"Dilatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 60,000, with every likelihood of success; for the position first taken up by King Joseph, after his retreat into the north, was very defective; but the Spaniards chose their basis of operations so absurdly, and were so dilatory afterwards, that Napoleon had time both to rectify Joseph's blunders and to reinforce his legions effectually, before they were able to achieve ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... appreciation and admiration, is heartfelt, showing no deceptive exterior, but the true native fibre of the man, full of the charity which is kind and thinketh no evil. It was not always so toward those above him. Under the timid and dilatory action of Hotham and Hyde Parker, under the somewhat commonplace although exact and energetic movements of Lord Keith, he was restive, and freely showed what he felt. On the other hand, around Hood ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... and beneath him, he perceived that the stucco was peeling from his favorite turret. "Here is danger, indeed!" he said; and loudly shouted for his ah! too dilatory servant to bring the ladder by which he ascended and descended his lofty pinnacle. At last the servant came, and he was a new ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... and made our developments slow and dilatory, for there were no roads, and these had to be improvised by each division for its own supply train from the depot in Big Shanty to the camps. Meantime each army was deploying carefully before the enemy, intrenching every camp, ready as against a sally. The enemy's cavalry was also busy ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... perfectly well how unpleasant all this is to read, this outbreak at two localities that have never done me any personal harm except a little mud-splashing. But this is a thing that has to be said now, because we are approaching a crisis when dilatory ways, muddle, and waste may utterly ruin us. This is the way things have been done in England, this is our habit of procedure, and if they are done in this way after the war this ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... He was a good runner at all times, but on the present occasion, believing that the faster he went the sooner dear little Margery might be recovered, he ran as he had never before run in his life. Had he been dilatory he might never have reached the Hall at all, for those who were on the watch for any one leaving the Tower, believing that he would have gone at an ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... many small bands, but were kept on the move constantly by the vigorous measures of General Miles, and he assumes that the Apache question would have been settled had his predecessor, General Crook, been less dilatory. The writer expressed his conclusion that in military skill, strategy and ability the Indians far excelled their opponents, and details that fifty or sixty Apaches the year before had killed more than 75 white settlers, all the while pursued by ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... you my apologies for not writing, they are so many. You have been very generous, I very promising and dilatory. I desired to send you an Account of the sales of the History, thinking that the details might be more intelligible to you than to me, and might give you some insight into literary and social, as well as bibliopolical relations. But many details of this account ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... order to ber-bantei or cut them up like cattle." It is here obviously the admission and not the scandal that should have weight. When Mr. Giles Holloway was leaving Tappanuli and settling his accounts with the natives he expostulated with a Batta man who had been dilatory in his payment. "I would," says the man, "have been here sooner, but my pangulu (superior officer) was detected in familiarity with my wife. He was condemned, and I stayed to eat share of him; the ceremony took us up three days, and it was only last night ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... for a while, for now it was clear that one way or the other he must make up his mind. All those strings of red tape, which he had meant to tie with such dilatory cunning hung loose in his grasp; to a Cabinet really set on resignation he could not apply them. Just as his hands had seemed full of power they became empty again. He knew that at the present moment no other ministry was possible, ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... Maria's character and conduct in dark colours. At the same time this Duke of Urbino passed for one of the first generals of the age. The greatest stain upon his memory is his behaviour in the year 1527, when, by dilatory conduct of the campaign in Lombardy, he suffered the passage of Frundsberg's army unopposed, and afterwards hesitated to relieve Rome from the horrors of the sack. He was the last Italian Condottiere of the antique type; and the vices which Machiavelli exposed in that bad system of mercenary ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... held as soon as possible, to consider amendments. Thus matters drifted until January, 1788, when Egbert Benson, now a member of the Legislature, offered a resolution for holding a state convention to consider the federal document. Dilatory motions blocked its way, and its friends began to despair of better things; but Benson persisted, until, at last, after great ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... 'patron.' There, indeed, was our Minucius at fault, as what honest, poor man is not, when confronted by the wiles of those bred to craft and trickery! See, too, how the consuls have followed the same dilatory measures, and can you doubt that it is all by agreement with these traitor nobles? Know well, now, that this war will have no ending until a man of the people ends it—a real plebeian; a new man. See you not that both consuls, by tarrying with the army, have set up an interregnum, that the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... had come to Weston on horseback, rode over separately. Mr Elliot was a man of good common sense, though his opinions were not quite so weighty as his person, which declined to rise in one scale when fifteen stone was in the other. He was a just man also, though perhaps he was less dilatory in attending to the wishes of a member of one of the great county families than he might be in the case of a mere nobody. If a rich man and a poor one had a dispute, he considered that the presumption was in favour of the former, but he did not allow this ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... sent by Mary for some book she affected to particularly want. He forgot the book, as Maggie forgot the flowers, and in half-an-hour, John Campbell was sent after his dilatory son. Old men do not like surprises as well as lovers, and Mary had thought it best to prepare him for the meeting that was close at hand. He had felt a little fear of the shock he was sure he would have to bear as ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... has been laid upon Lincoln on the ground that he was dilatory in reaching the determination to relieve the fort. That the decision should have been reached and the expedition dispatched more promptly is entirely evident; but whether or not Lincoln was in fault is quite another question. Three facts are to be considered: 1. The highest military ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... method of operation could hardly be held as dilatory. It would doubtless have commended itself more highly to his men if it had been somewhat more so, when at daylight on the morning after the splendid success of September 19th they were ordered in pursuit ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... particular peak as one's own private property. His lack of initiative in this matter aroused a certain amount of impatience among the sentimentally-minded women-folk of his home circle; his mother, his sisters, an aunt-in-residence, and two or three intimate matronly friends regarded his dilatory approach to the married state with a disapproval that was far from being inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were watched with the straining eagerness which a group of unexercised terriers concentrates on the ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... pleasure to receive to-day, that I am expected to be at C(astle) H(oward) on Saturday, when I do not set out till Sunday, so that, as I told Lord C. in my last, which he should receive to-day, I shall not be there till Wednesday. I am dilatory and procrastinating in my nature, but am not apt to defer what, when done, will make me so happy as I shall be at C(astle) H., and should not have been so now, if I had been more early apprised of your wish ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... who has not made the experiment, or who is not accustomed to require rigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge and distinctness of imagery ... To this dilatory notation must be imputed the false relations of travellers, where there is no imaginable motive to deceive. They trusted to memory what cannot be trusted safely but to the eye, and told by guess what a few hours before they had known with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Another day meant the drawing of new lines, and time for tallying and rallying, but what was done today was immutably done. Hardinge and Haswell stood near the post at whose head hung the sign, "Railway Generals." About them lounged a handful of dilatory brokers. Railway Generals had closed yesterday strong at 175, but quotations from London, where by reason of difference in time there had already been several hours of trading, reflected an unaccountable nervousness over-seas. So the stock opened ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... a simple one for the government. If it does nothing but register requests for justice, injustice may be done, not only to missionaries, but also to other citizens. Those dilatory, oriental governments, embarrassed by so many difficult problems of internal administration, do not willingly act except under some pressure. And pressure which is not war and which will probably not lead to war, can be brought to bear by ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... appearance, though still so imperfectly arranged, that the stockings, being quite wet, we were obliged to sling outside our knapsacks, while the damp shirts were left to dry, as they best might, within. But the precious time which our dilatory laundress had wasted, nothing could recall. We therefore felt ourselves under the necessity of confining our day's operations to the inspection of a hermitage, or einsiedlerstein, near Burgstein, with what was described to us as a short and pleasant walk afterwards, ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... geologist?—you may pick up leaves and chip rocks wherever you please, the live-long day. Are you a valetudinarian?—you may physic yourself by Nature's own simple prescription, walking in fresh air. Are you dilatory and irresolute?—you may dawdle to your heart's content; you may change all your plans a dozen times in a dozen hours; you may tell "Boots" at the inn to call you at six o'clock, may fall asleep again (ecstatic sensation!) five minutes after ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... pleasure, indeed," echoed Mrs. Ianson, deeply thankful to anything or anybody that stood in the breach between herself, her husband, and the dilatory cook. ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... movements of his head from side to side, in order to compel the apparition to repeat them. He found a comforting reassurance in asserting his command over his own shadow. He was temporizing, making, with unconscious prudence, a dilatory opposition to an impending catastrophe. He felt that invisible forces of evil were closing in upon him, and he parleyed ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... to the ship, however, the pilot, who was of the dilatory school, succeeded about 3 P.M. in getting us round that awkward but very necessary buoy, which makes so many foul winds of fair ones, when the ship's bead was laid to the eastward, with square yards. In half an hour the vessel had "slapped" ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in which this branch of the proceeding has been reverently and gravely dealt with reads like a metaphysical discussion in the dark ages. The names formerly used were superb. Complaint, demurrer, confession and avoidance, traverse, replication, dilatory pleas, peremptory pleas, rejoinder, ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... your arrangements to come ever to Locust Hill on Tuesday evening, and spend the night with us; as we start at a very early hour on Wednesday morning, and should not like to be kept waiting. My Hebe is also coming on Tuesday evening, to stay all night. Now, not a word, Thurston, I know what dilatory folks young people are. And I know very well that if I don't make sure of you on Tuesday evening, you will keep us a full hour beyond our time on Wednesday ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... o'clock, and the sleepy soldiers arouse from their beds on the ground, pack up their tents, blankets, and equipments, get a hasty breakfast, and fall into their ranks. If some commander—perhaps of a regiment only—has been dilatory, the whole movement is delayed. Many well-formed plans have been defeated by the indolence of a subordinate commander and his failure to put his troops in motion at the designated hour. Such a delay may embarrass the whole army by detaining other portions, whose ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in 1802 to suppress a statement of his grievances which could only have rendered ministers implacable.[284] But he found out what would hardly have been a discovery to most people, that officials can be dilatory and evasive; and certain discoveries about the treatment of convicts in New South Wales convinced him that they could even defy the laws and the Constitution when they were beyond inspection. He published (1803) a Plea for the Constitution, showing ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Monthly" years ago, and give them to the public now with the digested information which he alone can supply, and which is as yet inaccessible in his voluminous notes and sketches of the region. At Mr. Muir's home we saw literally barrels of these notes. He admitted that he had always been dilatory about writing, but not about studying or note-taking; often making notes at night when fatigued from climbing and from two and three days' fasting; but the putting of them into literature is irksome to him. Yet, much as he dislikes ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... salary and temporal concerns, they had suffered somewhat for his unpopular warfare with reigning sins,—a fact which had rather reconciled Mrs. Scudder to the dilatory movement of her cherished hopes. Since James was gone, what need to press imprudently to new arrangements? Better give the little heart time to grow over before starting a subject which a certain womanly instinct told her might be met with a struggle. Somehow she never thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... labour-market.' Oh, how the labourers swore and the farmers chuckled, when he put up steam-engines on all his farms, refused to give away a farthing in alms, and enforced the new Poor-law to the very letter. How the country tradesmen swore, when he called them 'a pack of dilatory jobbers,' and announced his intention of employing only London workmen for his improvements. Oh! how they all swore together (behind his back, of course, for his dinners were worth eating), and the very ladies said naughty words, when the stern political ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... side whiskers, and it really seemed to me absolutely certain that the other animals in the group appreciated and enjoyed the fun that comedian made. He pretended to be awkward, and frequently fell off his tub. He was purposely dilatory, and was often the last one to finish. The other animals seemed to be fascinated by his mishaps, and they sat on their tubs and watched him with what looked like genuine amusement. I remember another circle of seated animals who calmly ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... general congress. But in the course of that day the ministers received from various quarters more evidence that Bismarck's inflammatory telegram had been sent officially to the Prussian diplomatists at all the foreign courts; and they heard that Paris was literally foaming with exasperation at their dilatory indecision, while the temper of the Chamber convinced them that the proposal for a congress would be rejected with fiery scorn. Berlin and Paris vied with each other in turbulent patriotism and ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... and Ned was thus explained. The showwoman was secretly overjoyed to give the strangers a lift on their journey. But before the first day closed in the pair of adventurers found out what real hard work meant. Even Ned Dempster, accustomed to the dilatory, easy-going life of sea-fishing, knew nothing indeed of the drudgery and hustling and flurry of such everyday work as he had stepped into, unawares, among ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... see inscribed over the great gates of the noble inn to which he belonged; and which, indeed, a few years since might have been inscribed there with much justice. "Festina lente," Mr. Die would say to all those who came to him in any sort of hurry. And then when men accused him of being dilatory by premeditation, he would say no, he had always recommended despatch. "Festina," he would say; "festina" by all means; but "festina lente." The doctrine had at any rate thriven with the teacher, for Mr. Die had amassed a ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... bad look-out. If you had been born a Dumas—I am speaking of fecundity, if you please, and of nothing else—if you had been born a Dumas, and could rattle off a romance in a fortnight, you might be excused for not keeping tally of your productions. Pitiful, dilatory worker that you are, if you cannot remember them, how can you expect the world (good ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hand on anything before he does. (46.) On the other hand, he ought in due time to commence, to consider everything, entertaining the guests, and managing all so adroitly as to give time to the more dilatory to eat at their leisure; if necessary for this, slowly tasting the viands, or, when table-talk is permissible, introducing a little chat during the meal, so that the others ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... too dilatory to the Christino government, he was replaced by General Valdes, and appointed Viceroy of Navarre. The arrival of winter, however, and a heavy fall of snow, in some degree paralyzed the operations of the Christinos, whilst this occasioned incredible sufferings to the Carlists. One battalion of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... company dilatory in returning her notice, since from the time of her entrance into the room, she had been ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... presence of an immense concourse of plebeians and persons of every rank. The plebeian tribune accused, not only Marcellus, but the nobility generally. "It was owing," he said, "to their dishonesty and dilatory conduct, that Hannibal occupied Italy, as though it were his province, for now ten years; that he had passed more of his life there than at Carthage. That the Roman people were enjoying the fruits of the prolonged command of Marcellus; that his army, after having been twice defeated, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... really, Richard, do they?" she said in an apologetic tone—she referred to the casting of shadows. "It would be so useful if they did—" and she drew a sigh at Purdy's dilatory treatment of the girl ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... their tongues to reveal their sentiments more freely. They told me that it was their absolute design to take possession of the Ohio, and by G— they would do it; for that although they were sensible the English could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any undertaking. They pretend to have an undoubted right to the river from a discovery made by one La Salle sixty years ago, and the rise of this expedition is to prevent our settling on the river or the waters of it, as they heard of some ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... award of juries, not of judges. Pitt warmly approved the measure, maintaining that, far from protecting libellers, it would have the contrary effect. The Bill passed the Commons on 31st May; but owing to dilatory and factious procedure in the Lords, it was held over until the year 1792. Thanks to the noble plea for liberty urged by the venerable Earl Camden, it passed on 21st May.[45] It is matter of congratulation that Great Britain ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... augment these forces from the Island until they appeared like a large clover field in full bloom.... We lay very quiet in our ditch, waiting their motions, till the sun was an hour or two high. We heard a cannonade at the city, but our attention was drawn to our own guests. But they being a little dilatory in their operations, I stepped into an old warehouse which, stood close by me, with the door open, inviting me in, and sat down upon a stool; the floor was strewed with papers which had in some former period been used in the concerns of the house, but were then lying in woful ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... always in a hurry—that is, he seemed to be. In this also there was deliberation. It does not follow because a man is in a hurry that he is an important and busy person; no more does it follow that a man is an inconsequential procrastinator if he is leisurely and dilatory. The significance of action lies in intent. Some men can best gain their ends by creating an impression that they are extremely lazy, others by creating the impression that they are exceedingly energetic. The important point is to be on the spot at the moment most favorable for gaining ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Pupils who form the habit of getting to school any time in the morning, though usually late, are generally behind time all the way through life. They make the men and women who are late at meeting, late to meet their business engagements, late everywhere—a tardy, dilatory, inefficient class of persons, wherever they are found. It is good to be obliged to plan and do by car-time. The man who is obliged to keep his watch by railroad time, and then make all things bend to the same, is more likely to form the habit of being punctual, ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... the past two years had demonstrated the dilatory and unsatisfactory consequences of our indirect transaction of business through the foreign office in London, in which the views and wishes of the government of the Dominion of Canada were practically predominant, but were only to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... character leaked out just a little. Bombay turned out to be honest and trusty, but slightly disposed to be dilatory. Uledi did more talking than work; while the runaway Ferajji and the useless-handed Mabruki Burton turned out to be true men and staunch, carrying loads the sight of which would have caused the strong-limbed hamals ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... San Francisco, he returned and took up his work again. Artemus Ward, whom he had met in Virginia City, wrote him for something to use in his (Ward's) new book. Clemens sent the frog story, but he had been dilatory in preparing it, and when it reached New York, Carleton, the publisher, had Ward's book about ready for the press. It did not seem worth while to Carleton to include the frog story, and handed it over to Henry Clapp, editor of the Saturday Press—a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cheering welcome. It was denser and dirtier than the fogs we had encountered off the banks of Newfoundland, and more chilling and disagreeable to the human frame. It did not disperse the whole day. What with the difficulty that attended our landing, and the long delay consequent upon the very dilatory movements of the Custom-House officers, the night had fairly closed in—it did not add much to the darkness—before I was en route to an hotel. A Scotch fellow-passenger, who had maintained a sullen reserve throughout ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to our original problem, and consider if our dilatory way have led us to some glimpse ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... disappointment, and the popular feeling was at length completely reversed. The pendulum vibrated to the other extreme, and it is not easy to realize the wide-spread popular discontent which finally revealed itself respecting the dilatory movements of our forces. The people became inexpressibly weary of the reiterated bulletins that "all is quiet on the Potomac"; and the fact that General McClellan was in full sympathy with the Border State policy of the President aggravated their unfriendly mood. ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... dissatisfied with Warren's dilatory movements in the battle of White Oak Road and in his failure to reach Sheridan in time, that I was very much afraid that at the last moment he would fail Sheridan. He was a man of fine intelligence, great earnestness, quick ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... case, however, the prince killed the trespasser with his own hand, his sergeants refusing to execute his mandate.] The matter being brought to the notice of good King Louis, Sir Enguerrand was summoned to appear, and, finally, after many feudal shifts and dilatory pleas, brought to trial before Louis himself and a special council. Notwithstanding the opposition of the other seigniors, who, it is needless to say, spared no efforts to save a peer, probably not a greater criminal than themselves, the king was much inclined to inflict the punishment of death ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... at the admonition, heaped abuse upon me, swore that it was I who thwarted him, I who opposed the fulfilment of Don John's desires and fostered the dilatory policy of the King. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... may appear startling and indeed absurd; yet hard facts, I venture to believe, will enforce the conviction on unprejudiced minds that the warfare of the present when contrasted with the warfare of the past is dilatory, ineffective, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... greatly favoured the pretensions of Mr Swiveller, being accustomed to make slight mention of him as 'a gay young man' and to sigh and shake their heads ominously whenever his name was mentioned. Mr Swiveller's conduct in respect to Miss Sophy having been of that vague and dilatory kind which is usually looked upon as betokening no fixed matrimonial intentions, the young lady herself began in course of time to deem it highly desirable, that it should be brought to an issue one way or other. Hence she had at last consented ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... electors. The court upheld their right. The Secretary of State became convinced that the petition was fraudulent and did not appear in the further litigation. The suffrage forces were prepared with their evidence and wished to proceed at once with the case but all the dilatory tactics possible were used and it was not until the full legal time was about to expire that the opponents were brought to the point on May 17, 1918. Mrs. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... day wore on, he was several times conscious of a wish to quicken the passing of its moments, and when Sir Henry Grebe, the penultimate patient, proved to be an elderly malade imaginaire of dilatory habit, involved speech, and determined misery, he was obliged firmly to check a rising desire to write a hasty bread-pill prescription and fling him in the direction of Marlborough House. The half-hour chimed, and ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... coming on, we were obliged to beat back and come to Gorgona again, building a Tent ashore for our Armour and Sick Men. We spent till the 25th in Careening; on the 28th we got all aboard agen, rigged and stowed all ready for sea; the Spaniards who were our Prisoners, and who are very Dilatory Sailors (for they hearken more to their Saints than to the Boatswain's Pipe), were much amazed at our Despatch; telling us that they usually took Six Weeks or a Month to Careen one of their King's Ships at Lima, where they are well provided with all Necessaries, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... good traditions: highly respectable, very old-fashioned, slow moving, not to say dilatory, but tenacious of its dignity as regards other departments, and obstinately wedded to its own way of conducting the ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... the fine arts was indeed exquisite; and few modern sovereigns have written or spoken better. But he was not fit for active life. In negotiation he was always trying to dupe others, and duping only himself. As a soldier, he was feeble, dilatory, and miserably wanting, not in personal courage, but in the presence of mind which his station required. His delay at Gloucester saved the parliamentary party from destruction. At Naseby, in the very ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... will not dwell on them. My readers know the King's manner in such cases; have already been on two Marches with him, and even in these same routes and countries. We will say only, that the Russians were and had been very dilatory; Loudon much the reverse; and their and Loudon's Adversary still more. That, for five days, the Russians, at length close to Breslau (August 6th-11th), kept vaguely cannonading and belching noise and apprehension upon the poor City, but ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... victory that our forefathers were men of a temper not to be finally overcome. And so here. The war for our Union, with all the constitutional questions which it settled, and all the military lessons which it gathered in, has throughout its dilatory length but one meaning in the eye of history. And nowhere was that meaning better symbolized and embodied than in the constitution of this first Northern ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... Congress would expire by Constitutional limitation. The President had communicated his veto on the last day permitted by the Constitution, and it was generally believed that his motive for the postponement was to give the minority in one branch or the other the power to defeat the bill either by dilatory motions or by "talking against time." Mr. Le Blond and Mr. Finck or Ohio, and Mr. Boyer of Pennsylvania, frankly indicated their intention to employ all means within their power to compass this end. A system of parliamentary delay was thus ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... was so effective in the Franco-Prussian conflict and, if I am not mistaken, in the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866, also. This made of the individual soldier a host in himself. The old muzzle-loader, with its ramrod and dilatory "motions," ought to have been obsolete long before Grant left the West to lead the Army of the Potomac from the Wilderness to Appomattox. The Michigan cavalry brigade, armed as it was with repeating carbines, was never whipped when it had a chance to use them. In arming the infantry the government ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... of making full use of their long-desired Army, Navy and commercial fleet. There could be considered, as factors tending to the preservation of peace, only the pacific sentiment of the majority of the people working in alliance with the dilatory policy of the President, who still nourished a hope that some favorable turn or other in events, or perhaps the advent of peace, would give him a chance to avoid ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... have been dilatory and dumb; I should have made my way straight to you long ago; I should have blabbed nothing but you, I should ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... in his hand, stalked through the film of people who now swirled about him, eager to see the dead. There was no call for the law to make its appearance, and the representatives of the law were wisely dilatory ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... different parties were here, there and everywhere, looking after the interests of their respective candidates, talking, persuading, urging or buying the dilatory or vacillating vote. And the women found, early in the day, that in order to compete with the opposition, they must stay close to ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... of patients were commonly treated at one time. They drew near to each other, touching hands, arms, knees, or feet. The handsomest, youngest, and most robust magnetizers held also an iron rod with which they touched the dilatory or stubborn patients. The rods and ropes had all undergone a 'preparation' and in a very short space of time the patients felt the magnetic influence. The women, being the most easily affected, were ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... time-serving principle was visible even in the great question of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. He was, at one time, half inclined to surrender it into Mr. Pitt's dilatory hands, and seemed to think the gloss of novelty was gone from it, and the gaudy colouring of popularity sunk into the sable ground from which it rose! It was, however, persisted in and carried to ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... in the party under discussion; at least she asked no more questions and, dilatory as usual when not definitely directed, Armstrong dropped the lead. For a minute they sat so, gazing out into the night, silent. Under stimulus of a new thought, point blank, whimsical, came a ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... energies. To compass the abolition of slavery had been the passion of his life. He had hailed the Civil War as the great opportunity. He had never been quite satisfied with Lincoln, whose policy seemed to him too dilatory. He demanded quick, sharp, and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... St. John river was now drawing to a close. In the summer of 1767 he went to New York where we find him engaged, in company with the Rev. Dr. Ogilvie, in collecting the second annual subscription from the members of the society. The military gentlemen proved very dilatory in paying their subscriptions. Whether Capt. Glazier became disheartened at the outlook, or whether he received peremptory orders to rejoin the Royal American Regiment is uncertain. But about the end ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... parish-clerk Cares not for the dark As he winds in the tower At a regular hour The rheumatic clock, Whose dilatory knock You can hear when praying At the day's decaying, Or at any lone while From a pew in ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... himself into the fray, and then something had to give way, and the boys knew it wouldn't be Easy. To-day, something of that old conquering mood had come over him. He was possessed with a rage against his former dilatory self, and a fierce desire to win, to do the clean, square thing, no matter what the consequences. He had done it that New Year's morning, when John McIntyre's life lay in his hand. The call of duty had been imperative then. He had not even considered the possibility of shirking it, and in spite ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... and sugar! And I've no whiskey, and—" but there was a stiff turning just at this part of the river, and the skipper and pilot and everyone on board gave it all their attention, or we'd have been ashore. Soon after we met the dilatory down-river cargo boat, and waited where the channel was wide and she passed, its master shouting to us that the channel somewhere further up was "only four feet six, and very difficult." She had stranded somewhere ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... that ensued had its ignominious side; but it was entered into by neither of the parties principally concerned. Adams bore the disappointment, which the dilatory proceedings at Greenwich and Cambridge had inflicted upon him, with quiet heroism. His silence on the subject of what another man would have called his wrongs remained unbroken to the end of his life;[222] and he took every opportunity of testifying ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... seemed to decline, with trembling anxiety, the consideration of their own and the public danger. A silent consternation prevailed in the assembly, till a senator, of the name and family of Trajan, awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He represented to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had been long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by nature, and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy, at the head of the military force of the empire; and that ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... had resolved we should; but, as usually happens when matters are hurried, we met with an endless succession of petty delays at the last moment that detained us at anchor until nearly nightfall, and occasioned us a vast amount of trotting about in the broiling sun to put some life into the dilatory people who were keeping us waiting; the consequence of which was that when at last we lifted the anchor and stood out of the bay with the very last of the sea-breeze, to run into a calm when we had attained an offing of some two miles, I felt altogether too tired and knocked up to eat or drink; ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... eleven ships of the line, and fifty transports, with more than six thousand troops, arrived at Halifax, for the reduction of Louisbourg, and Lord Loudon ordered a large body of troops, designed to march upon Ticonderoga and Crown Point, to co-operate. But so dilatory was his Lordship, that before the expedition from Halifax was ready to sail, a French fleet of 17 sail had arrived at Louisbourg, with reinforcements, making the garrison nine thousand strong—and this fine specimen of a hereditary commander deemed it inexpedient to proceed, and abandoned the ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... daily striven to awaken a nation's conscience. Ames read the articles, and through the columns of the Budget sought to modify them to the extent of shifting the responsibility to the shoulders of the mill hands themselves, and to a dilatory Congress that was criminally negligent in so framing a cotton tariff as to make such industrial suffering possible. Nor did he omit to foully vilify the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... been a great deal of bitter discussion between Longstreet, Fitz Lee, Early, Wilcox, and others as to whether Lee did or did not order an attack to take place at 9 A.M., and as to whether Longstreet was dilatory, and to blame for not making it. When a battle is lost there is always an inquest, and a natural desire on the part of each general to lay the blame on somebody else's shoulders. Longstreet waited until noon for Law's brigade to come up, and afterward there was a good deal of marching and ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... and domestic slave trade; it nourishes and justifies the most cruel prejudices against color; it sneers at those who advocate the bestowal of equal rights upon our colored countrymen; it contends for an indefinite, dilatory, far-off emancipation; it expressly declares that it is more humane to keep the slaves in chains, than to give them freedom in this country! In short, it is the most compendious and best adapted scheme to uphold the slave system that ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... crush the disease at its outset by a vigorous campaign. Not until an amount of treatment which experience has shown to be an average requirement has been given, is it safe to draw breath and wait to see what the effect on the enemy has been. Dilatory tactics and compromises are often more dangerous than giving a little more than the least amount of treatment possible, for good measure. This is, of course, always provided the behavior of the body under the ordeal of treatment is closely studied and observed by an expert and that it is not blindly ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... has business, I believe," said Lady Mary, a little coldly. "There has been a dispute over some Crown lands, which march with ours. Officials are often very dilatory and difficult to deal with. Probably, however, you know more about it than I do. I am going alone. I have just been giving the necessary orders. I shall take a servant with me, as well as my maid, for I am such an inexperienced ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... the confines of India and Scythia, the satraps of the distant provinces were ordered to assemble their troops, and to march, without delay, to the assistance of their monarch. But their preparations were dilatory, their motions slow; and before Sapor could lead an army into the field, he received the melancholy intelligence of the devastation of Assyria, the ruin of his palaces, and the slaughter of his bravest troops, who defended the passage of the Tigris. The pride of royalty was humbled in the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... was exhausted by the delay of the Holy College, and he resolved to have recourse to means which were more efficacious, and more in accordance with his character. On the 13th May, 1801, he wrote to M. Cacault, French minister at Rome, that he had determined to accept no longer the irresolution and dilatory procedure of the Court of Rome; if in five days the scheme sent from Paris, and long discussed by the Sacred College, was not accepted, Cacault must leave Rome to join, in Florence, General Murat, the commander-in-chief of the army ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... swoon and fall. But he dared speak no more. The time had come to act, and with an angry gesture he rose up in his seat and threw his arm over as if to draw his sword and strike with the flat of the blade at the dilatory attendant who was so long. Then all was over, for the slave jumped back now the stirrup was lengthened, and stood with bent head and extended hands as the horse bounded off along the empty side of the court, Frank passing the chief at full gallop, pointing to the lengthened stirrups ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... from the level of the plain, and seemingly lost in that expanse of open country, climbed to the sky the twin steeples of Martinville. Presently we saw three: springing into position confronting them by a daring volt, a third, a dilatory steeple, that of Vieuxvicq, was come to join them. The minutes passed, we were moving rapidly, and yet the three steeples were always a long way ahead of us, like three birds perched upon the plain, motionless and conspicuous in the sunlight. Then the steeple of Vieuxvicq ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... upon the support of the men who had been associated with him in the Maitland Mills Athletic Association. With their backing, he was certain that he could eliminate most of that very considerable wastage in time that even a cursory observation had revealed to him in the shops, due to such causes as dilatory workers, idle machines, lack of co-ordination, improper routing of work, and the like. He had the suspicion that a little investigation would reveal other causes of ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... or dilatory exceptions are merely temporary obstructions, their only effect being to postpone for a while the plaintiff's right to sue; for example, the plea of an agreement not to sue for a certain time, say, five years; for at the end of that time the plaintiff can effectually pursue ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... Tyrconnel. The Luttrells had, in the name of their countrymen, implored James not to subject so loyal a people to so odious and incapable a viceroy. Tyrconnel, they said, was old; he was infirm; he needed much sleep; he knew nothing of war; he was dilatory; he was partial; he was rapacious; he was distrusted and hated by the whole nation. The Irish, deserted by him, had made a gallant stand, and had compelled the victorious army of the Prince of Orange to retreat. They hoped soon to take the field again, thirty thousand strong; and they adjured ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... probably the physician who was left in charge during Cassanate's absence—and this man retaliated upon Cardan for having thus stirred up strife. Cardan's position was certainly a very uneasy one. The other physicians were full of jealousy and malice, and the Archbishop began to accuse him of dilatory conduct of the case, redoubling his complaints as soon as he found himself getting better under the altered treatment. So weary did Cardan become of this bickering that he begged leave to depart at once, but this proposition the Primate ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... good spirits in such temperaments as his. He declares, it is true, that he "sports much with my Uncle Toby" in the volume which he is now "fabricating for the laughing part of the world;" but if so he must have sported only after a very desultory and dilatory fashion. On the whole one cannot escape a very strong impression that Sterne was heartily bored by his sojourn in Toulouse, and that he eagerly longed for the day of his return to "the dalliance and ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Emperor Leopold reviewed his troops on the plains of Kitsee, not far from Preshurg, To this review, all who had promised to sustain Austria were invited. Her appeals had at last roused the German princes to action; but they had been so dilatory in their councils, that not one of them ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... says the same author, "was dilatory enough in suits of her own nature; and the lord treasurer Burleigh, being a wise man, and willing therein to feed her humor, would say to her; 'Madam, you do well to let suitors stay; for I shall tell you, Bis dat ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... himself. His criticisms of other judges, his references to the manner in which justice is administered in Austria, illustrate his temerity and independence. His scorn of the King of Saxony, on account of being dilatory in paying the subscription for the Grand Mass, was pronounced. He alludes to him as "the poor Dresdener" in his letters, and he even went so far as to talk about suing him when the payment was still longer ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... The Army, wherever its songs are heard, has ever been more than a kindly invitation. It has been an urging to which millions of undecided souls will for ever owe their deliverance from the dilatory and hindering influences around them, into an earnest start ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... would seem as if Persano, the Italian commander in chief, could easily have executed his savage-sounding orders to "sweep the enemy from the Adriatic, and to attack and blockade them wherever found." He was dilatory, however, in assembling his fleet, negligent in practice and gun drill, and passive in his whole policy to a degree absolutely ruinous to morale. War was declared June 20, and had long been foreseen; yet it was June 25 before he moved the bulk of his ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... whatsoever, so that Hugh too had to walk very slowly. The man stopped and looked in at the windows of many of the stores, and close behind him every time stood Hugh; he was at a loss to account for this behavior on the part of the man he was following, as his dilatory tactics were in sharp contrast to the way in ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... to do it was another matter; but even on that head Wylie could furnish a plausible excuse for the act. Retribution, if it came at all, would not be severe, and would be three or four years coming. And who fears it much, when it, is so dilatory, and so weak, and so doubtful into ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... and myself are quite annoyed to seem so dilatory in fixing our time for visiting you; however, we hope (D. V.) to be with you on Saturday, the sixth of July. I hope your little olive branches are both quite well, and also your sister; we shall be glad to renew and make fresh acquaintance amongst the young ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... Symes walked the floor the more he realized that payday must be met. Labor was not an account which could wait. Nothing would so arouse suspicion and hurt his credit as a dilatory payday. Local merchants would come down upon him like a thousand of brick for the settlement of the large accounts which at the present moment they were rather ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... recognized neither the independence of Texas nor its annexation by the United States, yet would probably have agreed to both as preferable to war, had the alternative been allowed. To be sure, she was dilatory in settling admitted claims for certain depredations upon our commerce, threatened to take the annexation as a casus belli, withdrew her envoy and declined to accept Slidell as ours, and precipitated the first actual bloodshed. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... journeying to England or entering into a long correspondence with those philosophers of that country whose knowledge and discoveries were of indispensable use to me in my present undertaking. The latter method of obtaining the desired intelligence was dilatory and unsatisfactory; besides, I had an insurmountable aversion to the idea of engaging myself in my loathsome task in my father's house while in habits of familiar intercourse with those I loved. I knew that a thousand fearful ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... necessary because the Boers were known to be intensely suspicious. Every weak power trying to resist a stronger one must needs take refuge in evasive and dilatory tactics. Such had been, such were sure to be, the tactics of the Boers. But the Boers were also very distrustful of the English Government, believing it to aim at nothing less than the annexation of their country. It may seem strange to Englishmen that the purity of their motives ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... for a sheep," thought I, and began to back the cockboat towards the corner where the dinghy lay. As I did so it occurred to me to wonder why the Captain and Mr. Rogers had been so dilatory. They must have started a full hour ahead of me; they had left the schooner at a brisk stroke, whereas I had merely floated up with the tide. Yet either I had all but surprised them in the act of stepping ashore, or, if they had landed at once, why had ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... and complicated as they seemed to him—they were now largely routine matters, in fact; and I hope I carried things along at a tempo which satisfied him. This is not to deny that Raymond seemed to have days when he found even me dilatory and exasperating; but old Brand would ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... the country with the idea that he was a good bridge-builder, but a little too dilatory in the matter of carnage, was succeeded ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... seem, in many clubs, has absolutely no excuse for its existence, except that it was the first to be introduced and has the reputation of being universally used in foreign countries. It requires scoring above and below the line, which is a most cumbersome and dilatory proposition. Keeping tally by this method involves, at the end of a rubber, long mathematical problems, which, as the scorer is then in a hurry, frequently result in serious, and ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... uncertain and dilatory; the Army of the Potomac was generally dissatisfied and clamoring for the restoration of McClellan, who, like Joseph E. Johnston, of the South, was always popular with his men; the Cabinet, too, was uncertain and hopelessly divided in its counsels. The cause of the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... he gets the notion that his "boss" is afraid of, or for, him or his feelings or his health, he loses interest in working for that man. So a little effort to lighten or expedite his work, a little leniency in excusing the dilatory finishing of a job, a little easing-up under stress of weather, are taken as so many indications of a desire to conciliate. And conciliation means weakness every time. Your lumber-jack likes to be met front to front, one strong man to another. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... witness on his way to give evidence, or to threaten him if he does give evidence, or to tamper with the jury, are all serious contempts. In short, there is a divinity which hedges a court of justice, and anybody who, by action or inaction, renders the course of justice more difficult or dilatory than it otherwise would be, incurs the penalty of contempt. Consider, for example, the case of documents and letters. Prior to the issue of a writ, the owner of documents and letters may destroy them, if he pleases—the fact of his having done so, if litigation ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... love fast! True love evades the dilatory. Life's bloom flares like a meteor past; A joy so dazzling ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... silver, when the charm moved it three hundred feet to the north-east. Joe tracked it with his peek-stone to its hiding-place. It was not so far under the surface this time—only about twenty feet—and the faithful again worked with a will. The dilatory movements of the silver caused anxiety to Mr. Isaac Hale, with whom the diggers had been "boarding round." Hale was a stiff old Methodist whose business judgment told him that he was taking too much stock in this "big bonanza." For all his anxiety, the silver again flitted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Jacket, who claims the sovereignty of the river, is declared to be a more confirmed knave, if possible, than they, and to have cheated him of a good deal of property. The writer describes King Forday as a man rather advanced in years, less fraudulent but more dilatory. King Boy, his son, alone deserved his confidence, for he had not abused it, and possessed more honour and integrity than either ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... to his mother was chargeable on the property, and this was an excuse on all occasions for the Squire's dilatory payment in other quarters. "Sir," he would say, "my mother's jointure is sacred—it is more than the estate can well bear, it is true, but it is a sacred claim, and I would sooner sacrifice my life, my honour, sir, than see that claim neglected!" Now all this ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... madam," he said quietly, and retired to a desk in the back part of the bank, where he opened a huge book, turned over some leaves rapidly, and ran his finger down a page. His dilatory action seemed to increase the young woman's panic. Her pallor increased, and she swayed slightly, as if in danger of falling, but brought her right hand to the assistance of the left, and so steadied herself against the ledge of ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... commencement of his progress towards the church, our enthusiast found himself placed among the hindermost of the members of the advancing throng, he soon contrived so thoroughly to outstrip his dilatory and discursive neighbours as to gain, with little delay, the steps of the sacred building. Here, in common with many others, he was compelled to stop, while those nearest the basilica squeezed their way through its stately doors. In such a situation ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins |
