"Weakly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... handsome head to his hands, and covered his face. A while he sat huddled there, she watching him with gleaming, crafty eyes. At length he rallied. He looked up, tossing back the auburn hair from his white brow, still fighting, though weakly, against persuasion. "It is not possible," he, cried. "They could not! ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... in hoarse, tragic tones. "There!" she added, pointing at monstrous black headlines on the page as I weakly took it from her. And then I saw. There before them, divining now the enormity of what had come to pass, I controlled myself to master the ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... five minutes Buckner stole to the shaft, looking worried and uneasy, and peered down into it. He took in the situation; he saw what had happened. He lowered the ladder, and the boy dragged himself weakly up it. He was very white. His appearance added something to Buckner's uncomfortable state, and he said, with a show of regret and sympathy which sat upon him ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with a bumpkin's grin, (A weakly intellect denoting) He'd rather not invest it in A ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... to the floor, and she leaned weakly against a shift scene. The orchestra was beginning over again, and a lone voice from the ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... yo are taking messages to the Parliament folk, yo'll not object to telling 'em what a sore trial it is, this law o' theirs, keeping childer fra' factory work, whether they be weakly or strong. There's our Ben; why, porridge seems to go no way wi' him, he eats so much; and I han gotten no money to send him t' school, as I would like; and there he is, rampaging about the streets a' day, getting hungrier and hungrier, and picking up a' ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... entailed increase of incidental injury to spars and rigging, both their own and those of the enemy. Nor was the armor idea, directly, at all unrecognized even then; for we are told of the Real Felipe in Mathews's action, that, being so weakly built that she could carry only twenty-four-pounders on her lower deck, she had been "fortified in the most extraordinary surprising manner; her sides being lined four or five foot thick everywhere with junk or old cables to ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... nothing. With eyes ever-watchful for sign of a trick or a trap in the apparently deserted laboratory, he quickly unbuckled the bands that held Leithgow to the operating table. Friday lifted the scientist to the floor, where he stretched weakly. ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... scene, and as I lifted the cross before his convulsed features, his breath halted, slowly he lifted his face, when, divining his meaning, I pressed the cross gently upon his trembling lips, and with a sob his head fell weakly upon my breast. It was beautifully done; even the actors were moved. Then he spoke rapidly to his son, who translated to me thus: "How have I missed this 'business' all these years? It is good—we will keep it always—tell ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... once, that they did not exactly persuade Gladishev to go to Anna Markovna, but rather he himself had begged to go, so weakly had he resisted temptation. This evening he always recalled with horror, with aversion; and dimly, just like some heavy dream. With difficulty he recalled, how in the cab, to get up courage, he had drunk rum, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... Standing so weakly that it looked as if he must fall, Noyez submitted to the indignity, silent save for the sobs that choked ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... faded. Weakly mere words convey The ivory white of snowflakes, Decking the hills that day; And the softening yellow tone That fell from the sun ...
— The Last West and Paolo's Virginia • G. B. Warren
... walking first. Thus defiled by fours, with the divers insignia of their grades, in that strange faculty, most of them lame, some cripples, others one-armed, shop clerks, pilgrim, hubins, bootblacks, thimble-riggers, street arabs, beggars, the blear-eyed beggars, thieves, the weakly, vagabonds, merchants, sham soldiers, goldsmiths, passed masters of pickpockets, isolated thieves. A catalogue that would weary Homer. In the centre of the conclave of the passed masters of pickpockets, one had some difficulty in distinguishing the King of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... that, being thoughtful and imaginative, John Appleman decided that he, at least, should drink better liquor than did tipplers in general. He would not be seen a weakly vagrant, buying his jugful at the corner store; neither would he drink raw liquor. He would buy it in quantity and let it age upon his farm, and so with each replenishing of the jug from his private store ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... In weakly dogs exposure alone will produce it. The weather, too, has no doubt much to do with the production of diarrhoea. In most kennels it is more common in the months of July and August, although it often comes on in the very dead of winter. Puppies, ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... from the way the captain's hand reposed in his pocket that his treasure was safely hidden there—that he was dallying with us. Knowing, too, that he could not escape by such means, but was only weakly delaying his fate, I took occasion to whisper in his ear, as I affected ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... unlikely to leave the private side of the house. John heard snatches of song, howls, and cheers. Ordinarily Lawrence (in whose passage the shindy was taking place) would have stopped this hullabaloo; but Lawrence was dining with his house-master, and Trieve, an undersized, weakly stripling, lacked the moral courage to interfere. John was getting a "con" from Trieve when an unusually piercing howl penetrated the ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... suicidal blindness and remorse, pass sentence upon themselves, and weakly deliver their souls into the keeping of that inexorable jailer, Despair, forgetting the possibilities—nay, certainties—of good that ever dwell in God. If man had no better friend than himself, his prospects would be sombre indeed. Many a one has condemned himself ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... cautious tone of this narrative will already have impressed the reader. These are not the words of a heated enthusiast, or a man weakly credulous. We may hesitate