"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... House, and pointed out the shabbiness of the chintz and faded carpets. The garden, she said, was shamefully neglected, and she could not conceive how people could bear to let a decent place like this go to ruin. 'But he's a slack ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... I have now," he went on as he led the way toward the men's quarters. "Not a trouble maker in the bunch, except a half breed that I'm not particularly stuck on, and that I'm going to get rid of as soon as work gets slack. But take them all together I ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... the same quantity of quinces; put them into a jar, with one pound of white sugar powdered and sprinkled over them; cover them with half a pint of water, and put in also a little bruised cochineal tied in a muslin. Set them in a slack oven till tender, take out the cochineal, and pulp the fruit to ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... for work the market price of which was twenty or thirty. So Gitelson left him as soon as he realized his real worth, and he had been making good wages ever since. Being an excellent tailor, he was much sought after, and although the trade had two long slack seasons he always had plenty to do. He told me that he was going to that dance-hall across the street, which greatly enhanced his importance in my eyes and seemed to give reality to the floating phantoms that I had been watching in ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... short distance from the shore. She was apparently floating down with the stream, and the fact that a horse was proceeding along the towing-path a little way ahead was not noticed, as the rope was slack and was trailing under water. The boys, therefore, as they were rowing against stream, steered their boat to pass inside of her. Just as they came abreast of the horse a man on the barge suddenly shouted to the rider of the horse to ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... the heading of "Our Library Shelf" she had reviewed several books; she had written a leading article on the tennis and cricket prospects for the forthcoming season; and by ceaseless urging had kept her contributors, who were apt to slack off, up to the mark in respect of literary matter. Fiona Campbell had been persuaded to illustrate Norah Bell's storyette; Blanche Russell had sent an account of a winter holiday ski-ing in Norway; the Exchange and Mart had ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... deep beneath the snow that it was difficult not to believe it had disappeared altogether. Freeman's Falls had never known a more severe season and among the mill employees there was much illness and depression. Prices were high, business slack, and the work ran light. Nevertheless, the Fernalds refused to shorten the hours. There were no night shifts on duty, to be sure, but the hum of the machinery that ceased at twilight resumed its buzzing every morning and ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... Its slack ropes all undone, Its pole all broken, and its cover rent,— Its work is done. But mine—tho' spoiled and spent Mine earthly ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... every now and then, and rested; but he did not allow the others a moment's respite. Every time they were about to slack, he urged them on. It was all very well for the gardener who was accustomed to it, but it was obviously killing work for Shiel Davenport, and Gladys—as soon as she had overcome a preliminary outburst of laughter—gave vent to ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... could once more hold his head erect as a free man. But Sandford smiled blandly; "he was in no hurry," he said; "Mr. Fletcher evidently had money, and was good for the amount." Poor Fletcher!—walking about with a rope around his neck,—a long rope now, and slack,—but held by a man who knows not what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... the rebuke which the obstinate adherence of idolaters to their idols gives to the slack hold which so many professing Christians have on ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the track Of rich and strange emotion, To Pudsey and to Wibsey Slack I pay my fond devotion; My heart is in the Highlands oft, Though age its glow enfeebles, And soars triumphantly aloft At the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... a-goin' to catch us, sir; I've brung her through many and many a time like this. I'll bring her through this one, and then you must do the rest. Now, then,' says he, 'stand by, put your helm just a few spokes a-weather, don't check her at all with the rudder, slack a foot or two of the lee braces and check in to wind'ard; keep your eye constant on that sail, Mr. Clark'—that were the second mate—'and don't let it shake; keep it good full and give her away; lay the crochick yard square, and come up to the main-braces, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... and 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 ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... gazed at it, for it had subtly changed since she had last seen it. The joyous sparkle that she remembered had gone out of the eyes. They were harder, bolder, than they used to be. The mouth was slack—it looked almost sensual—and the man's whole personality seemed to have grown coarser. As she thrust the disconcerting fancies from her the ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... perhaps any more Faeces remain, they will be very few, cast them away, for they are good for nothing. Put the Solution into a glass-Gourd, with a Head luted upon it, set it into Balneum Mariae, with its receiver to take the Spirits, distil slowly with a slack heat, till all the Spirit of Wine be come over, pour it in again upon the dry matter, draw it off again as before; this pouring in & abstracting continue so often, till you see the Spirit of Wine ascend over the helm in ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... Lips, I winde so lowd and shrill, As makes the Ecchoes showte from euery neighbouring Hill: 60 My Doghooke at my Belt, to which my Lyam's tyde, My Sheafe of Arrowes by, my Woodknife at my Syde, My Crosse-bow in my Hand, my Gaffle or my Rack To bend it when I please, or it I list to slack, My Hound then in my Lyam, I by the Woodmans art Forecast, where I may lodge the goodly Hie-palm'd Hart, To viewe the grazing Heards, so sundry times I vse, Where by the loftiest Head I know my Deare to ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... branches. When the cord is carried from the camera to the ambush hide the camera with leafy branches, leaving a good opening for the cord to pass through to prevent it from becoming entangled. Then hie to your cover and, with the slightly slack cord in your hand, await the coming of ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... Marie told her all that he could of the old Irishwoman who lived alone in her great house, and ruled with a slack Irish hand, a sweet Irish heart, over tenants and dependants. And when he had come to an end the girl drew ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... edge of the bank; the other end he made fast to the stern of the canoe—not to the point of the stern, but to the stern-thwart where it joined the gunwale. This was designed to hold the canoe at an angle against the current that would keep her out in the stream. The slack of the line was ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... yelling in the hope of arousing Gallagher, and Graham slammed his engine into the forward motion without pausing to close the throttle. There was a grinding of fire from the wheels, a running jangle of slack-taking down the long line of empties, and the freight train shot ahead, snatching its rear end out of harm's way just as Gallagher, dreaming that his boiler had burst and that all the fiends of the pit were screeching the news of it, came to life ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... what had been once the cabin at this forlorn place. He collected them in silence while I saddled my own animal, and in silence we packed the two packhorses, and threw the diamond hitch, and hauled tight the slack, damp ropes. Soon we had mounted, and as we turned into the trail I gave a look back at my last ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... man: he had heard enough; and, as a secondary dispute was still going on that had grown out of the first, he seized the very first opening which offered itself for provoking the issue of a quarrel. The other party was not backward or slack in answering the appeal; and thus, in one morning, the prospect was overcast—peace was no longer possible; and a hostile meeting was arranged. Even at this meeting much still remained in the power of the seconds: there was an absolute certainty that all fatal consequences might have ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... rope too much," answered the Navajo. "There will be places where you may have to do that. It will be safe to do so for Kitoni will take in all slack, but it will be better if ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... not listening. "Surely, man, the tide's slack enough by this time!" he interrupted, his irritation again overcoming him. "You needn't be fetching across sideways, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... came at top speed until within range, when with that wonderful dexterity no other race has quite equalled, each pushed his bent right knee into the slack of the hair rope, seized bridle and horse's mane in the left hand, curled his left heel tightly into the horse's flank, and dropped down on the animal's right side, leaving only a hand and a foot ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... to say you're an accident. Prove it. Show that you're a regular head-on collision when anything gets in your way. They're going to say that you've got a pull. Prove it—by taking up all the slack that they give you. Back away from controversy, but stand up stubborn as a mule to the fellow who's hunting trouble. I believe in ruling by love, all right, but it's been my experience that there are a ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... candle-light at the graves of their deceased kindred, whom they invite to partake.[28] It lasts three nights and the intermediate days; when, by command of the king, every house must new gravel the street before its door, and hang out candles all night. I was not slack in obeying this order, and I was informed that a poor man was put to death and his house shut up, for neglecting to comply with the order. On this occasion, the China captain furnished me with two very decent paper ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... she spent like other women, when I had her. I tell this exactly as I recollect it, and can't attempt to explain. She worked at a paper mill, slack work was the reason of her being at home, now she was going back to work; I feared a mill hand would get her, and offered to pay her what she earned; but if she did not go to the mill, her father would make her work in ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... that to our own personal life and work, and to the growth of Christianity in the world, and let us not be staggered because either are so slow. 'The Lord is not slack concerning His promises, as some men count slackness. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.' How long will that day be of which a thousand years are but as the morning twilight? Brethren, you have need of patience. You Christian workers, and I ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... the rear end and a point at the other, fixed in, and parallel to, the upper edge. It is attached, by a stout thumb-screw, to the axis of the left trunnion, around which it revolves when the screw is slack. ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... still red with the afterglow of sunset, creeping slowly eastwards against the dawn; land and sea lay clear and yet dim, for the light was ghostly as a phosphorescent chamber; the tide was slack, and lapped softly on the rocks; and everything in the ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... national; But wen I jined I worn't so wise ez thet air queen o' Sheby, Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint much diff'rent from wut we be, An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir own dominions, Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions, Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's trowsis An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes an' houses; Wal, it doos seem a curus way, but then hooraw fer Jackson! It must be right, fer Caleb sez it 's reg'lar Anglosaxon. The ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... well as cope with those in the field. Besides, one must remember that in a matter like this we cannot fully depend on any force that we may gather. The archers and men-at-arms would be drawn largely from the same class as the better portion of these rioters, and would be slack in fighting against them. Certainly, those of the home counties could not be depended upon, and possibly even in the garrison of the Tower itself there may be many who cannot be trusted. The place, if well held, should stand out for months, but I am by no means sure that it will do so when the ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... sails. But first the General despatched a boat to give them knowledge of his coming for no ill intent, having commission from her Majesty for his voyage he had in hand; and immediately we followed with a slack gale, and in the very entrance, which is but narrow, not above two butts' length, the Admiral fell upon a rock on the larboard side by great oversight, in that the weather was fair, the rock much above water fast by the shore, where ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... sounded rather like a fairy tale, but the enormous crowd round the centre of interest, and the comparatively slack business being done at other tables, proved its truth. None of the newcomers, even the tallest, could see, but they could hear, and they could feel the thrill ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... 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 his father's face; Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... true point at issue, or where too persistent criticism by France's allies put them in a position which they felt as invidious, of always appearing to take the enemy's part and to argue his case. Where, therefore, British and American interests were not seriously involved their criticism grew slack, and some provisions were thus passed which the French themselves did not take very seriously, and for which the eleventh-hour decision to allow no discussion with the Germans removed the ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... the dancers give themselves to the saxophone. Their feet keep a rendezvous with the umpah umps. Their thoughts dance on the slack wire of the clarinet. Their veins beat time to the whinny of the derby wreathed cornet. The fiddles and the drums are partners for their arms and their muscles. But their hearts embrace shyly the Mother Aphrodite. Their hearts listen sadly and proudly and they almost ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain, Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again, "Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid you erewhile? Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack! ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... our forces in the midst of fairs, and race-days, and "slack times," have demonstrated that real soldiers of Christ can snatch victory, just when all around seems to ensure ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... come the command, and some men would go down into the smother of the lee rail and haul in or slack away sheets, while others at the mastheads would shift top- and ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... girls, domestic servants, shop girls, and waitresses. In some of these occupations it is difficult to obtain employment all the year round. In this way many milliners, dressmakers and tailoresses become prostitutes when business is slack, and return to business when the season begins. Sometimes the regular work of the day is supplemented concurrently by prostitution in the street in the evening. It is said, possibly with some truth, that amateur prostitution of this kind is extremely ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... be hanged!" said Morley, turning it over and over admiringly. "If that isn't the cleverest thing I ever saw. This little screw regulates the slack, doesn't it? Does your legal mind get ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... deem the land crying loud to him— Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulness Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind. THOMAS HARDY, The Dynasts, Act ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... his arms around Mary if one was buried in the field of battle and the other was minced up in a saw-mill, and he couldn't clasp her to his bosom unless he threw a lasso with his teeth and hauled her in by swallowing the slack of the rope. As for the piano—well, you know as well as I do that an armless man can't play a Beethoven sonata unless he knows how to perform on the instrument with his nose, and in that case you insult the popular intelligence when ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... hospital, but John Storm did not come. At seven she was ringing at the bell of a little house in St. John's Wood that stood behind a high wall and had an iron grating in the garden door. The bell was answered by a good-natured, slack-looking servant, who was friendly, and even familiar ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... barely dipping his oars. It was slack tide now and the pea-pod just held her own. Down on the breeze floated a distant, melancholy note, the voice of the whistling buoy south of Roaring Bull Ledge, two miles from Isle au Haut. Was it ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... "I am glad he does," Dick went on. "This is no time for slack soldiering. Greg, I'll feel consoled for working eighteen hours a day if it results in making the Ninety-ninth the best infantry ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... a moment upon the slack end of the rope until he felt that the stone was lodged with fair security at the shaft's top, then he swung out over the black depths beneath. The moment his full weight came upon the rope he felt it slip ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Dorward confidentially, when he and Mark went for a walk on the afternoon of his arrival. "He wants spiking up. They get very slack and selfish, these country clergy. Time he gave up Meade Cantorum. He's been here nearly ten years. Too long, nine years too long. Hasn't been to his duties since Easter. Scandalous, you know. I asked ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... which are in that order from east to west. The Carillon Rapid is two miles long and has, or had, a fall of 10 feet the Chute a Blondeau a quarter of a mile with a fall of 4 feet and the Longue Sault six miles and a fall of 46 feet. Between the Carillon and Chute a Blondeau there is or was a slack water reach of three and a half miles, and between the latter and the foot of the Longue Sault a similar reach of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... writing materials, and put a pen into the slack hand, with a block of letter-paper ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Grace of Thy benevolence!" Then he pronounced the salutation which closes prayer; yet every road appeared closed to him. And while he sat turning right and left, behold, he espied a horseman making towards him with bent back and reins slack. He sat up right and after a time reached the Prince; and the stranger was at the last gasp and made sure of death, for he was grievously wounded when he came up; the tears streamed down his cheeks like water from ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... a month with Smith, but as it was the slack time of the year there was little routine work on the station, and much of our time was passed ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... make sure of the grand entry of the performers into the ring, where they caracoled round on horseback, and gave a delicious foretaste of the wonders to come. The fellows were united in this, but upon other matters feeling varied—some liked tumbling best; some the slack-rope; some bareback-riding; some the feats of tossing knives and balls and catching them. There never was more than one ring in those days; and you were not tempted to break your neck and set your eyes forever askew, ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... twisted mountain-pines, then through green and lovely valleys, and so into the plains of northern Italy. He saw the mountain torrents leap and flash, and grow always bigger and stronger. He saw them slack their speed and widen their beds in the upland valleys. He saw them grow sluggish, tawny ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... Richmond. "Anyhow, what else is there to do? We MAY keep things together.... I've got to do my bit. And if only I could hold myself at it, I could beat those fellows. But that's where the devil of it comes in. Never have I been so desirous to work well in my life. And never have I been so slack and weak-willed and inaccurate.... ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... as my grasp loosened, staggered back from a blow of his knee and saw him leap for the lagoon. But I (being greatly minded to make an end of him and for good reasons) set after him hot-foot and so came running hard behind him to the reef; here, the way being difficult, I must needs slack my pace, but he, surer footed, ran fleetly enough until he was gotten well-nigh to the middle of the reef, there for a moment he paused and, looking back on me where I held on in pursuit, I saw his dark ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... Ain't it kind o' curious how sometimes we find a great, big, awkward man who loves sech things? Bill had the biggest feet in the township, but I'll bet my wallet that he never trod on a violet in all his life. Bill never took no slack from enny man that wuz sober, but the children made him play with 'em, and he'd set for hours a-watchin' the yaller-hammer buildin' her nest ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... continued a tradition; only the school and tradition were Scotch, and not English. While the English language was becoming daily more pedantic and inflexible, and English letters more colourless and slack, there was another dialect in the sister country, and a different school of poetry tracing its descent, through King James I., from Chaucer. The dialect alone accounts for much; for it was then written colloquially, which kept it fresh and supple; and, although ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... characteristic of the French (particularly in the bourgeoise) than the thorough way in which they do their month at the sea-shore. They generally come for the month of August. Holidays have begun and business, of all kinds, is slack. Our plage was really a curiosity. There is a splendid stretch of sand beach—at low tide one can walk, by the shore, to Trouville or Houlgate on perfectly firm, dry sand. There are hundreds of cabins and tents, striped ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... steam introduced into the producer, and of course decreased the more steam increased. We obtained the best practical results by introducing about two tons of steam for every ton of fuel consumed. We experimented upon numerous kinds of fuel, common slack and burgy of the Lancashire, Staffordshire, and Nottinghamshire districts. We found not much difference in the amount of nitrogen contained in these fuels, which varied between 1.2 and 1.6 per cent., nor did we find much ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... and as many to the vantage as would store the world they play'd for. But I do think it is their husbands' faults If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties And pour our treasures into foreign laps; Or else break out in peevish jealousies, Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us, Or scant our former having in despite; Why, we have ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... come forward and put the club in the proper groove. The old men said it was because the young men were pretentious puppies. It was, however, not to be doubted that the party of Progress had become slack, and that the Liberal politicians of the country, although a special new club had been opened for the furtherance of their views, were not at present making much way. "What we want is organization," said one of the leading young men. But the organization ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... knocked it up with his right hand, an' struck at Dick with his left. The bullet crashed through the ceiling, an' Dick grabbed Jabez' wrist at the same instant. Piker made a quick snap under the table, a gun went off, an' the bullet tore through the slack o' Dick's vest an' spinged into the ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... me. I've come here to my native place to settle down, and if I settle I've got to marry, and I have never seen a girl whom I would rather marry and settle with than Miss Mayberry. She may be a little slack about taking care of the baby, but I'll talk to her about that, and I know she will keep a closer eye on him. Now if you want to see everybody happy, don't prejudice Mrs. Cristie against that girl. Give me a chance, and I'll win her into the right way, and I'll do it easily ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... of trees on the edge of the field. Their shade invited like a beckoning hand. Little beads of perspiration stood on her forehead. A warm lassitude spread through her body, turning her muscles slack. Hadn't Gertrude said Aunt Jessica didn't let them work ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... seemed to controvert. He wore neither coat nor vest, but a white shirt with broad starched bosom, a large gold button in its collarless neckband. A diamond stud flashed in the middle of his bosom; red elastic bands an inch broad, with silver buckles, held up the slack of the sleeves which otherwise ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... incoherence; looseness &c adj.; laxity; relaxation; loosening &c v.; freedom; disjunction &c 44; rope of sand. V. make loose &c adj.; loosen, slacken, relax; unglue &c 46; detach &c (disjoin) 44. Adj. nonadhesive, immiscible; incoherent, detached, loose, baggy, slack, lax, relaxed, flapping, streaming; disheveled; segregated, like grains of sand unconsolidated &c 231, uncombined &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... exotic as a flowering weed which can spring so strongly and so fibrously from slack. And yet such a weed can bleed milk. If Stella Schump was about fourteen pounds too plump, too red of cheek, and too blandly blue of eye, there was the very milk of human kindness in her morning punching up of her mother's pillows and her smoothing ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... illustrates phases of this glamorous love-making—Krishna embracing one woman, dancing with another and conversing with a third. The background is a diagram of the forest as it might appear in spring—the slack looseness of treatment befitting the freedom of conduct adumbrated by the verse. The large insects hovering in the branches are the black bees of Indian love-poetry whose quest for flowers was regarded as symbolic of urgent lovers pestering their mistresses. ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... to the ranch till the sheriff gets here—if it's straight goods about Dunk sending for him. If he didn't, we can take Dunk in to-morrow, ourselves." He turned and fixed a cold, commanding eye upon the slack-jawed herders. "Come along, you two, and get these ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... was angry with the Cossack because the saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Petya put his foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but Petya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and, turning to look at the hussars starting ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... 