"Mechanically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... restored to Gideon Spilett that self-possession which he had lost in a moment of discouragement on feeling his great responsibility. He seated himself close to the bed. Cyrus Harding stood near. Pencroft had torn up his shirt, and was mechanically making lint. ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... went down into the darkening room below, and mechanically lighting his pipe, he sat with his elbows upon his knees and stared out into the gathering gloom where one bright evening star twinkled in a violet sky. The gentle hush of the gloaming was around him, and some late bird was calling outside amongst the laurels. Above ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... enough modesty left for him to realise that possibly they were in some mysterious way right and his own training in some way lacking. And so he set to work to try and climb the long uphill road that separates mechanically accurate ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... girl began laying out her wares. There were exquisite evening gowns, with satin slippers and silk stockings to match, and there were afternoon and morning frocks, walking suits, separate coats, hats, gloves, fans, scarfs, everything in fact to delight the heart of a girl. Jean handled them all mechanically, and without interest. It was only when she heard the murmur of girls' voices outside her door that a deep flush mounted even to her smooth forehead. She drew a deep breath and braced herself as for an ordeal, then answered the peremptory ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... paper, and then pushed on to the person who dropped it, calling out so frequently that the stranger at length began to suspect that he himself might be the object of the salute, and stopped and looked round. Morley almost mechanically glanced at the outside of the letter, the seal of which was broken, and which was however addressed to a name that immediately fixed his interest. The direction was to "Baptist Hatton, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... than that he would inform and rally all of her friends. That he could know anything that would throw light on the evil mystery did not seem possible. She was then too miserable and depressed to do much more than wait, in a sort of stunned torpor, for what might next occur. Mechanically she answered such questions as were put to her in order that a record of the case might be made, and then was led to the cells below. She shuddered as she saw the dimly lighted stairway, and it seemed to her morbid fancy that she was to be thrust into a subterranean ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... village. Behind them were, the farm buildings, and the farmer's household gone to bed. The sun had set and it was dark. They had supped sparingly, of necessity, and had finished every morsel of food. (Frank had even found himself mechanically gathering up crumbs on a wet finger.) They had had a bad week of it; the corn was not yet ready for cutting, and there seemed no work anywhere for honest men. The Major's gloom had become terrible; he had even made remarks upon a choice ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... to and fro, trying to screw up courage enough to ask the conductor for a free ride, and failing in the effort because none of the train hands would give him an opportunity to speak with them, he sat down on a truck and mechanically plunged his hands in ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... and still no chance of escape. Food was brought, and Ali ate mechanically, feeling that he might need his strength when he did make the effort to get away; but still there seemed no chance. Walls, floor, roof, all were slight, and yet too strong for him to make any impression upon them, unless he could ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... department's racial policy appears to have been shaped by a conflict between traditionalists and progressives, but it would be a mistake to apply these labels mechanically to the men involved. There were among them several shades of opinion, and (p. 531) they were affected as well by complex political and social pressures. Many of those involved in the debate shared a similar goal. A continuum existed, one defense official later suggested, ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... hesitation in the world, or the least immodesty, she half protruded the foot which still retained its slipper. As I removed this latter, through some gay impulse, whose nature I did not pause to analyze, I half mechanically thrust it into the side pocket of ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... Mechanically Amber began to smoke, trying hard to think, to penetrate by reasoning or intuition the wall of mystery which, it seemed, Rutton chose to set between himself and the world. The intense earnestness of the man's hopeless confession had carried conviction. Amber believed him, believed in the reality ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... night did I hear a groan or complaint from him. Once he asked for water, and as Orme and I stooped over him I heard him murmur as though to himself, "Who would have thought it?" and again, "Who would have thought it?" Then he drank the water mechanically and lay back, ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... fresh-roasted peanuts and balls of sugar-coated pop corn, slightly rancid, until they munched no longer with zest but merely mechanically. They drank pink lemonade to an extent that threatened absolute depletion of the fluid contents of both barrels in the refreshment stand out in the menagerie tent. They whooped their unbridled ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... the ladder till one of us gets over and unfastens the door." Rigoletto, somewhat dazed, did mechanically what he was told, and the men ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... too late, I did not know it until—until I was dead. Hush!" Again I tried to interrupt her, for I thought her mind was wandering. "I died psychically with Herbert. That was when we first saw the light on the island. Since then I have lived mechanically, but it has only been life in so low a form that I do not now know what has happened between that time and this. And I could not now speak as I am speaking save by a will power which is costing me very dear. But it is the only ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... way gracefully to their own particular table at the end of the room, where they could converse unheard, and see all that was to be seen. An obsequious waiter—one of the restaurant race that has no native language—relieved them of their coats, and they sat down opposite to each other, mechanically touching their hair to feel if their hats ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... come down to breakfast," she mechanically inferred, "and it's close on ten o'clock. Let me ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... many times I hit him, but I am confident that after he had begun his long staggering fall at least three additional bullets entered him ere he impacted on the deck. And even as he was falling, aimlessly and mechanically, stricken then with death, he managed twice ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... the Duke scattered a handful of coins to right and left, then retired to his place. The mock King did mechanically as he had been bidden. His smile had no heart in it, but few eyes were near enough or sharp enough to detect that. The noddings of his plumed head as he saluted his subjects were full of grace and graciousness; the largess which he delivered from his hand was royally liberal: so the people's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... went out. As he stood in the door of the club-house and buttoned up his coat, a cabman from the street called, "Kerrige, sir?" but not knowing where he should go, Millard raised his umbrella and walked. Mechanically he went toward Mrs. Callender's. He had formed no deliberate resolution, but he became aware that a certain purpose had taken possession of him all uninvited and without any approval of its wisdom on his part. Right or wrong, wise ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... to refasten her veil. With her face as if masked, all black from head to foot except for some flowers in her hat, she looked up mechanically at the clock. She thought it must have stopped. She could not believe that only two minutes had passed since she had looked at it last. Of course not. It had been stopped all the time. As a matter of fact, only three ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... revived she found herself lying on an old pile of cotton in one corner of the auction rooms. The auctioneer, seeing that she had arisen, bade her stand in the pen, along with the other negroes. Judy mechanically obeyed, and took her place with the others, and was sitting like one in a dream, when she was aroused by a man slapping her ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... of the Buddhist temples. On the walls were sculptured the terrible sufferings of the wicked in the different hells into which, according to Buddhism, they are cast. The worshippers appeared to me remarkably stolid and listless, as if engaged in a work which could not be too mechanically performed. There was nothing of the animation of the Hindus when ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... baggage and dumped it in the road; mechanically he re-kissed the entire party; he says he even kissed the flea-bitten grey. Then he sat down on a ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... in his voice, while it vaguely alarmed her, struck some answering chord in her mind, for while mechanically she contradicted him, some deeper self was saying, ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... now," thought he; "I should only lose my money and destroy us both. No, let me place that in safety, and then I will see what can be done." He therefore ran off again, taking his way almost mechanically towards the Luxembourg; but as he turned the corner of the Rue St. Germain, he was almost knocked down by a handsome carriage which was driving towards the Rue Dauphine, and, raising his head to swear at the coachman, he thought he saw Oliva inside, talking with much animation ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not quite agree with her that the Paduan sunshine was as cheerful as that of southern Italy. Such as it was, however, it fell upon a garden beneath the window and expended its fostering influences on a variety of plants, which ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... so as to be in readiness for the collector. As soon as he appeared at the window, Smith set up an unearthly scream; put on a most extraordinary expression of face; and feigned madness. This behaviour so frightened the poor collector, that, keeping his eye fixed upon Smith, he mechanically held out his hand; took my ticket without looking at it; and hurried from the carriage, evidently congratulating himself upon ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... man of the people, hard-handed sailor, was not thinking of any of these things as he sat in his narrow place on the stern behind his master, mechanically guiding the tiller in the latter's unconscious hand, while he gazed silently at Beatrice's face, now turned towards him in conversation, now half averted as she looked down or out to sea. Ruggiero listened, too, to the talk, though he did not understand all the fine words Beatrice ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... thoughts filled his master's mind. He looked around to see why his master did not get off lightly, as he had done during so many gallant years, and hasten in to the conviviality. But the lonely cow-puncher sat mechanically ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... desperate sense of this, a desperate resolve to overcome it somehow, a despairing powerlessness to contend, she sat at the window seeing nothing. She was brought to herself at last by Julia's, "Eleanor—Mr. Rhys wants you to take a cup of tea." Eleanor turned round mechanically, took the cup, and changed her place for one near ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... strip of rug that covered the entry floor, and so strange was the condition of her mind that she found herself mechanically counting the tassels that finished its edge, growing wroth over one that was worn, till she hated that sixth tassel and mentally determined that if she ever outlived this night she would strip them all off ...
— Midnight In Beauchamp Row - 1895 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... HE, sinking mechanically into the chair she indicates: "Oh, just as you like!" He looks up at the ceiling in hopeless bewilderment, ...
— The Register • William D. Howells
... pocket, and here's the tother, "now Miss Dexter, if you see your way to eatin' it now in the waggon alongside of me, or will you wait till we get to the Albion?" Charlotte Dexter put her hand out mechanically and took the apple, a large red one, from the farmer who again managed to hurt her as his great wrist touched her fingers for an instant. He blushed perceptibly and moved a little nearer still. And how unconscious Charlotte Dexter was of his mere presence, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... has been prepared, and is an important factor in estimating the value, as the nutrients are often greatly decreased because of large amounts of water. The water in substances as flour and meal is mechanically held in combination with the fine particles and varies with the moisture content, or hydroscopicity, of the air. Oftentimes foods gain or lose water to such an extent as to affect their weight; for example, one hundred pounds of flour containing 12 per cent of water may be reduced in weight three ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... new and formidable grasp that he could not struggle against so powerful an adversary, the bailiff stooped down grumbling, picked up the bundle of papers, and gave them to Morel, who took them mechanically. The lapidary believed himself under the influence ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... her and stayed there, staring. She tried to speak, to welcome him, but could not, no words would come. He also seemed to be smitten with dumbness, and thus the two of them remained a while. At last he took off his hat almost mechanically, as though from instinct, ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... also appeared "The Booklover's Arnheim" edition in ten volumes, edited by Professor Charles F. Richardson and published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. This is mechanically the ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... voice, the poor mother opened her eyes, met Luigi's look, and smiled; but Luigi himself gave a cry of horror; he scarcely recognized his wife, now half mad. With a gesture of savage energy he showed her the gold. Ginevra began to laugh mechanically; but suddenly she cried, in a ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... stood before the mirror, mechanically putting up her hair and looking through and past her own reflection, her eyes suddenly lost their preoccupied stare and became focused upon herself. For the first time in days she was seeing herself without the mask of cheerfulness she had so determinedly assumed. And as she looked, ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... more than note that the text plainly implies, that at that testing time men's knowledge of all that they did, and the results of it, will be complete. Marvellous as it seems to us, with our fragmentary memories, and the great tracts of our lives through which we have passed mechanically, and which seem to have left no trace on the mirror of our consciousness, we still, all of us, have experiences which make that all-recovering memory credible. Some passing association, a look, a touch, an odour, a sun-set sky, a chord of music will bring before us some trivial long-forgotten ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... will, because they never needed to say them. The sun shines without them, and life expands without them; and here were souls as unconsciously beneficent as the one, as spontaneous in growth and shaping as the other. Theirs was not a force that moved mechanically in right lines, with limited objects before it. It did, indeed, sweep with arrowy swiftness of assail on every point that offered; but when I remember that it more often pleaded than stormed, that it penetrated into every secret recess that mercy casually opened, and gently stirred ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... he entered. The room was filled with bustle and movement, for it was the supper hour, when all tools were laid aside, and trestles and tables shifted. Christian had no knowledge of what he said and did; he moved and spoke mechanically, half thinking that soon he must wake from this horrible dream. Sweyn and his mother supposed him to be cold and dead-tired, and spared all unnecessary questions. And he found himself seated beside the hearth, opposite that dreadful Thing ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... conscious?" Mr. Hardy asked the question mechanically, but all the while his mind was in ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... Jacob by the name Jehovah; while the book of Genesis abounds with the contrary fact. This alone convinced me beyond all dispute, that these books did not come from one and the same hand, but are conglomerates formed out of older materials, unartistically and mechanically joined. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... self-contained heat of the wood evaporates considerable moisture, and the sudden drying of the boards causes the shrinkage to be reduced slightly in some cases. Such short periods of steaming under 20 pounds pressure do not appear to injure the wood mechanically, although they do darken the color appreciably, especially of the sapwood of the species having a light-colored sap, as black walnut (Juglans nigra) and red gum (Liquidamber styraciflua). Longer periods of steaming have been found ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... mechanically, like a machine set to go, and going without consciousness or effort—without a question or a thought, without a glance ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... at intervals, mechanically, dazed still, lost in a whirl of conflicting emotions wherein fear, amazement, and a certain vein of superstitious horror fought a hard ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... the limp hand I mechanically stretched out to him and then slowly revaulting the fence. The look of him riding slowly along with his broad shoulders drooping despondently waked me to my senses. I had been fully engrossed with the ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... spinning a continuous thread of cellulose has received in later years several solutions. Mechanically all resolve themselves into the preparation of a structureless filtered solution of cellulose or a cellulose derivative, and forcing through capillary orifices into some medium which either absorbs or decomposes the solvent. The author notes here that the fineness and to a great extent the softness ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross
... the pathos of many hackneyed things that they are intrinsically delicate and are only mechanically made dull. Any one who has seen the first white light, when it comes in by a window, knows that daylight is not only as beautiful but as mysterious as moonlight. It is the subtlety of the colour of sunshine ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... morning after his evening with Barbara—the morning on which Temple first made acquaintance with Tandy. Duncan was sitting idly in his office, mechanically toying with a paper cutter. Presently he overturned the inkstand, spilling its contents over some legal papers that he had drawn upon the ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... his acceptance with God independent of what he was as a moral agent, which relegated the realities of moral discipline and goodness to a secondary and subordinate place,—as a mere sequel to follow, almost mechanically and of course, on an act or feeling which had nothing moral in it,—which substituted a fictitious and imputed righteousness for an inherent and infused and real one, seemed to him to confound the eternal foundations of right and wrong, and to be a blasphemy ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... Milly answered mechanically, "No, we don't get any sun." She added with an irrelevance that was only apparent, "I've had to take all four rooms ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... the waiter, whose eyes are 'all about him,' leaves you to meditate and decide, while he hastens to inform a new arrival, and mechanically repeats his catalogue of dainties; and, bawling out at the top of his voice, "One roast beaf and one taters," you echo his words, and he straightway reports your wishes in the same voice and manner to the invisible purveyors below, and ten to one but you ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... of the merchant, his spirits were crushed to the very earth. He found his way back, how he hardly knew, to his place of business, and mechanically performed the tasks allotted to him, until evening. Then he returned home, reluctant to meet his mother, and yet anxious to relieve her state of suspense, even if in doing so, he should dash a last hope from her heart. When he came in, Mrs. Mayberry lifted her eyes to his, inquiringly; ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... four canvasbacks suddenly appeared over the clamoring decoys, so close in that, as they came driving by the blind and rose slightly, wings bowed, Marche could almost see their beady little eyes set in the chestnut red of the turning heads. Mechanically his gun spoke twice; rap-rap, echoed Miss Herold's gun, and splash! splash! down whirled two gray-and-red ducks; then a third, uncertain, slowed down, far out beyond the decoys, and slanted sideways to the water. ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... him mechanically, for I was undergoing a mental castigation which rather disturbed me. Indeed, like a young fool—as eager in self-reproach as in self-glorification—I was so occupied in inwardly calling myself hard names, that even when my host gave me a commission for my new picture, 'The Return ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... than his insolence. Telling him that he need say no more, Mountjoy bowed to Mrs. Vimpany, and left the room. She returned his bow mechanically, in silence. Mr. Vimpany followed Hugh out—thinking of the diamond pin, and eager to open the house door, as another act of submission which might ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... orders, had two livings in Suffolk and one in Norfolk, and married a wealthy widow. His verses are mechanically correct, but ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... incident to reflect on the uncertainty with which we attribute any particular place to any inward pain or uneasiness, and proceeded after long consideration to establish it as a general law: that contemporaneous impressions, whether images or sensations, recall each other mechanically. On this principle, as a ground work, he built up the whole system of human language, as one continued process of association. He showed in what sense not only general terms, but generic images,—under the name of abstract ideas,—actually existed, and in ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... very intolerant of the presence of a tube. Such a case is recorded by Sir J. Fayrer of Calcutta.[132] Not much better is the proposal to insert a silk ligature in each side of the wound, and by pulling these apart thus mechanically to open the wound. This also is ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... led the way out of the palace, and towards the river, while his master followed him, as if mechanically; until, looking back, he said in a tone which savoured of familiarity at least, if not of authority, "How is this, my lord? Your cloak hangs on one side—your ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... flow into the ceramic art from a number of sources, but chiefly in two great currents: the one from art, and consisting chiefly of technical or mechanically produced phenomena, and hence geometric, and the other from nature, and carrying elements primarily delineative, and hence non-geometric. When once within the realm of decoration the various motives or elements are subject to modification by two classes of influences or conditioning ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... told he would execute the threat. His form seemed to have grown larger; his eye dilated, flashing as it rolled, and the man shrank before its glance. He saw death in it if he disobeyed, and with a surly murmur he fumbled mechanically at his belt, and thrust the blade back into ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... and reaching out her left hand, mechanically draws to her the glass of brandy which her husband had poured out ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... rest long; she walked, agitating and expecting, to and fro the long and half-furnished chamber which characterises the Italian palace. At length, her eye fell on an open letter on a writing-table at one corner of the room. She glanced over it mechanically,—certain words suddenly arrested her attention. Were those words—words of passion—addressed to her? If not, O Heaven! to whom? She obeyed, as she ever did, the impulse of the moment, and read ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... questioned it. Dazed by his impatience, dismayed, she affirmed it again, mechanically. And the first doubt entered as she spoke, confusing her, awakening a swarm of little latent ideas and misgivings, stirring memories of half-uttered sentences checked at her entrance into a room, veiled allusions, words, nods, that she remembered but had never understood. And, ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... began to subside; and as she brushed off the scalding starch, she could see the blister-swelling go down till there was but a little redness to show for the accident; absorbed in her thankfulness, she mechanically wrung out the collar with the same hand, and with no sense of pain, thus verifying the demonstration. This woman (not reading English) only knows Science as she has received it from her practitioner during the treatments ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... never more thoroughly a priest than in the chamber of death, Gerard did the last offices of the Church for the departed, just as he should have done them for his smallest parishioner. He did this mechanically, then sat down stupefied by the sudden and tremendous blow, and not yet realizing the pangs of bereavement. Then in a transport of religious enthusiasm he kneeled and thanked Heaven ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Marjorie obeyed almost mechanically. She knelt on the rug and spread out her hands to the blaze. She had reached a point of misery when she hardly cared what happened next to her. Two big tears splashed into the fender. Miss Duckworth suddenly put an arm ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... minutes neither of them spoke a word. Fenella made a pretense at eating her luncheon. Arnold ate mechanically, his thoughts striving in vain to focus themselves upon the immediate question. It was she ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that he had already pointed out what an unusual route they were taking, but that the cap- tain had said that he was quite aware what he was about. The mate made no further remark; but the knit of his brow, as he passed his hand mechanically across his forehead, made me fancy that he was inclined ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... Then almost mechanically he went towards the switch in the shadow and turned the current into the railway circuit again. As he did so the singed body loosened its grip upon the machine and fell forward on its face. The core of the dynamo roared out loud and clear, and ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... his body formed a cross. I paddled above it in the clear, smooth water, gazing at his familiar face, till two or three large bubbles burst upon the surface; then, hardly knowing what I was doing, floated mechanically from the trapper's grave. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... "They may not," mechanically replied Don Pablo; "but what then? We have escaped death, for what purpose? Either to live like savages in these wild woods—perhaps to be killed by savages—perhaps to ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... and saluted as three officers passed. They were talking eagerly together, and returned the salute mechanically without ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... tinder-box with him, of which he had not thought when he crept so eagerly after the goblins! He wished it all the more when, after a while, he found his way blocked up, and could get no farther. It was of no use to turn back, for he had not the least idea where he had begun to go wrong. Mechanically, however, he kept feeling about the walls that hemmed him in. His hand came upon a place where a tiny stream of water was running down the face of the rock. 'What a stupid I am!' he said to himself. 'I am actually at the end of my journey! And there are the goblins coming back ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... there may be with regard to the propriety of cooking the food of stock, we believe there ought not to be a doubt as to the desirability of mechanically treating the harder kinds of feeding stuff. It is quite evident that a horse fed upon hard grains of oats and wiry fibres of uncut hay or straw must expend no inconsiderable proportion of his motive power in the process of mastication. After a hard day's work ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... little attention to the discourse between Sir Arthur and me, until we fell upon the controversy concerning the Piks, which terminated so abruptly;but I remember producing to Sir Arthur a book printed by my ancestor, and making him observe the motto; your mind was bent elsewhere, but your ear had mechanically received and retained the sounds, and your busy fancy, stirred by Grizel's legend I presume, had introduced this scrap of German into your dream. As for the waking wisdom which seized on so frivolous a circumstance as an apology for persevering in some ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... with her lips and looked to the others. Barlow, still surly, tossed off his drink at a gulp. Bruce drank slowly, a little, and set his glass down. Betty did not lift her eyes and kept her hands in her lap. Ruiz tasted eagerly and his eyes sparkled and widened. Kendric mechanically set his glass to his lips, drank sparingly and marveled. For never had he tasted vintage like this. Its fragrance in his nostrils rose with strange pleasant sensation to his brain; a drop on his palate seemed to ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... hardness that ten years of ordinary wear and tear in the world could scarcely have produced, sailed from Plymouth on a drizzling morning, in the passenger-ship Western Glory. When the land had faded behind him he mechanically endeavoured to school himself into a stoical frame of mind. His attempt, backed up by the strong moral staying power that had enabled him to resist the passionate temptation to which Emmeline, in her reckless trustfulness, had exposed him, was rewarded ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... of the newspaper over mechanically, reading word upon word which held not the slightest meaning. He felt Storch's eyes upon him, drawn, no doubt, by a mixture of subtle doubts and vague appraisals. His thoughts flew to Ginger. What was she doing at this moment? Was there any chance of her failure? For answer another question ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... giving a reading from his works this evening," she said, sitting up mechanically and crossing her hands, "and he sent me to say that he would be glad if you and Mr. Harrington would ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... few moments there was silence, and then Shiel exclaimed mechanically "Engaged to be ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... a formula be got by heart till very familiar, to be repeated, but not mechanically, before falling to sleeps What is of the very utmost importance is that the operator shall feel its meaning and at the same time give it the impulse of Will by the dual process before described. This, ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... gentlemen, on the contrary, with an air of total indifference to her proximity, continued their walk until they reached the end of the piazza, and then turned and proceeded mechanically to retrace ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... his hand as he bade her good night. Eileen returned his good night in her most charming manner, though rather mechanically; something had come over her; she did not know it, but for the first time in her life she seemed ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... of both vegetable and animal life develops from an egg) of some animals rather high in the one tree of mundane life, which has a common root and a stump, but two stems, the vegetable and the animal, can be mechanically fertilized by chemical processes. ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... violent start, he wondered what set of brain-cells had been stirred to reproduce rhymes that he had, or so he deemed, long ago forgotten. And still musing, he almost mechanically went on ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... window opened with a slam, and I saw the sick woman leaning out with a rapid motion. I rushed to the spot where she might fall; and mechanically, without attaching any great importance to the impulse, I concentrated all my will in one great desire to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... fell upon the envelope containing his last letter. Mechanically she drew it out and read it through again very slowly. It was a long letter, full of their mutual interests; of the music and the Persian,—which she was now studying under his tuition;—of Wyndham, Denvil, Mrs Olliver, ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... inland. For some weeks Conscience followed the colorless monotony of her life with a stunned and bruised deadness about her heart. She had shed no tears and the feeling was always with her that soon she must awaken to a poignant agony and that then her mind would collapse. Mechanically she read to her father and supervised the duties of the attendant who had been brought on from Boston, but often when he spoke to her he had to repeat his question, and then she would come back to ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... the cabinet, La Corriveau opened one more secret drawer, and took out, with a hesitating hand, as if uncertain whether to do so or no, a glittering stiletto, sharp and cruel to see. She felt the point of it mechanically with her thumb; and, as if fascinated by the touch, placed it under her robe. "I may have need of it," muttered she, "either to save myself OR to make sure of my work on another. Beatrice Spara was the daughter of a Sicilian ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Claudius, the student, mechanically obeyed the gentle impulsion her hand imparted to him on the shoulder, and walked through the side-door. A number of benches were before him with corresponding narrow tables, and he sat down at ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... coming revelation seemed to light on the Pope, and he sat down again without a word. Mechanically he prepared to receive the penitent into the Church, questioning her, instructing her, calling on her to repeat the profession of faith, and finally baptizing ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... away from her wearily, he arose mechanically, he placed his little gray checked cap on the back of his yellow curls, the old-time laughter was dead in the blue eyes that now looked scared and haunted, the boyishness and the dimples crept away ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... by, Within its shade find welcome rest; And one of them mechanically, As is a custom in the west, Upon its surface stern and gray Carved out his ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... separate parts; you don't discover every twig on a tree; you see the whole in Nature, and you want to see the whole in a picture. That canvas presents a triumph of patience and pains, produced exactly as a piece of embroidery is produced, all in little separate bits, worked with the same mechanically complete care. I turn away from it to your shrubbery there, with an ungrateful ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... and a little basket of limes, of well-known and exquisite flavour; placing, at the same time, a very small kettle of boiling water on the fire.—"Why, Mollee! my goot girl!" said Mr. Vanderclump, in a low and somewhat melancholy tone, (his eyes had mechanically followed these latter proceedings,) "Mollee! that is ponch!" —"La, sir! and why not?" replied the damsel, almost playfully. "Why not be comfortable and cheery? I am sure"—and here she meant to look encouraging, her usual simper spreading to a smile—"I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... when he last stood before a mirror. He wondered at himself, when he remembered his father, whose youth seemed eternal, in spite of the trials through which he had passed. When he went out from the hotel the first time he had mechanically put in his pocket a pair ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... fell on the loaf of bread, close at hand on the edge of the table, and on the knife which lay by it. Mechanically, without any other idea than that of feeding the sparrows and diverting himself by watching their antics, he picked up the knife, quietly cut off a half-slice of the loaf, and, crumbling it in his fingers, threw the crumbs on the floor. For a minute or two he watched his visitors fighting over ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... had sat down on the lowest step of the ladder, and was trembling violently. "Oh, how dreadful!" She muttered the words mechanically, without any attempt to express her actual thought. "How ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... but as yet I can see to write. That is, I can see the continuous grey line of writing, and can mechanically write one word after another. But if I leave off abruptly, I cannot always remember what was the last word that I wrote, and ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... her mechanically, too absorbed in her revelation to think of the cards left forgotten on the bridge. From their scene of good wishes, Fran went first, head erect, arms swinging defiantly; Abbott followed, not knowing in the least what to say, ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... upon which the sounding line was wound was worked by hand on this cruise. It was worked mechanically afterwards, and of course this ought always to be done if possible. Just now it was a wearisome business, especially when we lowered a water-sample bottle one day to 1800 metres, spent hours in winding it up and found it still open when it arrived at the surface! ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... waistcoat gave a rigour of accent, waited, watching her, they might, at the late hour and in the still house, have been a pair of specious worldly adventurers, driven for relief, under sudden stress, to some grim midnight reckoning in an odd corner. Her attention moved mechanically over the objects of ornament disposed too freely on the walls of staircase and landing, as to which recognition, for the time, had lost both fondness and compunction. "I can imagine the way it works," ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... act thus occurs automatically and mechanically. When we say that it occurs automatically, we mean that it takes place, as it were, of itself, spontaneously, without the intervention of the will. By saying that it is mechanical, we mean that there exists no consciousness of ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... under a majestic archway and glittered westward down a lane of spotless splendid uniforms. The carriages were laden with still more splendid uniforms, and with enchanting toilets. Sophia, in her modestly stylish black, mechanically noticed how much easier it was for attired women to sit in a carriage now that crinolines had gone. That was the sole impression made upon her by this glimpse of the last fete of the Napoleonic Empire. She knew not that the supreme pillars of imperialism were exhibiting themselves before her; ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... Mechanically Reuben moved. Stung by her words, irritated by a sense of failure, filled with the sharpest jealousy against his rival, he saw no other course open to him than to let her go her way and to go his. "Good-bye, then, Eve," he said, in a dry, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... unluckily did it happen, the very minute of the hour when we left Blocksby's. It was a quarter to four o'clock—a church- tower was chiming the three-quarters in the Strand, and I looked half mechanically at my own watch, which was five minutes fast. On Sunday I went down to Oxford, and happened to walk into Allen's rooms. He was lying on a sofa reading the "Spectator." After chatting a little, I said, ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... nostrils. As for the patients themselves, since they were all about him, he could hardly do less than observe them, although he helped himself to a late magazine from a well-filled table at his side and mechanically turned ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... put upon the canvas. Many a nearly imperceptible feature disappeared, and with it vanished too a portion of the resemblance. He began indifferently to impart to the picture that commonplace colouring which can be painted mechanically, and which lends to a face, even when taken from nature, the sort of cold ideality observable on school programmes. But the lady was satisfied when the objectionable tone was quite banished. She ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... him aside to a place opposite to where the conspirators had just disappeared. The notary mechanically followed through a labyrinth of dark corridors and secret staircases, quite at a loss how to account for the sudden change that had come over his master—crossing one of the ante-chambers in the castle, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... subject, may be safely accepted as a fair example of the Greek interpretation of this feature. The Romans, on the other hand, not being able to understand and appreciate the delicacy and deep propriety of this line, seized their compasses, and, without thought or love, mechanically produced a gross likeness to it by the union ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... could put to rest that one appeal, which now was echoing in her ears: "Will nothing cool my throat!—my head burns!—only a few drops of water!" Over all the tones of the orchestra these words sounded and thrilled so in her ears, that only mechanically could the prima donna repeat the tones that were thrilling all the hearts to ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... at this menace, and submissively approached me with pillows, which he placed under my head. The monk, meanwhile, held a glass to my lips containing some medicinal mixture, which I swallowed mechanically. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... completed her work, she looked critically at Lyle for a moment, and seeming satisfied with the result, asked her to look in the glass. Half mechanically, Lyle did as requested, but at the first glance at the face reflected there, she uttered a low cry, and stood as if transfixed. Miss Gladden had arranged her hair in a style worn nearly twenty years before, and in imitation of the photograph ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... vapid smile of the perfect hostess—that impartial smile which falls, like the rain from Heaven, on good and bad indifferently. "SO charmed to see you again, Dr. Cumberledge!" she bubbled out, with a cheerful air—she was always cheerful, mechanically cheerful, from a sense of duty. "It IS such a pleasure to meet dear Hugo's old friends! AND Miss Wade, too; how delightful! You look so well, Miss Wade! Oh, you're both at St. Nathaniel's now, aren't you? So you can come together. What a privilege for you, Dr. Cumberledge, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... colour left his face. He sank into a chair: the letter slipped from his fingers. All his dreams had vanished in a moment. His house of cards had toppled down. His ambitions were surely and positively destroyed at one stroke. He mechanically picked up the letter and re-read it. Had it been his death-sentence it could not have ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... have had, as a matter of fact, a roughly recognizable mode of living; sitting in a green field was a part of it; travelling as quick as a cannon ball was not. And we should not look down on the seamstress because she mechanically emits a short sharp scream whenever the motor begins to move. On the contrary, we ought to look up to the seamstress, and regard her cry as a kind of mystic omen or revelation of nature, as the old Goths used to consider the howls emitted by chance females when annoyed. ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... distance would then cease, and, as far as the sense of touch is concerned, the wader would be first rendered conscious of the motion of the wheel by the blow of the paddles. The transference of motion from the paddles to the water is mechanically similar to the transference of molecular motion from the heated body to the aether; and the propagation of waves through the liquid is mechanically similar to the propagation of light ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... stew pervaded the whole courtyard, as Pons returned mechanically home. Mme. Cibot was dishing up Schmucke's dinner, which consisted of scraps of boiled beef from a little cook-shop not above doing a little trade of this kind. These morsels were fricasseed in brown butter, with thin slices of onion, until the meat and vegetables had absorbed the gravy ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... against the fitful darkness that ever and anon went leaping up the wall. She could hardly believe her senses to see the austere gentleman, dead silent, dropping tear upon tear before her eyes. She lay stone-still in a trance of terror and mournfulness, mechanically counting the tears as they fell, one by one. The hidden face, the fall and flash of those heavy drops in the light of the lamp he held, the upright, awful figure, agitated at regular intervals like a piece of clockwork by ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... those mechanical instruments by which an artist may remove the causes of the balance being destroyed, and thus re-instate the lost equilibrium of solids and liquids. He therefore concludes, that a medicine supposes a flowing of the humours or liquids; that it operates mechanically; that it acts only mediately; that its good or bad effects depend entirely on the bulk, motion, and figure of the acting particles, and that the destruction of the balance must be deduced from the solids. ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... Ghosam, of which the details had worked out so mechanically, had been necessitated by the attitude of the tribesmen of Bajaur and the adjoining valleys. Great gatherings had collected, and up to the 7th of September there had been every sign of determined opposition. So formidable did the combination appear, that Sir Bindon Blood arranged to have ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... forgive the deception; his antipathies to his enemies were not very moderate, but this was adding an insult to his penetration that rankled deeply. He sat in portentous silence, brooding over the exploit of his prisoner, yet mechanically pursuing the business before him, until, after sufficient time had passed to make a very comfortable meal, a trumpet suddenly broke on the ears of the party, sending its martial tones up the valley, in startling melody. The trooper rose instantly ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... tend toward a perfectly balanced whole. You have developed the brain and neglected the body and you can never do with the hands of another what you can do with your own hands. Mine are trained to the sword—every muscle responds instantly and accurately, and almost mechanically, to the need of the instant. I am scarcely objectively aware that I think when I fight, so quickly does my point take advantage of every opening, or spring to my defense if I am threatened that it is almost as though the cold steel had eyes and brains. ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... have to be dictated. A letter is merely read, the essential facts dictated or noted on the letter itself, and certain symbols added which tell the stenographer the form paragraphs that are to be used. The letter is then almost mechanically produced. Some companies have gone so extensively into the writing of form paragraphs that they have sections covering practically every subject that can arise. This possibly carrying the idea too far. Convenience ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... mechanically and glanced over them. His face settled. Gambler that he was with the fortunes of men and the reputations of women, he knew that he had lost. He tried one more ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... said mechanically, "all right." And she rose in order to go. Her eyes were wide and staring, ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... words were being said: "Now is Christ risen—" but she did not hear them; she did not see the people about her. She only saw, before the chancel, that long black shape. After a while the doctor's wife touched her again; "Here we stand up." Mechanically, she rose; her lips were moving in a terrified whisper, and Martha King, glancing at her sidewise, looked respectfully away. "Praying," the good woman thought; and softened ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... seemed to flee from. The girls most careful of their persons were naturally those who pleased him most, and as the part least easy to keep clean is that which touches the earth it was to the foot-gear that he mechanically gave his chief attention. Agathe, Reine, and especially Madeleine, were the most elegant of the girls at that time; their carefully selected and kept shoes, instead of laces or buckles, which were not yet worn at Sacy, had blue ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... my mind felt deeply the consciousness of my degradation, and I did not possess a groat! I was in such a miserable state that I had no strength to accept or to refuse anything. I was thoroughly torpid, and I followed the monk mechanically. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... insensible to his little dig, as she called it, and silently, mechanically went through with her petty task of hostess in the hall where the women sat, as the drawing-room was still in the hands of the decorators. All the fictitious gayety of the party died out as soon as the ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... made being (if I may so speak) Mechanically produc'd, there is no pretence to derive it from I know not what incomprehensible Substantial Form, from which yet many would have us believe that Colours must flow; Nor does this Green, though a Real and Permanent, not a Phantastical and Vanid Colour, seem to be such an Inherent ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... used if you wish to get the bones cleaned very quickly. Some put the skulls in quicklime, but it has a tendency to make the bones splinter, and it is difficult to keep the teeth from getting loose and dropping out. The best but slowest plan is to fix them in mechanically by wire or white lead. A good preservative is to wash or paint them with a very strong solution ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and I did it mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the kitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the lock. I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I should have to walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must not break down. All this I did without one sound. ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... he contemplated, Bowers threw the brake mechanically as the front wheels of the wagon sank into a chuck-hole and the jolt all but landed him on the ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... to his contemplation of the outdoors, and began repeating over and over, mechanically, a verse from Browning, which he had once quoted to ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... reading, the gens d'armes entered my room, and, with the officers of justice, led me away to prison. I walked mechanically. I was conducted to a small building in the centre of a square. This was a cachot, with an iron-grated window on each of its four sides, but without glass. There was no bench, or table, or anything but the bare walls and the pavement. The wind blew sharply through. ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hand, and the next moment it was clasping something cold and damp and fishlike. A few words in English passed, but they were muttered mechanically, and for a few moments, each apparently unable to withdraw his hand, we two stood looking in each other's eyes, my expression—if it was a true index of my heart—being that of wonder and distrust; for I seemed again, for the first time in my life, to be undergoing a new series of ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... come too late. Oh, what had she done! She had saved his life, but she had made him a fugitive, had condemned him to the cruellest of fates, that of a doomed man flying from justice. Instinctively, mechanically, she flew for her hat and jacket; then she realized, with bitterness, the hopelessness of any such quest as that which, for an instant, she had thought of undertaking. If she had known his name, anything about him, the search would have been difficult; with her complete ignorance it was an impossible ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... accustomed to wine, obeyed mechanically, swallowing down each glass a gorge deployee, as he was awoke from his meditations by the return of the bottle, and then filling up his glass again. Newton, who could take his allowance as well as most people, could not, however, venture to drink glass ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... strengthening of the yarn by combining two or more strands and afterward arranging them for weaving or for the purpose for which the yarn is required. It is also the last time that the fibers are mechanically drawn over each other or drafted, and this is invariably done from a single roving. The humidity and temperature of the spinning room must be adjusted to conditions. Each spinner is provided with a wet and dry thermometer ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... is no formula which will sum up that versatile and many-sided people. And so, in the case before us, we have no sooner made what appears to be the safe and comprehensive statement that the Greeks conceived the relation of man to the gods mechanically, than we are reminded of quite another phase of their religion, different from and even antithetic to that with which we have hitherto been concerned. Nothing, we might be inclined to say on the basis of what we have at present ascertained, nothing could be ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... and stood passing his handkerchief mechanically over his forehead. "De beaux restes? I thank you for sparing me the plain English. I must make up my Madonna out of de beaux restes! What a masterpiece she will ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... Mechanically I did as I was told. There was no time for thought, still less for remonstrance or reproach, though my surprise must have been even more complete than that of the constable before Raffles knocked the sense out of him. Even in my utter bewilderment, however, the instinctive caution ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... said, with sudden sharpness, "come over here and watch the track of the boat through the water." And as Flossy mechanically obeyed, she added: "What a foolish, heedless little mouse you are! I wonder that your mother let you go from her sight. Don't you know that you mustn't get up conversations with strange ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... the edge of the rocks overlooking the water, she stared at the ever-widening circles which rippled the water and the jagged rocks which shone ominously dark beneath the surface. She followed the center of the ripples mechanically. Thank God, they had hit in a clear spot. But what chance would a man have throttled like that ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... mind now reeling in black despair. He had tried and failed. This was the end. The sound of footsteps had ceased. Well he knew that some one was at the door. He tried to pray and then—he crashed against the rafter. Mechanically he grasped at it ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... immediately preceding the end of the work The notice on works lasting 60 seconds or less, such as untitled motion pictures or other audiovisual works, may be located: In all the locations specified above for longer motion pictures; and If the notice is embodied electronically or photo-mechanically, on the leader of the film or tape immediately preceding the work. For audiovisual works or motion pictures distributed to the public for private use, the locations include the above, and in addition: On ...
— Supplementary Copyright Statutes • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... Miss Leonora going first. "Not that I think her worth all this fuss, the vain little fool," said Miss Leonora; "she'll come to herself, no fear of her;" but, notwithstanding her protest, the strong-minded woman led the way. When the room was cleared, the gentlemen who remained took their seats mechanically, and stared at each other. In the shame and confusion of the moment nobody could find anything to say, and the Curate was magnanimous, and did not take advantage of his triumph. The silence was broken by the Rector, who rose up solemnly from his chair to speak. Probably no one in the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... out of bed and to the dresser where her father's pistol was kept, lifted the ugly weapon from its case and mechanically cocked it. Tom had taught her to use a rifle, but she had never been allowed to handle a revolver, though she had watched him so often that she was familiar with its mechanism, and had no thought of fear as she sped fleetly out of the house, pausing ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Mechanically, he plugged in his intercom and air lines, went through the other routine checks before ascent, tested communications with the lab attendant, then flicked the exhaust ...
— Warning from the Stars • Ron Cocking
... her questions cheerfully but mechanically. Sometimes he stared at her in a cold, impersonal way and gave no answer, as if her questions were an impertinence and she were not of sufficient importance to waste ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... to constipation, indigestion and similar conditions, such exercises are especially beneficial, and that both by flushing the system with more oxygen and by mechanically exerting pressure on the different organs—thus giving those latter what is actually a ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... flight, Arthur Burdon had thrown himself again into the work which for so long had been his only solace. It had lost its savour; but he would not take this into account, and he slaved away mechanically, by perpetual toil seeking to deaden his anguish. But as the time passed he was seized on a sudden with a curious feeling of foreboding, which he could in no way resist; it grew in strength till it had all the power of an obsession, and he could ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... and rummaged again among the pile of newspapers, mechanically, finding it hard to command her attention to such an indifferent business. She brought the July ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... pushing at the beam above him he forced his way out of the curious little passage. He twisted his body and raised himself upon his hands. He grinned at the girl and drew his feet carefully from under the beam. When he at last stood erect beside her, he at once began mechanically to brush the dirt from his clothes with his hands. In the barn the sentry and his prisoner were evidently ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane |
