"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feel it at once, and then, when you knows what the taste of it is, you'll take care how you're slack in stays." So saying, he administered three or four hearty cuts on the back and shoulders of our hero, who had been sufficiently drilled into the manners and customs of a man-of-war, to know the value of the proverb, "The least said, the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd, Like the soil'd tissue of white violets Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank, By children whom their nurses call with haste Indoors from the sun's eye; his head droop'd low, His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay— White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps, Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame, Convulsed him back to life, he open'd them, And fix'd them feebly on ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... canal and military installations by the US has given rise to new construction projects. The MOSCOSO administration inherited an economy that is much more structurally sound and liberalized than the one inherited by its predecessor. Even though export demand is likely to remain slack in some key markets - especially the Andean countries - GDP growth in 2000 probably will be 3% to 4%. Key reform initiatives from the previous administration - including the privatization of public utilities - remain uncompleted. Although President MOSCOSO is unlikely to overturn any previous ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... narrow lane Jose unrolled the cord, and I, taking one end in my hand, sat down in the darkness, laying the gag and a strip or two of hide on the ground near me. Jose moved to the other side of the lane, and we let the rope lie slack across the road. Then we waited in silence for the coming of Lurena, feeling confident that he would not leave the house till the night ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... just at this time. Work was slack in the laundry and Mary had not been well, so Lena stayed at home, glad enough to get an opportunity ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... Government to-morrow, if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you, instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to think, I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest. All you can think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as far as your imagination carries you. And perhaps you ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... appeared with the tray and lit my candle; and I had breakfasted and read (with indescribable sinkings) the whole of yesterday's work before the sun had risen. Then I sat and thought, and sat and better thought. It was not good enough, nor good; it was as slack as journalism, but not so inspired; it was excellent stuff misused, and the defects stood gross on it like humps upon a camel. But could I, in my present disposition, do much more with it? in my present pressure for time, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then, and haul aft the leeward. Slack out the mizzen sheet a little, Jack. That's it; now she's off again, like ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... of a comparatively small number into a neighbourhood where much of the work is low-skilled and irregular, will often produce an effect which seems quite out of proportion to the actual number of the invaders. Where work is slack and difficult to get, a very small addition of low-living foreigners will cause a perceptible fall in the entire wages of the neighbourhood in the employments which their competition affects. It ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... was unabashed by externals. He demanded "tea" of his mother that very moment, "cos 'e 'adn't no time for dinner and 'is bloke 'ad sent 'im round to get a bit o' somethink now," at a slack hour. ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... Archie waited a few moments, then went to the window and hauled in the slack. Presently the bag appeared over the ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... drilling," Godfrey went on. "Except for those times in the rest billets, regiments might get a bit slack. In the trenches, you see, the routine is strict, but it's different. Men are much more on their own. There aren't any inspections of kit and all that sort of ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... before another sea comes! I can't slack away these halliards. Bob, out knife, and up in ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... the answer. "It will run out the cable and down the cab. I've left them plenty of slack to move around ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... unless it wanted to. It braced its fore legs and stood immovable, then shook its mighty head till the lasso twanged like a fiddle-string, but did not give an inch. Finally the steer caught sight of its tormentors outside the yard, and rushed. At once the rope became slack and the watchful men pulled it tight again, and soon the great beast was jammed up against the fence, using all its strength to try and break the green-hide rope. But the lasso was made out of the hide of a bull and could have held any steer that was ever calved. Leg ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... the wind blew fair, and the little ship sped gaily homeward. Then came a calm. The sun burned overhead, no faintest breeze stirred the slack sails, and the ship lay as if at anchor upon the glassy waters. And as the ship lay motionless the slender stock of food grew less and less. Soon there was nothing left but maize, and little of that. At first a tiny handful was each man's daily portion; then it was ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... a slack hour when Private Wakeman, in his grotesquely tattered clothes, limped through the door. Only a few men were in the hut, writing or playing draughts. A boy at the piano was laboriously beating out a discordant version of "Tennessee." ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... were light-heartedly demolishing an excellent dinner, and the manager of the Hotel de Loup was congratulating himself upon the acquisition of two unexpected guests during the slack season. Afterwards they made another pilgrimage up to the Roche d'Or to ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... makers, perfumers, portmanteau-makers, spectacle-makers, surgical-instrument makers, tie-makers, etc. These girls can be roughly divided into two classes,—those who earn from 8s. to 14s., and those who earn from 4s. to 8s. per week. Taking slack time into consideration, it is, I think, safe to say that 10s. is the average weekly wage of the first class, and 4s. 6d. that of the second class. Their weekly wage often falls below this, and sometimes rises above it. The hours are ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... flag upon a newly-annexed territory. And is He going to be so careless in the preservation of His property as that He will allow that which is thus acquired to slip away from Him? Does He account us as of so small value as to hold us with so slack a hand? But no man has a right to rest on the assurance of God's saving him into the heavenly kingdom, unless He is saving him at this moment from the devil and his own evil heart. And, therefore, I say the Christian character, in its outward manifestations and in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... of the captivity I heard the rattle of the chain, and then made out that the old fox was there, hard at work digging a hole by the little one's kennel. When it was deep enough to half bury her, she gathered into it all the slack of the chain, and filled it again with earth. Then in triumph thinking she had gotten rid of the chain, she seized little Tip by the neck and turned to dash off up the wood-pile, but alas! only to have him ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... be dead than praised," he said, That hero, like a hero dead, In this slack-sinewed age endued With more ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... her face deadened. Though she would hardly have admitted it, even to herself, she regretted the way in which everything at Old Place was now allowed to go "slack." She knew it to be bad for her sisters. It wasn't as if they did any real housework or gave useful help in the kitchen. Dolly tried to do so in a desultory way, but in the end it was she, Betty, who kept everything going in this big, rambling old house, with the help of the old nurse and a day ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... rid of, and the coat had been somewhat altered. The old school of breeders had evidently determined upon great speed and the ability to stay, through the medium of deep ribs, heart room, wide loins, length of quarter, quality of bone, straightness of fore-leg, and round strong feet; the slack loined, loosely built, and splayfooted hound of former generations had been left behind. To such perfection, indeed, had the Foxhound attained, that long before the close of the eighteenth century sportsmen were clamouring as to ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... hold, rolling the other man over. Thorvald obeyed his pull limply, lying face upward, sand in his hair and eyebrows, crusting his slack lips. The younger man brushed the dirt away gently as the other opened his eyes to regard Shann with his old ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... employing the crew is, "setting up" rigging. Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack, (which is continually happening), the seizings and coverings must be taken off, tackles got up, and after the rigging is bowsed well taught, the seizings and coverings replaced; which is a very nice piece of work. There is also such a ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... water and sewage purification which appears to possess several substantial advantages. Chief among these are simplicity in construction and operation, economy in first cost and working and efficiency in action. This system is the invention of Messrs. Slack & Brownlow, of Canning Works, Upper Medlock Street, Manchester, and the apparatus adopted in carrying it out is here illustrated. It consists of an iron cylindrical tank having inside a series of plates arranged in a spiral direction around a fixed center, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... ways," said Calvin. "S'pose likely she's slack, hey? house cluttered up? calicker wrapper and shoes down at the ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... years at Worcester in such labors as these. When work at his trade became slack, or when he had earned a little more money than usual, he would spend more time in the library; but, on the other hand, when work in the shop was pressing, he could give less time to study. After a while he began to think that he might perhaps earn his subsistence in part by his knowledge ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... will the people best the voice of their leaders obey, When neither too slack is the rein, nor violence holdeth the sway; For indulgence breedeth a child, the presumption that spurns control, When riches too great are poured upon men ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... Simpson. It rose on a southerly wind, but remained in it for 100 feet or less, then for 300 or 400 feet it went straight up, and after that directly south over Razor Back Island. Everything seemed to go well, the thread, on being held, tightened and then fell slack as it should do. It was followed for two miles or more running in a straight line for Razor Back, but within a few hundred yards of the Island it came to an end. The searchers went round the Island to try and recover the clue, but ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... subject, "Flunk on,—flunk ever." Colloquy, to a joker whose wit was not estimated, subject, "Unappreciated Facetiousness." When a play upon names is attempted, the subject "Perfect Looseness" is assigned to Mr. Slack; Mr. Barnes discourses upon "Stability of character, or pull down and build greater"; Mr. Todd treats upon "The Student's Manual," and incentives to action are presented, based on the line "Lives of great men all remind us," by students who ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... warehouses that there is so little mutual goodwill between servants and masters. An employer will often treat his people as mere "hands," who are to sell his goods and do his bidding, but directly work is slack, he will turn them adrift without scruple or ruth; or if they remain for years in his service, will give no increase of wage or salary proportioned to capacity and diligence. A Christian employer, at least, should ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... lobster-pots and he had been waiting at the entrance of Clam River for the tide to make the water deep enough for him to come up. On days when the tide was not so low he could come up all right, even at "slack water." But this time the channel was not deep enough for his motor-boat ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... at first was slack, and no wonder; and Furlong began to grow tired, when Murphy hooked on his salmon, and gently brought it round under the water within ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... to Jesus Christ, and the righteousness of his kingdom, that this treasure of grace may abound? Alas, we are poor mean Christians, because we are negligent! For "the hand of the diligent maketh rich," Prov. x. 4. But we become poor in grace, because we deal with a slack hand. Is there any great thing that is attainable without much pains and sweating? Difficilia ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... us be sure that, if only we keep ourselves in the love, and continue in the grace of God, He will not slack nor stay His hand on which Zion is graven, until it has 'perfected that which concerneth us,' and fulfilled to each of us that 'which He has spoken ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... cylinder, oil from the lubricator will go through this opening and oil the piston rod and cylinder packing. If not possible to block the valve properly, cover the ports and oil the cylinder through the indicator plug openings or relief plug holes. If not possible to do this, slack off the bolts on the front cylinder head, wedge the head open so oil can be introduced. In some cases it may be necessary to take the head off; that however, allows dust and grit to enter ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... Van der Kemp, who deftly caught it and held on tight. Another was flung to Moses, who also caught it and held on—slack. At the same moment, Nigel saw a large block with a hook attached ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... so slack, so slow! He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates, Not enough barbarous, had not o'erboard thrown me For to seek ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... was the ready reply; "but before we do that I'd like to drop down to the ground for a bit. I can see several slack guys that will be all the better for being tightened a little. Like every other new machine, this needs constant attention to bring things up ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... past years he had staggered in from a long march where, for hours, he had waged a bitter war with cold and hunger, his limbs clumsy with fatigue, his garments wet and stiff, his mind slack and sullen. At such extreme seasons he had felt a consuming thirst, a thirst which burned and scorched until his very bones cried out feverishly. Not a thirst for water, nor a thirst which eaten snow could quench, but a savage yearning of his whole exhausted system for ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... With a slack bridle his horse was left to refresh himself on the sward, while Carlos proceeded to the execution of a design that had been matured in his ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... Fairway. "'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather a hard way of saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so as to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head. How old ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... an ottoman in the middle of the apartment, and floundered right into the centre of a group of young ladies, and one or two lapdogs, by whom it was conjointly occupied. Trying to recover myself, I slipped on the glasslike floor, and came down stern foremost; and being now regularly at the slack end, for I could not well get lower, I sat still, scratching my caput in the midst of a gay company of morning visitors, enjoying the gratifying consciousness that I was distinctly visible to them, although my dazzled optics could as yet distinguish nothing. To add to my pleasurable sensations, I ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Business was slack, few guests were at the hotel, and of those few none desired to be personally conducted to the Louvre or Notre Dame or the monument in the Place de la Bastille. They mostly wore the placid expression of folks engaged in business affairs instead of the ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... cannot understand em at all. Don't know whether they are coming or going. In our day the parents were not near so lenient as they are today. I think much of the waywardness of the youth today should be blamed on the parents for being too slack in their training." ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... all moved outdoors every spring and summer and lived the wholesome life of the outdoors for three or four months! We could not have "slack times." ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... there soon after the doors were open. There were not many clients present, and the clerks were enjoying a slack time. Jack had recalled to his mind the exact date of his former visit; and thus the sole difficulty was overcome. The clerk found the name of Ellen Martineau entered under ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... ye see the pink jes' a-creepin' back T' the pale, drawn cheek, an' ye note a smile, Then th' cords o' yer heart that were tight, grow slack An' ye jump fer joy every little while, An' ye tiptoe back to her little bed As though ye doubted yer eyes, or were Afraid it was fever come back instead, An' ye found that th' ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... little to the right, cheek against the stock, left eye closed, right eye looking through the notch of the rear sight so as to perceive the object aimed at, second joint of forefinger resting lightly against the front of the trigger and taking up the slack; top of front sight is carefully raised into, and held ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... Serena," he cried. "If it was a mistake it's one that can be straightened out in two shakes of slack jib sheet. You stay here and rest easy. I'll be ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... but he touched them with a wand which brought them all under a light where the modern eye cares most to see them, and here he gave a lesson to the culture of Germany,— so wide, so impartial, that it is apt to become slack and powerless, and to lose itself in its materials for want of a strong central idea round which to group all its other ideas. So the mystic and romantic school of Germany lost itself in the Middle Ages, was overpowered by their influence, came ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... theory in with the practice. If the instructors in the trades tended to become mere unthinking mechanics a vigilant committee was at hand to keep them true to their better lights. And if the committees themselves ever became slack, the all-seeing eye of the principal soon detected it and they in turn were "jacked up." Mr. Washington himself had a way of leisurely strolling about day or night into shop, classroom, or laboratory with a stenographer at his elbow. If he thus came upon a recitation in ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... was directed to another negro, who lay on the beach rolling and foaming at the mouth, apparently in a fit. "What's the matter with that fellow?" said I to the same negro who continued close to me, notwithstanding Swinburne's stick. "Eh! call him Sam Slack, massa. He ab um tic tic fit." And such was apparently the case. "Stop, me cure him;" and he snatched the stick out of Swinburne's hand, and running up to the man, who continued to roll on the beach, commenced belabouring him without mercy. "Eh, Sambo!" cried he ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... retirement any were so unhappy as to fall within his power; but finding none, the disappointment set him in a flame of rage, which, burning like an inward furnace, parched his throat. And now he laid him down on the bank, to try if in the cool stream, that murmured as it flowed, he could assuage or slack the fiery thirst that burnt ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... at the rope and the bear rose to her hind feet to ease the strain on her neck. Instantly they pulled in the slack. ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... convenient chimney on the barn to act as a support for the mast, but they finally rigged up a mast at one end of the barn, nailing it securely to the siding boards. Then they drew the copper wire through the hook in the insulator until there was just a little slack, cut off the wire, and wound it securely. Then they all gazed with pride at their handiwork, and had the comfortable feeling that comes ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... of national efficiency, due partly to the debilitating heat of the new habitat, partly to its easier conditions of living, whether the intruders came as conquerors and appropriated the fat of the land, or as immigrant colonists who dropped into slack methods of agriculture, because rain and sun and soil made their reluctant labor scarcely necessary. Everywhere in the Tropics the enervating effects of heat, moisture, and abundance make not only the natives averse to steady work, but start the energetic European immigrant down the ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... outfit our grub and water in the morning, hoist the big mainsail (which was a bigger piece of canvas than any I had ever sailed under), and beat our way out the estuary on the first of the seabreeze and the last of the ebb. Then we would slack sheets, and on the first of the flood run down the bay to the Asparagus Islands, where we would anchor miles off shore. And at last my dream would be realised: I would sleep upon the water. And next morning I would wake upon the water; and thereafter all my days ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... during the slack season in London, Mr. Murray made his promised visit to Edinburgh. He was warmly received by Constable and Hunter, and enjoyed their hospitality for some days. After business matters had been disposed of, he was taken in hand ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... we embarked in a goufa, and floated down the rapidly flowing river, keeping close to the left bank and taking advantage of every eddy and corner of slack water made by projecting buildings, lest we should be swept down too far and lose control of our curious and difficult craft. The level of the water was far above the usual height and came up to the very thresholds of these riverside houses. We floated on, sometimes under the walls of dark gardens, ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... they are commonly about 13 inches square, with a thickness of three inches. The best quality of baked brick is of a yellowish-white tint, and very much resembles our Stourbridge or fire brick; another kind, extremely hard, but brittle, is of a blackish blue; a third, the coarsest of all, is slack-dried, and of a pale red. The earliest baked bricks are of this last color. The sun-dried bricks have even more variety of size than the baked ones. They are sometimes as large as 16 inches square and seven inches thick, sometimes as small as six inches ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... alvays going on, and on holidays one disregarded it as a matter of course. Week-davs, in the slack time after the midday meal, then perhaps one might worry about the Empire and international politics; but not on a sunny Sunday, with a pretty girl trailing behind one, and envious cyclists trying to race you. Nor did our young people ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... power. For a minute or more we stood motionless, gazing into each other's faces. Then I saw a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead, and I knew that he was beaten. Slowly his grip relaxed, and his hand grew limp and slack while my own tightened ever upon it, until he was forced in a surly, muttering voice to request that ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... enterin' into the case and helpin' to straighten things out. Spry little trick fur three days old, goin' on four, wuzn't she? Ought to be purty, too, when she gits herself some hair and a few teeth and plumps out so's she taken up the slack of them million wrinkles, more or less, that she's got now. Babies, now—great institutions anyway you ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... boulders of coral rock, which, resembling a mushroom in shape, come to within a few feet of the surface of the water. Through these passages, the tide, especially the ebb, rushes with great velocity—six or seven knots at least—and vessels when leaving the lagoon, generally waited till slack water, or the first of the flood, when with the usual strong south-east trades, they could stem the current and avoid the dangerous "mushrooms." But no shipmaster would ever attempt either of these passages, except in the morning, when the ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... to frown and to speak clearly, just as my mother scolded us for not holding ourselves up. I can never remember seeing him indifferent, slack or idle in his life. He was as violent when he was dying as when he was living and quite ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... flames burst into the room in which Chester stood, but it did not hasten the lad in his desperate work. Slowly he let the sheets slip through his hands, that Hal's wound might not be opened afresh by any sudden jerks; and presently the slack of the rope told him that his chum had reached the ground. At the same moment he heard ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... that these figures apply only to the well-organised trades unions, which, as a rule, comprise the best and most highly-skilled workers in the several trades, who are less likely than others to be thrown out in a "slack time," that the building and season trades are not included in the estimate, and that women's industries, notoriously more irregular than men's, are altogether ignored, it will be evident that these statistics ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... coil up the slack of your jawing-tackle; there's no time to talk now; tail on there and try to make yourself useful. But look out, my lad if this fire gets the upper hand of us; curse me, if we don't leave you to roast ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... the other, watching him suspiciously. "You've been lying low for a long time, and it's not like you to slack off except when there's ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... the time when 'neath the stairs the pages their heads raise! The term of "pure brightness" is the meetest time this thing to make! The vagrant silk it snaps, and slack, without tension it strays! The East wind don't begrudge because its farewell it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... although he had attained the rank of senator, was deprived of all his property, and imprisoned by Theodora in an underground dungeon, where she kept him fastened to a kind of manger by a rope round his neck, which was so short that it was always quite tense and never slack. The wretched man was always forced to stand upright at this manger, and there to eat and sleep, and do all his other needs; there was no difference between him and an ass, save that he did not bray. No less than ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... rage in Ohio. A canal was projected to connect with the great Ohio Canal at Carroll (eight miles above Lancaster), down the valley of the Hock Hocking to Athens (forty-four miles), and thence to the Ohio River by slack water. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... set off, Bertha leading in a rushing gallop up a fine road which wound along a ravine, towards the top of a broad mesa. Alice, with slack rein in her small hand, rode slowly on in the vivid sunlight, a chill shadow rolling in upon her soul. As young as her lover in years, she nevertheless seemed at the moment twice his age. Everything interested him. Nothing interested ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... again into his mouth, and the point and beard out at his tail; and then tie the hook and his tail about, very neatly, with a white thread, which will make it the apter to turn quick in the water; that done, pull back that part of your line which was slack when you did put your hook into the minnow the second time; I say, pull that part of your line back, so that it shall fasten the head, so that the body of the minnow shall be almost straight on your hook: this done, try how it will turn, by drawing ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... of mine operators as to the greater cost in using permissible explosives due to their expense, which is slightly in excess of that of other explosives; as to their greater shattering effect in breaking down the coal, and in giving a smaller percentage of lump and a larger percentage of slack; and as to the possible danger of breathing the ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... it, but a bad egg like me does no end of a lot of good in the world, although downright criminals do more. If it weren't for people who interfered with others' belongings, the race would get slack and deteriorate. It's having to look after one's property which keeps people alert and up to the mark, and, therefore, those who're the cause of this fitness have their uses. No, my dear Mavis, evil is a necessary ingredient of the body politic, and if it were abolished to-morrow the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... a strong believer in strict discipline, at once ran to obey the order, accompanied by the most active among the men, while others ran to slack off the sheets and lower ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... adventurer and practical experimentalist in life. Many poets are content to dream, and many, perhaps most, moralists to preach: Stevenson must ever be doing and undergoing. He was no sentimentalist, to pay himself with fine feelings whether for mean action or slack inaction. He had an insatiable zest for all experiences, not the pleasurable only, but including the more harsh and biting—those that bring home to a man the pinch and sting of existence as it is realised by the disinherited of the world, and excluding only what he thought the prim, the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... feeling of existence far superior to the mere consciousness of life, and which in its immensity of contradictions, delight, dread, exultation and despair could not be faced and yet was not to be evaded. There was no peace in it. But who wanted peace? Surrender was better, the dreadful ease of slack limbs in the sweep of an enormous tide and in a divine emptiness of mind. If this was existence then he knew that he existed. And he knew that the woman existed, too, in the sweep of the tide, without speech, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Italy will come in. She also believes, from false information that she has gathered in this country, that under no circumstances will England fight. It isn't about that I came to you. We've become a slothful, slack, pleasure-loving people, but I still believe that when the time comes we shall fight. The only thing is that we shall be taken at a big disadvantage. We shall be open to a raid upon our fleet. Do you know that the entire German navy is ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thickness proportionate to their length. The number of props needed for the nets will vary—many or few, according to circumstances; a less number if the tension on the net be great, and a larger number when the nets are slack. (19) ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... way, and, leaving the trail to Cragg's, the girl pulled into the grass-grown, less-traveled trail to the south, which entered the timber at this point and began to climb with steady grade. Letting the reins fall slack, she turned to her mother with reassuring words. "There! Now we're safe. We won't meet anybody on this road except possibly a mover's outfit. We're in ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... come, no doubt, His hundred eyes will find you out." Scarce had the speaker made an end, When from the supper of a friend The master enters at the door, And, seeing that the steers were poor Of late, advances to the rack. "Why were the fellow's hands so slack? Here's hardly any straw at all, Brush down those cobwebs from the wall. Pray how much labour would it ask?" While thus he undertakes the task, To dust, and rummage by degrees, The Stag's exalted horns he sees: Then calling all his folks around, He lays him breathless ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... standing over them, and two of his companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat which had come close to the bank while they were sleeping. The boat had neither oar nor sail, but was towed by a couple of horses, who, with the rope to which they were harnessed slack and dripping in the water, were resting ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the stretched string that gives out musical notes; the slack one is dumb. And if we desire that we may be able to be sure, as our Master was, when He said, 'I know that Thou hearest me always,' we must pray as He did, of whom it is recorded that 'He prayed the more earnestly,' and 'was heard in that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... O'er Wibsey Slack aw coom last neet, Wi' reekin heead and weary feet, A strange, strange chap, aw chonced to meet; He made mi start; But pluckin up, aw did him greet ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... efforts were to be of little avail. Rope lay pitifully slack and unresponsive. At the end of an hour's work Ferguson bent over her with a ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... sleek cat, purring and winking in the light, and falling every now and then into an idle doze, as from excess of comfort. Toby looked on from a tall bench hard by; one beaming smile, from his broad nut-brown face down to the slack-baked buckles in his shoes. The very locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust, and seemed like gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their infirmities. There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene. It ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... bottom of the craft, and made a safe flooring. It was late in the afternoon on the fourth day when these preparations were completed, and it was decided that on the morrow they should adventure the journey. "We will coast down to the Bar," said Rufus Dawes, "and wait for the slack of the tide. I can ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the elder explained, "Mr. Blackett is too big a man, and too easy-going to attend to his business as he should. But I suppose he's rich enough and can afford to be a trifle slack." ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... faithful," and that he truly dispense, and lay out the goods of the Lord; that he give meat in time; give it, I say, and not sell it; meat, I say, and not poison. For the one doth intoxicate and slay the eater, the other feedeth and nourisheth him. Finally, let him not slack and defer the doing of his office, but let him do his duty when time is, and need requireth it. This is also to be looked for, that he be one whom God hath called and put in office, and not one that cometh uncalled, unsent for; not one that of himself presumeth to take honour ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... Child," a foundling boy, drifting in through a storm in a dory, saves a heart-broken mother from insanity. In "Jane's Baby," a baby-cousin brings reconciliation between the two sisters, Rosetta and Carlotta, who had not spoken for twenty years because "the slack-twisted" Jacob married the younger ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Before the end of 1863, a hundred thousand coloured men were already serving, as combatants or as labourers, on military work in about equal number. They were needed, for volunteering was getting slack, and the work of guarding and repairing railway lines was specially repellent to Northern volunteers. The coloured regiments fought well; they behaved well in every way. Atrocious threats of vengeance on them and their white officers were officially uttered by Jefferson Davis, but, except for ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... lo' thou, when our Lord Himself did heal one that had leprosy, what quoth He? 'Show thyself to the priest,' saith He: not, 'I am the true Priest, and therefore thou mayest slack to show thee to yon other priest, which is but ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... judicatures of the country. The Seigneur is keeper of the peace on his domains. He is therefore subject to the expenses of maintaining it. A criminal prosecuted to sentence and execution costs M. de Laye about five thousand livres. This is so burthensome to the Seigneurs, that they are slack in criminal prosecutions. A good effect from a bad cause. Through all Champagne, Burgundy, and the Beaujolois, the husbandry seems good, except that they manure too little. This proceeds from the shortness of their leases. The people of Burgundy and Beaujolois are well clothed, and have the appearance ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... business every morning, and the eight-o'clock accommodation brought them home again every evening; moreover, the noon freight stopped at Elmdale to take up passengers every other Wednesday, and it was the practice of every other train to whistle and to slack up in speed to thirty miles an hour while passing through this ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... suddenly he vanished. They looked after him. They could see nothing but the rope slipping past their feet, inch by inch. Sometimes it was stationary, sometimes it was drawn taut. The first great wave that came flung a yard or so of slack amongst them. Then, after the roar of its breaking had died away, they saw the rope suddenly tighten, and pass rapidly out, and ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his chest, in a voice like a deep-toned bell. His arms hung slack at his sides, but the muscles stood out ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... he said to her once, "if it's a boy it will be my job eventually to train him up to be first-class in the distinctively man's part of life. No woman can ever do that. I mustn't let myself get slack." ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... Hebron's honour'd, happy soil retains Our royal hero's beauteous, dear remains; Who now sails off with winds nor wishes slack, To bring his sufferings' bright companion back. But e'er such transport can our sense employ, A bitter grief must poison half our joy; 1070 Nor can our coasts restored those blessings see Without a bribe to envious destiny! Cursed Sodom's doom for ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the other hand, he seemed to look pleased, and I thought I detected a cunning gleam in his little eyes. He paddled away down the canyon, and, as this was in the direction we wanted to go, I gave him slack rope ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... great precaution. However inoffensive the citadels may be, they are held to be dangerous; however accommodating the commanders may be, they are regarded with suspicion. The people chafe against the bridle, relaxed and slack as it is. It is broken and cast aside, that it may not be used again when occasion requires. Each municipal body, each company of the National Guard, wants to reign on its own plot of ground out of the way of any foreign control; and this is ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the hardest-riding old pelter I ever see, about three inches of slack between engine and tank, pounding like a stamp-mill and—" looking over his shoulder and then at me, "John, I could a swore there was some one standing ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... in his hand, with the end looped around the horn of his saddle. At the final bound, he reared as if to fall upon the cowboy and mangle him with his forefeet. But instead of finishing this attack, he whirled on his hind legs with incredible swiftness; and before the man could gather up the slack of the rope, or brace himself for the shock, the wild horse dashed across the road with all the strength and fury ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... from East Aurora in sectional bookcases was from anybody else. And yet there are people who spend hours fixing their faces—rubbing in cold cream and massaging the muscles (always toward the eyes) and taking in the slack with tincture of benzoin and electrolyzing moles—to what end? Looking handsome. Oh, what a mistake! It's the larynx that the beauty doctors ought to work on. It's words more than warts, talk more than talcum, palaver more than powder, blarney ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... took a fishing line, waded out to the canoes, and tied them together, one behind another, leaving a little slack line between each of them. He then fastened one end of the line to the whaleboat, shoved off, and sprang inside. The blacks came out of the scrub, yelling and brandishing their spears, a few of which they ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... tourniquet. Tie the bandage of the first-aid packet around the limb so that the compress (pad) will press the artery against the bone. Slip under the compress and over the artery a small stone. Pass a stick under the bandage and turn the stick around slowly until the slack is taken up and the bleeding stops. Then tie the stick as shown in ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... essentially imitative people, were the first to take a lesson from the work of instinct. Fragile as these bridges were, they were always ready for use; high waves and the caprices of the sea could not throw them out of working order; the ropes hung just sufficiently slack, so as to present to the breakers that particular curve discovered by Cachin, the immortal creator of the harbour at Cherbourg. Against this cunningly devised line the angry surge is powerless; the law of that curve was a secret ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... a London Underground railway station. She was delayed, and I stood for a quarter of an hour at the bottom of a flight of steps, watching the continuous stream of descending passengers, mostly women, and generally young. Some among the less young were swollen, heavy, and awkward; most were slack, drooping, limp, bony, or bent; a few were lithe and lissom; one or two had the emotional vivacity and muscular tone of abounding vitality. Not one plainly indicated that, stripped of her clothing, she would have transformed those ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... rap. A Prussian hussar on a grey horse goes by at a dash. From other shops, the noise of striking blows: Pounds, thumps, and whacks; Wooden sounds: splinters—cracks. Paris is full of the galloping of horses and the knocking of hammers. "Hullo! Friend Martin, is business slack That you are in the street this morning? Don't turn your back And scuttle into your shop like a rabbit to its hole. I've just been taking a stroll. The stinking Cossacks are bivouacked all up and down the Champs Elysees. I can't ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... a dirty one, too. You are a feeble, nervous wretch, and a mass of whims, you're getting fat and lazy and can't deny yourself anything—and I call that dirty because it leads one straight into the dirt. You've let yourself get so slack that I don't know how it is you are still a good, even a devoted doctor. You—a doctor—sleep on a feather bed and get up at night to your patients! In another three or four years you won't get up for your patients... But hang it all, that's not the point!... ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... have asked that, because of course they had. It was like asking a mountain climber if he had ever felt a taut rope over the razor edge of a precipice suddenly go slack. ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... sta'rs en call out: 'Come on. Trunion!' Yes, suh. He holler dat out eve'y day, en den, w'iles he be talkin', he'd stop en look roun' en say: 'Whar Trunion?' It ain' make no difference who he talkin' wid, suh, he'd des stop right still en ax: 'Whar Trunion?' Den de niggers, dee got slack, en eve'ything 'gun ter go een'-ways. One day I run up on Miss Lady settin' down cryin', en I ax her w'at de name er goodness de matter, en she say nuff de matter. Den I say she better go ask her pappy whar Trunion, en den she git red in de face, en 'low I better go 'ten' ter my business; ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... heedless pair of sportsmen slack! You never mark, though trout or jack, Or little foolish stickleback, Your baited snares may capture. What care has she for line and hook? She turns her back upon the brook, Upon her lover's eyes ...
— English Satires • Various
... slack work, and low wages go hand in hand in the tenements as promoters of overcrowding. The rent is always one-fourth of the family income, often more. The fierce competition for a bare living cuts down wages; and when loss ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... Weldon, anyhow?" another of the group queried, as dispassionately as if the subject of discussion had been absent in Rhodesia. "His face is a yard long, and his lips hang down in the slack of the corners." ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... loved for what resulted from it, for the strength and rigid endurance which it gave, but not loved for itself. The Roman nature was fierce, rugged, almost brutal; and it submitted to restraint as stern as itself, as long as the energy of the old spirit endured. But as soon as the energy grew slack, when the religion was no longer believed, and taste, as it was called, came in, and there was no more danger to face, and the world was at their feet, all was swept away as before a whirlwind; there was ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... the sapling bends, While the hand its pressure lends; If the hand its pressure slack, Straight the supple wood springs back. Phoebus in the western main Sinks; but swift his car again By a secret path is borne To the wonted ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... the Duc d'Angouleme, being lord high admiral, it was evident that the city of Angouleme had all the qualities of a seaport; otherwise the monarchical principle would have received a wound. In the Council of Ministers the question was agitated whether vignettes representing slack-rope performances, which adorned Franconi's advertising posters, and which attracted throngs of street urchins, should be tolerated. M. Paer, the author of Agnese, a good sort of fellow, with a square face and a wart on his ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... looking very fierce. 'I went to 'er box and I found a pile of 'em-a pile of 'em-tied up with a piece o' pink ribbon. And a photygraph of my lord. And of all the narrer-chested, weak-eyed, slack-baked, spindly-legged sons of a gun you ever saw in your life, he is the worst. If I on'y get my 'ands on him I'll choke 'im ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... dawn, the beach at Dover, the tide at flood, and a hundred half naked sailors launching a long, black Norman sea-boat bows on, over chocks through the low surf to the grey swell beyond. The little vessel had been beached by the stern, with a slack chain hooked to her sides at the water-line, and a long hawser rove through a rough fiddle-block of enormous size, and leading to a capstan set far above high-water mark and made fast by the bight of a chain to an anchor buried in the sand up to the heavy wooden stock. And now a big old ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... for he drew the rope in slowly, till the slack was all gathered in, tightened it more and more, and the loop glided off the ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... "Never mind, Goody Slack Jaw," says Captain Night. "I shall be thirstier anon from listening to your prate. Will you hurry now, Gadfly, or is the sun to sink before we get ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... teach you, if you like to bring your work to me, for half-an-hour on Saturdays; I'm generally slack the first half-hour after I have given your sister ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... my hap is slack and slow in coming, Desire increasing, ay my hope uncertain With doubtful love, that but increaseth pain; For, tiger-like, so swift it is in parting. Alas! the snow black shall it be and scalding, The sea waterless, and fish upon the mountain, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... conquest. He went close-close enough to have brought a protesting cry from a grownup-lifted the rock high as he could and brought it down fair on the battered head of the rattler. The loathsome length of it winced and thrashed ineffectively, and after a few minutes lay slack, ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower |