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 attach any great importance to the flitting suggestions of ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... the post very loosely, with a slack of say six inches," continued Neil with an appalling precision. "There is a rawhide thong about your neck, wet, and so tight that it chafes your skin when you move your head. But the very uncomfortable thing just at this moment is the way your feet are fastened. ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... on the carriage bench, the woman and child on the floor. She was what is euphemistically called a "cook" in Tonking; just another name for an arrangement so often resulting from the lonely life of Europeans among a slack-fibred dependent alien population. It is the same thing that confronts the stray visitor to the isolated tea plantations of the Assam hills, where young English lads are set down by themselves, perhaps a day's journey ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... "Don't take the slack so fast. Hard a port. Now kick your stern over. That's the stuff. Pay out. Now ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... elated, sending his buzzer signal up to those so far above. The icy air through his hose changed to air of normal temperature. He signaled for slack in the lowering cable, then prepared for the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... are little better than the commercial academies of England. There is the same bad tone, want of sufficient numbers of boys of equal standing in the school-work, and other disadvantages, which make the very name of a private school malodorous. The boys are rough and unmannerly, the discipline slack, the teaching staff inferior in ability and social position. The public schools of Australia may not be all that could be wished, but [Greek characters] that a boy of mine should ever go to a colonial ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... Chips; you had therefore better make one job of it, and take in the topgallantsails as well. And when that is done, if the men are not better engaged, let them get to work and set up the topgallant and royal rigging fore and aft; it is shockingly slack—hanging fairly in bights, in fact—and is affording practically no ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... about, sir; but I must say that it has been more slack than it was. We have all done our best, but we have missed you terribly; and the men don't seem to take quite as much pains with their drill as they used to do, when you were in command. However, that will be all right now that you have come back again. I have always found ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... my nephew—a round-cheeked, blue-eyed rogue who takes my thumb in all his fingers when we go walking. His jumpers are slack behind and they wag from side to side in an inexpressibly funny manner, but this I am led to believe springs not from any special genius but is common to all children. It is only recently that he learned to walk, for although he was forward with his teeth and their early sprouting ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... of a ruined plantation-building, where our most advanced outposts had their headquarters. The flash revealed to me every point of the situation. I saw at once where I was, and how I got there: that the tide had turned while I was swimming, and with a much briefer interval of slack-water than I had been led to suppose,—that I had been swept a good way down stream, and was far beyond all possibility of regaining ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... dawn had scarce begun when he 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, were I not better employed doing another ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... otherwise during the whole day and night of the 18th, had, on the following morning, when the wind and sea still continued unabated, so destroyed the bergs on which our sole dependance was placed, that they no longer remained aground at low water; the cables had again become slack about them, and the basin we had taken so much pains in forming had now lost all its defences, at least during a portion of every tide. After a night of most anxious consideration and consultation with Captain Hoppner, who was now my messmate in the Hecla, it appeared but too plain that, should ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... solution of using the unemployed to build up excessive armaments which eventually result in dictatorships and war. We encourage an American way—through an increase of national income which is the only way we can be sure will take up the slack. Much progress has been made; much remains to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... out of a job. You see we're both pretty young in the profession and we aren't as well known as we hope to be later on. We have to take what we can get on the small-time circuits, and we know that if we make good there we'll get on the big-time circuit sooner or later. Just now things are slack in the theatrical line as they always are in summer. We've got our lines out for a job in the fall, but nothing definite has come of it yet. So we thought we'd come down to the seashore for a few weeks and get a little of the ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... to sea when she was captured, and in the slack water she had not drifted at all. He went ahead slowly, and soon had the bell to stop her; but he expected this, for the channel was narrow, and it required considerable manoeuvring to get the steamer about. Then he happened to think of the guns on the Seahorse Key, and through ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... 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
... telegram. This he opened with the same heavy distraction with which he broke his egg and drank his tea. When he read it he did not stir a hair or say a word, but something, I know not what, made me feel that the motionless figure had been pulled together suddenly as strings are tightened on a slack guitar. Though he said nothing and did not move, I knew that he had been for an instant cleared and sharpened with a shock of cold water. It was scarcely any surprise to me when a man who had drifted sullenly to his seat and fallen into ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... the tasked world; and disincline To brand it, for it bears a heavy pack. You have perchance observed the inebriate's track At night when he has quitted the inn-sign: He plays diversions on the homeward line, Still that way bent albeit his legs are slack: A hedge may take him, but he turns not back, Nor turns this burdened world, of curving spine. 'Spiral,' the memorable Lady terms Our mind's ascent: our world's advance presents That figure on a flat; the way of worms. Cherish the promise of its ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... from 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
... long arm and plucked the youth out by the slack of his coat, shook him and propelled him into the darkness, where he collided violently with Sam Pretty Cow. Some one had been over-generous with Sam Pretty Cow. A drunken Indian is never quite safe. Sam Pretty Cow struck out blindly, yelling Piegan curses hoarsely as he fought. The ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... than ever Dick Prescott thought of doing. Then you hear that poor Dick is in Coventry, and therefore not on the team. You haven't got the great Army man to beat, and, just for that reason, you slack up on ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... even Mr. Bevan did not like St. Matthew's (because it was not slack or easy), and he too could believe anything of Clement. No doubt poor Felix found those great brothers getting ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Hoog-Straat. It was Sunday and few shops were open. The Dutch told me that some years ago even those few would have been closed: the observance of the Sabbath, which used to be very strict, is becoming slack. I saw the signs of holiday chiefly in the people's clothes, in the dress of the men particularly. The men, especially those of the lower classes (and this I observed in other towns also), have a decided taste for black ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... and began slowing for the end of its run—tripped by a block signal set in the ribbon cable. As it came to a stop at the end of the long anchor tube, Steve dismounted and kicked over the short remaining distance, which was spanned only by a slack cable to permit the inertial orientation servos of Hot Rod unhindered freedom to maintain their constant tracking of the ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... adobe Church of San Antonio. Around it were green, tall cottonwoods and the straggling mud-houses and pungent goat-corrals of its people. Toward the canyon rose the tipple and fans of the Dauntless colliery, banked in slack and slate, and surrounded by paintless mine-houses, while to the right swept the ugly shape of the company's store. The mine end of the town was not pretty, nor was it quiet, like the plaza. Just at present the whistle was blowing, and throngs ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... congregation; his great eyes was glued on Fiddy, as if he couldn't hardly keep from eatin' of her up. An' she behaved consid'able well for a few months, as long 's the novelty lasted an' the silk dresses was new. Before Christmas, though, she began to peter out 'n' git slack-twisted. She allers hated housework as bad as a pig would a penwiper, an' Dixie hed to git his own breakfast afore he went to work, or go off on an empty stomach. Many 's the time he 's got her meals for her 'n' ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to crack. You're not to take any notice of this attack on me. You're not to flinch from the fight for my sake or deflect a hair's breadth on my account. You know what you said. Things have gone so far that crime is invading decent lives. Well, it has invaded yours and mine; and you're not to slack one jot. Dick, I command it. I command it in the name of that ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... 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 ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... close to the water was Chris flat on his back, his mouth open, fast asleep. A half dozen fine bass lay on the grass beside him, the end of his fishing line was tied to one ebony leg, and a coil of slack line ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... wanted strength. A topsail, that six of our common men would furl, would employ twenty of them. This was partly from habit, perhaps, though they actually want physical force. They eat little besides rice, and are small in frame. We had a curious mode of punishing them, when slack, aloft. Our standing rigging was of grass, and wiry enough to cut even hands that were used to it. The ratlines were not seized to the forward and after shrouds, by means of eyes, as is done in our vessels, but were made fast by a round turn, and stopping back the ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... sailing that none impeach another. Wherefore it is requisite that every of the said ranks keep right way with another, and take such regard to the observing of the same that no ship pass his fellows forward nor backward nor slack anything, but [keep] as they were in one line, and that there may be half a cable length between every of ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett |
