"Behindhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bull, the sea, 'The Times' in the morning, and, besides, some dozens of fellow-creatures. The learned class has greatly sunk in Germany, more than I supposed; all behindhand.... Nothing appears of any importance; the most wretched trifles are ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... with matchless speed and precision they formed in line of battle, while drums and fifes announced their high spirits. The Christian fleet was slower in falling into line; some of the galleys and most of the galleasses were behindhand. Don John let drop some pious oaths, and sent swift vessels to hurry them up. At last they began to get into order. Barbarigo, the "left guide," hugged the coast with the left wing; Don John with the centre corps de bataille kept touch ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... it's kindly offered, but I'm in haste and I'd rather trust my own lame leg than her four lagging ones. Besides, if Aleck has been afield in this search he'll be behindhand in his work, and he's a hand to keep things up to the level line. Good-by, good-by. Oh! wait a bit, though. I'd clean forgot that I put a scrap of white Scotch linen and a yard or two of plaid bodice stuff in my pack ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... of letters have never been behindhand in tributes to the Queen. Every sculptor and painter to whom she has sat, has had the same story as Gibson and Leslie to tell of her kindness, taste and intelligence. Miss Fox, writing of Landseer, says, "He deeply admires ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... at the bottom of Paul's pocket, lay a bill of fifty dollars for publishing expenses. What was to be done? The bill must be paid. It would never do to let the March Hare run behindhand. To begin to run into debt was ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... see my way clear to get along without Martha. The boys ought to be having their spring suits this very minute, and Martha was calculating to make them this week; and they'd have to have their first wear of them Sundays for a while before they start on them for school. I never was so behindhand; but what with fitting off Artemas and the spring cleaning being delayed, I didn't seem to know how to manage. Martha is good at making over, and there are two very good coats of Artemas's that she would do the right thing by; while there was a good ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... we haven't. You know we're always behindhand. It's been fine, open weather for husking, too. But at least we've got rid of that miserable Jerry; so there's something to be thankful for. He had one of his fits of temper in town one day, when ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... whole family of that name in Carolina. I'm from Carolina myself, you must know. There was an old codger—a fine, hearty buck—old Ralph Colleton—Colonel Ralph, as they used to call him. He did have a power of money, and a smart chance of lands and field-niggers; but they did say he was going behindhand, for he didn't know how to keep what he had. He was always buying, and living large; but that can't last for ever. I saw him first at a muster. I was then just eighteen, and went out with the rest, for the first time. Maybe, 'squire, I didn't take the rag off the bush ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... care to send for Tom Lord to amuse them, for Tom was a wit and a humourist, and kept the President in a laugh. Mr. Lord ordered the dinner and chose the wines. He could be coarse enough to suit even the President's palate, and Ratcliffe was not behindhand. When the new Secretary went away at ten o'clock that night, his chief; who was in high good humour with his dinner, his champagne, and his conversation, swore with some unnecessary granite oaths, that Ratcliffe was "a clever fellow anyhow," and he ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... the incautious gauger was repeated far and wide, and a strong spirit of opposition was aroused. Many a wary practitioner began to devise cunning means of concealment, and to invent traps to catch their adversary and turn him into ridicule. Davie Forbes was not behindhand in making remote preparations for the ganger's certain visit to him. But it was then mid-winter, and if Bonar was the canny man that he was said to be, there would be little fear of any attempted search for Davie's implements and stores before spring had set in. So the ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... high official of the Porte appears at formal receptions; but on the whole the society is diplomatic, and depends almost entirely upon the diplomatists for its existence and for its diversions. The lead once given, the old Greek aristocrats have not been behindhand in following it; but their numbers are small, and the movement and interest in Pera, or on the Bosphorus, centre in the great embassies, as they do ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... answered that, having traveled almost incessantly during the last year, we could not help being a bit behindhand in the questions of modern science, and that we were not able to follow ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... technicalities of male politics, and fancied that I had made some impression, the answer would be: "Well, I'd go, I'm sure, just to oblige you, but then there's the tomatoes to be canned"—or, "I'm so behindhand with my darning and patching"—or, "John'll be sure to go, and there's no need of two from the same house"—and so on, until I was mightily discouraged. There were just nine of us, all told, to about ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... at his desk, overlooking the pupils, or stalked about the room with a certain awful birch rod in his hand. Now came a rap over the shoulders of a boy whom Mr. Toil had caught at play; now he punished a whole class who were behindhand with their lessons; and, in short, unless a lad chose to attend constantly to his book, he had no chance of enjoying a quiet moment in the ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... I would,' she said eagerly; 'but I don't know what would come of it. We're dreadfully behindhand this month, and if he were to go away, people would be down on us; they'd think he wanted to ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as to mix yourself up in my affairs, I will not be behindhand. I suggested yesterday that you should take the Doctor; have you thought it over? For really, you know, the prince ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... and well do I remember it, as it was the Express day for posting letters via Bombay, and an extra fee of one rupee was charged on each ordinary letter. At that time the foreign mail went out fortnightly, alternately from Bombay and Calcutta. I happened to be rather behindhand with my letters, and was very busily engaged in office until about 6 o'clock in the evening, when I ventured outside to go to the post office, by which time the fury of the storm had almost spent itself. Although confined indoors without any actual knowledge of the awful destruction that was ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... earnin' at just double that money, and that leaves me twenty-one shillin' for a whole year's food, an' fire, an' clothes, an' shoes; and I've got to keep up some sort of a place to live in. An' there's odds an' ends. Is it a wonder if I'm behindhand ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Slipslop received the fist, which in the dark passed by her and fell on the pillow, she would most probably have given up the ghost. Adams, missing his blow, fell directly on Slipslop, who cuffed and scratched as well as she could; nor was he behindhand with her in his endeavours, but happily the darkness of the night befriended her. She then cried she was a woman; but Adams answered, she was rather the devil, and if she was he would grapple with him; and, being again irritated by another stroke on his chops, he gave her such a remembrance ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... behindhand in English. Fancy my calling you, upon a fitting occasion,—Fool, sot, silly, simpleton, dunce, blockhead, jolterhead, clumsy-pate, dullard, ninny, nincompoop, lackwit, numpskull, ass, owl, loggerhead, coxcomb, monkey, shallow-brain, addle-head, tony, zany, fop, fop-doodle; ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... with seed. He did not wonder that the seeding on Los Muertos seemed to be hastily conducted. Magnus and Harran Derrick had not yet been able to make up the time lost at the beginning of the season, when they had waited so long for the ploughs to arrive. They had been behindhand all the time. On Annixter's ranch, the land had not only been harrowed, as well as seeded, but in some cases, cross-harrowed as well. The labour of putting in the vast crop was over. Now there was nothing to do but wait, while the seed ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... filled a second time; and P., not to be behindhand, emptied it at a draught. Then he turned to me with tears (not of delight) in his eyes, swallowed nothing very hard two or three times, suppressed a convulsive shudder, and finally remarked, with the air of a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humor. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way, holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions, Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and being buried at Hatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his native place but that he had a liking for the Salisbury Arms where we went upon our wedding-day and passed as happy a fortnight as ever ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... little girl, how old? Pony wants grooming though,' patting it as he talked. 'What's your name, my dear? He's sadly behindhand with his rent, as I was saying, but if he's really ill, I must see after Sheepshanks, who is a hardish man of business. What's his complaint? You'll come to our school-scrimmage on Thursday, little girl—what's-your-name? Mind ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... wished to hear more she told us the whole story. They had got behindhand with the rent, but that had often been the case, only this time it happened that the agent wanted a cottage for a person he wished to befriend, and so gave them notice to quit. But her husband was a high-spirited ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... that his Eminence was not behindhand with La Riviere upon the score of treachery. For on the very day he got him nominated by the King, he wrote a letter to Cardinal Sachelli more fit to recommend him to a yellow cap than to a red one. ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... ball; the openwork silk stockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the hairdressing was almost done. Sonya was finishing dressing and so was the countess, but Natasha, who had bustled about helping them all, was behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sonya stood ready dressed in the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her dainty finger, was fixing on a last ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Patent Office; and yet, notwithstanding that this enormous amount is lying idle, our pseudo-economists at the Capitol refuse to grant the Office sufficient of its own funds to carry on its business promptly. So much is the work behindhand in some of the departments that, as the Commissioner states in his report, some of the attorneys who require certified copies of papers have been obliged to employ their own clerks to do office copying, and then had ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... old man was not behindhand with some moral reflections on this fruitful theme, and both adduced a mass of evidence, of such weight as to render it doubtful—not whether the deceased was of the age suggested, but whether she had not almost reached the patriarchal term of a hundred. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the princes of his court. I am apt to believe that the menial officers of the house were so embusied in waiting each on his proper service at the feast, that nobody took care of poor Pantagruel, who was left a reculorum, behindhand, all alone, and as forsaken. What did he? Hark what he did, good people. He strove and essayed to break the chains of the cradle with his arms, but could not, for they were too strong for him. Then did he keep with his feet such a stamping ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... some extraordinarily active parson who had done the like by his schools, and partly from real kindness, and partly in the spirit of emulation which intrudes even upon schemes of benevolence, he was most anxious that we at Dacrefield should not "be behindhand" in good works. Competition is a feeling with which children have great sympathy, and I warmly echoed Mr. Clerke's resolve that we ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... harmful to do it, do it he would, and nothing could stop him. He did not do it because it would be harmful, but because he hoped it was not yet too late to achieve by it the good which it would have done if applied earlier. His comprehension was always a train or two behindhand. If a national toe required amputating, he could not see that it needed anything more than poulticing; when others saw that the mortification had reached the knee, he first perceived that the toe needed cutting off—so he cut it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... learned that the canoe which had set out from us had arrived in their country, and that their companions, wearied by their journey, were resting, and that they would soon arrive, in fulfilment of the promise they had made; that at most they would not be more than eight days behindhand, but that there would be only twenty-four canoes, as one of their captains and many of their comrades had died of a fever that had broken out among them. They also said that they had sent many to the war, which had hindered their progress. We ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... Mrs. Brunton; 'stick a bit o' holly i' yon pig's mouth, that's the way we do things i' Newcassel; but folks is so behindhand in Monkshaven. It's a fine thing to live in a large town, Sylvia; an' if yo're looking out for a husband, I'd advise yo' to tak' one as lives in a town. I feel as if I were buried alive comin' back here, such an out-o'-t'-way place after t' Side, wheere ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... which always must give the final decision in everything we do. I have certainly not been behindhand in enormous sacrifices to mollify that inexorable power, and my representative, through whose hands pass far greater sums than through those of the paymasters of the troops, writes me word that they are not unfavorably disposed towards me ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... copper pieces one or two at a time. The tardy were vexed with fines and distraints. Furniture, doors, the very rafters and floors were sold for unpaid taxes. In the time of Louis XV., if a whole village fell too much behindhand, its four principal inhabitants might be seized and carried off to jail. This corporal joint-liability was ended by a law passed under the ministry of Turgot, and apparently not repealed on his fall.[Footnote: Horn, 238; Vauban; Bailly, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... baths of Plombieres, there lies the village of Granpere. Whatever may be said or thought here in England of the late imperial rule in France, it must at any rate be admitted that good roads were made under the Empire. Alsace, which twenty years ago seems to have been somewhat behindhand in this respect, received her full share of Napoleon's attention, and Granpere is now placed on an excellent road which runs from the town of Remiremont on one line of railway, to Colmar on another. ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... consult one's pillow, sleep on it. lose an opportunity &c. 135; be kept waiting, dance attendance; kick one's heels, cool one's heels; faire antichambre[Fr][obs3]; wait impatiently; await &c. (expect) 507; sit up, sit up at night. Adj. late, tardy, slow, behindhand, serotine[obs3], belated, postliminious[obs3], posthumous, backward, unpunctual, untimely; delayed, postponed; dilatory &c. (slow) 275; delayed &c. v.; in abeyance. Adv. late; lateward[obs3], backward; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... appear to have been somewhat irregular. In the Diary, December 19, 1666, we read: "Talked of the King's family with Mr. Kingston, the organist. He says many of the musique are ready to starve, they being five years behindhand for their wages; nay, Evens, the famous man upon the Harp, having not his equal in the world, did the other day die for mere want, and was fain to be buried at the alms of the parish, and carried to his grave in the dark at night without one linke, but that Mr. Kingston ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... up the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the forests; the east came bringing him the rich shawls, and spices, and teas, and the effulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming purity of large pearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a profit on it. Be the original commodity what it might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas, in the fable, that whatever he touched with ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was not much behindhand with the count in the article of politeness, for he also returned a flag with his compliments, and requested to be permitted four and twenty hours to think of ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... three thousand of the Jews, armed men. He had also taken care the principal men of the Arabians should come to his assistance; and on his account it was that all the Syrians assisted him also, as not willing to appear behindhand in their alacrity for Cesar, viz. Jamblicus the ruler, and Ptolemy his son, and Tholomy the son of Sohemus, who dwelt at Mount Libanus, and almost all the cities. So Mithridates marched out of Syria, and came to Pelusium; and when its inhabitants would not admit him, he besieged ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... to push aside the urgent fear that was knocking at her heart. If even the policeman had confidence in Susie, should her mother be behindhand? She told the policeman, for his information and her own comfort, that she was only frightened because the little boy had been ill, and it was such a cold, wet night, but at the same time she thought she would walk round to the town by ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... not by any great elegance, at least by a plentiful store of anecdotes, concerning the highest personages of the city; with whom, according to himself, the Captain lived on terms of the utmost intimacy. Not to be behindhand with him, I spoke of my own estates and property as if I was as rich as a duke. I told all the stories of the nobility I had ever heard from my mother, and some that, perhaps, I had invented; and ought to have been aware that my ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wall-paper, a perfect gem of colour after the black, empty darkness in which I had been groping, a pretty girl was telling a story, as well as I could make out, to an attentive child upon her knee, while an old woman sat placidly dozing over the fire. You may be sure I was not behindhand with a story for myself—a good old story after the manner of G. P. R. James and the village melodramas, with a wicked squire, and poachers, and an attorney, and a virtuous young man with a genius for mechanics, who should love, and protect, and ultimately marry ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... army, even on those lonely hills, managed to extract enjoyment from its surroundings. The hospitality of the plantations was open to the officers, and wherever Stuart and his brigadiers pitched their tents, dances and music were the order of the day. Nor were the men behindhand. Even the heavy snow afforded them entertainment. Whenever a thaw took place they set themselves to making snow-balls; and great battles, in which one division was arrayed against another, and which were carried through ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... at last, winding up his discourse, "that the team we've really got to look out for is the 'Greys.' According to the report of our three boys, they are mighty strong on the attack, and nothing behindhand on their defense." ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... too late. I am doing now what I ought to have done when I was a girl, and I have always the feeling of being behindhand." ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... been consummated under James's own direction. The Revolution of 1688 brought up other influences more hostile still to the Proprietary; and the Province, which was always sedulous to follow the fashions of London, was not behindhand on this occasion, but made, also, its revolution, in imitation of the great one. The end of all was the utter subversion of the Charter, and a new government of Maryland under a royal commission. How this was accomplished ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... highness to play with—after which the noble pug was perfectly satisfied! Of course, we all laughed at the Russian's story, but he assured us it was a well authenticated fact, and was generally regarded as a most delicate jeu d'esprit. Not to be behindhand in the line of cats and monkeys, I was obliged to tell an anecdote of a Frenchman, who, on his arrival in Algiers, ordered a ragout at one of the most fashionable restaurants. It was duly served up, and pronounced excellent, though rather strongly flavored. "Pray," said the Frenchman to the ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... is not behindhand in offices of benevolence and charity, any more than Dean Palmer," observed ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... reserve &c (store) 636; temporize; consult one's pillow, sleep on it. lose an opportunity &c 135; be kept waiting, dance attendance; kick one's heels, cool one's heels; faire antichambre [Fr.]; wait impatiently; await &c (expect) 507; sit up, sit up at night. Adj. late, tardy, slow, behindhand, serotine^, belated, postliminious^, posthumous, backward, unpunctual, untimely; delayed, postponed; dilatory &c (slow) 275; delayed &c v.; in abeyance. Adv. late; lateward^, backward; late in the day; at sunset, at the eleventh hour, at length, at last; ultimately; after time, behind ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... is not easy to baffle them when once their curiosity is roused. And yet curiosity is always imputed exclusively to women! Though Eve was the first to taste the apple, Adam had no intention of being behindhand. I know a man who always manages to get down to breakfast five minutes before the rest of his family, for the purpose of examining the ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... to be behindhand, having just come in for his lunch, ran out again without so much as wetting his stubbly white beard in the froth of the drawn quart of ale, and made away as fast as his stiff legs could carry him to ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... the archbishoprics of Lanfranc and of Anselm. At a synod held in Rouen some six years after his great conquest, William insisted upon reform in the morals of the Church, upon strict rules of marriage, on an exact profession of the orthodox faith. He was not behindhand in performing his part of the profitable bargain that had been ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... the lesion to the national honour has been ascertained, appraised and duly exhibited by those persons whose place in the national economy it is to look after all that sort of thing, the common man will be found nowise behindhand about resenting the evil usage of which he so, by force of interpretation, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... wishes by his legal studies, and his career for his future calling is to begin in a residence at Weslar. This was the seat of the Court of Appeal of the old German Empire. How far justice was really promoted, may be seen from the single statement that, while the docket of cases was twenty thousand behindhand in 1772, only sixty decisions were made in a year. In what was called praxis or practice, the young Goethe was placed in a "circumlocution office" like Weslar. There is something ludicrous in the position, so absurd ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... enables me to live without anxiety. Everything I write, I can sell immediately five times over, and also be well paid. * * * Oh! how happy should I now be if I had my perfect hearing, for I should then hasten to you. As it is, I must in all things be behindhand; my best years will slip away without bringing forth what, with my talent and my strength, I ought to have accomplished. I must now have recourse to sad resignation. I have, it is true, resolved not to worry about all this, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... for his wages, and going to marke out the Land shall have for himselfe, one coat, foure pounds of poudar, six pounds of led, one dutch hatchet, as also seventeen shillings in wampum," which, together with pay for the land, "they must send by Chockanoe." Our early settlers were always behindhand in their payments, and in this case, as evidenced by a receipt attached, pay was not received until May 23 of the next year, when Wyandance refers to "the meadow I sould last to them which my man Chockenoe marked out ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker
... not allow themselves to be behindhand in civilities towards the ship-owners, and accordingly the petition of Lyons demands the free introduction of raw material, "in order to prove," it remarks, "that the interests of manufacturing towns are not opposed to ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... see, my time is everything to me; and I am already a little behindhand, in occasionally nursing the poor woman Morel; and you may imagine that an hour in one way and an hour in another makes in time a day; a day brings thirty sous, and if we earn nothing one must still ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... company for the king. As soon as the breakfast was served up, they all set to, and maybe the various kinds of eatables did not pay for it; and among all this cutting and thrusting, no doubt but it was remarked, that the bride herself was behindhand wid none of them—that she took her dalin-trick without flinching, and made nothing less than a right fog meal of it; and small blame to her for ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... wonder—are we to have in the way of wind and weather? We trust it will be severe. As summer set in with his usual severity, Winter must not be behindhand with him; but after an occasional week's rain of a commendably boisterous character, must come out in full fig of frost. He has two suits which we greatly admire, combining the splendour of a court-dress with the strength of a work-day garb—we mean his garments of black ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... material productive power will be as great as ever, except for the small number of our ships that have been sunk or the small amount of damage done to us by enemy aircraft. Our railways and factories may be somewhat behindhand in upkeep, but that will soon be made good, and against that item on the debit side, we may set the great new organization for munition works, part of which, we may hope, will be available for peaceful production when the time for ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... you are not going to be a fighting man, sir; and, behindhand as you are with your studies, I think you might try a little more to do your instructor credit, and not waste time with one of the servants in such a barbaric pursuit as this. Lady Royland is waiting breakfast. You ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... other papers hideous. At length the concierge gave in; he would arrange the matter, and, if necessary, would make out there was a piece more used than was really the case. So, on her way home, Gervaise purchased some tarts for Pauline. She did not like being behindhand—one always gained by behaving nicely ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... humouring him, he became imperious and spiteful. And still further, he demanded to be repaid the money he had advanced to Tom. Tom paid what little he could, and borrowed the rest from Mortimer. He got behindhand with his rent, and his landlady has given him notice. As usual, everybody to whom he owes money has found out his altered circumstances, and is down on him. The keeper of the music-hall, the tailor, the cigar merchant, are among the ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... knowledge. Science made rapid progress, and in its turn showed the broad and liberal influence of the great revolution. In 1842 societies were founded in Paris and London to promote the study of ethnology. Mr. Gallatin would not be behindhand in this important work for which America offered a virgin field. Drawing about him a number of gentlemen of similar tastes with his own, he founded in New York, in 1842, the American Ethnological Society. Among his associates were Dr. Robinson, the famous explorer of ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... morning there was no congregation; partly because of the rough weather, and partly because we had sailed so well that nobody realised how much faster the time was to-day than it had been yesterday, and we were therefore all behindhand. In the afternoon I went on deck for a short time, but found it so cold that I could not remain; for, although the wind was right aft, the gale blew fierce and strong. Tom had a very anxious time of it, literally ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... his system. When he rose to go I was sure that Demetria's disappearance was a greater mystery to him than ever; and as a parting shot I warmly invited him to come and see us frequently while he remained in the capital, even offering him a bed in the house; while Paquita, not to be behindhand, for she had thoroughly entered into the fun of the thing, entrusted him with a prettily worded, affectionate message to Demetria, a person whom she already loved and hoped some day ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... and dressmaker, I might be beautifully dressed all the time without giving much thought to it myself; and that is what I should like. But this constant planning about one's toilet, changing your buttons and your fringes and your bonnet-trimmings and your hats every other day, and then being behindhand! It ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... was accompanied by the gift of fifty thousand dollars, to facilitate Farragut's complying with the request. The letter was addressed to Vice-Admiral Farragut; the United States Government, not to be behindhand in acknowledging its debt to its most distinguished seaman, having created for him that grade soon after his arrival. The bill for the purpose was introduced on the 22d of December, 1864, immediately passed by both houses, and became law by ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... suffered her to do the least part of my work. It was very inconvenient to both of us only to know each other's meaning by signs; but I could not be otherwise than pleased to see that she endeavoured all in her power to learn to talk like me. Indeed I was not behindhand with her in that respect, striving all I could to imitate her. What I all the while wondered at was, she never showed the least disquiet at her confinement; for I kept my door shut at first, through fear of losing ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... dependent on his brother for defence, for his position with other boys at school,—as he grew up, for his position in life, even. Harry was the favorite always. The schoolmaster—or teacher, as we call him nowadays—liked Harry best, although he was always in scrapes, and often behindhand in his studies, while Ernest was punctual, quiet, and always knew his lessons, though his eyes looked dreamily through his books ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... the forenoon in initiating him into the mysteries of his duty. In the afternoon I commenced posting, for Mr. Whippleton had been so busy with his boat, and with his other out-door occupations, that the books were somewhat behindhand. While I was thus engaged, I obeyed the instructions of the junior partner, and examined carefully into the system by which the accounts were kept. I began early in the morning and worked till late at night, until I had posted everything down to the Saturday of the preceding week. ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... is demanded nowadays," she said in her dear soprano. "And if you want to get on, it doesn't do to be behindhand. Of course, it means hard work, but that is nothing to me—I am used to work and love it. Since I was seventeen—I am twenty-six now—I can fairly say I have never got up in the morning, without having my whole day mapped and planned before me.—So you see idlers can have no ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... was, however, now utterly out of the question, the more so on account of the retreat of the Prussians. The French observed on this occasion with well-merited scorn: "The allies are ever an idea, a year and an army behindhand." The Austrians, nevertheless, attacked the whole French line in March and were at first victorious on every side, at Catillon, where Kray and Wernek distinguished themselves, and at Landrecis, where the Archduke Charles made a brilliant charge at the head of the cavalry. Landrecis ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... the year 1804, scorning to be behindhand in loyalty as well as activity, he became a member of the Clerkenwell Volunteers, and was placed in the light company, in which capacity he obtained the character not only of being the cleanest man, but the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... corner with a little low chair in it, and boxes full of toys and other things, which were not only far outgrown by Clifford, but which were absolutely never seen nowadays at all, and would be considered far behindhand as amusements for ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... Venner said, coldly. "You see, I had the pleasure of the friendship of the late Mr. George Le Fenu, and Mr. Evors and the younger Mr. Le Fenu are also known to me. Not to be behindhand in exchanging confidence for confidence, I may also say that your niece, ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... sorry that I did not mention it before, because I can understand that it must seem as if we did not want to be sociable. I can assure you that we do; and that after this fortnight is over we shall be ready to be as jolly as any one. You see we are altogether behindhand with our work now, and have got to work hard to put ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... Spry. The road, as you know, goes downhill after passing the parsonage gate, and holds on round the churchyard wall like a sunk way, the soil inside being piled up to the wall's coping. But, my grandfather being still behindhand with his job, his head and shoulders showed over the grave's edge. So Arch'laus ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... their young. Nevertheless, it is in this season that woodcock-shooting is the most amusing. Then is the time for gentlemen to shoot; the braconnier despises it. From the middle of April to that of May is the important epoch at which the generality of animals marry, and the woodcocks are not behindhand in this respect; they leave their well-concealed retreats, become humanized, solicit the attentions of their feathered ladies, and fly with gay inspirations amongst the neighbouring bushes. But though as much in love as a widow, the woodcock ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... they expressed the sad truth. Well! to return to those days, you know that after the siege we were obliged to work on Sundays, because Mr. Goulden while serving as a gunner on the ramparts had neglected his work and we were behindhand. So that on that morning as on the others I lighted the fire in our little stove and prepared the breakfast; the windows were open and we could hear the noise ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... private (with his friends), sent for his boon-companions, in whom he delighted, and charged the chamberlain[FN145] that he should suffer none of the creatures of God the Most High to enter, save a man of his boon-companions, by name Abdulmelik ben Salih,[FN146] who was behindhand with them. Then they donned coloured clothes,[FN147] for that it was their wont, whenas they sat in the wine-chamber, to don raiment of red and yellow and green silk, and sat down to drink, and the cups went round and ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... violent rain falls repeatedly. He lives in a miserable hut, with none of the appliances which we are accustomed to see in laundries. His artificial means for drying clothes are of the most primitive character, and his customers are clamouring for their garments, and abusing him because he is behindhand. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... to Lodge on August 10th], offering to try to raise some companies of horse-riflemen out here, in the event of trouble with Mexico. Won't you telegraph me at once if war becomes inevitable? Out here things are so much behindhand that I might not hear of things for a week. I have not the least idea there will be any trouble, but as my chances of doing anything in the future worth doing seem to grow continually smaller, I intend to grasp at every opportunity that turns up. The cowboys were all eager for war, not caring ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... neighbourhood; but it was a scanty one, and they had not wealth and position enough to compensate for the girl's self-assertion and literary pretensions. It was not a superior or intellectual society, and, as the Rockstone Merrifields laughingly declared, it was fifty years behindhand, and where Bessie Merrifield, for the sake of the old stock and her meek bearing of her success—nay, her total ignoring of her literary honours—would be accepted. Arthurine, half her age, and a newcomer, was disliked ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... saws are behindhand with their contributions, and, being deaf to remonstrance, I am obliged to apply to ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... agricultural science, and that he could cultivate English soil to far better advantage than English farmers do, and at vastly less expense. Their tendency to cling to old ideas, which retards them in everything else, keeps them behindhand in this matter too. Really, I do not know any other place in England where a man can be made so sensible that he lives in a progressive world as here in ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mr. Witwoud, your brother is not behindhand in forgetfulness. I fancy he has forgot ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... Don Sanchez proposed to pay for the service of our guides, it was curious to see how every rascal at the table craned forward to watch the upshot. Don Lopez makes a pretence of leaving the payment to Don Sanchez's generosity; and he, not behindhand in courtesy, lugs out his purse and begs the other to pay himself. Whereupon, with more apologies, Don Lopez empties the money on the table and carefully counts it, and there being but about a score of gold pieces ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... even Ruthven, who, still pale and feverish from riotous living, promised not to be behindhand. The only point changed, on Morton's suggestion, was that the murder should take place next day; for, in the opinion of all, not less than a day's interval was needed to collect the minor conspirators, who numbered not less ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Troilus, go thy way; had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter were a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris, Paris is dirt to him, and I warrant Helen, to change, would give money to boot.' This is the language he addresses to his niece; nor is she much behindhand in coming into the plot. Her head is as light and fluttering as her heart. It is the prettiest villain, she fetches her breath so short as a new-ta'en sparrow.' Both characters are originals, and quite different from what they are in Chaucer. In Chaucer, Cressida ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... camel-guide singing with a sweet voice. Yet the Meccan Apostle made, as has been seen, his own household produce two perfections. The blatant popular voice follows with such "dictes" as, "Women are made of nectar and poison"; "Women have long hair and short wits" and so forth. Nor are the Hindus behindhand. Woman has fickleness implanted in her by Nature like the flashings of lightning (Katha s.s. i. 147); she is valueless as a straw to the heroic mind (169); she is hard as adamant in sin and soft as flour in fear (170) and, like the fly, she quits camphor to settle on ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... not give the details of the battle. It is sufficient to know that the first line of the French chivalry charged with the utmost fury. Among these was an ally of note, John, King of Bohemia, who with his barons and knights was not behindhand in the deadly onset; and yet this king was old and blind! His was chivalry in another form! He would have his stroke in the battle, and he plunged into it with his horse tied by its reins to one of his knights on either side. A plume of three ostrich feathers ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... for seven-pence a pair; but the cries of 'There's a figure! there's a shape!' must make the trowsers rather dear to any one who wishes to walk about peaceably, unmolested by this species of street-criticism.' Under the head of 'Bolsters for Behindhand Botanists,' we find these original questions and answers: 'What are the most difficult roots to extract from the ground?' The cube-root. 'What is the pistil of a flower?' It is that instrument with which the flower shoots. 'What is meant by the word stamina?' It means the pluck or courage ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... people who are now being distributed onto the plantations have nothing. With the chance of giving up the control so soon, Government has not supplied all that is necessary and work bids fair to be as behindhand here as it was last year. Where the people have gone to work at all—at this end of the island—they have started with "good encourage," but at other places it has been impossible to get them to start any cotton, though they work corn. This is partly due to the fact ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... father also, and my two brothers, who were all fishermen, had now come to regard me as the flower of the flock. Yet they had not scrupled to knock me about, with little ceremony, in the days of my boyhood; nor do I think they would have been behindhand in finding fault with me for my folly, had I returned from my second voyage as poor and needy as from the first. But such is life, and a man must take what comes, and make the best of it and not the worst; so I accepted my new role as ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... of wonder, that in being so generous to some, he was forced to be unjust to others. He was still behindhand with his poor washerwoman—owed for boarding, clothes, hats, boots, and a dozen other matters—and was, in consequence, a good deal harassed with duns. Still, he was called by some of his old cronies, "a fine, generous fellow." A few were rather colder in their expressions. He had borrowed ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... undertook a colloquy, and Aragon, not to be behindhand, flashed a few words across the conversation, right and left as it were, his expressions appearing to be in a different tongue from those used by the chief interpreter, and both utterly without perceptible ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... is to benefit Mellish by beating somebody, he will not be behindhand. Remember you are not to mention me for a fortnight. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... The firm had commenced their pecuniary transactions on a footing altogether weak and unsubstantial. They had shown their own timidity, and had confessed, by the nature of their fiscal transactions, that they knew themselves to be small. To their advertising agents they should never have been behindhand in their payments for one day; but they should have been bold in demanding credit from their bank, and should have given their orders to the wholesale houses without any of that hesitation or reserve which so clearly indicates feebleness ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... no means behindhand: Dante, Giotto, Brunelleschi, and Donatello were dead, but Ariosto, Raphael, Bramante, and Michael Angelo were now living. Rome, Florence, and Naples had inherited the masterpieces of antiquity; and the manuscripts of AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides had come (thanks to the conquest ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... squandered ourselves in courting almost every sort of enmity for his sake, I believe he felt, just as I should have felt such friendship on such an occasion. I partook, indeed, of this honor with several of the first and best and ablest in the kingdom, but I was behindhand with none of them; and I am sure, that, if, to the eternal disgrace of this nation, and to the total annihilation of every trace of honor and virtue in it, things had taken a different turn from what they did. I should have attended him to the quarter-deck with no less good-will ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... received, but the effect was excellent — we raced to the eastward. An intended call at Gough Island had to be abandoned; the sea was running too high for us to venture to approach the narrow little harbour. The month of October had put us a good deal behindhand, but now we were making up the distance we had lost. We had reckoned on being south of the Cape of Good Hope within two months after leaving Madeira, and this turned out correct. The day we passed the meridian of the Cape we had the first ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... the way long before noon, and Elizabeth was folding down the clothes for ironing while Sarah and her mother prepared the dinner and sent it out to the men—the child couldn't see that things were at all behindhand. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... moreover, other causes for uneasiness at this time. His financial affairs were by no means in satisfactory condition. He had been filling a good many orders and getting excellent prices for his work, yet somehow he had been all the year running behindhand. He lived beyond his means, priding himself upon being the one Boston artist who had been born, bred, and educated a gentleman, as he chose to put it to himself, and who was able to live as a man of the world should. His summer had been passed at Newport, a place which Edith by no means liked, ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... and 16th of May, the air became suddenly cold, with sharp winds from the north-west, and heavy storms of snow that nipped the young buds, and destroyed many of the early-sown vegetable seeds; fortunately for us we were behindhand with ours, which was very well, ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... out exactly like what I said it was going to, exactly to a T," said Mrs. Symes, wrapping her wet arms in her apron and leaning them on the fence; "if it wasn't that it's Tuesday and me behindhand as it is, I'd ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... strong; and I do not forget the admirable spirit of the cottage women in particular; yet it is true that for the wider experiences of modern life other sentiments or ideals, in addition to those of the peasants, need development, and that progress in them is behindhand in the village. What the misbehaviour of the village boys illustrates in one direction may be seen in other directions amongst the men ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... your letter, dear Mr. Bache, by assuring you once more of my very sincere and affec-* *tionate interest. You will never find me wanting or behindhand when it is a question of proving this to you; be very sure ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... these problems can be actually met in most cases only by the States themselves, but it would be well for the Nation to endeavor to secure and publish comprehensive information as to the conditions of the labor of children in the different States, so as to spur up those that are behindhand and to secure approximately uniform legislation of a high character among the several States. In such a Republic as ours the one thing that we cannot afford to neglect is the problem of turning out decent citizens. The future of the Nation depends upon the citizenship of the generations to come; ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the very middle of my heart's heart, but I would fain sympathize with you in the light of knowledge. This opportunity is exceedingly precious to me, as on my own account I could not afford the least additional expense, having been already, by long and successive illnesses, thrown behindhand, so much, that for the next four or five months, I fear, let me work as hard as I can, I shall not be able to do what my heart within me "burns" to do, that is, to "concenter" my free mind to the affinities of the feelings with words and ideas ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... your portion, the modest fellow,' added James. 'Ay, and that's not all. There's the MacAlpin threats me with all his clan if I dinna give you to him; and Mackay is not behindhand, but will come down with pibroch and braidsword and five hundred caterans to pay his court to you, and make short work of all others. My certie, sisters seem but a cause for threats from reivers, though maybe they would not be so uncivil if once ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... He had not force enough to struggle either with himself or with others. He had come to the end of a stage in his progress: he was reaping the fruits of all his former efforts, cumulatively: too easily he was tapping the vein of music that he had opened and while the public was naturally behindhand, and was just discovering and admiring his old work, he was beginning to break away from them without knowing as yet whether he would be able to make any advance on them. He had now a uniform and even delight in creation. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... with you, do,' she said; 'I'm behindhand as it is. You won't get no dinner if you come a-hindering of me like this. Come, off you goes, or I'll pin a dishcloth to some of ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... milk was brought, breakfast was still a little behindhand, but she would not let me help. Anyhow, I felt in spite of my talk that I wanted to do some other sort of service for her: I wanted to show off, to prove myself a protector, to fight for her, to knock down or drive off her foes and mine; and as I saw the light smoke curling up through ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... ours falls off it cannot harm us, I think. I observe that Nos. 1 and 2 extend to merely twenty-nine sheets, so that, in fact, ours is still the cheaper of the two. Murray's waiting on you with it is one of the wisest things I ever knew him do: you will not be behindhand with ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... which has made British North America proportionately equal to any area on this continent in population, and in all the arts which can lead to that population's prosperity and happiness, Canada will not be found to be one whit behindhand. ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... who go out and do such work and the authorities at home who deal with their collections. I remember a conversation in the hut during the last bad winter. Men were arguing fiercely that professionally they lost a lot by being down South, that they fell behindhand in current work, got out of the running and so forth. There is a lot in that. And then the talk went on to the publication of results, and the way in which they would wish them done. A said he wasn't going to hand over his work to ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... with new-fangled notions, as she would say, though his new-fangled notions were what folk at the present day would think sadly behindhand; and some of Mr. Gray's ideas fell on Mr. Horner's mind like sparks on tow, though they started from two different points. Mr. Horner wanted to make every man useful and active in this world, and to direct ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the Roman Catholics, who usually outdo us in their work among the poor, seemed a little behindhand in this special department of settling the Arabs. They have schools largely attended in Tudor Place, Tottenham Court Road, White Lion Street, Seven Dials, &c., but, as far as I could ascertain, nothing local in ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... gets behindhand with his creditors in Hobart Town, and rusticates in the country in order to avoid the unseasonable calls of the Sheriff's little gentleman, that delights to stand at a corner where four streets meet, so as the better ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... Christian principles effect! Where a joke is evidently intended, I never knew people more ready to join in it than these are. If ridiculed for any particularity of manner, figure, or countenance, they are sure not to be long behindhand in returning it, and that very often with interest. If we were the aggressors in this way, some ironical observation respecting the Kabloonas was frequently the consequence; and no small portion of wit as well as irony was at times mixed ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... by having a person to bribe the corruptible; secondly, a point no less important, by having at their command, at whatever season they required, an army to put down their opponents. We, men of Athens, are not only in these respects behindhand; we can not even be awaked; like men that have drunk mandrake [Footnote: Used for a powerful opiate by the ancients. It is called Mandragora also in English. See ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... behindhand in her efforts to raise the condition of idiots. In 1818 an attempt was made to instruct them at the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb at Hartford. It is said they were taught to communicate by the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... the Paquita took their restless way together, side by side in port, inseparable at sea. At night the one lit the other's road with a string of ruby lanterns and kept the pair in company across the dark and silent water. Their respective crews, not behindhand in this splendid camaraderie of ships, fraternised in wine-shops and strolled through the crooked foreign streets arm in arm. Breton and American, red cap and blue, sixty of the one and eighty of the other—they were ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... Rast, was as true of him as of Goethe. We find the explanation of his accomplishing so much in a rule of life which he gave, when President, to a young man employed as his secretary, and who was a little behindhand with his work: "When you have a number of duties to perform, always do the most disagreeable one first." No advice could have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... matter-of-course necessaries of our life were luxuries or were unknown to them. First of all, the luxury of freedom,—political, social, and domestic,—with the habits it creates, is the source of great and ever-increasing expense. We are still much behindhand in this matter, and shall by-and-by spend more largely upon it. But, compared with our ancestors, individual culture, to which freedom is the means, absorbs a large share of our expenditure. The noble architecture of the thirteenth century was the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... influences of slumdom, vicious environment, ill-nourishment, clerkship, and sedentary life. The Londoner was a good soldier. The Liverpools and Manchesters were hard and tough in attack and defense. The South Country battalions of Devons and Dorsets, Sussex and Somersets, were not behindhand in ways of death. The Scots had not lost their fire and passion, but were terrible in their onslaught. The Irish battalions, with recruiting cut off at the base, fought with their old gallantry, until there were few to answer the last roll-call. The Welsh ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... know it is the way of modern invasions to make them cost as much as possible to oneself, and as little to those one invades. If this was not complied with, they threatened to burn the town, and then march to Belfast, which is much richer. We were sensible of this civil proceeding, and not to be behindhand, agreed to it; but somehow or other this capitulation was broken; on which a detachment (the whole invasion consists of one thousand men) attack the place. We shut the gates, but after the battle ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... you, my friends, in the hopes of an introduction. [46] Perhaps you will ask why I did not so arrange matters from the first, instead of always appearing in public. Because in war it is the first business of a commander not to be behindhand in knowing what ought to be done and seeing that it is done, and the general who is seldom seen is apt to let things slip. [47] But to-day, when war with its insatiable demands is over, I feel as if I had some claim myself to rest and refreshment. I am in some perplexity, however, as to how I can ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... a scene with that horrible creature yesterday. It was the second week—she thought I was shamming, I know. She said she never allowed her "roomers" to get behindhand—it was her invariable rule. O God, I was so sick I could scarcely see—I did not care what she did. I told her that I had no money; that I was waiting to get some work; that I would pay her the first ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... mercy it's a girl at last," said the village gossips. "Mis' Miller's had a hard time with them four great boys, and Mr. Miller so behindhand allers." ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... animal without him. Though we have many substantial houses of brick or stone, the prosperity of the farmer is still measured by the degree to which the barn overshadows the house. This town is said to have the largest houses for oxen, cows, and horses hereabouts, and it is not behindhand in its public buildings; but there are very few halls for free worship or free speech in this county. It should not be by their architecture, but why not even by their power of abstract thought, that nations should seek to commemorate themselves? ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... hitherto troubling themselves about politics. But it had pleased the Home Government to set up the beginning of a constitution again in Jamaica; no one knew why, but so it was; and Trinidad did not choose to be behindhand. The official appointments were valuable, and had been hitherto given away by the Crown. The local popularities very naturally wished to have them for themselves. This was the [57] reality in the thing, so far as there was a reality. It was dressed up in the phrases borrowed from the great ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... they had to work hard, and they were always behindhand with their work. She learned from Cecilia that, apart from the canonical directions for Divine Service, there existed an unwritten code for pious observances—some saints were honoured by having their banner exhibited during the octave of the feast, while others ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... courage of a lion, and the tongue of Dean Swift, he could knock down booksellers and silence bargees; he was melancholy almost to madness, "radically wretched," indolent, blinded, diseased. Poverty was long his portion; not that genteel poverty that is sometimes behindhand with its rent, but that hungry poverty that does not know where to look for its dinner. Against all these things had this "old struggler" to contend; over all these things did this "old struggler" prevail. Over even the fear of death, the giving up of "this intellectual being," which had ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... who have yet had an opportunity of acquainting themselves with Sun Tzu are not behindhand in their praise. In this connection, I may perhaps be excused for quoting from a letter from Lord Roberts, to whom the sheets of the present work were submitted previous to publication: "Many of Sun Wu's maxims are perfectly applicable to the present day, and no. 11 ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... done no good to anyone.—I have been thinking of paying you a visit this fall, but I now think it extremely doubtful whether I shall be able to. Not being able to even attend to my hands, much less work myself, I am getting behindhand, so that I shall have to stay here and attend to my business. Cannot some of you come and pay us a visit? Jennie has not answered Julia's letter yet. Did she receive it? I was coming to the city the day it was written ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... not long behindhand in adding to his ever-growing list of honours. He had the "Grand Officier" of the coveted "Legion" in 1885 after bringing safely to a conclusion the French Treaty of that year. Undoubtedly this was one of the most picturesque and interesting incidents with which he was ever connected, ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... could hardly contain himself for joy, and broke down utterly when he tried to thank Jupp for rescuing his little son; while Joe the gardener, not to be behindhand in this general expression of good-will and gratitude, squeezed his quondam rival's fist in his, ejaculating over and over again, with a broad grin on his bucolic face, "You be's a proper sort, you be, hey, Meaister?" ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... the Naval Airship section was once more reconstituted and was stationed at Farnborough. The first requirements were airships, and owing to the fact that airship construction was so behindhand in this country, in comparison with the Continent, it was determined that purchases should be made abroad until sufficient experience had been gained by British firms to enable them to compete with any chance ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... behindhand! Not up to my duties, considered as a corpse! The doctor stood me over another twenty-four hours, and I came to. I was very much run down, certainly, but I did come to, or I shouldn't be here now to tell you about it, my dear. I should ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... mountains, and trembles at the mention of its own name. It has a lion's mouth, the heart of a hare, with ears erect and sleepless eyes. It stands 'listening its fears.' It is so in awe of its own opinion that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, lest it should be behindhand in its judgment, and echoes it till it is deafened with the sound of its own voice. The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment, so that, in short, the public ear is at the mercy ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... evening at the Skinners. We had a charming visit; no one there but Mrs. Sampson and her sister, and Dr. S. wide awake and full of enthusiasm. We did not get to bed till midnight. Mrs. —— came this morning and begged me to lend her some money, as she had got behindhand. I let her have five dollars, though I do not feel sure that I shall see it again, and she wept a little weep, and went away. A lady told cousin C. she had heard I was so shy that once having promised to go to a lunch party, my courage failed at the last moment, so that ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... found among them; virtue and vice are distributed among them. Let Americans not stigmatize them as "undesirable immigrants," and close their hospitable gate upon them. They bring with them qualities which are an ample compensation for their defects, and their well-to-do brethren are not behindhand in seeing to it that they become no public burden. The American people have repeatedly shown the door to those who came hither for the purpose of preaching anti-Semitism, thereby publicly testifying that they would have ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau
... Harry Maylie, after the very first morning when he met Oliver coming laden home, was seized with such a passion for flowers, and displayed such a taste in their arrangement, as left his young companion far behind. If Oliver were behindhand in these respects, he knew where the best were to be found; and morning after morning they scoured the country together, and brought home the fairest that blossomed. The window of the young lady's chamber was opened now; ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... once, from amidst this mass of confused, half-forgotten incidents, Pierre was conscious of the rise of a vivid vision. Ill-health, he remembered, had again compelled him to take a holiday. He had just completed his twenty-fourth year, he was greatly behindhand, having so far only secured the four minor orders; but on his return a sub-deaconship would be conferred on him, and an inviolable vow would bind him for evermore. And the Guersaints' little garden at Neuilly, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... offer'd, La Fleur had laid hold of it; and, in order to do honour to his master, had taken him into a back parlour in the auberge, and treated him with a cup or two of the best wine in Picardy; and the Count de L-'s servant, in return, and not to be behindhand in politeness with La Fleur, had taken him back with him to the Count's hotel. La Fleur's PREVENANCY (for there was a passport in his very looks) soon set every servant in the kitchen at ease with him; and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort of prudery in showing ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... others still, the employers advance the miners small sums to be worked out afterwards, thus binding the debtors to themselves. In the North, the custom is general of keeping the payment of wages one week behindhand, chaining the miners in this way to their work. And to complete the slavery of these enthralled workers, nearly all the Justices of the Peace in the coal districts are mine owners themselves, or relatives or friends of mine owners, and possess almost unlimited ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... has made us ripe for love, it seldom occurs that the Fates are behindhand in furnishing a temple ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... very betimes, and continued all the morning examining my accounts, in order to the fitting myself to go abroad beyond sea, which the ill-condition of my eyes and my neglect hath kept me behindhand in. Had another meeting with the Duke of York at White Hall on yesterday's work, and made a good advance; and so being called by my wife, we to the park, Mary Batelier and a Dutch gentleman, a friend of hers, being with us. Thence to "The World's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... was a mere change of garrison. The secret of the expedition was well kept; but the misfortune was that things were done too slowly. The fleet, which depended upon Pontchartrain, was not ready in time, and that which depended upon Chamillart, was still more behindhand. The two ministers threw the fault upon each other; but the truth is, both were to blame. Pontchartrain was more than accused of delaying matters from unwillingness; the other ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre |
