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Rapid   /rˈæpəd/  /rˈæpɪd/   Listen
Rapid

adjective
1.
Done or occurring in a brief period of time.
2.
Characterized by speed; moving with or capable of moving with high speed.  Synonym: speedy.  "A speedy car" , "A speedy errand boy"



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"Rapid" Quotes from Famous Books



... had its measure of good breeding. My coming was the choicest news that Dever had had to give out for many a day, and the circulation was amazing in its rapid transit. I had a host of friends here where I had grown to manhood, and the first impulse was to take Cliff Street by storm. It was Cam ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... of the French commander's order, for there was a possibility, should the French and Americans advance too close, of their being set upon by overwhelming numbers from the German trenches, or of their being caught by batteries of rapid-firers, which most likely ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes

... Smith, with a division of troops, came out of Mason, attacked this brigade (Walcutt's) in position, and was handsomely repulsed and driven back into Mason. This brigade was in part armed with Spencer repeating-rifles, and its fire was so rapid that General Smith insists to this day that he encountered a whole division; but he is mistaken; he was beaten by one brigade (Walcutt's), and made no further effort to molest our operations from that direction. General Walcutt was wounded in ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... the man, bowing and pocketing the money. After which he went out. Scarcely had the door closed after him when Fouquet, who had remained motionless, advanced with a rapid step and stood between the abbe and Gourville. Both of them at the same time opened their mouths to speak to him. "No excuses," said he, "no recriminations against anybody. If I had not been a false friend I should not have confided to ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... would be "back the very minute Mrs. Pendleton was through with her." A few minutes later, Belinda, still seated by the window, saw the shrunken figure ascend the area steps and cross the dusty street with a rapid and buoyant step, as though she, also, plain, overworked and penniless, was feeling the delicious restlessness of the spring in her blood. "I wonder what on earth she's got to make her skip like that," thought Belinda not without bitterness. "I reckon she thinks ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... or five months, I found my health so much improved, and gained strength so fast, that I began to think walking might be substituted. About this time, my nice little pony died, and we commenced a regular system of exercise on foot, walking at a rapid pace, far over the hills beyond the town, before the sun was up, every morning. We have continued this perseveringly up to the present time; and, during these years, my health has been better than at any time previous, since my arrival in India; and my constitution seems to ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... Although a single rapid glance convinced him that the slide had taken place in an unfrequented part of the mountain, above an inaccessible canon, and reflection assured him his companions could not have reached that distance when it took place, a feverish impulse led him to descend a few rods in the track ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... shaping of all the weapons of a primitive army. Above all, in the domain of politics and government, where once a king or queen, aided by a handful of councillors, was alone practically concerned in the labours of national guidance or legislation; today, owing to the rapid means of intercommunication, printing, and the consequent diffusion of political and social information throughout a territory, it has become possible, for the first time, for all adults in a large community to ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... rapid spread of the Grangers' association in the West, and its avowed design to make war upon the railway interest with a view of securing cheap transportation to the seaboard, was another disturbing element, undermining confidence in railway property. But the greatest and the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... ten minutes two launches loaded with regulars and armed with a rapid-fire gun in each, steamed ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler

... This rapid progress continued but a few minutes, when he sunk into a walk—one of long strides, such as would have compelled the boy to a moderate run to equal. He could tell that he was going up quite an ascent, but toward ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... argument and a conversation, but they were at that moment overtaken by the neighbouring farmer's wife, who wanted to give Miss Prescott some information about a setting of eggs, which she did at some length, and with a rapid utterance of dialect that amused, while it puzzled, Magdalen, and her inquiries and comments were decided to be "thoroughly good-wife" by all save Thekla, who hailed the possible ownership of a hen and chicken as almost equal ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... the points included in the above analysis. Gradually a few errors slip in, which are found especially in the Egyptian, versions and in the works of some Alexandrine and Palestinian Fathers. But in time a wider breach is made. The process of corruption becomes more rapid. We reach at last that strange document which, through more or less remote descent, became the parent of the Curetonian Syriac on the one hand and of the Old Latin on the other. These two lines severally branch ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... constitute an area at the best highly respectable, and at the worst squalid. It is useless to enumerate all the churches and chapels that have sprung up here, particularly as there are none of any architectural or historical interest. They have been built from time to time to meet the rapid increase of population in a growing district that will doubtless soon spread over the market-gardens that now reach the river. The principal churches are St. Augustine's, in Lillie Road, of red brick with freestone dressings; and St. Peter's, ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... the sunny humour of the trenches as a really delicious practical joke is the trick of the fuses. We have two kinds of fuse, a slow-burning fuse such as is used for hand-grenades and such-like things, a sort of yard-a-minute fuse, and a rapid fuse that goes a hundred yards a second—for firing mines and so on. The latter is carefully distinguished from the former by a conspicuous red thread. Also, as you know, it is the habit of the enemy and ourselves when the trenches are near enough, to enliven ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... sterlets had melted away to their backbones, and the roasted geese had shrunk into drumsticks and breastplates, and here and there a guest's ears began to redden with more rapid blood, Prince Alexis judged that the time for diversion had arrived. He first filled up the idiot's basin with fragments of all the dishes within his reach,—fish, stewed fruits, goose fat, bread, boiled cabbage, and beer,—the idiot grinning with ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... 190 miles to-day: a good start, but inconvenient in one respect—we have been making for Campbell Island, but early this morning it became evident that our rapid progress would bring us to the Island in the middle of the night, instead of to-morrow, as I had anticipated. The delay of waiting for daylight would not be advisable under the circumstances, so we gave up this item of ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... not what to do. Why? What is the explanation? The question is double: Why the disease? And why no remedy at hand? The answer is the same for both. And the answer is that the so-called sciences of ethics and jurisprudence and economics and politics and government have not kept pace with the rapid progress made in the other great affairs of man; they have lagged behind; it is because of their lagging that the world has come to be in so great distress; and it is because of their lagging that they have not now the needed wisdom to effect ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... Mr. Francis Barold upon her hands, and was endeavoring to do her duty as hostess by both of them. If it had been her intention to captivate these gentlemen, she could not have complained that Mr. Poppleton was wary or difficult game. His first fears allayed, his downward path was smooth, and rapid in proportion. When he had taken his departure with the little silk purse in his keeping, he had carried under his clerical vest a warmed and thrilled heart. It was a heart which, it must be confessed, was of the most inexperienced and susceptible ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... great quadruped was seen springing out from the smoke, and clutching to a thick branch that traversed upward near the nest. Embracing the branch with his paws, he commenced descending stern foremost along the limb; but a more rapid descent was in store for him. Out of the four bullets fired into his body, one at least must have reached a mortal part; for his forearms were seen to relax their hold, his limbs slipped from the bark, and his huge body ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... into the saddle, and started off at a rapid trot, riding eastward. Out of sight of the town, they bore off slightly to the North, for, as Hal said, they did not wish to run right into the German army ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes

... left his corner in the ropes before Young Denny was upon him. The boy lifted and sprang and dropped cat-footed in the middle of the ring, hunched of shoulder and bent of knee to meet the shocking impact. It was bewilderingly rapid—terrifyingly effortless—this explosive, spontaneous answer of every muscle to the call of the brain. Just as before, Sutton feinted and saw his opening and swung. Young Denny knew only one best way to fight; he knew only that ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... spirit of the frontier which is described, and one can by it, perhaps, the better understand why men, and women, too, willingly braved every privation and danger that the westward progress of the star of empire might be the more certain and rapid. A love story, simple and tender, ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... received a message from these Spanish troops who had made a rapid and successful advance into the heart of the town, informing him that they were not far from the market-place, and that they wished to have his permission to push forward, as they already heard the noise of the combats which the Alguazil mayor and Pedro de Alvarado were waging from their respective ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... a state of rapid transition, and it is doubtful whether the position of the three or four Europeans on duty there is one of perfect safety. The natives are so far undoubtedly and absolutely favourable to British influence in preference to Russian, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... the east of St. Quentin are developing in accordance with our wildest dreams, our troops, after their brief respite in the so-called Wotan Line, displaying their ability in a war of rapid movement. The hesitating British are disconcerted by the recrudescence of fluidity on the front. We learn with satisfaction that our Northern divisions are now safely established in the Hindenburg ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various

... name of the big Trimble store I had recognised at once what the man was, and it did not need Kennedy's rapid-fire introduction of Michael Donnelly to tell me that he was a department ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... staple of their food. "Corn is a bulky and perishable commodity," says an historian;[3] "and the large magazines, which are indispensably necessary for the subsistence of civilized troops, are difficult and slow of transport." But, not to say that even their flocks and herds were fitted for rapid movement, like the nimble sheep of Wales and the wild cattle of North Britain, the Tartars could even dispense with these altogether. If straitened for provisions, they ate the chargers which carried them to battle; indeed they seemed ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... Sylvia was struggling for expression. They continued to walk swiftly through the cold, ruddy, sunset air, the hard-frozen road ringing beneath their rapid advance. Sylvia clasped her hands together hard in her muff. She felt that something in her heart was dying, was suffocating for lack of air, and yet that it would die if she brought it to light. She could find no words at all to ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... their frantic eagerness, the fine goose he had brought to lay them so many golden eggs? His fate was like that which may be supposed to have overtaken the first adventurous boatman who rowed from Erie to Ontario. Broad and smooth was the river on which he embarked; rapid and pleasant was his progress; and who was to stay him in his career? Alas for him! the cataract was nigh. He saw, when it was too late, that the tide which wafted him so joyously along was a tide of destruction; and when he endeavoured ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... seven sisters returned; and she who had first welcomed him to their abode, and had ever since retained for Mazin the purest affection, ran with eagerness to inquire after his health. Great was her affliction on beholding him upon his bed, pale, and apparently in a state of rapid decay. After many kind questions, to which he returned no answers, she entreated earnestly, by the vow of brotherly and sisterly adoption which had past between them, that he would inform her of the cause of his unhappy dejection; assuring him that she would use every exertion ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... thief had evidently changed his mind to-night. The girls yawned and dozed and wished they were in bed. Suddenly there was a crashing in the underbrush that made the girls sit up as if an electric shock had passed through them. With a rapid snapping of dry twigs and waving of tall grass the bushes parted and a great St. Bernard puppy dashed up the path to the tents. Seizing a bath towel that hung on a rope he worried it for a moment with his jaws and then made off with it in ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... that this lantern-jawed operator had a swift and sure sending finger, and when the answer came it was, in contrast, labored and ragged. It was as if two men talked, one in rapid and clear-clipped syllables—the other ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... flow from the heart of France to her three seas have each a character of their own. The grey and rapid current of the Rhone, swollen with the melting of the glacier-snows, rolls past the imperishable monuments of ancient Empire, and through the oliveyards and vineyards of Provence, falls into the blue waves of the southern sea. The sandy stream ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... changed channel. Amid the ever-varying dangers of such a river the only safety for steamboats is in a race of pilots so learned and so alert as to have the shifting bars and courses always in their minds. In 1839, when steamboats were the only means of rapid transit in the West, when there were more of them in the harbor of the little town of Saint Louis than to-day when it is a great city, this class of pilots was a large and a very respectable one. Much of their knowledge of ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How

... Perrin, intrusted with the execution of a similar chapel in the same edifice, will undertake the pious task of terminating the work of a friend, with whom he had lived on terms of the closest friendship, cemented by a community of ideas and talent. Orsel was making rapid strides towards a ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... given to the canoe ahead. It was already quite near the point, and a very few strokes of the paddle sufficed to tell him that it must touch before he could possibly overtake it. Just at this moment, too, the wind inopportunely freshened, rendering the drift of the light craft much more rapid than certain. Feeling the impossibility of preventing a contact with the land, the young man wisely determined not to heat himself with unnecessary exertions; but first looking to the priming of his piece, he proceeded slowly and warily towards the point, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... demons than human beings. After being severely beaten over the head, the Negro started to run with the whole gang at his heels. Several revolvers were brought into play and pumped their lead at the refugee. The Negro made rapid progress and took refuge behind the blinds of a little cottage in Rampart Street, but he had been seen, and the mob hauled him from his hiding place and again commenced beating him. There were more this time, some twenty or thirty, all armed with sticks and heavy clubs, and under their incessant ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... great importance to our future production was the effective and rapid manner in which the Congress met the serious problem of the rising cost of living. It was a splendid example of the operation of democratic processes ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... style. How loose and arbitrary Coleridge not infrequently was in face of the laws on that subject which he had himself repeatedly laid down! Could it be believed of a man so quick to feel, so rapid to arrest all phenomena, that in a matter so important as that of style, he should have nothing loftier to record of his own merits, services, reformations, or cautions, than that he has always conscientiously forborne ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... long-bodied short-legged little animal, with a furry tail by which he can suspend himself on the branches of trees, while it assists him to make rapid progress among them. He is fond of hiding himself in the holes of decayed trees, out of which it is no easy matter to smoke him. Being a nocturnal animal he is more generally captured during the day-time, for the bright light of the sun ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston

... is made much more rapid—at all events in the earlier stages—by chucking either the stopper or the bottle and holding the other member in the fingers, or in a wooden vice held in the hands. The finishing touches are ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... an unaccustomed manner, and he was suffering from embarrassment, being at a loss, also, for subjects of conversation. It is, indeed, no easy matter to chat easily with a person, however lovely and beloved, who keeps her face turned the other way, maintains one foot in rapid and continuous motion through an arc seemingly perilous to her equilibrium, and confines her responses, both affirmative ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... unfortunately led him into such low society. Seeing the mild expression of Job's face, and confident in their own prowess, they resolved to amuse themselves at his expense, and to this end drew near to him. Unobserved by their intended victim, with a rapid motion they endeavoured to push him head foremost into the river, Master Puppy having dexterously seized hold of his tail to make the somersault more complete. Job, although thus unexpectedly set upon from behind, was enabled, by the exertion of great strength, to defeat ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes

... so important to the enemy that Mr. Davis, the head of the rebellious faction in the South, visited his army near Palmetto, and commanded it to regain the place and also to ruin and destroy us, by a series of measures which he thought would be effectual. That army, by a rapid march, gained our railroad near Big Shanty, and afterward about Dalton. We pursued it, but it moved so rapidly that we could not overtake it, and General Hood led his army successfully far over toward Mississippi, in hope to decoy us ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... holding our tongues and exciting as little curiosity as possible among the inhabitants. Once again, as before Vimy, but to even a greater extent, we felt the electric thrill which kindles the imagination of an army going into battle. The rapid move which the Canadian Corps now made was the most sporting thing we ever did, and it appealed strongly to the hearts of young men who were keen on games and had been inured to a hardy life in Canada. Swiftly and secretly the battalions entrained ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... cripples to patch themselves up as best they could, Captain Laine set sail with his frigate and gave me orders to follow. We reached Sacrificios, the nearest anchorage to Vera Cruz, after a rapid passage. Here we learnt that the captain of the Medee, M. Leray, had been sent on a mission to Mexico. Then the admiral himself went off to Xalapa, to confer with the Mexican ministers. Meanwhile the blockade went on, enlivened by privations of every kind, short rations ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... earliest cases submitted to me, and it is everything in the career of a physician when good luck wins betimes for him that confidence which patients rarely accord except to lengthened experience. To the rapid facility with which my way was made, some circumstances apart from professional skill probably contributed. I was saved from the suspicion of a medical adventurer by the accidents of birth and fortune. I belonged to an ancient family (a branch ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... her breast, Natasha rocked him a little, handed him to the nurse, and went with rapid steps toward the door. But at the door she stopped as if her conscience reproached her for having in her joy left the child too soon, and she glanced round. The nurse with raised elbows was lifting the infant over ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... complete units are included not only for intensive study, but also for extensive reading—longer units, of the so-called "paper classics" type, to be read mainly for the story-element. In bulk such units should be as large as the pupil can control readily in rapid silent reading, a kind of reading that increases the power to enjoy with intelligence a magazine ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... rapid feet o'er hills, and plains, and rocks, Speed the scared leveret and rapacious fox; On rapid pinions cleave the fields above The hawk descending, and escaping dove; With nicer nostril track the tainted ground The hungry vulture, and the prowling hound; Converge reflected light with nicer ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... the current of (the tirtha known by the name of) Vasishthapavaha so rapid? For what reason did the foremost of rivers bear away Vasishtha? What, O lord, was the cause of the dispute between Vasishtha and Vishvamitra? Questioned by me, O thou of great wisdom, tell me all this! I am ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... neared the seraglio, he turned off to his right and passed through a maze of little-used passages until he halted before what was apparently a blank wall. Casting a rapid glance around to ensure himself that there was no one in sight, he touched a hidden catch and a portion of the wall swung inward, opening a way before him. He entered a passage built in the thickness of the wall and lighted with radium ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... mysterious friend. But it was not without feelings of intense anguish that he turned away from the path leading to the little secluded cottage containing all he held dear, and followed his conductor, who seemed resolved to allow him no time for further hesitation, but proceeding at a rapid pace towards the west till he reached Broad Saint Giles's—then a rural village—and entered a small tavern, bearing the sign of "The Rose and Crown," the landlord of which appeared to have an understanding with the promoter, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... he had been very abrupt,—so abrupt as to have caused infinite dismay. But then it had been necessary that he should be abrupt in order that he might get the matter understood. The ordinary approaches were not open to him, and unless he had taken a more than usually rapid advantage of the occasion which he had made for himself, he would have had to leave the house without having been able to give any of its inmates the least idea of his purpose. And then,—as he said to himself,—matrimony is honest. He was in all worldly ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... whistle ended the boy's sentence, as he glanced quickly in Susan's face. The flushed cheeks told eloquently that she also had made a discovery; and the rapid strides of the "native" showed that he was likewise ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne

... pronounced by the physicians to be a rapid decline. Dr. Henry Vaughan, who to medical skill unites the most exalted philanthropy, prescribed, as a last resource, a journey to Bristol Wells. A desire once again to behold her native scenes induced Mrs. Robinson eagerly to accede to this proposal. She wept ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... accordance with the playbill. At first I tried to keep some idea of distance and direction, but I soon got confused and had to give it up. I could only conjecture that the course was a long one, for I heard a clock striking nine just as the cab stopped, and our pace had been a rapid one. ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... the doorway, stunned by the rapid and extraordinary turn of events. Eagen turned on Mallory with ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... lungs and a strong voice are indispensable: strong rather than agreeable—let him even scream or squeak, as some of his brethren do, but scream or squeak with power. His mental qualifications are—keen and rapid perception, sound judgment, power of concentration, and that imagination which paints in words. Of these, the first is the cornerstone of the mental character of the advocate. Of the moral qualities, courage and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... an enormous palette in one hand and a brush in the other, he has a way of planting himself in front of his sitter that is amusingly suggestive of a duel. His lithe body sways to and fro, his fine leonine face quivers with the intense study of his model; then with a sudden spring forward, a few rapid touches are dashed on the canvas (like home strokes in the enemy’s weakest spot) with a precision of hand acquired only ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... hand and for a moment held it in both her own. She would have liked to express all her admiration to that strange man, who seemed to do good as a sort of game and who did it with something like genius. But she was unable to speak. All these rapid incidents had upset her. Emotion constricted her throat and brought ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... established Government. Signs were not wanting that this was the aim of the new Radical Clubs. Thus the delegates of the United Constitutional Societies who met at Norwich drew up on 24th March 1792 resolutions expressing satisfaction at the rapid growth of those bodies, already numbering some hundreds, "which by delegates preserve a mutual intercourse." ... "To Mr. Thomas Paine our thanks are specially due for his first and second parts of the 'Rights of Man'; and we sincerely wish that he may live to see his labours crowned ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... The rapid progress of events, and the Prussian declaration of war, had taken Hanover by surprise. Her army was not yet mobilized; Austria had evacuated Holstein, or she could have looked to her for support. To attempt to defend the capital was hopeless; so King ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... on the 12th of June, exactly one week after he left Barbadoes. There he received all the information that has just been mentioned as to the enemy's movements. A rapid decision was necessary, if he might hope yet to overtake his fortune, and to baffle finally the objects of the allies, whatever they might be. "I must be satisfied they have bent their course for Europe before I push after them, which ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... Polly hurried on rapid feet. It was half-past three by the big central clock as she went down the main aisle—well, she must hurry home, for Alexia was probably on her way there, as Miss Rhys had said, when, "Dear me, Polly Pepper, wait!" ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... they saw. The vivid story puts it all in two words,—'the calf and the dancing.' There in the midst, perhaps on some pedestal, was the shameful copy of the Egyptian Apis; and whirling round it in mad circles, working themselves into frenzy by rapid motion and frantic shouts, were the people,—men and women, mingled in the licentious dance, who, six short weeks before, had sworn to the Covenant. Their bestial deity in the centre, and they compassing it with wild hymns, were a frightful contradiction of that grey altar and the twelve encircling ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... leaned back on the cushions and looked at them—lean lithe little men with rapid eyes and supple bodies and great repose. They gave him the same sense of strangeness that he had felt in the presence of the prince and of the woman in the Bitley Reformatory—as if, it whimsically flashed to him, they some way rhymed with a word ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... there are no rapid retreats and rapid advances it seems to be the custom for batteries to be silent for one or two days while the battery commander, by means of observers, aeroplanes, and spies, endeavors to locate an objective. The point ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... end of it. The texts on the other walls seemed emanations from him; and the man in the short loose, collarless red coat, with "Salvation Army" in crooked black letters on it, who stood talking in high, rapid tones with his hands folded, had the look of a puppet whose strings were pulled by the personality in the frame above him. It was only by degrees that they observed the other objects in the room—the big drum on the floor ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... doctor, "the cause lies in a form of rapid blood-poisoning; it degenerates with terrific rapidity. I hope to act on the blood; I am having it analyzed; and I am now going home to ascertain the result of the labors of my friend Professor Duval, the famous chemist, with a view to trying one of those desperate measures ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... when the first beast went into captivity, yet its rise was still indefinitely in the past. But when he says, "I beheld another beast coming up" it proves that when he turned his eyes from the captivity of the first beast, he saw another power right then in the process of rapid development among the nations of the earth. So, then, about the year 1798, the star of that power which is symbolized by the two-horned beast must be seen rising to the zenith of its glory. In view of these considerations, it is useless to speak of this power ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith

... It seemed to him that now, at last, he was drawn to the very threshold of active warfare only to be compelled to sit silent and gaze upon a scene every detail of which aroused his longing for action. The hurried consultation of officers, the rapid falling in line in the darkness, the clear brisk words of command, the quick mechanical response, the departure of one group after another, the thought of that aviator alighting behind the village, the sight of the great, ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... of the gatherin', an' Peets, spellin' book in hand, swings into the saddle an' in a moment is off at a road gait. The words falls thick an' sharp, like the crackin' of a rifle. Which they shore does thin out them contestants plenty rapid! Boggs goes down before 'Theery,' spellin' it with a extra 'e.' Tutt lasts through three fires, but is sent curlin' like a shot jack-rabbit by 'Epitaph,' which he ends with a 'f.' Texas dies on 'Definite,' bein' misled by what happens ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... give here, however, a rapid sketch of the proceedings that narrowed down the view to that we intend shortly to lay before the reader. As soon as there was leisure, Winchester made a survey of the field of battle. He found many of his own men slain, and more wounded. Of the French on the islet, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... regarded as a chemical age; for so extensive, rapid, and important have been the late acquisitions in the science of chemistry, that we may almost claim it as the exclusive discovery of our own times. The popularity and high estimation in which it is held ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction—Volume 13 - Index to Vol. 13 • Various

... morning then that a report spread through the allied camp, announcing the near approach of the enemy. True enough, the army was distinctly seen, advancing at a rapid pace, the King at its head, mounted on a mule, and surrounded by at least a score of priests mounted on lean asses. And so numerous was the King's army that the very hills around Nezub seemed black with moving figures. Seeing how ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... Lachaume of Havana. Those moisture-loving shrubs, the brilliant rhododendra collected by English nurserymen from our own Alleghanies and returned to us wonderfully improved by civilization, might have been expected also to affect the canal, but they chose, with British taste, the more rapid rail. They had, in fact, no time to lose, for their blooming season was close at hand, and their roots must needs hasten to test the juices of American soil. Japan's miniature garden of miniature plants, interesting far beyond the proportions ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... on the edge of the rock, holding tight by his arm. How pleasant it was to be thus frightened, with such a protector near her to insure her safety! And yet the chasm yawned, and the water ran rapid and was very black. But if he asked her to make the spring, of course she must make it. What would she not have done at ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... the two holes which were formed in the veil so as to permit the enjoyment of the faculty of sight, were gloriously brilliant, yet black as jet. Once, too, when the lady raised her delicate white hand, sparkling with jewels, to arrange the folds of that hated veil, Alessandro caught a rapid, evanescent glimpse of a neck ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... becomes an easily mastered art. Having thus the key of knowledge the subsequent progress of the student is in his own hands, and, to the credit of the afflicted, it must be said it is generally very rapid, one reason for which is that loss of sight shuts off one fruitful source of distraction, and the mind is more easily concentrated. Another reason is that the necessity for education is generally appreciated, and the student ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... silent again. Gradually the Diviner's voice grew clearer, the pace of its words less rapid, but always it sounded mysterious and inward, less like the voice of a man than the distant ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... a soil well adapted to the rapid growth of all the corruptions, which from that time sprang up, in such speedy succession, in different parts of the Christian world. Even those which then existed were, it would seem, not sparingly introduced by St. Gregory. For, by the immediate ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson

... state religion of China, is the native growth of the mind of the nation. Like the Chinese language, the state religion belongs to a very early formation, and presents the symptoms of a development which was rapid at first but ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... lowlands and lagoons of the Rumanian side. Northern Bulgaria is watered by the Lom, Ogust, Iskr, Vid, Osem, Yantra and Eastern Lom, all, except the Iskr, rising in the Balkans, and all flowing into the Danube. The channels of these rivers are deeply furrowed and the fall is rapid; irrigation is consequently difficult and navigation impossible. The course of the Iskr is remarkable: rising in the Rilska Planina, the river descends into the basin of Samakov, passing thence through a serpentine defile into the plateau of Sofia, where in ancient times it ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... to her companion's rapid flood of talk, until she herself enjoined silence to hear the black-robed priest who stood beside ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... overhead on the deck of the yacht. She felt the throb of the engine too, and though the Bella Cuba had been lying quietly at anchor in the harbour when Kate had fallen asleep, now she was moving at a rapid rate through the water, which gurgled ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson

... the account of to-day at St. James's. Nothing can be better than all the accounts, both public and private, for the last three or four days. It is certainly not sanguine to entertain the very best hopes; and the progress has even been more rapid than Willis expected; so that I think we may look with some confidence to ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... an infinity of grounds are to be found adapted to the rapid propagation of pepper-vines, as may easily be inferred from the analogy and proximity of the Philippine Islands to the others of this same archipelago, so well known for their growth of spices, it must be confessed that it is a species of culture by no means ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... of women, balanced against your squinting knowledge of honesty, Master Jack-o'-night, would come down to earth, methinks, as rapid as ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... might strike its shining surface, and so bring on an investigation of the upper tunnel, certain to prove the destruction of his whole scheme. A few minutes thought, however, solved the problem admirably: he placed the basin face downwards in the rapid stream which swept it to the iron bars between the two cells, and there it lay quite concealed with the swift water rippling over it. This done, he flung off his clothes, and got into bed, not awakening ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... intolerable to take up three bulky pamphlets against a recent Sect, denounced as most dangerous, and which we all know to be most powerful and of rapid increase, and to find little more than a weak declamatory abuse of certain metaphysical dogmas concerning free will, or free will forfeited, 'de libero vel servo arbitrio'—of grace, predestination, and the like;—dogmas on which, according to ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... my northern magazine? These the dread treasures of mine anger are, My funds of vengeance for the day of war, When clouds rain death, and storms, at my command, Rage through the world, or waste a guilty land. Who taught the rapid winds to fly so fast, Or shakes the centre with his eastern blast? Who from the skies can a whole deluge pour? Who strikes through nature with the solemn roar Of dreadful thunder, points it where to fall, And in fierce lightning wraps the flying ball? Not he who trembles ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... and graces of person—for, as a man, he valued these lightly; but the strength in his arms, the taste of meat and wine, the cunning of horsemanship, of boat-sailing, of mountain-climbing, the breathless joy of the diver, the languid joy of the dancer, the feel of the canoe-paddle shaken in the rapid, the delicious lassitude of sleep in wayside-inns, and lastly the ecstasy of love and fatherhood—all these he relinquished for a tombstone that should be handsomer than Jenkins's. Jenkins, meanwhile, was articled to his father, and, having passed the necessary examinations ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the last time, the change of feeling was most rapid, and I was greeted quite patronizingly by some who had been fierce for hanging me. The more malignant shrunk away by twos and threes, and soon the grocery was empty. My special friends, who were now more than ever friends, having risked ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... dark and frightful ravines on the mountain sides, down which they foam and tumble perpetually, fed by vast fields of melting snow above. The waters of all these torrents, being gathered at last into one broad, and deep, and rapid stream, flow to a vast reservoir called the Lake of Constance, where they repose for a time, or, rather, move slowly and insensibly forward, enjoying a comparative quiescence which has all the characteristics ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott

... famine smote the land with its additional scourge. The whole population, soldiers and brigands, Spaniards and Flemings, beggars and workmen, were in danger of perishing together. Where the want of employment had been so great as to cause a rapid depopulation, where the demand for labour had almost entirely ceased, it was a necessary result, that during the process, prices should be low, even in the presence of foreign soldiery, and despite the inflamed' profits, which such capitalists as remained required, by way not only of profit but ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... looked at her clock, when Mr. Dubourg entered the room; thinking it rather a late hour for a visitor to call on her. The clock (regulated by the maker, only the day before) pointed to twenty-five minutes to nine. Practical experiment showed that the time required to walk the distance, at a rapid pace, from the stile to the lady's house, was just five minutes. Here then was the statement of the farm-bailiff (himself a respectable witness) corroborated by another witness of excellent position and character. The clock, on being examined next, was found to be right. The evidence of the clock-maker ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... the Englishman's company brought to the American Senator an immense measure of relief. For one thing, he was sincerely glad to know that the poor young stranger's business was about to pass into capable and evidently most trustworthy hands: also a rapid interchange of words the first time they were left alone together put an end, and that for ever, to Senator Burton's uneasy suspicions—suspicions which had persisted to the end—as to Mrs. ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... inflamed skin indicates inward fever, while the eyes are bloodshot, the under lids distended, and incline to shrink from contact with the heated orbs they were destined to protect. He is a dram-drinker; and the poison that he imbibes with New England rum is as fatal, and nearly as rapid in ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... of this bean—whether white, black, Pythagorean, Lima, kidney, or what not—were three-fold: 1. A pump-handle hand-shaking; 2. A very thorough diagnosis of the weather, including a rapid sketch by Duespeptos of the leading principles of caloric, pneumatics, and hygrology; 3. An exchange of cards. That of which I was the recipient consisted of a sheet of paste-board, rather begrimed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... ashore, and walked with rapid strides up the wharf. I went forward, and seating myself on the windlass, burst ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... It's the beastliest hole in existence. It's absolutely chronic. Perhaps you wonder why I'm here. Don't think I wanted to come here. Not me! I was sent. It was like this.' She gave him a rapid summary of her troubles. 'There! Don't you call it a ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... sudden and rapid wooing. The young fellow was fairly independent, possessing as he did a little bit of land with his cottage, as well as a boat. His mother was one of the most prosperous women of the Island, and had been in days gone by Ellen Daly's bitterest enemy. But for ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan

... gave rein to their horses and made rapid progress down the road. The men were so intent on watching the road and guiding their horses that few words were spoken ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... that is, slapping, or pricking with a bundle of fresh Nettle twigs for one or more minutes, once, or several times in the day. It is a superlative method of cure because harmless (neither irritating the kidneys nor disfiguring the skin), cleanly, simple in application, rapid in its effects, and cheap, though perhaps somewhat rude. For sciatica, for incipient wasting, for the difficult breathing of some heart troubles (where such stimulation along the backbone affords more prompt and complete ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... such as they were. In fact, you could observe, in spite of his sleepless intellectual vivacity, he was not properly a thinker at all; his faculties were of the active, not of the passive or contemplative sort. A brilliant improvisatore; rapid in thought, in word and in act; everywhere the promptest and least hesitating of men. I likened him often, in my banterings, to sheet-lightning; and reproachfully prayed that he would concentrate himself into a bolt, and ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... Rover in a most cruel manner. Dick could not stand this. His blood was up to fever heat in an instant. Seizing a long, heavy pole, used for turning and adjusting hides in the vats, he sprang towards Skivers, and giving it a rapid sweep, brought it with tremendous force against his head, knocking him into a vat half-full of a strong infusion of astringent bark, to the bottom of which ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... d'Argy proved her to be right by recovering very quickly, overwhelming her son with rapid questions and covering him with kisses, Giselle held out her hand to ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... into details, when a latch-key was heard opening the front door. Jane entered hurriedly. The rapid walk had brought colour to her check; in her simple mourning attire she looked very interesting, very sweet and girlish. She had been shedding tears, and it was with unsteady voice that she excused herself for keeping ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... successful commerce-destroying, the evasion of the enemy's cruisers; for, though the American cruisers were primed to fight, yet an action, even if successful, tended to cripple their powers of pursuit. A rapid transit through the Atlantic, with an ultimate destination to the then little-frequented Pacific, was admirably calculated to conceal for a long time the purposes of this commerce-destroying squadron. As it happened, both the Constitution ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... hail and heavy rains succeed each other in these climes, so that I partly rode and partly swam to the Chikkasah country; for not expecting to stay long below [in Charleston] I took no leathern canoe. Many of the broad, deep creeks... had now overflowed their banks, ran at a rapid rate and were unpassable to any but DESPERATE PEOPLE... the rivers and swamps were dreadful by rafts of timber driving down the former and the great fallen trees floating in the latter.... Being forced to wade deep through cane swamps or woody ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... for the management of our Indian affairs and for the ends in view when it was adopted, is in the present stage of Indian management inadequate, standing alone, for the accomplishment of an object which has become pressing in its importance—the more rapid transition from tribal organizations to citizenship of such portions of the Indians as ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... somewhat easy prey to scourges of that description. But when he had passed safely through a sharp attack of Philatelism and a rather nasty bout of Autographomania, everyone hoped and believed that he had turned the corner. The progress of his last illness was very rapid. Within a year he wanted but one specimen to make the complete set. This was the one published from the offices of the Scrutinizer. All the rest he had obtained with the greatest ease. I remember his telling me that a single ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse



Words linked to "Rapid" :   fast, river, mass rapid transit, waterway



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