to accept his judgment, but may safely accept his testimony, amply corroborated as it is, to facts which he has ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... small brown hand, and kissed it. The feverish tension of his brain relaxed,—and two large tears welled up in his eyes, and rolled down his cheeks. "Poor little girl!" he murmured weakly; "Poor little ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... way," I continued rather weakly, for I did not know whether I was in a dream. "If you offer me a thousand guineas for this box I MUST take it. Mustn't ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... raging weakly: "Oh, you rascals! My father would have known what to do with you! But don't think I can't handle it. Don't think you can hoodwink me." He punched a button ferociously; his silly face was contorted with rage and there was a certain tension ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... with a jerk, as though overcoming his own feelings, and approached the body with evident distaste. His hands, slender as a woman's, were tight-clenched, and his breath came and went in nervous spasms. For a moment he gazed, and then shook his head weakly. ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... flitted or piped. Great gaunt stones stood upright on the hillsides, solitary or in long lines as if they marched, or else they leaned together as if conspiring; while great heaps or cairns of stone rose here and there from the lichen-covered and rocky soil, in which the grass grew weakly in ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... print or traces of them. Otherwise it is impossible that things {110} so great and terrible should excite in us no fear, or that things in their own nature infinitely amiable, should enkindle in us no desire. Slight and faint images of things move our minds very weakly, and affect them very coldly, especially in such matters as are not subject to our senses. We therefore grossly deceive ourselves in not allotting more time to the study of divine truths. It is not enough barely to believe them, and let our thoughts now ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... do as you wish, Niabon," I said, falling weakly into English again. "You are a strange girl, but I am sure that you mean well, not alone to me, but to that poor heartbroken woman. But you must tell me the meaning of all this strange silence on the ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... the Magnolia grandiflora. They thrive all over England, with others almost as beautiful, and as delicate north of the Delaware. Of the laurel tribe, also hardy in England, our Northern States have but a few weakly representatives. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... a cockpit for the new-born Christian nationalities, which had been developed on the north, east, and south. These were using every weapon, material and spiritual, to secure preponderance in its society, and had created chronic disorder which the Ottoman administration now weakly encouraged to save itself trouble, now violently dragooned. Already the powers had not only proposed autonomy for it, but begun to control its police and its finance. This was the last straw. The public opinion which had slowly been forming for thirty years ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... he know it?" continued the doctor. "And what sort of a man is he? Is he a good man?" "No," admitted Samuel weakly. "I am ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... the dale below. Each farmer was allowed by immemorial custom to pasture so many sheep on the moors the number being determined by the acreage of his farm. During the lambing season, in April and May, all the sheep were below in the crofts behind the farmsteads, where the herbage was rich and the weakly ewes could receive special attention; but by the twentieth of May the flocks were ready for the mountain grass, and then it was that Peregrine's year would properly begin. The farmers, with their dogs in attendance, would drive their sheep ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... revulsion of feeling, so great his relief, that he forgot the real cause of his terror, and sank down on the very steps of the altar, weakly exclaiming over and over again: "Only the cat! Only the cat! Great Scott! how ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... with the help of a boulder that lay beside the trail, he got his feet under him and stood for an instant, staggering weakly. Then he began to move forward to his horse. When he managed at last to clutch the saddle skirt he was reeling, his knees bending under him. However, he managed to get one leg over the saddle, taking a long time to do it; and eventually ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... weakly, "I 'll do owt wi' engines, but I'm no good at this game. That thing fairly banged ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... him," said Goethe, "in which he complains that the performance of the oratorio of the Messiah was spoiled for him by one of his female scholars, who sang an aria too weakly and sentimentally. Weakness is a characteristic of our age. My hypothesis is, that it is a consequence of the efforts made in Germany to get rid of the French. Painters, natural philosophers, sculptors, musicians, poets, with but few exceptions, all are weak, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... boys had thrown stones at the mask, aiming at its open mouth; and the blows thereon had chipped off the lips and jaws as if they had been eaten away by disease. The appearance was so ghastly by the weakly lamp-glimmer that she could not bear to look at it—the first unpleasant feature of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... window as she made the response, and began to sing, and Mrs. Lorton looked after her, and listened to the sweet young voice, with a smile on her weakly shrewd face. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... it, Jason," she said weakly, and the little man threw up his hands with a gesture that spoke his hopelessness over her sex in general, and at the same time an ungracious acceptance of the terrible calamity she had perhaps left dangling over his head. He clicked the blade of ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... as their degree. Herbert then stepped at once into a fellowship and sundry other good things of like sort; and Ernest was even now trying to follow in his brother's steps, in this particular. Only the youngest boy, Ronald, still remained quite unprovided for. Ronald was a tall, pale, gentle, weakly, enthusiastic young fellow of nineteen, with so marked a predisposition to lung disease that it had not been thought well to let him run the chance of over-reading himself; and so he had to be content with remaining at home in the uncongenial atmosphere ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... are to us a theme for conjecture only; the narrow jealousy of Augustus would not suffer any honourable mention of one who had fallen under his displeasure; and, to his lasting disgrace, he ordered Virgil to erase his work. The poet weakly consented, and filled up the gap by the story, beautiful, it is true, but singularly inappropriate, of Aristacus and Orpheus and Eurydice. This epic sketch, Alexandrine in form but abounding in touches of the richest native genius, [36] must have revealed ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... distemper was first discovered by the destruction of dogs, and birds, and sheep, and oxen, and among the wild beasts. The unfortunate ploughman wonders that strong oxen fall down at their work, and lie stretched in the middle of the furrow. {And} while the wool-bearing flocks utter weakly bleatings, both their wool falls off spontaneously, and their bodies pine away. The horse, once of high mettle, and of great fame on the course, degenerates for the {purposes of} victory; and, forgetting his ancient honors, he groans at the manger, doomed to perish by an inglorious distemper. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... I spoke to her, and produced no impression. Beginning to feel alarmed, I tried the effect of touching her. With a wild cry, she started into a state of animation. Almost at the same moment, she weakly swayed to and fro as if the pleasant breeze in the garden moved her at its will, like the flowers. I held her up, and ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... was the maiden that I had already wooed and won in fancy. Though she was so near and in the full sunlight, I could detect no cloudiness in her exquisite complexion, nor discover a fault in her rounded form. The slope of her shoulders was grace itself. She did not lean back weakly or languidly, but sat erect, with a quiet, easy poise of vigor and health. Her smile was frank and friendly, and yet not as enchanting as I expected. It was an affair of facial muscles rather than the lighting up of the entire visage. Nor did her full face—now that my confusion had passed ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... and Billie, not knowing just what was expected of her, but wishing to be polite, said, rather weakly: "Yes, ma'am." ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... announced by Jesus—laws boundless as the universe. The very essence of the gospel is the declaration that good is not only better than evil, which we all knew before, but stronger than evil, which we weakly doubt. ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... woman proved to be the possessor of those virtues and social graces which eminently fitted her to conduct the large establishment of which she had been made mistress, he was forgiven his lack of taste. Little more was said of his peculiarities until, his wife having died and his child proved weakly, he made the will in his brother's favor which has since given that gentleman such ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... three ships; the French had eighteen. Numerically Kirke was outclassed, but he knew that the enemy's fleet was composed chiefly of small, weakly armed vessels. Learning that Roquemont was in the vicinity of Gaspe Bay, he steered thither under a favouring west wind. And as the Abigail rounded Gaspe Point the English captain saw the waters in the distance thickly dotted with sail. Dare he attack? Three to eighteen! It was hazarding much; ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... Amabel filled him with uneasiness. Concealing his alarm, however, he urged his steed to a quicker pace, and proceeded briskly on his way, glad, at least, that he had not lost Solomon Eagle's gift to Nizza. Amabel's weakly condition compelled them to rest at frequent intervals, and it was not until evening was drawing in that they descended the steep hill leading to the beautiful village of Henley-upon-Thames, where they proposed to halt ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... it. He was contented and consequently careless. She chafed under the indifference, and in her resentment believed the worst of him. Turmoil succeeded peace and contentment, and in the end, David Cable, driven to distraction, weakly abandoned the domestic battlefield and fled to the Far West, giving up home, good wages, and all for the sake of freedom, such as it was. He ignored her letters and entreaties, but in all those months ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... fallen if Sarah had not caught him. He clung to her for a moment, fighting the dizziness with all the pride of his seventeen years, then giving in sheepishly, let her lead him to the buckboard. Once there he leaned weakly against the wheel, while the two girls, anxious and frightened, yet too considerate of his feelings to show their concern, watched him in speechless sympathy. At last he straightened up and ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... mouth. Nothing emerged. He shut it. A second passed and he opened it again. "Magic?" he said weakly. ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... other; and the news of his marriage—to a woman from the Pacific coast—had actually induced in her certain longings and regrets. When the cards had reached her, New York and the excitement of the life into which she had been weakly, if somewhat unwittingly, drawn had already ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... people ought to have seen that the position they assumed was utterly untenable; that they could not advance with an enemy in the background cutting off all supplies. But some patriotism and some vanity exhilarated them, and, the Pope having weakly yielded, they unwisely began their impossible task. Mamiani, their chief, I esteem a man, under all circumstances, unequal to such a position,—a man of rhetoric merely. But no man could have acted, unless the Pope ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... who interested himself strongly in the subject—though I need not say that, for he could do nothing weakly; "I rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit and gallantry devoting himself to that noble profession! The more spirit there is in it, the better for mankind and the worse for those mercenary task-masters and low tricksters who delight in putting that illustrious art at a disadvantage ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... not of me, that weakly I declined The labours of my sires, and fled the sea, The towers we founded, and the lamps we lit, To play at home with paper like a child; But rather say: In the afternoon of time A strenuous family ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... Mrs MacStinger, as a woman and a mother, were outraged by the look of pity for Alexander which she observed on Florence's face. Therefore, Mrs MacStinger asserting those finest emotions of our nature, in preference to weakly gratifying her curiosity, shook and buffeted Alexander both before and during the application of the paving-stone, and took no ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... carrying tomes full of international learning. They sat in a row between the rulers and the people, deep in study, spectacles on nose. The call to war was the signal for a dramatic appeal from the workers to these leaders, who refused to accept the Red Flag, but weakly received patriotic flags from their respective governments. Jaures, elevated to be the symbol of protest, towered above the people, crying in a loud voice, but fell back immediately as the assassin's shot rang out. Then the people divided into their national groups ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... years of his life. "Michelangelo is of a good complexion; more muscular and bony than fat or fleshy in his person: healthy above all things, as well by reason of his natural constitution as of the exercise he takes, and habitual continence in food and sexual indulgence. Nevertheless, he was a weakly child, and has suffered two illnesses in manhood. His countenance always showed a good and wholesome colour. Of stature he is as follows: height middling; broad in the shoulders; the rest of the body somewhat slender in proportion. The shape of his face ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... and cold, like the thrust of a knife, it struck Rudolph that he had heard the voice of this first victim,—the peevish voice which cried so weakly for a little silence, at early daylight, that very morning. A little silence: and ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... going on, as if after the all the will of Heaven may be made amenable to human energy. It is only when an inveterate gambler or votary of the opium-pipe has seen his last chance of solace in this life cut away from under him, and feels himself utterly unable any longer to stem the current, that he weakly yields to the force of his destiny, and borrows a stout rope from a neighbour, or wanders out at night to the brink of some deep pool never ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... watching the Bandarlog at play in the forest. As you behold them and comprehend their natures, now hugely brave and boastful, now full of dread, the most weakly emotional of any intelligent species, ever trying to attract the notice of some greater animal, not happy indeed unless noticed,—is it not plain they are bound to invent things called gods? Don't think for the moment of whether there are gods or not; think of how sure ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... with 14, both of which we return'd. Soon after this the Sea breeze set in at North by West, which obliged us to Anchor just without the Ships in the Road. The number of Sick on board at this time amounts to 40 or upwards, and the rest of the Ship's Company are in a weakly condition, having been every one sick except the Sailmaker, an old Man about 70 or 80 years of age; and what is still more extraordinary in this man is his being generally more or less drunk every day. But notwithstanding this general sickness, ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... case, and his victory brought him into such prominent notice that he was soon engaged to write pleadings for litigants in the courts. He devoted himself to incessant study and practice in oratory, and, overcoming by various means a weakly body and an impediment in his speech, he became the chief of orators. Of his public life we have already seen something in the history of Athens. With all his moral and intellectual force, the closing years of his life were shaded ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... orderly, but as in other forms of life the contents of certain capsules seem to start into being with a more vigorous initial impulse than others, and these mature the more speedily. A sturdy infant may be screwing its way out of its cradle, while in a weakly and degenerate brother alongside the thrills of life may be ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... first time. She told him on this occasion that every woman must prefer the society of the North to that of the South, whatever she might say. "If she denies it, she is set down in my mind as insincere and weakly prejudiced." But, like a fond and loyal wife, she wrote, "Where you are, there is my country, and in you are ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... pronounced as Mr. Cox appeared at the foot of the stairs. Amidon passed on, now fully aware of having committed a faux pas. Looking back, he saw Miss Scarlett leaning against a newel-post as if in agitation; saw Mr. Cox come up and lead her down; and as she disappeared, leaning weakly on her escort's arm, the mop of rumpled hair faded from his sight like a receding fire-ship. Who could she be? Suddenly Alvord's whispered caution flashed on his mind, and he knew that he had encountered, embraced and repudiated ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... too much tenderness, gave his adversaries opportunity to imprison and put him to death their own way.' And that great leader, Demosthenes, after his rout in Sicily, did the same; and C. Fimbria, having struck himself too weakly, entreated his servant to despatch him. On the contrary, Ostorius, who could not make use of his own arm, disdained to employ that of his servant to any other use but only to hold the poniard straight and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... quite disobedience?" pondered Winifred weakly. "I must look in the Bible to find all I ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... grief to me was the weakly condition of my two children, who I knew could never attain mature age. And knowing they were doomed, I think I ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... vain, for Alderman Van Beverout has weakly believed the sex and condition of his ward would protect her from ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... The cause of this is to be found (as no one knows better than the Begging-Letter Writer, for it is a part of his speculation) in the aversion people feel to exhibit themselves as having been imposed upon, or as having weakly gratified their consciences with a lazy, flimsy substitute for the noblest of all virtues. There is a man at large, at the moment when this paper is preparing for the press (on the 29th of April, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... to this that on the coasts of Africa, where frost is unknown, the fertility of the soil is almost beyond our conceptions of it. In respect to the general salubrity of frosty seasons the bills of mortality are an evidence in the negative, as in long frosts many weakly and old people perish from debility occasioned by the cold, and many classes of birds and other wild animals are benumbed by the cold or destroyed by the consequent scarcity of food, and many tender vegetables perish from the degree ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... were approached, but not landed upon; and passed without waiting to examine their extent and connection with those that might exist at no great distance. If others were landed upon, the visits were, in general, so transient, that it was scarcely possible to build upon a foundation so weakly laid, any information that could even gratify idle curiosity, much less satisfy philosophical enquiry, or contribute greatly to the safety, or to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... bit of his duty, a part of the day's work, the beginning of regeneration, the keeping of a promise. He was sorry for the man. But he was not forgetting his promise. Brayley was swaying to his feet, his two big hands lifted loosely, weakly, before him. Through their inefficient guard Conniston struck once more, the last blow, swinging from the shoulder. And Brayley went down heavily, like a falling timber, and ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... the dickey. The first was taken immediately by a farmer, the second—-to my unspeakable disgust and terror—was secured by the inevitable Bow Street runner; who, as soon as h e was up, helped the weakly Screw into the third place, by his side. They were going to Crickgelly; not ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... frightened our forefathers a little more than a century ago, when the Corsican terrorized Europe. But our rumour-mongers are too far out of date for this age. It is unfortunate that the advocates of militarism should receive parliamentary support of any kind. The Opposition is weakly and insignificant enough in all conscience, without courting further unpopularity by floating British public feeling in this way, and encouraging the cranks among its following to bring ridicule upon ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... state of mind is always in proportion with the violence of the feeling. Two creatures who love one another weakly feel nothing similar. The effect of this crisis can even be compared with that which is produced by the glow of a clear sky. Nature, at the first view, appears to be covered with a gauze veil, the azure of the firmament seems black, the intensity of light is ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... operatively: nay, to say the simple truth, it was through the very opposite agency that the monastic institutions came to ruin: it was because Popery, that supreme control to which these monasteries had been confided, shrank from its responsibilities—weakly, lazily, or even perfidiously, abandoned that supervisorship in default of which neither right of inspection, nor duty of inspection, nor power of inspection, was found to be lodged in any quarter—there it was, precisely in that dereliction ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... little Jimmie Clayton. He threw back his coat for Thornton to see. There upon the side was the stain of blood hardly dry upon the shirt. His eyes were hollow, sunken, fever-filled, his cheeks unthinkably drawn, yellow-white and sickly, the hand which fell back weakly from the exertion of opening his coat showed the bones thrust up as though ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... morning, it all subsided. When they got up and looked out of window, the bare willows with their weakly drooping branches were standing perfectly motionless; it was dull and still, as though nature now were ashamed of its orgy, of its mad nights, and the license it had given to its passions. The horses, harnessed tandem, had been waiting at the front door since five o'clock in the morning. When it ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... artillery, and of the castles dell' Uovo, Sant' Elmo, and Pizzofalcone, positions which placed it in the power of the Spaniards to turn Naples into a heap of ruins if they made use of the artillery. But the Duke of Arcos wished to spare the town as long as possible, and the castles were weakly garrisoned, and still less stocked ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... turned and led the way to my room, I was conscious of curiously mingled emotions. Relief at the elimination of the special bottle with its inevitable consequences and resentment that Dicky should so weakly obey the dictum of another woman, battled with each other. But stronger than either was a dawning wonder. From the conversation I had overheard in the theatre dressing-room and trifling things in Mrs. Underwood's own conduct, I had been led to believe that ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... realize more and more clearly that while India dreams or wrestles weakly in its sleep, while Europe is still hopelessly and foolishly given over to militant monarchies, racial vanities, delirious religious feuds and an altogether imbecile fumbling with loaded guns, China, even more than America, develops steadily into ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... Suddenly, above the soothing monotone of the vessel's motion, there was a sharp steam-whistle. Christine gave a little smothered cry, and the next instant burst into tears. It was too much for her over-strung nerves. At the same moment the baby waked and began to cry weakly. The sound recalled her to herself and she took the little creature in her arms and rocked and hushed it, at the same time fighting with her own sobs, brushing away her tears with a fold of the baby's dress and trying to speak to it soothingly. But she was utterly unnerved, and ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... officer came to receive his message to the Emperor St. George was able to laugh—rather weakly this time—and say he had no message for the Emperor, except that he had better stop murdering Christians, and beg God's mercy before it was ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... two guards. Rather he was dragged between them, his feet trailing weakly and aimlessly behind him, his whole body sinking with flabby terror. The stern lip of ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... playing jokes on the twins," said Aunt Grace weakly. "It takes the whole family to square up. It's ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... velvet bonnet and cloth cloak, with a long boa and muff large enough to stow a prize baby in; for Mrs. Hackit regulated her costume by the calendar, and brought out her furs on the first of November; whatever might be the temperature. She was not a woman weakly to accommodate herself to shilly-shally proceedings. If the season didn't know what it ought to do, Mrs. Hackit did. In her best days, it was always sharp weather at 'Gunpowder Plot', and she didn't like ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... himself erect with the dignity of one who must bear great sorrows with his people. The mistress called to him weakly: ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... obstinate, but that I feared I had causes for self-reproach. Since then I have been a wanderer, a self-made exile. My boyhood had been ambitious,—all ambition ceased. Flames, when they reach the core of the heart, spread, and leave all in ashes. Let me be brief: I did not mean thus weakly to complain,—I to whom Heaven has given so many blessings! I felt, as it were, separated from the common objects and joys of men. I grew startled to see how, year by year, wayward humours possessed me. I resolved again to attach ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... forgive the having been so entirely deceived where he had so fully trusted; and there was no shaking his opinion that Dolores was essentially deceitful and devoid of feeling and that the few demonstrations of emotion that were brought before him were only put on to excite the compassion of her weakly, good-natured aunt, so he only answered, 'You always were a ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chin and turned her face upward; and Theodora as she looked into the merry eyes above her, weakly gave her consent. It was not easy to face a domestic crisis; it was still less easy to face Cicely when her dimples were coming and going and her eyes as full of fun as they ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... connected with that piece of plate, in the shape of a spring which converted what was a seven-branched candlestick, three springs on each side and one in the middle, into a sort of wheel-spoke candelabrum. He found the spring, pressed it, and laughed weakly. He rose from his chair and inspected a picture on the wall, then moved on to another picture, the mess watching him without a word. When he came to the mantelpiece he shook his head and seemed distressed. A piece of plate representing a mounted hussar in full uniform caught ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... silly!" she murmured, laughing weakly. "Where's your sense of humour? Can't you see I'm not going to die? But I'm going to be Mrs. Nat V. West all the same. Now, is that quite understood, I wonder? Because I don't want to cry any ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... day, a little shoot of Honeysuckle was putting forth its tendrils low down on the ground at the foot of a quickset hedge. As yet it was but a weakly sprig, not knowing its own strength, nor even dreaming that it would ever rise far above the earth. Yet still it was very contented, drawing happiness from its lowly surroundings, happy in living, and feeling the warm sunshine ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... of what we might have achieved, because we lack the essentials of achievement; Faith and Faith's vision. Obsessed, after centuries of discussion and persecution, with the notion that faith is made up of mere belief, we have lost the secret of that victorious power that overcomes the world, and are weakly dependent upon the world's means for what spiritual operation we undertake. And so content have we grown with things as they are, that what they might be comes only as a dream that passes away quickly with the night; blind to ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... said Bessie, pricked in her pride and conscience lest she should seem to be weakly complaining now—"of course we had treats sometimes. On madame's birthday we had a glass of white wine at dinner, which was roast veal and pancakes. And on our own birthdays we might have galette with sugar, if we liked to give ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... things between which she must choose at once,—either to go to London, or not to go to London. She had money enough for her fare, and perhaps a few shillings over. In a dim way she did understand that the choice was between going to the devil at once,—and not going quite at once; and then, weakly, wistfully, with uncertain step, almost without an operation of her mind, she did not take the turn which, from the end of Trotter's Buildings, would have brought her to the Railway Station, but did take ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... what you have saved me from," said the lady, leaning weakly against the balustrade. A feeling of faintness had come over her in the reaction from ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... "Awfully nice," he agreed weakly. He felt as though he were making arrangements for his own funeral. Train leaves Waterloo 3.27. No flowers...Mary was gone. No, he was blowed if he'd let himself be hurried down to the Necropolis like this. He was blowed. The sight of Mr. Scogan looking out, with a hungry expression, from the ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... weakly, fearing that the blessed presence that had hovered over him was but a figment of ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... rang sharply through the air, there was a sound of excited voices, the children came running toward her with the baby's white-faced mother in advance; and Tabitha, dropping weakly to the ground, burst into wild, hysterical sobs. With his smoking pistol still covering the shattered reptile, Dr. Vane, almost as white as the frantic mother, gathered the trembling girl in his arms and tried to soothe ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... ridden out the gale, for all that human art could do to make her safe and strong had been done without regard to expense. No niggardly owners had built her of poor and insufficient material, or sent her to sea weakly manned and with incompetent officers. The ship was heavily manned; eighteen or twenty men would have been deemed a sufficient crew to work her; and though her force consisted of boys, they would average more than two thirds of the muscle and ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... that m was weakly sounded at the end of words is shown by the elision of a final m before an initial vowel in poetry (synaloepha); by the fact that in the early inscriptions it is often omitted in writing; and by the positive statements ...
— Latin Pronunciation - A Short Exposition of the Roman Method • Harry Thurston Peck
... Cheyenne, he went weakly back to the Green. At the steps Tough McCarty sprang up and advanced ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... his way to school, had seen her toddle across the sidewalk in front of him? Could he ever forget how she had reached with great effort into a snowbank, had dug out with her small, red-mittened hands a chunk of snow, and, lifting it high above her head, had thrown it weakly at him with such force that she had fallen headlong upon the sidewalk? He had seen her every ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... face quite clearly exhibited his true feeling. Yet there was that about her constrained manner which held him to respectful silence, so that for a moment the hesitation between them grew almost painful. Miss Norvell, realizing this new danger, struggled weakly against sudden temptation to throw herself unreservedly upon the mercy of this new friend, confide wholly in him, accept his proffered aid, and flee from possible coming trouble. But pride proved even stronger than fear, and her ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... himself, an operation that seemed to fluff about fifty per cent. of the moist aspect from his plump little body, and then he deliberately turned and looked into my wide-opened eyes. I promptly gasped and sat down on the barn floor, with my head weakly ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... orders after breakfast (tepid chicory and an omelette like a fragment of scorched blanket) with her head wrapped up in a towel. Thus habited she had the effrontery to trust the meal had been to my liking. I gave myself away at once by weakly ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... selfishly kept this discovery from the knowledge of the camp. Yet this weakness awakened no animosity in his companions, and it is probable that the indifference of the camp to his fate in this final catastrophe came purely from a simple forgetfulness of one who at that supreme moment was weakly incapable. ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... she has a pianoforte?" interposed Lady Adelheid. "Aye, to be sure," continued the old man; "it comed straight from Dresden; a"—("Oh, that's fine!" interrupted the Baroness)—"a beautiful instrument," went on the old man, "but a little weakly; for not long ago, when the organist began to play on it the hymn 'In all Thy works,'[5] he broke it all to pieces, so that"—("Good gracious!" exclaimed both the Baroness and Lady Adelheid)—"so that," went on the old man again, "it had to be taken ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... maintain the latter. It is quite possible that the spirit of sacrifice may be exhibited in the maintenance, against temptation, of a man's own higher interests, and the spirit of self-indulgence in weakly yielding to a perverted sympathy or an exaggerated regard for the ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... This is the unexplained moral paradox in the career of a man of chivalrous honour and strict probity: but the fault did not prevent Scott from writing his novels and poems. Why, then, should the few bare records of Shakspere's monetary transactions make HIS authorship impossible? The objection seems weakly sentimental. ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... other; that she shook the saltcellar out in the tablecloth, and let the cat into the pantry half a dozen times; and that when scolded for these sins of omission or commission, she had a fit of crying, and did a little worse than before. Silence was of opinion that Susan was getting to be "weakly and naarvy," and actually concocted an unmerciful pitcher of wormwood and boneset, which she said was to keep off the "shaking weakness" that was coming over her. In vain poor Susan protested that she was well enough; Miss Silence ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... left her for a long time—minutes, perhaps, or hours. But at last she was very tired and very cold, so tired that she threw herself weakly on the bed, in her dressing-gown, because she couldn't sit up. All through the rest of the dark hours she lay shivering, and did not even trouble to roll herself in the warm down coverlet spread ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the son of the King of Bohemia, was but seventeen years of age, and a puny, weakly child, he was hurriedly married to Margaret, then twenty-two. Margaret, a sanguine, energetic woman, despised her baby husband, and he, very naturally, impotently hated her. She at length fled from him, and escaping from Bohemia, threw herself under the protection of Louis. The ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... much influenced in his favour. Every day he inquired what could be done for her, every evening he took a basket-load of the goods she required from the rue Comtesse d'Artois; and it excited the pity of all beholders to see this weakly young man, panting and sweating under his heavy burden, refusing any reward, and labouring merely for the pleasure of obliging, and from natural kindness of heart! The poor widow, whose spoils he was already coveting, was completely duped. She rejected the advice of her brother-in-law, and only ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... reached such a pitch that the villagers and their wives sent her presents and assisted her in every way, hoping thereby to get into her good graces, and so escape being practised upon by her infernal arts. As she was now fifty years of age, somewhat weakly, and therefore unable to earn a living, these attentions were by no means unwelcome, and she therefore did nothing to disabuse her neighbours' minds. Their superstition enabled her to live comfortably and without care, and ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... been turned upside down without affecting its expression. His forehead, however, was high and thinly covered with sandy hair. I should have said, as a phrenologist, will feeble; emotional, but not passionate; likely to be an enthusiast or a weakly bigot. ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... the guard and walked down the hall. Strong watched him for a moment, then turned back into his room, closing and locking the door behind him. He faced the young cadet, who grinned back at him weakly. ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... scarcely seen her twice. And yet thus much I may remark. To me she still appears To shun alone the nakedness of vice, Too weakly proud of her imagined virtue. And then I mark the queen. How different, Carlos, Is everything that I behold in her! In native dignity, serene and calm, Wearing a careless cheerfulness—unschooled In all the trained restraints of conduct, far Removed from boldness ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... which I looked at my companion. It was with a sense of familiarity that I recognised his face as that which I had seen flitting across the port-hole of the Sea Queen. He sat back in the chair in which I had placed him and stared weakly about the room. The steam went up from both ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... to stay myself, I staggered weakly after my master. I found him at the door, in talk with the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Bolton has weakly given to unworthy people would now establish his family in a sort of comfort, and relieve Ruth of the excessive toil for which she inherited no adequate physical vigor. A little money would make a prince of Col. Sellers; and a little more would calm the anxiety of Washington Hawkins about ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... simplest of French doggerel and means, freely translated, that while the fat-headed and the weakly foolish do a great deal of jawing when mistreated by the powerful, the sensible man picks himself up and totes himself far from the neighborhood wherein he is unwelcome and never says a word. Of my twenty congressmen but one offered a translation. That was the dead ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... now." She did not look at him as she proceeded, but stood with her face a little turned away and her eyes resting upon the shadow on the mountain. "Theer wur a lass as worked at th' Deepton mines," she said—"a lass as had a weakly brother as worked an' lodged wi' her. Her name wur Jinny, an' she wur quiet and plain-favored. Theer wur other wenches as wur well-lookin', but she wasna; theer wur others as had homes, and she hadna one; theer wur plenty ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with the tardiness of a weakly constitution, and was long in even arriving at a drive in the brougham; for Dr. May had set up a brougham. As long as Hector Ernescliffe's home was at Stoneborough, driving the Doctor had been his privilege, and the old gig had been held together by diligent repairs; ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rich an' we're po', that he's got a right to lay claim to it," muttered William Ming, a weakly obstinate person, to whose character a glass of ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... ever, had Charles Verity experienced purer pleasure, touched a finer level of purpose and of hope than to-day, when thinking of and now when looking upon Damaris. He thankfully appraised her worth, and in spirit bowed before it, not doatingly or weakly but with reasoned conviction. Weighed in the balances she would not be found wanting, such was his firm belief. For himself he accepted this recall to active participation in affairs, active service to the State, with a lofty ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Northampton. When the other Members were sworn, he claimed a right to affirm, which was disallowed on legal grounds. He thereupon proposed to take the oath in the ordinary way; the Tories objected, and the Speaker weakly gave way. The House, on a division, decided that Bradlaugh must neither affirm nor swear. In effect, it decreed that a duly elected Member was not to take his seat. On the 23rd of June, Bradlaugh came to the table of the House, and again claimed his ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... obviously, to the kind and the degree of the artist's prime sensibility, which is the soil out of which his subject springs. The quality and capacity of that soil, its ability to "grow" with due freshness and straightness any vision of life, represents, strongly or weakly, the projected morality. That element is but another name for the more or less close connexion of the subject with some mark made on the intelligence, with some sincere experience. By which, at the same time, of course, one is far from contending that this ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... Rex's worst adventures was his latest; commenced some five or six years ago (1708), and now not far from terminating. He was a Widower, of weakly constitution, towards fifty: his beautiful ingenious "Serena," with all her Theologies, pinch-of-snuff Coronations and other earthly troubles, was dead; and the task of continuing the Hohenzollern progeny, given over to Friedrich ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... from the lounge and up the ladder, almost slamming into Nicko as he gained the companionway. Nicko's scales were a sickly, pale green. He tottered weakly on his stumpy legs using all four of his arms to support himself ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... bent, No minute but it came and went; That, ready her last debt to pay, She summ'd her life up every day; Modest as morn, as mid-day bright, Gentle as evening, cool as night: —'Tis true; but all too weakly said. 'Twas more ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... one time, in Wales, that the Fairies exchanged their own weakly or deformed offspring for the strong children of mortals. The child supposed to have been left by the Fairies in the cradle, or elsewhere, was commonly called a changeling. This faith was not confined to Wales; it was as common in Ireland, Scotland, ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... supporting her! A steady hand that took the flowers away! Trevor at last! She turned and clung to him weakly, crying like a frightened child. Her knees would not support her any longer, they doubled under her weight. But he lifted her without effort, almost as if she had been a child indeed, and carried ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... from his sinful thoughts, and all the world will soften towards him, and be ready to help him; let him put away his weakly and sickly thoughts, and lo, opportunities will spring up on every hand to aid his strong resolves; let him encourage good thoughts, and no hard fate shall bind him down to wretchedness and shame. The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... passion for petits chevaux. I speak sagely of the evils of gambling. She laughs. I weakly take lower ground. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke |
