"Breathing space" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... still exercised a predominant influence in Holland and western Italy, and excluded British trade from territories under her control. Until French troops were withdrawn from Holland, as called for by the treaty, England refused to evacuate Malta. Bonaparte, who wished further breathing space to build up the French navy, tried vainly to postpone hostilities by threatening to invade England and exclude her from all continental markets. "It will be England," he declared, "that forces us to conquer Europe." The war reopened ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... subjugated by the Tartars. Timur's empire, being founded on no real unity, dissolved with his death, and the various subject nations reasserted their independence. Yet Europe was granted a considerable breathing space before the Turks once more felt able to push ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... so comprehensive a scale and with such extraordinary cruelty that the Jews in the Pale of Settlement were like a doomed prisoner in a cell with its opposite walls gradually approaching, contracting by slow degrees his breathing space, till they at last immure him ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... master. The confusion will doubtless be lessened as time goes on and we become more used to the system. Even the first disadvantage is more or less offset by the fact that the short three-minute periods, although they cannot be used like ordinary recesses, yet serve to give us breathing space between recitations and to lessen the strain of continuous application; so that, on the whole, the advantages seem to counterbalance ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... only pain left is that of weakness and breathlessness. Suddenly she is totally eased and apparently quite cured, which, however, she regards as a momentary miraculous relief, but not as a deliverance from death. In this breathing space it suddenly occurs to her to beg for the second of those three wounds which were the matter of her unconditional third request; namely, for a deepened sense and sympathetic understanding of Christ's Passion. "But in this I never desired any bodily sight, or any ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... from the left climbed an unknown man. His features were those of a Spaniard. As the officer's eyes challenged him he halted, panting, to mop his brow with the air of one who takes a breathing space after violent exertion. The newcomer smiled pleasantly as he leaned against a bowlder and genially volunteered: "It is a long journey from the shore." Then after a moment he added in a tone of respectful inquiry: "You ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... trembled at the approach of their arms, it would probably have been heard with apathy or ridicule, and would have failed to move the heart of the nation. But coming, as it did, when their glory had declined; when their enemies, having been allowed a breathing space, had taken courage and were acting on the offensive in many quarters; when it was thus perhaps quite within the range of probability that some one of their numerous foes might shortly appear in arms before the place, it struck them with fear and consternation. The alarm ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... fragments of granite shifted under the bulkhead of boughs; the buggy heeled lower, lower; then, at the final angle, began to right while the rope strung taut. The narrowest point was passed, and Tisdale stopped a breathing space. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... the Prince promising to lead them next year upon a more glorious campaign, in which fresh spoil was to be won and more victories achieved, there was time for the consideration of objects of minor importance, and a breathing space wherein private interests could ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... For one breathing space he faltered, no longer than that, while over him swept the agony of compunction that yet could not make ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... create a public sentiment that will demolish the slums, and erect in their places model tenements; that will tear down the rookeries, root out the saloons and dens of vice, and provide the children with playgrounds and breathing space. And this work will be directly in the line of Americanizing and evangelizing the immigrants, for they are chiefly the occupants and victims of the tenements and ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... on a line extending from the French cathedral town of Noyon through Chauny to La Fere. There they were joined by reenforcements amounting to double their loss. Guns to replace those captured or shattered by the enemy were brought up to the new line. There was a breathing space for a day, while the British made ready to take part in the next ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... instant, hoping still and living only by the beating of hope's wings. And with all that, though she did not love him, he was to her the dearest of all living beings. Holding his hand still, she looked upward, as though to be alone with herself for one breathing space. But as she stood there, she pressed his fingers little by little more tightly, not knowing what she did, so that ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... to Nairobi for a breathing space, this volume comes to a logical conclusion. In it I have tried to give a fairly comprehensive impression-it could hardly be a picture of so large a subject-of a portion of East Equatorial Africa, its animals, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... and I dislike it as much. Yet the question is what to do. If you keep it where it is you simply lay a siege about it. Great suffering will come in that way to the negroes of course. It is a kind of strangulation, selfish and small. On the other hand, if you give it breathing space what will become of the country? I know Douglas' argument that it cannot exist in the North. But suppose you have it all over the South, that's pretty big. Besides, what's to hinder new work being found for the slaves? Why can't they dig coal and gold like peons? Why can't they farm? ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... as are the changes in the lung, it is very seldom that death comes by interference with the breathing space. In fact, while regarded as a lung disease, we are now coming to recognize that the actual cause of death in fatal cases is the overwhelming of the heart by the toxins or poisons poured into the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... stormy season in the stormiest of seas. Again and again the wild north-west gales blew the British admiral off his cruising ground. But he fought his way back, sent his ships, singly or in couples, to Torbay or Plymouth for a moment's breathing space, but himself held on, with a grim courage and an unslumbering vigilance which have never been surpassed. On November 6, a tremendous westerly gale swept over the English cruising-ground. Hawke battled with it for three days, and then ran, storm-driven and half-dismantled, to Torbay for shelter on ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... monk still further. From the summit of the tower you looked straight down into the deep narrow streets, upon the houses (in one of which Prior Saint-Jean was born) climbing as high as they dared for breathing space within that narrow compass. But you saw also the green breadth of Normandy and Picardy, this way and that; felt on your face the free air of a still wider realm beyond what was seen. The reviving scent of it, the mere sight of ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... restored; for within half an hour of their retreat the bugler had sounded the advance again, and with a rush the abandoned positions were reoccupied and the Chinese driven back. Then the guns stopped their cannonade, and a breathing space was given which was sufficient to repair some of ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... than the country's cricket averages. As for either social reform interests in England, or the affairs of the Empire outside England, he simply could not be induced to give them even conversational breathing space. They were as exotic to my sister's husband as the ethics of esoteric Buddhism. But he was a thick and thin Conservative. To be sure, he would have said, nothing would cause him to ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... probably, to give the warriors a brief breathing space, another song is now set up, and it is marvellous the accuracy and knowledge of melody with which the parts are sung, like a glee of catch, the time being kept by a conductor, who rushes from rank to rank beating time with a ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... an assignment to follow the case to the end," suggested Craig. "I think you'll find it worth while. Anyhow, this will give you a chance for a breathing space, and, if I have this thing doped out right, you won't get another for some time. I'll meet you over in the laboratory in a ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... the Delaware. He made every arrangement possible to maintain the forts, and the first assaults upon them were repulsed with great slaughter, the British in the attack on Fort Mercer losing Count Donop, the leader, and four hundred men. Then came a breathing space, and then the attacks were renewed, supported by vessels, and both forts were abandoned after the works had been leveled to the ground by the enemy's fire. Meanwhile Hamilton, sent to the north, had done his work; Gates had been stirred, and Putnam, well-meaning but stubborn, ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... women in the motor looked at each other, listening. They heard a woman's voice, singing; then a small boyish voice, then a man's voice. The speakers, whoever they were, apparently settled down in the meadow, not more than a dozen yards away, for a breathing space. A tangle of vines and bushes screened ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... civilization became daily more intense, and reached the utmost limits of endurance. Five million Russian Jews raised their hands to the Government and pleaded for mercy: 'Release us from this ghetto! We, too, are human beings! Give us breathing space! Give us light! We are faint and starving!' And the Cossack promptly answered 'Nazad ('Back!') Here you are and here ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... Saturday afternoon stroll in Victoria Park. Those gentlemen of London who sit at home at ease are apt to think of the East End as a collection of slums, with about as much breathing space for its congregated thousands as that supplied to the mites in a superannuated Cheshire cheese. Let us pass through Bethnal Green Road, and, leaving behind the new Museum, go under a magic portal into the stately acres which bear the name of our Sovereign. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... reshuffling of the international cards and the making of new treaties and alliances, the Oligarchy had much to gain. And, furthermore, the war would consume many national surpluses, reduce the armies of unemployed that menaced all countries, and give the Oligarchy a breathing space in which to perfect its plans and carry them out. Such a war would virtually put the Oligarchy in possession of the world-market. Also, such a war would create a large standing army that need never be disbanded, while ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... beheld these repulsive outcasts approaching in their chariot, carried forward by the diabolical vigour of the unlawful demon. Although I had stationed myself several li distant from the accomplished Wang, the chariot reached me in less than a breathing space of time, those inside assuming their fiercest and most aggressive attitudes, and as they came repeatedly urging the demon to increased exertions. Their speed exceeded that of the swallow in his hymeneal flight, all ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... the Prince, we sat a breathing space on the lawn at the Yacht Club and watched the day fading, "Evening falling, shadows rising," and the ladies dresses growing faint in colour, as the background of the Bay and the white men-of-war became less distinct; the golden evening ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... black mould of the west, and it grows to be a forest monarch. It is Hazlitt who says "the heart reposes in greater security on the immensity of nature's works, expatiates freely there and finds elbow room and breathing space." ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Quentin, and made for Noyon, in the neighbourhood of the same river farther down; and on the night of that Friday the Expeditionary Force was at last in line, and in some kind of order, organized for the first breathing space possible after ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... as though seeking some way of escape; he saw the clenched hands, and the look of distress as they paced to and fro. He knew that each pause before a picture was an attempt to shake him off, but he would not be shaken off; Westray was feeling the grip, and must not have a moment's breathing space. He could tell exactly how the minutes were passing, he knew what to listen for, and could catch the distant sound of the stable clock striking the quarters. They were back at the end of the gallery. There was no time to pace it again; Westray ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... scarcely have built in the face of the storm without assistance. It was, however, much more comfortable than a burrow in the drift, such as Jimmy had made, for it gave him an opportunity to turn over and stretch his limbs, and it afforded him, also, a considerable breathing space. ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... its frontier several thousand miles. Thus, with unconscious foresight, did mature society make room for its adolescent members. True, the new territory was mostly barren; but its several hundred thousand square miles of frigidity at least gave breathing space to those who else would ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... . 'A space for Robert' who has taken a breathing space—hardly more than enough—to recover from his delight; he won't say surprise, at your letter, dear Mr. Fox. But it is all right and, like you, I wish from my heart we could get close together again, as in those old days, and what times we would have here in Italy! The realization of the ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... lane and reached the crest of that little hill where sudden sorrow had made mock of sudden joy. Coming toward them, as if apprised of their neighborhood, they saw a squadron of Russian cavalry numerically overwhelming. Both parties stopped for the breathing space preliminary to the ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... first deep chamber through which the terrier had passed. Then the terrier came out to quench his thirst, and was led away by the huntsman to the river, while the second dog was speedily despatched to earth, that the badger might be allowed no breathing space during which he could bury himself beyond the reach of further attack. The second dog, on coming to the junction of the passage and the gallery, chose the alternative line of scent in the gallery, and wandered far away into the chamber where Brock, whose family had descended some time before ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... teeth, thrust out her elbows, shoved, pushed, grunted, fought, all with a fresh zest in the performance which gave her an immense advantage over the fatigued city-dwellers, who assaulted their fellow-citizens with only a preoccupied desire for an approach to a breathing space, and, that attained, subsided into lurching, strap-hanging quiescence. Judith secured with ease, on all the public vehicles they utilized that day, a place on the outside edge of a platform, where she had fresh air in abundance and could hang over the grating ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... arm grew faint, that long had borne The burthen of his shield; yet nought avail'd The press of spears to drive him from his post; Lab'ring he drew his breath, his ev'ry limb With sweat was reeking; breathing space was none; Blow follow'd blow; and ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... 1802, to May, 1803) afforded the only breathing space in all these twenty-two years of warfare. Napoleon, now first consul, was soon to change that republican mask for the honest and ambitious title of emperor. The hollowness of the peace soon became evident. Under its cloak French ships were building and French armies mustering in the channel ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... between our wedding and our sailing we were both kept busy, J. with drawings he had to finish for the Century, and I with the last touches to an article for the Atlantic. And if the days on the boat gave us breathing space, if not much work, except in preparation, was done, the reason was that the new commissions commenced only with ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... to understand that if they had had the arranging of the garden it would have been finished long ago—whereas I don't believe a garden ever is finished. They have all gone now, thank heaven, except one, so that I have a little breathing space before others begin to arrive. It seems that the place interests people, and that there is a sort of novelty in staying in such a deserted corner of the world, for they were in a perpetual state of mild amusement ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... by the gale, tore for itself a wider breathing space through the roof and sent up an audibly roaring column of blinding red. By that light, Mac Strann, following Haw-Haw's directing arm, saw a lithe figure vault over the fence on the farther side of the corral and dart forward ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... slavery becoming heavier, my circle of action steadily narrower!... What is hateful in my situation is that deliverance can never be hoped for, and that one misery will succeed another in such a way as to leave me no breathing space, not even in the future, not even in hope. All possibilities are closed to me, one by one. It is difficult for the natural man to escape from a dumb ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bodies when I got at them. This game went on till they probably tired of it, and thought they might as well go my way for a change. So now they went off beautifully across the flat floe until I stopped for a moment's breathing space. But at the first movement I made in the sledge they were off again, tearing wildly back the way we had come. I held on convulsively, pulled, raged, and used the whip; but the more I lashed the faster they went on their own way. At last I got them stopped by sticking ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... forest. Dead, withered bracken lay in patches of unsightly grey. There were bits of heather too. All round the trees stood looking on—oak, beech, holly, ash, pine, larch, with here and there small groups of juniper. On the lips of this breathing space of the woods she stopped to rest, disobeying her instinct for the first time. For the other instinct in her was to go on. She did not ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... the hour of his highest favor, and I followed with the rest of the crowd till there was scarce breathing space under the clock tower, where the Magi were just coming forth to salute the Madonna and the Bambino at the stroke of the day; and the people were shouting so one could not hear the bell for cries ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... in a tiny village on a spur of a range of beech clad hills, whither I have fled for a breathing space from the nightmare of the war and the menacing gloom of the London streets at night. Here the darkness has no terrors. In the wide arch of the sky our lamps are lit nightly as the sun sinks down far over the great plain that stretches at our feet. None of the palpitations of Fleet Street disturb ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... 1803, the foundations of that imperial domain which the steamboat and railroad were to convert to use in after-years. The continental empire of Napoleon and the island empire of Great Britain drifted into a struggle for life or death which hardly knew a breathing space until the last charge at Waterloo, and from the beginning it was conducted by both combatants with a reckless disregard of international public opinion and neutral rights which is hardly credible but for the official records. Every injury inflicted on neutral commerce by one belligerent ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... talk to the quiet little woman in the plain blue suit. And the quiet little woman said: "Oh, dear, yes!" She ignored her r's fascinatingly, as New Yorkers do. "We live in Connecticut. You see, you Wisconsin people have crowded us out of New York; no breathing space. Besides, how can one live here? I mean to say—live. And then the children—it's no place for children, grown up or otherwise. I love it—oh, yes, indeed. I love ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... you those blueprints?" he asked. "An oversight I assure you. As for the scheme, you suggested it yourself that night we first drove out to Trescott's. Don't you remember saying something about 'breathing space for the populace'? Well, I had the surveys made at once; contracted for the land, all but what Bill owns of it, which we'll have to get later; and had a landscapist out from Chicago to direct us as to what we ought to admire in improving the place. As for the name, I'm indebted ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... may vainly wish elsewhere, by a happy Providence is furnished to us by the natural divisions of meeting and parting in this place. To everyone of us, old and young, the long vacation on which we are now entering gives us a breathing space, and time to break the bonds which place and circumstance have woven round us during the year that is past. From all our petty cares, and confusions, and intrigues; from the dust and clatter of this huge machinery amidst which we labor and toil; from whatever cynical ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... first objectives were quickly in our possession, as well as the villages of Messines and Wytscheate, and there was a slight pause to give a breathing space to the infantry, and to allow time for the field guns to take up their allotted positions beyond the recently captured enemy trenches, before entering upon the second and final stage of the battle. When the creeping barrage, ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... and of grace, One calm, sweet day in seven, To grant a little breathing space To strengthen man life's work to face, And ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... — ride for her sake!" he cried; — Into the gulf of flame Were swept, in less than a breathing space The laughing eyes, and the comely face, And the ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... There was the report of a revolver and a sudden, startling stillness. It lasted only a breathing space. Furious shoulders hurled themselves against the frail, weakly barred door. It cracked, bulged inward, with a bursting, tearing sound, yielded. The moonlight flooded into the little room, throwing up into bold relief ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... fire meanwhile increased in intensity, and both officers and men were falling fast on the British side. The last 200 yards to the foot of the hill were therefore traversed in a single rush. At the base of the kopjes a certain amount of dead ground allowed of a short breathing space, during which a consultation between the company officers left in command took place. They determined to scale the hill and ordered the men to ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... the dreamer. Farming as he had experienced it was an eternal combat against adverse conditions; a battle against pests, frosts, soil, weather, and weariness. The conflict never ceased, nor was there hope of emerging from its sordidness into the high places where were breathing space and vision. One could never hope when night came to glance back over the day and see in retrospect a finished piece of work. There was no such thing as writing finis beneath any chapter of the ponderous tome ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... The minister had lost his equipoise in the face of the Englishman's great riches, of which hitherto he had held some doubts. Suddenly a vivid thought entered his confused brain. The paper cutter in his hand trembled. In the breathing space allowed him he began to calculate rapidly. The king and the diplomat had been in the garden; something had passed between them. What? The paper cutter slowly ceased its uneven movements. The count calmly ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... gazed about her. The great heath was all around, solitary as the heaven out of which the solitary moon, with no child to comfort her, was enviously watching them. But she would not stop to rest, save for the briefest breathing space! On and on she went until moorland miles five more, as near as she could judge, were behind her. Then at length she sat down upon a stone, and a timid flutter of safety stirred in her bosom, followed by a gush of love victorious. Her treasure! her treasure! Not once on the long way had she looked ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... day the whole school were at their books again—the short Thanksgiving recess was ended. It had been just a breathing space for the girls who really were anxious to stand well in their classes at Briarwood Hall. Those who—like some of the Upedes—desired nothing so much as "fun," complained because the vacation had been so short, and dawdled ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... stood between them and their ego—and then once more face down the Law. They turned into the big, dripping park with its primeval furnishings of earth and grass and trees and deep shadows. It was amid such surroundings alone that their own big, fundamental emotions found adequate breathing space. They plunged into the silent by-paths as a sun-baked man dives to the sandy bottom of a crystal lake. And into it all they blended as one—each feeling the glory of a perfected whole. Each saw with his own eyes and the eyes of the other, ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... shining-Orient when; my life began to heat: Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shady, and palms in clusters, Knots of Paradise. There the passions, cramp'd no longer, shall have scope and breathing space; I ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... called a boudoir, with the steel-like embroidery on its walls, matching the grey blue of its cut velvet hangings, recalls the natural pauses in a busy life, when the Queen awaits the call of public duty, or withdraws for a breathing space from the pressure ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... that Charley Seguis had three days' start of him. He knew also that Charley was an exceptionally intelligent half-breed, and would travel well out of the district before allowing himself breathing space. McTavish intended surprising him by the swiftness of pursuit. So, lighted on his way by the brilliant stars and the silent, flaunting banners of the northern lights, he plodded doggedly on until midnight. Then he built a fire, thawed fish for the dogs, and prepared ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... ambassadors, harassed by this constant preoccupation, had little time or inclination left for any serious pursuit, since, to take a moment's repose or an hour's breathing space was to risk falling behind in the endless and aimless race. Strange as it may appear, the knowledge that they owed place and preferment more to chance or intrigue than to any personal merit or inherited right, instead of lessening the value of the ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... seventh of November at the ceremony. Mr. Nelson will arrange with you all the law of the thing and what witnesses you must have, and everything, and this will save these useless discussions, and give you a little breathing space." ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... Patty. "You are fuller of whims than an egg is of meat, for the egg has a breathing space if the chick wants it. Not an hour ago you were laughing like a mocking bird. You had better have a pitcher of sweet balm for your nerves. You have dissipated too much, but thank Heaven there are ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the road to Villefranche, I saw baskets of chickens brought in from Italy, the half of which were dead or dying from suffocation. As the owner of the villa said, "Not even self-interest teaches this Italian humanity." By packing his fowls so as to afford them breathing space, he would double his gains. The habit of cruelty is too inveterate. My host assured me that large numbers of poultry sent across the frontier ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... behold there, gaudily attired and scented like a dandy, is by no means what it appears to be, but rather, is like a labourer toiling in sun and shower, who has to submit a clear account of his work and has no breathing space to enjoy ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... he could make on such slippery footing, La Salle crossed the intervening space, and threw himself down into the boat, panting and breathless with exertion. After a moment's breathing space, he slowly raised his head so that his eyes could just see over the edge of the shooting-boat. To the east he heard the decoy-calls of Creamer and Davies, and, somewhere between himself and them, the low, questioning calls of the ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... river was swollen with spring floods which were only now beginning to subside, but two days earlier they had noticed a sandbar at one spot. By crossing that shelf across the bed, they might hope to put water between them and the unknown enemy tonight. It would give them a breathing space, even though Ross privately shrank from the thought of plowing into the stream. He had seen good-sized trees swirling along in the current only yesterday. And to make such a dash ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... one writer describes it, the French dash forward in spasmodic movements, making immediately for cover. After a brief breathing space they bound into the open again, and again seek any available shelter. And so they proceed till the charge is sounded, when with gleaming bayonets and a cry of "pour la gloire" upon their lips they sweep ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... change, But in a world he loves not must subsist In ceaseless opposition, be the guard Of his own breast, fetter'd to what he guards, That the world win no mastery over him; Who has no friend, no fellow left, not one; Who has no minute's breathing space allow'd To nurse his dwindling faculty of joy:— Joy and the outward world must die to him As they are dead ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... of grace 1417 there was a breathing space for discredited France, and presently the Vicomte de Montbrison was sent into England, as ambassador. He got in London a fruitless audience of King Henry, whose demands were such as rendered a renewal of the war inevitable; and afterward got, in the month of April, about the day of Palm Sunday, ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... languished during this strange discussion, from which the Pope was soon obliged to retreat. There was an inefficient campaign in 1299 and 1300. In 1301 there was a truce, in which Scotland as well as France was included. After the expiry of this breathing space, Edward I, in the spring of 1302, sent an army into Scotland of twenty thousand men, under Sir John Seward, a renowned general. He marched toward Edinburgh in three divisions, leaving ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... efforts have been made to discover whence they come, and whither they go. But though the courageous Stephen has floated for hours up to his chin, and forced his way through the narrowest apertures under the dark waves, so as to leave merely his head a breathing space, yet they still remain as much a mystery as ever—without beginning or end, like eternity. They disappear under arches, which, even at the lowest stage of the water, are under the surface of it. From an unknown cause, it sometimes happens in the neighborhood ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... like to be out of doors; she no longer hated the wind, but enjoyed it. She could run faster, and longer, and she could skip up to a hundred. The bulbs in the secret garden must have been much astonished. Such nice clear places were made round them that they had all the breathing space they wanted, and really, if Mistress Mary had known it, they began to cheer up under the dark earth and work tremendously. The sun could get at them and warm them, and when the rain came down it could reach them at once, so they began to feel ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... From Field, a breathing space for trains, about which has grown a small village possessing one good hotel, the Prince rode up the valleys to some of the beauty spots, such as Emerald Lake, which lies high in the sky under the cold glaciers of Mount Burgess. It was a wonderful ride through the ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... sunlight. He could hold Sir William Fitzwilliam informed, on December 29, that 'I take myself far his better by the honourable office I hold, as well as by that nearness to her Majesty which still I enjoy, and never more.' The next two years were a sort of breathing space in Raleigh's career; he had reached the table-land of his fortunes, and neither rose nor fell in favour. The violent crisis of the Spanish Armada had marked the close of an epoch at Court. In September 1588 Leicester died, in April 1590 Walsingham, in September 1591 Sir Christopher Hatton, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... notes, the bullets buried themselves in the trunk of our oak with a chug. Once in a while I heard Weldon's answering shot, but I remembered my promise to Tom not to waste powder unless I were sure. The agony was the breathing space we had while they crept nearer. Then we thought of Tom, and I dared not glance at Polly Ann for fear that the sight of her face ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... vulnerability of the hostile position. The commander will then endeavour to break the enemy's formation so suddenly as to disconcert all his plans; to retain a compact force with which to follow up the blow without giving the enemy a moment's breathing space; to drive a wedge into the heart of his disordered masses, forcing his wings asunder; and to pursue and annihilate the scattered forces ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... ridden some half a score, We had halted beside a spring, When the breeze to our ears through the still night bore A distant trample and ring; We listen'd one breathing space, and caught The clatter of mounted men, With vigour renewed by their respite short Our horses dash'd through the glen. Another league, and we listen'd in vain; The breeze to our ears came mute; But we heard them again on the spacious plain, Faint tidings of ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... room was crowded from end to end, and the atmosphere reeked with unpleasant dampness. Only behind the little railing before the coroner's desk was there breathing space, and we sank into our seats at the table there with a sigh ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... Goritz disappeared, and she gained a breathing space to think over her position. She ventured out many times into the courtyard in the hope of finding an opportunity to elude her guard, but each time she approached the drawbridge she saw the chauffeur Karl seated in the shadow of the wall, smoking ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... the most daintie paradise on ground Itselfe doth offer to his sober eye,— ——-The painted flowres, the trees upshooting hye, The dales for shade, the hills for breathing space, The trembling groves, the christall running by; And that, which all faire works doth most aggrace, The art which all that ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... was signed in the year after Frontenac's campaign against the Onondagas, came as a happy release to Canada (1697). For nine years the colony had been hard pressed, and a breathing space was needed. The Iroquois still remained a peril, but proportionately their losses since 1689 had been far heavier than those of the French and English. Left to carry on the war by themselves, they soon saw the hopelessness of their project to drive the French from ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... savor; and the shower of bones, eggshells, cabbage stalks, potato parings, rinds of bacon, and what not, with a plentiful admixture of white wood ash, served to stay their activity in deeds, though I must own it did but enhance the fury of their tongues. But the diversion gave me a breathing space in which I drew old Ben within the shadow of a doorway and took his staff from his fainting hands—not without resistance on his part, for the mettlesome old fellow refused to yield up his insignia until I brought ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... breathing space, however, the news of the pacification occasioned much joy in the provinces. They rejoiced even in a temporary cessation of that long series of campaigns from which they could certainly derive no advantage, and in which their part was to furnish money, soldiers, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the clown who brings the "pretty worm" is the solid ground of reality on which Cleopatra rests for a breathing space before rising into ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... I said, "to free people from hard physical work. It is necessary to relieve them of their yoke, to give them breathing space, to save them from spending their whole lives in the kitchen or the byre, in the fields; they should have time to take thought of their souls, of God and to develop their spiritual capacities. Every human being's salvation lies in spiritual activity—in his ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... signs of fatigue, that they were willing to slacken their pace. But the nature of these donkeys was, after all, but mortal; like other mortal things, they were subject to weakness and fatigue; and as they were now exhausted, their riders were compelled to indulge them with a breathing space, and so they slackened their ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... in the midst of difficulties of which he little dreamed at the outset, he carried through a treaty that removed the existing grievances. In a word, he kept the peace, and it lasted long enough to give the United States the breathing space they so much needed at the beginning ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... the wind had taken a breathing space to recover fresh energy, the hurricane burst upon them again, almost more furiously, if that were possible, than at first; and Frobisher knew instinctively that, so far from making headway, the San-chau was being driven back over the course she had just covered, at a rate of probably five ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... words so carelessly, my dear, until you are less ignorant of their meaning," she reproved me as she sat erect and gave to my lungs an inch more breathing space. I had heard that large lady of the State of Cincinnati on the ship say that a nice lady from a place called Kansas, and whom everyone gave the title of Mrs. Grass because of a disagreeable husband who was not dead, "compromised" herself with a very much drinking gentleman from Boston because ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... indeed, there was more body in it this opening night than there would be later, when, in due course, the bulk of the meat would take its legitimate place among the pickings of office. The sight of the delighted deglutition of the semi-divine persons made Esther's mouth water as she struggled for breathing space on the outskirts of Paradise. The impatience which fretted her was almost allayed by visions of stout-hearted Solomon and gentle Rachel and whimpering little Sarah and I key, all gulping down the delicious draught. Even the more stoical father and grandmother were a little in her ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... The breathing space would not have lasted long, but it gave me time to get to my feet. My wrists and feet had been unbound long before, and the rest had cured my leg-weariness. I stood up in that fierce circle with the clear knowledge that my ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... Flanagan's encouraging comment when in due time I retired to his side for a short breathing space. "I never thought you'd be so well up to him. ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... should do so; so we went off in a small boat to the ship. She is crowded to excess, and the greater proportion of passengers are emigrant women and children.... I busied myself in stowing away everything in our state-room, and removing the upper berth so as to secure a little more breathing space. I even was guilty of the illicit proceeding—committed the outrage, in fact—of endeavoring to break one of my bull's-eyes, preferring being drenched to dry suffocation in foul air; but my utmost violence, even assisted with ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... gallivats and all that had happened since: as he recalled these things, he could not but wonder that the alarm he dreaded had not already been given. But it was clear that all was as yet undiscovered; and the plot had worked out so exactly as planned that he hoped still for a breathing space to carry out his enterprise to ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... are torn away from our theories; we are spun round and round and shown this or the other view of life, until only fools or knaves can hold to their opinions. We take a sight at a condition in life, and say we have studied it; our most elaborate view is no more than an impression. If we had breathing space, we should take the occasion to modify and adjust; but at this breakneck hurry, we are no sooner boys than we are adult, no sooner in love than married or jilted, no sooner one age than we begin to be another, and no sooner in the fulness of our ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and nose were filled with the fluffy flakes, and he nearly choked before he could struggle to an upright position and clear a breathing space. ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... gripped me so tightly that I was well-nigh choked, and so overcome with terror that I fell insensible to the ground. When I recovered my enemy was still in his place, though he had released his hold enough to allow me breathing space, and seeing me revive he prodded me adroitly first with one foot and then with the other, until I was forced to get up and stagger about with him under the trees while he gathered and ate the choicest fruits. This ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... the next night the fight was hand to hand, without the opportunity of a breathing space. Then Orde, bareheaded and dishevelled, strung to a high excitement, but cool as a veteran under fire, began to be harassed by annoyances. The piles provided for the drivers gave out. Newmark left, ostensibly to purchase more. He did not return. Tom North and Jim Denning, their ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... running, my little Thracian?" "As much as you like, O Emperor," he answered. So Severus leaped from his horse and ordered the freshest soldiers to wrestle with him. But he threw to the ground seven very powerful youths, even as before, taking no breathing space between the bouts. So he alone was given prizes of silver and a golden necklace by Caesar. Then he was bidden to serve in the body guard of the Emperor. After this he was an officer under Antoninus 87 Caracalla, often increasing his fame by his deeds, and rose to many military grades and ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... was the Forum, starting from the Capitol and stretching out below the Palatine: a narrow square, close pressed by the neighbouring hills, a hollow where Rome in growing had been compelled to rear edifice close to edifice till all stifled for lack of breathing space. It was necessary to dig very deep—some fifty feet—to find the venerable republican soil, and now all you see is a long, clean, livid trench, cleared of ivy and bramble, where the fragments of paving, the bases of columns, and the piles of foundations appear ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... have a look at my little matutinal serenader. My conjecture proved correct. There sat the tit, within a few feet of his apple-branch door, throwing back his head in the truest lyrical fashion, and calling Hear, hear me, with only a breathing space between the repetitions of the phrase. He was as plainly singing, and as completely absorbed in his work, as any thrasher or hermit thrush could have been. Heretofore I had not realized that these whistled notes were so strictly a song, and as such set apart ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... I was helping the gillie in the boat pull across to Raasay. When half way over we rested on our oars for a breathing space and I asked the news, the rug-headed kerne shot me with the dismal tidings that Malcolm Macleod and Creagh, rowing to Skyes for a conference with Captain Roy, had fallen into the hands of the troopers waiting for them among the sand dunes. He had but one bit of comfort in his budget, and ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... to grief instead. Something went wrong with his centre-board, so that it jammed in the case and would not go all the way down. In a moment's breathing space, which he had gained from me by a clever trick, I saw him working impatiently with the centre-board, trying to force it down. I gave him little time, and he was compelled quickly to return ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... more convincing. "The army," he wrote on July 8, the second day after the battle, "is thoroughly worn out and requires rest and very heavy reinforcements... I am in hopes that the enemy is as completely worn out as we are...The roads are now very bad; for these reasons I hope we shall have enough breathing space to reorganise and rest the men, and get them into position before the enemy can attack again.. It is of course impossible to estimate as yet our losses, but I doubt whether there are to-day more than 50,000 men with ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Warehouse. This had been the place of Captain Jack's gloomy forebodings all the way up. The river spread wide, shallow and swift on either side the island, and neither one channel nor the other would permit their ascent. The Aurora was having a little breathing space on the shoal, while Captain Jack and St. Paul, the big half-breed pilot, debated below ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... a cabinet headed by William J. Bryan as Secretary of State, and including only Democrats of progressive antecedents. He called Congress in April, 1913, to revise the tariff once more, and overturned a precedent of a century by delivering to it his message in person. With almost no breathing space for eighteen months, he kept Congress at its task of fulfilling his party's pledges as ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... another with rapidity that scarce leaves the reader breathing space.... The interest of their experience is sufficient to stay criticism and carry him through a story ingeniously invented and ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... your eyes a look I had never seen before. And even now I cannot define what happened, Rosalind! I only know I caught your face between my hands, and for a moment held it so, with fingers that have not yet forgotten the feel of your soft, thick hair,—and that for a breathing space your eyes looked straight into mine. Something changed in me then, my lady. Something changed in ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... was divided in her mind, for an instant, whether to kiss this self-possessed child, as she had fully arranged in her mind beforehand to do, or to let such a ceremony go by. But in a breathing space she had her arms about her, and was drawing her to ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney |
