"Precipitancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The precipitancy of this declaration served merely to confirm the opinion she had already conceived of the weakness of his understanding: but the obstinacy of Mr Harrel irritated and distressed her, though weary of expostulating ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... I am anxious that you should not accuse me of acting with precipitancy in this matter; that when I shall renew my application to you, you may remember that I have had due and sufficient time for reflection. Addio, Signor Giovacchino," said the Marchese, reverting to the more friendly ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... in a curious and mingled frame of mind. He was annoyed with himself, he reproached himself for his unpardonable precipitancy, his boyish impulsiveness. Some one has justly said: there is nothing more painful than the consciousness of having just ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... could gladly see altered. It is the almost indecent haste; which so generally prevails, to get rid of the dead. Doubtless the climate has had an effect in establishing this custom; but the climate, by no means, exacts the precipitancy that is ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... take a mother's place towards my son. But you must be aware that such an appointment could only be made when you are already one of the family, and this it is that leads me to entreat you to overlook any appearance of precipitancy on my brother's part, and return a favourable reply to the request, which with my complete sanction, he is ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... behind him that he could not raise his arm to strike freely. Whereupon, to get more room for his work, he called aloud to the others to stand back; and the word back passing from rank to rank those furthest off began to run, and, presently, the others also, with such precipitancy, that they fell into utter disorder. In this way, and from this trifling circumstance, the attempt of the Oddeschi ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... of mind, the committee appointed by the bishops published both the declaration and the excommunication. A single night intervened; their passions had leisure to cool; they repented[b] of their precipitancy; and, by the advice of the prelates in the town of Galway, they published a third paper, suspending the effect of the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair from the craft's bald keel. He seemed to be working in obedience to some particular presentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted by the event. Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed down to them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a disordered flight, as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium. Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost. By great exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... saying, and, supposing some man was insulting her, I acted as I did." Then I let go of him, and, turning, I continued, "I am very sorry, Miss Cullen, if I did anything the circumstances did not warrant," while cursing myself for my precipitancy and for not thinking that Miss Cullen would never have been caught in such a plight with a man unless she had been half willing; for a girl does not merely threaten to call for help ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... with which it was uttered, forgot his disguise in the amiable fervor of approbation, and half arose to welcome him to his cause; but a look from Wallace (who on being known had uncovered his face), arrested his intention and the prince sat down again, thankful for so timely a check on his precipitancy. ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... Precipitancy is as great an evil as inactivity. It is, to use the language of the alchemists, just as bad to scorch the tender blossoms by a forced and hasty fire (that in spite of its intensity may be merely a straw fire), as to let ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... his counsellors had ruined more churches by a single stroke of the pen than all the forces of their enemies could have overthrown in ten years. Coligny's warm remonstrance was heard with some regret for the precipitancy with which the arrangement had been made; but it was too late. The peace was signed. Besides, Conde was confident that he would soon occupy his brother's place, when the Huguenots ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... perplexity and depression, Harry Dutton cautiously pleaded his cause, and, as a strong will bent on one object will always sway an irresolute mind, Bluebell listened, and for once tried to realize what it would be. She had been frightened at Dutton's precipitancy in the first instance; but now he had become in a manner necessary to her, and she certainly liked him,—immensely. Still, of course, after her experience of the grande passion, this mere entente cordiale could not be mistaken for the real article. But ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... Clare's plausible representation to himself and to Tess of the practical need for their immediate marriage, there was in truth an element of precipitancy in the step, as became apparent at a later date. He loved her dearly, though perhaps rather ideally and fancifully than with the impassioned thoroughness of her feeling for him. He had entertained no notion, when doomed as he had thought to an ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... brigade wheeled into line and did excellent execution. The rebels made this bayonet charge with great dash and courage, but, notwithstanding, they were repulsed with great loss of life, and an amusing and astonishing precipitancy. ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... he was determined to do his duty. But in August, 1853, when the agitation was increasing, Latrobe hurriedly reduced the fee to twenty shillings per month. This appeased the miners for a time; but the precipitancy with which the Governor had changed his intention showed too plainly the weakness of the Government, for there was at that time scarcely a soldier in Victoria to repress an insurrection, if one should break out. Among the confused crowds on the goldfields ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... precipitancy had involved the poor fellow in a web which he had not nerve or insight enough to break. He saw that the woman he loved had allowed an accusation to be laid against him, and he saw that she wanted to shield her real lover, yet he would not baulk ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... pause. The afternoon sun was sinking with southern precipitancy, and Kentish had got his back to it by cool intent. He studied the play of suppressed mortification and strenuous philosophy in the swarthy face warmed by the reddening light; and admired the arduous triumph of judgment over instinct, even as a certain admiration dawned through the ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... the pestilence had not declined sufficiently to warrant him in opening his house, the grocer determined to await the result of a few weeks. Indeed, that very night, he had reason to think he had defeated his plans by precipitancy. While sitting after prayers with his family, he was seized with a sudden shivering and sickness, which he could not doubt were the precursors of the plague. He was greatly alarmed, but did not ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... say, and turned to go in a sudden impetus of energy. His egoism might ascribe her precipitancy to a fear of succumbing to the tenderness which he thought that she felt for him, when her one wish was to be free of him; her one rallying and tempestuous purpose of the moment to ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... stumbling-blocks to which Berry had referred. The accuracy with which he approached it was almost uncanny. I found myself standing upon one leg.... The screech of anguish with which he hailed the collision, no less than the precipitancy with which he dropped the guitar, sat down and began to rock himself to and fro, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... occasionally stolen was merely intended to lull our vigilance and to prevent us from discovering their designs until they were ripe for execution. That they frequently told their young men that they would defeat their plans by their precipitancy. That in their harangues to the Indians they frequently requested those who would not join their confederacy, to keep their secret. That they always promised them a rich harvest of plunder and scalps, declaring ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... able to throw the mass of the Prussian forces southwards against Austria, leaving in the north only the modest contingent which was necessary to overcome the resistance of Hanover and Hesse-Cassel. Through the precipitancy of a Prussian general, who struck without waiting for his colleagues, the Hanoverians gained a victory at Langensalza on the 27th of June; but other Prussian regiments arrived on the field a few hours later, and the Hanoverian army was forced to capitulate on the next day. The King ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... myself of precipitancy; but I soon remembered that every thing ought to be hazarded, where every thing is at stake. My fears were not for myself; and, while my arms were free, could I have come upon them thus suddenly, success was far from improbable. Vice is always cowardly; and, difference of weapons ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... The moaning cry of the savage, as he sprang from the ground and moved haltingly away, convinced them that the shot had taken effect. The rest of the Indians continued behind trees, until they observed a reinforcement coming up to the aid of the whites, and they fled with the utmost precipitancy. Night soon coming on, those who followed them, had to give over ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... just told us, though he did not actually vote, was Mr. Gladstone. Twenty years after, when he had risen to be a shining light in the world's firmament, he wrote to Hampden to express regret for the injustice of which in this instance 'the forward precipitancy of youth' had made him guilty.[94] The case of Hampden gave a sharp actuality to the question of the relations of church and crown. The particular quarrel was of secondary importance, but it brought home to the high churchmen what might be expected in weightier matters than the affair of Dr. ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... early as December, 1829, in his message to the two houses, he declares, that he "cannot, in justice to the parties interested, too soon present the subject to the deliberate consideration of the legislature, in order to avoid the evils resulting from precipitancy, in a measure involving such important principles and such deep pecuniary interests." Aware of this early invitation given to Congress to take up the subject, by the President himself, the writer of the message seems to vary the ground of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... out again, and to his almost incredulous astonishment, there was Joe dragging the unfortunate Anna towards an ighloo. As he looked back, to steer straight for the entrance-hole, he caught sight of the Boy, dropped his prey, and disappeared with some precipitancy into the ground. When Anna had gathered herself up, the Boy was ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... or any other kind of idolatry. George Sand, in Lucrezia Floriani, where she drew so unkind a picture of Chopin, has described her own life and character as marked by 'a great facility for illusions, a blind benevolence of judgment, a tenderness of heart that was inexhaustible; consequently great precipitancy, many mistakes, much weakness, fits of heroic devotion to unworthy objects, enormous force applied to an end that was wretched in truth and fact, but sublime in her thought.' George Eliot had none of this facility. Nor was general benignity in her at ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... quietness, and then, when at last the winter showed signs of relaxing its iron grip, and the snow grew soft at noon, events commenced to follow fast upon one another. Jasper drove up from the railroad one afternoon bringing Lee with him, and then departed with, I thought, undue precipitancy, leaving myself and the old man alone, for I had increased the accommodation at Fairmead, and Aline discreetly withdrew. He had of course read the papers, though not until some time after the trial, ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... becoming intoxicated with the spectacle. Now that each battalion consisted of only a few insurgents he had to name them yet more hastily, and his precipitancy gave him the appearance ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... monsieur. I fled with such precipitancy, I have come through so many streets, round so many turnings, fancying I was being followed. And when I met any one that seemed decent, I asked my way to get back to the Boulevards, so as to find the Rue de la Paix. And at last, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... eighty thousand pounds. They informed us that they had taken us for a torpedo boat, and seeing the Chinese flag had no hesitation in opening fire on so dangerous a neighbour, as they deemed us. They seemed very scantily pleased when told our real character, and learnt that their precipitancy had perhaps lost them a little promotion, or at least honourable mention, as capturers of important despatches, as I understand them to ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... precipitancy into the story of his love for Cornelia, and of the inexplicably cruel way in which it had been brought to a close. "And yesterday," he continued with a sob in his voice—"yesterday I heard that her father had taken her to Philadelphia. I shall see her no more. He will ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... her wake, while Captain Barber, going in the other direction, accompanied Captain Nibletts and party as far as the schooner, in order that he might have the opportunity of saying a few well-chosen words to Mr. Green on the subject of precipitancy. ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... Theorists, indeed (wise after the fact, as is the wont of theorists), have discovered or invented an imaginary function for Second Chambers. They are to preserve the people, it seems, from the fatal consequences of their own precipitancy. As though the people—you and I—the vast body of citizens, were a sort of foolish children, to be classed with infants, women, criminals, and imbeciles (I adopt the chivalrous phraseology of an Act of Parliament), incapable of knowing their own ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... young people under the bed thereupon fell to giggling until finally she became aware of their presence. Much offended, or at least pretending to be, she ordered them from the room. They retired with such precipitancy that one of them fell upon the stairway ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... I feared that I had shown this too plainly. For his final handshake was hearty enough to send me away something ashamed of my precipitancy, and with a further sense of having shown him small gratitude for his kindly anxiety on my behalf. I would behave differently to-morrow. Meanwhile I had ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... attention of my hearers while I read to them a particular clause, which it had struck me had some allusion to the very point now in consideration. Having thus cleared the way, I had not the folly to defeat the objects of so much preparation, by an indiscreet precipitancy. So far from it, previously to reading the extract from the constitution, I waited until the attention of every member present was attracted more forcibly by the dignity, deliberation, and gravity of my manner, than by the substance of what ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be convicted on some charge or other, and be put to death, had been already determined by the priestly judges; their failure to find witnesses against Him threatened to delay the carrying out of their nefarious scheme. Haste and precipitancy characterized their procedure throughout; they had unlawfully caused Jesus to be arrested at night; they were illegally going through the semblance of a trial at night; their purpose was to convict the Prisoner in time to have Him brought before the Roman authorities as early as possible in the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... stiffened with the cold. He had promptly set up a life-sized figure which he called an "Adam," and was pushing it rapidly toward completion. There were naturally a great many wiseheads who smiled at his precipitancy, and cited him as one more example of Yankee crudity, a capital recruit to the great army of those who wish to dance before they can walk. They were right, but Roderick was right too, for the success of his statue was not to have been foreseen; it partook, really, of the miraculous. He never ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... tho' experience is yet wanting to determine which is the best, it has, I think, sufficiently decided which is the worst. That is the worst, which in its deliberations and decisions is subject to the precipitancy and passion of an individual; and when the whole legislature is crowded into one body it is an individual in mass. In all cases of deliberation it is necessary to have a corps of reserve, and it would be better to divide the representation ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... no objection to this prompt agreement to their terms; on the contrary, it suited their plans very well. Yet, in order to appear indifferent and little anxious to conclude the business with any undue haste and precipitancy, Asmut said— ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... me frequently reproaching Sweet Caps for his precipitancy in spilling the beans. We passes through the village of Plentiful Valley without stopping and walks on and on and on some more, until we observes a large, prosperous-looking building of red brick, like a summer hotel with a lawn in front and a high stone wall in front ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... confidently. He was arrayed for battle, in back-and-breast of black steel. "I'll not be trying your patience much longer. Indeed, I notice already a slackening in the fire. But it's this way, now: there's nothing at all to be gained by precipitancy, and a deal to be gained by delaying, as I shall ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Overwhelmed with professional engagements, he still contrived to snatch some moments for the stars; and between the acts at the theatre was often seen running from the harpsichord to his telescope, no doubt with that "uncommon precipitancy which accompanied all his actions."[12] He now rapidly increased the power and perfection of his telescopes. Mirrors of seven, ten, even twenty feet focal length, were successively completed, and unprecedented magnifying powers employed. His energy ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... before England inclines to follow their example. It behoves us then to qualify ourselves for our mission. We must dare our destiny. We can do this, and can only do it by early measures which shall effect the abolition of slavery, without precipitancy, without oppression, without injustice to slaveholders, without civil war, with the consent of mankind, and the approbation of Heaven. The restoration of the right of suffrage to free men is the first ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... precipitancy had been pardonable enough; and mere self-reproach for an ill-considered manoeuvre would not have sufficed to plunge him into such a depth of bitter and angry despondency as that in which he now found himself. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... scheme will open my way to attain the height of my ambition. So long as the signs are propitious I will be safe in trusting them; but should disaster threaten, I can at any time change my policy. Precaution! No precipitancy, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... other, who seems to have a music book under his arm, comes out, with a strange, screwy motion, as though through an opening much too narrow for him, and, having poised a moment to nervously pull some imaginary object from his right boot and hurl it madly from him, goes unexpectedly off with the precipitancy and equilibriously concentric manner of a gentleman in his first private ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... Nevertheless, the impulse to retaliate prevailed; and the British ministry with which Monroe and Pinkney had negotiated, though comparatively liberal in political complexion, would not wait for more precise knowledge. The occasion was seized with a precipitancy which lent color to Napoleon's assertion, that the leading aim was to favor their own trade by depressing that of others. This had already been acknowledged as the motive for interrupting American traffic in West India produce. Now again, one ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... second thought had come to Governor Shannon. To retrieve somewhat the precipitancy of his militia orders and proclamations, he wrote to Sheriff Jones, December 2, to make no arrests or movements unless by his direction. The firm defensive attitude of the people of Lawrence had produced its effect. The leaders of the conspiracy became distrustful of their power ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... the nature of princes and ministers, which I have since observed in many other courts, and their methods of treating criminals less obnoxious than myself, I should, with great alacrity and readiness, have submitted to so easy a punishment. But hurried on by the precipitancy of youth, and having his imperial majesty's license to pay my attendance upon the emperor of Blefuscu, I took this opportunity, before the three days were elapsed, to send a letter to my friend the secretary, signifying my resolution of setting out that ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... Mrs. Robson, and by a partial history of his friend, acquaint her with the occasion of the foregoing scene. He found the good woman surprised and concerned, but no way displeased; and, in a few words, he gave her a summary explanation of the precipitancy with which, without her permission, he had introduced a stranger ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Executive, but it furnishes an additional security against the enaction of improper laws. It establishes a salutary check upon the legislative body, calculated to guard the community against the effects of faction, precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, which may happen to influence a majority of that body. The propriety of a negative has, upon some occasions, been combated by an observation, that it was ...
— The Federalist Papers
... upon the present favourable bias of government and the public in general to favour all plans for doing good, he told me that he believed the whole was owing to the prudent and temperate manner in which we had acted; and that if we had acted with precipitancy and indiscretion, he had every reason to believe the general feeling would have been as hostile to attempts to do good as it ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... urgently, "I admit that I am disturbed by the precipitancy of the action that has been taken. I feel as if I were like some powerful djinni giving gifts which the recipients may ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... has been charged with precipitancy in making war on Tippoo. But the charge is refuted by dates. The French proclamation was dated 10th Pluviose, sixth year of the Republic, (30th January 1798.) Its truth or falsehood was carefully enquired into, until the evidence was ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... originally, they grow quickly intemperate and idle; and Hebronius, who does not appear among his flock until he has freed himself of the Catholic religion, as he has of the Jewish and the Protestant, sees, with dismay, the evil condition of his disciples, and regrets, too late, the precipitancy by which he renounced, then and for ever, Christianity. "But, as he had no new religion to adopt in its place, and as, grown more prudent and calm, he did not wish to accuse himself unnecessarily, once more, of inconstancy and apostasy, he still maintained all the exterior ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tell, but he and his two other comrades had borne things almost beyond endurance since he began his search, and now there was far too much at stake for him to increase the odds against them by any undue precipitancy. He was then in a dangerous mood, but he had laid his plans with grim, cold-blooded caution, and he meant to ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... For the moment he had forgotten. Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he drew out a key and unsteadily fitted it. But before turning it he stood an instant listening. No sound! Should he wait until the morrow? Prudence dictated that course; precipitancy, however, drove him on. Now, as well as ever! Better have an understanding! She would have to accede to his plans, anyway—and the sooner, the better. He had burned his bridges; there was ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... gambler spirit, that was his of inheritance, had an instinctive truth as allied to finance; but, unfortunately for Philip Crane, chance and a speculative restlessness led him amongst men who commenced with the sport of kings. With acute precipitancy he was separated from the currency that had come to him. The process was so rapid that his racing experience was of little avail as an asset, so he committed the first great wise act of his life-turned his back upon the race course and marched into finance, so strongly, so persistently, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... time as Cuvier's, were these or almost similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are struck with the most lively terrors, and often in the precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence as to cause instantaneous death. And however the general experiences in the fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in their full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the superstitious belief in them ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Alain will never err on the side of precipitancy. But seest thou not, my sister, the equinox here, and gales are abroad. I did not expect him till the S. Michel; and then there are Captain Bowden and M. the ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... tenancy. The twenty pounds had already been paid to Stovey, and the transaction was complete. Mr Amedroz sat in his chair bewildered, dismayed and, as he himself declared shocked, quite shocked, at the precipitancy of the young man. It might be for the best. He didn't know. He didn't feel at all sure. But such hurrying in such a matter was, under all the circumstances of the family, to say the least of it, very indelicate. He was angry with himself ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... design, and after he had weighed her representations in all points, replied: "I own, mother, it is great rashness in me to presume to carry my pretensions so far; and a great want of consideration to ask you with so much heat and precipitancy to go and make the proposal to the sultan, without first taking proper measures to procure a favorable reception, and therefore beg your pardon. But be not surprised that through the violence of my passion I did not at first see every ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... however, there was a powerful party attempting to stem the precipitancy of the nation. The great moneyed corporations viewed the matter with alarm, and advocated peaceful settlement, or, at most, inaction. This, however, was attributed to their fears of unsettlement of values, and consequent depreciation of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... Errors of observation; such as arise for instance from inexpertness, defective vision, slowness in seizing the exact instant of the occurrence of a phenomenon, or precipitancy in anticipating it; from atmospheric indistinctness, insufficient optical power in the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... said Deronda. "Perhaps I am able to understand what you mean. At least I understand self-reproach." In spite of preparation he was almost alarmed at Gwendolen's precipitancy of confidence toward him, in contrast ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Richelieu, were preparing to go into winter-quarters; but, upon the news of this defeat of the combined army, they again put themselves in motion, and a large detachment of them advanced as far as Duderstadt, to favour the retreat of their countrymen under the prince de Soubise, who, with great precipitancy, made the best of their way from Erfurth to the county of Hohenstein, and from thence bent their march towards Halberstadt. Of the remains of the imperial army, which was now almost entirely dispersed, whole bodies deserted, and went over ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... mastery, and cannot anyways endure, if in her right temper, to be subject unto either. And this indeed most justly. For by nature she was ordained to command all in the body. The third thing proper to man by his constitution, is, to avoid all rashness and precipitancy; and not to be subject to error. To these things then, let the mind apply herself and go straight on, without any distraction about other things, and she hath her end, and by consequent ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... their energies to re-building their city. In anticipation of a cessation of hostilities Charles set about discharging his navy, leaving the Thames and Medway open to attack. The Dutch took advantage of his precipitancy and at once sailed up the Medway, burnt three men-of-war, among them being the "Loyal London," and carried off a fourth.(1370) This took place in June (1667). The city never presented so dejected an appearance as on the arrival of the news ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... ruler of the islands, who had been dethroned, and it did not appear that such Provisional Government had the sanction of either popular revolution or suffrage. Two other remarkable features of the transaction naturally attracted attention. One was the extraordinary haste, not to say precipitancy, characterizing all the transactions connected with the treaty. It appeared that a so-called committee of safety, ostensibly the source of the revolt against the constitutional Government of Hawaii, was organized ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... arrest him the moment the bargain is complete, with the proofs of his guilt then and there upon him. Of course, what he'll try to do will be to vanish into thin air at once, as he did at Nice and Paris; but, this time, we'll have the police in waiting and everything ready. We'll avoid precipitancy, but we'll avoid delay too. We must hold our hands off till he's actually accepted and pocketed the money; and then, we must nab him instantly, and walk him off to the local Bow Street. That's my plan of campaign. Meanwhile, we should appear all ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... was shortening his way homeward by clambering here where there was no road, and in opposition to express orders that no path was to be made there. Tangs had momentarily stopped to take a pinch of snuff; but observing Mrs. Charmond gazing at him, he hastened to get over the top out of hail. His precipitancy made him miss his footing, and he rolled like a barrel to the bottom, his snuffbox rolling ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... for Anne Boleyn, was not without some control over his passions; and if appetite had been the moving influence with him, he would scarcely, with the eyes of all the world fixed upon his conduct, have passed so extravagant an insult upon the nation of which he was the sovereign. The precipitancy with which he acted is to me a proof that he looked on matrimony as an indifferent official act which his duty required at the moment. This was the interpretation which was given to his conduct by the Lords ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... they are true failings and defects of which we must endeavour to correct ourselves, inasmuch as they are displeasing both to God and man. Such are propensities to anger, grief, joy, excessive laughter, flattery, favouritism, self-pity, suspicion, over-eagerness, precipitancy, and vain affections. We must strive to rid ourselves of those defects which, like weeds, spring up without being sown in the soil of our corrupt nature, and incline us to ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... and though but the twisted wires on the plate of rosin in the preparation for electrical pictures, it is still a guide in some degree, an assimilation to an outline. But in family quarrels, which have proved scarcely less injurious to states, wilfulness, and precipitancy, and passion from mere habit and custom can alone be expected. With his accustomed judgment, Shakespeare has begun by placing before us a lively picture of all the impulses of the play; and, as nature ever presents two ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... I daily need all that I can have in a peculiar manner, and now that the future, amid the hopeful calm which it sometimes assumes, will sometimes almost frown upon me with lowerings of fear? Fear it is, not of others, but of myself, and fear of the ignorance or precipitancy of my yet but very partially regulated mind. Oh for that other fear which only "is a fountain of life, preserving from the snares of death!" Oh for that love which casteth out the slavish fear, and maketh one with what it loves—first with that God from whom it comes, and then with those ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... a piercing yell she turned and fled, and with such precipitancy that she pulled the net off the handle. I saw her flying down the lobby with the net over her head, looking like an oriental bride; I heard the street door bang, and I found the butter-fly net on the doormat. But Susan Slodger I never set eyes ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... haste, urgency,; despatch, dispatch; acceleration, spurt, spirt[obs3], forced march, rush, dash; speed, velocity &c. 274; precipitancy, precipitation, precipitousness &c. adj.; impetuosity; brusquerie[obs3]; hurry, drive, scramble, bustle, fuss, fidget, flurry, flutter, splutter. V. haste, hasten; make haste, make a dash &c. n.; hurry on, dash on, whip on, push on, press on, press forward; hurry, skurry[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of sustained thought, and who had completely forgotten and recalled the subject of the cottage-rents several times since the departure of Mrs. Grant, nevertheless at once diagnosed the cause of the trouble; and with her usual precipitancy began to repulse an attack which had not even been opened. Mrs. Lessways was not good at strategy, especially in conflicts with her daughter. She was an ingenuous, hasty thing, and much too candidly human. And not ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... in air, with the slender curve of its back, its flattened hips, its feet laid together like wings folded in the first downrush, might have been the body of a young immortal descending with facile precipitancy ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... a week he had an idea that he acted upon with eager precipitancy. She had let fall some word, at their last meeting, of a taste for music. Trent went that evening, and thenceforward regularly, to the opera. He might see her; and if, in spite of his caution, she caught sight of him, they could be blind to each other's presence—anybody might happen to ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... you must attack and overthrow; not a mere instrument—a miserable painted lath such as this. And precipitancy will spoil everything. Above all, my ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... I could say a word. I immediately concluded, from the precipitancy of his flight, that the pipe was injured. But when I subjected it to close examination I could discover no signs of damage. While I was still eying it with jealous scrutiny the door reopened, and Tress ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... marked by a new detraction. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the obscure but not unmajestic law of change from the sorry custom of reaction. Change hastes not and rests not, reaction beats to and fro, flickering about the moving mind of the world. Reaction—the paltry precipitancy of the multitude—rather than the novelty of change, has brought about a ferment and corruption of opinion on Tennyson's poetry. It may be said that opinion is the same now as it was in the middle of the nineteenth century—the same, but turned. All that ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... it. But he hardly can. I don't expect he'll run into extremes. He certainly won't without taking advice. The Archdeacon isn't a man to do anything definite in a hurry. He's told me over and over again that he deprecates precipitancy of action." ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... speak for a long time, but sat looking at the child whose face now wore an old and troubled look. In his mind he was revolving a plan which, with, his usual precipitancy, he resolved to carry into effect at once. But he said nothing of it to Jerry, whose attention was diverted by the entrance of Charles and the preparations for luncheon, which on the little girl's account, was served ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... swangean* round this arkoe,** which we usually divert ourselves with at set times of the year, chasing and pursuing one another, sometimes soaring to an extravagant height, and then shooting down again with surprising precipitancy, till we even touch the trees; when of a sudden we mount again ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... depended on it, the subordinate officer could properly exercise his own discretion as to the time and manner of its execution. Warren was a skilled engineer officer and held too closely in an emergency to purely scientific principles. He had none of Sheridan's precipitancy, and did not believe in violating, under any circumstances, principles of war taught by the books. Before a subsequent court of inquiry Warren produced what appeared to be overwhelming testimony from experienced and distinguished officers of the army to the effect that he had moved his corps ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... keenly he felt and regretted the precipitancy which had yoked him for life to "a mute and spiritless mate," the breach did not come from his side. The girl herself conceived an equal repugnance to the husband she had thoughtlessly accepted, probably on the ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... the stream of life, Pure and unhinder'd.—What thy thought? O king, What silent purpose broods in thy deep soul? Is it destruction? Let me perish first! For now, deliv'rance hopeless, I perceive The dreadful peril into which I have With rash precipitancy plung'd my friends. Alas! I soon shall see them bound before me! How to my brother shall I say farewell? I, the unhappy author of his death. Ne'er can I gaze again ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... left her under the impression that he had his eye on one. Catherine may have had her difficulties; but those of her circumspect suitor are also worthy of consideration. The prize was certainly great; but it was only to be won by striking the happy mean between precipitancy and caution. It would be all very well to take one's jump and trust to Providence; Providence was more especially on the side of clever people, and clever people were known by an indisposition to risk their bones. The ultimate reward of a union ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... him, Colonel Pride, he knew, was not an over-patient man. He was still debating what course to take, and had turned to his companion with the muttered question: "What think you, Peter?" when by his precipitancy Kenneth ruined his slender chance of being ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... mother may greatly influence the poetic or artistic mind of her son for good, she may also influence it for evil. Thus the characteristics of Lord Byron—the waywardness of his impulses, his defiance of restraint, the bitterness of his hate, and the precipitancy of his resentments—were traceable in no small degree to the adverse influences exercised upon his mind from his birth by his capricious, violent, and headstrong mother. She even taunted her son with his personal deformity; and it was ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... he owed it to her father being a born islander, with all the ancient island notions of matrimony lying underneath his acquired conventions, that the stone-merchant did not immediately insist upon the usual remedy for a daughter's precipitancy in such cases, but ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... Nigger, who was not in my reckoning, nor in Swope's, who put the match to the tinder and upset such carefully laid plans. As I feared, the revolt of the crew blazed up immediately. My shipmates were eager, too eager. As it turned out, their precipitancy was to cost them their chance of victory, for they began to riot while the three tradesmen were still handy to the roundhouse door, though, indeed, they had no knowledge, as had ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... to rescue Pomp from the consequences of his precipitancy, but too late. He picked up the little fellow and, carrying him out, strove ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... hand all the time rather to her discomfiture. Then Mrs. Gibson introduced her daughter, and the two girls spoke of the enjoyment of their walk. Mr. Coxe marred his cause in that very first interview, if indeed he ever could have had any chance, by his precipitancy in showing his feelings, and Mrs. Gibson helped him to mar it by trying to assist him. Molly lost her open friendliness of manner, and began to shrink away from him in a way which he thought was a very ungrateful return for all his faithfulness to her these two years past, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... have frequently made this observation, that when men have, through fear of miscarriage, hesitated a long time about any undertaking of consequence, the remaining impressions of their fear commonly push them afterwards with too much precipitancy upon the execution of their design. And this was my case. It was with the greatest reluctance that I determined to accept the dignity of a cardinal, because I thought it too mean to form a pretension to it without certainty of success; and no sooner was I ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... "good linen and clothing," a knowledge of French, Latin, and English, some skill in playing the violin, the organ, and the oboe, and an "uncommon precipitancy" in doing what ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... as he and Bounce thundered over the green turf of the flowering plains, scattering the terrified grasshoppers right and left, and causing the beautifully striped ground-squirrels to plunge with astonishing precipitancy into their holes, he argued with himself, that the mere fact of a murderous deed having been done was not a sufficient reason, perhaps, to justify his sallying forth with a reckless band of desperate fur-traders, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... rushed the musician to his workshop, and many a lace ruffle was torn by nails or bespattered by molten pitch; to say nothing of the positive danger to which Herschel continually exposed himself by the precipitancy of his movements. For example: one Saturday evening, when the two brothers returned from a concert between eleven and twelve o'clock, William amused himself all the way home with the idea of being at liberty to spend the next ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... holes, cut out by the shepherd-boys in the more perpendicular descents, and fairly sliding or running down the shorter ones. They saw their friends waiting for them; and a lesser figure than the rest hastened towards them, scaling the steep slopes with a good will, precipitancy, and wild hurrahs of exultation, that would not let them doubt it was Walter, before they could see his form distinctly, or hear his words. Rose ran headlong down the last green slope, and was saved from falling by ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dripping heavily from the branches of the trees. I was just on the point of turning back to the road when one of our batteries concealed in the place opened fire, and a perfect hell of flame burst out around me. I flopped to earth with graceless precipitancy, and wallowed in mud. "It's all up 3008, you've done it now," I muttered, and wondered vaguely whether I was partly or wholly dead. The sharp smell of cordite filled the air and caused (p. 171) a tickling sensation in my ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... indicate it as one of those departments in which an intelligent philanthropy might find a great sphere for its endeavours; but it would be better not to touch it at all than to deal with it with light-hearted precipitancy and without due consideration of all the difficulties and dangers connected therewith. Obstacles, however, exist to be overcome and converted into victories. There is even a certain fascination about the difficult and dangerous, which appeals very strongly to all ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... burden of its tale was that the murder had been my work, in complicity with the Princess of Eboli. How they came to drag her name into the affair I do not know. It may have been pure malice trading upon its knowledge of the relations between us. She may have lent colour to the charge by her own precipitancy in denying it. She announced indignantly that she was being accused, almost before this had come to pass, and as indignantly protested against the accusation, and threatened those who dared ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height. And this fall—this rushing annihilation—for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... known that food for the mind has but little savor for starving stomachs. The famine, and the unmistakable determination of the Boers to enslave my people, at last made me look to the north seriously. There was no precipitancy. Letters went to and from India respecting my project before resolving to leave, and I went at last, after being obliged to send my family to Kuruman in order to be out of the way of a threatened attack of the Boers. When we reached Lake 'Ngami, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... righteous man who is most ready to accuse himself; the unrighteous is least ready. Who is able when in deep trouble, rightly to analyze his feelings? Delay in action is not necessarily abandonment of duty; in Hamlet's case it is a due recognition of duty, which condemns precipitancy—and action in the face of doubt, so long as it is nowise compelled, is precipitancy. The first thing is to be sure: Hamlet has never been sure; he spies at length a chance of making himself sure; he seizes upon it; and while his sudden resolve to ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... for taking any immediate steps," he said. "The scene that took place to-night was forced on by my precipitancy, and the danger to Stratton has passed away. To-morrow I will see him again, and perhaps he will be more ready to take me into his confidence, for there is a great deal more to ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... at an art exhibition in that city a small replica of a famous statue of California, and, without consulting his fellow members, had ordered a larger copy for the new settlement. He, however, made up for his precipitancy by an extravagant description of his purchase, which impressed even the most cautious. "It's the figger of a mighty pretty girl, in them spirit clothes they allus wear, holding a divinin' rod for findin' gold afore her in one hand; all the while she's hidin' behind ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... in almost every remaining instance, pronounce the acquittal of the vessels captured, and adjudged them to be given up to pretended Brazilian owners, notwithstanding that Brazilian property embarked in enemy's vessels was, by the law, declared to be forfeited; and that, too, with such indecent precipitancy that, in cases where the hull only had been claimed, the cargo also was decreed to be given up to the claimants of the hull, without any part of it having, at any time, been even pretended to be their property. Other ships and cargoes were ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... the nature of princes and ministers, which I have since observed in many other courts, and their methods of treating criminals less obnoxious than myself, I should with great alacrity and readiness have submitted to so easy a punishment. But, hurried on by the precipitancy of youth, and having his imperial majesty's license to pay my attendance upon the emperor of Blefuscu, I took this opportunity, before the three days were elapsed, to send a letter to my friend the secretary, signifying my resolution of setting out that morning for Blefuscu pursuant ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... manifestly refused her old friend. It was but a small object of ambition, but we must do what we can, thought Edgar; and it is the best wisdom to content ourselves with mice when we have no lions to destroy. He did not, however, rush up to her with Alick's tactless precipitancy. He waited just long enough for her to desire, and not so long as to disappoint; then, speaking to Adelaide by the way, and giving her and Josephine each a helping hand, he came in a series of clean, showy curves to where Leam and her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... precipitancy than Eldon for procrastination, Sir John Leach, Vice-Chancellor, was said to have done more mischief by excessive haste in a single term than Eldon in his whole life wrought through extreme caution. The holders of this opinion ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... sighs, as he drains his glass, "Valois, our people have doomed the South to a secondary standing in the Union. This fatal blunder in the West ruins us. Benton and Fremont's precipitancy thwarted our statesmen. This gold, the votes of these new States, the future commerce, the immense resources of the West, all are cast in the balance against us. We must work for a Western republic. We must ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... suddenly about midnight much excitement rose amongst them. They conversed eagerly in their own tongue for a few moments, and the lady had rushed off down the street by herself, whilst her two companions ran with equal precipitancy to join the third in the sitting-room they had engaged, and there they were still seated in moody expectancy, apparently watching for some dramatic ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... comes tearing up the steps, racing Philip, who combines a terrific speed with unhurried propriety of bearing which, however, costs him the race, as Dolly reaches her mother first and almost upsets the garden seat by the precipitancy ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... the English were actually reembarking, a fierce indignation broke out against Le Loutre for the useless cruelty and precipitancy of his action. The French troops had some little feeling for the houseless villagers, and they were angered at being deprived of their chief and most convenient source of supplies. The fierce abbe insisted that the movement of the English was a ruse of ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... in the old angry tone which rarely accompanies deep and wise convictions. They do not meet the real difficulties; they mistake them, misrepresent them, claim victories over adversaries with whom they have never even crossed swords, and leap to conclusions with a precipitancy at which we can only smile. It has been the unhappy manner of their class from immemorial time; they call it zeal for the Lord, as if it were beyond all doubt that they were on God's side—as if serious enquiry after truth ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... broken and destruction failing to follow the awful sacrilege, the people, with that childlike precipitancy which has always characterized them, jumped to the conclusion that their gods were a weak and wretched swindle, just as they formerly jumped to the conclusion that Captain Cook was no god, merely because he groaned, and promptly killed him without stopping to inquire whether a god might not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... then upon a moment's reflection rose to his feet. "I don't in the least know what to make of all this," he said, with nervous precipitancy. "If I've offended you in any way, say so, and I will apologize at once. But treatment of this sort ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... "Christabel" and "The Ancient Mariner" are begun. Before and after, Coleridge is seen trying to write like Bowles, like Wordsworth, like Southey, perhaps, to attain "that impetuosity of transition and that precipitancy of fancy and feeling, which are the essential qualities of the sublimer Ode," and which he fondly fancies that he has attained in the "Ode on the Departing Year," with its one good line, taken out of his note-book. But here, in "Lewti," he has his style, his lucid and liquid ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... adjourning and dissolving of Assemblies, and recording the same, contrar to the practise of this Church in our reforming times. We are not concerned to notice the protestation of some few persons at particular times, seeing their precipitancy and rashness in this matter, (as they accounted it) was afterward apologized for; and that it was not the deed of the Assembly. Their not asserting in any explicit and formal act the divine right of Presbytry, ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... wronged by the other, and each of them, in his irritation, used strong and unguarded expressions which lost nothing by repetition. Thus the "rift of difference" was cleft deeper and deeper between them; and, chiefly through Kenrick's pride and precipitancy, a disagreement which might at first have been easily adjusted became a serious, and threatened ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... its Ally as an enemy: and,—though there are alleviations of its conduct in its great sufferings,—yet it must be remembered that these sufferings were due—not to the Gallicians—but to circumstances over which they had no controul—to the precipitancy of the retreat, the inclemency of the weather, and the poverty of the country; and that (knowing this) they must have had a double sense of injustice in any outrages of an English army, from, contrasting them with the professed objects of that army in entering Spain.—It ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Tom received a bottle, tied significantly round with red tape, for his host was somewhat of a wag. On tasting it, Tom poured out a glass and drank it off, but the instant afterwards regretted his precipitancy, for he declared that he had never tasted anything so execrable. Just then his friend looked in upon him. 'Well, Somers, how did you like my wine?' he asked. 'I can't say that I ever wish to take another drop of it,' answered ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... well-conducted State, the chief of the Government ought to do all in his power to stimulate the honour of the citizens, and to render them more sensible to honorary distinctions than to pecuniary advantages. I tried, however, at the same time to warn the First Consul of his precipitancy. He heard me not; but I must with equal frankness confess that on this occasion I was soon freed from all apprehension with respect to the consequences of the difficulties he had to encounter in the Council and in the other constituted orders ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... itself, might somehow be disadvantageous to the Scottish Episcopate. One charge alleged is to us in this day simply amusing; namely, that the bishop had been "precipitate" in his application to Scotland. A precipitancy which patiently waits and labors for more than thirteen months to obtain the Episcopate in England, and only when all hope of so obtaining it is at an end applies for it in Scotland, is, to say the least, a very deliberate sort of precipitancy. And now we may pass from the old ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... a feeling of perfect security to one of miserable doubt, at finding the field already taken, nearly drove Mr. Murray into a precipitancy that he might have regretted forever. As it was, he answered Kittie's inquiries for Pansy, in a pre-occupied way, that was surprising, and seemed too much pleased with that envelope to ever lay it down; and yet, with ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... can I, when he is the father of this poor babe that's coming to me? I must have him back again! Milly, Milly, can't you pity and understand me, perverse girl that you are, and the miserable plight that I am in? Oh, this precipitancy—it is the ruin of women! Why did I not consider, and wait! Come, give me back all that I have given you, and assure me you will support me ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... is from stupid inadvertency, or heady precipitancy; when the man doth not heed what he saith, or consider the nature and consequence of his words, but snatcheth any expression which cometh next, or which his roving fancy doth offer, for want of that caution of the psalmist, "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue; ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... an interest in conserving himself—that he should love the bonds by which he is united to others— that he should be capable of occupying himself with their felicity—that he should have a sound mind. That the suicide should repent of his precipitancy, he should outlive himself, he should carry with him into his future residence, his organs, his senses, his memory, his ideas, his actual mode of existing, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... was the provision of officers; the men were procured almost too fast. This became the business of the Military Secretary's Department. The M.S. Department holds tenaciously to the dogma that maladministration is the child of precipitancy and that deliberation stamps official procedure with the hall-mark of respectability. In later stages of the war one never was gazetted to an appointment until after one had passed on to the next one. But a gunner "dug-out," Colonel "Bill" Elliot, had been roped into the Department ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... intense dissatisfaction to Godfrey. He had heard of the late incumbent's death, and when he arrived home and found the living filled up he proclaimed his anger loudly, lavishing abuse upon poor dead Raymond for his precipitancy. He had wanted to bestow it upon a friend of his, a Colonial chaplain, and had promised it to him. It was a checkmate there was no help for now, for Mr. West could not be turned out again; but Captain Monk was not accustomed to be checkmated, and resented it accordingly. He took ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... declined Armstrong, hurriedly. He started up to avoid a change of purpose, and to cover any seeming precipitancy lit a cigarette with deliberation. "I ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... more than once moved by a flippant and possibly profane memory of the swine that rushed down a steep place into the sea. I do not insist on the personal parallel; for whatever my points of resemblance to a pig I am not a flying pig, a pig with wings of speed and precipitancy; and if I am possessed of a devil, it is not the blue devil of suicide. But the phrase came back into my mind because going down to the Dead Sea does really involve rushing down a steep place. Indeed it gives a strange ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... is a maxim with us, my dear sir, never to be premature in anything, especially when it may be—very prejudicial; you've really no idea, my dear Mr. Titmouse, of the world of mischief that is often done by precipitancy in legal matters; and in the present stage of the business—the present stage, my dear sir—I really do see it necessary not to—do anything premature, and ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... the Bank of the United States expires in 1836, and its stock holders will most probably apply for a renewal of their privileges. In order to avoid the evils resulting from precipitancy in a measure involving such important principles and such deep pecuniary interests, I feel that I can not, in justice to the parties interested, too soon present it to the deliberate consideration of the Legislature and the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... know it is. I have no right to take you by storm in this way, but I trust you will not allow my precipitancy to weight against me. Take a little time to think it over—a week say" ("by which time," he reflected, "I hope to be in Algiers.") "Only, if you can, Madeline, tell me ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... reason partially resumed its sway; then a quick recovery was felt, and many who had rushed to sell all they had, found cause to regret their precipitancy. The next day all was on the mend, as far as the stock market was concerned, but among the people at large the poison of awakened credulity continued to spread, nourished by fresh announcements from ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... bed-chamber at an early hour, but not to sleep. Instead, she abandoned herself to torturing reflections on the malevolent predicament into which she had been brought. She did not attempt to disguise from herself the hideous fact that her own precipitancy of action in the matter of the candidates for the club had been the primary cause of the peril that now beset her husband's business prosperity by reason of the strike thus induced. She bewailed the impetuous character of her emotions, which had ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... move to York, and directed his pupil to prepare to accompany him forthwith. The lovers, of course, were in despair at the thought of their approaching separation. In the end they secured their mutual fidelity by a hasty and private marriage. Reproved for his precipitancy and imprudence, Romney replied that his marriage would surely act as a spur to his application: 'My thoughts being now still and not obstructed by youthful follies, I can practise with more diligence and success than ever.' While at York he zealously devoted ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... had asked for sister Rosina, and, receiving her answer, had fallen senseless at the wicket. Rosina was present at the narration; her heart told her who it was; also told her that I had not been faithless. Joy at my fidelity, and grief at her own precipitancy, which rendered it unavailing, overpowered her, and she was led to her cell in a state ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... of kindling an inextinguishable flame if I should admit any public and open contests; and I have grieved to see that some, who should have done their Majesties, and this Province, better service, have so far taken council of passion as to desire the precipitancy of these matters; these things have been improved by some to give me many interruptions in their Majesties service [which] has been hereby unhappily clogged, and the persons, who have made so ill improvement of these ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... retainers of their lords, united themselves to the two thousand Richmond hired abroad. It was any thing but a popular uprising against the jealous, hateful, bloody humpback of Shakspeare; it excuses the fatal precipitancy with which the King (instead of gathering his troops from the scattered fortifications) not only hurried on the battle, but, when the mine of treason began to explode beneath his feet on Bosworth field, refused to seek ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... often lamented, between ourselves, the misfortunes which hung over the State, when we discovered the seeds of a civil war in the insatiable ambition of a few private Citizens, and saw every hope of an accommodation excluded by the rashness and precipitancy of our public counsels. But the felicity which always marked his life, seems to have exempted him, by a seasonable death, from the calamities that followed. But, as after the decease of Hortensius, we seem to have ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... through the air, but because, by sheltering the soil from the direct action of the sun, they diminish the evaporation of water produced by rain. When forests are destroyed, as they are everywhere in America by the European planters, with imprudent precipitancy, the springs are entirely dried up, or become less abundant. The beds of the rivers, remaining dry during a part of the year, are converted into torrents whenever great rains fall on the heights. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... same time intimating in a faint tone, that she did hear; for she had not entirely recovered from the embarrassment attendant on the precipitancy of her advent into ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... thy testimony that there was a huge and desperate gang of them afoot. Revengeful dogs! it is difficult to deal with them. The laws forbid precipitancy and violence. A dozen or two may return and harm me; not me, indeed, but my tenants and servants. I would fain act with prudence, and like unto him who looketh abroad. He must tie his shoe tightly who passeth through mire; he must step softly who steppeth over stones; he must walk in the fear of ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... not a few who were inclined to Secession as the only course in the face of the Republican victory, considered the precipitancy of South Carolina unwise and unjustifiable. She should, they thought, rather have awaited a conference with the other Southern States and the determination of a common policy. But in fact there can be little doubt that the audacity of her action was a distinct spur to the Secessionist ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... unsheathed the claymore in the pine forests of North Carolina, not a single person has shown the hardihood to applaud their action. On the other hand, although treated with the utmost charity, their bravery applauded, they have been condemned for their rude precipitancy, besides failing to see the changed condition of affairs, and resenting the injuries they had received from the House of Hanover that had harried their country and hanged their relatives on the murderous gallows-tree. Their course, however, in the end proved advantageous to them; ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... gist of her conversation with Ashley on the previous day and the one great decision to which they had led him up. It would have gratified Ashley, could he have overheard, to note the skill with which she conveyed precisely that quality of noble precipitancy in his words and resolutions which he himself feared they had lacked. If a slight suspicion could have risen in his mind, it would have been that of a certain haste on her part to forestall any possible questioning of his eagerness such as he had occasion to observe ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... When the precipitancy of a man's wishes hurries on his ideas ninety times faster than the vehicle he rides in—woe be to truth! and woe be to the vehicle and its tackling (let 'em be made of what stuff you will) upon which he breathes forth the disappointment ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... eating. It was almost as if the Countess de Mattos were playing into her hands. It seemed too good to be true. She was afraid that something would happen to ruin all; that she would lose her head, and by her precipitancy put the other on her guard; yet the opportunity was too admirable to ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... my precipitancy, Mr. President," said Baker apologetically. "Thinking you were an accomplice of this lady's, I tried only to do ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... Nothing caused more surprise at the moment than the extreme bitterness of animosity which the insurgents manifested towards the king's person, unless it were the tameness with which he submitted to his fate and the precipitancy of his flight. There was something rotten in the state of things, men said, which could thus dissolve, crushed like a swollen fungus by a casual foot. And indeed, whether with perfect justice or not, Louis Philippe's Administration had come to be deemed corrupt ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... angry rather than a disappointed man, he paced the office with rapid and irregular strides. He could devise no expedient. A lady's will is absolute, and he must bend in submission. He blamed his own tardiness one moment, and his precipitancy the next; then he cursed his ill luck, and vented his anger and disappointment ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... concern was to meet, say something (she knew not what) to Perigal before he left Melkbridge for good. She arrived breathless at the station five minutes before his train started. He was not in the booking office, and she could see nothing of him on the platform. She was beginning to regret her precipitancy, when she saw him walking down the road to the station, carrying a much worn leather brief bag. Her heart beat as she ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... him and perfectly understood his meaning; but, with a precipitancy that filled the hunters with the greatest alarm, she started directly toward them, with outstretched arms, as if imploring assistance. It was at this instant that Lewis discovered a quickness of perception, coolness and promptness of action that was absolutely wonderful. Looking out upon ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... bullets crashed amongst their faltering ranks, they broke and retreated. The battle was literally won in a few minutes. Wolfe, who had been wounded in the wrist at the beginning of the fight, was leading a charge of the grenadiers, who had shown such fateful precipitancy at Montmorency, when he was fatally wounded. He was removed to a redoubt in the rear and laid on the ground, where he remained for a few minutes in a swoon or stupour. "They run! See how they run!" exclaimed one of the men watching their wounded chief. "Who run?" he called, as he attempted to rise ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot |
