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Tardiness   Listen
noun
Tardiness  n.  The quality or state of being tardy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tardiness" Quotes from Famous Books



... departure, Mustapha entered the gate of Balsora. As soon as he had arrived at a caravansery, he inquired whether the slave-market, which was held here every year, had opened; but received the startling answer, that he had come two days too late. His informer deplored his tardiness, telling him that on the last day of the market, two female slaves had arrived, of such great beauty as to attract to themselves the eyes of ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... the first of Mrs. James Bellingham's receptions with the expectation of pleasure which the earlier receptions of the season awaken even in the oldest and wisest. But they tried to dissemble their eagerness in a fashionable tardiness. "We get later and later," said Mrs. Brinkley to John Munt, as she sat watching the slow gathering of the crowd. By half-past eleven it had not yet hidden Mrs. Bellingham, where she stood near the middle of the room, from the pleasant corner they had found after accidentally arriving together. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... true happiness do not go hand in hand; and to him who is engaged in some useful avocation, time flies delightfully and rapidly away. He does not, like the idle and indolent man, number the slow hours with sighs—cursing both himself and them for the tardiness of their flight. Ah, my friends, it is utterly impossible for him who wastes time in idleness, ever to know anything of true happiness. Indolence, poverty, wretchedness, are inseparable companions,—fly them, shun idleness, as from eminent and inevitable destruction. In vain ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward

... tread, but pass carelessly, easily along, as though it was a luxury and not a task to walk. Children are seen in little companies, plucking the flowers and forcing the buds from their stems, as though to punish them for their tardiness. ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... in the pecuniary distress of his master, had served him for several years with the purest disinterestedness. 'I was so touched by her eloquent and forcible manner of recounting the story,' writes the soft-hearted doctor, 'and with the application I made of it to my own tardiness in going to her in her distress, together with my present intention of leaving her, that I burst into tears, and wept bitterly. She soothed my feelings, endeavoured to calm my emotions, and disclaimed all intention ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... front, and threw out scouts to the right and left. Major Denison was restrained from pushing ahead too rapidly, as he was obliged to regulate his march by the pace of the infantry, and his men chafed with the tardiness, as they were all eager to get into ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... against the middle class, to which the Girondists belonged by their habits and position. A division arose from that day between those who only wished to suppress the court in the existing order of things, and those who wished to introduce the multitude. The latter could not fall in with the tardiness of discussion. Agitated by every revolutionary passion, they disposed themselves for an attack by force of arms, the preparations for which were made openly, and ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... would be no further need to punish the innocent, for it is not fair to punish even the guilty twice for the same offence, whereas if the gods through easiness remit the punishment of the wicked, and exact it later on from the innocent, they do not well to compensate for their tardiness by injustice. Such conduct resembles the story told of AEsop's coming to this very spot,[837] with money from Croesus, to offer a splendid sacrifice to the god, and to give four minae to each of the Delphians. And some quarrel ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... he said, "on possessing two sons whose word of honor is above reproach. The smallest deviation from the outlined schedule would have resulted disastrously. Ten minutes' tardiness at the different points would have failed to obtain the requisite documents. Your sons did not fail. They can be depended upon. The world is in search of men built on those lines. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... glossy envelope, containing a tiny sheet of very thick note-paper, whereon it was written that Lady Whitelaw regretted her tardiness in replying to him (caused by her absence from home), and hoped he would be able to call upon her, at ten o'clock next morning, at the house of her sisters, the Misses Lumb, where she was stopping for a ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... that above Myself hast evermore been prized by me, Who would have thought thou more than me could'st love Any, and most thy mortal enemy? And harm'st where thou should'st help; nor do I see If thou as worthy praise or blame regard Such tardiness ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... "speeded up," and her daily working time of nine hours was less severe than that of the knitting mill. In summer she had a Saturday half-holiday. There was a system of fines for lateness; but on the rare occasions of her own tardiness it had not been enforced. The company was also generous in grafting five-o'clock passes, which permitted a girl to leave at five in the afternoon, with no deduction from her wage for the free hour. She had been with this establishment for six years, earning $6 a week; and she had ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... reprehensible to the extent of being multiplied by the number of people he has kept waiting. On the other hand, the usual course of proceeding being apparently with the object of dragging out the business of the court, makes the tardiness of the ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... attaching himself to Mr. Hastings still continued in full force, and brought him bright and early on Friday morning around to the hotel, where he had last seen him. Not one minute too early, however, and but for Mr. Hastings' own tardiness too late. He had just missed a car, and no other was in sight. Tode took in the situation at a glance, and hopped ...
— Three People • Pansy

... themselves into political societies modelled upon the bands of gymnasts which figured so prominently in Tilak's propaganda in the Deccan. Among the older men, some yielded to the new spirit from fear of being elbowed out by their youngers, some were genuinely impatient of the tardiness of the constitutional reforms for which they had looked to the agency of the Indian National Congress; a few perhaps welcomed the opportunity of venting the bitterness engendered by social slights, real or imaginary, or ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... damages for the delay. The case was heard in May 1836, after months of bitter controversy, in which both sides had their ardent supporters. The most was made by the plaintiff's barrister of Balzac's previous disputes with other editors, who had had to complain of his tardiness in completing articles or stories. A letter was also put in, signed by Alexandre Dumas, Eugene Sue, Frederic Soulie, and others, stating that it was usual for authors to allow the communication of their productions to the Revue Francaise of Saint Petersburg, with a view to combating ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (9)The Lord is not tardy in respect to the promise, as some account tardiness; but is long-suffering toward us[3:9], not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (10)But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in which the heavens will pass ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... vespers when these two aged and noble men were led out to be burned; they were tied each to the stake. The flames kindled dully and heavily; the wood, hastily piled up, was green or wet; or in cruel mercy the tardiness was designed that the victims might have time, while the fire was still curling round their extremities, to recant their bold recantation. But there was no sign, no word of weakness. Du Molay implored that the image of the Mother of God might be held up before him, and his hands unchained, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... recommend her. And the Duke of Burgundy declined the match, and would not take her to wife upon such conditions. But the King of France, understanding what the nature of the fault had been which had lost her the love of her father—that it was only a tardiness of speech and the not being able to frame her tongue to flattery like her sisters—took this young maid by the hand and, saying that her virtues were a dowry above a kingdom, bade Cordelia to take ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... proportion of children suffering more or less seriously from eye trouble has led many persons to suggest physical deterioration as the cause. Eye specialists, however, assure us that eye troubles are probably as old as man. Our tardiness in learning the facts regarding these troubles is due in part to the lack, until recently, of instruments for examining the eye and for manufacturing glasses to correct eye defects; in part, also, to the tendency of the medical profession, which I shall repeatedly mention, to explain ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... of labour. Consequently, artists who paint rapidly, without falling in quality below those who paint but slowly, deserve the highest commendation. Should this rapidity of execution, however, cause a man to transgress the limits of sound art, it would have been better to have proceeded with more tardiness and study. A good artist ought never to allow the impetuosity of his nature to overcome his sense of the main end of art, perfection. Therefore we cannot call slowness of execution a defect, nor yet the expenditure of much time and trouble, if this be employed with the view of attaining ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... however eloquent or panegyrical, I should have felt pleased, undoubtedly, and grateful, but not to the extent which the extraordinary good-heartedness of the whole proceeding must induce in any mind capable of such sensations. The very tardiness of this acknowledgment will, at least, show that I have not forgotten the obligation; and I can assure you that my sense of it has been out at compound interest during the delay. I shall only add one word upon the subject, which is, that I think that you, and Jeffrey, and Leigh Hunt, were the only ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... he found Steve O'Valley basking in the big chair he was wont to occupy, though it was past ten o'clock and he had anticipated questions from Mary as to his tardiness. Instead he found a very rosy-cheeked, almost sunrise-eyed sister who stammered her greeting as the flustered Mr. O'Valley found his hat and the neglected business ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... Marshal commenced crossing the Moselle with his vanguard. The entire body of troops, however, did not reach the river; for, three corps, which had been encamped to the eastward of the fortress, delayed their departure until the afternoon—a tardiness that enabled Steinmetz to attack their rear and detain them on the spot, until the flanking movement of Prince Frederick Charles' army beyond the Moselle towards Pont-a-Mousson had been completed. ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... other employees, Markulies usually dusted the office and showroom; and on the morning following Elkan's holiday this solitary duty was cheered by the presence of Harry Flaxberg. Harry had sought the advice of counsel the previous day and had been warned against tardiness as an excuse for his discharge; so he was lounging on the sidewalk long before Markulies's ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass

... their words evidently gathered that I was extremely drunk, I thanked them confusedly and cantered away to my hotel, there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings' ten minutes late. I pleaded the darkness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked by Kitty for my unlover-like tardiness; and sat down. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... Lucien was up and ready long before day-break, and complained of our tardiness. He was dressed in a jacket and breeches of blue cloth, with his Mexican cloak over them; he carried in his belt a sword ready sharpened, to cut his way through the creeping plants; while over his shoulder was passed the strap of a game-pouch, containing a knife, ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... minutes after the hour. "Punishment exercise yesterday, and fine to-day—how horrible!" she broke out again, entering the empty dressing-room and surveying the array of hats on the various pegs, all of which seemed to rebuke her tardiness. "Miss Smith will purse up her lips, and utter some cutting sarcasm of course, but I don't care," and Winnie, kicking off her boots, pitched them—well, I don't think she herself knew where. The jacket being next unfastened, she proceeded to divest herself of her hat, and pulled with such ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... which was in some places thick enough to be scraped off with a knife. He kept up a continual interchange of exclamations at his plight, whistles and shouts for his people, and imprecations on their tardiness, until Stephen was near enough to show that the hawk had been recovered, and then he joyfully called out, "Ha! hast thou got her? Why, flat-caps as ye are, ye put all my fellows to shame! How now, thou errant bird, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... such a body of disciplined troops would have sufficed to ensure the defence of that important post; and the injury which the common cause has sustained on this occasion can be ascribed only to the tardiness and indecision which so strongly characterize the Austrian Government."[271] Most tactfully he bade Eden refrain from reproaches on this occasion and to use it merely as an argument for throwing greater vigour ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... applicant. If aid is granted, the girl is assigned to the settlement nearest her home and goes there weekly for her money. An envelope showing the amount due the girl is sent from the school to the settlement worker, and on this is indicated any absence or tardiness. It is one of the duties of the member of the committee to inquire the reasons for any irregularity in attendance, and, if necessary, to report to the parent. In addition, each settlement worker renders valuable service ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman

... on the point of leaving London, which prevented me from acknowledging my obligation as quickly as I felt it sincerely. I am endeavouring all in my power to be ready before Saturday—and even if I should not succeed, I can only blame my own tardiness, which will not the less enhance the benefit I have lost. I have only to add my hope of forgiveness for all my trespasses on your time and patience, and with my best wishes for your public and private welfare, I have the honour ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... the ingathering of the harvest, that the populous city was in urgent need of supplies from without. Hannibal accordingly collected a considerable supply of grain, and directed the Campanians to receive it at Beneventum; but their tardiness gave the consuls Quintus Flaccus and Appius Claudius time to come up, to inflict a severe defeat on Hanno who protected the grain, and to seize his camp and all his stores. The two consuls then invested the town, while ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... progress of this new love in herself and her poet, Louise demanded some verses promised for the first page of her album, looking for a pretext for a quarrel in his tardiness. But what became of her when she read the following stanzas, which, naturally, she considered finer than the finest work of Canalis, the poet ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... to the defense of his exemplary chauffeur. "I gave him permission to go to St. Mary's to-night for confession," he said. "Michael will be here in a moment. He goes to confession every Saturday night and is a weekly communicant. I can stand a little tardiness once a week for the sake of having ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley

... to the producer, he or she was given a stage training in chorus work following a tryout. The training was obtained in rehearsals, conducted for weeks, without compensation. The instructor might become impatient at any evidence of slowness of comprehension or execution; he might resent tardiness, absence, or slight infringement of stringent rules, and in such cases dismissal was ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... dignity enhanced by those mysterious flittings to Windsor and Osborne, where he is understood to be comparing manuscripts and revising proofs with an Illustrious Personage. But there is the less occasion to lament Lord Rowton's tardiness, because we already possess Mr. Froude's admirable monograph on Lord Beaconsfield in the series of The Queen's Prime Ministers, and an extremely clear-sighted account of his relations with the Crown in Mr. ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... authority, every heart and hand would have been closed against him. But the humble ecclesiastic excited no apprehension; and his enemies were already disarmed, before he had begun his approaches. Had Gasca, impatient of Hinojosa's tardiness, listened to the suggestions of those who advised his seizure, he would have brought his cause into jeopardy by this early display of violence But he wisely chose to win over his enemy by operating on ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... great wave of matrimony. The speed of God's will was increasing in America. Most of the things managed by divine instinct are characterised by speed—rapid currents, swift lightnings, swift coming and going of lives. In the old-fashioned days a man got a notion that there was sanctity in tardiness. It was a great mistake. In America we had arrived at that state of mind when we wanted everything fast—first and fast. Fast horses, fast boats, fast runners are all good things ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... (for he knew she wouldn't like it at all) at first, and he didn't, but he might have let it go and never let her see it; but finally he gave his consent to her seeing it, and told Clara and I we could take it to her, which we did with tardiness, and we all stood around mama while she read it, all wondering what she would say and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... was deserted by its curaca, who, with three hundred of its warriors, had gone to join the standard of their Inca. Here the general, notwithstanding his avowed purpose to push forward without delay, halted four days. The tardiness of his movements can be explained only by the hope, which he may have still entertained of being joined by further reinforcements before crossing the Cordilleras. None such appeared, however; and advancing across a country in which tracts of sandy plain were occasionally relieved by a broad ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... past the sleeping Munson, so as not to wake him. They went down stairs and had breakfast got ready, but had to wait very long before either the farmer or the young man appeared. When they did come down, however, and apologized for their tardiness, the women inquired for the other guests, and were told that they ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... even in expressing his regret at his long alienation from a Prince to whom he had been once indebted for so many favours, and who certainly never harboured resentment against man. Brummell evidently repented his tardiness on this occasion; for he made up his mind to make a more direct experiment when the King should visit the town-hall on his return. But opportunities once thrown away are seldom regained. The king on his return did not visit ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... Europe; and, of course, of all mankind—its falling occasionally into the background being satisfactorily accounted for by the French descent of her existing dynasty, by the visible deterioration in the royal manufacture of cigars, and, more than either, "by the tardiness of military promotion." This last grievance was the sting. "If justice had been done," exclaimed the new-feathered warrior, rising in his stirrups, and waving his hand, as if he was in the act of cleaving down a Moor, "I should long since have been a general. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... to doubt the identity of the stranger; the initials on the fly-leaf meant St. Elmo Murray; and she knew that in the son of her friend and protectress, she had found the owner of her Dante and the man who had cursed her grandfather for his tardiness. If she had only known this one hour earlier, she would have declined the offer, which once accepted, she knew not how to reject, without acquainting Mrs. Murray with the fact that she had overheard the conversation; and yet she could not endure the prospect of living ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... marched far and fast; and although Dabney hints that inexperienced and sluggish subordinates were the chief cause of delay, there is hardly need to look so far for excuse.* (* Dr. White, in his excellent Life of Lee, states that the tardiness of the arrival of the provisions sent him from Richmond had much to do with the delay of Jackson's march.) The march from Ashland to Hundley's Corner, sixteen miles, was little less difficult. It was made in ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... to his own doorway he knew that even his tardiness could not justify the bedlam of sound that came from within. High-pitched voices. Bella's above all the rest, of course, but there was Minnie's, too, and Gus's growl, and Pearlie's treble, and the boy ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... deal more credit with all varieties of teachers, since she learnt rapidly and eagerly; and Marilda, while encouraging her successes, without a shade of jealousy, made no attempt to conquer her own clumsiness and tardiness. Even 'Aunt Mary,' as Alda called Mrs. Thomas Underwood, often had recourse to Alda for sympathy in her endeavours to be tasteful, and continually held her up as an ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... over the land. It had come late that season, but its rare beauty compensated for its tardiness. Its golden mellowness permeating the hazy air, had also, it seems, crept into the heart of Dorian Trent. The light coating of frost which each morning lay on the grass, had by noon vanished, and now the ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson

... waiting. It was not there, and Quinton Edge grew angry. "Kurt!" he called, once and twice and thrice. Then at last the delinquent appeared. The sullenness of sleep was still upon him, and when his master would have reproved him for his tardiness he answered back insolently. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... than the acquisition of the lands of La Vauvraye, and she may even have thought that he himself saw no more. In that she was wrong; but because of it she may have been justified of her impatience with him at the tardiness, the very clumsiness with which he urged his suit. How was she to know that it was just the sincerity of his passion made him clumsy? For like many another, normally glib, self-assured, and graceful, Marius grew halting, shy, and clumsy ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... just what we would [should] be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up.... It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South." Repeatedly he admitted the difficulty of the problem, and fastened no blame upon those Southerners who excused themselves for not expelling the evil on the ground that they did not know how to do so. At Peoria he said: ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... forego the chase. For your solicitude regarding my marriage, I tender my thanks; and the assurance, that no magnet can draw, not all the charms of Circe lure me across the Atlantic, until I have accomplished my purpose. The tardiness of your proposal is unerring appraiser of its costliness; and I were a monster of cruelty to debar you the sight of your idol, though I bring him with the grim garniture of chains and handcuffs. When I consign Miss Dent to her relatives in New ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... government for tardiness would be regarded as a good joke now, but it was a crime then, and the aristocracy of the Province, always working in harmony with the King and Parliament, was stirred up ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... action who has been earnest and thorough in preparation and self-culture. "Not for school, but for life, we learn;" and our habits—of promptness, earnestness, and thoroughness, or of tardiness, fickleness, and superficiality—are the things acquired most ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... yet to take care of herself. This half-crown, a fund that will overshadow the earth before it comes to be wanted under the provisions of my will, is to be improved at any interest whatever—no matter what; for the vast period of the accumulations will easily make good any tardiness of advance, long before the time comes for its commencing payment; a point which will be soon understood from the following explanation, by any gentleman that hopes to ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... of course," said Salemina. "She fancies that we shall feel more ashamed at our tardiness if we find her sitting on the hall bench in ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... sat beside him, noting that his enthusiasm was very like relief. For if any one was present, he well knew that his masterful Amanda would say nothing of his tardiness. And so it was, for as we entered the kitchen she entirely overlooked her husband in her ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... cases which agree only in the contrary circumstance, of a muscular irritability high and unusually prolonged. It follows that there is a connection through causation between the degree of muscular irritability after death, and the tardiness and prolongation ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... such an extent that many who were standing neutral came over to his side and that all the allies who had been watching the turn of events espoused his cause. He did not openly display anger towards them nor conceal entirely his suspicions; he rebuked them somewhat for their tardiness, but otherwise received them kindly. The result of showing excessive irritation would be, he feared, their open estrangement, while if he failed to reveal his real feelings at all, he thought that he would either be ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... with grandmother to-day, and having known all the morning at what time she was to be ready, there was no excuse for her tardiness. ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth

... forsook him. He issued his orders in a voice of thunder and with an air of what, for want of a better expression, we may term ferocious heartiness. He generally executed these orders himself, hurling the men violently out of his way as if he were indignant at their tardiness, although they sprang to obey as actively as usual—indeed more so, for they were overawed and somewhat alarmed by this unwonted conduct on the part of ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... his first demand was for "Mastika," a peculiar Greek drink distilled from mastic gum, and his second demand invariably was "Du beurre!" with the "r's" as silent as the stars; and if it failed to come at once the waiter was made to feel the enormity of his tardiness. ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various

... thing made plain to him; his perplexity will even strengthen and purify his will. The weak man is he who, certain of what is required of him, fails to meet it: so never once fails Hamlet. Note, in all that follows, that a load seems taken off him: after a gracious tardiness to believe up to the point of action, he is at length satisfied. Hesitation belongs to the noble nature, to Hamlet; precipitation to the poor nature, to Laertes, the son of Polonius. Compare Brutus in Julius Caesar—a ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... to the next General Assembly of Virginia praying that the said State may recede from the Union, and be left under the government and protection of one hundred thousand free and independent Virginians!" A meeting at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, resolved, "that it was weary of the tardiness of Congress in not going to war with England, and that they were almost ready to wish for a state of revolution and the guillotine of France for a short space, in order to punish the miscreants who enervate and disgrace the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... banks of the Arno, and whom she was usually permitted to visit every Sabbath afternoon—she thought of her absent brother, who was still in the service of the Florentine Envoy to the Ottomon Porte, where that diplomatist was detained by the tardiness that marked the negotiations with which he was charged; and then she thought—thought too, with an involuntary sigh—of Francisco, Count ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... region of the air, into which with characteristic British prudence we have moved with some tardiness, the Navy need not fear comparison with the Navy of any other country. The British sea-plane, although still in an empirical stage, like everything else in this sphere of warlike operations, has reached a point of progress in advance of anything ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... two weeks I have been too ill to cross my room, which must account both for this note and the tardiness I have ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... the lives of the saints, certainly with a pious intent, but in a most unhandsome style. Wherefore, in reading the lives and acts of the saints composed in a rude manner or barbarous dialect, disgust is often excited, and not seldom tardiness of belief. And hence it is that the life of the most glorious priest Patrick, the patron and apostle of Ireland, so illustrious in signs and miracles, being frequently written by illiterate persons, through ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... blouse, pinning it with a safety pin in lieu of a button and button hole. When the class returned from the auditorium, she was sitting sedately in her seat and appeared only mildly interested in the lecture on tardiness ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... in which I was certain I recognized the veiled Countess and her husband. This carriage had been brought to a walk by a cart which occupied the whole breadth of the narrow way, and was moving with the customary tardiness of ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... the final failure of the Reformation was the tardiness with which it came to France. It did not begin to make its really popular appeal until some years after 1536, when Calvin's writings attained a gradual publicity. This was twenty years later than the Reformation came forcibly home to the Germans, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... deepening twilight, men with grave looks and dark clothes—members of the Academy of Medicine—the Tuesday sitting over, issued from the porch, and entered their carriages. Some of them walked alone, briskly, in a great hurry; others demonstrated a skilful tardiness, stopping to talk politely to a journalist, and to give him notes of the day's meeting, or continuing, with a 'confrere' who was not an Academician, the conversation begun in the room of the 'pas-perdus'; ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... in the face of the heavy and increasing naval armament of the United States. They were considered reverses merely; inquiry went but little deeper and the lesson they should have taught was lost; while the inexplicable tardiness of the War Department left still more important ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... would long ago have dissolved it. "Under such a government,'' says the Abbe Mably, "the Union could never have subsisted, if the provinces had not a spring within themselves, capable of quickening their tardiness, and compelling them to the same way of thinking. This spring is the stadtholder.'' It is remarked by Sir William Temple, "that in the intermissions of the stadtholdership, Holland, by her riches and her authority, ...
— The Federalist Papers

... rooms on that side whenever the old housekeeper opened the windows. All that was here,—peace, and happiness, and a reasonable life,—and yet it never struck me to come and live in it. Looking back I am astonished, and can in no way account for the tardiness of my discovery that here, in this far-away corner, was my kingdom of heaven. Indeed, so little did it enter my head to even use the place in summer, that I submitted to weeks of seaside life with all its horrors every ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp

... him had nearly convulsed his nieces. It was the memory of these which brought the smile to Sally's lips at the lady's last words. At that moment the last bell sounded and Miss Baylis was obliged to dismiss her class as quickly as possible. Miss Woodhull was very intolerant of tardiness at meals. Upon the instant the release bell sounded the classes must be dismissed and each girl must hurry to her room to make herself ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... Kitchener's armies either in England or abroad. The "jankers" or defaulters' squad was always rather large; but the "jankers men" were offenders against minor points in discipline. Their crimes were untidy appearance on parade, inattention in the ranks, tardiness at roll-call, and others of the sort, all within the jurisdiction of a company officer. The punishment meted out varied according to the seriousness of the offense, and the past-conduct record of the offender. It ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... — N. {ant. 132} lateness &c adj.; tardiness &c (slowness) 275. delay, delation; cunctation, procrastination; deferring, deferral &c v.; postponement, adjournment, prorogation, retardation, respite, pause, reprieve, stay of execution; protraction, prolongation; Fabian policy, medecine expectante [Fr.], chancery suit, federal case; leeway; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... draw up plans of campaign and negotiate truces, but to lead the Dauphin to his anointing. Wherefore it was to Reims that she wished to take him, not that she knew how to go there, but she believed that God would guide her. Delay, tardiness, deliberation saddened and irritated her. When with the King she urged ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... employee may respond that the employer is not there, but this has nothing to do with it. Most people are paid to get to their work at a certain hour. They have a daily appointment with their business at a specified time. It is wise and honorable to keep it. Tardiness is a habit, and, like most others, considerably harder to break than to form, but punctuality also is a habit, not quite so easy to establish as tardiness because it is based on strength while the other is based on weakness. Most of us hate to get up in the morning, but it is ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... upstairs and was down again with the cigarettes before the general had remarked my tardiness to his aide. At midnight I lighted their candles and saw them safely up to bed. Then I went to my room fronting the marsh ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... a maid of the Tinley's, and here, being midway between the two houses, they met. He had to obtain pardon for tardiness, by saying that dinner at Brookfield had been delayed for the return of Mr. Pole. The damsel's questions showed her far advanced in knowledge of affairs at Brookfield and may account for Laura Tinley's gatherings of latest intelligence concerning ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... for a song or a story from the inexhaustible supply with which her memory was stored, and there they would remain, fascinated by her sweet, low voice until she would be obliged to playfully chase them out of the house to compel them to return to school. From the teacher, for tardiness, punishment was a very frequent occurrence, but it made slight impression upon the girls in comparison with the enjoyment of listening to one of mother's thrilling or romantic stories, for the following day they would return to our house to again ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... about his tardiness. It would never do to ignore an imperfection in the perfect. Eddie was Pheeny's nurse that night and overslept in the morning. It would have made him late again if he had stopped to fry an egg or boil a cup of coffee. He ran ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... was carried upstairs to the front Guest Room, fortunately just then empty. The Poles turned over to me the heavy package found with him, stolidly requested a note to the Boss explaining their necessary tardiness, and hurried away. They had done what they had to do, and they had no further interest in him. Nobody had any interest in one of the unknown tramps who got themselves killed or crippled ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... match, and would not take her to wife upon such conditions; but the king of France, understanding what the nature of the fault had been which had lost her the love of her father, that it was only a tardiness of speech, and the not being able to frame her tongue to flattery like her sisters, took this young maid by the hand, and saying that her virtues were a dowry above a kingdom, bade Cordelia to take farewel of her sisters, and of her father, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... HE was named for me, whichever you prefer. As this was the first time I had ever encountered this species of honor, it seems excusable to mention it, and at the same time call the attention of the authorities to the tardiness of my ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... I hope you will not chide my tardiness, I have a little overslept my self, and am ashamed to see my lovely Bride, and all this worthy Company attend. —But you, fair Creature— ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... Wade, with mournful whisper, that Jack paid no attention to her whatever, and that the old rancher attributed this coldness, and Jack's backsliding, to her irresponsiveness and her tardiness in setting the wedding-day that must be set. To this Wade had whispered in reply, "Don't ever forget what I said to you an' ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... of Audrey and her other guests, heralded by a gust of cheerful laughter, tided over the difficult moment, and Garth turned away to make his apologies to his hostess, blaming some slight mishap to his car for the tardiness of ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... it, thereby inflicting serious losses upon the resident Low-German merchants, Lubeck once more placed herself at the head of the Wendish cities and at the diet of Greifswald decreed war against the ruthless invader. But the expedition proved disastrous, owing chiefly to the tardiness of the kings of Sweden and Norway, who had been drawn into the alliance. Nevertheless, the unfortunate admiral of the Lubeck fleet, Johann Wittenborg, who also enjoyed the rank of burgomaster of the Hanseatic city, was put to the axe in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... will not detain you longer. I know that you wish to go to the courthouse, to watch the Emerson trial; so I will ring for breakfast. Industrious people must not be hindered by the tardiness of lazy ones," she added, with a smile, as she put ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... frolics of the sun-bird is revealed. Time cannot lag with such gay, saucy creatures, so while they wait half a dozen or more congregate in a circle and with uplifted heads directed towards a common centre sing their song in unison. Whether the theme of the song is of protest against the tardiness of the tree, or of thanks in anticipation, or of exultation in race, or of rivalry, matters not; but one is inclined to the last theory, for none but males take part in it. The sun glints on their burnished breasts, their throats throb, their ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... he will find me here," answered Philip proudly. His pride was over-confident. Whether it were only a people's fickleness or intelligent appreciation of their own commercial interests in their relations with England, the Flemings grew speedily disgusted with the siege of Calais, complained of the tardiness in arrival of the fleet which Philip had despatched thither to close the port against English vessels, and, after having suffered several reverses by sorties of the English garrison, they ended by retiring ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... the battle of Saratoga; but the latest and most trustworthy researches on this point would seem to indicate that he commanded there with discretion and skill. He was now a major-general, but his irascible spirit had previously been hurt by the tardiness with which this honor was conferred upon him, five of his juniors having received it before himself. He strongly disliked General Gates, too, and quarrelled with him because of what he held to be unfair behavior during the engagement at Bemis's Heights. At Stillwater, a month or so later in the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... judgment is not the sole question, if indeed it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot then make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted, but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... hope Jefferson and Madison entertained of a united effort on the part of State Legislatures against the Alien and Sedition acts was dashed by the dissentient replies from all the New England States and by the lack of replies from the Southern States. They accounted for it by the tardiness with which State officials change, not always representing public opinion. The ease with which they carried all the States except seven in the ensuing election of 1800 enabled them to give the resolutions a large share of the credit for bringing ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... upon the implied reproach of her guest's tardiness, but crossing the room to a big chair, whither Tzaritza had already preceded her to rub noses with a magnificent white Persian cat, she stooped to stroke Sultana, who graciously condescended to purr and nestle her beautiful ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... piastre. These statements appear to me to be of some importance, when we wish to compare the nutritive matter which man can obtain from the same extent of soil, by covering it, in different climates, with bread-trees, plantains, jatropha, maize, potatoes, rice, and corn. The tardiness of the harvest of jatropha has, I believe, a beneficial influence on the manners of the natives, by fixing them to the soil, and compelling them to sojourn long on the same spot.) Around the conucos of Pimichin grows, in its wild state, the igua, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... not new to the flattery of thy class; go then, and acquaint my ancient attendants with this sudden resolution, that I may not disappoint the council by tardiness. I commit all to thy care, Annina, since thou knowest the pleasure of my guardians—those ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... good to us that we are sometimes disposed to think we might have dispensed with art. In the bush, where doctors can not be had, bones will set themselves; and when doctors do come, but come slowly, the broken bones suit themselves to such tardiness. Medlicot was brought in and put to bed. Let the reader not be shocked to hear that Kate Daly's room was given up to him, as being best suited for a sick man's comfort, and the two ladies took it in turn to watch him. ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope

... were not parted by reason of dissimilarity of age or learning, as they were put into the ungraded room. To keep them there enrolled taxed to the utmost our ingenuity in the way of framing excuses for their repeated cases of tardiness and suspension. ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... surprisingly strict and exacting. Criticism of teachers, their methods and the books they used, was plentiful and continuous. It was not unusual for teachers to be censured "for not keeping school at all," or for giving too many holidays, or for tardiness in opening school in the morning and eagerness in closing it in the afternoon. At least one teacher was warned that his arrears in salary would not be paid, and that he would be instantly dismissed "if he did not treat his wife with greater kindness." The teachers were billetted among ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... a whoop as he rode up, entered, banging the door loudly behind him. He greeted the strangers with a careless wave of the hand and sat down at the table. His mother placed food silently before him. No explanations of his tardiness were asked and none were offered. The attitude of his father indicated clearly that the boy represented the earning power of the family. He was a big fellow with broad, thick wrists, and a straight black eye. When ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... forester," I said aloud, in disgust at my tardiness. Then began the stern business of the day. While getting breakfast I turned over in my mind the proper thing for me to do. Evidently I must pack and find the trail. The pony had wandered off into the woods, ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... to make the teacher miserable. She looked reprovingly at him this morning, when he came in during the arithmetic class, his hair all wind-blown, cheeks rosy from a hard fight with the sharp blasts. But he made up for his tardiness by his extreme goodness all day; just think, Titee didn't even eat in school. A something unparalleled in the ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... Yetta was clean—and late. Miss Bailey overlooked the cleanliness, but noted the tardiness, and treated the offender with some of "the mads 'out sayin' nothings" which Sadie had predicted. Still, the "cop mit buttons und clubs" did not appear, though Yetta lived in constant terror and expected that every opening of the door ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... but still Dan Kenyon stood at his post, oblivious of the hungry saws. Ten seconds passed; then Zeb Curry, immeasurably scandalized at Daniel's tardiness, tooted the whistle sharply twice; whereupon Dan woke up, threw over the lever, and walked his log ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... but what lay at the end of the long walk was infinitely worse, as Willie's father had warned him to return immediately after the inquest, in time for milking, preferably. Before he had gone two blocks from the theater Willie had concocted at least three tales to account for his tardiness, either one of which would have done credit to the imaginative powers of a Rider Haggard or a Jules Verne; but at the end of the third block he caught a glimpse of something which drove all thoughts of home from his mind and came but barely ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... seven when he quitted the cellar and London was awake in earnest. Alban usually spent twopence in the luxury of a "wash and brush up" before he went down to the river; but he hastened on this morning conscious of his tardiness and troubled at the possible consequences. The bright spring day did little to reassure him. Weather does not mean very much to those who labor in heated atmospheres, who have no profit of the sunshine ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... a matter of regret; but the procedure of the Indian Government and of all the British self-governing dominions in following the mother country when at last she determined to take action has done much to redeem that tardiness. Obviously, it was the prohibition of the importation and sale of phosphorus matches in India and the Dominions which has forced the Scandinavian and Belgian manufacturers who were opposing complete prohibition to seek for substitutes for white phosphorus. At the present moment ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... recruits must be leaving, with regret, their own country and their beloved customs, to die, perhaps, in foreign lands, they involuntarily excused a tardiness their feelings comprehended. Then, with the generosity natural to soldiers, they disguised their indulgence under an apparent desire to examine into the military position of the land. But Hulot, whom we shall henceforth call the commandant, to avoid giving him ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... at that moment, there was no occasion for further anxiety, but in response to their queries he gave them no satisfaction as to the cause of his unusual tardiness, and only ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... of the great mass of white people will not. A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot then make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but, for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... curiosity had stationed themselves directly under it. I suppose that during my momentary absence the Wood-man had been blaming Claude for tardiness, since when I returned to the window, the latter was endeavouring ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis



Words linked to "Tardiness" :   punctuality, timing, tardy



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