"Insecure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... hurry?" returned Markheim. "It is very pleasant to stand here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would not hurry away from any pleasure—no, not even from so mild a one as this. We should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at a cliff's edge. Every second is a cliff, if you think upon it—a cliff a mile high—high enough, if we fall, to dash us out ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... 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
... indeed he thought, he could be sure, Juan had not betrayed himself; in fact 'T was 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 sacked, And thrown into the sea.—Thus Baba spoke Of all save Dudu's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... 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
... 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 that bodily ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... 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 |
