"Lax" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and one. You hear of even immoral or irreligious books being written by men of decent character; there is a late writer who says that David Hume's sceptical works are not at all the picture of the man. A priest may write a treatise which would be called really lax on the subject of lying, which might come under the condemnation of the holy see, as some treatises on that score have been condemned, and yet in his own person be a rigorist. And, in fact, it is notorious ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... Mastership was also weakened by the practice of electing very old men to the post, as the short tenure of the office and the feebleness of its holder meant a lax control over the turbulent Knights. This practice became very common in the last two centuries of the Order's existence. But many of the Grand Masters, though over seventy at the time of election, disappointed expectation by living till ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... notorious Romanizer I have since discovered, should not have exercised more care in the supervision of his nephew, a fellow scholar with my own son at Haverton House. It appears that Mr. Lidderdale was so lax as to permit his nephew to frequent the services of the Reverend Stephen Ogilvie at Meade Cantorum, where every excess such as incense, lighted candles, mariolatry and creeping to the cross is openly practised. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... "Things got lax. I heard her say one man sold all his slaves. The War broke out. They run away and went back to him. She'd see 'em pass going back home. They been sold and wouldn't stay. Folks got to running off to war. They thought it look like a frolic. I heard some of them say ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... heart. With no resources other than heavily mortgaged real property, she found herself forced to do something for a living. In the course of events we see Mrs. Morrell keeping a flashy boarding-house, hanging precariously on the outer fringe of the lax society of the times, frowned upon by the respectable, but more or less sought by the fast men and young girls only too numerous among the idle of ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... so appreciatively that she felt all her loss made up to her, and shrunk closer to him in the buggy he was driving with a lax, absent-minded rein. "But I think a little less Fourth of July on my ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... that way." The conclusion is just, and Diderot might have verified it by the state of the higher society of his country at that very moment. One cause of the moral corruption of France in the closing years of the old regime was undoubtedly the lax and shifting interpretations, by which the Jesuit directors had softened the rigour of general moral principles. Many generations must necessarily elapse before a habit of loosely superseding principles in individual cases produces widespread demoralisation, but the result is inevitable, sooner ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... be considered to allow himself more than an average degree of latitude in rhyming: but it is a fact that, if the general body of English poetry is scrutinized, it will be found to be more or less lax in this matter. This question is complicated by another question—that of how words were pronounced at different periods in our literary history: in order to exclude the most serious consequent difficulties, I shall say nothing here about any poet prior to Milton. I take at haphazard four pages ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... unenterprising in sailoring as in everything else, and seldom lose sight of the land, if they can help it. Their fondness for hugging the coast was very noticeable to me, and, unused to the constant vigilance and care which a long sea voyage demands, their system of duty was very lax and careless. There were no proper watches; at nightfall the Ty Kong used quietly to lower about three reefs of the main-sail and the whole of the mizzen. All the crew would then go to their cabin, leaving the helmsmen alone on deck. At midnight ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... majority, of Englishmen, have never seen a case of smallpox at all. Not knowing the awful danger they have escaped, through Great Britain having had compulsory vaccination since 1853, they have become lax in their belief in the necessity for the continuance of that precaution. "They jest at scars that never felt a wound." Towns such as Gloucester in England, in which a large number of children have been allowed to grow ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... be blamed for this withering sterility, this dead-sea of ineptitude. There must be some form of literature found, loose and lax enough to express the Moral Idealism of the second-rate mind; and Poetic Drama ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... went out to interview the farmer, sparsely bearded, lank, and long-necked and seamy-skinned, his face ineffectual yet shrewd, a poor white of the South strung on wiry nerves, instead of lax muscles, the outcome of the New Jersey soil. He shuffled determinedly in his great boots, heavy with red shale, standing guard over his fine vegetables. He nodded phlegmatically at Anderson. He never smiled. Occasionally his long facial muscles relaxed, but they never ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is a panicle on a long or short glabrous stalk, striate, 2 to 7 inches long, with four to fifteen erect or spreading, lax branches, the main rachis is glabrous, angular and deeply grooved. Spikes or branches are slender, alternate, 1 to 2-1/2 inches, becoming shorter upwards, thickened and puberulous at the base, and the secondary rachis is flexuous, ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar
... cashier them for misconduct and to frame a government for ourselves. There follows a curious little moral exhortation which shows how far the good Dr. Price was from forgetting his duties as a preacher. He had been distressed by the lax morals of some of his colleagues in the agitation for Reform, and he pauses to deplore that "not all who are zealous in this cause are as conspicuous for purity of morals as for ability." He cannot reconcile himself to the idea of an immoral patriot, and begs that they will ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... own day," he replied, "such an occurrence would be almost impossible; but you must remember that we are talking of the last century—a century in which, I regret to say, the clergy of the Church of England were sadly lax in the performance of their duties. The followers of Wesley and Whitefield could scarcely have multiplied as they did if the flocks had not been cruelly neglected by their proper shepherds. It was a period in which benefices were bestowed constantly on men obviously unfitted ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... Lax Precautions. The New York "Tribune" Dispatch. Montgomery Murmurs. Troops en route, and their Feelings. The Government on Wheels. Kingsville Misnomer. Profanity and Diplomacy. Grimes' Brother-in-law. With ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... should be expelled from the House. Whether any further punishment could be inflicted on him was a perplexing question. The English law touching forgery became, at a later period, barbarously severe; but, in 1698, it was absurdly lax. The prisoner's offence was certainly not a felony; and lawyers apprehended that there would be much difficulty in convicting him even of a misdemeanour. But a recent precedent was fresh in the minds of all men. The weapon which had reached Fenwick might reach ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dignitaries of the Chamber of Peers had a Caroline, as lax as Carolines usually are. The name is an auspicious one for women. This dignitary, extremely old at the time, was on one side of the fireplace, and Caroline on the other. Caroline was hard upon the ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... counted. He had no interest in the game, and experienced inside himself a half-sick, hollow feeling unique in his experience. Morris, Kitty and Margaret got in free, simply because his attention was too lax. Gerald and Celia had once more disappeared. After a decent interval the others became clamorous ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... as a brook. Isabel's arms hung lax and motionless: only her hands stirred, from the wrists, and so slightly, or else so rapidly without effort, that they too scarcely seemed to ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was deciding for further confidences. Her situation was perplexing her very much, and the Widgett atmosphere was lax and sympathetic, and provocative of discussion. "It isn't only the dance," ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... and remained in session for a couple of hours. But it was not the public services, terrible though these were, that formed the most depressing feature of Sunday in St. Andrews; it was the rigid discipline which pervaded her home-life. My grandfather, I believe, was looked upon as being somewhat lax in his religious views, and he was undoubtedly more liberal—perhaps one might say more advanced—than many of his neighbours. Yet even he had to render homage to the universal law. So when Sunday came round the blinds were closely drawn, lest the rays of the ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... rather oppressive, and we began to sweat profusely. She then took up a bunch of birch-twigs which had been dipped in hot water, and switched us smartly from head to foot. When we had become thoroughly parboiled and lax, we descended to the floor, seated ourselves upon the stools, and were scrubbed with soap as thoroughly as propriety permitted. The girl was an admirable bather, the result of long practice in the business. She finished by pouring hot water over ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... Masupha. On his return in safety he at once sent in his resignation, but those who played him false not merely never received their deserts for an unpardonable breach of faith to a loyal colleague, but have been permitted by a lax public opinion at the Cape to remain in the public service, and are now discharging high and ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... small heel projecting from its concave surface near the base, also in the sole of the foot and inferior surface of the leg, as shown in fig. 23. The plantar surface, including the toes, is covered with soft and very lax, deeply wrinkled skin, and each toe is marked by a central longitudinal groove with short grooves at right angles to it. The lax wrinkled integument is continued along the inferior flattened surface of the ankle and leg. These peculiarities appear to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... she knew this. She drew a deep breath as she stood up, and almost on the instant she experienced a life-giving sensation of poise and freedom. The weight fell from her feet, the blackness in which she had lived for weeks unwrapped itself from around her like a departing fog, her lax muscles tightened. She groped her way to the window and stood there for a moment, resting her cheek against the cool pane and gazing up at the sky. Presently her eyes dropped to the level of a distant water-line, and she ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... insight, force and determination, the discipline of the army will be lax and its efficiency greatly impaired. If he is a craven, without faith in himself and in the cause he represents, his lack of courage, his doubt and indecision will communicate themselves to the whole army, resulting ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... cardinal tenets of American colonial democracy, which by the War of Independence, which was essentially a democratic movement, became the basis of the political institutions of the nation. The evils of lax government, both central and state, under the Confederation caused, however, a marked anti-democratic reaction, and this united with the temperamental conservatism of the framers of the constitution of 1787 in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... has written Dane by mistake for Dace, or Dacian. Lax ti kinoV?. Chalcondyles, Von ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... say that," said Mr. Vincent. "I have the greatest respect for the individuals in question, and I am not denying that they have done good to our Church by drawing attention in this lax day to the old Church-of-England divinity. But it is one thing to agree with these gentlemen; another," laying his hand on Charles's shoulder, "another to belong to their party. Do not make man your master; ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... David, of his relations with women, and of his dealings with his enemies, it is not fair to measure him by the standards of our own time. His was a day of the high hand, and of lax morality. The kings of neighboring countries knew no gentleness, no law but of self-interest and of self-pleasing in their marriages, and in their quarrels. Many of the alliances made by David were distinctly in the line of political arrangements, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... punctuation. In the original this consists principally of dashes and commas, often quite capriciously distributed. Here also, I have been lax in reducing the text to the requirements of modern standards, and have left much latitude to the reader to arrange it ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... soon the disease has them in its grip. What we see is not the tumultuous ending of the sacred beetle; it is the calm advent of death. With wings slackly quivering, softly they die and drop from the wires. Next day, both corpses are remarkably lax; the segments of the abdomen separate and gape at the least touch. Remove the hairs and you shall see that the skin, which was white, has turned brown and is changing to black. Corruption ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... or their friends, and from every county and town the country over came pleas of service rendered and claims for reward. But Jackson needed little urging. He thought, and rightly, that many of the incumbents had grown lax in the performance of their duties, if indeed they had ever been anything else, and that fresh blood was needed in the government employ. He believed that short terms and rapid rotation made for alertness and efficiency. He felt ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... than of sober hue. Mr. Oswald reports Mr. Justice Byles as having once observed to the late Lord Coleridge whilst at the Bar: 'I always listen with little pleasure to the arguments of counsel whose legs are encased in light gray trousers.' The junior Bar is growing somewhat lax in these matters. Dark gray coats are not unknown, and it was only the other day I observed a barrister duly robed sitting in court in a white waistcoat, apparently oblivious of the fact that whilst thus attired no judge could possibly have ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... inward, and a crooked foot, or, even worse, a crooked leg, is the result if the long hoof be allowed to exert its powerful and abnormally directed leverage for but a few months upon young plastic bones and tender and lax articular ligaments. All colts are not foaled with straight legs, but failure to regulate the length and bearing of the hoof may make a straight leg crooked and a crooked leg worse, just as intelligent ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... a man of commanding presence. He was a great family man and loved his family devotedly. He was not lax, and ruled his ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... but all the flowers are sterile; on the other hand, plants raised from sweet-peas grown near Darjeeling in Upper India, but originally derived from England, can be successfully cultivated on the plains of India; for they flower and seed profusely, and their stems are lax and scandent. In some of the foregoing cases, as Dr. Hooker has remarked to me, the greater success may perhaps be attributed to the seeds having been more fully ripened under a more favourable climate; but this view can hardly be extended ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... to have refused the "Little Giant" on account of his lax morality and after that the coast was clear for Lincoln. Miss Todd's sister tells us that "he was charmed by Mary's wit and fascinated by her quick sagacity, her will, her nature, and culture." "I have happened in the room," she says, "where they were sitting, ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... of the country are interested in canning mountain trout and others live where there is an abundant supply of either fresh-water fish or salt-water fish. Heretofore we have been wasteful and lax about the fish supply. But as we have learned to can vegetables and meats so we are going to learn to can fish. Fish is really canned the same in every step after preparation as ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... of her fancied sufferings. She will weave romances, in order to enjoy the delicious sensation of looking on as she withers under injustice into a premature coffin, and of watching her cruel parents as they water the grave of their victim with unavailing tears. A somewhat lax method of bringing up will have enabled her to read many trashy novels. Out of these she constructs an imaginary hero, all gushing tenderness and a tawny moustache. Having met a young man who fully realises her ideal in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... to be received into the unknown upper world. His fame soon spread from among his fellow-rebels on the benches, and began to reach the ushers and monitors of this great Ayrshire academy. This arose in part from his lax views about religion; for at this time that old war of the creeds and confessors, which is always grumbling from end to end of our poor Scotland, brisked up in these parts into a hot and virulent skirmish; ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a little forward, his eyes were closed, his fingers had fallen lax about his knees, when a sudden cry called him to his feet. It was a strange sound, thin and brief; it fell dead, and silence returned as though it had never been interrupted. He had not recognised the Doctor's voice; but, as there was no one else in all the valley, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... only cause him great annoyance, but even put his life in danger, and accordingly the rascals who engaged in this form of crime ranked as the worst of all and received no mercy when they were caught. If the sheriff of the region was lax, the settlers took the matter into their own hands, enrolled themselves as vigilantes, hunted the thieves down, hanged those whom they captured, and shot at sight those who tried to escape. It happened that the sheriff, in whose jurisdiction Medora lay, allowed so many thieves ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... had stationed an outpost upon the summit of the hill in advance of Lewes, but so lax was discipline in his army that the soldiers, growing tired of the duty, had abandoned the post toward morning, and returned to town, leaving but a single man on watch. He, left alone, had promptly fallen asleep, and thus ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... family; ordinarily, therefore, by sons over their mother and by brothers over their sisters. In this sense the family, once founded, endured unchanged till the male stock of its founder died out; only the bond of connection must of course have become practically more lax from generation to generation, until at length it became impossible to prove the original unity. On this, and on this alone, rested the distinction between family and clan, or, according to the Roman expression, between ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... was complicated by Floyd, President Buchanan's Secretary of War, soon to be forced out of office on a charge of misapplying public funds. Floyd, as an ardent Southerner, was using the last lax days of the Buchanan Government to get the army posts ready for capitulation whenever secession should have become an accomplished fact. He urged on construction, repairs, and armament at Charleston, while refusing ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... pass into benches, chairs that cross the boundary and become settees, dentist's chairs, thrones, opera stalls, seats of all sorts, those miraculous fungoid growths that cumber the floor of the Arts and Crafts exhibition, and you will perceive what a lax bundle in fact is this simple straightforward term. In co-operation with an intelligent joiner I would undertake to defeat any definition of chair or chairishness that you gave me. Chairs just as much as individual organisms, just as much as ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... German policy in the European Orient, inaugurated by Bismarck as a defense and check against Russia, has always been keen on the friendship and good will of the Turk for reasons which will be obvious enough later. During the Caprivi Chancellorship, the relation between the two empires became rather lax. Wilhelm II with his keen farsightedness set about to remedy this. In his usual spectacular, but in most cases efficient, manner, he went with his royal consort in state to Palestine, calling first on the Sultan. The ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... just this respect that many a High School eleven fails to "make really good." In a team where discipline is lax some of the fellows are sure to rebel at spending "all their time training." Where the coach exercises too limited authority, or when he is too "easy," the team's record is sure to suffer in consequence. Many a High School eleven comes out a tail-ender just because the coach is ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... in the colony he found the revenue laws in a very lax condition. Smuggling was connived at by the venal authorities, and the laws, which were so stringent in the letter, were practically null and void. It is said that Marti could land a contraband cargo, at that ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... word to be said by any one with firm reason and unsophisticated conscience in extenuation of this crime. We have only to remember that a great many other persons in that lax time, when the structure of the family was undermined alike in practice and speculation, were guilty of the same crime; that Rousseau, better than they, did not erect his own criminality into a social theory, but was tolerably soon overtaken by a remorse which drove him both to confess ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... 'Go as you please.' I give up the natural man. I admit training. I perceive I am lax and flabby, unguarded, I funk too much, I eat too much, and I drink too much. And, yet, what I have always liked in you, Benham, is just ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... matter out of the priests' hands, and Joash is not afraid to assume a high tone with the culprits, and even with Jehoiada as their official head. He was in some sense responsible for his subordinates, and probably, though his own hands were clean, he may have been too lax in looking after the disposal of the funds. Note that while Joash rebuked the priests, and determined the new arrangements, it was Jehoiada who carried them out and provided the chest for receiving the contributions. The king wills, the high priest executes, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... army was so scattered through the forests, and the discipline of some of the divisions was so lax that it was some days before McClellan had them ranged in order on the Chickahominy. Another week elapsed before he was in a position to undertake fresh operations; but General Johnston had now four divisions on the spot, and he ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... his movements, his gaze fell. Out and down went his right hand, then his left, as his lithe body slid forward. Again he glanced up, paused—and on the instant every muscle of his tense body went suddenly lax. Instead of the closed eyes and sleeping face he had expected, two steady eyes were giving him back look for look. There had not been a motion; the face was yet that of a sleeper; the chest still rose and ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... the axe-handle with its ugly load standing out at an angle, and the two lads stood watching the serpent's head as the jaws parted once or twice and then became motionless, while the folds twisted round the stout ash-handle gradually grew lax and then dropped limply and loosely upon the earth, ending by heaving slightly as a shudder seemed to run from the bleeding ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... of the group, that little creature possessed a power of acting and of self-control which none of the others could equal. At first they were careful to keep as close to the original event as possible; but after a time, thirsting for variety, they became lax, and the grandmothers were found not only by granddaughters, but by daughters, and cousins, and nieces, and nephews; but the play never varied in the points of extreme poverty and woe, because Dolly refused, with invincible determination, to change ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the flowers of the more common species, A. alpina, but less in size; they are also more straggling in the raceme; these two features render it inferior as a flower; the stalks are 3in. to 6in. high. The leaves are arranged in lax flattened rosettes, are 1in. to 3in. long, somewhat spathulate, notched, fleshy, of a very dark green colour, and shining. The habit is dense and spreading, established tufts having a fresh effect. Though an Hungarian species, it can hardly have ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... seemed likely to enjoy the responsibilities of landholding and none of its profits. It suited Dolph's adventurous disposition that he should be deputed to investigate the reason for these rumors, and for three nights he kept his abode in the desolate old manor, emerging after daybreak in a lax and pallid condition, but keeping his own counsel, to the aggravation of the populace, whose ears were burning ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... there is no prevalent sense that there are those present who maintain this attitude of hatred and contempt for sin and everything that breeds or fosters it, the tone, as men say, becomes low, or lax, the air becomes corrupt, and life in such surroundings becomes full of peril. If the good are timid, shrinking, showing no positive fervour, no zeal for virtue, and no moral indignation against evil influence, then the bad in their society will lift up their heads and walk boldly. But ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... were uniformity, what was catastrophe? To him the two or three labored guesses that Sir Charles suggested or borrowed to explain glaciation were proof of nothing, and were quite unsolid as support for so immense a superstructure as geological uniformity. If one were at liberty to be as lax in science as in theology, and to assume unity from the start, one might better say so, as the Church did, and not invite attack by appearing weak in evidence. Naturally a young man, altogether ignorant, could not say this to Sir Charles Lyell or Sir Isaac Newton; ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... importance. There are 16,000 local authorities that have charge of these highways. There is a nominal surveyor to each parish—a surveyor who knows nothing about rates. Such a division of authority makes lax expenditure and bad management. An existing act of parliament authorizes the union of parishes for the management of highways; but the act is permissory—the union must be voluntary; and in very few cases has advantage been taken of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... replied his scandalized sister. "I can't feel that it is right to employ such people in a Christian country. The Americans have such lax notions!" ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... years been notoriously lax in the administration of law, and the enforcement of an unpopular measure was resented equally by the president of a large manufacturing concern and by the former victim of a sweatshop who had started a place of his ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... of American taste with French. The statistics of illegitimacy point in the same direction, though I admit that this is not necessarily a sign of unsophisticated morality. In a word, when an Englishman goes to France he feels that the moral tone in this respect is more lax than in England; when he goes to America he feels that it is more firm. And he will hardly find adequate the French explanation, viz., that there is not less vice but more ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... did say, and do say. My dear Dora, unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never learn to do their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented. Even if we were as lax as we are, in all our arrangements, by choice—which we are not—even if we liked it, and found it agreeable to be so—which we don't—I am persuaded we should have no right to go on in this way. We are positively corrupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can't ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... so much more admired and followed on the continent than he is here. Perhaps a secret charm in the language may have its share in this extraordinary difference. We certainly perceive, and to a degree we feel, in this writer, a style glowing, animated, enthusiastic; at the same time that we find it lax, diffuse, and not in the best taste of composition; all the members of the piece being pretty equally laboured and expanded, without any due selection or subordination of parts. He is generally too much on the stretch, and his manner has little ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... parking area to reclaim his helicopter. Better get back to his district and start setting up those community projects. Too, he would have to run a check inspection or so this evening. See to it his sector men weren't getting lax. ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... incessant scrutiny muffled the serenity of the girl's appearance. Her hands lax in her lap, her blue eyes quietly intent upon the view, she lay back in her chair with as much confident unconcern as she might have shown in an opera box. As a matter of incredulous fact she was ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... from day to day" he says. "When I compare what I have witnessed in my younger days and what I see to-day in my old age, the state is altogether different and we are bearing witness to this and it is hoped we shall be more attentive in future." Though he speaks regretfully of lax or incorrect discipline, he does not complain of the corruption of the faith by Tantrism and magical practices. He does however deprecate in an exceedingly curious passage the ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... it is sufficient that he respects what is respectable in our government and people, and we may fairly allow to him his opinion on sundry noxious and nauseous developments among us which we hope may prove temporary. As to admiring our institutions, he is probably not fascinated by our lax administration of criminal justice, which leaves at large more unpunished criminals, and especially murderers, than are to be found in any other part of the civilized world, save, possibly, some districts of lower Italy and ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... of proofs by early writers, if we except books of reference, and those not without qualification, was evidently very lax and precarious. The entire body of popular literature, the drama included, offers the appearance, when we investigate examples, of having been left to the mercy of the typographers, and the faulty readings ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... the earlier Benedictine monasteries had been an isolated community, independent and self-governing. Consequently, when discipline grew lax or when the abbot proved to be an incapable ruler, it was difficult to correct the evils which arose. In the Cluniac system, however, all the monasteries formed parts of one organization, the "Congregation of Cluny." The abbot of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... prepare its children by a thorough discipline for their inheritance. The way is by free schools and free colleges, supported by public taxes. Sects and parties may have as many seminaries as they choose, and with rules of study and conduct so easily to be complied with, and administrations so lax, that the most contemptible idler or the most independent and self-willed simpleton shall see in them nothing to conflict with his habit or temper; but the graduates of these seminaries will not ascend the pinnacles of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... a state of intoxication, he leaves school hurriedly and betakes himself to an Army-crammer's where discipline is lax and dissipation easy. Here he keeps half-a-dozen fox-terriers, and busies himself about the destruction of domestic cats. Yet, by dint of much forcing on the part of his Coach, he succeeds in passing into Sandhurst, and eventually obtains a commission in a Cavalry Regiment. During this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... of the aneurism; 2. The depth of the parts, and tendency of the intestines to roll into the wound; 3. Specially on the right side, the proximity of the great veins. With these exceptions the passing of the ligature is not so difficult as in some situations, the lax cellular tissue in which the vessel lies generally yielding much more easily than the tough sheath which elsewhere, as in the femoral, ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... condemned for a passage which, to my taste, is the best in the whole piece. Cicero takes upon himself to palliate the pleasures of youth, and we are told that a man so grave, so pure, so excellent in his own life, should not have condescended to utter sentiments so lax in defence of so immoral a young friend. I will endeavor to translate a portion of the passage, and I think that any ladies who may read these pages will agree with me in liking Cicero the better for ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... "reductions," and advises that all the missions should be placed under the supervision of the bishops. The foreign population of Manila still increases beyond the safety-line, and spasmodic efforts are made to restrict it; but corrupt and lax officials render these of little use. The difficulties involved in the Chinese trade and its economic effects on the Spanish colonies are still discussed, but without any satisfactory solution to the problem. The gold mines in northern Luzon ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... uncertainty in the connotation of names can only be free from mischief when guarded by strict precautions. One of the chief sources, indeed, of lax habits of thought, is the custom of using connotative terms without a distinctly ascertained connotation, and with no more precise notion of their meaning than can be loosely collected from observing what objects they are used to denote. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... their talk Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live— Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give; Jews from St. Mary's Ax, for jobs so wary, That for old clothes they'd even ax St. Mary; And bucks with pockets empty as their pate, Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait; Who oft, when we our house lock up, carouse With tippling tipstaves ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Hartigan's eye and made him remark: "It isn't going to be such a walk-over as our fellows think." And the trainer of Red Rover, as he noted the round barrel, clean limbs, and flaring nostrils of the buckskin, had for a moment just a guilty twinge as he recalled how lax he had been in the training after ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... is not so good as his music. Most of the Songs of Adieu are marred by their excessive sentimentality of feeling and by the commonplace character of their weak and lax form. There is nothing that is new and little that is true in verse of ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... was of his own free will that he disregarded the various privileges which lay open to him: others in his place would have frequented the passages, hung about the yards and grown familiar with the tap, where spirits were openly bought and sold. Money could do much in those days of lax discipline, and the man who could pay and could give need have very few wants unsatisfied. But Adam's only desire was to be left undisturbed and alone; and as this entailed no undue amount of trouble after ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... also looked upon Greek philosophy as an invention of the devil. Irenaeus was more discriminating. He opposed the broad and lax charity of the Alexandrines, but he read the Greek philosophy, and when called to the bishopric of Lyons, he set himself to the study of the Gallic Druidism, believing that a special adaptation would be called for in that remote mission ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... the doctors of the Sorbonne, though divided on nearly every other issue, made common cause against the Society. They were assisted in their campaign by Madame de Pompadour, the king's mistress, for whom the Jesuit theology was not sufficiently lax, and by the Duc de Choiseul, the king's prime minister. The well-known Jesuit leanings of Louis XV. and of the royal family generally, imposed a certain measure of restraint upon the enemies of ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... fading away, and allowing the old wonted train of thought to come in again. The bright expression passed from her face; the features settled into a melancholy dulness, most unfit for a child and painful to see; there was a droop of the corners of the mouth, and a lax fall of the eyelids, and a settled gloom in the face, that covered it and changed it like a mask. The very features seemed to grow heavy, in the utter heaviness ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... duty, an arquebusier, who paced slowly up and down whistling the "Rappel d'Aunis," stopping only to exchange some barrack-room badinage with every serving-wench who, as she went out or came in, found a moment or so to spare for him. It was a lax enough watch, and it was clear that guard duty at the wicket was not so dull a matter as one ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... Bacon administered the Chancery. Suitors did there what people did everywhere else; they acknowledged by a present the trouble they gave, or the benefit they gained. It may be that Bacon's known difficulties about money, his expensive ways and love of pomp, his easiness of nature, his lax discipline over his servants, encouraged this profuseness of giving. And Bacon let it be. He asked no questions; he knew that he worked hard and well; he knew that it could go on without affecting his purpose ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... an arbitrary standard for that dignity which Parliament had defined and limited to a legal standard. They gave themselves, under the lax and indeterminate idea of the honor of the crown, a full loose for all manner of dissipation, and all manner of corruption. This arbitrary standard they were not afraid to hold out to both Houses; while an idle and unoperative act of Parliament, estimating the dignity of the crown at 800,000l. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... jewels, fine armor and horses, hawks and hounds—even fine new ships, were bestowed by him, from the wealth of the old merchant Gilbert, as well as from the revenues of his archdeaconry, and of several other benefices, which the lax opinions of his time caused him to think no shame to ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Benjamin, and caused him to value their companionship more highly. The first two were clerks of Charles Brockden, an eminent conveyancer of the town, and the other was a merchant's clerk. Watson was a pious young man of sterling integrity, while the others were more lax in their religious opinions and principles. All were sensible young men, much above the average of this class in intellectual endowments. Osborne and Ralph were imaginative and poetical, and frequently tried their talents ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... theatrical road life with a one-night-stand company would be less brutalizing to the finer sensibilities, and less lowering to the ideals of a young girl, than the method of work required of many newspaper reporters in America to-day. The editor who scores the actress for lax morals seems often to ignore the fact that there is a mental as well as a ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... his holdings in Chicago, and no little immediate distress. Unable and unwilling to sacrifice his investments, he had mortgaged nearly all of his property in Cook County, including the valuable "Grove Property" in South Chicago. Though he was always lax in pecuniary matters, and, with his buoyant generous nature, little disposed to take anxious thought for the morrow, these heavy financial obligations began now to press upon him with grievous weight. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... of the rebels was only a cloak for treason? Would he trust men who had so often betrayed him? He could never expect them to keep their plighted faith in the future, if their great offences in the past were not even acknowledged: a lax government set all turbulent spirits in motion, and led to shipwreck. With this advice, and similar suggestions from the clergy, came the news of fresh commotion. Francis Stuart, who had been made Earl of Bothwell by James, but who after this had given great trouble ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... of Fordun's "Scotichronicon," makes it a reproach to lax prelates that they suffer the common people to vary after their own pleasure the days kept as fast days in honour of Mary. In doing so he recalls that on Saturday, the first Easter Eve, she abode unshakenly in the faith, when the apostles doubted. Good reason, therefore, ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... trusted part of his crew in her, including his mate, Tom Fidget, on whom he could always rely, not that Tom objected to get drunk "at proper times and seasons," as he observed, but duty first and pleasure afterwards was his maxim. His notions of duty were, to be sure, somewhat lax, according to the strict rules of morality, and his only idea of pleasure was a drunken spree on shore when he could leave the craft without risk of her suffering damage either from wind and weather, or the officers of the law. He was a bullet-headed fellow, ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... wages a mechanic, artisan or labourer, or engaged in any menial duty, besides insisting upon the usual restrictions in regard to taking money and competing with professionals. In association football the rules are much more lax, for although amateurs are clearly distinguished from professionals, an amateur may even become a regular member, though unsalaried, of a professional team without losing his amateur status. The Rugby game was, up to 1895, entirely controlled by the Rugby Football Union, which, by the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... John. Well, you couldn't come to a more charming place than this, Miss Worsley, though the house is excessively damp, quite unpardonably damp, and dear Lady Hunstanton is sometimes a little lax about the people she asks down here. [To SIR JOHN.] Jane mixes too much. Lord Illingworth, of course, is a man of high distinction. It is a privilege to meet him. And that member ...
— A Woman of No Importance • Oscar Wilde
... words, "If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I'd take a toddy." The incident was certainly a funny one in itself, but I should not have cared to repeat it had not the official records of Sturgis's defeat by Forrest in the Tishimingo affair later in the year emphasized the mischief of lax habits as to temperance. The judgment of his superiors and of those who knew him well was made severer by the knowledge of his weakness in this respect. Railway officers insist upon absolute sobriety in locomotive engineers; but if there be one employment ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... class, are subject to a terrible danger. Great numbers of mothers actually make their daughters drunkards by ever and again dosing them with brandy. This is done in secret, and imagined to be a most excellent thing. For instance, if the bowels get lax, as is the case in certain stages of disease, brandy is given as a remedy. How little do those who give it know that it is lessening vital energy and making cure impossible! But it is doing nothing else. We have many times over seen the dying sufferer ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... breeds of white men have ever shown such capacity as these two for dealing with inferior races and new countries. Their virtues were courage, energy, alertness, inventiveness, generosity, honesty, truth-speaking; their commonest faults were violence, combativeness, lax ways in business, intemperance, narrowness of mind. They hated foreigners and Indians, and were ready to fight any one who behaved like an enemy or a critic; they held in honor women, their country, and brave men. Shut off ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... prisoners who had not one! The authorities endeavoured to shuffle the responsibility for being without blankets upon the prisoners themselves, unblushingly stating that they had been careless in looking after them, had lost them, or had been so lax as to let them be stolen. If the Ambassador had only gone to the trouble to make a complete and personal canvass he would have probed the matter to the bottom. If a parade with blankets had been called, the German Government ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... room the mockery of the betrothal was gone through, and then the calm Ramabai secretly signified that the hour for escape was at hand; for everywhere, now that the ceremony was done, vigilance would be lax. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... said, "I wish we could hold a special election and put you into the executive chair before your time. Every kind of evil thing is taking advantage of our present lax administration. I believe the crooks of other cities are flying to us on the wings of the wind. One of the plain-clothes men told me to-day that the government detectives have traced a gang of counterfeiters to our beloved city, though they have not succeeded in spotting ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... of the inspector, who on hearing the news, hurriedly walked towards the police station. Here they found that the news was true. The constable left in charge of the office was greatly agitated, as it seemed he had been lax in doing his duty. But ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... half-castes, bearing something on a stretcher, behind which rode three or four carbineers. A coat was thrown over the face of the form on the stretcher, but its legs were visible. They were booted and spurred, and the feet fell apart in that peculiarly lax and helpless way of which there is no possibility of ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... these people, render them desperate, and drive them, if possible, into open rebellion." It had been a vexatious circumstance, too, that not long before this time he had received a rebuke from the Massachusetts Assembly for having been lax, as they fancied, in notifying them of some legislation of an injurious character, which was in preparation. "This censure," he said, "though grievous, does not so much surprise me, as I apprehended all along from the beginning that between the friends of an old agent, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... good, but not wise. He offended the Russian demand for decorum in a czar by riding through the streets on a furious stallion, like a Cossack of the Don. In religion he was lax, favoring secretly the Latin Church. He chose Poles instead of Russians for his secretaries. And he excited general disgust by the announcement that he was about to marry a Polish woman, heretical to the Russian faith. The people were still more incensed by the conduct of Marina, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of New England often made against the English Ecclesiastical Courts: first, that they punished with merciless severity violations of certain ecclesiastical regulations which involved no moral turpitude; second, that they were too lax in the punishment of social sins, Sabbath desecrations, etc., etc. But nowhere among the literary remains of the Puritans do we find any suggestion that the system of morals which was recognized by the Canon Law and administered by the Ecclesiastical Courts ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... pernicious and mercenary system, which has already been carried to such an extent as to endanger the lives and property of every honest and well disposed inhabitant of the colony. This system, so injurious of itself, has been powerfully seconded by the lax and indiscriminate manner in which convict servants have been assigned to the various settlers. Being in most instances freed or emancipated convicts themselves, many of them possess but little character, and in ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... and more sweet than honey or sugar. And it cometh of the dew of heaven that falleth upon the herbs in that country. And it congealeth and becometh all white and sweet. And men put it in medicines for rich men to make the womb lax, and to purge evil blood. For it cleanseth the blood and putteth out melancholy. This land of Job marcheth to the ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... is in your interest, brother, that the majesty of the throne should not be weakened or altered; and if, from Duc d'Orleans, you one day become King of France, I know you well enough to believe that you would never be lax in this matter. Before God, you and I are exactly the same as other creatures that live and breathe; before men we are seemingly extraordinary beings, greater, more refined, more perfect. The day that people, abandoning this respect and veneration which is the support and mainstay of monarchies,—the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... lofty tail In such a stiff right-angled pose? If lax and limp she let it trail 'Twould seem more restful, Goodness knows! When strolling 'neath the chairs or bed, She lets it bump ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... might fit at least the boys to enter fairly armed into that game, more of skill than of chance, in which Fortune is really so little blinded that we see, in each turn of her wheel, wealth and its honours pass away from the lax fingers of ignorance and sloth, to the resolute grasp of labour ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mentality. To these qualities he added what his father sorely lacked—a high notion of honour, a keen sense of right and wrong. He had the honest man's contempt for meanness of any description, and he had little patience with the lax so-called business morals of the day. For him a dishonourable or dishonest action could have no apologist, and he could see no difference between the crime of the hungry wretch who stole a loaf of bread and the coal ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... period, in the northern temperate zone, was of such a character that the true conifers show rings of growth, not larger, nor much less distinct, than those of many of their modern congeners. The Sigillariae and Calamites were not, as often supposed, composed wholly, or even principally, of lax and soft tissues, or necessarily short-lived. The former had, it is true, a very thick inner bark; but their dense woody axis, their thick and nearly imperishable outer bark, and their scanty and rigid foliage, would indicate no very rapid growth or ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... little band that went toward the Alamo, and there were three women and three children in it, but since they knew definitely that Santa Anna and his great army had come there was not a Texan who shrank from his duty. They had been lax in their watch and careless of the future, faults frequent in irregular troops, but in the presence of overwhelming danger they showed not the ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... no doubt that many of the garrisons are very far from being efficient. They have been stationed in the forts for many years. Discipline, both among officers and men, is sure to have become lax, and there will be much that young men, going freshly into the matter, will see needs amendment. That the walls are often weak, and the cannon so old as to be almost useless, I am well aware; for sometimes newly-appointed governors have sent in strong protests, and urgent ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... beautiful in outward circumstance, as old Sophy had described it to the Reverend Doctor. It was that delicious process of the tuning of two souls to each other, string by string, not without little half-pleasing discords now and then when some chord in one or the other proves to be overstrained or over-lax, but always approaching nearer and nearer to harmony, until they become at last as two instruments with a single voice. Something more than a year of this blissful doubled consciousness had passed over him ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... sure-footedness of a mountain sheep. The Mexican following was not so sure or fast. He turned back. Gale heard the trenchant bark of the .405. Ladd was kneeling. He shot again—again. The retreating bandit seemed to run full into an invisible obstacle, then fell lax, inert, lifeless. Rojas sped on unmindful of the spurts of dust about him. Yaqui, high above Ladd, was also firing at the bandit. Then both rifles were emptied. Rojas turned at a high break in the trail. He shook a defiant hand, and his exulting yell pealed faintly to Gale's ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... Dogberry regime as we have it to-day. On the occasion of the Royston fairs, more particularly Ash Wednesday, and I think Michaelmas, a tippler could obtain beer at almost any house around the bottom of the Warren, and even when the supervision became less lax, within the memory of many persons living, the private residents had got so much accustomed to the practice, that they kept it up by a colourable deference to the law which led them to sell a person a piece of straw for the price of a pint of beer and then ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... Asian and Southeast Asian heroin and opium moving to Europe, Africa, and the US; transit stop for Nigerian couriers; concern as money-laundering site due to lax financial regulations ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... this the watch must have been very lax, as Gefhardt soon contrived to open communication with him again, and letters were passed through the window (to which the prisoner had made a false and movable frame) and forwarded to Trenck's rich friends. His appeal was always answered promptly and amply. More valuable than money were two ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... great schism in the church. Voltaire, in the days of Louis the Fourteenth, would probably have been, like most of the literary men of that time, a zealous Jansenist, eminent among the defenders of efficacious grace, a bitter assailant of the lax morality of the Jesuits and the unreasonable decisions of the Sorbonne. If Pascal had entered on his literary career when intelligence was more general, and abuses at the same time more flagrant, when the church was polluted by the Iscariot ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Il Corteggiano, by Castiglione, grew up at the little court of Urbino, and you should read it.' I am glad always to have his opinion of books. At Mr M'Pherson's, he commended Whitby's Commentary, and said, he had heard him called rather lax; but he did not perceive it. He had looked at a novel, called The Man of the World, at Rasay, but thought there was nothing in it. He said to-day, while reading my Journal, 'This will be a great treasure ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... much labour or fatigue, the Pyrenees can hardly be recommended, except perhaps for fishing. There is very good fishing in several of the rivers, but unhappily French conservancy laws are so lax—if indeed they have any at all —that peasants may frequently be seen at the waterside with a rod in one hand and a capacious net in the other, so that if unsuccessful with the first, they will at any rate not come home empty-handed; unless some brother ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough |
