss of an hour, and after walking for this time we could cast a stone from the point we had attained to the place whence we had been ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... unscathed, immune; trustworthy, reliable, sure, secure, invulnerable, impregnable. Antonyms: unsafe, endangered, insecure. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... dropped down his rifle and sprang into the branches of a tree. The latter was too small to afford complete safety. The lion began springing at the demoralized hunter, trying to claw him from his insecure refuge. However, a skilful shot from another member of the party brought the furious brute to the dust. A surprising sequel to the incident was this: the man who had fled up the tree claimed the lion's skin, on the score that he had drawn ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... &c. These things have been speculated about, and gloomy predictions have had their day; the time has now come for the proof. People do not buy land and houses, and rent property for long terms of years, in countries where life is insecure, or where labor cannot be had, and the tendency of things is to ruin and decay. In short, men, in their senses, do not embark on board a sinking ship. Confidence is the very soul of prosperity; of the existence ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... feeling, and elegance of manner—all these are demanded of the persons who become leaders of society, and would remain so. They alone are "good society." Their imitators may masquerade for a time, and tread on toes, and fling scorn and insult about them while in a false and insecure supremacy; but such pretenders to the throne are soon unseated. There is a dreadful Sedan and Strasburg awaiting them. They distrust their own flatterers; their "appanage" is not ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... votaries encumbered with the trappings of a futile erudition of the insignificant or clinging pathetically to the insecure relics of teleological doctrine, or, still less virile, seeking support in a return to the unscientific tales of supernatural spiritualism. Such ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... Basque peasant-woman; the other was for the passenger. There was a small arm-piece, at the outside of each seat, and generally there was a cushion. This was once a favorite means of travel between Bayonne and Biarritz. It was expeditious, enlivening,—and highly insecure; that was one of its charms. Throughout the ride there was a ludicrous titillation of insecurity; but it was greatest at the start and at the finish. For, the seats being evenly balanced, to mount was in itself high art. Driver and passenger needed to spring at precisely the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
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